Random Thoughts of the Gameless Gamer: No More!

If you have followed our blog for at least a month now, you may remember that a while back I wrote that the itch was growing ever stronger for an Xbox 360 to be included in my life. Black Friday brought about that possibility. Target had the holiday bundle on sale for $299.99 with a $60.00 gift card included. AKA: Xbox 360 Pro, Two games: Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones, and then used the gift card to get a second wireless controller. On top of that, I decided to also begin with Gears of War 2, which many of you are probably already familiar with.

Shockingly, even though I have had the system for almost 5 days now, I have not had the chance to play Gears of War 2 yet! To my surprise, Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones are actually decent games, considering that they are $40.00 each. It is quite a bargain to get about $100.00 worth of games for the usual Xbox 360 Pro price tag of $299.99. Remember though, this is only a holiday bundle. Soon it will be gone, gone, gone!!

Its funny how once you pick up such an elite system, there are numerous accessories that you buy in order to enhance your experience. For instance, last night I realized that I have no internet hookup in my family room and therefore cannot easily hook up my Xbox to the internet. So I had to go out and buy a VGA cable for the system. Which, if you are looking for a cheap VGA cable, go to ebay. You can pick up a cable for $10.00 or less, rather than at a place like Best Buy, which sells them for $40.00. Grundy was the one who filled me in on that little tidbit. I’m glad I have a very nice 22″ monitor to hold me over until I recover some money and get an HDTV.

So back to the games included with the Pro System. I have never played a Lego based game before, but Lego Indiana Jones is amazing! This one covers the original, and the best three, Indiana Jones films. You can play the movies in any order and there are so many little things to find that it is nearly impossible to pick it up every collectible at once. There are hidden treasures to build artifacts for extra points and rewards. Also, there are numerous characters that you must choose in order to complete different tasks, and its often fun to get the bombardier and shoot rockets at various things. I wouldn’t say to go out and buy it new, but I’m sure you can find it online or at a place like GameStop second hand by now. If you are a fan of the movies, it would totally be worth it and the coop functionality doubles the fun.

I have not had the chance to get very far into Kung Fu Panda. For the most part I started out with multiplayer battles. The battles are ok, but the camera sometimes zooms out so far that it is impossible to recognize who you are. My young cousins really enjoyed playing one game where you shoot a firework launcher at target, attempting to blow it up. The single player so far has been entertaining. Jack Black narrates the game, which adds a nice touch. I have not seen the movie before, but everyone I talk to says it’s great. I wouldn’t pick this game up new unless you are a parent and have a kid around the age of 10 or so. They might enjoy this.

You have already hopefully read the review of Gears of War 2, so I won’t even bother touching that this week. I’m also considering picking up CoD4 and Halo 3 around Christmas time. They seem to be the continued favorites depending on who I want to play with. This may also segway into the purchase of a Madden or MLB game sometime soon. The sky is the limit, and so is my budget.

Thanks for your tips gamers. I’m not sure where the Random Thoughts column will go from here, now that I am not a gameless gamer. Might just become the Random Thoughts of the Gaming Gamer, but that sounds kinda weird and a bit redundant. I am looking for ideas, so leave some comments and let us know what you want to hear.

Game on! I know I will.

[Editors Note: If you want to get the chance to play with PriestBeast online, add him as a friend on Xbox LIVE, his gamertag is PriestBeast86]

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