Good graphics with a western motiff. Use the right and left arrow keys to control the flippers. I only played this pinball game one time before making this post and I didn’t try very hard, so this should be extremely easy high score to beat: 651,753:

Pepsi Pinball



Post your high score in the comments area. Update, on game #2, I scored 20,000,053. That should be more challenging to break.

While I don’t like the idea at all of playing online against people who cheat (it’s one of my big reservations about online game matchups), I can’t fault any XBox owner from upgrading or modding an XBox to make it more useful to him/her. Adding more hard disk space, or runing a Linux OS hardly seems like the type of mod that should get any XBox user in trouble, but it appears that Microsoft may not think this way.

Microsoft appears to be using its smash “Halo 2″ game as a vehicle to crack down on mod chips and other hacks of its Xbox video game console. Hundreds of Xbox owners have reported in online forums in recent days that they were banned from Xbox Live, Microsoft’s online gaming service, after trying to play “Halo 2″ online with a modified console

It’s all rumour and supposition, nothing concrete here, so please note the question mark in the post title. Again, if mods are being employed to gain advantage to the online game player then I’m all for Microsoft banning them from playing Halo 2, but all other types of mods Microsoft should encourage or at least turn a blind eye to them like TiVo seems to do. What’s the harm in people doing cool things with their XBox? Why doesn’t Microsoft support that type of activity? Or do they? I don’t get this one.

I still haven’t played Halo 2 yet but our kids continue to play the heck out of it, seemingly abandoning GTA: San Andreas, at least for the time being.

Microsoft beat even its own heady expectations for the hotly anticipated Xbox game “Halo 2,” selling more than $125 million of the product its first day in stores.

As you can see from the picture, we sprung for the Collector’s Edition ($5 more). We did the same thing with GTA: San Andreas. That’s clever marketing (borrowed from the DVD industry?) packing a few extra goodies in and making a collector’s edition for five extra bones. The music industry is starting to wake up and do stuff like this too. Many people will pay for extras, no matter how mundane they might seem.

Apparently a full page ad ($50,000) in the New York Times can generate some serious traffic. Today is not only Halo 2 day for Microsoft, but (coincidentally?) FireFox day as goes officially into public release mode.

This is the browser I use. Smart money.

In addition to that prop by cynical PC Mag columnist, Dvorak, Firefox has a solid reputation in the blogosphere and continues to gain on Microsoft Internet Explorer as being more than just an annoying fly at the picnic. And speaking of Halo 2 also (coincidentally?) launching today, Microsoft thinks they’ll have a $100 million day.

“I’m calling a $100 million day on ‘Halo’ today,” Peter Moore, a corporate vice president in Microsoft’s games division, said at a Harris Nesbitt investment conference in New York.

Somehow, I think at least in the short term Microsoft wins on this launch. I realize, it’s two different areas (videogames and browsers), but one company spent $50,000 (which they raised in donations) to promote downloading a free browser while the other company has a record setting release day for a $50 US (retail) video game. None of this is to say that Microsoft shouldn’t be very concerned about Firefox coming up in their rearview mirrors, but the bank account scoreboard is all Microsoft today.

No cheating on this one now. Take a look at the map below (print it out, if you want) of the United States and see how many states you can correctly label and identify:



Just got back from school conferences and my wife and I were alarmed to learn that our middle son could only correctly identify 14 out of the 50 states. I didn’t take the test but looking at the map and naming off the states really fast, I can get at least 30 of them right. Clearly in the eastern and southern sides of the country, where I’ve never visited I’d have some trouble with the less obvious ones. Can you name more than 30 of the states correctly?

Perhaps a bit premature to call this with it being the bottom of the 8th inning with the Red Sox up 3 - 0 over St. Louis with three games to zero lead, but you can just feel the magic that even if it’s not tonight, it will be soon that the Red Sox win the World Series. The odds are way, way against the Cardinals. Even if you aren’t a baseball fan, it’s hard not to get behind ridding the Sox of the infamous Babe Ruth curse. Boy it will suck if I have to come back and say … I was wrong, the Cards came back. It is October and strange things happen in October … no, no, I think the curse goes down … or does it?

Update: THE SOX DID IT! Congratulations to them for breaking the 1918 Ruth curse

Picked up GTA San Andreas today like tons of other videogamers. I’ve been waiting for this game for quite some time. Pundits are predicting this could be the best-selling videogame of all time and after a mere 30 minutes of playtime before our kids ripped the controller from me, I’m certainly impressed thus far. Warning to parents of younger children, the language is certainly adult-oriented with lots of f-bombs.


 
Check out the cool moon! Here’s more choice Grand Theft Auto San Andreas screenshots:


ouch!

mmm, pizza anyone?




Jack the ripper! There are 67 total GTA: San Andreas screenshots in the slideshow so far.

Just heard about this on the Jim Rome radio show that D&D is now 30 years old, concordmonitor.com:

Dungeons & Dragons players gathered in game stores around the country yesterday [Saturday 10/16/2004] to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the grandfather of fantasy role-playing games - a pop culture phenomenon that has influenced myriad video games, books and movies.

Though I haven’t played in a long time, in honor of this anniversary I (briefly) broke out the dice and here’s the manuals …



… that we bought awhile back from the local Wizards of the Coast in the mall, which has since gone out of business. I’ll admit it, I was a D&D geek when growing up. I got the manuals to share with my children and our middle son, Sean, really liked D&D. Wish I had more time to check into this and see where it has gone over the years as far as integration with online gaming. I’m thinking games like Everquest have eaten the D&D lunch.

If Microsoft really wants to move XBox hardware they should emulate what Nintendo did with their Gamecube and go sub $100 pricing, but they have a few other ideas.

Microsoft announced on Friday a new holiday Xbox package that essentially gives buyers two free sports games and a trial subscription to the Xbox Live online gaming service. The bundle, available starting Oct. 31, will add Electronic Arts’ “NCAA Football 2005″ and “Top Spin” tennis game, plus two months of Xbox Live service, for the same $150 Microsoft now charges for the standalone Xbox.

The XBox has some really cool looking games, especially on a High Definition TV, but one of the problems is that not a lot of people have HDTVs. More the problem isn’t cool-looking games, it’s the shortage of fun games. We’ll see what happens with Halo 2.

Not really all that surprising, though I can imagine the severe disappointment from the hardworking Halo 2 developers at bungie.net over the Halo 2 leak:

Last night a pirated copy of Halo 2 was released onto the internet. Needless to say we think this really sucks. Aside from years of hard work being stolen from us, we’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that the details of the Halo 2 campaign remain a mystery for players to experience for themselves on November 9th. Microsoft is currently engaged in a full scale investigation and to those foolish enough to partake in this piracy, you will soon witness the firepower of this fully operational battle station.

The official Halo 2 release date is planned for November 9. Slashdot is all over this leak as well citing the story from Gamespot. Word to the wise: steer very, very clear of trying to hunt down this illegal copy, P2P or otherwise. My wife beta tested Halo 2 at Microsoft and I’ll wait until on or after the official release on November 9th to tell you what I know about that experience. I thought her experience – what little she was willing to tell me and what I actually saw when I took her to Redmond and then picked her up when the session was done – was pretty interesting actually.