DarqByte

Man… I really didn’t think I’d walk away from this Christmas as loaded as I am. I’ve seen and heard lately that a lot of retail analysts think the discounts and sales that retailers had this year to combat the weak economy are some of the biggest in over a decade and probably won’t be repeated again for quite some time. Good thing this appears to be the year of my big HD jump.

So just about everybody is aware that I shelled out the money for a nice new HDTV on Black Friday. And what a nice TV it is, let me tell you. Totally satisfied with it. Well, the TV isn’t the only thing that makes the HD experience. Right now, the only thing I’ve got in HD is my Xbox 360, and honestly, it’s totally awesome in 1080p. Just great.

Two things in the entertainment center that need to be upgraded to reach HD status are the DVD player and the satellite system. Well, after some Best Buy gift cards and some Christmas money, I’ll likely be getting a Blu-Ray player in the near future to upgrade the DVD system.

All that’s left there is the satellite system, which shouldn’t be too bad to upgrade to HD, and I want to have it done by the SuperBowl, since Laura wants to have a SuperBowl party and I think the game should just be in HD. That won’t be an expensive upgrade. Probably cheaper than the Blu-Ray upgrade, actually.

That would leave our Nintendo Wii as the lowest-quality video output in our entire entertainment center. Joy! Well, there’s also the issue that I want to upgrade our sound system after all this is done. Our current audio receiver, in the move to the new entertainment center, suffered a broken digital audio port that the 360 plugged into. So now all of the audio is on RCA jacks, and once all of the HD upgrades is complete, I want to try to find a nice audio receiver that supports enough digital audio ports so the 360, satellite and Blu-Ray players can all use digital output. I don’t think the Wii supports digital output.

Anyway, why did I title this post “Christmas Gaming Indeed?” Well, that’s because I never anticipated my video game haul this Christmas. When I put together my Christmas list, it included a lot of big-ticket items, but particularly noteworthy were the video games on the list:

1. Gears of War 2
2. Dead Space
3. Fallout 3
4. Guitar Hero: World Tour
5. Need For Speed Undercover
6. Spore
7. Sonic Unleashed

That was the list when it all began. Spore and Sonic Unleashed eventually fell off of my radar thanks to different issues. So what happened to the other 5?

I got them all.

Holy crap! I just finished GTA IV and that game was a blast, it actually had a cathartic ending, something I’ve never encountered before in a video game. And now I’ve got five new games to play? Holy crap! That’s a nice predicament, not knowing which game to play and wanting to play them all. I’m going to be gaming for quite some time.

I’ve already begun on Fallout 3, because it came in the day before I wrapped up GTA IV. I won that one in a contest. And I’ve already played some NFS Undercover and Guitar Hero, from my Mom (and family) and my sister-in-law Julia, respectively. I got GoW2 from Laura and Dead Space from Mom & family as well. Just haven’t gotten to those yet. And I probably won’t hit those two for awhile longer anyway, because Fallout 3 will likely suck up most of the time that I’d give to those other 2 because it’s a lengthy single-player campaign. Dead Space is as well, and GoW2 has a good single-player campaign coupled with great online play.

Man oh man. I’ll be entertained for quite some time, yes. Merry Christmas!