Video Games

I must say... I am officially a "gamer" again. Growing up a product of the mid-80's, Nintendo and Mario were a huge part of my life. I had Nintendo early on and mastered ever Mario brothers, I had Mario products and used to watch Lou Albano's rendition daily. Then came Super Nintendo.... So many great games for this... and I was a Nintendo loyalist... No Sega products in my house. SNES provided me with some great times, and my loyalty to Ninendo was going to continue to Nintendo 64. At this time some of my friends were getting Playstations. I remember playing such games as Twisted Metal and Crash Bandicoot and thinking how awesome they were, but I still waited for my N64. Finally I got N64 and Mario 64 kicked my ass, but then there was nothing. After that, no other game really grabbed my attention and I finally gave in and bought a Playstation. Playstation was a wonderful system defined for me by Castlevania, Twisted Metal 2, and of course... Final Fantasy 7. Thinking back on it now, Playstation was probably the best gaming system of all time. The next system I bought was Playstation 2. I had some fun with it, but overall it wasn't that great. Definetly not as good as Playstation and I decided I had enough of Sony and gaming in general. I basically stopped playing video games entirely as my PS2 gathered dust. I had no interest in XBOX and honestly have probably only played it twice in life. PS3 and XBOX 360 were coming and I could care less... but then I saw this thing called the Nintendo Wii. The controller looks like a TV remote, and its cheap! So i bought a Wii and played my Wii tennis and deemed this the future of gaming... even my dad  would play Wii and he HATES video games. As good as Wii is, it is intended for a group, and I got bored with it and found myself not playing video games again. So about 2 months ago on a whim I bought a used XBox 360 for 200 bucks. Wow. 3 games in and this is already in running for one of my favorite systems of all time. I hardly ever beat a video game... I usually get to the last boss and just quit for whatever reason... but I beat all 3 of these games. When I finish these games I put the controller down and have the same feeling as when I just finished watching a great movie... I go to message boards and read theories on the story and the characters, the same thing I do after a great film. The line between movies and video games is becoming very blurred. Here are 3 amazing games for XBox 360 everyone must play....

Dead Space - This is one of the scariest things I have ever dealt with. I grew up watching Freddy Kreuger, and it is damn near impossible for me to be freightend by a movie. However... I find video games to be much better at scaring you. The main reason is because you are in control. When you watch a horror movie, you find yourself more angry and frusturated at how dumb the character is. In the video game, you have no one to blame for a death besides yourself. Play this game in the dark, and i don't care how tough you think you are, you will be scared. There was one point where this game got so horrifying that I literally almost put the controller down and said "Fuck This". If you are a fan of the horror genre, this is an experience you must partake in.

Dead Rising - I love Dawn of the Dead. It has this campiness about it and I love how it pokes fun at consumerism by using zombies... Fuck, I love anything with zombies. This game is Dawn of the Dead. You are in a mall... you can use any item for any store.. you can even shop for clothing. This game is one of the most fun games just to run around and play. There is so much going on and no one is telling you where to go and when. You can essentially leave the game running for a day and "beat" it. Its up to you if you are going to hunt down survivors, or do the missions and eventually wind up fighting the military. Now besides for the zombies, you also have to deal with psychopaths, evil clowns, rapist female lesbian cops, a cult, and gang members. And another thing I love about this game, is for whatever reason... it oozes 80's style. 

Gears of War 2 - Fuck me. Playing this game is like shoving steroids in your ass. Playing this game is like double teaming the Statue of Liberty with Chuck Norris, while Barry Bonds injects steroids in your ass, while your watching all of the Rocky and Rambo movies. This game is the bad assness of every machismo 90's action movie crammed onto a disc and amplified by 10. Playing this game will put hair on your chest.