Long Time With Great Things to Come

It has been an exciting week for PS3 and gamers across the world. Uncharted 2 Among Thieves came out this past Tuesday and has had nothing but great reviews. This game has everything down perfect, great story, awesome graphics, great gameplay. No one could ask for anything more. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is coming out sometime next year, along with the game probably more than 80% of PS3 owners have been waiting for (that number includes myself) God of War III, which will finally be released in March of 2010. This has game of the year written all over it. More to come on this later. In other news Netflix is coming soon to the PS3 with streaming movies straight to your PS3 with no extra cost to customers. Modern Warfare 2 is coming closer to release and has amped its own hype with a sweepstakes to win real life replicas of vehicles and other items from the game. Can't wait for the holiday season to kick off and get my hands on these games and more to come.

All a Twitter About My Book Report

I have just read one of the most helpful how-to guides ever. All a Twitter: A Personal and Professional Guide to Social Networking with Twitter by Tee Morris is exactly what the title states, a personal and professional guide to Twitter. Tee Morris is an experienced user of Twitter starting his own Twitter page in 2007 and hasn’t showed a sign of slowing down. Morris takes you on a well laid out and detailed journey through the world of Twitter, a social networking forum that allows people to express what they are doing at that very moment in 140 characters or less. Morris not only explains how to set up a Twitter account, but he also shows the reader the ins and outs of the network, from what Twitter is and what it isn’t, to how to create a successful account and build a great social network. He explains third party applications and how they make your Twitter experience that much more enjoyable and easy. Morris also shows how to use shortcuts on Twitter, like how to create hash tags and how to easily find friends on Twitter. Morris shows not only how to find friends, but also others who share your same interests and how to make great connections for professional reasons. I greatly enjoyed the layout of the book. The author wrote and arranged the book in logical order. First, he explained the background of Twitter; next he takes you through the steps of how to create an account. After creating your account, Morris shows how to use third party applications and how to take Twitter on the go, and implement it into your other social networking tools like Facebook and MySpace. In addition to all the ways that Twitter improves social networking, he also shares the downfalls of Twitter, like not being able to fully express yourself within 140 characters, but shares tips and advice how to get around the cons and use Twitter to its full potential.


This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in using Twitter. Like I stated in my first sentence, I have never read another book that went into so much detail about one topic. It’s quite ironic to think that like Twitter, this book gives out so much information with only using 268 pages. Anyone who initially picks up this book will be surprised how much they can learn from 268 pages. This book is also a great read for anyone who is just generally interested in social networking and the tools that are out there to use. People with no prior knowledge and people who have used Twitter for a whole year can read this book and learn an impressive amount of facts about Twitter.

When I first picked this book, I had heard of Twitter but I had never visited the webpage or ever used it as a social networking tool. After reading just the first 60 pages I felt I was more than capable of knowing what Twitter should and shouldn’t be used for, how to create an informative and original account and profile. I feel able to fully express myself within 140 characters and follow others who do the same. After finishing the first 100 pages, I had a great knowledge of third party applications and their pros and cons. After the whole book I now feel that I could write my own book about Twitter! I thoroughly enjoyed the book from beginning to end and gained a lot of knowledge on a very useful tool in the social networking universe. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to use or learn about Twitter.

Can't Wait for the Holiday Season ....

I can't wait for the holiday season! So many great things are coming out, Assasin's Creed 2, Lego Rockband, and coming out this month alone are Need for Speed Shift, Brutal Legend, and Uncharted 2. I played both demos for Brutal Legend and Need for Speed Shift recently and I am very impressed by both of them. Now don't get me wrong, I know Brutal Legend is in no way going to win game of the year, but it is a great game if you like blood, gore, Jack Black, and hilarious one-liners. Graphics are nothing special but still capture the story quite well. Gameplay is great with simple button combos for combat, switching between range attacks with the guitar and melee attacks with the axe. Jack Black makes for a great hero to this game and is non stop with the quick one-liners. This game is a definate play all the way in my book.

Need for Speed Shift is finally the revamping that the franchise needed. Amazing details in the cockpit view putting you in the driver seat of real vehicles with real specs, no more going 200 miles an hour in a honda civic that you upgraded to the extreme. Realalistic drivng feel and road conditions, the only down fall is the graphics with damage done to the vehicles is a little boxy. This game has pushed racing to the edge without going over.

Last thing, if you are a fan of the music genre of games then Lego Rockband is coming out December 12. A great family addition to the group of Rockbands already out that mixes the fun and great song selection of Rockband with the comicial view of lego people playing the music and going crazy in the crowd. Queen, Blink 182, and Pink are just some of the artist listed out of the full song list posted on 1up.com. This shows the mix of songs for everybody in the family. Also before I forget, Playstation has started their own blog at blog.us.playstation.com. Check it out for up to date info on new games and previews. I will also add it to my link list for future reference.

Fun for all ...

This post is more of a question than anything else. The question I pose to you all is, do you have trouble getting your significant other to share your passion for gaming? I have had an issue getting my wife to play for years, playing against AI does get boring after all. I have found that if its a woman you are trying to get involved then the best types of games are fighting games, racing games, and party games. Games like Tekken or Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, the Need for Speed franchise, and the Mario Party games are among the most popular. If your boyfriend or husband doesn't want to play then I would question their manhood ... just kidding! For male's fighting, sports, and shooters are a sure bet. Share with all of us your stories of triumph or defeat of getting someone to play with you.

The Fall of a Prince

One of my favorite genres of games has got to be platform/adventure and puzzle solving. For years, Ubisoft and the Prince of Persia franchise has been at the top of that genre and have never disappointed me... until now. I have had Prince of Persia for the PS3 for some time now and I have beaten it and its exclusive downloadable content. This Prince of Persia is a new installment that has a new prince, a new world, and a new enemy. You start playing the game as the no-named Prince who runs into a princess that is running away from some persuers. This leads you into a quick tutorial on movement and combat and leads you directly into the story line, the princess, Elika, is a survivor of a group of people who believe in a god named Ormazd and defeated a dark god named Ahriman. Now Ahriman is getting revenge and its up to the Prince and Elika to stop him. The story is pretty basic and easy to understand, but the background of the first war and everything else is given in the game pamphlet and not in the actual game. There is an option during game play to speak to Elika to get new information on the story and on the background of both the Prince and her, but its gets redundent at some points and annoying at others. Actual gameplay is fun, you can still wall run and climb, and the new combat system had great potential but I believe was squandered on this game. Combat was very boring with high emphasis on counters and button timing, hard to do when you are blocking attacks and trying to counter right when a button press side mission comes up. As the game progresses, there are no upgrades or new weapons as in other installments, which leads to a lack of accomplishment during the game. Elika is actually very helpful during game play because everytime the Prince makes a mistake as like jumping to no where or getting knocked off of a platform, she rescues him with her magic and can also give hints on where to go next. The new team aspect of the game is actaully nice, during combat Elika can attack and help the Prince defeat the enemy. She can also provide a double jump move which allows the Prince to reach far away areas, as as mentioned before she protects the Prince from dying just like the Sands of Time did for the other titles. Now don't get me wrong, this game was pretty fun at the beginning and half way through the story, but it never gave that extra effort like other Prince of Persia titles. The actual story ends in a to be continued fashion, which left me on the edge of my seat and imediatly shelling out the 10 bucks for the downloadable content. Playing the extra level added to the story and was more of a prelude and didn't close the story, but instead left you with more questions. Graphics were by far one of the most compelling I have ever seen on the PS3, but all in all this game was more as a casual rent than a must own. I want to play the sequel to see how the story ends, but unless Ubisoft can step up the franchise, I will probably rent it then actually buy it. This game had great potential, but I think Ubisoft wanted to branch so far away from the first three installments of the title that they lost what made the franchise great. Here are some screen shots of the game courtesy of ign.com.