Last night I went to the Burning Crusade launch in Sunnyvale, and I took some video. Thanks again to Dan, and the crew from the PC Gamer podcast, who wonderfully gave me a ride to and from. I’m not sure what’s up with the weird syncing issue here with the audio - it sounds and looks fine in the original. If you have any idea why, let me know!

I’m editing my unboxing vid of the Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition. All done! Check it out below. I should be installing it, but instead I’ve spent all night videotaping it. Hope you like them!

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These colorful little piñatas have done a lot to keep my mind off of things lately. The game, for the XBox 360, reminds me a lot of Animal Crossing for the Nintendo DS. You’re in charge of tending a garden, and your actions determine which colorful characters take up residence. Hours and hours of limitless possibilities. Believe me… hours and hours and hours.

The object of every piñata’s life is to be sent away to a birthday party. It’s their highest honor (a little morbid, yes, but things are a lot different on Piñata Island) and your often asked to pack up a couple to send on their way. It’s all very PG: you don’t mate the piñatas, you “romance” them. If one is acting up, you simply whack him a few times with a shovel.

Not to mention that this game is achievement gold. I’m racking up the ‘ol gamer score!
Yep. This is all I can do. It’s better than real life, I swear.

Image courtesy of Joystiq.

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I can’t feel my arms.

As some of you may know from Engadget’s coverage, there are currently a lot of consoles in my house. In the past few days I’ve played a lot of new games, moved some muscles that aren’t used to that much commotion, had some dreams shattered, and gave myself a quasi-permanent eyestrain problem. A quick rundown:

The Xbox 360: I’ve surprised myself by how the Xbox continues to impress me. We’ve had it around forever, but I never really got into playing. That is, until we got Gears of War. Can someone say “most awesome game ever?” How about I do it for you. I think what makes this game so much more fun that other shooters is that you have to be slick about it. You can’t just go running around and blasting away. You have to be stealthy. It’s so much more fulfilling to sneak up on some Locust and chainsaw them in the back. Or face. Whatever.

In fact, I enjoyed this game so much that I decided to purchase a Gold account so I can play online. That was fun, too, except for when one dude told me to shut up. No, buddy, YOU shut up. If it weren’t for me the Cogs would’ve pwnd your butts all over the map. Humph.

The PS3: It’s really pretty. Genji is absolutely beautiful, but not all that fun. I probably shouldn’t judge it too much, because I didn’t actually play it for longer than 10 minutes. I need to see some more fun games, PS3. Get on it.

The Nintendo Wii: /cry. Wii Sports is fun, for the first 30 minutes or so. And then you’re like “OK, let’s move on to something a little more challenging.” Making a Mii avatar was cute, but there’s not all that much novelty there. I had very high hopes for Zelda, and I still do. The graphics aren’t where I expected them to be, even without HD. I got used to the gameplay of Zelda pretty quickly, but the story moves slow (initially, I haven’t left the village yet). Yeah, after an hour of playing I was just leaving the village and fighting some kobold-like dudes. It’s great to fight with the combination of the Wiimote and the nunchuk, but DAMN! My arms actually started hurting! I mentioned that on the podcast, but it’s even more true after a few hours of Wii-ing. Wii-ing? Oh, that’s terrible.

World of Warcraft: Even with all of these consoles around, I probably spent the most time this weekend in WoW. I went up two levels, to 55, and so now I’m even closer to making it to 60 before the Burning Crusade comes out. I’ve been listening into my guild’s MC runs over Vent, so I can get a feel for what it’s like to be in one of the major raids. It’s such a huge time investment, but since I’m looking forward to endgame content it seems worth it right now. I hope I feel that when when it’s all said and done.

Image courtesy of Engadget

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So I usually keep my World of Warcraft musings isolated on Metroblogging Azeroth, but I’m so excited about this latest development that I can’t help posting it here too. Go check it out!

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