Been playing a lot of World of WarCraft, leveling up my druid... as well as multiple games on home console systems (UFC, Oblivion, etc). After watching Blizzcon 2009 on PPV, I am very excited about what is to come.

To simplify things... StarCraft 2 looks amazing. Battle.net 2.0 in action is a work of art. I love how you can cross-communicate with people playing World of WarCraft, StarCraft 2, and Diablo 3 from any game at any time. Also love the centralized achievements. Not sure how they will balance that since all WoW characters have their own set of achievements, but I know they will make it work.

WoW Cataclysm is going to change A LOT of things in the world of Azeroth... but I am looking forward to it. WoW is, after all, an MMO and this is something that comes around every few years with pretty much every MMO -- Asheron's Call, EQ1, EQ2, DAoC, so on so forth.

I really wish Blizzard would go back and patch Battle.net 2.0 to work with WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne. That is still a very beautiful title (in graphics) and is played by hundreds of thousands of gamers every single day. Blizzard mentioned that they have no plans to do so, but in the far off future -- they may add all classic games to Bnet 2.0. I guess we will just have to see.

The Monk Diablo 3 class... bad ass. Can't wait to play that game.

That's all for now. Trying to get my hands on a StarCraft 2 beta code...

It's official. Today, EA and Bioware announced the name of their new MMO -- Star Wars: The Old Republic. This game is set 3000 years before the reign of Darth Vader and is said to essentially be a Kotor 3-12ish storyline. http://www.swtor.com has most all of the information.

All I can say is that I am super excited. I can't wait until they announce which races and classes will become available. I may even start up some type of class-specific clan quite early. Depends.

Kotaku has a good bit of info in their live blog.

http://kotaku.com/5066767/lucasarts-massive-reveal-the-liveblog

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo came out today and well, it's truly fucking amazing. Starkiller is a bad ass. So far, I've only downloaded and played it on the PS3, but the 360 demo is in the process of downloading also. I heard it's somehow different as far as the demo storyline. Anyhow, I've been waiting on this game to come out and I'm just glad that the gameplay didn't disappoint me in this demo. From using the force to pickup multiple stormtroopers at once to adding force lightning to my lightsaber -- this is one hell of a good game so far.

Gaming wise, I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty 4 on the PC, Smash Brothers on the Wii, Wii Fit, and Space Siege on PC. I tried to pickup where I left off on Dawn of Mana for PS2... and well, the shitty ass camera angles made me put that game right back on the shelf.

So I read that in Diablo 3, the barbarian is the only class to make a reappearance... which kind of depresses me. I'm sure Blizzard will replace each class with a very similar one though (as they did with the necromancer in adding the Witch Doctor). I can only assume that they will make some type of Mage class to replace the sorceress and possibly a hunter to replace the amazon? I guess we'll HOPEFULLY see something at Blizzcon.

/rant.

Okay. When I was four years old, for my birthday, I received a Nintendo Entertainment System. A year or so later, I received a Sega Genesis. From playing Super Mario Brothers... to Sonic the Hedgehog, Metroid, Zelda, and various other games, I considered myself a gamer. Hell, at that age, for as much as I could play and kick ass at Street Fighter, I would consider myself a hardcore gamer... even before knowing what that was. So yeah, playing virtually anything and everything I can get my hands on, I've loved video games my entire life. I am a gamer and I know gaming.

So yeah, it's year 2007. Tons of great games are coming out. I mean TONs. Enough to really increase the revenue in the video game industry as a whole. So, given this fact, what comes out of this? Some fucking bullshit.

Spike TV's Video Game Awards this year fucking SUCKED ASS. I'm sorry, but they sucked fucking ass. GameCock, I'm sure you'll appreciate me, since you had to apologize to the fuckers for saying the exact same thing... but I agree with you. Not only did the actual VIDEO GAME AWARDS take a backseat to the celebrity drama, celebrity introductions, bands performing... and a few shitty ass new game intros... but it sucked ass. Is this what they think gaming is coming to? Some retarded bitch who has never even played a video game talking about which console she likes best? Some whores dressed up as envelopes to show gaming awards? What the FUCK? I mean... booth babes at the former E3 was one thing (Which got canned)... but envelope whores? God damn. It's just so pathetic that they would host an event... to get gamers across the world to tune in... and then just advertise some other bullshit non-relating to gaming... just because you got everyone to watch. I don't understand it.

Also, five seconds ago I read off Kotaku that Maxim Magazine... had the Top Ten Video Games of the Year. Isn't this a fucking PORNO MAGAZINE!? Porno magazines have writers? I'm new to this shit obviously, but who in the fucking hell has enough intelligence to...

Well, today starts my vacation. That means I have nine days of doing whatever the fuck I want to. And well, nine days of gaming! Super Mario Galaxy comes out Tuesdsay, so I'm super excited about that. But besides that, I have my guild and World of WarCraft to tend to, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Team Fortress 2, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Call of Duty 4 (which I need to pick up), and Hellgate: London (which I also need to pick up).... games out. So many games and so little time. =/

I finished the guild website. www.clanbloodaxe.com.

Um. Let's talk -- more gaming. Gonna go play something.

Well, since I haven't had a lot of time to update, I'll start by saying that I'm pretty much obsessed with World of WarCraft right now. I can't seem to get away from that game to enjoy the finer things in life -- such as beating Bioshock, playing the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Demo, playing Medal of Honor: Airborne, and even playing my 360 or Wii... but no, I'm logging in over 40+ hours a week in World of WarCraft.

So in that note, the guild is doing well. We're still small, but half of us are friends in real life. We even have the manager of the local GameStop store in on it. The guild is Clan Bloodaxe and we're located on the Earthen Ring realm. The Guild Portal website is ClanBloodaxe.com.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars came out yesterday -- so I'm going to pick up my Collector's Edition on Friday. And well, try to play it as much as I can before getting sucked back into the WoW abyss.

A lot of other things has been happening, but since I'm about to get off my lunch break at work, I will have to get back to you.

/rant.

To sum it up, World of WarCraft has been the true addiction of my time recently. Even more so than my daytime job -- since I've taken a little vacation time here and there. My horde guild on the Earthen Ring Realm (Clan Bloodaxe) has been growing well. And my Blood Elf Paladin is as geared up as normal. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Earthen+Ring&n=Varayn

I bought the new Paladin and Priest shirts off of Jinx.com (the Priest for Amanda, of course), and they are pretty sweet ass. Nothing better than having some good ol' real life gear for raiding!

I haven't been able to play through Bioshock as much as I want, so I've been told that in my current condition, I'm about 55% through the game. With my new Ati Radeon HD2900XT coming in Monday, I should be playing it a lot more. Along with the new Enemy Territory: Quake Wars demo and Medal of Honor: Airborne.

Fasastudio, the creator of the multi-platform shooter Shadowrun, closed it's doors yesterday. Although I had a good bit of fun playing the demo on Xbox 360, I could not get the full version of the game to run correctly on my PC. I dominated the system requirements... but for some reason, it just seemed like it was toned down to be slower, so that you could not kick console shooter player's asses.

Well, I have 16 more levels to go before the new World of WarCraft expansion pack comes out. I'm hoping I can get my Pally that high so that I can have the full experience exploring Northrend. Arthas awaits!

/rant

That's pretty much all I can say. I've had Bioshock preordered for some time now... and I was finally able to pick it up Tuesday and play it. The game is amazing as hell, and with my 5.1 surround sound setup, it's even more intense than the demo was on my 360 with my 65" LCD TV. I won't go into any detail at all for those that haven't had a chance to pick it up yet... but all I have to say is... well, expect the unexpected. This game is nothing like I thought it would be... in a very VERY good way.

/rant

Memorial Day weekend. How do I spend it? Gaming like hell. Last night gaming sessions this weekend included: Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Quake 4, and of course, lots of BAWLs. I've won some games, lost some games, and gotten banned from a couple of servers for being a complete asshole (spawn killing for revenge, not listening to the admin when he says no shotguns, etc).

I guess the thing I would be doing right now is playing some Battlefield 2: Special Forces... but you know, for some reason, it's taking a lot longer to install the damn patch than it did to download it. I guess EA still has a thing or two to learn about content distribution. But maybe they will take some pointers from Valve's Steam client software, as it just hit 13 million users.

Well, since this patch finished installing, I guess I'll see how good I am at the game. It's definitely been awhile since I've played, but hell, I'm sure I'll catch back on. Team body guards are the greatest!