There's a lot of stuff I wanna talk about, so let's get started . . .

Alternate Reality Games . . .

If you're not familiar with alternate reality gaming, I'll enlighten you on what little know I about it. Basically, it's the next level of role playing games where the game invades you're life. You could be sitting at work punching up numbers on the computer when you get a phone call. Instead of your boss yelling at you on the other end, it's a character from the game you're playing giving you a hint about where to go next. A great example is the movie "The Game" starring Michael Douglas (great movie). What was depicted as fantasy in that movie is slowly becoming reality.

This form of role-playing game has proven to be very popular as a marketing tool. First, we had www.ilovebees.com: a website supposedly hacked by an alien being who was looking for the parts to her ship and her missing crew. As players gathered information and gained the trust of the alien being (by visiting pay phones in certain places at certain times to listen to a pre-recorded message), they were given clues about where to meet for a special presentation (I think in California). Ultimately, players who stayed until the end of this very long game were invited to a Halo 2 pre-release party, received some special door prizes, and were able to play the game a few days before it hit shelves.

Now Audi is jumping on board with it's own alternate reality game, which is currently in progress. I remember seeing some ads on TV with a short message saying, "If you've seen a 2006 Audi A3 with this VIN# . . . . Please report to www.audi.com." I was bored last night and decided to check it out. Sure enough, it's a game. I don't know much about the story, but it seems to involve a couple of spies who stole an Audi from a car lot in New Hampshire following a violent machine gun fight . . . in New Hampshire. If you're interested in learning more about this game or even participating in it, just visit this link. Heck, you might even win a 2006 Audi A3.

As for personal experience, I tried to participate in the ilovebees/Halo game. After a few days of following the story and trying to piece things together I was like, "SCREW THIS GAME! I HAVE A LIFE!!" Also, no one would give you help. Everytime I tried to get help on message boards, these hardcore gamer nerds would be like, "Get off the boards, n00b! Read the F.A.Q., newbie!!! Death to all n00bies!!! I am 1337!!!" I checked out the Audi boards and those people seem to be a lot less hostile. You'll have that with upper class people. I don't think I've ever been golfing at a country club and heard some "biff" say, "Hurry up and swing, n00b! Are you using a pitching wedge on this hole?! Gosh, you are a noobie!!!"

XBox 360 . . .

The XBox 360 is shaping up to be my gaming machine of choice. Granted, the MTV special left much to be desired, but that's just good marketing. Now that E3 news is starting to flood the gaming sites, I'm getting some solid impressions from all three systems. However, the XBox is establishing itself as a strong machine, and my love for all things Nintendo is starting to dwindle.

It has been confirmed that the XBox 360 will be backwards compatible with current XBox games. The PS3 and the Nintendo Revolution are both backwards compatible, so XBox basically had to follow suit. It'd be stupid not to.

The XBox 360 will also be able to talk to your Windows-based PC, which is something I really like. I have a mountain of MP3s on my computer that I'd love to use to make in-game soundtracks; a feature that the XBox 360 will support.

But, what it really comes down to is games. And XBox has announced some solid titles that are in the works. The game I'm most excited about is Perfect Dark 0. This game was supposed to come out for the Nintendo Gamecube as a follow up to the N64 game. Later, it was announced it would come out for the XBox as well. It has now been announced that this will be an XBox exclusive game. If you're not familiar with Perfect Dark, it was the pseudo-sequel to the greatest first person shooter of all times: Goldeneye 007 for the N64.

The other big news is that Final Fantasy XI is coming to the XBox 360 and will support XBox Live. I'm not a big MMORPG fan, but maybe this will mark the beginning of a long relationship between Square Enix and Microsoft.

Other games I'm looking forward to are the Fable sequel, the new Elder Scrolls game, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

Keenspot . . .

If any of you are hardcore webcomic fans, you've probably noticed the large amount of comics creators leaving Keenspot (probably the most popular of all the webcomic collective websites). At first I didn't really care because I don't really read a lot of Keenspot comics. But today I found out that one of my favorite comic strips, Wapsi Square, is following suit and striking out on its own.

This makes me wonder what the heck is going on over there at Keenspot . . . I don't know much about the people behind the scenes, but you get the sense that someone is making some poor decisions or something. Or maybe not. However, the large exodus of Keenspot creators is quite suspicious . . .

Golfing . . .

I went golfing yesterday evening. I scored a 60 on nine holes. Yeah, I suck. However, I'm proud of myself for simply keeping up. No one in our party was waiting on me to finish putting for long periods of time or anything. It was a nice, quick game, and I got my butt handed to me by the two other guys I golfed with. Oh well. Crap like that happens.

Hope everyone is having a good week. Stop by the forums and let us know what you think about the various topics being discussed, or start your own. It's that easy!

- Wes