P.B. Can Kiss My Winterbottom

No post since January? Yikes. The moral of the story here is that if you want your gaming time to go from 60 to 0 in .08 seconds, get knocked up. But it's not all bad, ICandee Jr is much more fun that games...most of the time. ;) And since I can't spend all my time twiddling my thumbs until WCG Ultimate Gamer season 2 hits SyFy I decided that it was time to dust off my controller and get to spending those MS points. (Ah, thank you US government for my tax return turned MS points card!)

The first thing I got with my points was Peggle Nights. I've played this game on the Nintendo DS, I've played Peggle on the Xbox Live Arcade and finally got my grubby little controller on Nights. Totally worth it.

The next thing I was interested in trying was The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. I love interesting games such as this and since I can't play online much anymore, the arcade has been my sanctuary when I can play. So into the download queue it went, after trying the demo of course.

(Image from winterbottomgame.com)
I must be way off my game (pun intended) as I ended up dying during the jumping tutorial (the jumping tutorial y'all) and once conquering the tutorial, made it through about 2 or 3 puzzles of the first part of the first section when I finally uttered those magic words "F--- You" and turned the game off. Now anyone that knows me or my style of gaming knows that when I start cursing, controllers start flying (metaphorically speaking). Luckily, ICandee Jr was taking a nap and I kept my cussing to the "under my breath" variety.

That's not to say that this game is not worth playing. On the contrary, this game is a must buy and I will be more than happy to bend over and take it when it decides to kick me square in the butt once again, which will probably happen about 5 minutes into my next attempt. So let go of those points and just play it already. Sure God of War III is finally getting released from its box come midnight tonight but come on, would you rather play a fun albeit frustratingly quirky game or see ancient boobs?

Wait, don't answer that.

Oh Snap, Where Are the Presents?

So today is my birthday and all I want to do is get some gaming in at some point. I've been relegated to playing either ICandee Jr-friendly games or not gaming at all since she arrived and while I'm more than happy to put gaming aside in favor of raising my child...it's time to blow something up.

So I've got my copy of Brutal Legend, still in the plastic just waiting for me to wail on it and RuFfNeCk is picking up Borderlands today. I also feel the need to throw some zombies into a car compactor in Zombie Apocalypse. So I guess we'll see what happens, my vote is for RuFfNeCk to take ICandee Jr out of hearing range so I can get my grenading-naughty-bad-gaming-cussing-blowing-up goodness on.

Huzzah!

P.S.-Finally caught "Fanboys" last night. Not bad, very cute.

Zombies Get Fit

It seems like people are peeing themselves over vampires (*yawn*) and zombies at the moment. Twilight has taken over like a bad rash and new zombie survival guides are hitting the shelves everyday. All is not lost however because Zombie Apocalypse for the Xbox Live arcade is awesome.

Think of it like Gauntlet...with zombies. Plus, I can blow things up, double weld AND pitch zombies into those trash compactor things they use for cars. The multiplayer is awesome as well. It's so satisfying to shoot through the zombie pile up currently suffocating your partner. It's 800 points so just buy it now and thank me later.

Also, Wii Fit Plus is oot and aboot (as my dear Canadian chums would say) and it is a pretty good improvement over the first one. Calories are now counted, all of the games are unlocked from the beginning (finally!) and your Mii still looks suicidal when they're stomach swells after your weigh-in.

Gaming is good.

You Stay Classy USA!

Instead of losing a finger or an uncle this year, how about some Boom Boom Rocket on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade?

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Pick Up and Play...For About Five Minutes

Ever since ICandee Jr came on the scene, I've had little (if any) time for gaming. When I do have time, I've been gravitating to puzzle games (or the old standby-Katamari) because it's a way to get some sort of gaming in and at the same time it's something I can drop quickly should the need arise (i.e.-ICandee Jr deciding that 10 minutes of sleep is more than enough for one day).

When company comes over, if we're lucky enough to talk them into playing something, it's usually Rock Band, Scene It or Mario Party. Which those are fun, don't get me wrong but anyone that has read this blog for any amount of time knows me well enough to figure my need to blow something up is getting hard to repress at this point.

I tried to distract myself by trying out Yosumin! for the Xbox Live Arcade but...I don't know...not enough blow torches for me. Sometimes I do miss the days of staying up until God knows when playing G.R.A.W. or Burnout Revenge and taking out my friends (and yes, more than once-myself).

Oh well, new chapter and all that I suppose. One day ICandee Jr will be old enough for me to tell her to go play outside while Mommy shoots things. Let's see...she's 8 months old now so I should be able to do that when? In another month or so, right?

Dumb ICandee vs 100 Smarty Pants

Well the beta of 1 vs 100 is upon us and hello, free game to play! I didn't get in the first night but RuFfNeCk did so I just watched him play and was a little disappointed actually. He was getting questions like, "1 + 1 = what?" and "What color is red?" I swear it was right out of Will Ferrell's Jeopardy or something!

So needless to say when I got into the beta the second night, I may have been slightly over confident in my high school education and memory there of. I got questions like, "What is 1958746246fnj4692 divided by 7456393i769302j?" and "Describe, in 5,000 words or more, three improvements to transportation in early 19th century America and how each benefited farms and factories?"

Okay, there may be a slight exaggeration there but come on! I thought myself quite the intelligent person until 1 vs 100 quickly kicked me off my high horse and ran me over with it.

I cannot be the only one that's been sitting on my couch the past couple of nights with a puzzled look on my face, wishing I had a skip...am I???

National ICandee Plays Games Day

Success!

I was actually able to play some games today and if ICandee Jr didn't burn out RuFfNeCk (or scare the crap out of him), I'm hoping to get back to it later tonight before Ultimate Gamer comes on. So far my gaming day has included:

F.E.A.R. 2 (I was good until they started dropping bodies on me...then I was out!)
Castle Crashers
Guitar Hero World Tour (I rock easy mode!)
Street Fighter IV
3D Ultra Minigolf (this game cheats :P)
Battleship (stupid A.I. Steve)
Braid
Ikaruga

It feels great to be playing again...

Attack of the Arcade...With Prizes

RuFfNeCk got me a memory card for the 360 so I could save my profile on it. Reason being that he has every Arcade game and since I'm very picky as to what and where my points go to, this is the perfect solution for me to try out full versions of games without spending points on crap. (I'm talking to you Root Beer Tapper!)

Anyhoo, so today I tried out some Booty game (ironically it's about pirates, not the other kind of booty...oh well!) and Braid. (Yes, I realize I'm a year behind here) So as I'm sitting there getting bitch slapped by Braid, I get an idea. I usually get my best ideas while gaming and this session of failing to get all the puzzle pieces in Worlds 3, 4 and 5 was no exception.

Here's what I'm going to do: since SciFi's WCG Ultimate Gamer is not as horrible as say, G4's current line up of non award winning crap-o-rama. (Ninja Warrior being the exception of course) I got the idea to reward you (yes, you!) my loyal readers (all 3 of you) for watching Ultimate Gamer.

Every week I will be watching the show and blogging my various witty and I'm sure often hilarious thoughts and anecdotes the following day. Your job is to read said blog, leave a comment (about your thoughts on the show, just to say hello or tell me how great I am...all viable options for comment leaving) and then e-mail your answer to a question about that week's episode that you will only know if you have watched the show because the answer will not be here. Clear as mud, yes?

If there is no winner for the week, that week's prize will be added to the next week's prize and the winner for that week will win both. And on and on it goes...

So since I didn't have a prize for last week's episode, there will be 2 prizes to win this week. Here's what you will be playing for:

A Rock Band hat in honor of last week's episode. And...

In honor of this week's episode, the code for the Brawler Costume Pack for Street Fighter IV which sells for 320 MS points on Live. This pack includes all-new alternate costumes for Abel, El Fuerte, E.Honda, Rufus and Zangief.

So there you have it:

1. Watch WCG Ultimate Gamer on SciFi tonight at 10:00 PM.
2. Pay attention (DVRs are fab)
3. Come back here tomorrow.
4. Wipe the tears from your eyes as you read my stunningly amusing and insightful blog post about tonight's episode.
5. Comment on the post with something like, "Hey there ICandee, you make my life worth living."
6. Scratch your head as you try to answer my question about tonight's episode.
7. E-mail me at icandee360 at gmail dot com with your answer.

First person to comment here and then e-mail the correct answer wins both prizes. If no one wins, both prizes will go towards next week's Ultimate Gamepot (that's right, I just named this madness!).

Open to US and Canada residents.

Go watch Ultimate Gamer and I'll see you tomorrow!

Peggle Me This Batman

I am loving me some Peggle. DS, Xbox Live Arcade, doesn't matter where, it's freaking fun to play! I beat the game pretty quickly but those challenge levels are kicking my can.

In other non-gaming news...3 things:

1. The only thing worth watching on G4 is Ninja Warrior (Um...G4 Underground with Morgan Webb? What, are they going to investigate why Ultimate Gamer is showing on a sci fi channel instead of G4, a gaming channel? Bah!)

2. The Big Lebowski should be on everyone's "To See", "Must See" or "Top Ten" list of movies...period.

and

3. Episode 2 of WCG Ultimate Gamer is on tomorrow night, woo hoo!