An Excellent Christmas!

I've mentioned before that "Phyllick Delucian" is a name bastardized from an actual friend of mine. This person, our group's DM, moved a couple of years ago, as did many of the DnD players I gamed with many years.

For reasons I don't entirely fathom, this person and several members of the gaming group came together and bought me a new XBox 360 Elite for Christmas! Apparently they all chipped in, and then shipped it to my wife before Christmas day. You can't imagine my surprise when I opened the box and saw what was inside.

Just goes to show that you can forge lasting friendships with excellent (and generous) folks while rolling funny shaped dice. I love this game, but it wouldn't be half as enjoyable as it is if it were not for the people I get to play with (including the fine folks here).

~ S'vair

PS When I get my hands on Batman: Arkham Asylum, I might disappear for a while :-)

Congrats! I have heard that Batman is a *sick* game.

Dont forget to check out Halo 2 and 3. if you arent a big FPS guy, just rent them.

There are a *ton* of great titles in the 360 library. I Highly recommend The Force Unleashed.

If you do happen to like shooters Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 is excellent. (Call of Duty 4, and Modern Warfare:2 are both excellent from what I hear as well).

Assasin's Creed can get a bit repetitive if you arent a patient, get-into-the-slowly-sneaking-around-to-set-up-the-perfect-kill mood (ok it can still get a little repetitive even if you do, but its not a deal breaker at all) but overall is is an excellent play experience.

Overlord is a campy, but funny RPG where you get to be "evil".

Lego Star Wars is a hoot, especially multiplayer

RPG wise, I havent gone too deep in the 360 library, as I stick mainly to NWN, but I hear Oblivion is decent.

Also, while I dont go on Xbox Live all that frequently, I am usually set to appear offline... but if you like
you can add me to friends, my gamertag is Lomax3277.

I'll be sure to add you when I go live. I tried setting up my Live account, but it was a no go. Time to purchase some cable...

The irony is this: I've done contract work for Microsoft on several 360 titles, and received free copies of the games I contributed to. Not thinking I would be getting a 360 anytime soon, I gave them away to folks who could appreciate them.

I'll be sure to look into those titles. :-)

By the way..... what 360 titles did you work on?

And what type of work did you do?

Oh... and if you havent played Mass Effect.... its $20 bucks.... get it.... and finish it before you play Mass Effect 2.... I implore you. And dont delete your save game from the first game..... you can import your character to the second one ,and choices you made in the first will affect how the second plays out in significant ways.

Bioware just keeps pushing the envelope with their RPGs....

daveyeisley wrote:By the way..... what 360 titles did you work on?

And what type of work did you do?

At Microsoft (contractor): Crackdown, PGR4, and Too Human. Some minor Localization checking for Gears of War. Almost all as grunt QA (test lead, one of many, who tracked bugs and fix implementation, tasked testers, etc..) Nothing really to brag about except having dev machines and HD TVs across my desk to "play games" all day. It was while I was there that I realized that there are some really smart guys in the industry who I wanted to be able to emulate better (hence my return to school).

I'll PM some other things I worked on. Or you could Google my name :-)

Mass Effect: some of my testers were "retasked" to the game from my team temporarily. When I think of ME, I remember the feeling of really wanting those testers back . I'll be sure to pick it up the first one first on your recommendation.

I love Bioware. They're are one of my top 3 favorite game developers.

Well now... not that I didnt respect you before, after some of your dissertations on WotC and the D&D IP, and your testing experiences.... but that does sort of add a new level to it.

Being a "grunt" QA test lead for microsoft might as well be likened to being second string for the team that wins the superbowl... sure, you may not have been on TV or played in many of the games... but yer still a cut above any other second stringers in the entire league just for being on that team.

Now I just really wanna get some beers, some smokes, and BS about the industry for hours on end with ya

daveyeisley wrote:Now I just really wanna get some beers, some smokes, and BS about the industry for hours on end with ya

This is my favorite topic to talk about. I've brought Kaner and Patton books (on QA) to bars before. Sounds like a great evening to me :-)