Sound Track-Down

A few days ago, i was talking with some of my friends about the music we listened to when we were younger. After a few minutes of talking we quickly came to the realization that shaped our musical taste's of today, came from video games. While at the time we had no idea, games like Tony hawk and Burnout actually played a part in our life while having nothing to do with the game itself. Quickly springing to my computer i began to look through my i-tunes library, and could almost relate 200 songs worth of my favorite music straight to video games i had played before ever hearing of these artists. Just a sample of these songs includes









Alkaline Trio (THPS)
Rise Against ( THPS)
NOFX (THPS)
The Transplants (THPS)
Bad Religion (THPS)
Jimmy Eat World (Burnout)
The Von Bondies (Burnout)
Silent Drive (Burnout)
Bouncing Souls (Burnout)
Atreyu (Burnout)
Fuenral For a friend (Burnout).
These are just a small sample of the artists i have subconsciously discovered due to video games.

What's a MOBA?

Excellent Question! A MOBA is a new, exciting genre of video games that has rapidly grown in popularity over the past few years. MOBA is an acronym for "Massive Online Battle Arena" in which players take on the role of a Top down viewed champion and battle against an opposing army as a general of his own army. With up to 5 players on a team, the goal of each teams general is to push the opposing AI "Creeps" (Computer controlled weak soldiers) through their home base and destroy their castle, while fighting against the enemy teams player controlled general. The game plays out like a much more indepth version of chess, and is heavily focused on teamwork and coordination. Games of this genre include DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) and LOL (League of Legends), Both of which are free to play and extremely addicting to anyone from casual to hardcore gamers alike.

FPS + RPG = ?

For a long time, i feel like game companys have been missing out on a huge opportunity. First person shooters and role playing games have almost always been two seperate entity's that never crossed each others path. With the knowledge that every almost every attempt at an FPSRPG has crashed harder then a 12 year old after a bottle of mountain dew, Double fine studio's had put themselves out on a limb with a game called Borderlands. Borderlands masterfully crams the action and intensity of a first person shooter into the frame of a deep, complex, strategic role playing game. Where games like Planetside (First attempt at FPSRPG) have failed, Borderlands excels with flying colors. By using a loot system, when enemies are killed they drop weapons and items that scale in value just like in RPG's. RPG Dungeon's and raid's are masterfully incorporated so that you and your 4 online friends can attempt to grab some rare gear from the difficult dungeon bosses. Borderlands has over a million different weapons, (A MILLION DIFFERENT WEAPONS!!!!) so that a player will never pick up the same gun twice. Borderlands is a must have game for any fan of either genre.

Its all about the hype!

When it comes to gaming, anticipation is half the draw. Game companys hype their games up so much that some players might chew their arm off with excitement before the game comes out. In some circumstances, games that may not neccesarily be any good will be a huge selling sucess if they hype is done right, and if the game happens to be done right the sucess is almost instantly doubled. My current "chew my arm off in excitement game" is none other then "Call of duty Modern Warfare 2".

Bieng an avid player of the prequel, Modern warfare 2 was automatically on my buy the first day list. At E3 (Electronics Expo) a trailer of the game was released, and after watching it at least 45 times my jaw still remained on the floor. Company's that can deliver and experience of the game without ever playing it is a huge leg up in selling games and gaining popularity without ever releasing a game.

The Best Video Game Of All Time

Im a gamer to say the least, having held a controller before i could ride a bicycle (i learned how to ride a bike at the age of 4) im happy to say ive plowed through my fair share of video games. Some games would last me 30 minutes, while others would keep my interested for years. While some people dispute that the classic games (such as mario, donkey kong, etc.) are the best ones, due to their simple yet addictive nature are the best, i have a very strong reason to disagree. In the world we live in now, technology in video games is astonishing with features like graphics so real that you could swear you were sitting two feet away. Amongst the games that have held my attention for years, there is one in particular that as hard as i try to get away from it, and believe me... i try, i just cant help but stop playing the game. This game is called "World of Warcraft". In the game of world of warcraft, you create a charecter in a fictional world divided by two factions, "The Alliance" and "The Horde". Upon entering the game, you choose a faction to play, level up your charecter, recieve items and weapons, and fight against your rival factions with thousands of other people playing along side you. The game has 7 different classes to choose from with 5 unique races per faction, the possibilities are endless when choosing a charecter to create. With its astonishing graphics, complex and challenging pvp (player vs player) system, and over all fun and addicting nature, it really lets you dive into your charecter, and the story, making you feel apart of this fictional world. Having played this game on and off for 6 years, i have to say that it has been one of the most addicting games i have ever had the pleasure of playing in my life. With over 11 million people subscribed to the game and winning over 4 game of the year awards spread out through its 3 expansion packs i cant find any other game that competes with world of warcraft for the best game of all time. Just for fun ive linked a video to show you some of the things the game allows you to do with your charecter
World of warcraft Dancing Video

Chrismtas Gradification

With christmas around the bend, paintball players world wide should be hitting the internet to see the latest gear to grab for their list to santa. As for me, the previously stated empire magna drive will definately be one of them. For others looking for some great buys this season, i have a few suggestions in store for yah. The first thing id like to point players attention to, is the Proto matrix rail, recently droped in price from 400$ to 275$. Although it is the lower form of its more powerful predecessor, (the proto matrix 8) it still lays out some impressive paint. Also the price of halo B belt driven hoppers has decreased from 130 to 90$, so if this season u were thinking about getting into the sport of torunament paintball, do it now. With the multitude of christmas sales ive seen at action village, a total gun package for a mid level gun package, would only cost around 500$. So visit www.actionvillage.com this christmas, and make a hefty list, because we all need a little christmas gradification.

Attention to Detail

Empire Magna Drive paintball loader
Uploaded by paintball

Having just purchased a new gun, the desire to upgrade some more (for all paintballers) is way to great to resist. Having heard alot about the new empire magna drive hopper, i had to dig around and see if the product lived up to all its hype. After watching this video, i quickly found out that this new hopper is definately going on the christmas list this year. ^_^