HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving went well. I celebrated this Thanksgiving over at Saran’s place, a friend I met through Stanman. Met a bunch of new and interesting people. Similar to last year, it was pot-luck style. I brought ice cream, cookies, and pumpkin pie. The main entrees were turkey, roast beef, and ham. There were mashed potatoes, corn, cranberries, yam, and your typical Thanksgiving food. Did you know that sweet potato and yam are not the same thing? According to Sweet Potato and Yam Differences, Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length. … Yams contain more natural sugar than sweet potatoes and have a higher moisture content. I have no idea what I’ve eaten since I was a kid anymore… Then there was a bunch of the other food like chicken wings, Thai delicacies, some yummy soup, and two different cakes (I wasn’t sure what was what, but the words chocolate, cheesecake and pumpkin was involved).
For entertainment, I had brought over my Xbox 360 and we played some Dead or Alive 4, Small Arms, Big Bumpin’, and Table Tennis.
Small Arms is a new Xbox Live Arcade game that came out a few days ago. Costs 800 points (~$10). It’s similar to Smash Brothers where you can have multiple fighters in a side scrolling arena (sometimes moving) and you try to defeat the other opponents. You’re allowed to use pick up any weapon you want, but you’re created with a default weapon. Weapons have an allotted amount of ammo and when you run out, you can either get batteries to recharge it or or find a new weapon to use. They also have a concept of aim in this game which allows you to move and aim at the same time, which can get rather difficult to do. We were also playing on a small TV (27″ non-HD) and it got rather hard to see who or where I was. It’s much better on my 24″ LCD. It comes default with 12 characters (4 locked) and several maps to play in. They’ll probably release more characters/map later which they’ll probably charge for. All in all, it’s a fun little game, but I don’t see it rivaling Super Smash Bros anytime yet.
Big Bump’ was a big shocker. It was very well liked and for a $4 game, it’s already gotten its worth. Although somewhat hard to control, being able to play 4 player hockey in bumper cars was indeed quite fun.
Table Tennis was also created some rivalry. Art became the Ping Pong champion in no time, despite being his first time playing and many players were frustrated they couldn’t beat Art, not even once. Suddenly after awhile, Tom decides to challenge Art again. All of us were rooting for Tom, the underdog. Tom won the 1st game 11-6 and Art demands a rematch. The next game went into deuce and the score ended with 12-10 with Art winning. The final match (best out of 3) ended with Tom Winning with triple deuce, 14-12. It was quite an exciting event. All of us were cheering for Tom.
All this time, Saran and Art were poking at Stanman for not being able to get the Wii. He was suppose to get the Wii on launch day and have it for the Thanksgiving party, but unfortunately, it was sold out everywhere. Of course, I didn’t find out about this till the day before, or I could’ve told him where to get it. He apparently tried again today (Black Friday), but I haven’t heard back if he got it yet. Maybe he’s too busy playing already.
Then we had a game of Settlers. There were 11 people, with 6 newbies so Stanman suggested we break up into teams and teach and play at the same time. The game went well (for us at least). This is my 1st time winning against this group, and I would have to say it was due to Brite’s luck (my partner – I hope I got his name correct). He even managed to pick a victory point from the pile.
The day ended with just a bunch of us idling around and chatting. Once again, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.