Halo Wars and Battlestar Gallactica

Weekend Entertainment Part II

1. Halo Wars

In case you didn't know, the makers of Halo are making a new version of the game, Halo Wars. You can download the free trial version on the XBox. It's pretty darn cool.

Unlike the original Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 which were first-person shooter (FPS) type video games (you run around with a gun in your hand shooting at the bad guys), Halo Wars is a real-time strategy (RTS) game. In RTS games, you have an eagle's eye view of the battle field, and you command groups of units to move and attack. You can gather resources that enable you to construct buildings, and the buildings will give you the ability to construct new military units or research new technologies to make your military units more powerful.

Anyway, if you like RTS games and have an XBox, I highly recommend checking out the free download version of Halo Wars. Now I can't wait for the full version of the game to be released.

I looked for a trailer of the new game on YouTube to show you what I mean about the game, but it seems like all the trailers for "Halo Wars" are totally useless. They make it seem like you're watching movies of people playing the first three installments of the the Halo FPS shooter games and don't give you ANY feel for what the Halo Wars RTS game is really like.

Oh, here we go, this trailer on the XBox website was a mixture of fantasy FPS footage and some glimpses of what an RTS game is like.

2. Battlestar Gallactica

Okay, alright, I'm ready for the barrage of I-told-you-so's from the peanut gallery. The "new" Battlestar Gallactica came out while I was on sea duty. Since I figured I would miss a bunch of it, I didn't see any point in trying to watch it when it was playing new on TV.

Yes, yes, yes, I know they started in 2003 and they're in like season 5 now, so it's not exactly "new" anymore. By "new" I mean NOT the Battlestar Gallactica I used to watch when I was a kid a couple of decades ago.

Many friends of mine have raved about how awesome the new BSG was though, so when I saw Blockbuster had the first season available on HD DVD, I put it in my Blockbuster queue. I've watched the first three episodes now, and WOW. What an awesome show! I'm really putting my new surround sound speakers to use and making the family room floor reverberate, too.

Oddly enough, even though the "new" BSG doesn't have any real sort of a theme song, I keep getting the OLD BSG theme song running through my head all the time now. Bizarre. I can think of worse songs to get stuck in my head though.

So is getting sucked into BSG going to raise my score on the Geek scale?