Again, it's a long time coming, but with exams wrapping up for the week, I'll have a monkey off my back in a couple of days (well, at least until the next semester piles more work onto me) and I'll be able to be a little bit more serious about updating the content here.

After picking up a handful of games for the Xbox 360 thanks to a buy two, get one sale, I've been going to town on DJ Hero and my latest review work has me plugging away at the Xbox LIVE Arcade title Gyromancer.  With the lineup of newer games to play in what little time I have, I was thankfully able to meet up with my achievement goal for the years' end as I finally ran my tally past 50,000.  I haven't had much time to play games lately and coupled with the near year I was without a functional 360, it's kind of sad to think I should really be somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000-70,000 points right now.  That can't be changed, however, and it's not like I'll lose sleep over that fact - I have things like work and school to do that for me.

DJ Hero has been an interesting experiment so far.  I still prefer playing games such as Crackin' DJ or beatmania, but, obviously, DJ Hero is much more accessible (and recently relavent) than those two titles in their purest form.  I'm a bit mixed on some of the music choices - most of them are alright and mixed with satisfying effort, but, there are other mixes that have no business being paired and just sound downright awful when the mix artist just fades between chorus lines just to sneak them in.  But you have some fantastic mixes such as "Insane in the Membrane" vs. "Spooky" that are quite memorable.  Outside of the music itself, I'm wondering just how accurate the controller is.  Even though I can rack up 95 or so percent on the hardest of songs, the weird timing windows on the sracthing and other various mishaps such as with the way too loose crossfader and turntable spins (I activated rewind just by scratching not even a quarter turn in some cases) constantly destroy my combos.  Playing just for fun, though, DJ Hero has been a great experience that I plan on tackling further.

With how busy I've been recently, it's really taken a toll on how much I've been able to contribute to other sites as well.  I've had a few blurbs on Arcade Heroes and a few reviews here and there on Diehard GameFAN, but I've been working with Eddie at Bemanistyle.com for the most part on extending our coverage of music games.  In a very surprising event, Naoki Maeda himself assisted us with a piece written in regard to the spread of the Playstation 2 into Central America and we've had an increase in the number of reviews published (some originating from my early work you can see on GemuBaka) along with a game contest in correlation with Aksys Games.  On Diehard GameFAN, though, I've had a number of high traffic pieces including an interview on the upcoming independent release of Hypertension along with news on the first DSi-only game System Flaw and it turns out my piece on Vanguard Princess stands as the 50th most-read article ever published on the site.  Once I have more time, though, I'll be able to contibute as normal and you'll definitely see more activity make its way over to GemuBaka.

For now, I'm almost about to call it week so I can charge my battery - between multiple jobs, I've been working all seven days for most of the weeks from November through this month, but I'm catching a break after my final exam on Thursday.  As such, I'll be catching up on things a little in the next few days, so, hopefully, we might even see that brand new Happy Hour along with MixMasterLar!

-nestlekwik

Man, I've been getting caught up in the scheme of ignoring the site, haven't I?  It's really a shame but by no means has it been intentional.  I've stepped up to more responsible positions on both Diehard GameFAN and Bemanistyle.com, which has really had me going and it has also pulled in a lot of fruits from my labor.  On top of that, you have to factor in work, school (which has amped up considerably due to the fact we are nearing the end of the semester) and having a personal life and it's been understandable that I haven't been able to keep regular tabs on poor, ol' GemuBaka.  The spirit is still alive, however, if you check out the sites I regularly contribute to, as, recently, I've dug up some really cool features that have garnered a lot of attention online.

Perhaps the one odd aspect I find with this very site is it seems the less I update here, the higher and faster the Alexa rank and hits per week improves.  Maybe I should just sit back and enjoy the progress, but, then again, eventually we'll just hit that brick wall where it becomes hard to improve and the figures sit in a back-and-forth limbo, which, admitedly, we've already kind of had troubles breaking through with the 300,000 mark on Alexa.  I just feel too bad that the last site exclusive we've had until now was printed back in September, but, at least everything is still standing here and our figures have remained relatively constant.  Again, thanks to anyone who makes the effort in clicking on anything we feature on the site.  It makes the effort worthwhile.

Recently, there has been a number of great items we've been able to feature on affiliated sites and those will be making their way here in due time.  I really do wish I had more interesting topics to speak of, but with all of the above going on, I just haven't had any time, really, to even play video games, which is a further bummer considering I have purchases such as Tekken 6, LEGO Rock Band and more sitting around at home.  Every busy time period eventually has to hit a downtime, though, so expect to see more goods in the near future including our trademark, honest reviews, more interviews, more features and, if I can ever get around to it, a new Happy Hour complete with MixMasterLar!

-nestlekwik

"Do you know what time of the week it is? Time to talk about what happened these last seven days: 3 days of gaming made me pretty happy for some reason. A big holler to nestlekwik for honoring me with what little time I know is available. We added 130 points of gamerscore. Good stuff! Who knew 7 achievements could be worth that much? Ok I knew that...

There were only a few games I wanted to try this week nestlekwik and I only tried one of them: Turtles In Time RS.

And that is all I got... it's not much, but it is interesting."

Again, if you'd like your Xbox 360 to write its own blog, head over to 360Voice.com and while you're there, join our 360Voice group.

Yeah, short and sweet.  I've been meaning to get back to work on my rounds and GemuBaka, but since my trip to Chicago, this has been my schedule:

Monday - Spend a wreckless amount of time at GameWorks and not return home until 11 p.m.

Tuesday - Report to work at 8 a.m.; get home at 6 p.m. and sleep for the entire day

Wednesday - Catch up on all of my other sites

It's not very entertaining for sure, but I was able to keep up with my work and gain some ground on some other sites.  Chicago was definitely an interesting adventure and you can bet there will be some good features coming up.

If I could describe my last week, though, it could easily be summed up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and stressing out over trip preparations.  I'll talk about the former as I doubt anyone is even remotely interested in the latter.  TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled is a fickle beast, really.  To those who weren't around during the game's original time on the Super Nintendo and arcade boards, the game could very well be the best retro title since sliced bread, but much like I've detailed in the 1989 original arcade game's transition to the NES, knowing every nuance of the original entry can potentially give a player some grizzled gripes.  Don't get me wrong - Re-Shelled is fun as hell and worth every penny, but the team Ubisoft handed the game to took some very bizarre liberties with the title.  I'm not going to go into these points here as I plan to do a full-fledged review of the title, so that gives our readers something to look forward to.

That being said, the majority of what I have to talk about stems from the Friday to Monday timeframe so once I get some time, you'll be seeing a string of stories in regard to my travels.  Until then, I think I need to soak in one more day of rest to recover from the driving and communications that filled my weekend.  I'll see you in a few days.

"Another week, another recap... and you love me for it: If your Xbox is depressed, try playing seven days in a row like nestlekwik did last week. It has a way of making you a bit giddy... We added 300 points of gamerscore. Points are good! Those 34 achievements were worth it I guess!

Out of all the possible new games we could have tried this last week, nestlekwik and I only tried one of them: Golden Axe. Pretty fun I guess... Also, I think nestlekwik's favorite game last week was STREET FIGHTER IV. He played it on 7 of the days.

So there you have it... Check back next week for another report from yours truly."

Again, if you'd like your Xbox 360 to write its own blog, head over to 360Voice.com and while you're there, join our 360Voice group.

I've been having quite a laid back couple of weeks, but, I would have to say it's about due.  Only some of it was relaxation, though, as work is picking up a bit and my college is giving me a bunch of crap about a course substitution.  Mix that in with other things I have going on and doing last-minute preparations for a trip this upcoming weekend, and my brain has been a little scattered.  The only new titles I've been able to hit recently was Beautiful Katamari, even though my 360 Voice recap says otherwise.  I almost got to enjoy a little BlazBlue, but the disc I borrowed was scratched up and wouldn't advance past the initial loading screen.  Speaking of Golden Axe, though, is there someone willing to jump online with me so I can finally get the last achievement in it?

That being said, my month as fill-in for Diehard GameFAN's PR has come to an end and it's reminded me of how fun, yet frustrating the work can be.  Seemingly, most people believe that upon starting up a video games function, companies just throw review copies at your doorstep, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  The process isn't something I will go into here (maybe if I ever write that book I want to), but you quickly learn that the field of video games PR is a fickle beast.  However, with everyone and their mother popping up Geocities sites just to eat up the pieces of the pie, it's no wonder these companies are as shielded as ever from the people that have more integrity in their intentions.  Never in my dreams did I ever imagine I would receive review copies of games - I got into the writing because it combined two of the things I treasure most: Writing and video games.  My real reward was just knowing that someone would read my work, all of the perks I've received since then have been mere icing on a very delicious cake.  Of course, the PR aspect runs further than swapping games for reviews.  As the head of the department, you're also the person people depend on to get review copies for the site as a whole, nab exclusive interviews and keep tabs on release dates and promotional media for upcoming games on top of the communications you establish in order to work on featuring contests and forwarding coverage of games to publishers and PR.  Interestingly enough, I was able to bump into a few contacts I had spoken to in some time and even though the work took an hour or two of my time daily, it was extremely enjoyable and going back to it almost makes me want to take more PR classes at college.

All things considered, though, I've still been plugging away at work online.  In the near future, I'll be pushing over some of the reviews and features I've been up to recently and the next week or two could be really interesting for me if I have my plans pan out as planned.  That just really never seems to happen, though.  I'll stay optimistic and look forward to these really great possibilities.  We'll see what happens, but for the weekend, I'm going to entrust the site over to Lar from Friday through Sunday, maybe one or two days before and after.  If he's up to it, he'll be the one that has to stop by and feed the site daily and let it outside to potty.

"It is that time of the week. I got your weekly recap right here: I told nestlekwik that 6 days of playing would be ideal... so last week there was some extra effort to get us there. Good job! Ready for this? Last week saw an increase of 1865 points! My eye almost bleeds looking at a number that large! Getting 100 achievements can do that to you. I was there. I saw it!

If I had a DOLLAR for every new game I played during the week, I would have 3 bucks! w00t! I can now add Rumble Roses Double X, Virtua Tennis 3, and WANTED:Weapons of Fate to my collection... unless they were rentals or demos or betas. I couldn't tell. Also, I think we can all agree that nestlekwik's favorite game last week was WANTED:Weapons of Fate. He played it on 4 of the days.

And that's it... short and sweet, just like my power cord."

Again, if you'd like your Xbox 360 to write its own blog, head over to 360Voice.com and while you're there, join our 360Voice group.

It was a slow weekend for the site, for which I apologize.  I was tasked with house/dog sitting over the weekend, which I didn't mind because, in earnest, I needed a weekend to just be lazy and sink into the comfort of a sofa, Xbox 360 controller in tow.  What was odd, however, was the obscene amount of time I spent playing tennis games over the weekend.  Between Virtua Tennis 3 and SEGA Superstars Tennis, I logged in quite a few hours and I don't plan on stopping my momentum as I plow through both games.  What struck me as downright bizzare, however, is the handful of people who still play these titles online.  I commend their dedication and the reason I think it is weird is because I have no problems finding a tennis match, yet no one will play some of the older fighting games or arcade-based titles.  Through the past few days, you can also add in the time I spent playing Sonic's Genesis Collection and we have some sort of wacky SEGA fetish that took up my weekend.

In my wake of achievement destruction, however, I met my goal of reaching the daunted 40,000 mark by the weekend's conclusion.  It's times like this where I wish the achievement points had some sort of real-world value, even in a Club Nintendo type of way where netting so many points in a certain time period netted you a cheap little freebie.  I'm sure it's extremely feasible to do and I'm not forgetting the Old Spice challenge from a few years back, but there has to be a more permanent means of offering such a feature.  With the scores of LIVE Arcade titles Microsoft is tossing left and right in 1 Vs. 100, I'm sure it wouldn't be too much for them to offer limited time only rewards for clearing certain achievement spreads.  In a perfect world, we would have cards that deduct Gamerscore Points from your total so you can buy Taco Bell or whatnot, but, alas, it's just not meant to be right now.

I don't really remember playing Wanted on four different days, but, hey, I'm not my Xbox.  I'll have to revisit this one to pump up my achievement score on it, but I must say this is absolutely the easiest shooter I've played in quite some time.  Time was my only enemy while I had this game in my possession as I have only a handful of achievements to go and I don't anticipate the game putting up too much of a fight in that quest.  Overall, it was a very mediocre game - I didn't dig the story or main character, there is no weapon variety, there is no challenge to be had in the game and everything just gets way too repetitive too soon.  Maybe I should just start doing full reviews of the games I'm playing for achievements ...

Finally, I'd like to thank Lar for his recent submissions.  While it was unclear whether or not we would see him again, he's been pushing through some of his reviews and he has some nice features on the way.  Keep checking back this week as we keep at it with new features.