Montana Fragfest

• Jade “Proximity” Robbins – “I’ll be damned if I can’t kick my Madden 09 habit. Still been playing a bit of Left 4 Dead but not enough to be good enough to write an article with tips. DS play time has tapered off, but primarily because I’ve been busting out some new projects. Also I’m in a gaming dry spell. Nothing out there is really appealing to me these days. I need my TF2 passion back.”
• Travis “Bullet-Tooth Tony” Henningsen – “I have been getting back into TF2 lately.  I’m pretty frustrated that I can’t snipe as well as I used to but it’s slowly coming back.  In between that I have picked up Resident Evil 4 for the Wii.  Previously, I had beaten it for Gamecube, but being the magnificent bastard that it was I had to play it again.  And that usually doesn’t happen for me that often.  Usually one run though the Single Player is all I do.  Also I have been trying to get Mirror’s Edge a go for the PC.  Suddenly the game crashes when you load an area.   I even tried to go through the old chapters that I had beaten and it froze up.  So after a format scheduled for this weekend I should be up and running.”
• Mark “Bruce LeeRoy” Sanborn – “Well I have been absurdly caught up with programming and starting tons of exciting projects; however, I was able to slip in quite a few hours of Mario Galaxies.  I also quit the MMO I was playing as I didn’t have the time nor the ambition to keep going with it.

  Mario Galaxies was very enjoyable.  The game is easy enough not to have to repeat levels but also keeps it fresh.  The game introduces new elements each level to hold your attention and keep you wanting to play for hours.

  I also tried to play GTA4 on the computer.  This game is an obvious port and runs like total crap.  Do not waste your time.

  Games I would like to play:

  Mirrors edge
  Prince of Persia”

The Battle Of Pittsburgh, In Google Street View – Woot. Streetview catches a very intense LARP battle in the magical land of the Kingdom of Pittsburg. LIGHTENING BOLT! LIGHTENING BOLT!

Nintendo Sixty-FOOOOOOOOOOUR – Youtube. A child is quite excited when he opens a christmas present that is revealed to be a Sega Genesis. JUST KIDDING! Oh man I’m funny. My favourite part is how the boy’s sister jumps up and down feigning happiness just to be “cool” in the eyes of her brother. Seriously little girl, grow up and be your own individual, I mean what are you thinking?

Where the Hell is Matt? – Team Fortress 2 Style – WeGame. Great Team Fortress 2 spoof of the internet video “Where in the Hell is Matt?” Space invaders never looked so good.. . .

The worst games that made it to number one – GamesRadar. A look at WORST games that have made it to the top of the sales charts in the US. What have we learned from this? You could slap “Pokemon” on a dog turd and kids will buy it up like gangbusters.

Not Everybody Is Losing Money (Just Ask PopCap!) – Kotaku. While our favorite game studios arelaying people off, PopCap games is posting an 85% increasein sales. Great, hopefully other game developers don’t see this and start pumping out shovelware “casual” titles using thier popular franchises. Metal Gear Solitare? Half Lfe High Stakes Poker? *shudder*

Boonie

Growing up we all loved the movie The Goonies. It was always a feel good movie that our school would let us watch when the teachers didn’t feel like teaching. Our love for this movie continued throughout our adulthood eventually peaking mid 2009 when we so lovingly coined the phrase “Boonie it up!” I was at home when I received a call from my Fragfest buddies who were at the store buying some beer for the night’s festivities. “What  your favorite snow cone flavor?” Not really thinking that the question had any real relevance I answered “blue” and hung up the phone. Ten minutes later my friends arrived carrying some particularly nasty looking is Blue Hawaiian Boone’s Farm. Now if you’ve ever drank much Boone’s Farm you know one thing: YOU WILL HAVE A HANGOVER. We were very all very aware of this fact and didn’t really want to drink the Blue Hawaiian, but our manly competitive spirit prevented any of us from actually ADMITTING that we didn’t want it. This left us with a dilemma, how do we decide who has to Boonie (the phrase used to signal to another man that he needs to take a healthy swig of Boone’s Farm, usually followed by all of us yelling “BOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!”) in a manly and equitable manner.

Games for Boonies

After much deliberation we decided that the best way to dispense drinks was through video games. But what video game to use? It can’t be a game with a high learning curve and it needed have a high turnover (from player-to-player). We found just the perfect game: Geometry Wars 2. The pacifism game mode is perfect a competition such as this. We would have “rounds” which consisted of each of us getting one life on the pacifism game mode. He with the lowest score would have to Boonie.

The Result

The result was one hell of a good time! This was competitive gaming at it’s best! This was the first competitive gaming I’ve done with real world consequences. If you lost you had to drink the death wine (Boone’s) and wake up with a splitting headache. As the night progressed we REALLY didn’t want to lose, but in the end it was all in good fun. We eventually expanded the Boonie game to other games (such as the new Scene It: Box Office Smash) and it holds true that it is super fun and gives you great motivation to win.

Give the Boonie game a shot and let me know how you all fare!!!