Okay so I read on my reader an article about the five hardest levels in video games of all time. I was just curious as to what others thought because my ideas of hard were different than those in the article.

1.
"Through the Fire and Flames" -Dragonforce on Guitar Hero III 'nuff said.

2.

Trying to get the "Hiduken" capsule in Megaman X seriously it took me so long to get it. That and the battle against Sigma in at the end of the game.


3.
Psycho Mantis was a real pain in the ass! Until I figured out the controller port trick I was royally pissed off.

4.
Seriously the Zombies Ate My Neighbors level where you're chased by the chainsaw guys was nearly impossible.

5.
And yes I thought Final Fantasy Mystic Quest was a real pain in the ass especially the level where you had to use the shovel to dig up an artifact but the game didn't seem to give you one damn clue as to where the son of a bitch was located I'm still angry about that.

I've been vacationing in Germany for the past two weeks and just got back and I'm still ranked the same. By the way I thought censorship was bad here in the US. You guys should see things over in Germany. I actually got carded trying rent a violent video game. And as far as I know they still don't have Rock Band. I feel sadness for our brothers in Deutschland. I can't believe I'm saying this but compared to over there the ESRB isn't so bad actually.

Sweet.

http://vinnieveritas.com/flash/otros/elevator-action/

^_ Clicky.

So I was reading my local newspaper this morning and there was an article about a possible video game recession. I was tickled pink not because of the news it contained but they were saying something besides "Video Games are the Devil!". Anyway, the article goes on to say that there was a "big" recession back in 2001 for video games sales. Which I don't really remember. And goes on to say that there will be a big game recession in '08 and that it will actually hurt the games industry. Forcing developers to be more choosy with which games they release and would pretty much destroy indie games. Because they must assume that it costs butt-loads of money to put a game on XBLA. Anyway, chalk another bit of stoopid-a-teee up small town newspapers.

Okay as many of you may know Netflix and Microsoft have been courting awhile over the possibility of Netflix being a service on Xbox Live. And since I have both Netflix and Xbox Live the idea of watching my downloaded movies on my Xbox as well as my computer is very nice. Although none of the higher echelon of either companies are talking, it's rumored that they might announce something tomorrow at the Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco. Now for my own entertainment purposes I hope that Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) and Bill Gates get into bed together. At least while they release crap on XBLA I can still watch "Raging Bull" without having to spend any precious gamer points.

Alright so call me a bleeding heart liberal but a friend and I were talking on Xbox live while playing Call of Duty 4 and the question came up. "Are there any positive Arab video game characters? Or heck any that have names worth remembering?" So off I dashed to the internets to try and dig up some information on Arab/Islamic video game characters. So far I only found a handful and most of them were terrorist/evil characters. Then I stumbled on a RTS designed by Afkar Media, located in Damascus's newly-built free-zone. The game is called "Al-Quraysh" and the basic premise is like "Age of Empires" where you take command of the infant religion of Islam and try to carve out a nitch for your peoples in a hostile world populated by crusading Christians, pagan raiders, and other followers of Islam that have a less correct view of Islam than you. Well I had to admit as far as a game looks it seems decent enough. But the whole premise of the game kind of pissed me off. Here I was looking for information on positive Arab video game characters and games. And I definately wasn't off to a good start.

So finally I found one that seemed pretty damn decent. A game called Silk Road. An online game that is based in a semi-fantasy world where you take the role of an Arab fighting against an evil Chinese Warlord and you try to keep the silk road open. Meanwhile you battle giant wyrms IE "Dune". You end up trying to rescue civilians and they seem to be of both Arab decent and Chinese so evidently I found one game where Arabs are more than evil killing machines.

In fact I just might download the game on my next day off and dive a little deeper into this world. I uninstalled it right away because I was a bit worried when my computer started acting funny, turns out my Virus Scan started running without me realizing it.