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Aside from attending Glen and Nicole's house warming, and marveling at their castle like house with ramparts and 10 foot ceilings, I passed a gaming milestone on Saturday. After much thumb madness and a few nights cussing at the television, I managed to cross the 2k mark with my gamerscore (If you don't have a live account you check it out here).

Although I prefer to compare the actual achievements that an individual has obtained, than the actual gamerscore, it felt pretty good passing the 2k milestone. My X-Box can tell you all about it, on his blog. The two games that have contributed the most to my score are: Saint's Row and Dead Rising, with the two of them counting for over half of my points. I've pretty much finished with the single player for the Row, but I can see a bit more time with Dead Rising. Although I'm not sure how much I'll be playing either, now that I've got my hands on Gears of War.

Truth be told, I don't have a whole lot of time for either, with Christmas quickly approaching, and all sorts of professional and personal obligations to fulfill. Althought, I'm sure I'll still find an hour here or there to cut up a zombie or chuck a couple grenades.

After a rather odd mix up in launch dates, I finally got a hold of the highly anticipated Gears of War for the 360. For the last couple of days, I've been working like a madman, late into the evening early morning trying to get stuff done for various projects and chewing through the list of home made Christmas list items. Last night I took a much deserved break, and spent some time playing this wonderful new game.

My first impression was that this definitely is not a game for children, which shouldn't be surprising because of the large M on the box. Rated for "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language" it's right on the mark. The first time you sink the chain saw into someone, of ram a frag grenade into their body before it blows, you know that you know that Epic didn't shy away from showing people what War is all about. The game plays out like a doomsday war movie, the dialog is impressive (if loaded with words you don't want your 4 year old picking up), and the flow of the game plays well into the story.

Saying that the content is gruesome is one thing, witnessing it in High Definition is completely another. The graphics for this game are to the level of crazy. This game really shows the community what the 360 can push as far as graphics are concerned. The models are excellently detailed, some of the views are breathtaking in their vastness and attention to design and I've yet to see the engine slow down one little bit in all of the intense game play.

The best part of the game, however, is it's game play. Epic Games (the same bright boys that brought us Unreal Tournament) has brought a whole new element into the shooter genre of games: cover. You can't just run around like a fast twitch idiot anymore, and hope you can shoot someone else down before they shoot you down, now you employ a series of SWAT like maneuvers hopping between broken husks of old stoves, sand bag barricades, doorways, trees and pillars trying to move around an enemy to expose their flank. You have to lay down covering fire for your team mates so that they can attempt to make crossings that leave them out in the open, nothing more than ripe targets for unsuppressed enemies. It is true that you can shoot at exposed parts of an enemy while they are cowering behind something smaller than they are, but while you are trying to line up that elbow or knee in your scope, you are exposed to all of his buddies. It's a different way to play, as you are really hesitant getting out from behind your precious cover, until you know what next piece you are going to use. Epic also did a great job with the save/checkpoint system (unlike Capcom's Dead Rising) and it just fades into the background, and you never need to worry about it. Having your partner teleport to the checkpoint when you reach it, also helps keep the game moving quickly. The balance that is struct with the ammo supply and your ability to regenerate health, also means you can spend more time in the action, than worrying about finding a pack of something.

Perfectly complimentary to the new game play style is the controls. Epic made the mad dashing from cover very easy to control, as well as the aspects of shooting from cover, and coming out of cover to get a more accurate shot. Another nice new feature, is the 'point of interest' button. When you hear someone yelling about a grenade, a fallen team mate, a newly discovered gun turret or emergence hole, you can press a button and the camera snaps towards what they were talking about. The controls become very natural after a very short learning curve.

The reason I was most looking forward to with this game was the Co-operative play. Right out of the box, I was playing in a split screen with Sonja, and the two of us were shooting through the level together. The same thing can be done in full screen over Xbox Live. I joined in as Dom in one of Mark's game, and we could strategize over the voice link, and render locus after locus dead in our path. I haven't tried the Versus mode on Live yet, but from what I hear, it's also a great deal of fun.

As great as the game is, there is still a couple areas I think could be improved. I would have liked to see the split screen Co-op be left-right as opposed to over-under, and the mechanics for getting into and out of a Co-op game are not quite as good as they could have been. For instance, if the second player leaves, I don't see why the first player has to quit as well. If I can jump in at any time, I should be able to jump out at any time.

All things considered, this is a very good game. It is currently my all time favorite, and is quickly generating a big online community. With Emergence Day coming up this weekend, and contests and tournaments scheduled for the future, I can see this quickly becoming one of the most popular games on Xbox Live.

Some of you know that I purchased an X-box 360 in an attempt to move away from PC gaming. I've been really happy with the decision, now being able to just sit and play a game when the desire strikes. I never realized how much time I spent just making my computer work, until I stopped using it.

One thing that makes the 360 rock, is the Live network that Microsoft has in place and which their competators are going to take a stab at replicating and improving. On the basic level it connects you to the internet, but it really delivers so much more than that. You can see what your friends are doing, and compare your scores and achievements against theirs. Live has a fully functional messaging and chat system, as well as an online marketplace. The way it is all integrated makes the entire experience seemless.

The level to which this type of system has changed gaming hit me last night. Over the last couple of days Live has been down for maintenance, but upon it's return Lumines could be found in the online marketplace. It was only a couple of minutes from the time I decided that I wanted it, to the time I was playing it. I didn't have to get dressed leave the house, I had almost instant gratification, and it just worked. While it was downloading I was able to puruse the marketplace and find other things that I wouldn't mind downloading including strategy clips, free game demos and a couple music videos.

Anyone who really knows me, can understand what I have to go through to say: This time, Microsoft really got it right.

The remorse that fills me when a great weekend comes to an end is always painful, but hopefully it will give me a standard to which all future weekends can be compared.

Right after work on Friday, I went out to Joey's for eye candy and appetizers. I met with a recently departed co-worker to chat with him about his leaving and his new line of work. As usual I had my business hat on, and may have lined up more peripheral work for myself, which we all know I don't have enought time to complete.

Knowing that I need to spend more time enjoying life and having fun, I decided to make a huge leap and jump back into the console market after over ten years of absense. I went down to BestBuy, and picked myself up an XBox 360.

I took it home and untangled everything and in typical Microsoft fashion the bloody thing had to update itself about four times before I was able to play anything, but boy was it worth it. I picked up Burnout: Revenge and Dead Rising and had myself a whole barrel of fun crashing cars and killing zombies. The Live Arcade is a lot of fun too, playing the old games that I used to plunk away at in the theatre in Houston. I'm glad I made the purchase, and I know I'm going to have a lot of fun. Looking at my calendar, I can tell I won't be playing much for about the next two weeks, but knowing that it's there will make downtime a lot more fun.

I did manage to get away from my new electronic fun a couple time this weekend. On Saturday, Sonja and I went out to watch the Semi Finals for the Alberta Cup in which my team was playing. The game was solid, but in the end we ended up losing to the Rams.

Sunday, I made it out to the Calgary Climbing Center so that I could practice up, and get Sonja knowledgable about Belaying. It was a pile of fun but it didn't even take two hours before my hands and arms were sore from hauling my fat but up the walls.

I came home on Sunday looking forward to a little bit more XBox action, and found that my internet was borked. I called Shaw to inquire, and the man on the other end of the phone told me a troubleshooting technique that reminded me of the stupidity of blowing on Nintendo cartridges. Basically, I have to unplug the modem, unhook it from the cable, and then touch the copper on the wire. I then hook everything back up, plug it back in, and everything is good to go. That is until two minutes elapses and my connection is all messed up again. Shaw realized that there is a problem, but they won't send out a service man until Friday of next week. That's a long time to go without internet, and it makes me damn happy I switched over to a hosted solution for my websites.

For about the last month, I've been swamped with various undertakings ranging from improving my home through removing vermin and landscaping to trying to push my alternate sources of income. As is usual when I get into that frame of mind, I find that my stress level goes way up, time flies by way too fast, and before I know it: It's Christmas and I'm sick. Being pro-active, I've been scheduling time to relax.

Since I'm a geek at heart, and once aspired to get into electronic entertainment, I find that most of my scheduled down time has been indulging in video games.

It came about when I heard that Heroes of Might and Magic V was on store shelves, and since I was a huge fan of the franchise, I got myself a copy. I played it a few times and was really frustrated when the computer, as Glen put it, played the I'm going to win card. It always happened when I went from the surface to the subterranian world or vice versa. Although, I did come close to victory as the Necromancers, I never managed to get past that point with any of the other races. I wasn't having much fun getting my ass handed to me by the unfair AI.

Since HOMMV was about as fun as getting your drunken ass kicked by a bouncer, I stopped playing it. In fact, I may not touch another game in the franchise unless someone glowingly refers me back to it. For the time being I went back to playing the immensly fun Rise of Legends.

I was a fan of RoL's predecesor Rise of Nations, so trying it out was natural. I love how the game plays, and it can be set up so that you can very quickly and easily walk through the AI in order to relieve some aggression, or you can crank the AI up for the challenge of a lifetime. The best part is the variety and the control. I was very happy and content with RoL, that was, until I got my hands on Hitman: Blood Money.

I knew that the newest of the Hitman games were out, but had yet to get around to playing it, instead betting (incorrectly) on my favored genre of strategy (ala HOMMV). A co-worker picked the game up one day, and as he's prone to do, started talking about it. Suddenly my time sitting in my University dorm run, sneaking around wiring people in Hitman 2 came flooding back to me. As is true to the franchise, the game is fun. It's a unique roll together of a first person shooter and an opened ended puzzle. So far I've enjoyed the first few missions, and plan on enjoying a few more.

More and more I've been thinking about how much fun is within a game. My old room mates would climb onto my system with the latest and greatest first person shooters, real time strategy and city simulators and play games distributed free by PopCap. This has recently led me to spending a lot of time thinking about game design with the bulk of the console wars rearing it's head as we come closer and closer to the Christmas season. My bet is on Nintendo, because they make fun games. They have Mario in their corner, and buildings full of people worrying about how much fun a game is going to be to play. They've bet the future of the company that people will take fun over the next iteration of cool graphics, and antialiasing. Sure the other two consoles will have some fun games, but Nintendo makes games with lasting appeal. This is important, because in the end it's only the Fun that matters.