After returning from our "last hurrah before baby number 2 cruise", my wife and I went to see if we could get new cell phones, since our Nokia 6820's just weren't cutting it anymore. Luckily, even though we were originally AT&T Wireless customers, they were bought out by Cingular, so we were in reality Cingular customers now, and they finally had a mechanism in place to transfer customers to new phones and plans without penalty (and of course keeping the same phone number). Also, now was a good time since the company I work for, Volt, has a corporate deal with them for minor discounts.

Several people are asking about the blogging features here at Armchair Arcade. Basically, the way we've been talking about this site is that most of the interaction will consist of comments on blogs and articles (once we get the issues up). Things are running a bit slowly during this beta phase, but we plan to have at least one new blog post up per day (probably two or three once things get rolling). Since we knew there would be lots of demand for a general chit-chat area, we decided to include forums on the new site. If you just want to talk informally about something unrelated to a blog post, the forums are ideal.

Playing : have got back into Mario Kart 64 - never did win all the cups - well, during the week I finally won gold in all cups at 150cc and just won gold today in Mushroom Cup Mirror/Extra mode. Holy God though : Toad's Turnpike (Flower Cup) is a nightmare in mirror mode - racing against the flow of traffic!

Developing : trying to get myself to move on my Super Robot sequel (107 downloads from www.codersworkship.com !!!) in Blitz Basic, and a new super improved version of Video Poker in Visual Basic 6) I'm coding too much in work at the moment , so I can't face it when I get home.

I see that this site was started back around the March 2006 timeframe, at least from looking at the first blogs. Where is everybody now? Not much happening at the old site. I see a couple of you are on vacation.

Also, what games are you playing and have you finished any recently? Here's my list:

Playing, heavy rotation:

DS:
Super Mario World
Metroid Prime, Hunters
Castlevania, Dawn of Sorrow

I had some time tonight to update the downloads on my Xbox 360 with the latest demos and Xbox Live Arcade stuff. Three games in particular that I got to try were "Test Drive Unlimited", "Ridge Racer 6" and "Blazing Angels: Squadrons of Doom". Only one truly stood out, and from the title of this posting, I think you can figure out which one...

With E3 long past and all the data readily available and no doubt already devoured by those reading this right now, I thought it would be a good time to make some of my thoughts surrounding Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PS3, as well as the GameTap service for the PC, known. (all my thoughts of course are US-centric)

Nintendo Wii Controller and AttachmentAnyway, whether the Wii - and yes, I still believe the name is a poor one and an unecessary liability - releases at $199 or $249, it should still come in at a good value in comparison to the high end $399 version of the Xbox 360 and the high end $599 version of the PS3. At the same time, the high end Microsoft and Sony systems are high quality multimedia centers, whereas the Wii is not. For many, this is not a factor, as they just want a game system, but I believe the higher prices - anywhere from $200 to $400 - are still justified, particularly as they're the only consoles to offer hi-definition gaming. Nintendo really has made a clear distinction with their direction, as have Microsoft and Sony with their hardware decisions. (and again, don't use the videogames are for kids argument with me, as a kid can't afford $200+ any more than one could afford $400+; don't forget, the average gamer age is now 33 and rises EVERY YEAR)

After getting tired of creating and re-creating "Favorites" in my Web browsers and/or generally overpopulating them and making things messy to the point of poor usability over the years, a while back I began collecting videogame and computer store links - which I've been posting on the classic Armchair Arcade already - and system-specific links - which I have yet to post anywhere. The "store" links still need to be categorized, while the system-specific links still need to be fleshed out (to put both mildly). However, I thought I would share as-is for now in case anyone was interested in clicking around in their raw states. At some point, as I'm able to expand these into what I want, I suspect they'll be incredibly useful and perhaps I can do something more imaginative with them.

SYSTEMS:

Apple Macintosh

Please enjoy this free game, courtesy of Neave Games and Armchair Arcade. Special offers.