Some morning odds and ends.

Yuck.  I was sick all Monday night and yesterday, so now I'm well and behind on things at work.  Hate, HATE using paid time off for being sick.  Just sucks away future vacation time.  I slept from like 10pm 2 nights ago, until almost 1:30 in the afternoon yesterday, and again crashed by like 10 last night.  So, here I am at work, getting some writing in before I actually start my day (I have a tendency to get to work about 50 minutes early so I can drink my coffee (Coffee With Games would probably approve), check my email and do things like write this post.

Where to start... how about a quick note from NBA Jam: On Fire Edition?

Generally I try to squeeze in a game or two most mornings before work, but haven't over the last week.  I just did this morning and they had a nice roster update.  I think each team got 1 new player.  I've only been using my Pistons so far (generally using Bill Laimbeer and Denis Rodman for a fun combination of dunks and slapping people around), but they did add Brevin Knight.  I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed in that choice simply because Monroe has had a far, far better season (and in my opinion should be a leading candidate for Most Improved player this season when the NBA hands out their awards this season, for those who track the actual sport) and because the Pistons were already really guard-heavy with their roster (you're adding Knight to Joe Dumars, Isiah Thomas, Ben Gordon and Rodney Stuckey).  Still, it was an unexpected update and it's nice to see them push that through.  With the playoffs starting, I may have to dust off my copy of NBA 2K12 which I reviewed earlier this year.  It is seriously still one of the best sports games I have ever played.

Moving on, IGN has teased that there is some huge PS3 announcement going live Friday morning.  Let the speculation begin.  So far the two most popular guesses have been Kingdom Hearts and whatever the new Smash Bros.-style fighter using Sony exclusive characters may be.  Any guesses of your own?  I'm sort of leaning toward the brawler title myself.

Man I'm really, really digging RPG Maker VX Ace.  I keep saying I'll post my ill-fated and incomplete RPG Maker XP project, KotL: Summoner.  Well, I zipped it up last night and started to look around for places to host it.  Any good suggestions out there?  Mediafire, Rapidshare?  I may just use my company's hosting service as well, but I'm open to suggestions in case any of you have good experiences with a file sharing system.

I recently picked up a set of refurbed Turtle Beach headphones that I really liked, but run into a major problem with as well.  I'll get that review up soon too - but disappointing to say the least.  I'm hoping to get a review post of some sort up this afternoon or tomorrow - I have several staged and ready to roll.  I know when I polled late last year about my blog, one of the things I asked about was my posting frequency and most people asked that I increase it - what are your thoughts currently?  Am I posting enough or too often or just right?  I'm curious as always as I try to figure out not only what people want to see and how often, but how I can drive traffic to this blog - I'm open to suggestions for those of you who are seeing steady growth in traffic yourselves!

I really did not think much of the Xbox Gold weekly deal this week, so we're going on close to a month now where their deals have been completely underwhelming to me.  I know one of our friend blogs here, Gamesoup, pointed out some good deals they did in his region near Easter, but they didn't have anything of the sort for us here in North America at the same time, which was also a bit of a bummer.  On the PlayStation Plus program, there's 2 full game trials (The Cursed Crusade and Battlefield: Bad Company 2) and a discount on Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds - and that's it.  A bit underwhelming, though on the month they did have some goodies like Shank 2 that justify the $5/mo rather nicely.


Even better?  The list of goodies coming up next month for PlayStation Plus, which I'll list here now:

Exclusives Early Access:

Pixel Junk 4am Closed Viewer Beta – 5/1
Velocity (Free PS mini) – 5/1

Free game downloads

PSN Games:

Awesomenauts – 5/1
Trine 2 – 5/1
Rock of Ages – 5/15

Minis:

Floating Cloud God Saves The Pilgrims – 5/1
Velocity – 5/1

PS one Classics:

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – 5/1
Castlevania Chronicles – 5/1

Free Avatars and Themes:

Dead Cloud Avatar – 5/15
Gear Avatar – 5/15
Mesh Dynamic Theme – 5/22


Full Game Trials:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – 5/1
Disney Universe – 5/1
Saints Row The Third – 5/8
Assassin's Creed Revelations – 5/15
Batman Arkham City - 5/15
Rayman Origins– 5/15
Need for Speed The Run – 5/15
Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition – 5/22
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier – 5/22

Discounts:

PSN Games:

Datura – 5/8 (PS Plus Price – $7.99)
Disney Universe – 5/1 (PS Plus Price: $15.00)
Rayman: Origins – 5/15 (PS Plus Price: $15.00)
Saints Row The Third – 5/8 (PS Plus Price: $47.99)