All about some Xbox 360

So I missed out on E3 this year, I'll admit that did suck just a little. It really wasn't my fault though. The ESA didn't send me my invitation to E3 until 7/1, yes that's two weeks before the event itself. Problem was that by that time it was too close to make the arrangements, and to be honest I had other personal obligations by that point. While I did miss a lot by not being there, it didn't sound like E3 was that great. Hopefully this isn't the last one, I'd like to be at the last one for some odd reason so maybe that will be next year. Onto the future, and the future is PAX. That's coming up soon, it's just a little more than a month away now. I hoping it will be better than last year, even though last year was awesome. The one thing is that the role of media at PAX is a bit hard to define. With E3 just one before it's hard to know what's expected of us and how companies feel about our presence. Some seem to not really care in fact, but with the convention growing every year and E3 declining I'm hopeful. I guess I'll just have to wait and see, either way it's fun. Great chance to see the friends I only see a few times per year, or once a year in some cases. Oh well, see ya there.

As if not blogging since PAX wasn't pathetic enough, I finally reached over 10,000 for my gamerscore.  I'll admit, I have earned more than this across multiple profiles, but it's still nothing impressive.  I'm just finally happy that I made my main account hit the five figure mark.  I guess a lot of it had to do with my Fight Night Round 3 addiction.  I wasn't getting any achievements because I've been playing the same game over and over.  Oh well, it's finally, time to nap.

First of all I see that there are new people subscribing to the RSS feed of my blog.  I assume you're new, or you realized I was blogging again, so welcome or welcome back.

We've all come down from that beautiful natural high we experienced at PAX.  I know I can't be the only one missing it, but in some ways it's nice to be home.  The harmony and good nature of the event and community are really hard to understand if you weren't there, but trust me when I tell you it was beautiful in a way.  Instant friendships were forged, and there was just this general understanding that we were all there for the same thing and it brought everyone together.  So if you're like me and feeling a little less than thrilled to be back at work then maybe I can help cheer you up with a few cool items.

Halo 3, oh how we love you.  The release of Halo 3 is around 4 weeks away, that's got to get you pumped.  How can that not excite you?  If four weeks is too far into the future to look then how about this?  Blue Dragon is released this week, I'm no RPG fan but for those who are this is a huge title.  If you haven't already please go download the demo and see for yourself.  Finally the Call of Duty 4 public beta sign ups went down, now you too can get in on the fun.  If you get your token look for me, I'll be playing that this week since last week's gaming got cut short by my travels.

Just a friendly reminder, the Community Gamerpics are available for free download on Xbox Live Marketplace.  You can choose the logo from one of six Gamercast Network shows or the Gamerscoreblog logo.  Please download and use the pics.  While it's great for us to be the first community content on marketplace I'd hate to be the only.  The success of this venture will determine what is done in the future.  Sorry if the blog was short, or not all that interesting, I'm trying to ease into this non-PAX blogging thing.  

I think the title really says it all.  PAX was and is all about the community.  I did more community networking at this event than posting on forums and going to other events could do in years.  The thing is, there's just this understood bond between Xbox community members.  I met Kikikat my first night at PAX, I'd seen her on the forums for years, yet she didn't know me at all.  However after 15 minutes we were like old friends.  The same went for Ooopy and Syn, it was just a thing of beauty to see the community come together in the way it did for PAX.  This even relates to Xbox employees.

I had an awesome time with the Xbox team.  First of all the Marketing Team continued to be awesome.  John was just there for us, Tony kept us up to date on things, Chris was there on all levels, and Sara was just Sara and awesome.  I love those folks, they may work for one the largest corporations around, but they get it.  Then there's Trixie, now I get how KP is her little helper monkey.  She's just so much fun, and you want to be a part of that silliness.  Throughout PAX I let Trixie put a pink tiara on me, make me makeshift pink dress, put lip glopss on me (which I wasn't so willing to do but it was funny at the end of the day), and allowed her to pretend to beat me and actually twist me nipple on cam for the GSB peoples.   It's like not matter who from I meert from the Xbox team they end up being just what they seem to be.  However I have to give Trixie special mention for just being so silly and so much fun.  The few moments of just being goofy were equal to in memorability to the curious looks that Diva gave me.  I'm almost forced to say that Gamerchix rock. 

As for the rest of the community, damn, it was great.  It's just flattering to have influential community members, and Xbox employees, know who I am.  On day one I had about five people ask me if I had seen Knuckles Dawson.  Why they thought I knew where he was I don't know, must be our mutual investment in the world of Xbox.  But then when when I saw Knuckles, for probably the thrid time, at PAX he stopped me and was like "Feelz Good, What's up?"  This and other events just prove that Xbox Live really is a community.

Shouts outs to the following, and if I miss your name or site please correct me:  Tony, Chris, John, Sara, Trixie, Kiki, Forsakeme4all, Knuckles, DaKing240, Avid X, GodfatherX,  All Games, Carpal and the crew, Chrissylas306 (I only talked to you  little but we're connected, Twitter friends 4life), Syn, Ooopy, Drea, Dave, Morgon, Zack, Harmonix (you rocked at E3 and PAX), Eidos (Kane & Lynch looks cool, and you were so cool)  D3 Publisher America (you've been good to us, and Dark Sector looks awesome), Natalie from Achievement Junkie (just because I met you and you're real, Nelson is the man too) JVB and Vicious (cuz you're stupid and didn't come), Gamercastnetwork.com, Sarcasticgamer.com, UncleGamer.com, VGS.org, Podtacular.com, damn I know I'm missing people.  Bobby Blackwolf, Obey, Joystiq, GayGamer, hell even the Frag Dolls.  Special shout out to Bioware for the Mass Effect demo, but the demo at E3 was way better.  I'm a part time Krogan Battle Master. HAHA.  To any I missed I'm so sorry, because I love the whole event and I love everyone I met.  Oh, special props to Randy Kouture for kicking butt at age 44, you're holding it down homie.  I really want to see you got at it with Krokop or Fedor, like you or anyone even connected to MMA will ever see this...

Peace and love to all, look for more PAX stuff later, time to get into travel mode.  Also this isn't the end of my blog, it's the rebirth.  I'll continue to update post-PAX with just generally crazy gaming related things.  I like it like that.  Oh, and shout to Heather Paladino for being just as much of a smartass in person as she is on the GCN forums.  It was cool to meet you Mrs CPal. 

To be honest, I didn't do much in terms of playing games today.  Most of the games at PAX I've played at E3.  If you really have questions feel free to ask me on Windows Live Messenger, email is galaxaphonic@aol.com.  This whole event has been all about networking and meeting community folks.

I woke up very late as I said today, I had way too much fun the night before.  I had a good amount of fun tonight as well so it follows suit.  I was on the show floor, Godfree and Tom got to meet with Gametrailers so that was awesome.  There was also the panel on podcasting and blogging that Godfree was on and he held it down.  While I wish I could've been up there, since I'm so into the podcasting community, Godfree did a damn good job at representing us all, friend or foe.

Sadly, today for me was all about UFC 74.  I'm a huge MMA fan, did martial arts all my life, even competed in 4 non-professional mma fights.  I hate it, don't worry, not a time to sing my own praises, I sucked.  However I was able to find someone to watch the fights with me. Obey from the GCN forums wanted to see it so we met up and did that.  After the fights we still hung out and had some good times.  Drinks were consumed, crazy fun times happened, and it was great.  Gotta give a shout out to Obey, cuz it was awesome.

Tomorrow is the day I've gotta get to work and cover games.  The first day we did some interviews, but yesterday we didn't do much, even though Godfree did hold it down and get there on time.  I was late, sorry, I like to party when the chance presents itself.  So you can look for lots of interviews coming up from GTR, because while I love to enjoy these events it is work.  I might not get payed, or get recognized (Gofree is the face of GTR, rock on you internet celeb) it's what I do and love.  I love to bring any info I can to the community.  The thing is that at the end of the day, I'm just a community member like anyone else.  Sure I may qualify as media and press, but I'm no different than you.  I just love the fact that I get a chance to deliver info to people from that perspective.  It's all about the gaming community, MS gets it, EA gets it, Activisions gets is, but more importantly I get it.  I do what I do for people like me. Not to appease companies, get my name out there and be recognized, or to be some internet celebrity.  For me, it's all about the community.  You're/I am the people that matter, and nothing will change that..

I knew the background story to this game before I ever played it, and the story alone is enticing.  I have to say if you're a graphics whore then this game probably isn't for you.  The graphics are on par and all, but for a game that's been in development for as long as K&L has I'd expect more.  Although in all honest the gameplay might make up for that.

The thing about K&L is that the gameplay really does seem to mesh together what shooters have become.  You're either a run and gun kind of guy/girl or you're in the tactical side of things.  While the run&gun strategy does prove to be effective with K&L, it's not the only aspect.  Sure, the developer wants to bill the game as the perfect melding of the two world of shooters, but it's not.  The two aforementioned strategies are imortant, but it's not quite perfect.  However it is a lot closer to perfect than we're seen in the past.  The game can draw in the "I want to kill people" shooter fan and the "let's have this person go here and the other two go there to flank their squad" gamer. 

As per usual, I hate to judge a game off of build, and thus I won't.  Thought I will say if you favor graphics over gameplay then Kane and Lynch might not be you game.  The thing is, it is a balance between tactics and run and gun games.  That's what they're going for and they achieved it.  The only thing is it could've been done better, but K&L is definitely a step in the right direction for shooters.