• Small Talk – Daniel Radcliffe (2 of 2)

    In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.

  • #freshpresslive – feb 10/12

    Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 8/12

    Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 7/12

    Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.

  • Small Talk – The Kooks (2 of 2)

    When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.

  • Small Talk – The Kooks (1 of 2)

    The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 2/12

    Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 1/12

    Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.

  • #freshpresslive – Jan 31/12

    Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.

  • #freshpresslive – Jan 30/12

    David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.

  • Small Talk – Daniel Radcliffe (1 of 2)

    Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.

  • Small Talk – Graffiti6 (2 of 3)

    Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”

  • Small Talk – Graffiti6 (1 of 3)

    Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.

  • Small Talk – Nick Carter (3 of 3)

    Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.

  • Small Talk – Nick Carter (2 of 3)

    During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.

  • Small Talk – Nick Carter (1 of 3)

    There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.

  • Small Talk – Hedley (2 of 2)

    When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.

  • Small Talk – Hedley (1 of 2)

    It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.

  • Small Talk – Marina and The Diamonds (2 of 2)

    Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.

  • Small Talk – Neverest

    Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.

 
 


Gamer’s Mind Blog: Game Ranting

Posted by Josh Salem on June 16th, 2009

videogameHey andPOPpers, Josh again with my weekly ranting. This week’s topic, how do you play video games? What is your ideal setup? How long is a good gaming session for you? When I play, it all depends on the mood I’m in, what kind of game it is, and what happened earlier in the day. If I’m having a crappy day, bad traffic, annoying people, and I’m just in a downright foul mood, I like to cause some havoc. Take my anger out on virtual citizens of a cyber world. I may go home, crack open a nice frosty coke, plop on the couch and pop in some Horde mode of Gears of War 2 and just slaughter alien scum for a good hour or two. If I’m awake and relatively bored I might go back to my old MMORPG ways and play some online final fantasy 11 (either on my PC or Xbox depending on the mood) and slash 3 to 4 hours off my day. When the mood strikes and I feel like watching a movie but want that interactive vibe to it, I would usually play some good, theatrical, and beautiful Metal Gear Solid 4, pop in my Jabra earpiece (that came with Warhawk for PS3) and play with that much more involvement… and yes, if I want to be 100% in the game, I may even toss on my eye patch every now and then.

The problem I have, and would like to rant about this week though is what happens (and lately it’s been happening a lot) if I’m feeling lethargic, lazy, bored, just wanting to shut off my brain and do something relaxing for a couple of hours in front of my TV. I browse my gaming titles, usually starting from the games I’m currently in the middle of, usually starting with Xbox 360 titles, my choices usually include: one of a dozen shooter games, a plethora of music titles, horror games, sports titles or a movie trivia option. Nope, don’t feel like playing any of those, I move onto the PS3: a lot of the same, more sports, less horror, Little Big Planet or Eye of Judgement (both have a lot of setup involved either in the game or physically, much too lazy for that). Onto the Wii… ya, about that, as most of their games involve movement as it is… I skip over the majority, otherwise they’re all just too fast paced for me to relax to. I can’t seem to find my PSP and the DS is in my backpack in another room. I know what you’re thinking, ‘boo hoo little Josh has all this choice and is bored, cry me a freaking river’, yes, I know I am ridiculously lucky to have such a job, and it does have it’s benefits, but when your mood is ‘blah’ there really isn’t much you can do, and it’s frustrating!

No reason for this picture, I just love the power glove

No reason for this picture, I just love the power glove

What would you do if you went though an entire library of games you KNOW you enjoy, but just don’t feel like playing? Go outside? Take a nap? Watch TV? I had to figure this out, and I came up with an interim solution to keep me busy until my mood changes, first option: Set up a blog and tell the world how annoyed you are, if you’re lucky maybe they’ll respond and tell you how annoying YOU are! Option two: check out downloadable options for your next gen console, Xbox 360 has Live Arcade, community games, and original Xbox titles, PS3 has the PSN that offers downloadable games, PSP titles, and older PS1 titles, Nintendo Wii offers not only a huge selection of older titles through their virtual console, but also WiiWare titles for download as well. Option three: check out the downloadable demos available on your consoles! Just because you never thought about buying a game doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least try the demo for it for free anyways. Even the downloadable titles usually have demo options available to test the waters before buying and downloading them. Finally option four: go to your local gaming store and take a look at the overabundance of classic game compilations available for almost every system, if you’re lucky, you could even pick up a used copy of one. So which option did I go with?

Well, I did all four, you’re reading my blog, I downloaded Castle Crashers for Xbox 360 and Wave Race for the N64 on the Wii, tried a few demos and just came back from my local gaming store with a copy of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for the Xbox 360. I figure with over 45 classic Genesis games to play, some I loved but had a hard time tracking down to play again, some I had never heard of that when the mood to not play any of my previously loved titles strikes, I can try my hand at something I enjoyed 15 years earlier!

So, there’s my rant for the week, I’m sure a lot of you have a lot of things to say, rant about yourselves, comments, ideas, etc. So leave a comment, tell us what your favourite fall-back title is and what makes it the game you can play at any time no matter what.


Tags: , ,
Categories: Blogs, Gamer's Mind Blog, Gaming


  • Brett.Caron

    Oh man, the best fallback game for this kid – Metal Gear. Always. But it’s kind of a cheap-out, because I refuse to pick a specific MGS (1-4). Second to that is either Dead Rising, or Sonic the Hedgehog.

    By the way, I’m gonna borrow that Sonic collection for the 360. And by borrow, I mean steal.

  • sarge-ak47

    See i got a pretty sweet set up, sometimes i dont use surround sound but for the most part its instinctual to turn it on when booting the ps3 or wii.
    ON lazy days nothing beats playing burnout..listening to some custom tunes.. just driving around the city and hitting jumps at subsonic speeds always is a great fall back.

    But I would agree with Metal Gear, specially 4 and its multi player, never a dull moment when youre with friends

  • hetLomProtmes

    There’s been a lot of buzz these last few years about ancient secrets and techniques. They’ve been known for hundreds, even thousands of years by the elite. Hidden from the public, they kept this information suppressed so they could control you. It’s no secret that the way you think influences your life in every way. The Law of Attraction is such a basic concept but we need to fully understand it to achieve our full potential. I won’t teach the Law of Attraction for any amount of money. My time is incredibly valuable and I only have time to deal with serious people – those who already understand the basics. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone in the dark if you don’t already know all this stuff. When I was new, some very nice people pointed me in the right direction and I want to do the same for others. After all, I do enjoy talking about this and spreading the good stuff around!

    Dan decided to show us his collection of healing machines he collected over the years:Nutrition

    I think you’ll enjoy it! What do you guys think about this kind of technology?