Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope everyone out there has had a nice, turkey-stuffed Thanksgiving and given thanks for the wonderful things in their lives.  Our house has become the central meeting point for family engagements it seems and today was no different, lots of family members coming together for an afternoon & evening of football & eating.  As it turns out today, also Rock Band!

Now that I've gotten Elise hooked on the game it was easy to get my two college-age brothers (both Guitar Hero players) in on it.  We spent the better part of the day playing, with everyone cycling around to different parts.  I was singing a lot of the time, much to the displeasure of the rest of the household I'm sure...

It was a fun day.  I have a lot of be thankful for -- a wonderful family including two amazing little boys, basically good health, and a great work environment full of fantastically talented and nice co-workers.  Hard to argue with that.

OMG, just saw these:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/movies.html

You must watch the Mr. T one.  Genius.

Well, I didn't quite make the midnight release party for Rock Band last night (mostly because I had an early AM taking the boys to school today).  But I did get it today and have fun playing with all the new toys.  Operating that kick pedal is rough on the legs!  Elise and I played for a bit as a 2-person band this afternoon, and I think our boys were kind of wondering what strangeness their parents were up to as we rocked out.  I have high hopes for getting a 4-person band going on Thanskgiving day, as the family is all over including a number of people who sing a lot in real life, as well as my two college-age brothers who are squarely in the right demographic.  :)

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  Sick a while ago + holiday + WAY too many new games out has put a cramp in my remembering to blog.

Mario Galaxy is definitely the big current hit around our house.  I play the main game while Xavier & Xander trade off using the 2nd controller to grab star bits -- though mostly they just forget because they are so wrapped up in the micro-drama of the game itself.  Galaxy is chock full of Mario goodness, lots of 10-15 minute chunks that are wrapped in charm and addictive core platforming.  A highly recommended game.  Like many of the Wii games I've most enjoyed, it eschews using the Wiimote for anything other than some very basic pointing and "wiggling", which further convinces me that the kind of free-floating analog control scheme the Wiimote can support in the abtract just doesn't lend itself to the crispness of game interfaces very well.

The absolute highlight of our first night playing it was, shortly after our defeat of the first boss, having Xander run around the house pretending to be the Dino Piranha, and then he and Xavier basically acting out the entire boss fight while wrestling and generally having a great time.  Who says video games aren't a great physical activity? 

Another brutal week for games overall though... Assassin's Creed, Crysis, & Resident Evil Chronicles go straight into "the pile" and Sim City Societies is on preorder from Amazon.  Being a game I can actually play with the kids around (unlike the others on that list) I have a hope of actually logging some time with it this weekend if it arrives...

I have my share of concerns about organized labor in the modern workplace, but the recent WGA strike is, in my opinion, an excellent example of it being used as a force for good.  The internet is replacing traditional content distribution mechanisms and seeing the creators of these shows fighting for a fair representation of that model is pretty much THE defining fight of the next few decades IMO.

http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/

Plus, this strike is certainly more charismatic than most, with actors coming out to support their writing brethren.  In the case of shows like the Office (a favorite around the house here) they are one and the same!

Finally had a chance to play some Call of Duty 4 tonight.

Wow.  Just.... wow.

I really didn't expect any console shooter to dethrone Halo 3 in terms of polish and intensity of experience.  But so far CoD4 manages just that.  The single player is stellar, and Infinity Ward has clearly polished their techniques quite well since Call of Duty 2.  But what really took me off guard is the multiplayer.  Addictive XP system, deep class customization system, and most importantly just really rock solid gameplay.  So many nice touches.

This has just shot to the top of my Game of the Year list.

So looks like NPD is cracking down on the amount of data they release monthly.  This makes me quite sad -- monthly NPD threads were one of my favorite recurring events over at GAF and it has been absolutely fascinating to see how this console generation has shaped up sales-wise.

It seems a bit silly to me -- plenty of other industries use their sales data as a key marketing and analysis piece.  Witness the cult of box office numbers in the motion picture industry.  But for whatever reason the games industry isn't mature enough in the States to gather that kind of information consistently, instead relying on firms like NPD which are themselves pretty inaccurate.  Sigh.

I can only hope that we'll see leaks, otherwise I'll just have to go back to rampant speculation.