October good times

My group at work went Geocaching as a team-building exercise this week. It wasn't quite as epic as we were expecting (since it was an easy cache that was found within minutes), but we still had fun. You can see some pictures right over here.

I can't believe the number of good video games that are coming out this month. This could be the best holiday season in recent memory.

So far, I'm excited about:

Stubbs the Zombie - I linked the trailer in a previous post, and you can't help but love the idea. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to wait for the X-Box 360 to play it, because my current X-Box doesn't so much play DVD's as it does eat them.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland - The Tony Hawk Underground series got a lot of criticism because of its lame storylines (does anyone over the age of 13 think Bam Magera farting is funny?), but the gameplay and level design were excellent. Racking up six-million point combos on THUG2's Barcelona level was great fun. If American Wasteland even comes close in terms of the actual skating, I'm willing to overlook the "OMG SO EXXXXXTREME" plotlines once again.

Civilization IV - Unless you've been living under a rock for the last fifteen years, I shouldn't have to explain this one. Aside from fixing virtually everything that was wrong with Civ3 (spearmen killing tanks!), the new version looks to be infinitely moddable. If someone makes a perfect Alpha Centauri conversion for it, I will never leave my computer room again.

SoulCalibur 3 - More SC goodness, and two new hot girls with weapons. Who doesn't love hot girls with weapons? There's also a "create-a-fighter" feature, which lets you customize your weapons, fighting style, and appearance.

I've also been hearing some good things about Shadows of the Colossus, which is by the same team that created the under-appreciated Ico. From what I can gather, it's an action game with a lot of puzzle-solving elements. Judging from the screenshots, the artistic style is incredible.

Oh, and there's some kind of Metroid pinball game for the Nintendo DS, which I may have to pick up just out of morbid curiosity.

Aside from all of that, the X-Box 360 comes out in a month. None of the release titles look all that amazing, but the hardware is downright sexy, what with all the wireless controller hijinks and the built-in media center. I'm a console whore, so I'll probably pick one up, regardless of which games are available.