Yay!

The blog gets some life.  Aside from changing the original blog name, I figured even though I enjoy Twitter, the post limitations left me with no option but to spill my verbose diatribes into another medium.  Alas, "TweetAnnex" is born. - Welcome.

So what occupies my thoughts right now?

1vs100 LIVE (XBL)
It's been a few weeks, and I do miss playing 1vs100 LIVE.  The game was great, yes, but I miss the interaction I had with my party of friends.  The 2 hours were fun to play solo, but, with friends - there's just no comparison.  I miss those good times.  The hours just flew.

One of my best moments was playing and chatting with one of the 1vs100 devs.  Poor soul, I kept rambling on how great the game was, how the team did a great job, and so forth, and he probably felt extremely uncomfortable - we never played a session again! LOL....  Ah, but such is how it is.

This game really exposed how community and fans and developers can intermingle and I'm hoping this concept takes off.  We're not just clients and cash cows.  We're people that enjoy your game offerings.

By the same token, this game showed me that devs aren't usually people locked up in offices programming all day being non-social.  Lots of things learned and misconceptions tossed aside.

What 1vs100 fan wouldn't want this?

1vs100 returns this winter.  Time to brush up on trivia, and new jokes!

DiRT 2
What can I say?  Codemasters hit it right on the nose.  Enjoying this game immensely and it's simply surreal how realistic, fluid and engaging game play can be. For the first time in a while, I'm really taking my time absorbing all the game has to offer.  No rushing needed or required.  DiRT2 is a gem and deserves quality time spent to experience it all.

Frankly, I was surprised with this game, and I'm glad it's part of my gaming library.

So, what now?
Well, as the blog title says..  this blog serves as an extension of tweets.  Frequent postings aren't guaranteed, but should a particular tweet tangent need embellishment - check here!

Thanks for reading, and hope you visit often.

Oh ya, to those that celebrate it.  Happy 16 de Septiembre.

Split / Second E3 2009 Trailer

Again - one word... Drroooool....

Happy Goat: The Internet catches up to you!

So, it's around 1994-1995 or so, and the Atari Jaguar has been released. Arguably, the one game everyone remembers when someone mutters Atari Jaguar is Tempest 2000, aka T2K.

Along with the intense graphics (hey, for the time, they were incredible), and gameplay, was the screaming soundtrack compliments of Imagitec Design.

These tracks are MOD files. I then come across a DOS-based (remember DOS?) mod player... Add a mini-disc player/recorder because I couldn't record audio directly to wav/mp3 on my system via DOS. Mix the track in realtime! Playback the minidisc to record an audio file via line-in on my system. Email to a friend of mine running an Atari Jaguar related website ... and many, many years later -- it shows up on YouTube!

What's this? Good news for video games?

Action Video Games Improve Vision

According to a Livescience study.

Players became up to 58 percent better at perceiving fine contrast differences in the tests.

"If you are driving at dusk with light fog it could make the difference between seeing the car in front of you or not seeing it," study leader Daphne Bavelier told LiveScience.

The ability to discern slight differences in shades of gray, or contrast sensitivity, is the primary limiting factor in how well one sees, said Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester.

"Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery-somehow changing the optics of the eye," she said. "But we've found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."

Link to the entire article.

Oh yeah!! 'Nuff said!