Impressions: Red Dead Redemption Multiplayer

Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption has been a huge success thus far, I for one believe it to be the second best game released this year. There is no doubt in my mind that RDR is a strong single-player game, but what about the multiplayer aspect, can it be just as satisfying?

To answer that question I decided to take a break from the single-player and see just what RDR has to offer those looking for some multiplayer action.

There are two ways to get online in RDR; from the main menu when you start the game or from the pause menu while in a game. The main menu option will automatically thrust players into a public match with other players. But what some may not realize is that you can create a private match where players can invite their friends, this can be done from the pause menu while in a single of multiplayer game. I would highly recommend that all new players start a private match first so that you can edit your avatar and check out the world hassle free from other players.

The best part about RDR's online play is the Free Roam mode. Free Roam brings the open-world that players have experienced in the single-player to the multiplayer. In Free Roam you can join a posse with other players, tackle gang hideouts or try some of the competitive modes that are scattered through out the map. In my little play time online, it seems that gang hideouts the popular choice with players.

Multiplayer also features challenges like in the single-player; there are the personal hunter, survivalist and sharpshooter challenges, along with some multiplayer specific challenges as well. The reason players would want to do the various challenges, clear out gang hideouts or participate in some competitive modes is to gain experience. It's very similar to what you would see in Modern Warfare 2 or in Battlefield; as players increase in levels, they gain access to new weapons, avatars, titles and even mounts.

Oh, did I forget to mention that online is open PvP, every man for himself just like the wild west? Well it is, and for me that's where the fun really is to be had. Now that I've gotten the details out of the way, let me tell you a tale of a man who has come to New Austin in search of fame and fortune - or how I stayed up way past my bed time having the most fun online in a long while.

Here's how the story begins; I loaded into the public match in the city of Blackwater. So naturally I begin shooting up the town, killing everything that moves. You have to understand, in the single-player story I am trying to be as good a guy as I can, so I need to let my inner cowboy out.

So after doing that for awhile, I decide maybe it's time to see what other players are doing. At this time there was just one other player, and he was out trying to clear a gang hideout. Being the curious type that I am, I go and ride out to the gang hideout to see what is going on. It's easy to spot another player when they are close because they will have this big colored circle with their name next to it above their heads.

So this guy is up on the ridge looking down at me, I know he's there but he must be using cover so I can't see him. Next thing I know this guys starts taking shots at me. So like a good cowboy I run my ass off to get out of there. At that point I have one thing on my mind, IT'S ON!!

I decided do the noble thing and wait till he's engaged in combat with some npc's before I make my rush on  him. Things go back and forth for a short time; I take him out, he snipes me with his better weapons. Eventually I decide that I might try something else and ride out to McFarland's Ranch. It's a short ride away, but once there I open my map to see what there is to do and I notice his teal circle moving. A few seconds later I realize that this guy is coming after me!

Realizing that my slow moving donkey mount is not going to get me away fast enough, I decide to hijack a real horse from some poor fool and ride as fast as humanly possible out of there. At this point I can't tell where this guy is, how fast he's going and if I am even going to get away. I was litterally on the edge of my chair sweating with my heart pounding when I realize that I am not going to be able to get away and decide to make my way to Armadillo to make my last stand.

I was familiar with the town because of playing the single-player and figured that my best chance was to run and hide in the saloon. I make my way up the stairs, using the railing as cover so that I have a good view of the upstairs and down stair entrances. At this point it's a waiting game, I know he's coming just by checking the map. My heart is pounding, I'm sweating way more than I should be, I'm on the edge of my seat just waiting with a smile on my face.

BLAME!!! Not realizing that I was right upstairs he came running through the front door, one headshot later he knows exactly where I am now. What happened for the next 20 minutes was a gigglefest of me blasting him everytime he tries to come inside the saloon. Eventually in frustration I imagine he tosses a stick of dynamite at the building and it kills me. Pretty cheesy, but it worked.

For the next couple of hours I had this guy chasing me all over New Austin and Mexico. Occasionally I would stop and ambush him then ride away while I had the chance, but eventually he did corner me in a small town in Mexico. Just to be clear, this guy owned me most of the night. Yes I had some success in Armadillo and with a few ambushes, but this guy was higher level with a better mount and weapons, and he wasn't afraid to use them.

Once I realized how late it was I made my way out of dodge and he went on with his gang hideout busting ways. But for that three and a half hour span I haven't had such a heart racing, pulse pounding, palm sweating gigglefest of a good time like that in a long quite awhile.

I have yet to try out the new coop DLC that was released, but what I have played so far has been a real blast. The online gameplay is a nice compliment to the already strong single-player, and I think thats what makes RDR such a great game.

The incredible shrinking wallet!

Ok, I am a sucker for a good sale, specially a sale on Steam! That noise you hear in the background? Well it could be one of two things; either my wife wanting me to explain why I need another game, or it's my wallet shrinking from all the games I have or will purchase on Steam during this sale.

So the damages so far include:

Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Tropico 3, Making History: The Calm & the Storm, Resident Evil 5 when it was on uber sale and finally Birth of America.

This doesn't include the two games I might pick up today because they are on uber sale, Left 4 Dead 2 and HOI3: Semper Fi expansion. We might as well include the four games I bought the past week when they were on sale as well; Elder Scrolls III Morrowind and Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion and the Deus Ex Collection.

Yes my friends, that's a lot of games, and chances are I may play very little of some of those games. BUT THEY WERE ON SALE!! Some of those games I have already owned and played, but having a digital copy at such a low price seemed worth it to me. Chances are I would not have bought most of these games if it weren't for the sale.

Might as well add a game I bought on sale from GamersGate too, Warhammer 40k Dawn of War Soulstorm, a game I have wanted but did not like the price, till now!

Oh June, where have you gone?

It's been a long month thus far. At the end of May a coworker went out on disability and I was to work a six day work week for what was suppose to be only a couple of weeks. But as it turns out she ended up getting herself terminated on her fourth day back to work, and so the six day weeks continue.

If that wasn't tiring enough, me and the family decided it was time to move out of our claustrophobic one bedroom third floor apartment to something with at least one more room, and not on the east side of San Jose. We are in our new place now, but there is still more work to be done, put away and cleaned. I really hate moving.

The gaming did suffer some, like when my Xbox decided it didn't like sitting next to my PS3 and committed suicided and when I was without the internet and doing no gaming at home for a few days because of the move. Lucky for me I have a computer at work so I stepped up my slacking off, I mean gaming there to compensate.

I was able to finish Red Dead Redemption just before the move, and I just want everyone to know that it's the second best game to be released this year, it's that good. Sure it has some issues, but the story and the gameplay are great. Pretty much all I have been playing for the past couple of weeks has been Empire: Total War. It's only taken me over a year to finally spend some time with a game that is pretty darn fun.

The month of June has been crazy for me with the move and the work, but hopefully here in a few weeks at most things will settle down and get back to normal.

You Have To Be Crazy Yo Pass This Up.

I interrupt your regular scheduled programming to bring you this public service announcement:

Batman Arkham Asylum the Game of the Year edition is on sale through Steam. That's right, Steam has slashed the price from $39.99 down to $19.99. But you must act now cause this sale is only for a limited time.

Take it from me, you don't want to pass this up. I have played Batman Arkham Asylum on the Playstation 3, then the Xbox 360, and then finally on the PC and have finished the game on all three platforms. I can honestly say that it's one of the best games I have ever played, and the PC version is by far the most superior version of the three.

So do yourself a favor, go buy Batman Arkham Asylum, you won't regret it! I now return you back to your regular scheduled programming....

A One Console Owner or How I Became a Sony Fanboy After My Xbox Died!

That's right, my Xbox died on me almost two weeks ago. And of course the warranty is up so I would have to pay Microsoft a hundred bucks to fix my unit. Now if I had the three red rings of death then I would have been covered, but noooooo I had to get the one red ring of death, the E73 error.


What's the E73 error you ask, darn good question. It apparently has something to do with my ethernet port on the Xbox. Either way I have decided for the time being to give up on the Xbox and just stick with my Playstation 3. This is my second Xbox, it was in a good place with great air flow, basically it was in an ideal condition for longevity, at least I thought so.

So I went ahead and traded all my Xbox games in at Gamestop and came away with a new copy of Red Dead Redemption and a new Dual Shock 3 Controller, along with a pre-order for NHL 11 and Fallout New Vegas. Believe me, it took me nearly a week to decided whether or not to fix the Xbox and if I was going to trade in all my games, cause I had quite a few. In the end I came to the conclusion that the only reason to own two consoles are for the exclusive titles, and very few of which I really want.

I guess the only bright side to the story is that now I can show my PS3 some love!

Sparkle Pony has invaded EQ2!

I am not a big fan of the sparkle pony, I wouldn't personally buy one, but I can't fault Blizzard for thinking outside the box to make some money. Imagine my surprise when I received and email from SOE pimping out their new mounts for sale in EQ2. The price, $25.00! But instead of one mount, you have your choice of three different looking rides. I don't know what to think of it all, being so soon after Blizzs' pony sale makes me instantly think that SOE saw how successful it was and wants to try and cash in on some easy money as well.

Have players really been asking for this in EQ2? Again, not against it, just not sure why someone would spend so much on something like this.

A few RoGS Impressions.

The Age of Conan expansion Rise of the Godslayer was releases last Tuesday, and as you can expect it was a bit of a bumpy launch. By the time I got home from work in the evening the servers were back up and not long after I was able to get a taste of the new content.

After a little bit of debate with myself, I decided to take my lvl 21 Stygian Tempast of Set into the new content rather than role a new Khitan character. In order order to get to Khitai I had to take a caravan from Khemi. The cool thing was there happen to be a random encounter on the journey to Khitai, and from what I read there are 9 such random encounters.

You will eventually come to the Road to Khitai, the new 20-40 level zone. From looking at the map, there are only five zones in Khitai, and four of them are level 80 areas. The nice thing in AoC is that the zones are pretty large, and the Road to Khitai is much flatter than the launch zones so it seems even larger.

So far I am having a lot of fun, the new content is tough for my ToS because most of time I seem to be fighting two enemies at once. I have noticed an increase in performance in DX10 mode in most areas except one, the broken down caravan area in the new zone. I have a feeling it has something to do with the smoke coming from the broken down wagons, but other than that it still looks great.

Here is a screenshot of the new crocodile pet I got. It doesn't do anything special that I know of, but it's a crocodile, how cool is that!

Getting in is hard to do.

Has anyone ever had a game that when you watch it being played you think that it looks great and would be fun to play. And has said game been just so overwhelming that any enthusiasm and excitement you might have for playing the game are squashed by that overwhelming feeling? Well if so then I am not alone! And if not, well then crap, something must be wrong with me!

I bought Empire: Total War a few days after launch and Steam tells me that I have played a total of 25 hrs. That averages to almost 2 hrs of play time a month, that's not a lot. When I watch a friend play I think 'Wow, that looks looks great, I should play that game!'. But once I get into a campaign I almost immediately get crushed from the overwhelming scope and complexity of the game.

I think my issue comes from me trying to do way too much that early into a campaign. The best plan is probably to pick one of the large factions and play the game on the easiest setting while I grasp the game. I really have this urge, this desire to play some of the strategy games I have like Empire and Hearts of Iron III.

Becoming Unstuck

Speaking of MMO's, I am thinking that I really need to just choose one MMO to play, and stop dabbling. I recently resubbed to WoW, and even though I am having fun now, I am just not looking forward to WotLK, not one bit. I am however thinking of reserving the Moria expansion for LOTRO and even doing the lifetime subscription. That way I can play as little or as much as I would like, and not worry about feeling like I am wasting $15 a month. So do I stick with WAR? I or how about going back to CoH, that game is pretty awesome, and it's not fantasy based!

It was this little paragraph from a post back in 2008 that caused my melt down a few weeks ago. Why Jason, that doesn't sound so bad what seems to be the problem? The problem is trying to pick one MMO coupled with the feeling of not wasting money on a monthly sub has plagued me for quite some time now. There are other factors involved with my feeling of being stuck in a rut, but this started the ball rolling with me coming to the realization.

I have many interest when it comes to games, not only in the MMO genre but also with single-player games. I am going to come out and say it now, I have a touch of OCD, I can't help it. I also have a bad habit of purchasing a game and not playing it for long length of time. So what happens is the OCD kicks in and wants me to play all those games that are sitting on the shelf, and I can't decide on which MMO I want to play, and what you get is a situation where you become stuck in a rut. At least for me anyways. The wild card in all this is time, I tend to use it unwisely.

I still don't know what MMO to play some days. At the moment I have WoW and AoC subbed, but I was thinking of renewing my WAR sub and even trying out STO. I have no problems with playing more than one MMO, heck I've had up to four at one time. But I am getting off track here.

I need to get out of my rut by developing better gaming habits, using my time wisely, maybe play less and just play whatever I am in the mood for. It's going to be tough, but my games are counting on me!

And the you realize...

Have you ever come to the realization that you might be stuck in a rut? That the same random thoughts, struggles and questions for almost the past two years are still the same today? And does that realization suddenly remind you of a conversation you had from nearly twelve years ago that dealt with a pretty significant life changing experience? And now that conversation makes sense and you begin to wonder what the heck have you been doing for nearly a decade and a half.

And you see now why there is no contentment, your faith is weak, your walk has failed, the joy seems to be gone. Sounds bleak doesn't it? Welcome to my Saturday.

The WAR is over, for now.

A few weeks ago the unruly folks over at Multiplaying.Net started playing Warhammer Online again and talking about it on their podcast. I have always felt that on paper WAR is the MMO I should love the most: multiple races with differing starting areas, lots of PvE, and varied PvP gameplay that I can participate at my discretion. I think the main sticking point for me is the PvE content; the quests are really well written, seem pretty varied at times, but there is so much running around and the level grind was tough to stomach after playing WoW so much.

But I decided to use my Call to Arms 10 day free play, and I have been reminded of why I both like and dislike the game. I will say that leveling seems to be going much faster now, primarily due to the huge amounts of rest xp I have, so that was a pleasant surprise, but there is still a lot of running around at my level. In the short amount of time I did play that was really the only complaint that I had with the game, it's been a lot of fun doing scenarios and running around doing oRvR in T2.

But my free play ends today and with all the hockey going on right now I will not be reactivating my account. At least not yet. I figure that once the first round of the NHL playoffs are over there will be more time to play games, but right now I am DVR-ing everthing and watching games before and after work, I love it.

The Steed.

The popular topic today in the blogosphere happens to be about Blizzards new RMT items, in particular the Celestial Steed. I am thinking the main sticking point being that the Steed happens to cost $25.00!

Darren over at The Common Sense Gamer has a nice post on  the comparisons between the cost of the new Steed offered by Blizz and full games offered by a few digital retailers for the same price. I like the comparisons cause it does give one a new perspective about the amount of content versus the price.

But with that said, I have no problem with Blizz selling this, I just don't understand why anyone would spend this kind of money on a mount that will not be as unique as some other mounts in the game.

Dub's NHL Playoff Prognostication, Western Conference Style.

Yesterday I gave my predictions for Eastern Conference matchups, today I want to give my predictions for the Western Conference. As much as I love the Sabres, I do think that the Stanley Cup winner will come from the west, it's just that strong of a Conference. So without delay, let's get started:

San Jose Sharks (1) vs Colorado Avalanche (8) My prediction: Sharks in four.

Living in San Jose I am very much interested in the Sharks, and working one block form the Tank I am not looking forward to the traffic. Sharks should win this series and I would be surprised if they lose more than one game. But, this is the Sharks we are talking about and their playoff record as of late is not very good, so I will throw this out there; if the Sharks lose game one then they are done.

Chicago Blackhawks (2) vs Nashville Predators (7) My prediction: Blackhawks in six.

Yes Chicago has a great offense, but the big question is in net for them. The Preds had a great season and they finally get to play a team in the playoffs not located in Detroit or San Jose. This series features two teams with goaltenders with no playoff experience, but I think Chicago's potent offense is going to overwhelm the Preds.

Vancouver Canucks (3) vs Los Angeles Kings (6) My predictions: Canucks in five.

This is another tough game to predict. Vancouver has the playoff experience, a gold medal winning goalie and the league's top scorer, and LA may have a decent mix of young and vet players, but the big question for them is in net. Of all the series in the west, I feel this could be the one big upset.

Phoenix Coyotes (4) vs Detroit Redwings (5) My prediction: Coyotes in seven.

For me this is probably the most interesting series in the first round. Phoenix is this years cinderella team and Detroit is trying to make the finals for a third straight time. Detroit has the experience, they are the hottest team in the NHL since the Olympic break, and no one thinks Phoenix has a chance to win this. And should rookie goalie Jimmy Howard not be up to task, Detroit can turn to Chris Osgood who has won a couple of cups for the Wings. Here is what I think; Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov is going to play like there is no tomorrow and take the Wings to a game seven and win it in Phoenix, at least that's what I hope.


Well there you have it, i'm sorry if this isn't as informative as yesterday's Eastern Conference preview, but I really wanted to get this out before the puck dropped tonight. Let's go Sabers!

Dub's NHL Playoff Prognostication, Eastern Conference Style.

The NHL playoffs start on the 14th, and being a huge hockey fan I thought I would give some thoughts to the matchups in the first round of the playoffs, commonly referred to as the Conference Quarterfinals. So let's get started with the Eastern Conference matchups shall we!



Washington Capitals (1) vs Montreal Canadians (8) My prediction: Caps in four.

The Capitals are an offensive machine, if Montreal is to have any chance they need to hope they can take advantage of the Caps poor PK and pray that Jaroslav Halak plays like the second coming of Patrick Roy.

New Jersey Devils (2) vs Philadelphia Flyers (7) My prediction: Flyers in seven

If there was one team the Devils did not want to play in the first round, it would have been the Flyers. Philadelphia went 5-1-0 against the Devils this season. The biggest question for the Flyers is their goaltending, is it going to be good enough.

Buffalo Sabres (3) vs Boston Bruins (6) My prediction: Sabres in seven.

Being a Sabres fan I couldn't be any less happier to see them facing the Bruins. Boston went 4-2-2 against the Sabres this year, and Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask shut down the Sabres for the most part. On the flip side, Ryan Miller was 2-0-2 against the Bruins and is arguably the best goaltender in the NHL right now. The problem for both teams will be offense. The Sabres may have finished in the top ten in goal scoring, but that was mostly due to a late season surge in scoring while their defense was not at impressive as it was in the first have of the season. The Bruins are the worst scoring team in the NHL and if it wasn't for the play of Rask they would not be in the playoffs. Look for this series to be a low scoring snooze fest.

Pittsburgh Penguins (4) vs Ottawa Senators (5) My prediction: Pens in six.

They split the season series and all game were decided by three goals or more. But, the playoffs have a way of evening things out so expect a much tighter game from both teams with less scoring. In the end Pittsburgh has better goaltending and are a much more balanced team and it will be too much for Ottawa.

Borderlands for PC.

I have owned Borderlands for the Xbox since it launched, and I chose that version mainly for the online play. My thinking is that Borderlands for the PC uses the crappy Gamespy peer-to-peer multiplayer matchmaking and it's been my experience that games seem to not have much of an online community when using the Gamespy service. So instead I decided on getting the Xbox version and don't regret it one bit.

Even though I have completed one play through of Borderlands, I have played very little coop online like I thought I would. In the meantime I had been wondering just how great the game would look on my PC, cause it looks great on the Xbox, but I just wasn't ready to fork over fifty bucks for it yet.

On Friday I received an email from Gamestop with their latest deals and what not, and I noticed that Borderlands was 50% off for digital download! Hot damn, that's awesome, but I wonder if Steam has the same deal, and sure enough they did.

I love Borderlands, it great mindless fun with loads of loot. I was able to talk a friend into buying a copy as well, and once we were able figure the Gamespy garbage we played quite a bit of coop. It was pretty difficult because there were two of us, but it was a blast.

So if there is anyone out there who wants to play some Borderlands, feel free to send me a friends request in game @ xXJayeDuBXx. For now I leave you with a video on the making of Borderlands, it was the deciding factor for me when I considering on whether or not to purchase the game.

AoC time!

Today is payday, and as is customary on payday I tend to surf the web looking at computer and gaming stuff and convincing myself that I don't really need any of that stuff. But what did catch my eye was on the Gamestop website, they are selling Age of Conan 60-day time cards for only $12.99! Why that's less than a monthly sub, I should get some of those, and so I did!

I picked up two of these cards, so essentially I have four months of game time for the cost of less than two, if that made any sense. Looks like Jayedub is heading back to Hyboria!

It's a Dark Age.

Music in games can be such a magical thing. A good soundtrack can really add to the mood and atmosphere, as well as a bad soundtrack can be a detriment and detract from a someone's experience.

The reason I bring this up is because the other day my son was watching a tv show that had on it a trio of family members who could play some musical instruments, two playing the harp and on playing the violin. The music was great, but I couldn't help think that it sounded familiar.

And then it hit me, that sounds like the music from Dark Age of Camelot! And suddenly my mind was flooded with all sorts of thoughts, emotions and images from the days when I played DAoC. So the other day I was thinking of giving the DAoC trial a run, and I noticed that my old account is eligible for a 10 day free return time.

I am only into my second day of the ten days, but I am having fun running around getting reacquainted with the game world. Will I stick with it after 10 days? I really don't think so, but for now I will just enjoy my limited time with an old friend.

One bit of interesting news, and one bit of disheartening news.

First the crappy news: my moment of zen brought to my attention this link regarding the new Splinter Cell Conviction game coming in April. It's the top five reasons why Splinter Cell Conviction may be disappointing, and for me four of those five look to be deal breakers for me. It's really unfortunate cause I was REALLY looking forward to Conviction. Honestly if this game was not apart of the Splinter Cell franchise then I would probably be more interested, but it appears to deviate away from what I love about the franchise now. Who knows, maybe the series was in need of change, and it still could be a great game.

In some interesting news, I saw this over at Massively today regarding the newest update to Star Wars Galaxies. I decided to check out the full patch notes for update 16, and surprisingly they look really good. I really loved the space combat in SWG, I wasn't great at it but it was so much fun. Unfortunately the few servers that I have played on did not seem to have a decent space community in them so I flew alone. One of my characters has only the final mission to do in order to become a master pilot, but unless they have changed the encounter over the years it requires either uber skills or a group, both of which I don't have.

The main reason I say this news is interesting is because for the first time in years, I want to play SWG, and not to play with a friend but for some content. My thoughts and views on SWG hasn't changed; too many levels, the Legacy Quests are dull and uninteresting, lack of decent content at level 90, buggy combat, the NGE in general. And before someone tells me about all the new instances to run at level 90, let me say that the SOE guys should go and talk to the Blizz guys about how to do an instance dungeon, cause the few I have run in the past in SWG have been crap.

I have had this overwhelming desire to play a fantasy based game again, could be a MMO, and with some renewed interest in SWG, maybe I will give the Station Access a go. Then again I could just stop playing MMO's till TOR is released and make time for non-MMO games.

Weekend Edition

What am I going to play this weekend, good question. For the first time since Mass Effect 2 came out I find myself in a transition type period. There are no new games I plan on buying and the ones I did buy I have finished, so where to go from here.

EVE Online continues to be my only paid sub at the moment. Because of a few other games, my time with EVE was relegated to just logging in and updating my skill training que. The other day I noticed that Steam has my play time listed for EVE in the last 14 days at just over 13hrs, that's not good. So these last few days I have been spending more time with EVE and trying to finish the Sister's of EVE epic story arc.

I did have a couple of milestones happen with EVE recently; I surpassed the 900k skill points mark which means now I had to get real insurance and not the noob insurance, and I lost my first ship while doing a mission. I was happy about the first skill points, not so much when I lost my ship. It would appear that no amount of passive shield tanking in a Merlin will hold against what I think was 16 drones when you are both webbed and tackled at the same time.

My goal this weekend with EVE is to work on the epic story missions and try my hand at some mining, I could use some ISK and I hear mining is the way to do it.

I did finish Chaos Rising about a week ago, so hopefully I will be able to get some coop campaign play time, and if not maybe try the multiplayer for the first time or just do some Last Stand mode which is a ton of fun. With the NHL playoffs just around the corner I find myself being drawn back into some NHL 10 for the Xbox. My hockey alter ego who plays defense for the New York Islanders just swept the Ottawa Senators 4-0 and took game one from the Boston Bruins this morning. I get the feeling I may be playing a lot of NHL 10 this weekend. Somewhere in there I'm sure I will be jumping into some action with Bad Company 2, and Champions Online has a free play weekend for everyong so I might jump in and see how that game has come along.

So to recap; there should be some EVE online, possibly Chaos Rising and hopefully a bit of Champions Online, most likely some BC2 and a crap load of NHL 10. If only the days were longer and I could live off less sleep!

It's an impulse.

I recieved an email today from GamersGate like I normally do, but this one is interesting because they are having a sale on all Atari products. For those who don't know GamersGate is a digital game retailer like Direct2Drive. I have yet to purchase a product from them but I do like receiving the email ads from them, basically I like having as many options as I can when making a digital purchase.

So as I was scanning this ad in the email, I noticed that Champions Online is only $9.97. Hey, that's super cheap I tell myself, I could pick that up and see if it's something I would be interested in again. Then I realize that I already own Champions Online and all I would need to do is pay fifteen bucks for a month, so I decided that's not really worth it.

I then notice that Star Trek Online is on sale as well, and only $29.95 for the regular edition, now that sounds interesting! It's 40% off, a $20 savings, and I am slightly interested in the game. I have an idea of what to expect after playing some of the beta, but it's so cheap now why not try it!

This is not a doom and gloom post about Cryptic, remember it's a sale on all Atari products they have, but a small view into the life of Jayedub the hardcore gaming impulse buyer. It's true, I do have the tendency to just buy games when I see them cheap and then never play them. Sometimes an impulse buy is good, like buying STALKER on sale for only two bucks, and other times it's hard to not look at a purchase as a huge waste of money, Global Agenda I am talking to you.

A few other games on sale of interest was Master of Orion 3, Neverwinter Nights 2(one of the best rpg's ever!!!!), and a few other crap games that no one probably wants. NWN 2 Gold Edition for only $14.97 is a great deal, I would buy it again if I didn't already own a copy!