Games With Gold

I've spoken before of being a big gamer. The image there in the upper right hand corner of this page (at least as of right now) is my Xbox Live avatar that will update as I change his appearance on Xbox Live (yeah, I know how cool that is). In fact, I woke up just this morning and played a little on Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 and nabbed me another achievement in doing so. Nothing starts the day out like an achievement...well, I suppose a lot of things would be better than that, but when you normally get up too late to do anything, you take what you can get, I suppose. Anyway...

Today is a special day for people who have Xbox Live Gold. Twice a month, Microsoft has taken it upon themselves to give away a game to everyone who has the Gold membership in a program they call Games With Gold. They select which game is free, of course, but you purchase it from the download store via Xbox Live, and it is yours whether you actually download it or not. One of the game in July was Assassin's Creed II, and while I've already gotten 100% on that game, I still "purchased" it so it was in my purchase history and if I so desired, I could download it at any time, and not concern myself with keeping the physical disc.

Game they've offered to their subscribers so far were Fable III in June, which I will play when I get through Fable II (that I paid all of $5 for quite some time ago ... I'm really behind on my games); Defense Grid Awakening (an excellent tower defense I've nearly completed) and Assassin's Creed II in July; and now in August, we got Crackdown for the first half of the month, and today, the game is actually a two for one in that we get the retail game, Dead Rising 2, and also the Xbox Live Arcade prequel Dead Rising 2: Case Zero.

I've not played Crackdown yet, and I probably won't get to Dead Rising 2 (either one of them) for some time either. This is primarily because I'm working to bring my overall completion percentage up, and the only way to do that is to play the games currently present in my profile. If I were to start yet another game, that would add X achievements to the total and bring down my percentage until I work through those achievements. Now, I've read about both of these games and I'm honestly looking forward to playing them, but even in hobbies, you gotta make your priorities.

Because video gaming is a serious hobby.

Just ... five ... more ... minutes.

No, it's not. I will be the first to tell you that nothing I do in the video game world affects my real life. Well, except for chatting with people I know over an Xbox Live Party. That's still pretty cool, and kinda builds those social points ... er, because life is totally a game of the Sims ... or something.

Obligatory public service announcement.
Oh, look, a GameCube! Mmmm, GameCube...