The videogame love-hate relationship blog post

Firstly, the long-anticipated PS3 title LittleBigPlanet. Ever since I saw the trailer for this game, the kids and I have been stoked about getting it. We worked out how to play that cute little recorder song on the piano, we debated where to pre-order it and whether we'd thus get a Nariko costume or a Kratos costume for our future Sackpeople. Ultimately, the reason I got a PS3 was twofold: Blu-Ray playback and LittleBigPlanet.

And now it's here. And it's just as cute as it looked, and is just as wildly creative as promised.

And it is also hard as hell.

I'm currently stuck on the Frida level in South America. I have no idea how I will ever get past this level, let alone how my kids will ever get past this level. Luckily, it's not just that I'm a lame-ass gamer (which I will admit that I am), I've seen other posts with people having similar problems with the looseness of the Sackboy controls and the difficulty of some of the story mode levels.

Hey, but that's OK, right? There's always the user-created levels! This would be a valid option--IF the servers were running consistently. It was impossible to get online last night. The one night I was able to get online, performance was spotty. I know it's a massive title, but it's not like there's 50 million PS3s out there. It's running third to the Wii and the 360 in current-generation installed base. Get the servers online! (Apparently another PS3 game, SOCOM, is having even worse server issues.)

People can (and do) complain about having to pay Microsoft for Xbox Live Gold membership, but when Halo 3 shipped, you could get online and play the friggin' game. When Gears 2 ships in a couple of weeks, you'll be able to get online and play the friggin' game. You get what you pay for.

Oh, and by the way, in that previous paragraph, when I say "you'll be able to get online," I literally mean you and not me. Because as previously posted, my stupid 360 is in its stupid free UPS shipping box on its way to stupid Texas to get stupidly repaired/replaced for the second stupid time. So you'll be playing Gears 2 in a couple weeks, but I'll still be waiting for my third 360. Grrr. Like I said, love-hate.

Three movie reviews

I will list them chronologically, which will also order them in ascending positive review points:

* High School Musical 3: Yes, if you didn't know it before, you know it now, I am the father of a tween girl. There was more entertainment value listening to the reactions of all the tween girls in the audience during key scenes: when Troy and Gabriella almost kiss, when Troy takes off his shirt, when Troy and Gabriella almost kiss again, when Troy and Gabriella finally do kiss already. The movie itself? Production values are way higher than previous iterations, but the songs were less memorable. A few good dance routines (the opening game, Sharpay and Ryan's big Broadway number), but other than that, as the tweens would say, whatevs.

* Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: Wanted to watch something with the kids, I wanted to order it in high-def over my Xbox 360, so Bill & Ted it was. The kids enjoyed it, and it's a guilty pleasure to watch. The effects are pretty lame when you see it 20 years down the road. Personally, Jane Wiedlin was always my favorite Go-Go's member, so it's always fun seeing her as Joan of Arc. And the time travel conundrums were a good lead-in to...

* Primer: OK, I know I'm late to the party on this one... it apparently won a Sundance festival prize in 2004, so it's been out there for four years. I think I saw it mentioned on a list of movies that cost virtually nothing to make (this cost $7K), and it reminded me to add it to the Netflix queue. As implied in the paragraph above, it's a time travel movie. I really liked it--there was very believable techie dialog at the beginning, they did a great job of shooting on (I assume) digital video to make it look like film (edit: nope, shot on Super16!), and it really made you concentrate on what was going on towards the end. Oh, and it's short at 74 minutes, so practically a single treadmill session! I'm still not sure I followed it all that well, but better that than being spoon-fed like in most films. (That whole "golden compass" thing in The Golden Compass still rankles.) So if you've never seen this film, go watch it. I think you can even watch it for free in its entirety on (what's left of) Google Video--here is the link--or you can watch it streaming from Netflix if you are so equipped.

The OLD Xbox Experience

Yes, there's lots of talk about the New Xbox Experience coming in November from Microsoft. Avatars, Netflix movies, disc installs to hard drive, yada yada yada.

I'm currently reliving the OLD Xbox Experience. Namely, last night while trying to get through Rock Band 2's Impossible Guitar Challenge, my 360 froze up. Right in the middle of "Bodhisattva" by Steely Dan. Tried to power down and back up? Red ring.

Tried it again today: this time it froze in the middle of "Ramblin' Man" by The Allman Brothers Band. Power cycle. Red ring.

Yep, system is going back for repair or replacement yet again. Last year it was right before Halo 3 launched. This year, it's two weeks from Gears of War 2's launch. Isn't that just precious?

At least this time I have LittleBigPlanet to occupy my time while it's gone for repair.

Political one-liner of the day

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan: "Joe the Plumber has now had more press conferences than Sarah Palin."

Gotta spend it somehow

Obama's campaign is so flush with money that it's probably going to have a hard time spending it all between now and the election. I saw that they were buying a half-hour block of prime-time network time on all three channels, which will run a cool two million bucks.

And then I saw this post from Kotaku, where the campaign has purchased virtual billboards in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise (see left).

There you go, politics and videogames. Perfect for an inside-the-Beltway video game fan.

ATM (late) recap

Haven't had a chance to post this week (being out nearly the entire previous week of work will do that to you), but wanted to mention my better half's awesome performance at last Sunday's Army Ten Miler. She beat me and placed in the top 10% of her age/gender class.

I didn't train for this one and it showed... was struggling to keep up with 8:30 miles. It was a bit too warm, too, but that's no excuse. Just gotta do those long weekend runs out where there are actual hills.

Maria is lobbying to do our crazy "half-marathon one week, 10 miler the next week" thing again. Yipes.