Game(s) of the decade!

So the decade is coming to a close.  I hope it’s been a good one for you.  All in all for me I really can’t complain.  I’ve been blessed with a ton of great things, including a ton of great games!  I thought it would be fun to list off a few of the games that I felt are deserving of the “game of the decade” award.  These are the games that made gaming so important for me.  I could have picked a ton, but I really wanted to narrow it down to just a few.  Keep in mind, this is a personal list.  This is a list of the games that mattered to me most.  Other games out there might matter to other gamers more, but this is my list.  So without further French word type stuff, here we go.

Sex, violence, and killing Greek gods.   Does it get any better than that?  With God of War, no it does not.  The God of War franchise is all about great story, violence, and being epic.  What more could you want from a game?  I first decided to get this game because a friend of mine had seen a commercial and said to me, “dude I saw this commercial for a game called God of War…god damn right…tons of blood” ( anyone who knows me can figure out who that was ).  Man was he god damn right.  But what impressed more about GoW, was the fusing of the ultra violent, with an great epic story and even more epic game play (  which includes some puzzle solving ), by having those elements it made the violence seem warranted, not like Grand Theft Auto which makes the violence just seem dumb at times.  The story follows a Spartan named Kratos who feels he has been wronged by the gods.  In the first God of War, he is asked by the gods to kill the God of War who was gone drunk with power ( hence the name of the game ), in return he assumes the gods will grant him his wish of forgetting his horrible past, ( he killed his family in a fit of rage…which he also blames on the gods).   God of War 2 picks up right where the first game left off.  The sequal is 100 times more epic, and it’s very first battle is so huge that it rivals any final battle in any other game to date.  Why didn’t I pick GoW2 as game of the decade material I assume you ask?  Because I feel I should give it to the game that started it all.  Plus, about the only difference between GoW and Gow2 is the setting and some of the enemies.  Everything else is the same, which is a great thing!  Way to often game designers feel they need to change up the game play  in order to keep people interested in a franchise.  The GoW team however understood they had something great already, and knew people didn’t need it changed.  It works, they know it works, so they stick with it……and it works! The combat system has been copied by many other games since it’s release. If you haven’t played GoW or GoW2 and you own a PS3 you are in luck.  Sony just released a collectors edition which includes both games on 1 disk for only $40.  Do yourself a favor and pick it up!! 

It’s amazing how a little surgery can get you really into something.  This past year I had knee surgery and in order to keep myself from getting bored I decided to play a little game called Fallout 3.  Let me be really honest here.  I had purchased Fallout 3 the day it came out because everyone at work was raving about it, but people who know me know that I am not a huge RPG guy ( at least I wasn’t ).  I always found it hard to get into games that took a really long time to progress. I used to like to get in, do what I had to do and get out.  But an RPG is a big investment and I always had trouble getting into them.  That is until Fallout 3.  I always knew there was something good about the game, I just really sucked at it.  I finally had my friend Tim take a look at my character and tell me why it is I can’t play.  Turns out I tried to make my character way to balanced, and in doing so he wasn’t strong or smart enough to actually do anything, thus I kept getting my ass whooped.  He told me to play how I like to play, ( I like playing as strong guys who can get right into battle ).  One re-roll later and BAM I fell in love with the game.  This game changed the way I viewed RPGs.  I actually enjoy them now because I finally have an understanding of how to play them, as lame as that sounds haha.  Before I used to try to figure out how the game wanted me to play, and ultimately I would create a character that was all kinds of fail, but I learned to create a character that plays the way I want to play, thus making the game fun and fitting it into my play style.  Fallout 3 plays great, has a pretty interesting story, and is huge in scope, meaning there is just a ton of stuff for you to do and explore, and really who doesn’t want to explore a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C?!?  Fallout 3 is available for PC, 360, and PS3, and they have released a ton of DLC that will give you more then enough game to last a really long time.  Definitely give it a shot as this game will go down as one of the more important games in history.

I had bought myself a PS3 about a month after it launched.  I tried to get it the day it came out but was unsuccessful.  I kept trying and trying until one day around Christmas I was helping my mom with some shopping, I asked her if she would mind if I  walked into Best Buy to see if they had any PS3’s….to my luck they just got a shipment and I was the proud owner of a 20gb PS3.  I was a very happy dude indeed.  Over time though I kept noticing these games popping up on the 360 and not the ps3…or at least arriving late on the ps3.  I kept telling myself that I don’t “need” another gaming console.  But then a little game called Bioshock came out.  It looked really interesting and my friend Tim had told me good things.  I tried to load it up on my laptop but it just couldn’t handle it so it was pointless to play, but from what I had played I dug.  I was bit….I wanted to play Bioshock and the only way was to get myself a 360.  I “broke down”, went to Best Buy again ( granted this was over a year after i got the PS3 ), picked up a 360 a copy of Guitar Hero 3 and Bioshock.  I was blown away by Bioshock, ( not so much of Guitar Hero 3 ).  The atmosphere that was created through the artwork, the amazing sound design, the incredible music, and a great story just sucked me in.  It was the first time I had ever been “sucked” into a video game like you get “sucked” into a movie.  I would always forget that I was playing a game.  This game gave us 2 very iconic characters.  The Little Sisters, and the Big Daddy’s.  The little sisters are a sort of “guardian” of ADAM.  ADAM is used to give your character special abilities, like telekinesis.  The Little Sisters roam the city of Rapture looking for fallen people in order to extract the ADAM from their bodies.  If you are able to capture a Little Sister, all the ADAM that they have collected becomes yours.  The only problem?  Every Little Sister is protected by their Big Daddy.  These Big Daddy’s are uber powerful and will stop at nothing to protect their Little Sister.  Every time you hear the groan of a Big Daddy you tense up a bit as you know a huge battle is about to start.  The other interesting aspect to the Little Sister is how you obtain the ADAM once you defeat the Big Daddy and capture the little runt girl.  You see you can “save” her, which removes the mind control that she has over her, and she will give you a little ADAM as a gift, or you can take all the ADAM from her which kills her.  You get to decide.  Save a little girl get a little ADAM, or kill a little girl get a ton of ADAM.  What you choose actually changes the end of the game, so you need to choose wisely.  Me?  I choose to kill most of the Little Sisters….I wanted the ADAM, but if it makes you feel any better the game does a really good job at making you feel bad every time you do it.   As I said the sound design and music is phenomenal and as an audio guy that really impressed me, but was more “amazing” to me was how the story was told in Bioshock.  A lot of times in a game you play a level, then watch a cut scene to get the story, then play some more and then watch some more.  This is a fine way to tell a story in a game, but it always takes you out of the game and reminds you that you are indeed just playing a game.  Bioshock changed that though.  You never leave the game, even when the story is being told.  A lot of the story is told through audio tapes you find throughout the game, which you can listen too while you are battling, or through characters you are fighting, or through Atlas the guy on the radio whose trying to help you get out.  It’s this never leaving the game that gets you sucked in.  I wish more games would use this approach.  Bioshock is now out for the PC, 360, and PS3, a sequel is releasing in 2010. If you haven’t played the first game, do it.  Please!!!

Some of you my be surprised to learn that there was a pretty long stretch of time in my life were I didn’t own any current gen consoles at all.  You can thank college and having a job that didn’t pay all that much for that.  When the PS2 came out, that’s all I wanted, but I just couldn’t afford it.  I tried ebay all day long, trying to see if some moron was selling it way to cheap but of course it never happened.  Because of that, I kind of fell off current gaming for awhile.  I missed out on a lot of games.  School was way to busy and trying to earn money kept me even busier.  I stuck with the old school consoles like Nintendo 64.  After college I finally got a full time gig at a radio station, the pay still stunk, but I was living, ( and living at home which helped out a lot).  One day while playing poker over my friends house, he took out this game that he happened to come across while in the mall.  It was called “Guitar Hero”, he set it up for us and played a tune.  I was hooked….I mean instantly hooked.  While playing poker, I was having bad luck and decided to play dumb just to finish up so I could go and play some more GH.  That was it, I was bit by the bug again, and bit hard.  I made a choice..I must own a PS2 and I must own GH.  I got up some money, ran to game stop ( well drove ) and bought myself a used PS2, with GH.  Man I played that game to death.  It was great, I finally had a current gen system.  Though it didn’t last long as a current gen system as the 360 came out a few years later, it was still great.  So many games to go back and play so little time.  I’ve been a loyal fan to Harmonix ever since then.  Though it was just a music game, it was the game that pushed me back in gaming in a huge way.  It got me loving games hardcore again, it got me wanting to pursue a career in gaming.  It changed a lot for me.  And for that,  Guitar Hero makes my list of Games of the Decade.  Harmonix decided to sell Guitar Hero to activision…they ruined the game in my opinion.  But Harmonix was smart and created a new music game called Rock Band, which again defined an entire genre, and again with The Beatles: Rock Band….Harmonix just knows how to innovate.

Of course a ton of games came out over the past decade, and I am sure if I sat down a bit longer I could come up with a ton more to add to this page.  But I’ll leave that up to you, any games you consider “game of the decade?”  Leave a comment and let me know!

Game of the year 2009

So I figure, it’s the end of the year which means everyone will be doing year end countdowns of best, this and best that.  Since I have a blog, I figured I would dabble a bit in the whole list making craze and create one myself. I’m a big gamer, it’s a huge part of my life.  It’s my hobby, it’s my job, and it’s a passion of mine, so I figured I should stick with what I know and talk a little bit about gaming. 

2009 was a good year for gaming.  Maybe not “sales” wise, ( thanks economy!!) but there was a lot of titles that got released this year that achieved high honors, but only 1 can make my list as the top game of 2009.  But before I give that away, lets take a look at some of the games that came out in 2009 that made a big splash.

The first half of 2009 saw big releases like Killzone 2 for the PS3.  Killzone was supposed to be the “halo killer”, it was supposed to be the game that put the PS3 on the map and into the homes of every house across the world.  Sony spent a ton of time perfecting this game, even delaying it numerous times to ensure they got it just right.  Did it work? Well Sony promised us a game that would look better then any other console game out there, and on that front they delivered.  No one can deny how impressive Killzone 2 looks.  The detail to every character, and the look of Helghan immersed you into the game.  This game looked amazing.  The sound design was pretty top notch, and the music was great as well. The multiplayer was unique and a ton of fun.  However it takes a lot more then just graphics and sounds to make a game great and this is where Sony dropped the ball a bit.  Though on it’s own KZ2 is a really good game with an “ok” story, when it’s pinned next to other games in this genre it just doesn’t compete.  It doesn’t do enough to set itself apart from other games, you fight the same looking characters over and over again, and you are pretty much forced to use the same 2 guns the entire game, though at times they were nice enough to throw you a new gun, only to take it away for no good reason.  To a fault, Sony really tried to make the game too realistic, even with the controls which on purpose they gave a very sluggish feel to them.  Every weapon has a ton of weight so moving around with them and aiming is very non-responsive.  For the hardcore gamer this is probably not a problem, but for people looking to buy a ps3 and a game to own, this did not fly at all and was a huge mistake by Sony.  If you are trying to create a system seller you need to make sure everyone and anyone can pick it up right away.

Another good game that came out, this time across both PS3 and 360 was Resident Evil 5.  Many games will point to Resident Evil 4 as being one of the greatest games of all time.  So for that, RE5 had a lot to live up to.  And in my opinion lived up to most of it.  The game looked great, and controlled great ( once you get used to the RE style of gameplay ).  The addition of co-play was amazing and worked really well…..as long as you were playing co-play.  You see, even if you are not playing with a friend, the computer takes over and you are forced to play with a dumb AI.  Though I will say that the AI is not the worst AI I have seen in my life ( hi Left 4 Dead! ), it wasn’t perfect and I had a lot more fun playing the game with my friend Tim then I did alone.  That’s where the game really shined.  Playing co-op in RE5, really felt like co-op. The survival modes were a ton of fun as well and added some replay value for the game.  Though this game was great it still isn’t the #1 game for me.

The Beatles: Rock Band.  Harmonix entered into Guitar Hero territory ( and by that I mean lets try to make as much money off people by creating a game based off a band, but really just has the same gameplay as our other game so you are not really getting your money’s worth in value territory ).  But like everything else Harmonix has done, they do it better.  With Beatles, they took Rock Bands core gameplay, but changed up the UI a ton, added a really cool “story mode” where you get to see the Beatles progress through their career and added vocal harmonies.  This game was no Rock Band rehash, and for that I give Harmonix a ton of credit.  I liked the game a lot.  I beat it once through on guitar and once through on drums, ( even got the achievement of beating the game once, and then again in less then 24 hours!).  But I have to say, after that I haven’t put the game in again.  I guess it just didn’t have the staying power that I thought it would have.  The fact that you can’t play any other songs with it, or transfer the songs to regular Rock Band probably have a lot to do with that, but I understand Harmonix couldn’t do anything to get around that.  So though it was a great game, it still is not the game of the year for me.  Though I recommend to to anyone who is a huge Beatles fan, or wants to introduce their music to a younger audience.

Sometimes a game, just wants to be a game, and for 2009 that game was Borderlands.  The purpose of Borderlands?  Kill lots of stuff, upgrade your character and get tons of loot ( IE guns )…….yup that’s it, and that is why it’s such a good game.  Gearbox didn’t worry about an amazing story, or try to reinvent the FPS, ( though by adding some really cool RPG elements they kind of did…sort of ).  Borderlands is a great game to play when you just want to plop in a game, and start shooting and there is nothing wrong with that, if that is what you are trying to create!  The art style was very unique and Jesper Kyd’s sound track was amazing.  The game truly shines in co-op, as it scales in real time depending on how many players are in your group and their level.  Once they leave, it scales back down, so it provides a constant balance no matter how you play it. A great and fun game but still not my GOTY.

Tim Schafer, not much to say about him other then he’s a great game designer with a great sense of humor.  In 2009 he tried to strike a chord with audiences ( yup I did that on purpose ) with Brutal Legend. At it’s core, Brutal Legend is an amazing concept. #1 Create a world that is run by Heavy Metal.  #2 Create a mythology that contains creating this world through Heavy Metal.  #3 Make it very violent. #4 Put in Tim’s sense of humor.  #5 Top it all off with Jack Black, and BAM you got a great game.  But that’s just at it’s core.  Though it was still fun cool to play it just didn’t live up to what a lot of gamers wanted it to be.  The forced RTS elements felt…well forced, and the gameplay felt very repetitive.  Again, it was a great concept, and I think if you played it you would enjoy the game, but you won’t love it…and neither did I.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  You should all know about this game.  It sold over 4.5 million games in it’s first week alone to become the biggest game launch of all time.  The sequel to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare ( go figure ), ups the ante a ton by adding more explosions, with a few more added explosions to top it all off.  This game is all about being big, and it excels at that.  It’s a Michael bay movie on crack, which is not a bad thing at all, ( especially if you like crack!). The game looks astounding, and the sound will blow you away.  My only big gripe about the game is that it took me just under 5 hours to finish the single player campaign.  Way to damn short.  However, the amount of time I have put into the multiplayer more then makes up for that.  At the time of writing this, I have about 34 hours, I’m a lvl 50, and I have a ways to go before hitting lvl cap.  Multiplayer is where it’s at for this game.  It’s addicting, it’s a ton of fun to play, the weapons are great, the perks are fun, and the killstreaks are awesome, ( ac-130 anyone?).  It’s just an all out ton of fun to play, ( not to mention kicking Derek and Mike’s ass in a private match).  That being said, though I really, really like the game, for me it just doesn’t fall into GOTY.  I need a game to be all encompassing.  If COD was just multiplayer with no single player campaign, I might feel different about this game.  But they put in a really short single player game, with not a ton of depth, and I need to judge it on that as well.  Though it’s up there on my list, it’s not GOTY.

Remember when Dark Knight came out?  Yea I remember that too.  Mostly because it was one of the best movies I have ever seen.  I’ve always  been a fan of Batman, ever since I was a little kid.  He’s my favorite of all the comic book hero’s.  So you can imagine how excited I was when I first heard of Batman: Arkham Asylum, you can also imagine who nervous I was when I remembered that there has never been a “good” Batman game released!  I bought the game anyway, ( actually got the collectors edition because I am that much of a fan of Batman,oh and waited inline at midnight ).  I got home, put in the disk, warily pressed start with 1 eye closed in hopes that I wouldn’t be disappointed, and then it happened.  The camera panned down over a sign that read “Arkham Asylum”, and the batmobile came screaming down the road.  My other eye opened, and to my pleasure never closed again.  Batman: Arkham Asylum is hands down the best Batman game ever made.  It’s the first game to truly get what Batman and even the Joker are all about.  For Batman it’s not about running into a room and killing everyone, it’s about using his smarts, figuring out the best way to take everyone out silently so not to get caught.  It’s about using his toys to figure out clues, and take down badguys.  For the Joker, it’s about being a sick and twisted man with no regard to any life at all.  This game, nails it on both fronts.  I’ve haven’t been so into a game as I was with Arkham Asylum, in a really long time.  The designers nailed almost every aspect of gameplay.  The combat is as fluid as you can get, the look of the Asylum and the characters is as perfect as you can get.  The soundtrack screams “BATMAN!!”.  All of this is why Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best Batman game ever, and also in my opinion the 2009 game of the year.  Do yourself a favor.  If you haven’t played this game.  Please go out, and get it.  You will not be disappointed. 

Feel free to comment and tell me what you think about this list.  Anything you’d add? 

NOTE: You will notice that Uncharted 2 is not on this list.  That’s because I didn’t get it until recently.  Though it’s received many many game of the year nods, since I haven’t played it  yet, I didn’t feel it was fair to mention.  It might change my mind on the GOTY, but since I probably won’t finish it until early 2010 I didn’t want to wait.  Also I just started playing Dragon Age: Origins thanks to my brother in law’s awesome xmas gift, and I have a ways to go before completing that.

and I still suck at updating!!!!

Man…..I really need to get better at updating this, maybe people would actually show up and read it haha. Anyway, below is a brief update to everything that has been going on.

Wedding:
The wedding is come along really really great. We have less then 5 months to go, and I think most of the stuff is pretty much all set, it’s just making the final decisions here and there. I give all the credit to Chrissy on this, she has been great and keeping everything organized and on track. We have to go over the music we want for the wedding, which will be a ton of fun I think.

Work
Work is still good. I’ve been busy as all hell, but it’s a “good” busy. I am writing music now, which is great. So between writing music, creating SFX, mixing music, and doing the VO Directing, I am a pretty busy guy haha. But with all the experience I am getting, it’s totally worth it. And I work for great company as well.

Commute
Still sucks of course. If I leave by 6:30am I can get to work by like 8:15am, so I guess it’s not “terrible”, but it’s still much longer than I would like. It sucks up a lot of my time, I get home so late that all I want to do is crash on the couch because I only have a few hours before I need to get into bed. Hopefully after the wedding me and Chrissy can really begin the process of moving out and get me closer to Boston. If I could have a 45 minute commute, I would be soooooo happy.

Knee
The knee is doing good. I haven’t had PT in awhile. It went down to about every other week, and then I had to cancel one appointment for being sick, and was waiting to hear back from them in regards to rescheduling but they never called back and I just kept forgetting about it. I should probably go back, but all in all the knee is good. I def. need to get better at exercising it though.

There you go an update. I promise I will get better at updating this thing…..maybe haha

Wow I suck at updating this thing.

Man, it’s been almost 2 months since I last updated this, and that post was about me sitting in a parking lot waiting for a game haha. I’ll see if I can actually do an update this time around haha.

Wedding:
Well let’s see. The wedding stuff is really coming along, I give Chrissy a ton of credit on this. She is a great planner and things are going very very smoothly. We are working on a website that will have all the info people need, so keep an eye out for that.

Work
Work is going great, I couldn’t be happier. I have been doing most of the audio work as of late, which I love. From mixing music, creating sound effects, implementing the audio, I will even be directing the voice over sessions and writing some music as well, so really things couldn’t be better.

Commute
The commute still sucks ass. I have been getting up around 6:00am and leaving around 6:30am and getting to work a little after 8:30am, so in the morning it’s a 2+ hour drive/T-ride. Coming home is much faster, maybe like 1.5 hours or so. If I could afford to park in the city it would take me less then an hour to get home, but since I can’t I am forced to wait for the T which on some days can add a lot of time. However, me and Chrissy are starting the process of moving out of the condo into something bigger and “better” and are considering moving back to Massachusetts. As much as we both love living in New Hampshire, having a commute that totals over 3.5 hours round trip is insane. I can fly to Florida in that amount of time. If only I didn’t hate Massachusetts politics with a passion…sigh oh well.

Knee
The knee is doing great. I am down to only doing Physical Therapy every other week now. I hardly feel any pain at all which is great. Though I gotta admit I need to get better at remembering to do my exercises every day.

That’s pretty much it really. Life hasn’t changed much for me at all. I’m happy, I have a great fiance, a great job, and just enjoying life right now.

And here i sit.

So here I sit at the midnight sale for The new Batman game. I’m picking up the collectors edition which comes with some behind the scenes footage, an art book, some extra maps and more importantly a 2 foot long replica of a batarang!!! Some people might think it’s lame that I am at a midnight sale, and some might think it’s lamer that I want to own a 2 foot long batarang.

Well let me answer the batarang thing. I like to collect things. I actually own a never opened brand new copy of Bases Loaded for the NES! My work desk has a bunch of figures from various video games, including Kratos, a big daddy and Altiar. You might say that’s childish. Let me explain. I make video games for a living and the gaming culture is very big into respecting other games. They inspire us. The figures on my desk are from games that have amazing sound design and I enjoy looking at them when I get stuck. Plus I won’t lie, they look damn cool haha. But really it’s all about surrounding myself with the gaming culture. It helps me to be creative and remember why we do what we do. Someday I want to see one of my games represented in a toy store, and someday would love to see another developer use my game as inspiration.

As far as the midnight sale. I actually only go because it’s easier to pick up the game late at night then wait till after work when all I want to do is get home, hug Chrissy and eat din din. Plus I get the game before all you suckers!!!

WOOT!!!!

Fallout 3

What can I say about this game. I’ve been playing the crap out of it for the past few months, and I still haven’t gotten sick with it yet. This has to be one of the most in-depth in both story, and content game I have ever played, and I love it.

Fallout 3 takes place in Washington DC the the year 2277, 200 years after a nuclear war with china destroyed the US, and as you can see from the above pic not much has survived. Some very lucky people were fortunate enough to move into various vaults underground before the big nuclear blasts hit, thus saving their lives. You are one of those characters, however for no reason what so ever, you hear that your father has left the vault ( which is against the vaults laws ), you are concerned as to why he would leave you and the safety of the vault and so you decide to leave the vault as well in search of him.

As soon as you leave the vault, Bethesda ( the creators of the game ) do a great job at portraying the amount of damage the war has caused. There are no trees, no grass, just dirt, sand and rocks. One of the first cities you come across is a town called “megaton”, which was built from scrap metal, and pieces of broken airplanes. And it is here where your quest truly begins.

Fallout 3 is a roll playing game ( RPG ). When you leave the vault, you have nothing, just a BB gun, and your vault issued clothes, you stink in combat, and you have no money. The point of the game is to do quests, explore the wasteland, and kill enemies, these all earn you XP which allows you to make your character stronger, and better in combat. The great thing about an RPG is that you can build the character anyway you want. If you want someone who loves to run into battles with guns blazing, you can do that. Or if you are more the stealthy kind, you can build a character like that as well. It’s all up to you, you can play the game anyway you want.

The wasteland is completely open to you, though the main story is pretty linear, ( meaning you complete the quests in a certain order ), there are plenty of side quests that allow you to explore all of the wasteland, gain XP, and help find unique items in the world.

The best way to survive Fallout, is to explore, explore and then explore some more. Bethesda has done a great job at capturing post apocalyptic Washington D.C., so good that I have had friends who lived in DC tell me how scary it is to see the streets they know and walk on, all blown up. Not only is it fun to explore DC, but it’s also necessary to survive. You will come across areas that grant you new weapons, or armor, or characters that can give you more information on your father. You can scavenge just about everything you find, from empty tin cans, to motorcycle parts, and you can trade them to others for things like ammo, and health packs.

It’s hard for me to portray just how huge this game is, but let me put it this way. So far I have about 37 hours invested into this game, I’ve beaten the game though I still have a ton of places to explore, plus Bethesda has released a ton of down loadable content, which give you new main quests. In comparison, ghost busters only took me 6-7 hours to beat. Fallout 3 is HUGE!

The amount of detail in this game is amazing, from the layout of DC, to the graphics, sound design, the different characters, and the different quests, this game will keep you interested for hours and hours and hours, and you will never get bored.

If you are looking for a game that will take you a while to complete, if you want something epic…then pick up fallout 3, which is out for the 360, ps3 and PC.

Surgery

Wow long time no talk.

I really apologize for not updating in a really really long time, things have been kind of busy for me lately. Mostly with the new job, don’t get me wrong, I love my job a ton, but we’ve been really busy, and with my commute it makes for a really long day ( I leave around 8:00a and get home around 8:30 some nights).

But, minus that, the new gig is awesome. Being back in audio again couldn’t make me happier, plus I’m still making video games….audio for video games….seriously I have one of the best jobs out there. Not to mention my boss is great, and the people I work with are really talented and great as well. Oh yea, the other great thing is that Tim got a job with Seven45 as well, I used to work with him at CN8, he became a great friend, and it’s great to be working with him again.

The other reason I have been busy is that I have been dealing with a bum left knee, that ended up needing some surgery. It’s stems from an injury I sustained way back in high school playing football. I messed up both of my knees at the, they fixed the right knee but at the time there was not much they could do to fix the left knee. Over time however, some cartilage broke off inside the joint, which was causing pain, and my knee to buckle here and there. It got pretty bad a few months ago, when the knee swelled up completely and I could barley walk from the T station, to my office. I got some MRI’s done, and it was determined that they should go in and remove the piece. So they did that yesterday ( august 11th ). It went very well, they got the piece out, and were able to drill into the bone to try and get new cartilage to grow. The better news for me is that, when they drill into the bone that usually means I can’t walk on the knee for up to a month, however the area was so small that they let me walk out of the hospital ( with crutches of course ). I’m still on crutches right now and will be for the rest of week, but I am able to put some weight on it, and I should be fine to walk around with no crutches by next week. The “bad” news is that the cartilage had been floating around in there for so long that it damaged the joint pretty badly, so I am going to need more surgery down the road to go in and smooth the joint down. However, it’s not something that needs to happen ASAP, so I will probably wait a few years. ( I don’t want to spend my first year being married, worried about surgery and stuff, so I would much rather wait)

So all in all, it went very well, and I am very happy. I am feeling very little pain, in fact I haven’t even taken any pain pills yet. I have plenty of video games to play, and my amazing fiance who I love more then anything in this world is taking real good care of me.

So in short, I love my new job, I love Chrissy, and I am very happy the surgery went well. All in all, life is good

PS: wedding is in 8 months…woot!
PPS: I had Chrissy take the above pic, at one point I needed to use the bathroom and I finally got a good look at myself with the hat on and stuff, I looked so dumb I needed a pic of it haha.

wait…Michael Jackson died??!?

I will be honest, when I heard that MJ had died, I was a bit shocked and texted a few people and told people in the office. Not because I was sad, but it was a surprise to see him in the media, but not dangling a child over a balcony. But I got over it, continued playing Battlefield Heroes against my co-workers, left work, got into my car, turned on the radio, and heard an MJ song. I said to myself “ya i am sure some stations will be playing his music”, so I changed stations and another MJ song, changed stations again and yet another MJ song. Turned out about 5 or 6 stations were doing tributes, I even went as far as putting on Jamin 94.5 figuring I’d rather listen to their crappy DJ’s and crappy music then 20 Jackson songs in a row, but nope they were also doing a tribute. However, I stopped on Jamin because they had DJ’s in and were doing interviews, and I have to say, I heard one of the most dumbest things in the history of dumb things that were said, and I quote.

” I never met the guy, but I feel like someone in my family has died”

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!?!?! How does a rational person make a statement like that. Isn’t that like spitting on the graves of every actual family member that has passed away? It’s like saying, “sorry grandma, I appreciate everything you actually did for me, but this guy that I never met in person died so I am gonna treat his death just like yours!”

I understand the man wrote some music that were staples in peoples lives, but as much as I love music, it is just music guys….just music. The music is not him, it’s just his music. And guess what, if you like the music so much, you still get to listen to it, even though he is dead, ( isn’t technology great!!! ).

We really need to have some perspective here. The man was accused of molesting young boys, and whether or not he was convicted, he still lived a life that made you think he could have been. I mean he admits to sleeping with young boys HE ADMITS TO IT!! Of course he says they were just sleeping, but you can’t deny that, that is messed up!. If I had a son or daughter who was sleeping over a friends house and I found out they were sleeping in the same bed as the father, and it was just them……..the police would be called.

And too all these people that are “sad” and “crying”. You are fakes, who are just trying to be part of the publicity of it all. You never met the man, you do now know the man, and you are not sad enough that he died to cry about it. So stop being fake….please.

“CNN reports that Michael Jackson died of food poisoning, turns out he was eating 12 year old nuts”

Free…or is it?

So I am walking to work the other day, when I pass a homeless person. He was handing out free newspapers in hopes someone would pay him for it. I started to think, “man, what a silly idea, why would someone give him money for something that is free, what a horrible idea!” But, after a few more steps it started to dawn on me. What if, like 30 years ago, bums used to try to sell bottles of water to passers by. I bet some of those people said, “man, what a dumb idea, I can get water for free, why would I want to pay for it!” Fast forward 30 years, and now the bottled water industry takes in billions of dollars a year!

So maybe this bum had the right idea. What if, 30 years from now free newspapers account for billions of dollars in revenue, there is no way I should pass this up!! But I already have my competition…..that bum. So if I want to make this work, I need to wake up earlier then him and nab every free paper in Boston. That bum is going down!!!!!!!!!

hello again

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of content recently, but with the new job, wedding planning, doctors visits for my knee and other peoples weddings, I have been just way to busy.

Things are good on this end though, I am loving the new job. It’s great because not only do they pull my audio talents, but they are also using my background as a producer and project management, which in the long run gives me the experience I need to someday become an audio director and make the big $$. The commute sucks, but you all know that haha, but the great thing is that once I am here actually doing the work, I forget about the commute and just work.

The wedding plans are coming together. Me and Chrissy decided that we wanted to do a destination wedding in Hawaii. We had already booked a trip to Hawaii for this October, which is part of the reason why we were waiting until October 2010 to have our wedding, so we’d have enough time after Hawaii to save up. But, weddings cost way to much money, and with going to Hawaii we weren’t going to be able to afford a honeymoon next year, so we decided to move Hawaii up a few months and just get married over there. Our parents are going to come and perhaps a few friends, so it should be awesome. Then, when we get back we are going to have a reception. We are still going to have a wedding party and still do the introductions and speeches and all that jazz, it will be as if the ceremony happened right before…just it actually happened like 10 days before. We are both very excited

Some of may know that I have a bad knee, and in the past month or so it has gotten worse. The doctor thinks I may have re-injured it. The speculation is that I have torn MCL and torn cartilage, but they won’t know for sure until I have an MRI. When I went to see the doctor, he grabbed my knee and applied some pressure, this caused the knee cap to move out of position and a ton of pain, so he stopped. I am wearing a knee brace which should help to prevent the knee cap from always popping out on me. I am hopeful, but doubtful that I won’t need surgery, but hopefully if I do it’s something I can find out about asap, so I can just get it over with and not have to worry about Hawaii.

My friends Matt and Nicole are getting married this Friday, and they were awesome enough to ask me to be part of the wedding party. We are playing golf Thursday morning, then doing the rehearsal dinner, then the wedding on Friday. So I get to go to a kick ass wedding, AND take 2 days off from work…..not a bad deal haha.

Don’t forget if you are a gamer like me and you own a ps3, inFamous came out today. I’ve played the demo, and I am very excited to get home and start playing. It has some of the smoothest controls i’ve ever seen in an action based open world game…..much better then Grand Theft Auto.

That’s about it really. Leave me comments, say hello and stuff!

-Peace!

PS: In case you are wondering why I put that picture in this thread. Look real close at the license plate. I took that last week haha.