Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Left 4 Dead.

Braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns.

Plants vs Zombies

In somewhat of a departure from our usual programming, I wanted to point out a cool PC game that's out now. A friend of mine works at PopCap as a developer and hooked me up as a Beta tester for the latest game he's been working on. It's a fairly straightforward idea where you buy plants to kill zombies (of course, right?) but the game is ridiculously deep. The single player campaign is probably worth 40 hours of gameplay, but then there's a ton more game modes to keep the fun going. It's surprisingly addicting, and easily my favorite activity during boring conference calls at work. Totally pwns Minesweeper. You can buy it at GameStop or download the free trial directly.

Good Times

Thanks to everyone who logged in for clan night tonight. Was an awesome reminder of just how fun Left 4 Dead can be. There's a lot of play left in the game with the new Survival Mode and the two new Multi-Player maps that are still new to most everyone. Please keep me honest in balancing teams, as it can become unbalanced pretty quickly. If you're feeling picked on, speak up and I'll try my best to equalize things.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Left 4 Dead.

The first clan night blog post with e-mail push enabled. Nobody should have a technological reason not to show up.

Halo Wars Title Update

The Halo Wars title update should be out in the wild in the next day or two.   Here is what's coming:

General

• Flaming Warthog and Honor Guard Wraith skins now available in multiplayer to players who have those skulls.
• The option to show Unit Hit Point bars above units is now available.

Balance

• The number of points to reach all ranks has been reduced. General now requires 2.4 million, down from 3.2 million, and other ranks have been reduced accordingly.
• The max number of points you can get in a single match has been capped.
• The Prophet of Regret’s land speed is now reduced to match other leaders.
• Vampire Tech Upgrades now increase damage done by 15% in addition to their other effects.
• Anders Cryo Bomb Upgrades now cost 50% more supplies.
• Anders Hawk Upgrade now costs 50% more supplies.

Bug Fixes

• Multiplayer Matchmaking and Connection improvements have been put in. Players should find that their 2v2 and 3v3 teams no longer split up.
• 'Ready for the Sequel' Achievement should now be rewarded properly.
• Units on Exile and Crevice should find it easier to traverse the map.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Left 4 Dead.

The new maps and Survival mode are super duper fun. Get your butts on-line! OmniscientDeath will be hosting games this week, look for his party on-line. If he's not in your friends list, you can either add him manually, or find him in my friends list.

Xbox Live Activity

With last week's XBL activity update, Halo Wars has now dropped out of the top 10 list. This is the final nail in the coffin for Halo Wars, officially removing it from clan night consideration. OmniscientDeath, BeerMonkeee and I are still playing it pretty regularly, but I definitely could not tell anybody to go out and spend $60 on this game when you could just borrow it from us later. Left 4 Dead continues to be strong in the #7 spot and will continue to our primary clan game for the near future. Survival Mode has been a lot of fun on the weeks with only a few players, and Versus mode should be tons of fun on the new maps. Halo 3 and Halo 2 continue to reign at #1 on top of the overall and orignal Xbox lists. If folks are interested in trying either one for a clan night or two, I am happy to consider it, just leave a comment here.

Braaaaaiiiinnnsssss

There's not going to be clan night on Tuesday due to a Cinqo de Mayo poker conflict locally. But I'll probably be on XBL tonight starting around 8pm PT if folks would like to play some zombies. Leave a comment below if you're interested.