In the few moments I’ve had in the past two days that haven’t been spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV, I’ve done my best to 1) Watch the Red Wings suffocate the Avalanche, keep my colonies up and running, and get psyched about the super awesome, deep and challenging tracklist for Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS. And that’s a complete lie.

Smashmouth…Rick Springfield…Maroon 5?!!?!?!?!?!? OMGWTFBBQLOL! I’m just…I’m honestly out of words for this one; I’m not sure how the ball could’ve been dropped so badly on this title. It’s gone from its usually rock-oriented to pure pop-rock guilty pleasures. Not to mention there’s only 15 songs in this little beast of a game — can we say rip-off?!

How many days will it take for Jack Thompson to find a way to legally attack our beloved video game industry once again, now that GTAIV is out.

I’m putting the line at 10 business days.  Are you taking the over or the under?

“Drought” would probably be the best way to describe the flow of games onto the retail shelves, but this week that changes.

The latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise will makes it’s way into retailers this week.

For nostalgia, I dialed in the “Way Back” machine and threw GTA2 onto my computer.  I remember as a kid all of the drama surrounding it and violent it was.  Looking at the lastest installment, it makes me smile and want to give a giant middle finger to Jackie T.

I know it’s a childish reaction on my part, but I’m growing increasingly tired of games being the scapegoat for societies troubles.  News on the inevitable ‘Thompson Tirade’ to come.

Everyone pretty much knows that I’m a huge advocate of Call of Duty 4.  Usually video games go one of three ways:

1. I’ll play it, think it’s crap, and never let it see the light of day again. (Superman Returns, just couldn’t get into it)
2. I’ll play it, become obsessed with pwning the shit out of it, and beat it in less than one business week. (BioShock)
3. I’ll start to play the single player, say “Screw that Noise”, start to play the multiplayer, and never take it out of the console tray again. (Halo 2 & 3, CoD4)

What games have dominated your console?

Situations like this happen a little more than ’sometimes’ — where a AAA title is just, at this point, days away from release, and the only games that are coming out are, well, nothing to really write about (I will like them, however. But that’s purely for your reading pleasure).

In fact, the only decent console release came out in the middle of March. Sure, some releases have dropped on portables (Crisis Core and The World Ends With You) since then, but largely, the biggest console title recently out was…Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Sure, the PC has seen its fair share of ports, Assassin’s Creed, Turok and Vegas 2, but those aren’t originals.

So, what’s a gamer to do in, what I like to call ‘the calm before the storm?’ I do my best to drudge up games I unfortunately passed when they came out and give them the time they deserve. Since I’ve lost my copies of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, I decided to dust off Beyond Good & Evil and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Granted, there’s going to be little chance in hell of actually finishing these games before Midnight on Tuesday AM, but there’s enough there to occupy my time. At some point, I’m going to play Psychonauts and beat that…I’ve been telling myself that for a few years now since I got it.

Some day it’ll come true.

What do you, my faithful readers, do to occupy your time before a big-name release? Sometimes this phenomenon happens with movies as well as games…any advice you can pass on to others? Myself? What about some low-key titles that I should look into when I get bored? I’m always looking for a great game to play.

Not only does Grand Theft Auto IV come out, but so does Windows XP Service Pack 3!

This may surprise some of our more intrepid readers, as I have garnered myself a reputation for being a Vista supporter one of the few who enjoys Vista. And, thus far, I’ve had no gripes, issues or complaints about anything Vista does. I’ve got myself a decent rig (Core2Quad, 4gb ram, 1tb hard drive space, 7950gtoc video card [I know, it's old, forgive me]) and can deal with the chunk Vista takes to run it.

But, for some reason, whenever an OS Service Pack comes out, I get giddy. I’m not sure why, but I just do. In fact, I think I’m going to reformat on April 29thish, if not earlier, and see how XP SP3 is. Why?

The answer comes in two parts, really. During college, at semester’s end, I would reformat my computer. First, it prevented me from getting 18 million programs installed on my computer and hardly ever deleting them (i.e., my parents). Secondly, I did it for pure pleasure. There’s something about completely wiping a hard drive clean that soothes my soul.

And the more I think about it, doing a little boot-drive Spring Cleaning usually entices me to clean up the rest of my computer. Having a rabbit and dog in a studio apartment means I usually air-can my computer once a week, but I can go through, tag some of my non-or-mis-tagged mp3’s, delete some artists/albums I don’t listen to, knock off some television shows I dont need anymore (I’m looking at you, seasons 5-7 of the Gilmore Girls [my wife got me into that show and I ate it up] and the UK version of the Office) and some games I don’t plan on ever installing and playing again.

Do any of you, my lovely readers, have reformatting rituals? Are you looking forward to SP3? Leave me a note in the comments. I read them all - it just takes some time for them to get posted is all!

Mental Note: The only thing I need to do this time around, however, is set my Outlook archive/file to save to my non-boot hard drives, so I don’t have to re-load all my POP3′d emails and whatnot.

P.S.: I’m working on my column, which is the post I thought I’d have out the other day. It’s a slow process, as there’s a lot more reading to pour over before I commit myself to it. Besides, I’ve been feeling rather in the doldrums as far as writing is concerned as of late.

“At the same time, the company will leverage its portfolio of gaming properties by creating sequels to some of its most successful games, including Earthworm Jim, Dark Alliance, Descent, and MDK,” said a press release.

Grooooooovy! I’ve been jonesing for an Earthworm Jim sequel for quite some time, in fact, since I last played it on the SNES. Not to mention, MDK was a badass, under-represented and under-appreciated game. This all makes me feel very good, especially considering the fact that I’ve broken my writer’s block I’ve been stuck with for the past two weeks.

Damn good day, indeed.

On a quick mid-afternoon browse through of my game blogs, in between a piece of Shepherd’s pie and making a turkey sandwich, I came across this great little gem: Nintendo of Japan is releasing a Wii-white GameCube controller. If you notice the picture above, taken directly from the site, you’ll notice; the controller has a cord. Instead of re-releasing the much sought after GameCube Wavebird controller, NoJ is releasing a simple refab of the original controller.

I’m still having issues wondering why they don’t re-release a Wavebird. Sure, they may have cancelled the controller, but this would’ve proved a great opportunity to say “we cancelled the original controller to make you guys sad, but *ta-daaaaa* we just cancelled it so we could make it Wii-white.”

Doing this, in a sense, would be like Sony putting a gunmetal grey Sixaxis controller with the Metal Gear Solid bundle. Seriously, it makes no sense.

Color this (Hah! Punny!) a marketing blunder.

So, I’ve logged roughly five or six hours thus far with the game, and I have a few things to say.

• The game is remarkably the same. While this is a good thing, some of the levels feel eerily similar to the first course.
• The AI, even on normal, is a bit more aggressive this time around with seeking you out from your hiding hole.
• At least on the Playstation 3 version, has had some strange audio issues. Enemy voices get caught up in the middle of a sentence and continuously loop over and over. I’ve also had it happen with a couple of boxes where their sound bytes will loop throughout the level.
• The leveling system is enjoyable at first, but quickly moves to “meh” after time. The equipment payout reward, however, is a nice touch that shows some thought.
• The camo/armor customization is genius. I had a good time in the first game changing my character to the different styles for LAN play; the new set-up is a good evolution.

Generally, typically, stays in Vegas. That is, unless you manage to get an STD. In which case, that stays with you, pretty much wherever you go.

Anyway, against all of my desire, I decided to rent a copy of Vegas 2 for the PS3 because 1) I wanted to celebrate my new job and 2) I don’t want to play WoW all day.

So far, I’m loving the experience system, as it keeps the endless killing seem somewhat fresh. I’ve read that this is what the Call of Duty experience system is like, but I don’t play it online so I wouldn’t know. I’m glad it unlocks some equipment and whatnot, in addition to being able to customise your armory loadout, in addition to your armor loadout and even what camo you get. Pretty damned cool!

Anyways, I’ll more than likely blaze through this game by tomorrow, so I will hopefully have a review up in a day or two. Also picked up a copy of Devil May Cry 4while I was out, got convinced to join the Blockbuster Rewards program (my family had a complimentary one because I rented so many friggin’ games when I was a kid), and got Get Carter and Any Given Sunday, both of which I have never seen.

When I need a break from my gaming tonight, I’ll have another post covering a few topics I’ve seen as of late that I think I need to address. I also have a discourse between Gr00ve and I that I need to edit and post and that’ll hit sometime soon, maybe I’ll save it for a day I’ve got nothing to do or nothing to write about. A slow news day.

As if those existed.