The marketing people at Gamefly probably are trying to figure out how to send me a check for that one, but anonymity is far too important for an ass like me to give up contact info on a public forum. Instead, I would ask that they donate the money to a young aspiring nurse, cuz the world needs more nurses. I suggest going to a local strip club, cuz I met a bunch of ladies there who were going to college to be nurses, naughty, sparkly nurses.

If you own an XBOX 360, with the exception of Call of Duty 2 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, I haven’t found a single other came that required more than a few days of my time to be finished with them. In the 3 weeks I had Oblivion with Gamefly I saved an assload of cash (though I am sure I will buy a used copy some day to play it again). For all the other games I got on Gamefly, there was not a single one that had any replay value in my opinion. Most of them I would have actually been quite mad about if I had purchased them at full price. Before Gamefly I researched purchases quite a bit, and was much more cautious with the games I tried, so on the plus side I guess, I tried some games that I would not have considered otherwise, and, of course, they sucked.

This is leads me to what really what makes Gamefly rock. See, most reviewers are soulless whores of the gaming industry. Then only decent reviews I have read in quite a while were at Penny-Arcade, while reading their comics. Seriously, their comics are one of the only sources of decent game reviews I have found, which is kind of like watching the daily show for news. For some reason, the idiots at all the major game sites figure you won?t remember the steaming pile of crap that they gave an 8.5 out of 10 to when you are reading their next ?review?.

The bottom line with Gamefly is that it saves a ton of cash. For $15 a month, I avoid buying $60 games. Simple math is that in 4 months I have spent what it would have cost for a single game, but I played 10 of them, which would have put me back $600. I would have played fewer games if some of them had been a bit better, but that hardly makes the service less compelling. The only ?downside? of Gamefly is that it is a bit slower than NetFlix, but then I live like 40 miles from a regional NetFlix center, so I usually have single day shipment from them (yes, I send a movie on Monday, it gets to them Tuesday, and I get my next one on Wednesday, which is pretty cool).

In the extended entry (if it works) are some mini-reviews from some of the games I played from Gamefly (not all were for the 360, but I need to fill in between their release schedule):

Quake 4: I am sure that for hardcore Quake fans, this was a decent sequel, but I found it to be a bit wanting in many ways. There were some nice guns to play with, and some of the enemies were interesting, but overall, it didn?t do much for me, and I really wanted it to, as I wanted something to play on my new console. Oddly, I was not that upset when one of the games many bugs caused it to lock up on me. It wasn?t frozen in the normal sense, but I was riding shotgun on a convoy, and every time I got to a certain area, the convoy would just kinda stop, and no more bad guys would come to shoot at. I tried getting past this part maybe 10 times before I realized that I didn?t really care, and I grabbed the enveloped it came in and sent it back for my next game.

Serious Sam II: Like the first Serious Sam, but better graphics and music. I think the AI might be better too. Couldn’t really tell though, because I got real bored with it after about half an hour. Mindless killing is fun, but this was just pointless. I liked the first one for all the reasons that this one should have been good, but for some reason, it just didn?t make me want to keep playing, so I didn’t. Thank you GameFly.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood: Seriously, I had to think a while to remember what this was about. Oh yeah, WORST AI EVER. As well, the ?squad based? elements were just bad. My guess is that it was made by people who don?t play a lot of video games other than maybe those dancing ones at the arcade. I would like to sit down with the producer of that gem and make him play Call of Duty 2 for an hour, then throw in his game and see if he can look me in the eye after 5 minutes of play. I don?t think I could do better, but seriously, I would rather get fired than be responsible for that game. Maybe someone enjoyed it, but this is my review, so their opinions are not represented.

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows: Huh. Guess arcade games must have had something going on besides the gameplay to make them fun. I remember playing this back in the day, but I don?t remember getting bored so quickly.

Close Combat: First to Fight: This one was actually quite good. I felt it was one of the most ?realistic? shooters I have played. Lessons learned in real world training paid off in the game, and vice versa. Good AI, great graphics and design, somewhat linear missions, but still good fun. I liked it. Probably won?t go buy a copy, but I will keep my eye on this franchise, as it has lots of potential, and really seemed to have put together a great team of coders and folks with real experience.

star wars: republic commando: Don’t know what I was thinking there. Sooooo bad. I mean seriously, doesn’t Lucas have any quality control. I have enjoyed star wars game cube games better than this turd (and yes, the lack of capitalization was on purpose, as a sign of disrespect for what they did).

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: I have been a huge fan of this franchise since it first came out. They didn’t always get better, but they all were fun, until this one. Seems like they listened to what I liked about the previous games, and then decided that they didn?t like me. It looks good, but that isn’t enough reason to buy a game in my book.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Not to beat a dead horse, but this game is quite good.

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII: Hmmm. Nice graphics? The audio support from your squadron and the taunting by the enemy was ridiculously repetitive, inane, mildly racist, and those are some of the good points (why are the enemy on the same channel on your radio as your squadron and why do they speak English)? The flying was terrible, and you are not allowed to get a cockpit view to at least make it somewhat interesting. I often stalled the plane trying to figure out which way was up, but it never really mattered. The worst level that I played had to be the scouting mission where you fly around in a sandstorm trying to take pictures of enemy bases. You can?t see a damn thing, there are hardly any landmarks, and you don?t have a freaking compass, so you just meander around bored to death, hoping to somehow stumble across a base that suddenly lets loose on you with a few hundred anti-air machine guns, none of which can hit you even though you are flying 100 feet off the ground, as slow as the plane can fly. I guess if you don?t like air combat or flying, this might be a good game for you, especially if you are mildly retarded.

Black: Fun shooter, but what is with the ending???? Literally finished it, from beginning to end in 2 short nights of play. It ends just when you think it is going to start getting good. This game stands out in raw destruction, but other than that it leaves something to be desired (like more content, and more shit to make explode). This one is worth a few hours of mindless fun if you don?t have to pay full price to get it.