Hurlshort

I picked up Eternal Sonata. Charming so far, but I only had 30 minutes to play it. If you are a fan of Classical music or JRPG's, it's a must-have.

I think Americans could do a lot more to be accepting of Islam as a major religion. Muslims face a lot of open discrimination in this country. Do people even know its Ramadan? Seriously, the US media totally ignores the beauty of Islam and focus only on negative incidents.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070917/ap_on_en_ot/obit_jordan Bummer, he died very young. The sad part is he was never able to complete his life's work in the Wheel of Time series, but maybe he storyboarded it enough for someone to finish it. I think I lost track of the series around the 8th book, but he was a fantasy heavyweight and he'll be missed. It seems like we've lost a lot of great authors recently.

Uh, is everyone forgeting that Saddam Hussein was a total prick? Seriously, he could have avoided the invasion by just being the slightest bit diplomatic. He had plenty of opportunities to work with the UN. He wanted to be secretive and coy about what he was doing behind his borders, he was egging for the fight just as much as Bush.

Great stuff, it really gives a nice insight into the company. I think Cant deserves some sort of stipend, maybe he can sell the entire work to a gaming publication.

Yeah, but I here there are boobies in it.

Reading that hurt my brain and my mind at the same time.

Sure, let me know. There's a free 7 day trial here: http://lotro.turbine.com/trial/index.php?u...aign=Free_Trial I'm on the Windfola server.

Sorry, I'm touring the country with the Obsidian Cup.

Heh, can't blame the game for the jerseys, I'm not sure what the teams are thinking. It's like the insanity that possessed the Blues to put a red streak across their jersey 10 years ago has affected the entire league. I haven't played the Ducks, I'm only 3 games into my regular season as the Sharks. I made my own team though and started playing through the Swedish Elite and Russian (I think) leagues. Basically you just replace all the NHL teams with ones from the European leagues. Pro is getting a bit easy, mostly because I'm shutting teams out too easily. Time to up the difficulty, I suppose, although I'm not sure if my scoring touch is ready.

Actually, if Greenspan says it, I'm pretty likely to believe it.

Other than NHL 08, I've been playig a ton of Lord of the Rings Online. It really is extremely well done, and Turbine is impressive with their content updates. I've been pushing hard to get enough gold for a house when they are released in the fall. I've heard they will cost 4 gold. I have 750 silver...so I have a ways to go. Still, I've been also playing my alternate characters a lot. My main is a level 27 captain who is a master weaponsmith, my alts are a level 14 guardian who is a master jeweler and a level 13 champion who is a journeyman tailor. It's very fun, just so much to do, and all my characters contribute to eachothers crafting needs. My only bummer is that my normal MMO buddies all lost interest ealry on and I'm now in a kinship by myself.

Kor, get Xbox live so we can set up an Obsidian online league for hockey. I think I'm starting to get the hang of scoring. I won 5-0 this morning on Pro.

I've dropped back down to Pro for now, it was just too frustrating getting outshot 30-15 every game. Still, that's a huge change from previous years, the AI is incredibly better.

I'm waiting on Eternal Sonata as my first 360 RPG game. It's out next week.

Suicide has never been this fun. I won the inaugural Obsidian Forum hockey game against Krookie 1-0. He probably outplayed me, but since neither of us really can score consistently, it came down to luck. Bruins over the Sharks.

It's extremely difficult. I even tried a game on pro just to see if it was easier, and Brian Boucher stopped 39 out of 40 of my shots. I know I'm not deking very well yet, but yikes. Hopefully it's just a practice issue and I'll get the hang of it soon enough, I do like the new practice option.

Sweet, managed it in 3:21.

Well, I just played my second game and managed to win it in the shootout. I was pretty pleased to get my first win of the season, but then the game crashed at the menu screen. I'm pretty bummed. It sounds like I'm not alone, according to the forums. Hopefully they'll figure out a patch quickly. I expect these errors on my PC, but I don't know how you get away with this on a console.

EA has been working pretty hard to restore their reputation, they know that many gamers see them as milking franchises to death. I think in the next few years you will see them release some pretty unique titles in bid to return to being a relevant, top-notch publisher. They've said as much in quite a few interviews recently, and they definitely have the resources available.

Yeah, pitboss games work great. You can just log in and play a turn every 24 hours, and it doesn't get held up if someone misses a turn or two. Unfortunately we would need someone to keep the game running like a server.

I might have agreed with that until the implementation of the skill stick last year. It makes a huge difference in the gameplay, and I love it. Also, according to the demo and reviews, EA has really improved skating and positioning in this years title. It's much more realistic, and the AI is a lot less predictable then it was last year from what I've seen so far. Actually I haven't bought a 2k version since '05, and that's because it used to crash on my Xbox every once in awhile. Of course, EA makes slopy mistakes, like not being able to pull your goalie when you are the away team. That was a PC version though, and they totally get the bent end of the stick.

Oh man, Spies Like Us is a classic! You just don't get Cold War humor

Yeah, it's not out until tomorrow, I guess. In the US, we don't really have an availability issue, I'm sure Best Buy will have plenty.

I played the demo for NHL 08 the other night, and I was pretty happy with it. They made some big improvements on the gameplay, particularly with the AI and skating. The biggest selling point for me is that, when in the offensive zone, players are keeping themselves in position to make the palys. It's hard to explain, but players are now skating and have the ability to handle the puck to the sides, instead of always having their stick stuck in front of them. Also, defensemen are a lot more aware of holding the point, and the AI was passing very well against me. I only got to play a single period in the demo, but it was enough to convince me to pick the game up. I'm hoping the franchise mode will be improved, I'll post my initial observations later. Oh yeah, I'm getting it for the 360. I'm not sure how other versions will play, I don't think I could go back to a non-skill stick version.