Virtual Viewpoints

DC, What the Heck Are You Doing?

2011-05-31T23:30:00.001-05:00

The rumors had been swirling for a while that DC would be rebooting the universe after the Flashpoint mini-series and just yesterday it became official. Not only are they rebooting the universe, they're also supposedly rebooting all the books back to #1 and over 50 characters are getting an overhaul in design by Jim Lee.

The first book will be Justice League #1, coming out the same day as the end of the Flashpoint event on August 31st. I figured Flashpoint may be a cool Elseworlds-like mini-series, but now it seems as if a new DC Universe is coming out of it. One with new origins and updated, real world connections. The even bigger news is that with the reboot also comes day-and-date release digitally for the comics as well. I find that to be the better news out of the two big announcements.

I just can't believe they're going to revert Action Comics and all the high numbered Batman books back to #1. We all know that Marvel has attempted the revert to #1 before, mostly around the Heroes Reborn time. In that case every comic eventually went back to their original numbering (Amazing Spider-Man, the now fully closed Fantastic Four, Hulk, etc.) and I also expect DC to eventually move into the old numbering too. I just see too much of a backlash with the aforementioned books.

There was also an image released of the new Justice League. Supposedly it will have 14 characters with the key central characters being Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and Cyborg. Biggest question is whether that is Bruce or Dick in the Batman outfit, but it is also obvious the Flash is Barry Allen with the blue eyes.

This will be interesting and I'm not to high on it at the moment, but I'll surely give it a good chance.

The Need for Lower Prices on Lower Profile Games

2010-11-11T09:00:00.004-06:00

Sorry that it's been a while since my last post, been busy writing reviews and having a busy work environment in my full-time job. Just today I put up my review of Activision's James Bond 007: Blood Stone, a game with an original story with Daniel Craig, Judy Dench and singer Joss Stone supplying their looks and voices to the game. I open up the review talking about game pricing and how with the 360 at its 5 year anniversary and the PS3 at its 4 year anniversary why the game pricing structure hasn't changed.

It is obvious if you play the game that the production budget was not as large as many AAA games out there like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Medal of Honor, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and many others. Those games will sell like hotcakes at the $60 price point, but something like Blood Stone (which is a good, but not great, game) simply isn't going to sell well at that price point. If they dropped it down to $50 or even $40 as I would recommend, there may be more people willing to buy it and in the long run I think they'd make more money than bringing it out initially at the $60 price point. Sure, you're losing $20 on each sale, but the potential extra buyers at that price point should offset the loss. Given the money put towards the game is less you should still come out better in the end.

So, let's say Blood Stone sells 100k copies across the 360 and PS3, that's $6 million profit on the game at $60. Let's say at $40 the amount of copies sold are doubled to 200k, that's $8 million (at $50 we'd be talking $10 million) and with a larger install base the word of mouth could spread and the game has a "long tail" on sales. Where the game may have only sold that 100k at $60, there is the potential to sell at a greater multiplier at the lower amount because more will pick it up because they save $10 or $20 on it.

My argument is that early on the companies could get away with $60 for a game (then there's Microsoft which started 1st party games at $50 with the 360, but now they are $60), but now that we're several years into the systems we should really start to see some games that are more regularly budgeted come out at a lower price point in order to maximize sales and get the word of mouth out there. I just think these recently released games may have done better in sales at lower price points, including the obviously dying instruments/rhythm games that could have had stand alone copies dropped in price:

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (my review)
DJ Hero 2 (my review)
Rock Band 3
James Bond 007: Blood Stone
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (my review, an excellent game that would sell well at a lower price)
Alan Wake (it is less now, but when it came out it may have sold better at a lower price)
Crackdown 2 (my review)
Vanquish
R.U.S.E.

Those are just some off the top of my head. Each game would be considered below a AAA game in terms of production budget. Given it isn't a top notch game that will generate a lot of pre-buzz, why not bring the game out at a lower price point allowing more people to play it and possibly get the good word out on them. All those games range from good to great from a critical perspective, but word of mouth could really sell them and potentially make more money for the publishers at a lower price point.

Maybe I'm out of line with my thinking, but as we move into the last half of a decade with the 360 and come close to the half decade mark with the PS3 I think it's time for them to tier prices, which may be a difficult thing for them to figure out, and attempt to make as much money as possible. The budget conscious buyer out there is waiting for many of these games to drop in price before picking them up. Why not make it enticing right off the bat at the budget price because we all know games generally sell big when they first come out and trail off from there. There are aberrations out there like DJ Hero that had "long tails" on sales, but generally if you don't sell straight off you aren't going to sell.

So, what do you guys think? I'm going to post this over at Colony of Gamers in the General Gaming forum to get some discussion going.

My Problem with Swearing in Gaming (Enthusiast) Journalism

2010-08-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

I'll be the first to admit that I do swear pretty much everyday, but that my mind is cognizant of the situation I am in and is able to somehow turn the swearing switch off and on. Where I don't swear is in anything I write about gaming. I also try as hard as I can to not swear in forums either, including at Colony of Gamers. When I do swear there it is usually to point out something someone else said in the thread through the use of quotes.

With that out of the way I have a major problem with the amount of swearing I see and hear in gaming (or enthusiast) journalism. I use the word in quotes because many people feel that most video game writers sit in the enthusiast section and really aren't journalists in the broad sense of the word. In many ways I agree with that since most sites, including CoG, fit into the enthusiast genre more than mainstream journalism. Then there are the pulp sites like Kotaku, Destructoid and the like that may have some people with journalism backgrounds, but take a fully "throw the spaghetti at the fridge and see what sticks" mentality.

I was recently checking out one of the blogs I read regularly. I won't name it, but they recently added another contributor to the blog. A person I had worked in the past with on another site I used to write reviews for. Reading this person's blog posts there are a lot of the f-word being used. This person has at least one kid and reading through the posts I just don't see a reason for the swear word to be there. It doesn't really add anything to the conversation at all, so I'm not sure why you'd put it in there.

I don't listen to podcasts either. I never know when a podcast might have a swear word in it and it really takes me out of the conversation when one is used. These are freely available sound recordings that any child could go in and download from iTunes or wherever. Many of the people that do podcasts that I know also are in the radio industry. Would that industry allow you to swear without using the 7-second delay? Of course not. So, I don't understand why the mindset changes from being on the air to doing a podcast. Yes, you're in a more comfortable situation, but I would think a radio personality would be pretty hardwired to not swear when talking into a microphone, but maybe I'm mistaken.

I know I'm missing out on a lot of things by not listening to podcasts. Are there any gaming ones out there where swearing is used sparingly or not at all? I would guess some of the more major sites like Gamespot, IGN and maybe even Game Informer wouldn't allow swearing, but am I right about that? I also realize we have print magazines out there that allow swearing and that's fine because they made that decision long ago. However, as gaming journalists (or gaming enthusiasts) we should really be talking about gaming at the lowest denominator we can and allow children to hear stuff they might be interested in without swear words flying about.

Maybe I'm a prude in this respect, but there are many gaming journalists out there, or what I consider gaming journalists, that don't resort to swear words to spice up their reviews, opinions, interviews or whatever. I think this is yet another example of what divides the enthusiasts from the actual professionals. We're probably too far down the line to change anything about this, but I implore those aspiring gaming journalists out there to not resort to swearing and think about the full range of people that may be reading your site or listening to your podcast.

Fact is I'll simply stop reading or listening if I feel a swear word is used for no apparent reason at all.

Growing Up 8-Bit: Sample PDF

2010-08-26T06:30:00.001-05:00

Since the Kindle Sample doesn't really hold any content from the book outside of the cover and much of the Table of Contents, I've decided to upload a sample PDF of the first eight pages of the book starting at the Preface which explains my unique perspective with playing games my whole life.

The PDF document should be downloadable to anyone via this link. Enjoy.

Excerpt from Growing Up 8-Bit

2010-08-22T09:25:00.000-05:00

Here is the excerpt about Yars Revenge, one of the best games I played when I was younger. This should give you an idea of how each game is presented in the book and what the general writing is like. Hopefully this will entice you to pick up the book through Amazon as noted in the post below this one. Without further procrastinating, here is the excerpt:

Yars Revenge (Gaming Milestone)

Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari
Systems Played: Atari 2600
Released: 1981

If you’ve never played Yars Revenge, can I suggest trying to find a 2600 and a copy of this game? Hours upon hours of my early life was spent with this game on the 2600. My grade school friends and I used to get together on weekends and just play this game, handing the controller between us. I was young when this game came out, so I can honestly say I don’t think I knew the story behind the game until I recently looked on Wikipedia. I remember seeing the comic book that came with the game, but heck that I remember what the story was. Basically these two alien races are fighting each other over the fact that one destroyed a Yars world and they’re seeking revenge.

It is interesting to note that the game was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw, who went on to create the horrendous E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial game. In Warshaw’s defense, he did only have five weeks to create the game, but it can certainly be pointed out that the massive money loss for Atari on E.T. started the snowball of Atari going belly up.

Yars Revenge was the best selling original game on the 2600 and that title is certainly deserved. You play an insect that can shoot a pellet from his mouth. At about a third into the screen vertically is a neutral zone of static where you can’t be killed by either the roaming/homing single shot or when the cannon on the right turns into a swirl. Your task is to take out the shield around the cannon by shooting or touching/eating the shield so it gradually disappears. The key thing with eating the shield is that it helps you build a missile on the left side of the screen that you will then use to take out the cannon either in its static form or if you’re lucky when in the swirl mode.

The trick of course was when firing the missile to line up correctly and hit the cannon. To exasperate this, on some stages there was a full rectangle shield that the cannon was in and you’d have to shoot/eat it down enough to get a missile shot to the cannon or await its change into the swirl. As you went on and your points got higher the color of the shield changes and the cannon changes to swirl mode more often and at the higher levels gets a heat seeking power added to it that makes the neutral zone even more important to you since you are faster than the swirl, but watch out! This game was highly addicting and even the simple sounds fit right in with the rest of the game. For those interested, there are several videos on YouTube showing the game off. The way I explain it probably sounds strange, but once you see it in action and remember that it is from 1981 it will blow your mind.

Growing Up 8-Bit Available Now

2010-08-22T09:14:00.001-05:00

I know it's been a while since my last blog post, but I figured this area would be the best place to give some excerpts from my newly released book, Growing Up 8-Bit. The book is about my experiences and real-life connections to the over 100 notable games I played that came out between my birth in 1976 to 1990. This books is the first of at least three books. The next one will chronicle the years 1991 to 2000 and the other one will cover 2001 to 2010. Both will probably have more games than this initial book.

The book is set up with over 100 chapters in the Table of Concepts by system, game and real-life event. You can feel free to jump back and forth between games or read through the whole book if you so desire.

The book is available currently only through the Kindle service on Amazon. The nice thing about Kindle is that you don't need the eReader to purchase and read this book. You can download a client that allows you to read it on a PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android. All the software downloads are available here at this link.

The book itself is priced at $2.99, the lowest price I could set it at in order to get 70% royalty from Amazon. Those of you outside of the US can also buy the book. Here are the two links to the US and UK versions of the book:

US Version

UK Version

With that out of the way my next post will be an excerpt from the book itself since Kindle's Sample download only goes through part of the Table of Contents and doesn't really touch any real content. This will be about Yars Revenge, one of the best games I ever played as I was growing up. It is part of the many gaming milestones I note in the book in my opinion.

Thank you for reading this and please feel free to purchase Growing Up 8-Bit. I hope to have it available to Nook customers as soon as Barnes and Noble opens up its publishing website that is supposed to happen sometime this summer.

Too Human (360): I've Never Given Up On You

2008-05-13T10:40:00.000-05:00

As of 11am Central Time (the time this post goes up) my good friend (and boss at Evil Avatar) Nick Puleo has this interview with Too Human creator Denis Dyack available in both MP3 and transcript form on both Evil Avatar and sister site Co-Optimus that Nick runs.

I proofread the interview yesterday and the first question obviously stood out for me.

Nick - So we'll start with the big one: Are we going to see Too Human this year?

Denis - Yes! Our Launch date is officially going to be August 19th.

Finally! This game is finally coming and it is coming pretty quickly in just over 3 months from now. I've always believed in Silicon Knights and Dyack himself. This is the 2nd game that has gone through multiple systems and delays for the company. Eternal Darkness did quite well (check out my review from Console Gold a long time ago that was actually featured on Silicon Knights website for a long time) and I always believed Too Human would be a great game even with the E3 2006 fiasco.

Reading the interview I come away with the belief that this is going to be a game that is going to surprise everyone. Nick told me when he came back from the MVP Summit a few weeks ago that he thought it looked awesome and looked very different from what he had last seen. I know many people out there have put this game on the back burner, but be prepared for it to go to the front burner and get red hot.

It is disappointing that there is only 2 player co-op instead of 4, but I think Dyack does a good job of explaining why they did this. It sounds like the character classes and the balancing of them in relation to speed was problematic. I'd honestly rather have a really well done 2 player co-op experience than a problematic 4 player co-op experience.

This game is also sounding like everything Hellgate: London wasn't when being compared to the Diablo games. It also sounds like the other 2 parts of the trilogy may be coming on the next Microsoft system, but I still have hopes at least the 2nd one would find its way onto the 360.

Just be ready for this game because I think it could be one of the greatest examples of a turnaround in gaming ever.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Unscorable Game

2008-05-12T02:33:00.000-05:00

I worked long and hard on getting everyone together and edit all the pieces that turned into the Evil Avatar: Liberty City Diaries piece that was put together for posting last Monday. Some of my co-writers on the piece asked about putting a score on the review and I noted that this type of game doesn't deserve a score and we should just hone in on our experiences with the game. There weren't any people that went against what I said, but once the piece went up there were many forum users that were asking where the score was. Personally, I feel the GTA series as a whole is unscoreable (I made up a new word..woo!). There are other games out there that share this power (another recent one is Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Wii), but GTA is easily the most visible one.

The fact that 29 sites gave its top score to the 360 version and 20 did the same for the PS3 version simply shows that these games just cannot be scored. All of these magazines and online sites of course have to give the game a score, but really is it going to make any difference to the consumer? They're going to go out and buy GTA IV, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4 no matter what it gets scored. These games just rise above the review process. What strikes me as odd with both GTA IV and Brawl is how much people just default give it the top score. I haven't played Brawl, never really liked the series, but I have played GTA IV and it certainly does not deserve the top score. If I was to do an actual review of it for Evil Avatar I would most likely give it a 4/5 or 4.5/5. It has a lot of wonderful things in it, but there is also a lot of missteps that keep it from being the "be all, end all" of videogames.

I hated the last GTA, San Andreas, yet 30 sites gave the PS2 version a perfect score. Although it was the largest of the GTA games, I just didn't like some of the directions Rockstar North went with it. I would have scored it a 3/5 or 3.5/5 at Evil Avatar. The whole keeping CJ healthy (or not healthy if you're into that), which was a core mechanic to the game, was a total turn off to me as was the story itself.

Bottom line is why even give scores to these games? Why not just talk about the experiences you had and whether you liked it or not. I like what we did with the Evil Avatar: Liberty City Diaries piece and am glad we attributed no score to it (honestly it would be hard to equate 12 scores into one final score and people not fly off the handle about it). Maybe more places should take note and not score these games that are guaranteed to be picked up by the public no matter the score given to it. Why make a fool of yourself giving it your top score when you could easily give your reviews on the game with no score?

We're Back

2008-05-12T02:01:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's been a while readers. As you can see the layout has changed a bit and I hope to finally start having more regular posts. On the right side is now the publications I write for as well as reviews of movies and games that I've been playing with links for those that are published. Any more questions, feel free to ask.

12/28/07 - The Day Marvel Pulled a Wall Punch

2008-01-01T18:01:00.000-06:00

Last Friday will be a day that will live in infamy for comic books as a whole. It was, at the exact same point, Marvel's (or should I say Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada's) stupidest and most brilliant move ever. Spider-Man was retconned by 20 years in our time (who knows how many years it actually is in comic's time) and the 6 plus years that J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) has written Amazing Spider-Man. We no longer know if "Sin's Past" (I will get to this somewhere in this post since it does relate very closely to "One More Day") even happened, if Ezekiel ever came to Peter or even, going way back, if "Kraven's Last Hunt" ever really happened.

Most of us guessed early on when "One More Day" (OMD from now on) started (and even when it was first announced) exactly what was going to happen, but it was extremely sad to see that everything we guessed would happen came true with one stray thing we never saw that I will get to later.

Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson made a deal with the devil (Mephisto in this case). Let that sink in for a while. Remember that Joe Q was against having Peter and MJ divorce because it would send the wrong message to the younger readers. Instead he decided a pact with the devil was a far better message to send to younger readers. Good one there Joe Q! We all know Joe Q has been against the marriage for a long time and in one felt swoop he gets the ending he so desperately wanted. He says that the need for a single Peter Parker had much more story potential than a married Peter Parker has. I call bullshit on that, but what do I know?

You may ask where the brilliance in this move comes from. Joe Quesada was smart enough to totally destroy the Spider-Man universe, but have the next arc, "Brand New Day" (BND from now on), be headed by some of the best and brightest in the Marvel camp. Starting off will be Dan Slott writing and Steve McNiven penciling for 3 issues. Then Marc Guggenheim writes and Salvador Larocca pencils, then Bob Gale (best known for writing Back to the Future) writes and Phil Jimenez pencils. Finally Zeb Wells writes and Chris Bachalo pencils. This also enters the cycle of Amazing Spider-Man coming out 3 times a month. I am going to guess given the delays in OMD that these guys could be several months ahead of schedule with issues. Many people would love to drop the book from their pull list over OMD's finale, but then you look at the talent coming up and the fact that the arcs will hit hard and fast and you can't help but see it through at least through the Slott/McNiven issues, the first ones up, right? It's a tough game to play because Joe Q is counting on the issues bought increasing because of the great creative muscle behind the "relaunch" and that will validate him doing the DC Wall Punch on Spider-Man as a whole. It's an evil circular cycle and one that every comic fan has to choose to take or not. One thing I highly doubt is that an increase of new readers will come from this simply because Peter is single again.

The saddest part of the OMD ending is that JMS leaves the book on a low note. He will be blamed by many for the ending much like he was blamed with the "Sin's Past" weak reveal that totally screwed the innocence of a character long dead (Gwen Stacy). Thing is neither flub was his fault and we can lay all the blame for both at Joe Q's feet. "Sin's Past" was supposed to reveal that Gwen Stacy's twins were indeed Peter Parker's children. This is logical given the title of the arc, but instead Joe Q wanted to keep Peter somewhat pure and editorially mandated JMS to have Norman Osborn be the father of the twins. This goes down as one of the biggest mistakes in Spider-Man history and I wonder how pure Peter is going to be now that BND starts up. Supposedly there are plenty of new women along with MJ in Peter's life in BND. Is he going to live the chaste life or is he going to get down and dirty with some of the girls? If it's the latter it will make most of us laugh at Joe Q's attempt to keep Peter innocent during "Sin's Past". It is also very obvious reading the last two parts of OMD (and the extra Joe Q writing byline) that although the words may come from JMS that Joe Q is standing right over his shoulder saying what needs to be portrayed.

So, what does the ending of OMD leave us with? A whole bunch of questions that supposedly will start to be answered with ASM #546 coming in a week and a half. It is an extra sized issue that supposedly will give us info about the new people in Peter's life and, we hope, explain how exactly he can:

1. Still be part of the New Avengers
2. How the reversal of his unmasking couldn't have changed the outcome of Civil War
3. Any number of other questions

There are lots of questions and they stack up each and every day. I feel sorry for former DC editor Steve Wacker (who did half of 52 before moving to Marvel) whose task it is to sort out this mess with continuity that Joe Q has left him.

The lone hope is that this will be just as short of a change as Peter's unmasking (which supposedly had TONS of story potential, but only lasted a little over a year thanks to the Civil War delays), the Other powers and the change to Iron Spidey was. That's the hope at least, but who knows what is going to happen. In some small way I hope this is just Peter and MJ in Mephisto's little world living through "eternity" until they come together again. Maybe that is what MJ whispers to Mephisto, that she wants Peter to be in a world he can be happy and he is no longer in the Marvel Universe as a whole (but can be explained away as being gone for a few minutes from the MU after everything wraps up). That's a big wish though I think. However this could be very akin to the X-Men's "Age of Apocalypse" or the end of Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men where this is indeed an alternative universe and everything is on the up and up in the regular universe. We can only hope though.

The lone plus to the ending of OMD is that Harry Osborn is alive again. In many ways it is akin to Aunt May resurfacing years after supposedly dying in ASM #400, it's just that this is a retcon. Are they trying to say that since Peter and MJ never married that Harry didn't go crazy during Inferno (if Inferno even happened that is, remember this retcon affects the MU as a whole) and eventually die?

I am interested in what Brand New Day is going to bring, but I also hope many people are outraged enough by One More Day that they don't pick up the 3 times a month ASM. That will send a message to Marvel, but I have a feeling with the creative power behind the new arc that people will at least try the first 3 issues with Slott and McNiven.

Just pray this doesn't last very long...

Game Overload

2007-11-19T00:43:00.000-06:00

I'm sure many of you are experiencing a gaming overload. As a freelance reviewer I have found myself having to put some pretty top shelf games on the back burner in order to devote enough time to reviewing. These are the games I am currently trying to play:

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Assassin's Creed (360)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)
Mass Effect (360)

These are the games I currently have on my review plate:

Virtua Fighter 5 Online (360) for GameShark
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (PS2) for Evil Avatar

Along with those two I plan on reviewing some of the above mentioned games for Evil Avatar, but I need to pick which ones. I figure Mass Effect will take the longest, so that goes on the back burner and hopefully someone else will play through it and review it for EA. Call of Duty 4 has already been reviewed at EA, so the other 3 are fair game and I will probably review them, so they will be my next major experience after I have given VF5 enough time to write a review.

Luckily I am already a good chunk into Ratchet & Clank as well as Assassin's Creed (I just had to see how good/bad it was for myself and playing fighting games for review constantly can get a bit tiring), but I have not touched Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

I'm not sure how other freelance reviewers out there handle their load, but as soon as I get something that needs to be reviewed every other game goes on the back burner and the review games take center stage. Yes, the allure to play the other games are there, but I also have a job that needs the most time I can give it.

At least there is some time off in my future where I might be able to sit down with the other games once the reviews are done. There is also a chance that other games could enter the scene that need to be reviewed as well, so everything goes on the back burner once again. At least the light is somewhat visible...

Game of the Week (11/18): Mass Effect

2007-11-19T00:09:00.000-06:00

The gaming crunch finally subsides after this week. What is weird is that many of the games that are shipping this week I already have in my possession, but we'll get into that later. This is another tough week to pick a Game of the Week, but I think it has to go to:

There are some other interesting games coming out (highlighted below), but the honor has to go to Mass Effect, the next RPG game from BioWare. I already have my copy and played it a bit last night (I have a lot of games on my plate at the moment, including review needs) and I have to say I am quite impressed by the graphics, the story, the huge amounts of text/voiceover in the informational screens and even the gameplay itself. I just finished the first planet and will probably play more, but it isn't on the front burner at the moment. Yes, it is a lot like Knights of the Old Republic, but things are handled mostly in real-time outside of switching your teams weapons before a fight. The game takes things from Gears of War, such as reliance on cover, and makes it an engaging experience. No question this is the Game of the Week and should fulfill everything people have been looking for in an RPG on the 360 finally.

Other games this week:

Unreal Tournament III (PC): Played the demo and was pretty impressed by it, but I am not a very good UT player when compared to the masses out there. The game is as fast as I remember the last version being and a lot of fun should be had. I'm not sure if this will stand above other FPS games that have valid online components or not though.

Link's Crossbow Training w/ Wii Zapper (Wii): Not excited in the least about this. From all accounts the actual Wii Zapper controller is a dud and really won't amount to much in the end. It is cool that it combines the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, but I can only see its validity going so far.

Rock Band (360/PS3): Yes, Rock Band. I've never really been a big fan ever since it was announced. Harmonix seems to be a highly regarded developer (which they are given the pedigree of games they've made) and everyone falls face first into loving them. From all accounts, the difficulty in Rock Band is not as high as Guitar Hero III (expert in RB is like Hard or possibly Medium in GH terms) and I would think that would turn a lot of people back from getting this game, but what do I know? I think it is cool for people that want to do stuff with 3 others, but for me I'd rather have single or dual guitars to play with.

Time Crisis 4 (PS3): Still a pretty popular series, but it would be hard to justify $80 for a short game with a gun included don't you think?

Godzilla Unleashed (PS2/DS): I did some interview questions a while ago for GameShark, but I have no clue if they were ever answered or not. The game from all the movies and developer diaries has looked good, but the play is the true test. Much like the recent Dragon Ball Z game the Wii version is delayed a few weeks from the PS2 release.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3): Sony did end up sending it out early last week, but I took that out of last week's GotW stuff since it was looking like the 20th was still the release date. I have the game, but have not gotten a chance to play it as of yet. Much like Mass Effect it is on the back burner

Soulcalibur Legends (Wii): All indications are that this is a bad game, which is too bad considering it could have been a worthwhile 3rd party release on the Wii (of which there are very few).

Game of the Week (11/11): Super Mario Galaxy

2007-11-12T00:06:00.000-06:00

Everyone, check your wallets because this is quite possibly the toughest week this season with games depending on what type of stuff you're looking for. Next week is the only one that could come close to challenging it. This is also a tough week to pick a Game of the Week, but one key first-party title stands out:

Yes indeed, Super Mario Galaxy is my pick for Game of the Week. This should be the game that will prove whether all those millions of people who have picked up the Wii are interested in more than just Wii Sports. This was a tough one to pick out of the group, but here are some other notable releases this week.

Assassin's Creed (360/PS3): This game is either going to be really good or fall flat on its face. Ubisoft has a lot invested in this game and I have a hard time believing that a game years in development is going to flop, but then I read the latest EGM which had a small story on AC and it didn't make me that excited. Then some reviews popped out late last week, like from the hometown magazine Game Informer, that gave it a 9.5. Evidently review embargoes are held until Tuesday, so we shall see what happens then. At least they give you a day to decide if you truly want it.

Beowulf: The Game (360/PS3/PC): Another game from Ubisoft this week. This one is based upon the movie coming out this Friday. I'm interested in possibly renting this game, although it is a game based upon a movie which usually falls flat in the videogaming universe.

Blacksite: Area 51 (360/PC): The PS3 version is delayed for a bit, but the 360 and PC versions are coming out this week. I'm not very interested simply because the Area 51 game that came out last generation wasn't anything to get excited over. It is funny that Midway moved this away from Halo 3 and now it faces off against a lot of top notch games this week which are not FPS games.

Crysis (PC): What more can be said about this game? It looks nice, but many people won't be able to get the best out of this game unless they purchase an all new computer with bleeding edge components. Some people will do such a thing, personally I don't think this game is big enough to justify such an action. Having played the demo and the beta, I still feel it is a lot like an updated graphical version of FarCry with a new storyline.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (PS2): The Wii version is coming next month, but given how good the last game was this one should be good as well. Atari is in a world of hurt right now and they could really use a sales influx in order to keep this license and keep themselves from going under.

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men (360/PS3/PC): Really haven't kept my eye on this game, but the big pull here is the ability to play co-op. EA's Army of Two sounded similar to this game and was going to be out this same week, but EA moved it back to next year. Now this game stands alone and Eidos probably has a lot riding on it.

Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (Wii/PSP): This game seems to be a big surprise in the controls section. IGN gave it an 8.4, which is pretty high. It also has a 32-player online component for the Wii AND it supposedly runs well. That is amazing in itself and should give an Wii owner something to smile about with games upcoming.

Need for Speed ProStreet (360/PS3/Wii/PC/PS2/DS): EA Canada takes the NFS series in what looks like an all-new direction. This could be good or bad. I liked the demo for what little you got to play out of it, but I am also apprehensive about changing a formula that I felt wasn't broken with Most Wanted and Carbon. This game seems to be centered around street racing and around teamplay. Supposedly I will be reviewing this for GameShark on the 360.

SimCity Societies (PC): While Maxis is still hard at work on Spore, EA moved the next SimCity game to Tilted Mill, best known for Caesar IV up to this point. This game looks interesting and looks to take the series in a new type of direction. Unfortunately it will probably be mostly overlooked with everything else coming out this week.

WWE Smackdown vs. RAW 2008 (360/PS3/Wii/PS2/PSP/DS): Finally...the Rock has come back to PS3! Last year's game on the 360 was really good, but it still sounds like the loading times are here which is just a buzzkill and something that should be fixed by now several years into this series. Career mode sounds like it is more open, but I tend to wait for reviews of this game before even touching it.

Game of the Week (11/4): Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2007-11-05T00:39:00.000-06:00

Well, I'd say last week's pick of The Witcher was actually a good one. I haven't picked up the game yet, but outside of the huge amount of loading the game sounds like a winner, especially with the version 1.1 patch. This week was not as hard as some other ones will be in November. The only true standout:

Yep, the no-brainer this week is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare coming out on 360, PS3, PC and DS. I will be picking up the PC version simply because I have been with Infinity Ward since the beginning on the PC; plus it is $10 cheaper than the 360/PS3 versions. It sounds like single-player is short (which is not unusual for the CoD games), but the multiplayer is where the action is at.

Other notable games this week:

Empire Earth III (PC): I liked the last game in the series and can't believe they'd screw this one up.

F.E.A.R. Expansion (PC/360): The standalone F.E.A.R. expansion comes out this week. I only played a bit of the original, I should pick it up now that I have a better video card.

Gears of War (PC): The game comes out on PC, now with extra levels. Wonder how powerful a computer will have to be to make this look as good as the 360 version?

Viva Pinata (PC): If you missed this game on the 360 and have a computer, it is imperative that you pick this up. The kids will love it and you will love it.

Strong PC-centric week before the consoles take over for the rest of the month.

Sam and Max Episode 201: Ice Station Santa (PC/Gametap): The second season starts for this series on Gametap this week. It is great to have Sam and Max around again honestly.

Sony Ads and Timeshift

2007-11-05T00:15:00.000-06:00

Someone must have awoken the sleeping giant. After screwing up time and time again Sony actually has a, dare I say it, great ad campaign going on. After last year's launch campaign with the crying baby ad, exploding Rubix Cubead , and the crazy Sixaxis egg ad. The only good ad to come out was the one for MLB 07.

Sony now has brought an ad campaign that is truly the best they've had in a long time. Here is the 60 and 30 second commercial that shows off first party games via the Playstation Blog. In the 60-second commercial they show off Gran Turismo 5, Ratchet and Clank Future, Uncharted, Warhawk, Heavenly Sword, Spider-Man 3 on Blu-Ray, the upcoming Home and the Playstation Network. That is the way to make a commercial that gets people excited about a system. I already own the PS3, but man that commercial jazzed me up. I'm a big fan of the Saliva song used here, but I know many people don't like it.

Also, while watching football yesterday I saw commercials for Assassin's Creed, The Simpsons Game and Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. The funny thing about the first two is that they were PS3 ads where only the PS3 logo was shown even though both games are out for the 360 and other systems in the case of The Simpsons Game. Sony must have paid big money to advertise these games and make the illusion that they are PS3 only. I thought the Ratchet and Clank one was very funny. Maybe the new $399 price was the catalyst for Sony actually making great synergistic commercials (since they all end with the PS3 w/appendages turning into a regular PS3). All I can say is Sony has certainly brought its A game to the arena for the holiday and maybe this will finally spark some sales.

Even though they took out Backwards Compatibility, dropped the hard drive down to 40GB, took out the memory card readers and eliminated a couple USB ports the PS3 is very attractive at $399 with the Spider-Man 3 Blu-Ray movie included. It's amazing how far Sony has come since last year's $599 release at 60GB and $499 at 20GB. Now they are more in line with the 360 and even though the 360 has more software choices I think Sony is on the right track. It's just too bad it took them to wake up to reality.

OK, enough about that, let's talk about Timeshift for the 360. I will be reviewing it for GameShark and I'm close to being done with the game and then trying out the multiplayer side of things. I have not read any reviews (I like to come at my reviews from a clean perspective), but I have seen the scores. They seem to be squarely in the 7s and in the case of Gamespot a 6.5. Then again this is Aaron Thomas writing again, the guy who gave Ratchet and Clank Future a 7.5 while other sites are handing it scores in the 9s.

Just given the scores for Timeshift I have to say I largely don't agree with them. I am going to guess that many of these reviews are probably comparing this game to the ones that it is sandwiched between: Halo 3, The Orange Box and the upcoming Call of Duty 4. It's unfortunate that this game comes out in the middle of those three, but come on! This game is really good and I personally am surprised how good it is. The graphics are really good (with a little tearing here and there if you move the camera slowly), the puzzles are not too hard, the time powers are cool and the game is pretty lengthy. If there are weak points it is in the story itself and the AI is pretty dumb. The story is told through flashbacks and really doesn't get you at all interested in it. It is the standard time-travel sci-fi mumbo jumbo. At one point before the game was bought by Vivendi the main character actually had a name and I believe was going to be voiced by Randy Quaid. Now you are just an unnamed physicist who is going after the other time suit that the overall leader of the experiment stole and went back in time to change the past. The other problem is the dumb AI. You can really trick them into coming at you in smaller groups than one big group where you have to be on your toes. They are pretty good shots, but they'll stand in the middle of the road shooting at you, making them easy targets for a time freeze and kill.

Unless the game falls apart in the last 1.5 levels I just don't see this game being in the 6 or possibly even the 7 category. It is unfair to rank a game given the other games out there. Timeshift cannot compete with the total number of games in The Orange Box and it cannot compete with already established franchises (Halo 3, Call of Duty 4), so why even bring them into the review? Let the game stand on its own. It is a really good FPS game that is a sleeper in my mind, but it obviously won't get much business with it coming out this time of year and so many other games out there competing for our gaming dollar. Would it have helped to hold the game back to early next year? Well, it was already a pretty late game as it is, but what would have hurt other than the financial quarter to bring it out early next year? It could have been another success like Lost Planet was.

Game of the Week (10/28): The Witcher

2007-10-29T01:15:00.000-05:00

This week is a tough one to pick a Game of the Week. I am expecting many weeks in November to be much the same way.

I am going out on a limb and picking The Witcher as my Game of the Week. I have no inside info on it nor have I played it at any stage of its creation. I have heard some good things about it and I think it shows the most promise this week, so I give it my endorsement. Plus its Holloween week and this is right up the alley for that.

Other games this week:

Hellgate London (PC): This game has flop written all over it. I played in the beta and played the demo and I am still not all that excited about it. It feels like an MMO (the subscriber stuff that came out a while ago is a good indication that it is an MMO) and in my mind they really should have kept it single-player and told a story. Funny how Bill Roeper has fallen so far after Diablo.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (360/PS3/Wii/PS2): The safe choice for Game of the Week, but I didn't take the bait. Everyone and their brother will get this game and I will probably get this game. I did not stand at midnight in order to get it though, was in no rush to do that.

Naruto: Rise of a Ninja (360): Another safe choice for Game of the Week. The previews on this have been gushing and everyone that has played it says it is the best Naruto game so far. It encompasses a lot of the Naruto storyline into a game, so it should be pretty long. This game is 360 only at this point and it could be a big seller given the amount of people that love the anime show.

Tabula Rasa (PC): Also played the beta in this. It was kind of cool, but the MMO grind started to take over after the initial 1 hour of pure joy. Feels like a cross between your standard MMO and a 3rd person shooter.

The Simpsons Game (All systems): I'm still not sure why EA didn't hold this until the movie DVD comes out in December. In fact, I have not seen much in the way of ads for it on television or anything. EGM gave it a review in the 7s which is pretty good by their scale. This game has money written all over it, but when it isn't advertised much how are people supposed to know it is even coming out?

TimeShift (360/PC): I will be reviewing the 360 version for GameShark. Both the demo I've played on 360 and PC make the game look interesting and the graphics, especially the rain, looks really good. This game could be different enough to stand out among the FPS quagmire out there, we shall see though.

Virtua Fighter 5 (360): VF4 was one of the best fighters ever and I have no doubt VF5 will be as well. The 360 version gets online play and I will be testing that out when I receive the game to review for GameShark as well.

Exciting week...and it only gets worse after this.

Game of the Week (10/21): Ratchet and Clank Future: ToD

2007-10-22T00:46:00.000-05:00

Who knows how far this will go, but I'm starting up a Game of the Week item here on Virtual Viewpoints and what better game to usher it in than Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for the PS3.

Outside of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune coming next month, this is the game that will most likely be the Playstation 3 Game of the Year. This is the next game in a proven great franchise and Insomniac would have to really screw things up in order to not make a good Ratchet and Clank game.

It is a sad state of affairs that Sony's best games are coming out so late in the year for the Playstation 3. I don't think this game is going to spur sales in any way, but it should be a really good game and probably the best game so far for the system.

Other games this week include:

Eye of Judgement (Sony, PS3) - will be reviewing once copy is here

EA Playground (EA, Wii/DS) - looks fun with a lot of sports games

Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (Bandai Namco, 360) - some people swear by this game and there is even a controller to go along with it

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (Konami, PSP) - must get if you have a PSP. Rondo of Blood in 3D and 2D as well as Symphony of the Night included

Naruto: Clash of the Ninja Revolution (Tomy, Wii) - sounds like a good fighting game for the Wii

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trails and Tribulations (Capcom, DS) - many people love this series, so why not pick up the new one?

Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Capcom, Wii) - good word of mouth so far on this one

Painkiller: Overdose (Dreamcatcher, PC) - a mod that turns into a full game

Portal, Tony Hawk Beatdown, Demos and NPD Numbers

2007-10-19T01:57:00.000-05:00

Obviously the love for Portal is all over the place. I also loved the game as well, although I'm not as crazy as some people are over the ending song of the game. It's cool and it goes along with the deadpan jokes throughout Portal's wonderful 3 hour playtime, but let's not get carried away.

In many ways I can equate the greatness and shortness of Portal with one of my other favorite games of all time, ICO. Back when I reviewed ICO for Console Gold (now Gaming Trend) I got a question from the owner of whether the game really deserved its score given how long it takes to beat (roughly 4 hours of straight gameplay, not adding all the trial-and-error). This is a very subjective area of game reviewing in my opinion. I think you can have a masterful game that is short and still give it high marks. Heavenly Sword is a short game, but it also isn't as masterful as ICO or Portal, so I would rank it lower (probably in the B area via GameShark ratings).

Anyway, if Portal was on its own and not included in the Orange Box I think there would be a lot of backlash given the length of the experience. The fact that it is one of 5 games in the box helps it a lot in the reviewing department. What is also cool is that people have figured out how to use the Portal gun on any Source-based game. Sure, it pretty much screws with the way the games were built, but it is pretty cool to set up ambush scenarios.

Since I talked about review backlash, I think it is important to point out how badly Tony Hawk's Proving Ground is getting reviewed. Yours truly is reviewing it for GameShark once the game gets here, but I was a bit shocked by the reviews coming out for it. The TH games have pretty much been review proof since its inception, much like the Madden games are commonly seen with high 80s and 90s review scores. No matter how derivative or "yearly boost up" type feel the TH games had (much like the roster updates and small tweaks for Madden), the games were still reviewed well. This year though it seems the major sites have given Proving Ground a beatdown:

1up - 5.5
Gamespot - 6.5
IGN - 7.1
Team Xbox - 7.4

Granted, the TH reviews have gotten lower as we've gone along, but this is a pretty big beatdown. Why are the scores so low? Well, it has to be because of skate (my GameShark Review). Reviewers got to see something new from skate and they're all aflutter with the new control scheme. I liked the new control scheme and with some minor tweaking it could easily make this possible series even better than the Hawk games were in their heyday. Almost every review points out how much better skate is from a gameplay perspective and I'll get to check it out myself here pretty soon. It is funny though that the Hawk games become the first series to get the beatdown, I would have figured the Madden games - which have been around far longer - would see a critical beatdown earlier than the Hawk games. Then again, there is no real competition for EA on the football front.

PC demos of upcoming games are hotter than fresh pancakes right now. In the past few weeks we've had demos for Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament III and Hellgate: London just last night. The Crysis demo is coming soon (October 26th), but I have also played in the beta for that game. I'm impressed by just one of those games so far: Call of Duty 4.

This isn't to say that Unreal Tournament III is going to be a bad game, it's just that I've never really been into that series and there are tons of people that are far better at that game than I could ever hope to be. With my limited time of playing Hellgate: London I was not excited at all, but I will play more of it. With Crysis it isn't that the game sucks it is that the system requirements are just staggering and I keep thinking that EA/Crytek are limiting the possible sales that this game could generate. They like to say that Crysis can't be done on consoles, but I'd be willing to bet we'll see the game on the consoles in 2008. Crysis, just given the greatness of FarCry, should be made of money. It's just that EA/Crysis have priced themselves right out of the game except for those that want to spend lots of money on an all-new system.

Call of Duty 4 gets special mention here. Infinity Ward is much like Pixar in the gaming world: everything they touch turns to gold. They were not part of any of the sucky Call of Duty games and now they are back with a modern variant of the game. I was surprised how well the game ran on my aging system and unlike some of the other games I didn't have to whip out my more powerful laptop to play it on. It's the same old Call of Duty gameplay, but it is like a perfectly tuned symphony in play. I will probably pick this up on the PC since that is all I've played the Infinity Ward games on...why change now? This game will most likely be in the hunt for Game of the Year and the jump from the rut of World War II to modern times hasn't hurt it at all.

And finally the NPD numbers were released yesterday. First hardware and then software numbers ranked in order:

Xbox 360 527.8K
Wii 501K
Nintendo DS 495.8K
PlayStation Portable 284.5K
PlayStation 2 215K
PlayStation 3 119.4K
Game Boy Advance 75K

1. 360 HALO 3 - 3.3 million
2. WII PLAY W/ REMOTE - 282K
3. NDS LEGEND OF ZELDA: PHANTOM HOURGLASS - 224K
4. PS2 MADDEN NFL 08 - 205K
5. 360 SKATE - 175K
6. 360 MADDEN NFL 08 - 173K
7. WII METROID PRIME 3: CORRUPTION - 167K
8. 360 BIOSHOCK - 150K
9. NDS BRAIN AGE 2: MORE TRAINING IN MINUTES A DAY - 141K
10. PS3 HEAVENLY SWORD - 139K

So, the 360 wins the console sales by a hair. Both Microsoft and Nintendo have to be happy with the results in September. The Wii trails right behind the 360 in overall sales even with Halo 3 having come out and the DS sold almost 500k units as well. Sony, although they will spin this ("we sold 334k total Playstations" (PS2 and PS3) or "619k in total Playstation brand" (PS2/PS3/PSP)), should be absolutely devastated by both the hardware and software numbers.

Only selling 119k PS3s versus the over 500k that the Wii and 360 pushed is really bad. They had the cheaper system out there plus the 80GB version and I don't see them recovering any ground through the holidays since they have such a weak lineup of games outside of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. On the software front Heavenly Sword sold respectfully, but was outsold by skate on the 360. A first-party game outsold by a third-party game for another system...ouch!

I'm not even sure the $399 40GB system is going to push a lot of systems out the door. All it takes is for Microsoft to drop the prices a bit more and they've effectively blocked Sony's ever closing chance. And now Jack Tretton has the gall to say that buying a PS3 AND a PS2 will solve all your backwards compatibility issues for less than the original price of a PS3. Although the math is indeed correct, I think a lot of people would rather play their old PS2 games on a PS3 and not have to worry about having 2 (or more if you have a 360 and/or Wii) systems set up. The fact that they eliminated BC is just a spit in the face of those people who owned the PS2 and want the graphical upgrades that the PS3 gives many of the games. I'm still not sure why they dropped support of it unless it was a section of the company that was bleeding red with no possibility of ever catching up.

As we head into the holiday season I see the Wii, 360, DS and PSP to have a really good season. The first two have some big games still coming (Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero III, Rock Band and Mass Effect) and I think we will start to see an interesting pattern as we see if Nintendo can continue to push on with looming shortages (whether just words or reality is questionable) or if the 360 is going to sell really well this Christmas with an abundance of systems to pick up. Who knows, but it will be a fun ride.

Halo 3 Review (360)

2007-09-30T00:22:00.000-05:00

Title: Halo 3
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Microsoft
Platform: Xbox 360

My Recommendation: Must Own

It should come as no surprise that I recommend this as a Must Own, however there are some caveats. For those only wanting to go through the campaign and not dabble in the multiplayer options, this is purely a game you should rent. It shouldn't take you very long to beat the campaign and then you have the final chapter of the series. If you are into multiplayer and being able to build your own "items" into a given map, this game tops them all and for that it becomes a Must Own.

The campaign itself is well done with a couple sections here and there that I really didn't care for. I've never been a big fan of the Flood and any section revolving around them goes into the "I just want to get through this section" mode instead of the "man, am I having fun trying to think ahead of all these enemies. With the Flood there is no strategy, they are a legion that just keeps coming after you. They have no tactics or anything, they just want to overwhelm you.

Any section revolving around the Covenant is really good. This makes up the majority of the game with the Flood being the pain in the ass toward the end. The enemy AI is really good and grenades almost become useless against the Covenant because they are so smart. There are a variety of Brutes and Grunts you will go through, some with stretches of invulnerability attached to them or a strategic weak point to take them out.

The weapons are nice here as well. I'm happy to say the Assault Gun is back after it was forgotten about in Halo 2. In fact there are many sections where a friend actually throws you the Assault Rifle in a cutscene. It is funny that it was gone for a game and now it is the main basic weapon in Halo 3. The coolest additions to the weapons are the Gravity Hammer and the Laser gun. The laser comes in handy in at least two sections of the game, one of which is a little to cheap if you ask me.

The story overall is done well. Anyone who hasn't played the other 2 games is going to be really lost, especially about the whole Gravemind aspect of the game. The Gravemind is around in this game and you see his tentacles, but (SPOILER!!!!!) you never go against him face to, uh, face.

There are a few boss battles in the game, but nothing to write home about. The first appearance of the Scarab is awe inspiring, but once you encounter them here and there through the rest of the game they don't seem as cool. The boss battle toward the end of the game is a very weak one with the aforementioned laser gun, which is too bad because it involves a character that is a central character to the series itself.

The nicest thing about the storyline is this: (BE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS):

At the end of Halo 3 you come to the realization with the final mission title of "Full Circle" that the series has done just that. You blow up the rebuilding Halo from the first game, you take out at least a sizable chunk of the Flood (if not all of them) and after the credits have rolled you see that the Master Chief and Cortana made it through the portal still alive. The Chief goes into a cryotube and tells Cortana, "Wake me when you need me." That is exactly how the Chief started Halo: being pulled from a cryotube.

Do I think this is the end of the Halo series? I doubt it. Bungie is in a dangerous position. They have to create a new IP that people are going to jump on. If they can't do that I have to believe there will be a Halo 4 in the future. The door is left open for a Wing Commander like rebirth. The Covenant could decide they want to attack again, there could be internal struggles on Earth or there could be an all-new threat. Not killing off Master Chief leaves the door open for him to come out of the cryotube once again.

The multiplayer aspects of the game is where the real meat is. I've only played a little bit online, but I also realize the broad range of games you can play online. There is also the Forge mode where you can drop items into the maps of the game. You can't change the map terrain, but you can create an all-new experience to play with your friends online. Much like Halo 2, chances are multiplayer is going to help Halo 3 live for years and I can only guess that Bungie has a lot of downloadable content coming.

In the end, you really can't say no to Halo 3 if you are into online multiplayer at all. If you only want to play the campaign and see the end of the story I say you should rent the game. It should only take you at most a few days to finish the fight. If this is the end of Halo, it went out on a high note.

The big question is whether it is the best 360 game out there? From a multiplayer perspective probably. From a graphical, story and overall perspective, probably not.

Review: Heavenly Sword (PS3)

2007-09-17T01:29:00.000-05:00

Title: Heavenly Sword
Developer: Ninja Theory
Publisher: SCE Europe
Platform: PS3

My Recommendation: Rent It

I'm not reviewing this game for Gameshark (although my Warhawk Review is now up), so I thought I would give a review of this game on my blog instead.

Heavenly Sword is a beautiful game that is hindered by its length and the borrowing of many aspects from the God of War games. Many people will say the game goes beyond a straight GoW clone, but I think it borrows a little too heavily on it to really stand out as something different. It is obvious that Ninja Theory put a good amount of time into both the game graphics and all of the cutscenes that make up the story. The story doesn't necessarily grab you, but watching the cutscenes is just a sight to behold.

Much like God of War the main character dies at the beginning of the game and you go back in time 5 days and play through what leads up to Nariko facing off against thousands of enemies. The 5 days make up the first 5 chapters of the game, with the sixth chapter being the final boss fight. Nariko is put in a sort of hub where the Heavenly Sword comes out of the ground in 6 different places which correspond to the 6 chapters. There are then circles on those swords that point out how many missions there are in each chapter. Some chapters have a lot of missions, some have very few.

A majority of the game is spent with Nariko taking on an overwhelming number of enemies. In many ways it is far bigger in battle concept than God of War, but Nariko has far less combos and tricks than Kratos has. Nariko cannot jump, which makes things a little interesting. She has three stances she can fight from that all use the Heavenly Sword. The first stance is the speed one which is just used by pressing the Square and Triangle buttons. The range stance is accessed by pressing the L1 button along with using Square and Triangle. The power stance is accessed by pressing the R1 button along with using Square and Triangle. Most of the time you will be using the speed and power stance, but the range stance comes into great use on at least two bosses.

As you go through the missions you can get a total of 3 glyphs by doing things within the mission. As far as I know there is no way of knowing exactly what you have to do in order to get those glyphs other than the bar at the bottom of the screen that increases as you do things. Supposedly getting all the glyphs is one of the reasons to replay this game, but I honestly saw no need to go back and do it all over again.

The funny part is that the best sections of this game is when you take over as Kai (Nariko's cat-like friend) or if Nariko has a long-range weapon to fire/throw. As you fire off the weapon and hold down the Square key you can use the Sixaxis controller to guide the shot toward your intended target. This helps immensely when Kai is shooting her arrows ("twing-twang" as she calls it) or when Nariko is taking down enemies storming the fort. Aiming arrows at enemies clear across the screen was just awesome and I almost wish there was more of this game type than of Nariko running around swinging the Heavenly Sword around.

In the end I found myself going through the motions in order to get to the end of the game. The long-range things were a welcome change of pace, but I honestly found no reason to use combo attacks versus button mashing in the Nariko vs. an overwhelming army sections. The only place combos help a lot are the boss battles when you are able to pull one off.

Heavenly Sword also borrows from God of War with the "press a button at the right time" gameplay. It doesn't happen very often and the buttons pop up very quickly. I had many times where I had to replay a section because the buttons popping up caught me off-guard. In the GoW series I never felt surprised by when the buttons came up to press, but here is a different story.

The boss battles are interesting as well. They all have weak points and have a cycle of moves that they make. The final battle is the best of them all, but it can also be very frustrating. I have heard people being able to beat the boss just mashing on buttons, but I found that to be impossible. Instead there was a way to deflect some things back to the boss and that helps a lot. The boss battles are not as interesting as, say, Metal Gear Solid, but they are somewhat memorable.

In the end I can only recommend that you rent this game. I'm glad I rented this game. If I added up the amount of time I spent on the game, I'd say it was 5-6 hours. I'm of the belief that length doesn't necessarily hinder a game. I use ICO as my example of an extraordinary game that was extremely short (4 or less hours). With ICO I replayed it multiple times, in the case of Heavenly Sword I don't see myself playing it again other than to show it off to people that want to see nice high-def graphics, but then I'd have to rent it again.

Heavenly Sword is a really good game, but it's only worth a rental because of its length and the heavy borrowing from the longer (and better) God of War games. Don't buy the game because you can literally beat it in a day, but renting it should satisfy your need for a really good exclusive PS3 game.

Proof that the Wii is not the true Market Leader?

2007-08-23T00:39:00.000-05:00

This week we may have finally gotten proof of what I've been saying all along that the Wii is only going to have 1st party games that sell well. Everyone and their mother (and grandmother) are picking up a Wii in order to play things like Wii Sports, Wii Play and Mario Party 8. The 3rd party offerings have not been great and I don't expect many of the people who own the Wii to buy them. This is where Nintendo being the market leader in Worldwide sales (they passed the 360 recently) isn't really telling the whole story. So, what game do I feel is proof of this concept? Madden 08.

Thanks to VGCharts, we have a good handle on how well Madden 08 sold last week. Here are the sales numbers (with rank):

1. Xbox 360: 889,072
2. PS2: 546,403
3. PS3: 204,025
7. Wii: 57,247
8. Xbox: 56,841
13. PSP: 39,170

If you note, the Xbox version only sold 406 less copies of Madden 08 than the Wii version. That's pretty bad if you ask me. It's also bad that the PS2 version outsold the PS3 version by over 300,000 copies, but that's for another post. Those are pretty bad sales for a major 3rd party title on the Wii. By all accounts, the game itself is better than last year's version on the Wii. I personally don't know because I don't own a Wii.

Other sales on the Wii also tell the tale that the Wii is going to live and die by its 1st party offerings:

4. Wii Sports: 89,280 (4,242,200 total; note: this equals total Wii Sales in US)
6. Wii Play: 59,006 (1,932,191 total; note: a controller is included)
10. Mario Strikers Charged: 44,601 (233,517 total)
14. Mario Party 8: 37,521 (990,672 total)
21. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition: 21,777 (304,570 total)

There are others on there, but the rest are 1st party as well. The only 3rd party game to hit "big" is the one above. 300k+ is respectable and is the exception to what I was talking about. I still stand by my idea that the Wii software sales will be poor for the most part outside of 1st party games whereas the 360 and PS3 will have 3rd party games that sell really well. It is a mirror image of the GameCube except that everyone loves Wii Sports and Wii Play. It would behoove Nintendo to continue making those types of niche games because it is the only way they'll be able to push respectable sales numbers in my opinion.

Good News/Bad News

2007-08-20T01:23:00.000-05:00

I was going to post this last weekend, but the weather was pretty traumatic up here in the Great White North (Minnesota). Power went out twice for 4 hours each time (early Saturday morning and Monday Night) and we've had quite a bit of rain. I ended up having to replace my router because the WAN port was sketchy at best (although I can't corroborate it, this could have been part of the Xbox Live problem weeks earlier). Everything is working at the regular speed now, so everything's great.

First the good news. I was lucky enough to get an offer from Bill Abner (the sport's reviewer and part owner of the Sports Gamer Blog) to review for GameShark. It is sounding like EA's skate (check out the website) will be the first game I'll be reviewing. Bad news is that I'm getting the 360 version and may not have mine back in time, so I may have to venture 40 miles to where my brother-in-law lives and play there. There are other games I might review, but I don't want to give any information away in case I'm not chosen to do them. I'm excited about skate, although I think you have to get into the mindset that this is like real-life skateboarding and not Tony Hawk moon physics where you can pull off impossible moves. It will be interesting to see if it is a good first effort, because then there is a possible challenger to the crown the Hawk games have worn for many a year.

Being a reviewer again is awesome, but the writing style is a bit different. It's more free form and is more about how you feel about the game instead of talking about features and all that like I used to do. I am no longer bound by sections as I was before. The best news is that the GameShark position allows me to fulfill a dream I've had since I began writing...getting paid for it. With that fact and the fact that GameShark doesn't have a lot of PS3 reviewers, I picked one up for the $500 price point and my first reviews will go to pay that off. So, I'm now a (proud?) owner of a PS3. I still don't own a game for it yet, but if Heavenly Sword isn't the first one, Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction will definitely be.

Onto the bad news. I am not very excited that Irrational Games was turned into 2K Boston and 2K Austrailia. I figured for sure if BioShock hit it big that Irrational would be bought up by a more "cash happy" publisher than 2K Games. 2K Games is in a world of hurt currently in my mind. Grand Theft Auto IV was pushed back and BioShock becomes its only big game this year I believe. I am still thinking BioShock is not going to sell as much as everyone thinks it will. Remember, System Shock 2 sold pretty badly (well under 100k sold) and that was a critically lauded game like BioShock currently is. It could sell well and I hope it does, but this game may not be for everyone.

That's it for the bad news except for the post below this one.

Xbox 360 Died

2007-08-20T00:23:00.000-05:00

Yep, my launch unit finally died. I was hoping it would last through BioShock's release, but it was not to be. I just sent it off today to be replaced and I don't know how long it will be before I get one (hopefully with the extra heatsink and a quiet DVD drive) back.

I had been noticing over the last few weeks that Xbox Live would log in slower and some games like Guitar Hero II would lock up after a while. It worked fine with NCAA Football 08 though, never locking up. Once I started to download the BioShock demo things started to go south.

I am likely to miss BioShock (but am downloading the PC version to see how well it runs to see if I can pick that up) and Stranglehold, but hopefully it will be back in time for Halo 3. I will probably also miss Medal of Honor: Airborne, although much like BioShock I may be able to play it on PC.

It's just not a good time to have an Xbox 360 down, is it? It makes the Halo 3 Xbox 360 look more enticing though. It does look cool as well.

Thanks to my brother-in-law for letting me play the BioShock demo over the weekend. That game is HOT, but I always though it was HOT. He even though it was HOT and was thinking about getting it.

So, I'll be tracking my UPS shipment of the 360. Hopefully it won't take too long, but who knows.

Demo Thoughts: Eternal Sonata and Stranglehold (360)

2007-08-09T01:39:00.000-05:00

Like many of you I downloaded both the Eternal Sonata and John Woo's Stranglehold demos and I thought I'd give my thoughts on them.

First up is Eternal Sonata, a game I have been looking forward to playing. The demo takes you through a section of the game and face a boss monster at the end. The battle sequence is pretty different in that you are given a certain amount of time to move and do actions before the next participant, whether friend or foe, begins their active time. There is a bit of strategy involved because the best option is to rush in to attack and then start to backtrack before your time is up so the enemy doesn't have an easy shot at you.

The graphics were really good in this game, but they really didn't make me feel like I was playing a next-gen caliber of game. It seems like a much sharper version of the Final Fantasy games from the original Playstation. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because the colors are vibrant, but anyone looking for a graphical explosion is probably going to be disappointed.

The other thing I wonder is how much speech there will be in the game. Talking to NPCs was like the FF games of old where you read the information instead of a game like Oblivion where almost everything is spoken. This game is very old school in how it is presented. I am looking forward to this game and I will at least rent it depending on how long of a game it actually is.

I was really excited to play John Woo's Stranglehold to see whether the fears I outlined in my August Games Preview were true or not. After the demo, which actually is a pretty lengthy one, I am still worried about this game being too Max Payne for its own good. The graphics are impressive, but there are times where the character graphics actually look worse than those in Max Payne 2 which was released almost 4 years ago. I would expect some more realistic looking people from a next-gen game like this.

The gameplay itself was pretty fun, but I still think it is treading a bit too much on the Max Payne blueprint for my liking. The destructible environment is certainly a new thing. You can shoot at objects above enemy heads to kill them (they are highlighted with a shiny spot to show you can use it) and there is even a couple cool points where you are facing 3+ people at once and you go into a mini-game kind of section. You can move Tequila to the left or right to dodge bullets and then you can shoot the person (or an object to take them out) and you go to the next enemy. The other cool thing is when you get the precision aim ability and you can aim a shot and you watch the bullet go directly to where you aimed on the enemy. Those kinds of things certainly aren't in Max Payne and makes this game stand out a bit.

For what I played I was impressed by the game (I am a big Max Payne fan) and will at least rent it for the 360 (or the PS3 if I ever get one in order to get the Hard Boiled Blu-Ray disc). The cool montage after the demo is done shows some of the rest of the game and it does look good. Midway may push this into at least the good category, but I reserve judgment on whether they can deliver a great game or not.

Spider-Man: One More Day/Brand New Day

2007-07-31T00:17:00.000-05:00

Marvel has always said that 2007 was going to be a huge year for Spider-Man and given what is coming up at the end of the year confirms this. I honestly don't know what to expect from One More Day (J. Michael Straczynski's final Spider-Man arc after 6 years with Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada doing the covers and pencils), but the San Diego Comic Con started showing some hints of light on it (thanks to Newsarama for the info).

1. Quesada noted that the "retro" covers on One More Day (the first two are below) evokes the feel of a certain era in the Spider-Man history. To me he's talking about the early days as being the 70s/80s era of Spider-Man where covers were busy with words and multiple panels. It was in the really early days as well, but I think it was much more prevalent in that era.

2. In Zeb Wells' interview at Newsarama (he is one of the 4 writers on the 3x a month ASM along with Dan Slott, Marc Guggenheim and Bob Gale) he let it slip that the web shooters were coming back. As it stands now Peter has organic webbing like in the movies.

3. All of the preview art for both One More Day and Brand New Day show Spidey in his original costume and not the black one he is wearing now. This probably means that Aunt May is not the body on the cover of ASM #543, the issue before One More Day starts, but who knows (we'll find out August 22nd).

There are other things that were divulged, but I am both anxious and excited about One More Day and Brand New Day. I have to believe they are about to reverse about 20 years of stories. This is the 20-year anniversary (real time, not comic time) of Peter and MJ getting married and Quesada has said on multiple times that he wants Peter single but is not willing to do it through divorce. I have a sinking feeling that Peter is going to ask Dr. Strange to wipe everyone's mind (and possibly his own) of him unmasking, marrying MJ, being given the Other powers, the whole spider totem, letting anyone know his secret identity, etc. He will be given "one more day" with MJ knowing everything she knows, but after that everything is at square one. Peter may or may not remember everything, but MJ will no longer be married to him and no longer in danger for being around him. Obviously she will still be in his life, just not at the level it was before.

Brand New Day will be him starting at square one again with everyone. If the mind wipe is actually happening I hope that he remembers everything and is able to reconnect with MJ. I hate that the marriage is probably over, but done correctly I could stay on with my favorite superhero. I am very excited, but also anxious, about One More Day and Brand New Day. Marvel has been doing pretty good with keeping things interesting, although wiping the knowledge that everyone knows Spider-Man is Peter Parker will certainly lessen one of the major plot points from Civil War.

It is an interesting time to be a Spider-Man fan, that is for sure.

Post-E3 Thoughts and Game Impressions

2007-07-16T00:40:00.000-05:00

Well, E3 has come and gone. All indications are that this may have been the last E3 we will ever see. Some people liked the new show (minus the Hanger that was far away from the hotels), some people hated the new confined show. It seems a lot of the show happened in hotel rooms or small party areas in hotels. I'm not sure what the final cost was for each company, but outside of the poor (but mandatory) food service at the LA Convention Center what did they really gain from this?

I think all the companies could go back to the table and find a nice middle ground between the two extremes. Go back to the LA Convention Center, increase the invitations a bit (but don't allow the marginal people you allowed before) and increase the booth babe crackdowns from last year. I think that would be acceptable to the companies that were complaining (EA for sure, I think Nintendo and Sony may have also, I forget) and make E3 not seem as hectic as it did last year. It did get too big for its britches so to speak. I just don't see the expo continuing after this year, especially in this format.

The flow of information also seemed to be a little lacking this year from all the websites. Gamespot still had its live show, although I think they forced it a bit too much versus last year. Once again I point to the fact that Greg Kasavin is no longer with the site and I think he kept things pretty tight on the ship. A LOT of Sony stuff was shown on Gamespot, but none of them really stood out from what I watched over the weekend outside of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.

Some of the games I would have liked to have seen at the press events did get shown in private. There are some videos out there of the presentations and they made me pretty excited, but who knows how far off these games are. This E3 of course did nothing for the consumers except for those that read websites and even then the stories weren't as meaty as they have been in years past.

Outside of that stuff I'd like to say what games were impressive, what games are questionable and which ones disappointed me as I viewed E3 from home.

Impressive

BioShock: No big surprise here, I'm high on this game and the gameplay shown on Gamespot was top notch as was the Ken Levine narrated video that came out last week. This game is going to rock, it's just too bad it won't sell that well (and I hope I'm wrong).

Mass Effect: November cannot come soon enough. This game looked hot, especially from the 21-minute demo shown at Gamespot (even with Rich Gallup sounding like an obsessed little girl).

Halo 3: No big surprise here, I was on this game as soon as it was announced. I like how much was shown at E3. It looks like Master Chief and the Arbiter join forces (and the possibility of co-op play is in play, although Bungie has not confirmed) and the graphics look phenomenal in the regular story.

Project Gotham Racing 4: Motorcycles and weather...what more do you need? This game looks excellent as well and should be the racing game to see until Sony actually gets around to bringing out the next Gran Turismo game.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: I love this series and this would probably be just enough for me to get a PS3 if it wasn't so expensive.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: I liked what was shown in both the press event and at a meeting with Miyamoto later on in E3. This game looks hot for the DS.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: Color me surprised by how good this game looks and how well it controls (supposedly). This game is a Wii seller, however it is a game that is not geared toward the mass Wii crowd.

Super Mario Galaxy: This is the game that should sell the Wii this winter to the mass crowd of Wii owners. For Reggie to say that it is the best Mario since 64 (way to piss on Sunshine Reggie) might just be marketing speak, but hopefully not.

Questionable

Crysis: I was hot on Crysis until I saw the stage demo on Gamespot. Crytek could get away with stupid AI on Far Cry since that was their first game, but with this game that isn't going to cut it. The graphics are phenomenal, but I bet you'll have to have a really good rig for it to even chug along well. Yes, it will work on lower systems, but I bet there will be a lot of slowdown. I still say I doubt we will see this in September.

Hellgate: London: This game is probably a year too late in coming out. When I looked at the graphics in the live demo on Gamespot and compared them to something like BioShock I decided they just weren't as good. This game was supposed to push the envelope I thought, but I came away unimpressed.

Killzone 2: This sits here simply because it looks great, but who knows how the level design will be given Guerilla's history. I think Sony has a lot to hang its hat on with this game, but other than an ominous "2008" release (could be late next year for all we know) there isn't a whole lot to get excited about until it gets closer.

Rock Star: Questionable on Rock Star? Have I gone mad? Maybe. Everything about this game sounds great, but I question how well online multiplay will go and how many people will actually splurge on the whole package (buying the game, 2 guitars, drum set and microphone for over $200) and have their friends come over to play. I'm betting most people will be picking up the drum kit and the guitar(s), but the microphone is up in the air. Then most people will just go online to find their band. Add to this the fact that you will probably pay through the nose to get these "full albums" that people are talking about. Chances are also good that they will let you download the full albums, but the tunes themselves won't be set up by Harmonix for standard play with the game. Instead the game will decide where the notes are, much like people that hacked the original GH on PS2.

Disappointments

Assassin's Creed: I am a little shocked that many people think this was the game of the show. Did they not see the demo at the Microsoft press event? Did they not see the Gamespot demo with Jade Raymond sounding like she was locked in a cage and couldn't give out any information? This game has been YEARS in the making and the graphics are stuttering. This game has been DELAYED to November. All signs are pointing to a game that may not be what everyone wants it to be. Honestly, Ubisoft should just let the cat out of the bag and divulge what everyone already knows: the main character is from the future and there are Sci-Fi elements aplenty in the game. In fact, the Jerusalem section shown in the demo will probably be a small part of the game (much like Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2). Just be careful of this game, I don't think it is going to be everything we think it will be.

LittleBigPlanet: Okay, this game is nothing like I thought it was going to be when it was first shown off. Now it seems like a sandbox-type game where you create your own stuff and play on there. I figured it would be a cool Lemmings-like game with online multiplayer. The game still looks fantastic, but the overall gameplay dropped it greatly from my list.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune/Heavenly Sword: I put both of these here because it seems like they borrow a lot from other games. The first game borrows from other platform games like Tomb Raider. The latter borrows from God of War quite a bit and will probably not have as great of a story. The first game's graphics do not look as great as I first thought they would be. The latter has great graphics. Sony needs standout games like the Ratchet & Clank one to really assert their spot and sell consoles. Neither of these two games is going to do that honestly.

Sony's Continuing Stupidity: What started off as a great E3 (good press showing, $100 price drop) turned to good old modern day Sony showing up at the end. Yes, we get the $100 price drop, but once all the 60GB systems are gone that are in the supply chain now they are gone for good. In its place goes an 80GB system with no Emotion Engine in it (meaning software compatibility for games from previous systems) for the usual $599.99 price. Why can't they bring out a 60GB version without the Emotion Engine and sell it for the $100 price cut? Basically they spit in the face of gamers everywhere, although now is the time to get a PS3 if you were to get one. The 60GB version has the Emotion Engine in it and it is $100 cheaper and will probably be around for at least a few months (unless people grab them all). In the end though Sony screws up again. How stupid can they be? They need a unified PR group instead of different main excutives saying different things (watch out for Sony Europe's head, he loves to leak stuff!). Oh well, Sony is still playing the arrogance card, but they are way behind in sales. They have to think of something or this generation is going to leave them behind quickly.

Upcoming Games - July

2007-07-16T00:05:00.000-05:00

Yes, it seems like the gaming drought is about to end. Now that we move into the post-E3 time of the year, the gaming landscape starts to heat up. So, let's go down the line from with the big July releases:

NCAA Football 08
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports
Release Date: July 17th
System(s): PS3/360

I buy this game every year, but I may wait this year. I still consider this to be the premier football game, but the news of only one camera angle again this year doesn't make me too excited. I will probably bend to its will, especially if it gets reviewed well (IGN's review: "If you love football, you'll love this game!").

All-Pro Football 2K8
Developer: Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K Sports
Release Date: July 17th
System(s): PS3/360

So, you lose the NCAA and NFL licenses and you decide to sign up legends from the NFL for your game. Gutsy move, although the more gutsy move would have been to price this game lower like you did with NFL 2K5. Then you could reassert yourself as the premier football game. There are pluses and minuses in this game. On the plus side you get to choose your team fantasy style and there are online leagues, but on the minus side you can only play one season because there is no franchise mode. I am going to try to rent this game to see if it is good, but the no franchise thing will certainly hold me from buying the game for $60 and I think that is the biggest problem 2K is going to face with this game - the price just needs to be lower.

Upcoming Games - August

2007-07-16T00:04:00.000-05:00

August is a bit hotter than July with games, let's get to them:

John Woo's Stranglehold
Developer: Midway
Publisher: Midway
Genre: Action
Release Date: August 6th (360)/August 20th (PS3/PC)
System(s): PS3/360/PC

Ever since I first saw screens I was impressed. What I am not impressed by is that Midway is heading this game. Midway is great at making "middle-of-the-road" games, ones that aren't in the greatness category but they don't suck either. I hope maybe they can change their ways and actually make a great game, but I will wait on reviews first before even renting this. It is also sounding a lot like Max Payne which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but playing the same type of game can get old no matter who is attached to it.

Madden NFL 08
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports
Genre: Sports
Release Date: August 14th
System(s): PS3/360/Wii/Xbox/PS2/Cube/PC/PSP/DS

I would not be surprised if EA pushes the release of this game up a bit if they feel the heat of 2K's effort in July. I am pretty interested this year after renting last year and skipping the buying part. Gang tackling (also in NCAA this year) and more GM-centric options as well as a supposedly boosted Superstar mode make me pretty excited for this game. What doesn't make me excited is no online leagues, only one camera angle (why?) and the radio announcer is back...d'oh! It is also obvious the 360 version will probably win out in a head-to-head with the PS3 version. The 360 runs at 60fps (supposedly without slowdown) whereas the PS3 version runs at 30fps...whoops!

Lair
Developer: Factor 5
Publisher: Sony CEA
Genre: Action
Release Date: August 14th
System(s): PS3

For some reason Sony didn't show this game off at their press thing at E3 and I have no idea why. This has been touted as a pretty big game for the PS3, but I don't see it selling a whole lot of systems unless the reviews are beyond reproach.

Bioshock
Developer: Irrational Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Genre: RPG/Action/FPS
Release Date: August 21st
System(s): 360/PC

I'm all in on this one! I will have to get it for the 360 simply because I don't think this will run well on my PC. The spiritual successor to System Shock and System Shock 2 is simply something that cannot be missed. Only problem is that no matter how much press this game gets it isn't going to sell very well. It will sell to fans of the other two games and the hardcore demographic, but the mainstream gamer? No way, I just don't see it. This game will probably be a good candidate for game of the year even with the other stuff coming later this year.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Developer: Retro Studios
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Action
Release Date: August 27th
System(s): Wii

I don't own a Wii, but outside of Twilight Princess this would be a great game to sell a Wii to me. It's still hard to find a system out in the wild, but I have seen it on one or two occassions. The stuff coming out from E3 on this just makes it that much more interesting to me. I think this game had one of the better showings at E3.

Blue Dragon
Developer: Mistwalker/Artoon
Publisher: Microsoft Games Studios
Genre: RPG
Release Date: August 28th
System(s): 360

Finally, one of the RPGs I've been waiting for comes out over here. This game did generate some 360 sales over in Japan, but much like BioShock above I don't see this game selling a lot of copies here in the States. The E3 demo got me interested and I'd love to see more of the game when it comes out.

Warhawk
Developer: Incognito Studio
Publisher: Sony CEA
Genre: Online Action
Release Date: August 28th (maybe)
System(s): PS3 (Online only)

Sony showed a lot of this game at E3. It doesn't sound like there are a lot of maps in the game, although there is land-based combat along with the air combat. Also, if this is anywhere near $60 Sony is going to have a tough time selling it to a lot of people.

Upcoming Games - September

2007-07-16T00:03:00.000-05:00

September is also a strong month. Let's get to it...

Project Gotham Racing 4
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Microsoft Games Studios
Genre: Racing
Release Date: September 3rd
System(s): 360

Day 1 purchase for me since I've purchased every other PGR game since #2 on release day. The addition of motorcycles and weather are just pluses to this already awesome racing series. The only minus is that this game will probably come out at $59.99 instead of $49.99 like PGR3 did.

Heavenly Sword
Developer: Ninja Theory
Publisher: Sony CEA
Genre: Action
Release Date: September 4th (maybe)
System(s): PS3

This game was also shown off at E3 at length. It looks interesting, but it also looks like a combination between God of War and Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath in the gameplay between the main character and her sister that you play about 20% of the game as. I think it would have to have a really good story to get people interested in it. If I had a PS3 I might be interested, but this might also be a rental before I make a decision.

skate
Developer: Black Box
Publisher: EA Games
Genre: Sports
Release Date: September 5th (360)/September 18th (PS3)

This game should be interesting since it is a new IP for Electronic Arts. Obviously they are going after Tony Hawk nation and the controls sound pretty intuitive. Much like many other cross-platform games it is looking like the 360 version is out before the PS3 one.

Eternal Sonata
Developer: Tri-Crescendo
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Genre: RPG
Release Date: September 17th
System(s): 360

This RPG certainly looks interesting. It is based around real-life composer Frederic Chopin's final hours before his death in 1848. He dreams of a fairy tale universe with children that have diseases that populate it. The graphics look fantastic and the musical composition that I have heard in movies is like heaven. This is a key 3rd party RPG for the 360.

Halo 3
Developer: Bungie Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Games Studio
Genre: FPS
Release Date: September 25th
System(s): 360

So, maybe you've heard of this game? It's going to sell like hotcakes and probably sell 360 systems as well, especially for those people who have been waiting for the next game in the series.

Conferences: Who Came Out on Top?

2007-07-12T01:37:00.000-05:00

Out of the 3 Conferences it is pretty tough to declare a winner since each company did different plans of attack. Let's look at them:

Microsoft: They chose to show off the games coming out before the end of the year and show nothing of future games, which they've chosen to show in the private meetings with the press. They had developer representatives come out and show off their games in live demonstrations - some went right (Call of Duty 4, Gears of War PC) some went wrong (Assassin's Creed, Rock Band), but in the end there was a lot more live in-game play shown than in any other conference.

Nintendo: They chose to show off their dominance in portables and consoles with numbers and chose to show off their ability to get even non-gamers to play games. They showed off two upcoming games by having Nintendo-based website writers play them: Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Metroid 3: Corruption. They also showed off future ideas like the Zapper, Wii Fit and the fact that Mario Kart Wii is coming.

Sony: Sony chose to show off the future. They showed bits and pieces of Home and how it will interact with the world at large as well as the PS3. They showed off some interesting Playstation Network games that are coming (like EchoChrome, WarHawk and Wipeout HD) and showed games we already knew about (Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune) as well as a surprise (Sucker Punch's inFamous). They didn't give any sort of dates for games outside of Unreal Tournament 3 in November.

If I was to rate them in order I'd probably say it went:

1. Sony
2. Microsoft
3. Nintendo

Sony saved face from the tons of PR disasters they've had since E3 of last year, Microsoft pretty much did the same thing they always do and Nintendo is now where Sony was in the last generation: they don't have to show all their cards and can beat us with the numbers train.

Sony Conference Impressions

2007-07-12T01:27:00.000-05:00

I want to start off by saying that Sony probably had a better E3 Conference than they have the last 2 years. It was well put together outside of the fact that Jack Tretton and Phil Harrison both relied on the teleprompter way too much.

Sony did well with showing off games, but there really wasn't anything big shown outside of a longer version of the Killzone 2 preview with more in-game play and some of the interesting Playstation Network games shown (EchoChrome, Pain, WarHawk, etc.). I am excited by Killzone 2 and the Playstation Network games, but is it enough to get me to run out and purchase a PS3? Not at this point honestly simply because they didn't given any release dates. If all the Playstation Network games are coming before the end of the year that may make me more interested.

There was also bits and pieces of Home being shown off. The best part was when Jack ran into Kaz and made a joke about "Rrrrrridge Racer". It's nice to see that Sony is not as stuffy as they usually are, but maybe this is the new outlook with Jack running things. I'm still not sold on Home, but I know what Sony is trying to do. They are trying to tap into the crowd that Nintendo is currently grabbing: those people that don't play a lot of games, but are interested in social interactivity. Will they do well with Home? We'll just have to see.

The new slimmer PSP was shown off as well and was probably the biggest announcement from Sony. It doesn't make me want to run out and get a PSP, but Sony certainly made a push to show off some of the upcoming high-profile games coming to the PSP.

The biggest negative from Sony's Conference was the fact that they didn't give any dates for any of the games they showed off outside of their timed exclusive for Unreal Tournament 3 in November. Both Microsoft and Nintendo gave dates on games and many of the games Sony showed off are not even coming this year. Plus, why the heck wasn't Lair shown? It's coming out in a month. Is it not as good of a game as they were pushing it to be? It's just really poor not to show off one of your bigger releases before the end of the year.

Probably the biggest news was that Sony confirmed that Metal Gear Solid 4 was only coming to the PS3 and a new clip was shown. Many people know how much I like the MGS games, but even this game doesn't make me want to jump and get a PS3 at $499. The only sad part of the preview shown was that it was just cutscenes shown and not actual gameplay. I think it is important that gameplay be shown off to generate more buzz. Maybe they are showing it behind closed doors, but I was impressed that they already had English voices in the game. This gives an indication that the game must be close to being done (also confirmed by the Early 2008 at the end of the clip).

In the end I think Sony came out pretty well. They are getting ripped apart by some developers about only dropping the price by $100 for the PS3 (and chances are good the 60GB version will go the way of the 20GB version when the 80GB version comes out at the $599 price point), but I think they hit everything they needed to (Lair notwithstanding).

Nintendo Conference Impressions

2007-07-12T01:10:00.000-05:00

Nintendo's Conference ended up being much like Sony's ones back when they were the leaders. They just kind of put information out there (like Sony loved to do) showing their overpowering numbers on DS and Wii worldwide. They also relied a lot on unneeded advertising pieces (another thing Sony loved to do). One or two would have been fine, but plenty of them through the whole Conference was a bit much honestly.

The biggest news items to come out of Nintendo's showing were the dates for Super Mario Galaxy (Nov. 12th), Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Dec. 3rd). They also announced that Mario Kart Wii is coming early next year with a wheel controller as well as a new controller for shooting games like Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Ghost Hunter. They also had two online Nintendo-based writers show off Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Wii.

Then they carted out the upcoming Wii Fit with a new balance pad controller. It looks interesting, although I wonder how many fit games there will be. Gamespot talked about 4 of them (hula hoop, ski jumping, marble game and the soccer game shown at the Conference) in their preview.

Nintendo covered all bases in their showing. It is obvious that the Nintendo DS is as much a phenomenon as the GameBoy Advance was and has allowed more innovation in the games they make. It is also obvious that the Wii is still hot and it will be interesting to see when supply may finally outstrip demand. Nintendo has indeed sold itself well to both the regular gaming public and people that have never picked up a controller in their life. They are basking in the glow of a game playing public that Microsoft and Sony just can't touch. The question is whether they can sell enough units of games for 3rd party companies to keep making games for it. I still forsee Nintendo getting stuck in the same rut they were last generation with them making the only "must get" games for the system and no 3rd party games really standing out. That is where Microsoft and Sony shine, they have strong 3rd party support and often those sell better than even 1st party offerings.

I am still interested in picking up a Wii and DS, but I don't know if they will take more of those precious minutes that Reggie talks about at the end over something like the Xbox 360 or if I ever pick up a PS3. Nintendo is certainly leading the "new age" of video gaming while Microsoft and Sony are still leading the "established" video game structure. The "new age" is where the non-gamers are, the "established" is where people who have played games for decades are.

PGR4 Release Month

2007-07-11T06:38:00.000-05:00

Maybe I missed this last night, but Microsoft is saying that Project Gotham Racing 4 is going to be out in September. I am guessing it will be out before or on the same day as Halo 3. I find it interesting that the PGR series will now have the same amount of games out for it as the Gran Turismo series in about half the time. I am really looking forward to this game. It would be nice if they released this at $49.99 (the same price PGR3 was at launch), but I'm willing to bet it will be at $59.99 which is sad.

Nintendo/Sony Conferences - 9am/11:30am PT

2007-07-11T06:32:00.000-05:00

I won't see Nintendo's Conference live, but I hope to see Sony. I really have no thoughts about what each company will show off simply because I don't own a Wii or PS3 as of yet. Sony has the history of really going out into the "fall asleep zone" with their Conferences. I hope they've learned that pounding out numbers for 20 minutes straight just isn't the way to do things. Last night Microsoft had numbers here and there, but they mostly let the games talk for themselves (the smart thing to do). Sony should do the same thing.

Unfortunately with Crazy Ken Kutaragi no longer with Sony things won't be nearly as insane probably. Kaz (Mr. "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrridge Racer") is still around though, maybe he'll have some good zingers. Sony doesn't have a whole lot of 3rd party stuff to show off that doesn't run faster on the 360 (EA Sports games) or doesn't come out before the 360 version (Medal of Honor: Airborne for example). Yes, there is Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII to show off, but neither game will see the light of day before 2008 in my estimation. They do have one 3rd party game to show off and that would be Burnout Paradise since it is supposedly being built on PS3 first and ported to the 360 - the only EA game I know of that is doing that currently, most are being done on the 360 and ported to the PS3 (EA Sports games for instance).

Instead Sony will have to rely on their 1st party offerings such as Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Killzone 2. They will also probably spend most of their time talking about Home and I think it will be a tough sell to people. It sounds cool, but what are we actually going to be able to do with it? I hope they answer those questions.

On the PSP side maybe they'll show off the Slim design and give a release date and price for it. I'm not too up on PSP releases, so I don't know if there are any big games upcoming for it or not.

On the Nintendo side they also don't have a lot of top notch 3rd party offerings coming, most of their sales will come from their own internal developers. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (coming in August), Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Kart will probably be shown. They will also probably show a lineup of mini-game filled titles that are the bread and butter of Wii releases. Those games are what brings gamers of all ages together, I just don't know how long Nintendo can hold onto that lightning in this case.

On the DS side everything is rosy of course. I want to see more of Phantom Hourglass and many of the other games upcoming. Nintendo will probably also throw around numbers and they'll sit somewhere between Microsoft and Sony in how much time they spend on them.

Both Conferences should be interesting though.

Killzone 2 Video Impressions

2007-07-11T06:18:00.000-05:00

Sony had a late night showing of Killzone 2 at some local Santa Monica eatery. The video went up on various sites during the night and I was just able to watch it. I am impressed by the gameplay video and evidently the press was shown a 15 minute controlled demo in small groups. Most of the previews are sounding promising, although no hands-on action was given to the press in attendance.

I reviewed the original Killzone and found it to be a good, but not great game. The video of the new game makes it look like what Guerilla was trying to reach in the original may be reached here. It will be interesting to see if Sony gives any hands-on action to the press over the course of the next 3 days. I am guessing this will be a key component of the Sony conference this morning, but who knows.

New Guitar Hero II DLC

2007-07-11T06:12:00.000-05:00

Well, Activision seems to have snuck in Song Pack 4 for Guitar Hero II on Xbox Live Marketplace. Everyone will want to know how much it costs. Drumroll please...it's still at 500 points. It looks like the user outrage of the price for the first 3 packs didn't make a dent to either Activision or Microsoft (depending on who you think is at fault). The songs included are:

I Wanna Be Sedated (as made famous by the Ramones)
Smoke on the Water (as made famous by Deep Purple)
You've Got Another Thing Coming (as made famous by Judas Priest)

Sounds like some good songs (remember, I haven't played GH1), but I don't know if I am going to buy into these 500 point packs anymore.

In other news I checked this morning and my Blue Dragon demo was at about 70% and I also added the Ace Combat 6 demo (think it runs about 390MB) that went up during the night. Hopefully I'll be able to play both tonight and maybe some new stuff will be up as well. I love that new addition the Xbox got with being able to shut off the system and it still continues to download and uses low power to do so.

Blue Dragon Demo is on Xbox Live

2007-07-11T00:36:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention in the post-Conference diatribe that Blue Dragon's demo is now available on Xbox Live. It is 1.1GB in size, so it may take a while to download given that a lot of people are probably hitting the Marketplace with all the new stuff on it.

Hopefully I can play some and report back. I am looking forward to this game no matter how geared toward young people it looks.

Post Microsoft Conference Thoughts

2007-07-11T00:20:00.000-05:00

Well, some of my guesses didn't come true, but many of them did. I am quite shocked they didn't show even a small bit of Fable 2 (unless I missed it), maybe it is farther off than I was hoping. They also didn't show off Bioshock, which I thought they would show just because it is a showcase game coming out in just over a month. The price cut wasn't announced and there was no timed exclusive of any of the 3 games I put up.

Outside of that I think the Conference was pretty good. Microsoft took a decidedly straight path tonight. They showed off a lot of live gameplay (Rock Band, Madden 08, Assassin's Creed, Project Gotham Racing 4, Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War PC).

Some of the above didn't come off well. The opening with Corporeal playing the Halo Theme was extremely bad. It was quite sad because they gained fame (and the invitation) from their excellent YouTube video. Maybe it was jitters because at the end of the Conference they sounded much better. Then Peter Moore goes into Rock Star with a group from Harmonix and the singer ABSOLUTELY SUCKS. That was horrendous and makes the microphone part of things that much more iffy. To add to the embarassment, Moore screws up his solo when it comes up. That was bad.

Assassin's Creed also did not show that well, although I missed a good portion of it. I've been reading messageboards and things seem to be very negative on this game when related to fighting. Ubisoft has a lot of money riding on this game and quite a few years of development on it, I hope further play (maybe a demo will come on Xbox Live this week) will reverse things.

I'd have to say Call of Duty 4 and Project Gotham Racing 4 probably had the strongest showings live. I think Gears of War on PC is going to piss a lot of people off if the additional sections aren't included in an Xbox Live DLC in the future. At least it is going to run on Windows XP as well as Vista. Maybe Microsoft is easing up on trying to make things Vista only until all the kinks of DX10 can be worked out.

EA didn't come out to announce anything, but it was stated that all the EA Sports games will run at twice the speed of last years, meaning 60fps. Hopefully there will be no slowdowns, but this is going to be a HUGE difference to the mainstream sports fans that have waited to get next gen systems. The Xbox 360 looks that much more interesting running these games at 60fps versus the PS3 versions that run at 30fps.

Other stuff shown was a new Viva Pinata party game, a short montage for Mass Effect (coming in November), a short teaser of Resident Evil 5, showings of new Xbox Live Arcade Games (2 of which are live tonight) and a montage for Lost Odyssey (no release given). I really liked the last one, it looks really good and I hope it makes its supposed end of the year release.

And of course the night ended with a WETA produced Halo short movie and a montage of gameplay from Halo 3. I think it looked awesome and it sounded like Saruman (Christopher Lee) is going to be a voice in the game. There were a few scenes with Master Chief and the Arbiter together. I wonder if we will be playing as the Arbiter again. I am going to guess Bungie will not leave us hanging in this game and chances are it will be the longest game out of the 3.

In the end I think the biggest disappointment was no announcement of a price decrease. They did show off the new Halo 3 Xbox 360 coming in September (I bet it will have the 65nm chips in it). They could still announce one at some point here. I think Microsoft feels they have a strong lineup of games through the holiday season and don't think Sony has anything to counter them until at least 2008 (we all know MGS4 and Killzone 2 aren't going to make it this year). They may watch Sony's conference tomorrow and see if there is anything to worry about. If not they may hold off on the price drops.

Microsoft Press Conference - 8:30pm PT

2007-07-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

I always enjoy the press conferences and especially Gamespot's coverage of them. Tonight Microsoft gets things rolling (as always). My guess at what will be in the presentation:

- First Halo 3 Single-player (duh!)

- Bioshock (it is 360/Games for Windows Only)

- Project Gotham Racing 4 (they just announced there will be motorcycles in the game) along with a release date

- Footage/gameplay of Fable 2 with a possible release window

- Footage/gameplay of Mass Effect

- Footage/gameplay of Assassin's Creed

- Footage/gameplay of Splinter Cell: Conviction (360 only)

- Footage of Microsoft's RPGs from Mistwalker

- A presentation by EA with their lineup of games, announcing that NCAA and Madden are at 60fps only on the 360.

Then I figure there will be some big announcements:

- Price Cut, which is supposedly: $299 Core pack will drop to $249; the $399 Premium pack will drop to $349; and the recently released $479 Elite model will drop to $399.

- Peter will probably have a tattoo, either announcing that Rock Star is time exclusive, that Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming day and date with the PS3 version or that Assassin's Creed will be time exclusive

- Possibly some game we haven't heard of yet

E3 This Week

2007-07-09T22:05:00.000-05:00

It's a little later (by about 2 months) and a lot more toned down (only certain companies are participating), but it is E3 time once again. This is one of those times I miss being an integral part of a gaming site. Back in the heyday of Console Gold I was always hoping to make it to E3, but work or monetary situation always held me back. I would have loved to have made one of them, but oh well. I spent E3 2003-2004 doing backbone work on the site. Ah, those were the days we used to manually edit pages before Eldon created the database that they currently use (my memory fails me, the database may have been in use at E3 2004). I think E3 2005 was the first time we were able to add things E3 related (such as screenshots and previews) to the database, but to be honest I forget as they all seem to meld together. I remember writing all the previews for the major games before the guys went to E3 and also to help them have something to build upon when they wrote their hands-on previews.

I just checked out Gaming Trend's E3 2007 page and it seems they are going to use the same type of design as they used last year. The key problem of course is that any normal user of the site would be unable to find all the work the team did for the previous E3s. The pages are in the ether or at an address no normal person would know. I know the team is working on creating a redesign (that has been promised for at least 2 years now) and I hope they really think about some of the archived stuff and making the page more user friendly than it is. Before I left there were some good plans being worked out, but that was almost 2 years ago now. I know Eldon has the talent to do such a thing and I can only guess at what is happening behind the scenes, but I get the sense the same internal problems that were there when I left are still there. Enough about that, I was just remembering fond and not so fond memories.

Now we are at E3 2007, although it is now named E3 Media and Business Summit and is relocated to Santa Monica (in an airplane hanger and hotels) instead of at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This year will be an excellent test of whether E3, in any form, is going to live on or not. There are only 39 companies at the Summit and they represent the bigger players out there (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, Activision, id Software, Take Two, etc.). The smaller players and some of the other big players decided not to attend.

It sounds like at Barker Hangar there will only be 10'x10' and 20'x20' booths for the companies. Those are pretty small, which makes the other part of the Summit all the more interesting. All the private meetings are being done at hotels around Santa Monica where the companies can obviously set up even bigger areas to show off their stuff. Also Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will be having their yearly press conferences where things are usually announced. Outside of that all of us not at E3 will be waiting on gaming magazines and mainstream press to give us all the info because chances are none of the major games will be shown at Barker Hanger given those small dimensions of space.

The other weird thing is I don't know how many hotels are holding the private stuff. I feel sorry for the journalists out there that will be darting back and forth to different hotels to get to their meetings. At places like Evil Avatar, they have a lone person going who has 20 meetings, 6 press conferences and 5 parties currently to attend. I hope bapenguin can keep his sanity and I hope he gets to see a lot of good stuff. Gamespot is once again going to have their live show, but this time it sounds like it will be outside on the Santa Monica Pier and it sounds like they will be interviewing companies that aren't attending the event as well as the ones who are. I've always liked Gamespot's live shows, although now with Kasavin gone as the guiding light I wonder if it will be as well done as before.

I'll try to give my thoughts on E3 as the news comes out and if you find me posting anywhere on a forum it would probably be at Evil Avatar since I don't know anywhere else to post. I always enjoyed giving minute-by-minute info on CG of the press conferences, but it might be hard to do so on EA.

I just found out via Major Nelson's blog that Microsoft will be having its press conference outside at Santa Monica High School's auditorium. You can see a pic of the location on his site. Microsoft is ballsy to have something outside and hopefully the weather will cooperate with them. Microsoft is again the first one out of the gate with their press conference and they will have it on Xbox Live later on in the night. I personally will be watching it at Gamespot at 10:30pm my time tomorrow and give my impressions later tomorrow night hopefully.

If I was to guess I would say that E3 may live on given the players behind it, but I can also see more developer and publisher trips being given to journalists to get the word out. I think this is just the first step to a vastly different way of the major news going out.

This also opens up things for conventions like PAX and CES to be the go-to spots for the public to see stuff, especially the former. PAX is only going to grow as the years go by and they may need to move it to an even bigger venue outside of Washington state. We'll see though.

Movie Review: Transformers (SPOILERS)

2007-07-09T05:27:00.000-05:00

It was nice to go see the movie I was most looking forward to this summer on my birthday (July 4th). I had heard the early good buzz on the movie before I went out of town earlier in the week, so I was pretty excited but trying to not be over-hyped about it. We ended up going to see it at the local Monster Screen (80 ft. wide/35 ft. tall) and my wife commented after the movie that it probably wouldn't have been the same had we seen it on a regular screen.

I think it is safe to say that Michael Bay did not end up "raping our childhood" (a common phrase used these days for 80s properties going to the big screen) as many people initially thought when they saw the new designs of the Transformers. In fact, I'd dare say that this movie was the best one I've seen this year. Granted, I haven't seen Live Free or Die Hard yet, but something tells me that won't be better than this. Yes, the dialog is hokey here and there, but overall it is the epitome of a summer movie: one that keeps you at the edge of your seat and keeps you entertained. On some movies this year (Pirates 3, Spider-Man 3 and Shrek 3) I've found myself looking at my watch many times, with this movie I didn't look at it once. This movie is not short by any stretch of the imagination (2 hrs., 24 min.), but I didn't feel bored once.

I have to say the best parts of the movies revolved around the Transformers themselves, mostly around Bumblebee. One of the best references to the 80s series is when Sam (Shia LeBoeuf) is looking for his car and the cars door slams into the nearby Volkswagen Beetle. Bumblebee was a Beetle in the original series, but VW wouldn't give the license to use the car, so Bumblebee was made into an old-style Camaro (and changes later to the upcoming new Camaro). I'm sure VW is kicking themselves now simply because Bumblebee is going to be the most popular of the Transformers toys. He was back in the 80s and with the upcoming Ultimate Bumblebee action figure coming (that looks awesome by the way) he can only get more popular in my estimation.

If you had told me when this was first announced that Bay could succeed at taking a loved 80s property and make it a really good and update movie I would have figured you were nuts. This is the guy whose last three movies (Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II and The Island) all stunk and he really hasn't had a valid "good" movie since The Rock (or arguably Armageddon, although I know many hate that movie). In the end Bay proved all the naysayers wrong and did something many other people couldn't do: take a beloved 80s property and make a great modern day film about it.

Even though most of the Decepticons bite it in the end, including Megatron, I still see the possibilities for a sequel. During the credits we see Starscream flying out of orbit and probably back to Cybertron to recruit more Decepticons probably. There is still plenty of enemies to choose from, but no real leader outside of maybe Shockwave. They could always bring Unicron back and have him resurrect Megatron as Galvatron. The possibilities are endless for the Autobots as well.

In the end this movie was simply great and I hope lots of people go to see it. I think people that grew up with watching and reading the Transformers show and comics are probably going to get the most out of this movie, but I think anyone could sit down and like it.

Grade: Must See

Comic Reviews - Week of 6/20

2007-06-22T01:05:00.000-05:00

Pretty big week, so be ready for it.

The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13
"Full Throttle" Conclusion
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Artist: Tony S. Daniel

Opinion: Buy It

All I can say is that we pretty much saw it coming. Bart did indeed die at the end of the issue. We see a flashback to what Iris told Bart when she first arrived and it was that Bart was going to die no matter what he did. There was a point in the issue where Bart thought it was going to be Inertia that was going to die and presumed that Inertia also saw the Black Flash (who always appears to a speedster when they are about to die). Needless to say Bart had no chance and the Rogues ended up killing him even though Piper tried his best to stop it from happening.

If we are to believe Dan Didio, this whole Flash series was supposedly planned ahead of time. I would believe that Guggenheim's time on it was planned, but when the series first started there was no way this ending was planned. After the outrage readers had with the Flash TV writers writing the story and how poorly it was done, chances are Didio decided he needed to end the series ASAP and brought Guggenheim in to do so. It is sad that many people didn't jump on board when Guggenheim started writing, there was a marked upgrade when he came onto the book and he did the best with what he had.

I certainly hope this is not the last of Bart...what a crappy way to die. He gets to stand out on his own as the Flash and then he is sacrificed to make the Rogues look all the more dangerous so the next Flash (who we'll get into in the next review) can put a beatdown on them? I just don't understand why Bart needed to die. Why not send him back to the future or something? Why kill him? If I was Tim (Robin) or Cassie (Wonder Girl) I'd be watching my back because it looks like the Post-Crisis Teen Titans are being taken out.

In the end this comic was really top notch except for the somewhat rushed ending. I give DC and Guggenheim credit for holding onto the secret for so long. The art was also excellent and there is a great interview with Tony Daniel about it on Newsarama. Now we wait for All-Flash #1 next month before we revert back to the Wally West numbering.

RIP Bart. I wonder if Val is going to end up pregnant by Bart or not...

Justice League of America #10
"The Lightning Saga" Conclusion (Part 5 of 5)
Writer: David Meltzer
Artist: Ed Benes

Opinion: Read It

I had to read this comic 2 times in order to even come close to understanding all that happened in it. There is a LOT of story contained within a small space here and it almost makes Parts 3 and 4 of this arc even more aggravating to me with the slowness of them. The Legion (and I'm still not sure which Earth this Legion is coming from and what Earth the current Legion book comes from) plays their endgame here and in the end 2 Legionnaires are left in our time: Starman and Karate Kid.

There is still a lot of interpretation to be made toward the end of this book. I agree with a lot of people that believe the Legion came back to catch Barry Allen and bring him to the future. The foreshadowing of this idea is found in this book. Hal Jordan makes the astute observation that the Legion sets each member in a specific place where Barry Allen's DNA would be (the lab, where Batman saw him in CoIE #2, Blue Valley, etc.) in order to maximize their chance of catching him.

In the final pages we see that Wally West and his family rode the lighting from the future to get back to the present. It is also my belief that Barry Allen came back as well and is housed in the lighting rod held by Brainiac 5 in the future. Brainy says something akin to, "well, at least we got the person we wanted." Wally has become part of the JLA now (thank God a Flash is back on the JLA), but there is no indication of whether he still has the Speed Force or not other than the must have ridden the lightning with his family.

I'm happy to see Wally back simply because he is my generation's Flash. I love Barry Allen too and wouldn't have cared either way of who came back. It looks like both came back though; or at least that's what we're all hoping. Meltzer only has 2 issues left before McDuffie takes over, so it will be interesting to see where he goes from here. I can only guess Wally's story is going to spill out into the Flash books coming out and may not be talked about in JLA, but who knows. In the end the arc itself was slightly above average at best, but the ending was a pretty big payoff and somewhat rights what DC did wrong at the end of Infinite Crisis.

Once Wally finds out the Rogues killed Bart there's going to be a big beatdown coming, but Piper should be happy again now that Wally and Linda are back.

The Amazing Spider-Man #541
"Back in Black" Part 3 of 5
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Artist: Ron Garney

Opinion: Buy It

So far this is probably the best part of the "Back in Black" arc. The decisions Peter makes are written very well and based around the whole immediacy of the situation. MJ tells Peter that eventually with them paying cash for May's care that red flags will come up and their cover will be blown, so Peter decides he is going to try transfusing his blood into May and see if that makes her better or not. He had tried it before way back and it had adverse effects, but he feels this is a last ditch effort that must be made. Pretty powerful stuff knowing that you could be killing your closest family member even faster if things go wrong.

In the end Peter has a face-to-face encounter with Wilson Fisk at the end, but no punches are thrown yet. One of the negatives of this arc is that it is happening between Daredevil #92 and #93 (an editoral mark about it is here) and now we are up to #97 in that book. In Daredevil #93 we see Fisk outside of the prison and visiting Vanessa's grave, so obviously nothing adverse is going to happen to him in his encounter with Peter. This kind of leaves the next issue as not that exciting as we move into the last issue of the arc with Peter looking at a body under a white sheet on the cover.

This was a really well written and penciled book, but the whole situation lost a lot of air given the Daredevil editorial mark in it. In some ways maybe they should have left that out because that book is farther in the future at this point and there is a good chance some people may not be reading that book either and will now go and hunt out the comics and see that nothing is going to happen to Fisk in the end.

Captain America #27
"Death of a Dream" Part 3 of 6
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Steve Epting

Opinion: Must Own (Comic of the Week)

So, how does a writer create a fantastic comic where the title character isn't even alive anymore? I don't know, but Ed Brubaker certainly seems to. This is easily my pick for Comic Book of the Week. It has now been 2 issues since Steve Rogers was killed and I am more engrossed in this comic than any other one I'm reading. Brubaker deserves whatever titles he wants to write because he is simply that good.

I always thought Bucky's return was done better than Jason Todd's return on the DC side and this issue just solidifies it that much more for me. There are more flashbacks from Bucky's early days of being the Winter Soldier. We now find out that he helped train the Black Widow when she was young AND that he was romantically involved with her back then. The Black Widow has slept with a lot of people in the Marvel Universe, so now Bucky can join the others.

This part revolves around Bucky trying to get Cap's shield back from SHIELD. He goes to check out the exhibit that Tony has set up and realizes the shield there is not the real one, something he already assumed since he knew Tony couldn't leave it out in the open. When he tracks it down it ends up that the Black Widow is the one charged with keeping the shield safe. Bucky knocks her out and takes the shield while Falcon and Sharon decide to follow him to see exactly what his plan is.

I can't wait to see what the ending of this arc actually is. I'm still wondering if someone is going to take up the guise of Captain America or not.

Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America - Spider-Man #1
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Artist: David Finch

Opinion: Read It

The delays on this series has been pretty agonizing. I'm not sure whether Loeb is at fault or the artists are. My guess would be the former just because there are different artist attached to each issue while Loeb is the constant through the whole thing. Whatever they have planned for Loeb in the future I certainly hope he can be more timely than he has lately. I still don't buy that the final part will be out the first week of July, especially with Cassidy on the art.

Outside of that this issue was very good and sees Peter mistakenly taking on Rhino at the cemetery. Both of them were there to see loved ones, but Peter reacted poorly and took on the Rhino. We then flashback to a time where Captain America helped Peter take on the Hulk and we see parallels between that fight and the current one that Peter is fighting.

At the end of the issue, Peter gets an unwanted heart-to-heart talk with Wolverine about Captain America that brings a sense of closure. It was a really well done issue as has most of the parts in this arc so far. Now we just have Iron Man left and that should also be quite interesting.

David Finch's art should be given a special note here as it was excellent as always.

X-Men: Endangered Species One-Shot
Writer: Mike Casey
Artist: Scot Eaton

Opinion: Buy It

I'm not a huge X-Men fan. I lived through years where nothing seemed to go on in any of the X books while they were the top selling books around. Nowadays there are some quality X stuff out there, most notably Astonishing X-Men, X-Factor and Morrison's run to close out New X-Men's last iteration. For a while now we've known there will be a huge X event later this year. Last week we got a title for it, Messiah Complex. The one-shot I am reviewing today is the opening chapter to the event and this will spill out to 8-page backup stories in the next 17 X books to come out and then Messiah Complex will start.

This book was an excellent introduction to what the X books are shooting for in the coming months. It has been nearly two years (our time) since House of M ended and I believe we are on the cusp of finally answering all the questions people have had about it when it applies to the X books. Endangered Species revolves around one of the students from the school's (and one of the 198 mutants left after Wanda's spell) funeral. It is said he dies normally being run over by a truck, but the issue itself is set up so the key players can question exactly how to keep the mutants from being an extinct race. They've already lost 99% of their original population, all it takes is for that last 1% to be killed and there certainly won't be any more mutants.

Beast finally decides it is time to solve the problem of extinction however he can and even at the end of the book where they show the upcoming 17-part backup story it sounds like Messiah Complex shall revolve around Beast. Could we be seeing Morrison's future at the end of New X-Men where Beast is the alpha mutant? Who knows, but I am interested in seeing what happens.

This book is a good set-up and hopefully Marvel is finally going to set the table correctly on the X books as we move out of this and into Messiah Complex. I will continue reading the backup stories in all the X books and I can only guess there will be a TPB coming out with the whole thing in one place before the next event begins.

Comic Reviews - Week of 6/13

2007-06-19T06:04:00.000-05:00

Taking a page from one of my favorite sites, Evil Avatar, I've decided to start doing Comic Book reviews along with my regular posts on all things comics. I will attempt to not duplicate the books that EA covers, but for this week we'll cover pretty much the same stuff. I will be rating each book into 5 categories: Must Own, Buy It, Read It, Skim It or Skip It.

World War Hulk #1 (of 5)
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: John Romita, Jr.

Opinion: Must Own (Comic of the Week)

To say I was a bit apprehensive about this event is an understatement. I loved the Planet Hulk story by Pak where the Illuminati sent the Hulk to what they thought was a peaceful world, but the ship went off its course and ended up on a warring planet. I am apprehensive because I just don't think a lot can change to the status quo. I don't see Iron Man, Reed Richards, Dr. Strange or Black Bolt actually dying, do you? I see a lot of destruction happening, but I don't see any major deaths or major upheaval in the Marvel Universe.

The Hulk is returning to Earth with his Warbound pals in tow. He's about to exact revenge on the 4 people responsible for putting him on the warring planet he spent Planet Hulk on and also for (supposedly) blowing up the ship and killing a lot of people, including Hulk's wife: Iron Man, Reed Richards, Dr. Strange and Black Bolt. In the latter's case we see the result of the Hulk battling him on the moon, but we don't see the actual fight go down.

The other really interesting thing to come out of this issue is that Iron Man allows the New Avengers to help them stop the Hulk from destroying everything with the promise that everything will be forgiven if they register after the whole event is done. Tony's a smart man, he realizes why the Hulk is back and needs all the help he can get to stop him.

This issue was far more action than I thought there would be. This could be more exciting than Civil War was, although that series also started off really well and then slid as it continued on. I can only guess that there will be a lot of destruction left by this event, but in the end I'm sure we'll find out the Hulk's Warbound friends are the ones that set off the bomb that destroyed Planet Hulk just so they could continue fighting and not be bored to death by the peace the Hulk initiated. It's the only logical ending, but Marvel has been known to take chances lately, so who knows.

New Avengers #31
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Leniel Yu

Opinion: Skim It

Marvel has touted this issue for months as "No hype! No BS! The most important last page of any Marvel comic this year! Do not miss it!" Well, I got to the last page (actually last pages because there are 2 reveals) and was not moved by it. The Elektra that was running the Hand was a Skrull and on the very last pane of the comic we see that Luke and Jessica's baby has green eyes, making it seem like there is another Skrull. To me it was a "meh" ending and really fell short of what Marvel and especially Joe Quesada had been hyping it up to be. Yes, there are obviously characters out there in the Marvel Universe that are Skrulls and now Marvel is into the whole, "Who do you Trust?" thing.

I hate to say it, but maybe Marvel is really pushing too many major storylines in tandem or sequential order and there may be some burnout from comic buyers out there. There's WWH, the new Annihilation, the upcoming X-Men blockbuster and now the Skrull story that supposedly will intertwine with all of the Marvel Universe. Yeah, that sounds like a bit of overload even though Quesada swears up and down that sales are showing that this is what people want. Eventually a wall will be hit, it's just logical.

My other problem with this overall arc is that it lasted too long. Bendis has been accused of decompression before and usually I blow it off, but when there is such a delay between issues it becomes that much more pronounced. I mean it's great that we finally know that the new Ronin is Clint Barton and even I would say that was more of a shocker even though it was the worst kept secret in comics. The Skrull ending will have greater implications as we move through this year and into next, but at the moment it just wasn't even close to what was hyped.

Green Arrow #75
Writer: Judd Winnick
Artist: Scott McDaniel

Opinion: Skim It

The final issue of this series is an example of schizophrenia and parallels a lot with the last issue of Nightwing before the One Year Later jump when Dick proposed to Barbara. The parallels are that the majority of the issue is really good, but the last part feels so jarring and forced that it makes you feel dirty inside.

Here Deathstroke is back to top form (look at Identity Crisis for the last time he acted like this when he took out the assembled JLA members). An all-out fight with Ollie and Dinah, although I question Dinah just standing there with Slade's sword in her throat on two occasions. Slade is good and all, but how exactly can he perfectly get the sword in there without damaging anything...twice. The fights are wonderful, but then at the end Ollie proposes to Dinah and that's how the series ends. Soon we will have Green Arrow: Year One and the Black Canary/Green Arrow series. It is cool if they do end up getting married, but there is still a lot of baggage in Ollie's past and I can't believe Dinah has forgiven him for all of that. In the end this was a good issue, but just a weak ending for a series that started off with a bang (Kevin Smith writing Ollie's return to life) and coasted for the rest of the run.

Comic News from the Weekend

2007-06-18T00:25:00.000-05:00

Lots happened at the Cons this weekend. Let's look at the major stuff point by point. All news items are linked to my favorite comic site, Newsarama

1. Amazing Spider-Man News: Although it is tough to pick this one over #2, I'd have to say this is the bigger news. The only minus here is I can already see from the Newsarama boards that some people are confused by the whole thing. Marvel is canceling Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man after JMS' final arc, One More Day is done. Then starting the next month Amazing Spider-Man will ship 3 times a month. Basically Marvel is doing a switcheroo, but one that is pretty logical. Amazing is the flagship title and easily outsells the other two comics, so Marvel is betting that people will pick up 3 of the flagship a month. This also allows Marvel to have a cohesive storyline around their #1 player instead of having different storylines going on at the same time. It is a gamble, but I think it will pay off.

2. Flash News: If it wasn't for the news above, this would easily be the biggest news to come out of the Cons this weekend. The new title ends this week with Flash #13 and recently DC showed a teaser with Bart laying on the logo looking defeated and possibly dead. This weekend DC showed off the final cover for Flash #13, and things aren't looking so good:

Along with that news, we have the news that Mark Waid will be coming back to write the title and it will be going back to the old numbering system that Geoff Johns left off with (so the next issue is Flash #231). The internet is abuzz (and I tend to agree) that Wally West will be coming back and filling the shoes of the Flash. Waid writing and them going back to Wally's numbering just points to this fact. I just honestly hope Bart doesn't die at the end of the issue this week. He was great as Impulse and I'd hate to see him gone.

3. Dwayne McDuffie new writer of JLA: This is good news in my mind. McDuffie will take over after Meltzer's issues are done. It also looks like the Injustice Gang will be making a comeback which is always a good thing.

4. Peter David new writer on She-Hulk: At least they are replacing Dan Slott with a capable writer. They have yet to announce the new team(s) on Amazing Spider-Man, but I can only guess that David and Slott could be part of that.

5. X-Men Event Finally Named: It will be called Messiah Complex and it will pour out of the One-Shot Endangered Species that comes out this week.

Those were the major news stories from my perspective, I'm sure there are some others that people would be interested in. Check out Newsarama for all the updates.

Rescue Me is Back

2007-06-14T00:37:00.000-05:00

Bad news is that The Sopranos ended, good news is that Rescue Me's new season started just a few days later. There are a bunch of other summer series coming up as well (Dead Zone, The 4400 and Entourage's new seasons start this Sunday; Monk, Psyche and Dr. Who start up next month), but Rescue Me is easily the one to be most excited about in my mind.

Last night's episode was great just because we were coming off a really good cliffhanger from last year. Since it was written by the two creators (Peter Tolan and Denis Leary) the writing and acting was simply excellent. It is too bad the seasons didn't start off right from Tommy being in the fire, but I think they handled it just fine. I have heard that there is a death of a main character coming up and it would be sad to see one of the gang die off. I can only guess it is the Chief, but who knows.

If you haven't seen this show before, be sure to get the previous seasons on DVD. This is one of the FX Network's best shows they have to offer.

Guitar Hero II Save Games: A Frustrating Experience

2007-06-12T00:03:00.000-05:00

I've basically loved Guitar Hero II since I picked it up a few days before its actual release in stores. I've been enjoying my time with the game and was just about to start hammering into the Hard mode (remember, this is my first experience with a GH game, so I'm starting off from scratch) this weekend, but it was not to be.

I had 3 songs left on Medium (Madhouse, Psychobilly Freakout and The Trooper I believe) to get 5 stars on to unlock that achievement plus whatever guitar is unlocked as well. On Thursday night I decided to delete the band that I had set up so a friend could play the game. Chances were they wouldn't be back to play the game since they got it themselves, so I deleted the band through the menu and shut off my Xbox 360. When I came back to the game on Saturday night I turned on the game and it locked up at the "Loading" screen. My initial fear was that my launch system was getting close to a 3-ring death and I just wasn't prepared to pay the money to have my 360 fixed or replaced. Before going into full meltdown mode I decided to go looking on the internet to see if other people were having the same problem. It seems that it is a "flip of the coin" chance that your save can become corrupted if you delete or change a band. Well, I flipped the coin to where it corrupted itself, so I had to start all over again.

It is excruciating to go through the Easy mode again, but I started with that. Easy is just so slow when you've spent most of your time in Medium and I expect to feel the same about Medium as I go into Hard and Expert. I went through Easy just to unlock the guitars for finishing it and getting all 5 stars. Then I started through Medium and am about halfway through now. I believe I am getting better scores than I had before, but I also remember I had at least 12 perfect songs in Medium (this includes Xbox Live downloaded and purchased tracks from the Store in-game). My goal is to at least duplicate that, but we shall see.

This whole thing is a bit frustrating though with having to go through it all again instead of being able to continue from where I was. In the end, the moral of the story is to be sure to copy your saved game to a memory card (if you have one) for backup purposes. I still love this game, but we're going through a "difficult" period at the moment.

A Fitting, But Possibly (for Many) Unlikeable, Ending

2007-06-11T01:55:00.000-05:00

Obviously I have to point out that I will be revealing spoilers in case you have yet to watch the final episode. All I can say is "Wow" at the ending of The Sopranos. After taking some time to reflect on the episode after the big "WTF is going on" cut to black of the final scene, I have to say that the ending was pretty darn good. Just by reading some forums I lurk at it seems that the ending is left to your interpretation of what it actually means.

Opinions vary from the family dying to the fact that Tony will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life to the whole restaurant being blown up as Meadow enters. I take the ending a different way. Debunking the above ideas is pretty simple:

1. The Whole Family Dying: If someone was going to shoot, they would shoot only Tony because it is the mob way. Tony even talked last week about how they don't go after the family when trying to tell Carmela what to do.

2. Tony Always Looking Over His Shoulder: Who is left that wants to take Tony out? Phil was whacked and his right hand man gave Tony a handshake and told him he could do whatever to Phil. Carmine, Jr. probably stepped up to the plate to take over New York (something Tony was pushing him to do this season) or NY is just bossless...who knows. Fact is Carmine, Jr. is on Tony's side no matter what, so NY shouldn't be a threat anymore. This thought process is thrown out in my opinion given how much more "in the public" Tony is after Phil is whacked. He has no reason to look over his shoulder.

3. The Restaurant Being Blown Up: This is credible, but this ties into #2 as well. I think the beauty of the final scene is that we (or at least I) was gullible enough to believe that any of those guys coming into the restaurant were there to kill Tony. I wasn't thinking about the fact that he really had no one who wanted to whack him, but the scene was set up so beautifully to make us believe he was about to be killed. It was set up much like last week's Bobby hit where we knew he was going to get shot dead. This time David Chase did a swerve and basically laughs at us going, "why the heck did you think anyone was after Tony now?"

You also have to remember in this scene there are camera shots of everyone: each Soprano member coming in (first Carmela as Steve Perry sings, "Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world", then AJ and finally Meadow after she parallel parks the damn car...although we don't see her come in and sit at the booth), the guy with the boy scout troop, the boyfriend/girlfriend having dinner, the black guys coming in, etc. Those were the shots of everyday America and relationships (remember, the title of the episode is "Made in America") and Tony had no worries at all. In fact he seemed at ease as he picked "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey on the table jukebox. The song is about everyone doing their thing - sometimes they win, sometimes they lose - but they just keep "going on and on and on and on".

This series finale was not the best one I've ever seen. Another HBO series, Six Feet Under, topped this one. Not that I'm saying 6FU's was the best I've ever seen because I'd have to think about that. Before watching this episode I was secretly hoping Chase would do something akin to 6FU at the end there. I think that finale totally turned around that series, the difference is that Alan Ball decided the 5th season was it for the series and that last season more than made up for the 2 before it. David Chase on the other hand kept coming back to the table with HBO clamoring for more Sopranos.

I still expect there to be a lot of people calling their local cable company and canceling HBO. I did not get a chance to watch John from Cincinnati yet, but the reviews I have read have not been very good. That does not bode well for HBO and its new Soprano-less lineup. Once their returning 4 series are all done (Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire and Big Love) - and that could be a while - then it will be interesting if HBO has anything to hang its hat on.

In the end, the door is left open for a possible movie or made-for-HBO special in the future. Given what James Gandolfini and David Chase have said in the past and recently, this sounds like the end...but you never know what could happen.

The Final Sopranos Tonight...the End of an Era

2007-06-10T15:10:00.000-05:00

Tonight is the end of an era...the final episode of The Sopranos is shown tonight at 8pm CT (my time zone), followed by the debut of David Milch's John from Cincinnati. It is weird that one of the best TV series ever ends while a new series by the man that made (and killed) Deadwood starts after it.

With the end of The Sopranos so ends HBO's heyday and there are countless articles about whether HBO is going to be able to survive with Sex and the City and The Sopranos now gone. My guess would be they will survive, but they probably won't have the same number of subscribers as before. Chances are good that calls will be made around 9pm CT to local cable companies with people ending their subscription to HBO.

That's a sad state of affairs considering HBO still does have some great ongoing shows: Entourage (short season during The Sopranos final episodes, next full season starts next Sunday), Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire and Big Love. The first of those easily takes over as HBO's centerpiece until possibly one of the new shows hits so big that it takes over. I enjoy the other 3 shows and Big Love starts its second season tomorrow, but even it paled in comparison to The Sopranos and Entourage as a "centerpiece" show. Maybe John from Cincinnati or some of the other shows coming up will hit a chord, but I don't think many subscribers are going to stay around for them. Maybe they'll come back if critics praise the shows, but who knows.

Hopefully later tonight I can give my thoughts on the final episode and what I thought of John from Cincinnati, since I will give it a chance given how good Deadwood was. Also, for those that missed out on it, the excellent show The Tudors ends its first season tonight on Showtime. It has easily gotten lost by The Sopranos and Entourage (who it is in direct competition with), but it is good nonetheless. Comcast was nice enough to have this week's finale up last Sunday on On Demand, so I've already seen the season ender and thought it was quite good.

PC Gamer Editorial on Penny Arcade

2007-06-06T23:32:00.000-05:00

Bill already beat me to it (check out his opinion piece from today), but I wanted to talk about Greg Vederman's editorial that will accompany the July issue of PC Gamer with a cover story about Penny Arcade's upcoming game, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness which is being developed by Hothead games with Ron Gilbert (the man behind most of LucasArts greatest adventure games) lending a hand.

You can read the editorial, along with Scott Kurtz's (PvP Online) rant on it here. I'm not exactly sure what Mr. Vederman is trying to convey in his editorial. First off, it is poorly written from a structure perspective. He talks about Garfield for close to, if not over, 50% of the editorial. He says he enjoys some of PA's comics, but then roundhouses them by saying he blows it off when his friend asks him whether the comic is funny or not when he points it out.

The key problem with his editorial is that he is comparing something from his (and my) childhood and comparing it to a webcomic that is 20 years younger than Garfield (it debuted in 1978, PA debuted in 1998). With 20 years of experience under his belt before PA even debuted, chances are good that the eyes of an adult are going to be far different than the eyes of a child.

I'm going to guess I am around the same age as Mr. Vederman. Gabe (Mike Krahulik) is a year younger than me and Tycho (Jerry Holkins) is a few months older. Fact is all 4 of us grew up in the same pop culture lexicon. I know I can sit here in 2007, go to On Demand on my cable box and watch some of the cartoons I used to watch in the 80s. I remember how awesome they seemed back then, but watching them now through adult eyes makes me wonder what the heck I saw in them. A perfect example is I recently watched the Transformers Movie again and it just wasn't as special as it was when I saw it in the theater. Doesn't mean I'm any less excited about the live-action version coming on my birthday (July 4th) though.

Mr. Vederman's editoral simply has a disconnect when trying to compare things that are 20 years apart. I know I also loved Garfield in grade school and I remember picking up the combined strip books (I think I have Books 1-21 or something of Garfield) at my local bookstore when I was young. I would spend hours reading those along with my comic books and playing video games. I probably liked Garfield longer than Mr. Vederman given his words in the editorial, but much like him I eventually found out the strip just wasn't as funny as I got older. I still read the strip today, but it is more out of habit than anything else.

I think I've been reading PA since the beginning or very near to it. So, I've been reading it for almost 9 years; chances are that is longer than I religiously read Garfield, but I'm not positive. I will also continue to read PA until it is no more. Mike and Jerry have built a successful company from nothing. They even went through a time where things were so bad that they had to ask for donations and gave back to their donators by sending out exclusive prints and other items. They made bad business decisions before Robert Khoo came on and took over that side of things.

Since then they've created PAX, a convention I'd love to go to one of these years. With the classic E3 gone, PAX has become one of the biggest conventions around. It is so big they had to put it in a new building this year. They also created Child's Play, which made over $1 million last year in donations to many Children's hospitals around the world. Of course Mr. Vederman makes no mention of that last part, only about the "fanbois" that follow PA like a cult. Thing is PA really isn't a cult, it's a cultural phenomenon.

Penny Arcade IS the trendsetter in webcomics. They have connections with many companies; and unlike the game magazines out there they don't have to say a thing about the products they are sent. When a product is talked about it's free hype (or free death if they are negative) for the product maker that can reach out to millions of people per day that check out the site. When we contrast this with PC Gamer's latest known subscriber base (250,147 as of Jan-Jun 2006) my question is how can millions of people be wrong?

Then again, maybe Mr. Vederman is trying to strike the fire in us with his editorial. He should be careful though because he could find himself out of a job if people cancel their subscriptions or enough of an uproar is unloaded upon this editorial. As was pointed out in the comments section on PvP Online, you wonder if he will have the same sort of nasty editoral based around StarCraft II, which is next month's cover story. Chances are good he won't since Blizzard and Vivendi are probably big advertisers for the magazine whereas PA is not.

The fact is many people will pick up all 5 covers of PC Gamer and his job will probably be saved for the moment. The editorial was just a bad idea, he probably should have had a second version of it without the Garfield comparison. Heck, he could have just talked about how he is not a fan of PA, but understands there are a legion of people that are fans and still find the comic funny even to this day. It does put a sour taste in people's mouths when the people behind their cover story are being outwardly hated by the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine. Maybe he should have just stayed quiet.

Chances are Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness will be a good game. Both Mike and Jerry have said on multiple occasions that they wouldn't allow it to be released if they thought the game sucked and with Ron Gilbert helping I can't see it not being above average at best. It's just too bad this major cover story is brought down by an EIC that is not a fan of the webcomic. Trust me Mr. Vederman, PA is going to last for a long time after you are long gone as EIC of PC Gamer...that I can promise you.

What Have I Been Doing in Gaming?

2007-06-06T23:27:00.000-05:00

Since it's been almost 8 months since I last blogged, many of you may be wondering what I've been playing over that time. With my busy work schedule I haven't had a ton of time to play games, but you can always keep up on what I'm playing on the Xbox 360 on my Gamercard to the right.

Over these 8 months I've gone back to some 360 and PS2 games and played what I had missed. I am almost done with Fight Night Round 3 and I blew through NBA Street Homecourt over a number of weeks. I like both games, but their inherent problem is that after a while they can get boring. The ability to double-dunk in Homecourt really hurts when online. Once you get the hang of how to time the double-dunk you become that much more dangerous in an online game. When I played my brother-in-law I destroyed him and I tried to not do the double-dunk, but the timing in my hands was so ingrained that I let a couple slip out accidentally. I think without the double-dunk that Homecourt would easily be the best game in the series. With the double-dunk it kind of fits in with the last iteration as being the best.

I did pick up God of War 2 when it came out, but I have yet to play it. With work being so busy I never felt I could give it the time I needed to give it. In fact, my Playstation 2 has not been plugged in for a while, but I will soon plug it in to play this and finish up with Final Fantasy XII. The rest of my time I've spent playing Guitar Hero II, the Shadowrun beta, Crackdown and the Halo 3 beta on the 360 side.

GH2 was my first time with the series and I have to say it is awesome. I'm still trying to get all 5 stars in the Medium level, I think I only have 4 songs left before I accomplish that. I have walked tepidly into the Hard mode, but will start hitting that hard here soon. The Mall of America is having a GH2 tournament this weekend, but I'll be nowhere near there as we get to go watch the in-laws dog this weekend. If I was at home (I don't live far from the MoA) I might go and check it out although the mall is pretty crazy on the weekends.

I'm enjoying Crackdown quite a bit, although I would like to get farther into it. I need to set aside some time to play it because I've only played it in spurts so far. My brother-in-law and I played co-op over Live last week and that was pretty fun, but given how low we were in abilities the fun only lasted so long. Then we played some NBA 2K7 and had a close game.

The two betas are polar opposites to me. I got into the Shadowrun beta early on and I played it a bit and just was not pulled into it at all. I have played the pen and paper game a long time ago and I played the RPG on the SNES. I know many people have a problem that this isn't Shadowrun to them, but to me it just isn't an exciting game.

Same can't be said for Halo 3 beta. I'm loving it quite a bit and can't wait till the game comes out September 25th. I got into the beta on the first entry, but I never received any e-mail from Bungie after I had been accepted, so I ended up getting into the beta through Crackdown. Yes, I feel I was ripped off by Halo 2's ending, but my hype factor is still very high on this game.

There aren't a whole lot of games coming up outside of NCAA Football 08 and then the August rush of things like BioShock. I still don't have a Wii or PS3, but maybe one of these days I'll pick up one or both.

DC Comics: Countdown...What the Heck?

2007-06-06T23:23:00.000-05:00

So, 52 ended up being a wonderful series in the end. I was low on it late in Act 1, but it grew into an explosive conclusion and overall really good series. Yes, the multiverse is back and I have no clue where they are going from here and I had hoped Countdown would excite me more than it has. I would dare say that 52 was the strongest of the big events that DC has seen over the past few years. I'd rate them this way (not including the current Countdown series):

1. 52
2. Identity Crisis
3. Countdown to Infinite Crisis
4. Villains United
5. Infinite Crisis
6. The OMAC Project
7. Day of Vengeance
8. Rann-Thanagar War
9. World War III (4 issues expanding upon 52 #50)

Now we have Countdown and I think I am seeing a vast difference between an arguably All-Star creative team (Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Grant Morrisson, Greg Rucka, Keith Giffen and Steve Wacker/Michael Siglain) and a Countdown's rotating set of creativity (Paul Dini and Keith Giffen being mainstays with rotating writers).

I think Countdown's biggest strike against is the fact it is happening in continuity with the current DC universe, unlike 52 which told the story of the missing year. With it being in continuity that means there will be crossovers if you want to read more about what is happening. Marvel did a pretty good job with crossovers while Civil War was going on by keeping the main story in the main book while letting people read more of the story elsewhere. I don't have the same sort of faith in DC to be able to keep the reins held on this crossover. So far we've seen connections to events that started months ago and just this week at the end of #47 we see the Amazon's attacking, something that started in Wonder Woman weeks ago. If they aren't careful it is almost assured that a comic could spill the beans about what happens in Countdown or what happens in another book that affects Countdown.

So far I am not as impressed with Countdown as I was with 52, but I shall continue to read it. If you want my honest opinion though I think Marvel has better editorial control over their books than DC seems to have. Marvel is running on all cylinders at the moment with some excellent new books out there (Avengers: The Initiative, The Mighty Avengers, Omega Flight, Nova, and New Warriors just to name some) that tie well into the aftermath of Civil War and will soon tie into World War Hulk and whatever the upcoming X-Men event is.

In the end though it may be interesting to see exactly what DC is counting down to with the series. Are they going to reboot the whole universe again? I hope not, but who knows at this point.

Welcome Back

2007-06-06T23:03:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I last blogged on here. Work became busy not too long after my last post (November 20th) and continued through the end of last month. I've spent the last couple weeks trying to recover from some long and hectic days at work. I thought many times about blogging again and I would either start writing something and delete it or just think to myself that I can blog another day.

I know I've said it before, but I do plan on being a bit more regular this time around with my blogging. It is still tough to fit it in with everything going on in my life, but I am going to attempt to do so. My first big post after my absense is going to be about the editoral in the new PC Gamer about Penny Arcade, a site near and dear to my heart (I have them linked on the right). I was quite surprised that neither Mike or Jerry said anything about the editorial, but Scott Kurtz (of PvP Online fame and "mortal enemy" of Mike and Jerry) certainly unloaded on Greg Vederman. I expect many more people to unload on him in the future.

Yes, I realize there are people out there that don't find PA funny in the least bit, but I'd say that the majority do. Anyway, welcome back to Virtual Viewpoints. I hope you'll stay a while.

State of Comics 11/20

2006-11-20T19:40:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I last touched on comic books, so I figured now is as good a time as any. I titled this "State of Comics" because I will be looking into where Civil War and 52 are at this moment in time.

Civil War

There is a good series going on in the Marvel Universe, but it isn't this one; in fact, it is Annihilation. If you haven't been picking that series out you've been missing out on the best that Marvel has to offer. Civil War has, so far, been a hugely hyped series that has not reached the level it could. I'm not sure if it is Millar going into different gears or whether he's planned out the end and is slowly getting to it.

The reason I bring up gears is because this series was promising during issues 1 and 2. After that, everything seems to have gone downhill and the series seems to have slowed down. Granted, I talked about this back in June that issue #2 would be the high point and that there was no chance Millar could top himself after having Spider-Man unmask. That big of a reveal that early (which of course got the mainstream press in a tizzy) is a dangerous thing to unleash and maybe Millar is starting to realize that. Issue #3 wasn't bad, but it was the start of the slippery and slow slope that the series has taken.

Issue #5 was simply bad in my mind. It was cool to see Spider-Man against the new Thunderbolts team (that will now be missing 2 characters...heh), but what I don't understand is how Spider-Man didn't do anything to defeat them. Yes, he had his run-in with Iron Man and SHIELD, but he should have been in a pissed off state of mind and ready to kick some ass against those guys. Bad writing in my estimation, it was just a way to get the Punisher into the story; a very lame way.

I am interested in this week's Civil War tie-ins, but I don't have much hope for the series as a whole. I still say pick up Annihilation, a far better read.

52

As a series, 52 has its good and bad weeks. I was about ready to write it off after Week 24, but since then the series has kept me interested. I am still bummed about Booster's death and I am very interested in what the heck is going on with Skeets. I think the strongest sections of this series revolve around Booster and Skeets; Ralph and the Fate Helmet; Question and Montoya; Animal Man, Starfire and Adam Strange; and the Black Marvel Family. Those make the strongest of the stories so far in this series. The Magnus and Morrow stuff as well as Steel's sections have gotten a bit long in the tooth. I am wondering where the heck Supernova has been though, haven't seem him in a while.

We're into the second half of the series now and things are ramping up on all fronts. I certainly hope no one I like dies, but it could very well happen. I'll keep reading this series and so far it is better than Civil War, but there are far more issues available here than that series.

This Week in Entertainment (11/19 - 11/25)

2006-11-20T05:37:00.000-06:00

I won't cover the Wii games since they are already out, but those did get released yesterday. The key games would probably be Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (multiplayer), Rayman: Raving Rabbids (multiplayer) and possibly Madden 07 just because of the gameplay. Onto the rest of the week and my picks for the week in every category.

Games

NOTE: This is one of the weakest Thanksgiving week release list that I ever remember, but maybe I'm not remembering them correctly. I know Nintendo is probably going, "well, we released Zelda on Sunday and that's during the week", but come on!

Superman Returns: The Game (360/Xbox/PS2/DS)

For those that haven't done so already, be sure to download the Xbox 360 demo of this game. I have to say I was quite surprised by the demo. This game had been pushed back from the release of the movie to roughly the release time of the movie on DVD. The graphics are nice and the draw distance is quite large (I flew all the way up in the clouds to see the area you play in from far above), but it certainly isn't going to overcome Gears of War on a graphics level. Superman's powers are readily available and hopefully they will be available from the start of the game. Keep an eye on this game it could be a really good action game along the lines of the last Hulk game.

Rainbow Six: Vegas (360)

Never been too big on the Rainbow games even though I have played some of them. From all I've read this is the cream of the crop for the series. I am even thinking about picking it up just to play online in a group. This is my Game of the Week just from early reviews of it. Gamespot's review should solidify the need to buy or rent this game.

Need for Speed: Carbon (Wii)

This will be interesting to see how it plays with the Wiimote. It should be like ExciteTruck where you hold it horizontally like a wheel, but from gameplay videos it looks like you point it straight and turn left and right.

Movies/DVDs

Ice Age: The Meltdown (DVD)

Default DVD of the Week from me. I liked this movie, but there were other computer animated movies that came out this year that are better than this one, including a movie that came out 2 weeks ago AND came out in the theater after this one: Cars.

You, Me and Dupree (DVD)

I will have to rent this movie. I heard it was bad, so it isn't worth buying.

Da Ali G Show Complete (DVD)

For those that have seen Borat, here is what made Sasha Baron Cohen a name here in America. There is no added substance from the season releases that have already come out, this is just a repackaging of all the season together for a cheaper price. HBO is doing this for a lot of series that are completed, which should piss off a good deal of people that paid premium prices to pick up each season of HBO shows.

Deja Vu (Theater)

This movie looks interesting and certainly has the pedigree (stars and director) to be as big of a Thanksgiving hit as National Treasure was 2 years ago.

The Fountain (Theater)

I have a feeling not many people will watch this movie, but this is my Movie of the Week to watch in the theater. Darren Aronofsky is writer/director and Hugh Jackman and Rachael Weisz star in this time-travelling tale. Chances are it could be one of those "thinking person" movies that makes you think or may be over many people's heads. I still think it is a safe bet from a Science Fiction perspective.

For Your Consideration (Theater)

Another Christopher Guest ensemble movie. I may be one of the only people out there that disliked Waiting for Guffman, but I have liked all the other movies this group has put out. Reviews are excellent, but that doesn't necessarily mean I will like it.

Comics

Amazing Spider-Man #536

Easily the Comic Book of the Week. After last week's avalanche of good comics, this week is the fallout of Civil War #5 (which I will talk about soon). I have enjoyed "The War at Home" so far, although when taken in conjunction with Fantastic Four it lessens its impact since JMS seems to be recycling the same story, making ASM the far better book since it comes out first.

Civil War: Frontline #8

I've enjoyed this mini-series that ties into Civil War. I like that there are 3 stories told in each one, although I could do without the final act of each book honestly. More Ben and Speedball, less history please.

Daredevil #91

"The Devil Takes a Ride" arc continues here. Brubaker has totally taken up the reins from Bendis on this series. If ASM wasn't around this week this would probably be my pick.

Exiles #88

I was late coming onto this series, but am liking it quite a bit.

Fantastic Four: The End #2

I liked the first part and will continue to read the series at least into this release.

Runaways #22

Enjoy Vaughn while you can until Whedon comes over for the future of this series.

Ultimate Spider-Man #102

I have no idea how Bendis is going to end the "Clone War" in the next three issues, but it has been an engaging read.

X-Factor #13

Peter David has struck gold on this series again.

Wonder Woman #3

The now bi-monthly series has another issue release. I've liked this series so far and I'm glad they pushed it to a realistic bi-monthly schedule. It would be nice to be monthly, but I can understand the delay. Heck, Whedon and Cassidy get away with it in Astonishing X-Men.

What Did We Learn This Weekend?

2006-11-20T05:33:00.000-06:00

So, the Playstation 3 and Wii launches came and went. I think Bill put it nicely in his blog (Dubious Quality) this weekend in two separate posts and I'll try not to just retread on what he said.

I was one of the people with inside info on the PS3 and launch quantities that Bill talked about and it will be very interesting to see Sony's press releases starting today. I am actually surprised they didn't send out a form press release saying that the PS3 launch was an unqualified success this weekend. I'm not exactly sure how they are going to spin the 140k units that went to stores instead of the 400k target (this is rumor at this point, but many signs are pointing toward this number being realistic). On every news channel I watched and every newspaper I read they made it a point to say that 400k units were shipped to stores. I'm not sure when NPDs numbers come out, but that will be the telltale sign. I'm sure Sony is hoping to have more units in the channel before that report comes out because I don't think it will look very rosy. They may even bring out a PR piece that says, "well, Wal-Mart is not taken into account in NPDs numbers" (since they aren't).

The most funny thing to come out of this weekend is how fast the eBay price of the PS3 dropped after roughly Friday night. If you hadn't sold your PS3 by then you were talking more in the $200-600 profit range at this point (although there are some still going for $1.5k). Some people have even taken to raffles, but so far I haven't seen much movement in those auctions. It's hard to guess at what this sort of thing means though. Does it mean that the PS3 isn't nearly as "wanted" as Sony would like us to think it is? Have the bidders decided that the system isn't worth 2x+ the original price and they can wait? Have the people that wanted a PS3 for Christmas already purchased their systems from eBay and now there are slim pickings when talking about buyers out there?

If I were to guess I'd put the most credence on the first question. I think the Wii launch on Sunday signified that to me. Chances are good that Nintendo came out with 400k+ units yesterday and as far as I can tell all of them sold out. I think Nintendo will come out of this with a great holiday season, but much like the GameCube if there isn't much quality 3rd party support I don't see it selling very well going through next year. That is the major bump that Nintendo must overcome for the Wii to be a valid console this go around. I hope they learned from the ongoing N64 and GameCube sales failure.

Heck, even the New York Times has a scathing article about the PS3 today. It is worthy to note that some of the things he talks about the Xbox 360 having vs. the PS3 were not available at 360 launch. The key one I am thinking about is the multiple downloads section (the summer update added that) as well as component cables not being included in the Core system (he doesn't make a division between the Premium and Core 360s).

I did not pick up either system this weekend. I decided I didn't want to stand out in the cold again like I did last year. The PS3 is certainly going toward the "buying next year" category after some more quality games have come out and we know more about the exclusive games supposedly coming next year. Do not be surprised if previously exclusive games go multi-platform if the PS3 is a flop coming out of the holiday season. I will probably pick up a Wii at some point simply to play Zelda, although I may just hold off for the GameCube release. The Wii was certainly calling to me more than the PS3 this weekend honestly.

Also, if you have a 360 as well as a PS3 and you are thinking about getting some multi-platform games, do yourself a favor and stick with the 360 version. Every PS3 version so far has had problems: Call of Duty 3, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (has 1080p support) and Tony Hawk's Project 8 all have framerate slowdown. NBA 2K7 has major problems in 1080p resolution from my understanding. EA's games also have some graphical missteps when compared to their 360 counterpart as well. All in all, the ports have not gone over very well. This leaves you basically with one standout game (Resistance: Fall of Man) and two duds (Genji and Untold Legends) from Sony...whoops!

I can't wait for those numbers from NPD and see how Sony is going to spin them. You may also want to check out your local video game establishment since some people may be returning their PS3s because they didn't get the money they wanted from an eBay auction. Don't be surprised if there is some resupply at stores with unopened and returned units.

PS3 Camper Update

2006-11-15T23:33:00.000-06:00

I decided to drive around a bit tonight and see if there were any lines around. I talked about the one in Richfield, MN earlier that I had seen on a local news station. Well, now the campers fill up the front right and looks like the whole right side of the building. This Best Buy is obviously one that should get more than the 20 promised. I think they had over 100 360s last year (I just checked, it was 178...134 Premiums, 44 Cores), so that's a good bet.

I also went to few Targets, Wal-Marts and other Best Buys as well. Each one either had people waiting in line outside or, in the case of Wal-Mart and one Target, they had people inside waiting (the Wal-Mart is a 24-hour one, so I can only guess they will release at midnight on Friday). Compare this to last year and the store I stood in front of at 8pm the night before the 360 release (I was 1st in line) has about 12 people in line almost 48 hours before the PS3 release. The weather is slightly warmer (I think I sat in 22 degree weather last year, it's 34 here now) as it should hit about 29 tonight and about 24 for those that have to wait until 8am on Friday (26 for the midnighters).

I have to say that people must have obviously learned from last year and decided to line up early this time around. I know there were several fights at other locations over the 360, but there wasn't much incident where I was other than people being pissed they didn't get Premium systems. They have also obviously learned that eBay is a precious asset from last year and see lots of money in their futures. I don't think I could push myself much past the 12 hours I waited last year in the cold. Many of these people have tents though and probably have some heaters as well. I could easily do 48 hours with those amenities, but the toes get really cold really fast.

Anyway, that's just a report from the frozen north of Minnesota. We are just lucky there hasn't been any accumulation of snow (it has snowed here though). Last year I don't think it had snowed yet when the 360 came out (November 22nd). All I hope is that some people don't go crazy and violence ensues on Friday. Tempers become very thin when you're the unlucky person that didn't get the last ticket and everyone after them.

Opinion: Playstation 3

2006-11-15T05:49:00.000-06:00

The Playstation 3 is only a couple days for release and even up here (Minnesota) people are already camping out to get one on Friday. Woke up this morning and the news already had that people had tents and were camping outside the Richfield, MN Best Buy (for those that don't know, Richfield is also the city where Best Buy HQ is located, but it is a separate building from the Best Buy store a half mile away). The Richfield Best Buy is the only one around here opening at midnight and when there are midnight openings for things, this is the store that is usually the only one open.

I have also heard reports of people already camping at 24-hour Wal-Mart locations (that would also sell at midnight) and I can only guess some Target stores may have lines starting. The problem with Target is that they also have a charity CD coming out for one of the local radio stations tomorrow morning.

I did not pre-order the PS3 or Wii and may or may not stand in line to get one or the other. My gut feeling is that the number of PS3 units available will be well below expectations, possibly a cut of as much as 50%. I can only guess there will end up being less PS3 systems at launch than 360 last year. I wonder if Sony will come out and say that they will not meet expectations or not. Chances are they won't since they haven't shown lately that they can be up front about stuff.

Much like the Wii below there are some valid questions to ask about the PS3, such as:

1. How big of a percentage of PS3s are going to go up on eBay by Christmas?

At this moment there are 2,441 PS3 systems up for sale at eBay. Back as far as October 31st at around 9am my time (Central) there were 2,260 that were put up for bid (but not necessarily sold). There can only be more that were put up between the pre-order date at Gamestop and October 31st. Given those first two numbers (and guessing that enough were sold in-between the dates I don't have) there are probably 5,000+ PS3s that have been put up for bid or sold at this point. Not knowing the full amount of units Gamestop, EB and Toys 'R Us have I can only go by Sony's initial 400k unit launch and say that a little over 1% of PS3s have been sold.

Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Circuit City, etc. have not sold systems yet (Wal-Mart did do online stuff yesterday) and I can only guess a good chunk of those bought will go on eBay. The lure of money (most PS3s are going for over $2k currently...over 3x the price of the $599 system) is just going to be too great for people. The idea that you can make $1400 on this system and possibly make your family's Christmas a very good one is probably why people are already camping out here (in the cold...it's in the 40s, but the nights are below freezing) and elsewhere.

My best guess when all is said and done is that at least 25% of PS3s will be sold on eBay and I may be lowballing on my figure. The only thing that could screw up my percentage is if the saturation point of people willing to spend $2k on the system is hit. Chances are very good that that $2k price will go higher if you hold out past Thanksgiving on putting it up on eBay.

2. How strong is the launch lineup?

Much like the Wii below the launch lineup is not that exciting. Just like the Wii there is really only one standout game at launch, Resistance: Fall of Man. The other original games (not games on other systems) are Genji: Days of the Blade, Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. The last one could be another standout, but I haven't heard anything about it from any magazine at all. That's not a good indicator to be honest, especially since they are covering other games.

The rest of the games are multiplatform ones. Early reviews on the Activision ones (Tony Hawk's Project 8 and Call of Duty 3) is that there are major framerate hitches in both and the online component is either not there (THP8) or not as robust (CoD3). On the reverse side are the 2K sports games. NBA 2K7 has a 1080p output (supposedly running at 60fps) and the Sixaxis controller is used for free throws. Previews have noted that they can't tell a vast difference between the look of the PS3 and 360 versions, but I would guess once they have it in their hands and can play side-by-side they'd know.

Is the launch lineup stronger than the 360? That's more of a subjective opinion from anyone. From my vantage point the key games of the 360 launch were Project Gotham Racing 3, Call of Duty 2, Kameo (don't let anyone tell you this game sucks), Condemned and Perfect Dark Zero (hindered by the inability to meet hype). That's 5 worthy games in my opinion, but many people are not into racing or platform games for instance, eliminating 2 of those games. The key game to hone in on is Call of Duty 2 which really ran well on the 360 and the early review of Call of Duty 3 from Gamespot that says there is lots of slowdown even in empty places on the PS3.

3. Can the free online play challenge Xbox Live?

Sony has kept very quiet about this and maybe some of you don't know the full details, so I'll lay it out here. Unlike Microsoft who runs pretty much every game (minus EA games and some others) through their servers and Xbox Live service, the PS3 online service options will be limited by the publishers/developers who want to support it. Sony is leaving it to the companies to develop and run their online multiplayer. Sony is just giving us a way to connect to each other, but the companies will maintain and upgrade the servers the games run on. This is much like it was in the PS2 world with online, but with the move to PS3 I find that online multiplayer will become that much more important in the overall scheme of things.

Don't be surprised if some games come out where the company releasing it would like to see you pay an amount per month to play the game and keep the servers up and maintained. For a company like Electronic Arts it isn't too much trouble because they usually phase out online play on old games every year as the new iteration comes out, but for the smaller companies out there the only way for them to see a profit and not a loss via online play is to charge a fee. With Xbox Live almost all servers are handled by Microsoft and that is what we pay the $50 for. The companies develop the netcode for their games via the Live SDK, but Microsoft runs the servers the games run off of.

Neither way is necessarily perfect, but I don't see the PS3 online section being on every game like it pretty much is for the Xbox 360. With production costs already high for both systems (and the PS3 development is evidently higher than the 360), companies may decide to drop the PS3 online component to be cost effective.

4. Will the price keep people away after the initial release?

This will be the true test for the PS3: How will sales go once it is readily available? As noted above I figure a good percentage will be bought just to sell on eBay, but what about once all the craziness settles down? Can the PS3 outsell the 360 at the +$200 price point? It will be interesting.

5. Will the 20GB version be enough in memory space?

Word already is that there is an option to install several gigabytes onto the hard drive to run Ridge Racer 7 (5GB) and Genji: Day of the Blade (2GB). It is confirmed as an option on Genji, but no idea if it is one on RR7. The original Xbox cached a lot of stuff onto the hard drive in order to play a game faster and this is pretty much the same type of thing although the hard drive hit seems to be of a larger quantity. No word yet on other games needing this space, but it is quite possible that the 20GB version will be tapped out rather quickly. The good news is you can put any 2.5" hard drive into the PS3, but that's an extra price hit.

6. Can Sony overcome their overall bad PR moves?

Granted, most people won't know all about Sony's missteps with the PS3 and other things this year. E3 was a disaster for Sony, especially in comparison to the Wii and 360. The first big misstep was the announcement of the price. Sony believes enough people out there trust the name brand that they won't be pissed to pay $200 or $300 more than they did the PS2 at launch. Some polling place, which could be valid or not valid, even said a lot of people thought the PS3 was $300. Could there be people in the lines that don't know the actual price of the PS3? I think it would be tough because if they saw Sunday ads they would have seen the price.

Sony is also reliant on the Blu-Ray player on the PS3. This is them trying to push that format as the defacto one of the new generation of DVD players. It works well for those people that have 1080p systems in the fact that they get a player and game system for $400 less than a standalone player, but is the PS3 a better Blu-Ray player than the standalone one? I don't know. There may also be loading issues given that this is a first-generation Blu-Ray system versus one down the road that may speed up loading quite a bit. The good news is that it is probably quieter because it runs at a lower speed than the 360's DVD drive. It also allows for larger information to be stored on the disc. Whether that is good or not is up for debate.

The other misstep was obviously their battery problems with many notebook computer manufacturers. This will cost Sony a lot of money and I don't know whether people should be worried about the PS3 controller or not with the battery in it. If that battery blows up Sony could be in a world of hurt more than they are now. Sony is on its way to the toilet as a brand and they've put all their eggs into the PS3 basket hoping it will pay off as it did the 2 generations prior.

In the end I'd have to say the smartest move is to pass on the Playstation 3 at this moment. Resistance: Fall of Man is the only game to pick up and play and hopefully you'll have a friend that has the system and game and you can play it. The news is much more rosy as we move into next year with more (supposedly) exclusive offerings like Metal Gear Solid 4 and possibly Final Fantasy XIII along with many others.

In many ways I am sure people wished they would have waited a few months on the Xbox 360 because that was when things started to get good for many. I think the same thing is going to befall both the PS3 and Wii. There will be a quiet quarter after this one and then some standout things will start to emerge as we move into the spring and through the rest of the year next year. I just hope nothing hardware based goes wrong with the PS3, that could also doom Sony pretty quickly. For those getting in line I wish you luck and hopefully we'll have some hard numbers before the systems actually go on sale.

Opinion: Nintendo Wii

2006-11-15T05:14:00.000-06:00

The Nintendo Wii is an interesting counter-choice to the Playstation 3. The Wii should have more plentiful numbers and the price point is rather attractive when put up against the PS3 ($499/$599 vs. $249). The only problem with the Wii is that there may be more question marks surrounding it than the PS3 has. Things to consider:

1. Will there be any heavy support after the initial 6-12 months of release?

Developers are saying they are big behind the Wii because of production costs being less on a game than those on the 360 or PS3. This may be true, but the developers also need to think about what would make a game exciting to the owners of the Wii. With a new way of controlling how you play the game, the developers need to start thinking outside the box and utilizing the full range of motion that the remote supposdely has.

I question whether support is going to be there after a year. I think it is a valid point of worry with the Wii. Yes, Metroid and Mario are coming, but after that what other original or big selling games are there? With Zelda coming out on Sunday that is a big selling point for the Wii, but it also spites those people (like myself) that were waiting for the game on the GameCube. We have to wait almost a month to get our hands on that version unless we picked up a Wii.

2. Will Red Steel end up being a game worth picking up or has nothing changed since the disastrous previews?

I still think Red Steel could end up being another strong release alongside Zelda for the Wii release. Both Nintendo and UbiSoft have been touting the game, but when early previews started coming out it painted a not so rosy picture. Did UbiSoft go back and refine the game and make it all it could be? That's the question.

3. Is the controller a gimmick or a real revolution?

From a conceptual standpoint the controller is revolutionary, but from real world use in games at launch and the future will it actually stand up? Journalists who have played Zelda at the recent event in Redmond sat on both sides of the fence on whether the Wii controls were good for the game or not. What they were pretty unified with was that using the controls would not make your arms tire. The latter is an important factor since logic would dictate that your hands would tire after hours of play, but the previews on 10 hours of play refuted that.

The thing to worry about here also ties into #1. Developers have to think outside the box when creating games for the Wii. In many ways it will be easy to use the new control system, but can they utilize it to its full potential? They are going to decide whether the control system is viewed as a gimmick or a revolutionary idea.

4. Will the idea by many that the Wii is just a GameCube 1.5 hurt the system?

I don't think of the Wii like this, but I get the impression that many do. This could hurt the Wii in the end simply because we (unfortunately) live in a society where graphics are pretty important. The Wii is not going to wow people like the 360 or PS3 might, it just isn't going to happen. The Wii is there for much the same reason as the GameCube, a system where people can have fun playing games with other people. With the Wii they get into the game physically, a vast change from the GameCube. Nintendo still hasn't shed the kiddie image that many people talk about and they plan on having many Mature games on the Wii, but they'd have to do something pretty badass to lose the kiddie label.

5. Is online multiplayer gaming really that important?

Online multiplayer gaming may not be very important to Nintendo again this time around. Yes, there will be online play, but is Nintendo really taking an aggressive stance on it? I don't think they are. Sony, for all they've done wrong, have embraced online play with the PS3 although the success of it can be debated. Microsoft obviously makes Live a key component of their system. Could a repeat of the GameCube happen again where there are very few games that support online play? It is cool we'll have the Virtual Console available via the network, but we certainly can't play those games with other people around the world, can we?

In the end I hope people pick up the Wii, especially if you're in a family environment. The unfortunate part (that is shared with the PS3) is that there is really only one game to pick up for the Wii (Zelda) that is a for sure must buy. Outside of that what do you have? The vast unknown.

This Week in Entertainment (11/12 - 11/18)

2006-11-13T06:02:00.000-06:00

This is a nice quiet week...oh wait, I'm looking at a different week! Big releases in all the categories I list in these posts, so get ready. As usual, I have my pick of the week in every category.

Games

Playstation 3 System (11/17)

The system we've all opined about (and every eBay seller's fantasy) is ready to drop on Friday. Sony has said they hope to exceed expectations, but I'm willing to bet the amount of systems available will be 400k or lower. For those that pre-ordered at EB/Gamestop I wish you luck and hope your local store goes chronologically and not sell to those that spent more on the system/games/accessories as you. I'll make a post later on talking about my feelings with the PS3 and Wii about to drop.

PS3 Ported Games

This includes such games as NBA 2K7, NHL 2K7, Tony Hawk's Project 8 (sans online), Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Need for Speed: Carbon, NBA Live 07, NHL 07 and Tiger Woods 07. I may have forgotten some, but it will be interesting to see how they stack up against their 360 counterparts.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

It is a busy games release week because of the Playstation 3 and this easily tops the choices coming out of the PS3's launch. IGN's review gave it a 9.1, although it was a poorly written article. I await Gamespot's take on it since I find they run generally at the same wavelength I do. I think no matter what this game receives my Game of the Week endorsement even though I may not play it for a long time.

Final Fantasy III (DS)

This game was also in the running for the GotW award, but with the PS3 avalanche coming in the same week it gets relegated to a note from me. I've heard good things about this 3D re-imagining of FF3 and I hope it turns out nicely. I don't have a DS as of yet, but this is yet another reason to think about picking one up.

Genji: Days of the Blade (PS3)

I think the various reviews (Gamespot 6.4, IGN 6.0) that are out there now pretty much sum up the game. It looks nice, but doesn't play so well. I give a big Rent It to this one for those of you that get a PS3 and keep it.

Ridge Racer 7 (PS3)

So, this morning I run across this forum thread at Evil Avatar that compares screens from RR7 with those of RR6 on the 360 last year. This proves of course that Ridge Racer 7 is actually Ridge Racer 6 renamed (there may possibly be more tracks though). This isn't the best game to be making comparisons on since it isn't a game that will graphically wow you, but it is interesting to see which system does graphics better. I just wanted to point this out, but you should certainly Rent this game.

Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (PS3)

This game could be good given how well the PSP game was received. This game also started the whole Xfire controversy where people were thinking the PS3 online component was run by Xfire, but Sony had just used Xfire for this game. I'll talk more about the online capabilities of PS3 and how disjointed it is in another post. I think this game looks interesting and may be a good Buy.

Sonic the Hedgehog (360/PS3)

This game is going to suck if it is anything like the 360 demo that came out a bit ago. Sonic was once on top of the world, but with each successive release since Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast the quality has been going to pot. If the graphics are pretty good I could see this game being a good comparison of the graphical power of the 360 vs. the PS3...I just think the game is going to suck big time. This game may go into the Skip It territory, but you may want to rent as well.

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 (360/PS2)

I have not gotten my new issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, but they supposedly reviewed this game and scored it a 7.5. I don't know if EGM is still doing the 3 reviewer thing or not since this issue was supposed to see big changes, but if 7.5 is the average of the 3 reviewers I'd say that is pretty good for a wrestling game. IGN also reviewed it and gave it an 8.0. My only problem with that is that IGN also gave the Xbox RAW games reviews in the 9s and neither game was THAT good. I say Rent It on this one.

Movies/DVDs

The Da Vinci Code (DVD)

Easily my DVD Pick of the Week. I enjoyed this movie a lot, although it is obviously not as good as the similarly themed National Treasure. I think it is certainly worth a rental and maybe even a purchase.

Family Guy Vol. 4 (DVD)

Pick this up to continue your collection of Family Guy DVDs. I don't think this second part of the 4th season is as good as the other seasons, but it is still some quality viewing.

James Bond: Casino Royale (Theater)

Easily my Theater Pick of the Week. I know many people out there can't get used to a blond Bond, but give Daniel Craig a chance! I think this movie looks really good and hopefully it can rejuvenate the franchise via a reboot.

Happy Feet (Theaters)

Another computer animated movie, this time starring penguins. I have no clue whether this movie will be good or not, but they certainly are advertising it everywhere (even at Blockbuster!). The concept sounds interesting, but when I think of computer animation pioneers I don't really think of Warner Bros. in the same class as Pixar or Dreamworks.

Comics

Civil War #5

Comic Book Pick of the Week. Nothing gets the blood flowing more than another Civil War release from Marvel as it ramps up toward the end of the series. I'm not very high on Civil War, but I certainly await to see how much more Millar can push the future of Marvel. Spider-Man is front and center on the cover and I just hope Millar and JMS don't ruin Peter forever by the end of this series.

Astonishing X-Men #18

"Torn" reaches its conclusion. Will we find out the story behind Emma and the White Queen and how they can be or not be the same person? The sad part in all of this is that the next arc is the last one that Whedon will be working on, but the good news is he also moves into writing for Runaways.

Cable and Deadpool #34

I cannot stress how good and funny this series is. I think it goes largely unnoticed like She-Hulk does and I hope some people can drop a major book they don't enjoy reading for this book.

Iron Man #13

The series finally moves into Civil War territory. Hopefully this book will go at length to explain exactly why Tony Stark isn't the biggest ass in the Marvel Universe. Right now he and Reed Richards are striving for the title of biggest ass around. I think an explaination is well in order in this case.

Moon Knight #6

The first arc finally reaches its conclusion. I think this opening arc has been rather slow in execution and I hope this last chapter pushes toward the next arc.

New Avengers #25

Another Civil War tie in and only 1 month until the story about Wanda Maximoff and Clint Barton. Is it sad that I'm more excited about that issue than this one? The solicitation says that Tony is ready for the final battle...be he makes a "fatal mistake" that he will pay for. I'll believe it when I see it.

Thunderbolts #108

It is sad that this team is going to go the way of the wind to be replaced by more A-list villians, but hopefully they will go out with a bang. In this issue the conclusion to the fight between Zemo and Grandmaster reaches its end.

What If? Spider-Man: The Other

I am very interested in this issue simply because I like to see what the other way would have been for this arc. I didn't enjoy the Avengers Disassembled What If? much, but hopefully this will be different with Peter David writing it.

Action Comics #845

Part 2 of "Last Son", the Geoff Johns/Richard Donner team-up. I liked the first chapter and can only hope the goodness continues here.

Birds of Prey #100

The series reaches a new milestone as Oracle needs to look for some new recruits. I love this series and am sad that Black Canary has left, but hopefully new and exciting stories are ahead.

First Look: Gears of War (360)

2006-11-12T23:31:00.000-06:00

I finish up my first looks with the game that stands head and shoulders above the 3 I played over the week: Gears of War. I could finish this first look by saying this game is a Must Own, but I need to quantify that somehow I think. Epic has created a game that will stand up with Halo and Halo 2 as killer apps of Microsofts console systems. In many ways Gears of War is better than either Halo (graphics, sound, gameplay). In other ways, such as multiplayer and story, it cannot hold a candle to either Halo game. In the end, this is how Gears of War will ultimately be judged: can it transcend the Halo games and stave off the upcoming onslaught of Sony and Nintendo's new gaming machines?

The story behind Gears of War isn't anything special. I think many reviewers and varied forum posters have said how sad the story is. The original Halo wasn't that great at story, but in the end it was a longer game than Gears of War is and therefore has more of a story behind it. Basically the story is you play a soldier who was put in prison by the alien Locust. Some Army guys bust you out and you spend the rest of the game following (or giving) orders and going through the motions of each checkpoint. The beauty in this game is that the gameplay is second to none in a 3rd person action game. I personally haven't felt like I was actually living through an action movie like I do with Gears of War. It is small on talk, but blows things up really nicely.

The biggest gameplay innovation here is the way you use cover. Cover means everything in this game; possibly even moreso than it does in the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games. I'm not big on either of those games simply because they are more squad based than Gears of War and it is far more strategic than GoW's run and gun perspective. From your cover you can look around or above you and aim (L trigger) and fire (R trigger) your gun. Blood will splatter as you shoot your enemies. The graphics are just fantastic and when you go into full-on run (by hodling down the A button while moving forward) the camerawork is exquisite and makes you feel like you're right there.

Gears of War obviously borrows a lot from the Halo playbook, but that's a really nice playbook to work from. There aren't as many enemies, although there are times you feel severely outnumbered. They also borrowed the health engine from Halo as well where if you stay still for a while your health will return to you. Much like Halo you can only have 2 guns on you, although you cannot double wield in this game. The cool thing about the guns is that your character switches them in and out with ease from their place on his back. This isn't a game where the player has tons of guns and no place to put them. Instead you actually see the guns on your character.

Another cool addition to the gameplay is the reloading of ammo. You can initiate it at any time with the R button. A little slide will go across and if you want to have a quick reload with extra power you have to hit the R button again inside the little sliver of white or within the section of gray. If you don't get it in either of those two sections the gun will jam and precious time will be taken away as you reload. You can also choose to just let the reload happen by itself and not try to do a quick reload. Quick reloads give you some extra power to your shots, so they are a valuable resource.

There is a minus to Gears of War though and that is the multiplayer aspect of the game. I think many people figured the matchmaking would be much like it was in Halo 2, but the story from Epic is that Microsoft built the Live play on the 360 differently than they did on the Xbox. I figure whatever problems there are will be rectified by the time Halo 3 comes out simply because they changed the way it worked when Halo 2 came out as well. Epic has talked about possibly fixing it themselves, but I would guess sales would be a good indication of whether they are going to take the time to work on it or leave it for Gears of War 2.

The multiplayer games I did get into were pretty fun, although there is really nothing akin to the Halo 2 game modes in this game. Basically it is a "one and done" type of situation for the games I played. You get picked off and you're done for that round. In many ways it seems a lot like the Splinter Cell games, but I think this game needs to have spawning going on and time limits. It's just one place where it falls well below the bar that Halo has set.

In the end I think this is easily a Must Buy and easily the first game where it is worth owning a 360 for. I certainly hope there are more games like this in the pipe coming up.

First Look: Call of Duty 3 (360)

2006-11-12T22:18:00.000-06:00

Well, color me somewhat impressed. I had written this game off simply because Infinity Ward had nothing to do with it. Treyarch (the Spider-Man games and Call of Duty: Big Red One) took the helm for this iteration as IW works on Call of Duty 4 for PC only (supposedly).

Call of Duty 3 seems to borrow a lot from the previous game. You are put in a variety of roles for different countries on the Allied side. Instead of only controlling one soldier, you control the path of many. Also much like the last game, Call of Duty 3 is a very scripted game in the single-player universe. I personally don't mind it, but I know many people that don't enjoy playing these World War II games that have you go from point to point and never have an adaptive AI that comes at you all the time and not at intervals. I'm sorry to tell them that many FPS and 3rd person action games are scripted and checkpoint based, it just depends if you've grown tired of these crutches or not.

The graphics and sounds in this game are top notch, but there have been some missteps here and there that I have seen. Your friendly AI troops seem to enjoy getting in the way of gunfire and sometimes they just disappear from sight. Add to this the fact that the enemy AI sometimes starts to shoot like characters in GI Joe (not being able to hit the broadside of a barn) and miss you at point blank range.

The controls are pretty nice, but I would still love to have mouse and keyboard controls. I think I'm pretty hardcoded with the whole FPS control issue. If a game starts off in the PC world I have a hard time adapting to console controls. I just don't feel I have the pinpoint accuracy I have on the PC. On the reverse side I find that if a game starts off in the console world (Halo for example) I find that the controls are nice and tight and find my accuracy to be very good. I don't know if that means there is a different conceptualization of the controls depending upon where a game starts off, but it is interesting to note. In the case of Call of Duty 3, even though it isn't coming out on PC it is obvious that it has been built upon the last iteration and that game started off as a PC game even though many would consider the 360 version better from a graphics and sound standpoint.

Call of Duty 3 takes place during the Normandy Breakout Campaign period, meaning it takes place after the landing and follows the allies as they try to take back sections where the Germans held ground. This means you won't be re-living the Battle of Normandy in this game, but there are plenty of "Holy shit!" moments in the game thanks to the terrific sounds in the game. As I said in my opening statement, I am somewhat impressed by this game on the single-player side simply because I figured Teryarch would drop the ball. In the end they've kept the ball rolling, although it certainly isn't as engaging as the last game honestly.

Where Call of Duty 3 really shines is in the online world. This shouldn't be a surprise given how popular the last game was online for the 360. I've played a few games (Capture the Flag for the most part) and I find it quite fun to play. The voice communicator runs nicely and I can hear everyone. The only negative I have seen so far is there hasn't been any ranked games that I've been able to get into, only unranked ones. This is fine since I could care less if I'm on a leaderboard or not, but I am surprised more people aren't playing ranked games. They could of course all be playing Gears of War, but I figure this game will be quite popular as well.

In the end I'm leaning toward the Buy It category simply because of the online gameplay. If you are leaning on it strictly for single-player play I would rent it because you should be able to finish it within the rental time. $60 for a multiplayer game may seem a bit steep, but the fact is you can get more people in one game playing Call of Duty 3 than you can get in Gears of War. The more people, the more fun it is honestly.

First Look: Tony Hawk's Project 8 (360)

2006-11-12T21:53:00.000-06:00

The series reaches its 8th installment with Tony Hawk's Project 8. I didn't play a lot of the last game simply because I had read from various places that the 360 version was a simple port from the Xbox/PS2 versions of the game with little graphical update. This time around they have supposedly built it from the ground up on the 360.

As I've been playing the game here and there I find that Tony Hawk's Project 8 is a cross between the other games in the series and the old Amped games from Xbox. You run through various tasks that have different levels of success as you go through them. Most of them are split between three levels: Amateur, Pro and Sick. You should have no problem getting through the first level and possibly the second level. For the third level you will find out that you have to have an upgraded skater in order to get the height needed to pull off big combos.

As you finish the levels you rank up from 200th place as the best skater around. The key to the game is to get into the final 8 that Tony Hawk plans to reward. I have yet to even reach the 100th rank and the game is already starting to grate on me. The game just feels like mostly a rehash of prior games in the series. They have added the "Nail the Trick" move in this game where you press in both buttons (not triggers) in order to go into a slow-mo move where you can control the deck via the two analog sticks and do really crazy tricks. This is often the key to scoring the Sick rating in many of the tasks.

The graphics are quite nice, but there are trick destroying slowdowns in many areas. I can only guess that the slowdown is in relation to how fast you are going when it happens. This is something I hope they fix with the next iteration.

Bottom line is that Tony Hawk's Project 8 was fun when it started out, but it is getting tedious as I continue on. There are some cool events here and there and it seems like a shoutout to the old Hawk games and not the Underground games. So far I'd put this squarely in the Rent It category, but I have to play it a bit more (if I can handle it). Not sure what Ron was smoking when he gave it a 9.3, but I would have to say I'm squarely with the feelings of Gamespot, IGN, Team Xbox and Gamespy.

I have not given the online portion a try yet, but I plan on doing it before my rentail period is done. I have heard it is a nice game to play online and that is probably why the early Playstation 3 reviews of the game are lower since there is no online play in that version.

Review: Need for Speed: Carbon (PC)

2006-11-09T06:10:00.000-06:00

Title: Need for Speed: Carbon
Developer: EA Canada
Platform: PC

My Recommendation: Rent It

Need for Speed: Carbon is the 11th game in the series and I have played all of the games extensively. In many ways this new version of NFS combines elements from those games as well as the last game, Most Wanted. Basically it takes the same feel of Most Wanted and adds in the tuning aspects of the Underground games. It creates a good game, but in many ways anyone who played the last game may feel a sense of deja vu.

The story for Carbon takes place right after Most Wanted and involves the same character. You've left Rockport and come back to an unforseen until now new city. It seems this is where you used to live and you left on bad terms according to your ex-girlfriend and the local gangs. They think you took a bag of money and set up the police sting that took out a bunch of cars, but over the course of the game you get new points of view of the crime and people start to believe you weren't at fault and that the bag of money was switched with an empty one that you took to Rockport.

I think the FMV cutscenes in this game are slightly better than the ones in Most Wanted where everything was too over the top. It seems EA dialed down the cheese factor with this game, although I have noticed other people think this is more cheesy. Outside of those things, the game plays much the same as Most Wanted, but this time you only race at night (borrowed from Underground).

The basic foundation of the game is the same as Most Wanted in how you go through your career. Instead of a blacklist you actually have a World Map that gives you races to choose in order to take over that section of the map with your gang sign. Gone are the point milestones that ruined the upper levels of the blacklist in Most Wanted, here it is all about the racing (sprints, speed camera, checkpoints) along with two extra modes: drifting and the Canyon Races against the gang bosses.

Drifting is an interesting game type and it has been seen before in the series. It is much different to drive the car in the Drift challenges than in the straight race challenges. The car is loose and the key to the race is to get the most points possible and beat the other cars (that are not seen). If you hit a wall you lose your accumulated points and you can also gain multipliers to your base score. The Drift challenges are pretty easy unless you are on a Canyon map where there are lots of twists and turns along with the danger of going off the cliff.

The boss challenges are different this year. At the end of each of the 4 sections of the map you will face the main boss of the gang. Usually you will race them in one race type and then you will go to a 2-part Canyon race that is won based on points via how close or far away you are from the other driver. It is in two stages. The first stage you are following the boss. If you are lucky enough to pass the boss and keep ahead of them for 10 seconds you win the overall race and don't have to do the second stage. In the second stage the points you earned in the first stage count down as you try to keep ahead of the boss. If you end up with positive points at the end (and don't fall off the cliff, which is an immediate loss) you win the boss challenge. The last two sections of the map are a bit harder than the first two, but they are far easier than getting to the next person on the blacklist from Most Wanted.

Also introduced in this game is a choice early on of what class of car you want to start with: Tuner, Exotic or Muscle. Tuners handle better, Exotics accelerate better and Muscle have a lot of power. The choice is important because you will be stuck with this car until you get enough money to pick up another car you unlocked from the Car Lot on the map. I personally started with a Tuner simply because they can overtake other cars in turns and later on I ended up with an Exotic because once tuned they can become speed demons which is very important in the later stages.

Another gameplay mechanic introduced in the game is your Crew. Along the way you can hire people to join your crew and help you in races. Each person is one of three classes: Blocker, Scout and Drafter. The first one helps block out opponents, the second one finds shortcuts on the track for you and the third one allows you to do a slingshot by drafting behind them. I found that the only worthy one is the Blocker. The crew members can also give bonuses to you such as more money by winning a race, ability to buy parts for less, etc. The AI for the crew works okay, but there are some problems. For the most part the crew member stays close to you, but there were times where they went way behind and could never help me. You can instigate them to do their job, but sometimes they will totally miss the opponent or they won't listen to your orders. It is very much a hit or miss situation, but I can say that they helped me a bit in many races.

Along with all this there are tuning options for whatever class of car you make. I don't get too into making my car look cool or anything (one of the reasons I wasn't so high on the Underground games). There is an AutoSculpt feature that allows you to change a lot of things about your car manually. Also when you upgrade parts you can choose the parts to be skewed one way or another and it will change your cars stats. I generally just stayed in the middle and didn't skew toward any side and I did pretty well.

I would also like to touch on the police action as well. The police and heat meter are back, but throughout the game I didn't feel as desperate with the police as I did during the milestone point achievements I had to make in Most Wanted. The police certainly chase you in this game, but the overall aggression on behalf of the police seems to be down a notch. I personally like it, although I do find that I can get out of chases much faster than I could in Most Wanted. Some amount of chase is exhilarating, but overdoing it like Most Wanted did at the end was a little much.

My final recommendation on Need for Speed: Carbon is that you rent it first if you've played Most Wanted. At the foundation the game is basically the same, but this time you are racing at night and the game flows more smoothly with the elimination of the points milestones from Most Wanted. I personally like Carbon better, but others may have different views. The one thing I will say is that EA needs to figure out something new for the franchise since the last four games can very much be fused together. The concepts may be somewhat different between the Underground games the the two latest games, but the overall feel of the gameplay is the same. I can only recommend a rent for this game since you can easily go without it and put your money toward another game coming out this holiday season.

How Reviews Are Done/Scored

2006-11-09T06:07:00.000-06:00

Before I put up my first review of the new VV blog, I thought I would explain how reviews will be done. I'm taking the step to not give any sort of rating (stars, 1-10, 1-100, grades, etc.) that can be used in an aggregate review site like GameRankings. My friend Bill Harris (Dubious Quality) talked about this before I could unveil my ideas for reviews, but I think much along the same lines as he does. Scoring does nothing for your average reader other than give it some arbitrary score. Instead I'm going to do something different.

The review itself will be pretty free flowing, but at the top I will have the information and my rating for the game. There are 4 ratings: Must Own, Buy It, Rent It and Skip It. I think they are pretty self explanatory, but I shall explain nonetheless. Must Own can be considered as being akin to an "Editor's Choice" or top rated game. Buy It would be considered a really good game and one I would recommend buying, but it isn't as good as Must Own. Rent It is pretty easy, you should rent it and see how you like it before buying it. The Skip it is obviously a game that you just shouldn't look, but or play.

There is no perfect game out there, but there are games that must be owned simply because they are fantastic. I wish more gaming websites would run away from the scoring template, but the reverse side is that they rely on being noticed on aggregate sites in order to get more business.

I hope you like the ratings, although I am open to other ideas or ratings to give. I am not going to go with any sort of percentage scoring though. All people want to know is whether a game is worth it or not honestly and not debate whether this game that scored 9.6 at this time is better than the one that scored 9.8 years ago or not.

No Gears of War Today

2006-11-08T19:52:00.000-06:00

Gears of War was planned to be (hopefully) my last purchase with EB/Gamestop. I was one of the lucky ones that got caught up in the shipping snafu that seems to be affecting a lot of EB/Gamestop pre-order people. I got the call from the Gamestop automated voice that they would have it today, but I didn't check my messages from work today when I got the call that the game may be delayed a day. I wasted a trip to EB and was told to come back tomorrow, but they were nice enough to also give a $5 reduction on the price of the game (some are saying $5 toward another pre-order, but this guy said $5 off GoW).

I could have gone to Best Buy and picked the game up probably, but since I already paid most of it off at EB an extra day wouldn't hurt much. As I said above, I hope this is my last purchase at the EB stores (but not online) as I've had trouble with them ever since I pre-ordered my Xbox 360 last year. I try to keep my business with them at a minimum, but they do have some exclusive offers like the Final Fantasy XII Collector's Edition and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin with all the extras (I believe it is exclusive to EB/Gamestop, not sure though) that are quite enticing.

Maybe I'll spend this valuable time trying to finish off Need for Speed: Carbon so I can give my review of the game. I'm at 75% complete, so it shouldn't be too much longer to go. Also hope to have a full review of Battlefield 2142 up as well. I've played Final Fantasy XII here and there, but haven't gotten into it enough to go beyond my initial impressions.

I also hope to rent Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hawk Project 8 just to check them out. I am not very excited about either game. The first one because Infinity Ward has nothing to do with it and the game is not coming out on PC. In Tony Hawk's case I feel they added the cool do your own move mode, but that it will be more of the same...very much like Madden has become (and remember, I was a big Madden fan before).

Hopefully once I have Gears of War and can play it for a bit I can join some of you in some online action. For those that already have the game, let me know how you like it.

This Week in Entertainment (11/5 - 11/11)

2006-11-05T21:21:00.000-06:00

Another busy week for gaming, the beginning of the holiday DVD flood starts to trickle down this week and a quiet week on the comics front rounds things out. I will have a pick of the week in every category.

Games

Gears of War (360)

This game honestly will make or break the Xbox 360 going into the holiday. With Halo 3 a good distance away, this is the highest profile game coming out for the system. There has been enough hype surrounding it to attempt reaching the fanaticism of the Halo franchise. I think Microsoft has done a good job of promoting the game on television as I've seen shorter versions of the "Mad World" spot that was unveiled on Marketplace recently. This is the game that should make all the 360 owners feel better about the system because this is truly the emergence of the 2nd generation of Xbox 360 games where the term "hi-def" may finally make a case for itself. This game is easily my choice for Game of the Week this week, but there are other games coming this week.

Guitar Hero II (PS2)

Many will pick this game as their game of the week and if it was coming out any other week than the GoW release it would probably be mine as well. I have yet to touch the original GH (blasphemy, I know!), but I may give this one a try. I expect this game to be a big seller this week and the addition of 2-player play brings it up another notch.

Tony Hawk Project 8 (Every system known to man, but PC)

The plus side of this release is that the 360 version has been built from the ground up and not ported from the current generation like American Wasteland and Gun were. It is also the only next-generation version that will have online play. I played the demo a bit and I think it is cool they have the slowdown to pull off cool tricks with the analog sticks, but outside of that how much more can this game give us that prior Tony Hawk games haven't?

Call of Duty 3 (Every system...but PC?)

Call me skeptical on this one simply because Infinity Ward isn't developing it and the fact that there isn't even going to be a PC version. I know the 360 version of the second game was cool and all, but why spit in the face of the system that made this franchise popular in the first place? I will await reviews before I even touch this game. Yes, it looks a lot like the other games, but I just don't have as much faith in Treyarch as I do in Infinity Ward.

Viva Pinata (360)

I called this game as being a sleeper when it comes out and I still believe that. The fact is that many kids will be interested in this game and I'm a bit surprised that Microsoft hasn't started promoting this game. Then again, maybe they have because I rarely watch Saturday morning cartoons anymore. I think this game will be reviewed well and I hope it becomes a hit with children out there simply because Microsoft needs some penetration into that market.

Movies/DVDs

Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversay Edition (DVD)

Oh yeah, baby! Sony has gone back and remastered the whole movie in this release. I was pissed that I hadn't picked up the other DVD iteration of this movie, but now that Sony has given it some good treatment I won't be without this movie anymore. I was 9 years old when this movie came out in theaters and I still have fond (and not so fond...you know what I'm talking about) memories of it. I love this movie even today, but I'm not picking it for the release of the week.

Cars (DVD)

This is my DVD of the Week this week. It is not as good as Finding Nemo or The Incredibles, but it is still a high quality movie. Pixar can do no wrong, although I am afraid about their next movie Ratatouille (though it is directed by Brad Bird, maker of The Incredibles. This is a great family movie in my opinion and an easy pickup to add to your collection.

Stranger Than Fiction (Theater)

This is my film to see this week. From the previews this movie looks fantastic and early word is that it is very good. Will Ferrel plays an IRS worker who starts hearing the voice of Emma Thompson. She is basically writing Ferrel's life in her new book, but doesn't realize she is actually writing the life of a real person. The whole idea sounds original and I think this could be Ferrel's breakout dramatic role.

A Good Year (Theater)

Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott come back together for the first time since Gladiator in this movie that I still don't know much about. It seems like a coming of age story and that is all well and good, but I think Crowe has dabbled in these types of roles a bit too much. It's time for him to try something new.

Comics

Annihilation #4

This is my Comic Pick of the Week. I'm liking this series a lot more than 52 and Civil War. The former has really slowed down while the latter has slowed down its release schedule and is starting to feel a bit strained in the amount of time we have to wait. So far this series has been a very interesting read and I can't wait to see what happens next. Too bad Marvel didn't hype this series as much as Civil War because this is the better written series.

Batman #658

The final episode of "Batman and Demon"...I mean, "Batman and Son". I have no clue where Morrison is going with this final chapter, but I hope that little bastard turns out to be something other than Bruce's son or meets some untimely accident.

Green Lantern #14

Part 1 of "Hal Jordan Wanted". I have a hard time believing this series is going to see two comics this month, but stranger things have happened. So far I've really liked the GL comic book, I just wish it came out more regularly than it has.

First Look: Final Fantasy XII

2006-11-02T07:09:00.000-06:00

It's hard to believe it has been almost 5 years since the last proper single-player FF game has come out (Final Fantasy X). There was Final Fantasy X-2 and the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI that both came out in 2003, but neither can really be a proper FF game when compared to the rest of the series.

Square-Enix decided to base this new game in a well-loved world by many: Ivalice. Ivalice was the setting of the fantastic strategy game Final Fantasy Tactics on the original Playstation (pick it up and play it if you haven't!), so as far as I am concerned they've already started off on the right foot.

I'm only about 2 hours into the game and so far I'm liking it, although I am not very keen on the camera controls or the new Active time battle system. My wife likes the camera controls, but for any FPS player out there the controls are reversed with no way to switch it around in the options. Luckily pushing in the right analog stick will let you center the camera behind you.

The biggest change of course is the new battle system and the Gambit system. This game is far more action orientated than any FF before it, but you can still choose to do the waiting version of attacking and plan out your attacks. The other way is active motions that you do via menus as you run around. To accompany this system is the Gambit system where you can set priorities for yourself and your AI allies and pretty much let that control any action you take in a battle versus you manually doing it. The added bonus of this way of attacking is that there are no longer any random battles and you see all of your enemies on the screen, so you can choose to stay or run when going against an opponent.

So far the story is straight out of the Tactics games in how it is represented. I'm liking the game a lot, but I need a lot more time before I can review it. So far I'd say buy it simply because it's been a long time since a proper FF game came out and this is a fitting end to the RPG mastery that the PS2 has had for a long time.

First Look: Need for Speed: Carbon (PC)

2006-11-02T07:03:00.000-06:00

You may ask why I picked up the PC version and not the 360 version. It comes down to the fact I could get the PC Collector's Edition for $40 versus getting the 360 Collector's Edition for $70. The PC version may not end up being as smooth as the 360 version, but for $30 difference I think I can get the same kind of excitement out of the game.

I liked last year's Need for Speed: Most Wanted after taking a break when the series went Underground for 2 versions. The only problem with the game last year was once I got high on the Blacklist (probably above #10 if I remember) I had to start grinding for points in the cop chase events in order to meet the prerequisites to take on the next Blacklist member. Eventually I would reach a high point in my wantedness that the cops were almost impossible to lose. I would get up to the points I needed and then try to get away from the cops and found myself getting busted and losing all the work I had just done. I think I got to #3 on the Blacklist and called it a game because it was simply too tedious to do the point grinds; I just wanted to take on the Blacklist opponents.

In Need for Speed: Carbon, EA is billing it as a perfect fusion of Most Wanted and the Underground iterations. The gameplay and storyboard of the former; the tweaking and nighttime races of the latter. At this point I would say that Carbon is a better game than Most Wanted. It supercedes the cheese that was on display with the story/FMV sequences with a good story and better directed FMV sequences (so far). Most Wanted felt like a soap opera where as this one so far feels more like Fast and the Furious (which may or may not be viewed as a soap opera, but at least it is a better done soap opera).

The gameplay is much the same as in Most Wanted with the addition of a gameplay addition in being able to use racers in your gang to help you win a race. This addition is not perfectly implemented, but when the wingman AI works correctly it can mean the difference between winning and having to restart a race. When the AI doesn't work correctly you will find that you are all alone in trying to win the race. The enemy AI seems to have been jacked up a bit and now there are more opponent cars on the road than there was in Most Wanted. The cops also make a reappearance here as well, although they haven't really crossed paths with me since the scripted event early in the game to show you that cops are certainly in the game again. From what I've heard the cops battles are not as interesting as in the last game, which could be good in my mind honestly after taking the above into account.

You are in charge of your own gang and you can hire and fire up to 3 wingmen (or women) that can help you in races. The key to the game is having your gang take over sections of the map while also defending your own territory from invaders trying to take over. The nice thing is that there is an easy teleport to the next mission you want to take by clicking on the mission and going straight to that spot or you can decide to drive through the city to the next mission. The game is very non-linear in that the map opens up to you quite a bit and you have to pick and choose in order to grow your territory.

Eventually you will move in on the territory of the major gangs and have to take on the gang leader on a race in the Canyons which are rife with sections where you can crash right through and fall off the cliff. There are two rounds to these battles. The first one is you chasing your opponent and trying to keep close to him or overtake him for 10 seconds. If you do the latter you automatically win the overall race. If you fall off the cliff or allow the opponent to get far enough away for 10 seconds you lose the race. The second stage is the opponent following you. The same rules apply as in the first race. It is very difficult, but it can be done and is more exciting than the simple races you did in Most Wanted.

As you go through the races you unlock upgrades for your car. In fact, at the beginning you choose what type of car you want to start with: Muscle (powerful), Exotic (top speed) or Tuner (best cornering). Eventually you will see car shops where you can pick up other cars as well. You also have options as you upgrade to how you want to skew the parts, such as top speed vs. acceleration. It's pretty easy to understand. You also have Autosculpt available to you to change how your car looks in case the heat gets high for you (the meter makes a comeback from Most Wanted.

There is another mode of gameplay that is added to Carbon and that is the Drift modes. In this mode your car has very loose controls and you attempt to drift through the course and get the most points possible (with multipliers) and beat the other cars (that you don't see) in overall points. This mode is pretty boring, but you can also find yourself behind on points and have to pull off some amazing multiplier drifts.

So far I have to say I am impressed by this game and I'm liking it more than Most Wanted at this point. That could of course change, but we'll see. I'd also say this game is probably shorter than Most Wanted simply because I'm already up over 20% complete and I've only played a little over an hour. I don't ever remember being that far complete in Most Wanted that quickly. I probably won't play online, but I may rent the 360 version to do just that. I find racing games online on the PC just don't work as smoothly as they do on a console system. I recommend a purchase of this game if you like arcade racers at all.

First Look: Battlefield 2142 (PC)

2006-11-02T06:57:00.000-06:00

I will preface this with the fact that I was in on the Battlefield 2142 beta and played it extensively. I didn't have any major system problems with the beta, but once the demo came out I was getting knocked off the EA Master Server like many other people. I felt the beta showed me enough to warrant a purchase of the game. The Titan mode in and of itself was pretty exciting in the beta and having more maps to play it on sounded pretty cool.

I purchased the game, installed the patch (which was a pain in itself with me having to uninstall and re-install a couple times) and found that sometimes the game would come up when clicked upon and sometimes it would just jump back to desktop with no black screen. Through some voodoo magic I got it to work if I went to a Command Line prompt and ran the executable from there and sometimes it would work when clicking on the icon. Once in the game it moved nice and smooth, probably moreso than Battlefield 2 and I noticed that map loading on my machine with 1GB of RAM was faster than in BF2. The word was that if you had 2GB the maps would load taht much faster, but it looks like they rectified that here.

Early on when the game was released the EA Master Server disconnects were happening frequently for many people, including myself. I ended up shelving the game for a while because Titan just cannot be enjoyed when you can only play 5 minutes and then get kicked off and try to find another server. According to DICE/EA they have fixed the majority of the problems with the disconnects over last weekend so I fired it up earlier this week and found it a much more enjoyable experience.

Now, many forums have been lambasting EA for their little card that came with the game talking about IGA getting information from your computer in order to supply ads inside the game. EA went on to clarify it a number of days later talking about just taking your IP address and geographically putting ads related to your region in the game. I find it kind of funny that people exploded over this simply because this is the way games are moving toward. Microsoft purchased Massive recently and I can only guess Live and any Microsoft Games are going to have these types of ad extraction in it. Many people put Microsoft and EA on the same level of demonization, but other companies (that maybe you love) are going to go down this road as well.

I'll review BF2142 after I get a bit more time with it. With the server disconnects fixed, the game has been far more enjoyable. I still think the Titan mode is worthy enough to purchase this game along with the whole futuristic feeling of the game. I mean, you can ride a mech and drive a hovertank. Granted, there is only 1 mech per side on each map (I think), so in order to enjoy them you'd better run at the sole mech pretty quickly. Even with the ad fiasco I recommend picking this up, I could use a nice squad in this game.

Welcome to the New Look of Virtual Viewpoints

2006-11-02T06:54:00.000-06:00

I'm again going to try to make this a regular place for me to write about entertainment as a whole. In going with the new turn of the page I also gave the site a new look as well simply because I think the black/red motif was a bit hard to see with the last iteration of this blog. I hope this one works a bit better, I can certainly read my articles better and there is even a search option that has been added that connects to a Google Beta search. I also added my Xbox Gamertag to the right so people can check out my paltry acheivements and re-instituted the comments to see if I can get any discussion going on here.

I hope to make this a regular thing with me writing. I envy my friend Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality (link also available to the right in the Links column along with my regular haunts...I'll be adding more) in how much content he puts out there. Granted, I don't have children as of yet and his Eli stories are a staple of the blog, but I hope to achieve the same sort of regularity that he has.

You may like to know what kinds of things are coming up on this blog. I plan on writing up initial impressions of Battlefield 2142 (PC), Need for Speed: Carbon (PC), and Final Fantasy XII (PS2), as well as touch on a few games I've missed talking about over the last few months. Coming up next week I should have impressions of Gears of War (360) and possibly impressions of Guitar Hero II, which will be my first time playing with the series (blasphemy, I know!). Bill has written extensively about the original and now he has a copy of GH2 a week before release, so checking out his site will only make you that much more excited about the game. I'm thinking of getting both games so my wife and I can play together (having two guitars). You guys think I should go that way or just get GH2 and an extra guitar?

On the gaming side I'm going to divide up my writings into 3 categories with the new relaunch. Previews will be of demos I play, betas I am in (after NDA) or previews I am sent by companies. First Look articles are akin to initial impressions of a purchased or rented game and Reviews will be just that.

I'll also be touching on Comics (a favorite topic of mine) and possibly even TV shows and movies like I used to. Get ready, I hope for this to be a fruitful ride.

One Thing I Forgot (PS3 Related)

2006-09-26T06:19:00.000-05:00

I forgot something in my post last night when talking about missteps. I think a major one is that Sony has decided to not put a rumble feature in their controller. They say that the motion wireless controller wouldn't work with a rumble mechanic, but we all know that's hogwash. The truth of the matter is they don't want to pay Immersion Technologies any more money to use their patented rumble technology. Last time I checked the case between them was still in court with Sony attempting again to overturn the lower court(s) decisions toward Immersion.

Bottom line is Sony doesn't want to lose the lawsuit and they don't want to take the way that Microsoft decided upon (which was $26 million and a stake in Immersion). In the end, should Sony lose the lawsuit (which they eventually will probably) they will end up paying a lot more than Microsoft did. In fact, via the last court document Sony would have to pay Immersion over $90 million to settle their lawsuit.

Sony is once again arrogant about the whole thing. I truly believe they think they will win this lawsuit, but chances are they won't. The fact that the PS3 won't use rumble technology should pretty much a be a sign that Sony agrees that the technology is not their own in the first place. Rumble has been a part of console gaming for a while now (probably going close to 10 years) and I would not be surprised if some casual game players get their PS3 and start playing games and wonder where the rumble feature is.

This could come back to bite Sony in the ass, but given time I figure people will get used to the non-rumble feature and everything will be fine. I do think there will be an initial shock of it not being there though. Whether that effects sales or not remains to be seen.

The PS3 Could Still End Up on Top

2006-09-26T00:29:00.000-05:00

You've probably read my prior posts where I've ripped the PS3 up and down for the decisions Sony made. I'm still not in full agreement with Sony going toward the Blu-Ray platform so early in the PS3's life. The Playstation had a CD-ROM drive (Compact Discs were introduced in 1982, 7th Guest was one of the first CD-ROM games in 1992) when it came out in 1994 in Japan (1995 in the US). The Playstation 2 had a DVD drive in it (DVD players were first sold in 1997 in the US) and came out in late 2000, over 3 years after the format had begun. In the case of Blu-Ray, the players just recently came out and now they are going to unload a ton of Blu-Ray players in the PS3. It's not a very good idea to unload a new format onto a game system, but Sony will try it anyway.

In the end though I don't think any negative aspect is going to push people away from the Playstation 3. Just tonight I put a post up in Evil Avatar that I would like to duplicate here and talk a bit more about it. Here is my post:

I've always argued that Sony has had a static mindset since they first announced the PS3. They personally believe the PS3 will survive and thrive just on the Playstation name alone. To many people, given the price and what they feel are missteps by Sony, this mindset is seen as arrogant. However, history shows that Sony may just be right and know that no matter the price people will pick the system up just because of the trusted Playstation name.

You may ask me what I mean by historically, well let's use Wikipedia and spell it out purely in system sales.

We'll start with the system many of the late 20s to 30s+ people played with growing up, the Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 sold 25 million systems.

Nintendo owned the land for a long time after Atari and here are their numbers:

NES: 60 million units
GameBoy: 69.52 million units
Super NES: 49 million units
Nintendo 64: 32.93 million units
GameBoy Color: 49.27 million units
GameBoy Advance: 75.81 million units
GameBoy Advance SP: 38.84 million units
DS: over 22 million units
GameBoy Micro: 1.86 million units
DS Lite: 4.15 million units (June 2006)

With Sony, things went like this:

Playstation: 102 million (shipped, which is different than sold)
Playstation 2: 106.23 million (shipped)
PSP: 20.02 million (shipped)

Of the actual consoles Nintendo racked up ~142 million sold. With the handheld GameBoy in various iterations (including DS) they have racked up ~262 million sold. The original GameBoy and its iterations account for ~119 million of that and the Advance iterations account for ~117 million.

Moral of the story here is that Nintendo's main consoles have sold less as they went along. With Sony, the Playstation 2 has overtaken the original in units sold and even the original PS sold 40+ million more than the original NES. Playstation is a brand name that many people are interested in. I'm not sure Xbox 360 or Wii can penetrate the bias people have with the Playstation brand whether the PS3 is more expensive or not. We live in a Playstation world and it is indeed an uphill battle for both Microsoft and Nintendo.

I personally think Sony is crazy with the price and I hope people won't pick up the PS3 in massive quantities. I am also a realist though and know the Playstation brand will probably live and thrive through another generation, especially if they keep some major franchises as exclusive (FF, MGS, etc.).

The loss for Sony this round will probably come from the fact that they won't see a massive buy-in for Blu-Ray movies (much like UMD movies have all but died out) which is an integral part of their decisions with the PS3. I'm not sure the mainstream public is ready to move into the next generation of optical movie media and it may take several years before DVD falls out of favor toward a new format.

In the end I have to believe the PS3 is going to turn out just fine and sell well. I'd love to pick one up, but I'm not sure I'll be going after it first day like I did with the Xbox 360. Chances are good that many people will stand in line to get one and then they'll sell it on eBay for a tidy profit. I think you'll have a far greater chance at getting a Nintendo Wii two days later if you need a new game system.

I think the weakest parts of the launch kind of mirror the Xbox 360 launch. There really isn't any game that has been announced that will blow us away. Most of the games are ports and, much like Penny Arcade noted today in their comic, I'm not too excited about Resistance even though Insomniac is making it. Maybe something will pop out, but who knows.

A weak spot where the PS3 does not mirror the Xbox 360 launch is in online play. It's already been noted that Tony Hawk Project 8 won't have an online component like it's 360 cousin. There are rumors of other non-Sony games not having online play either. Sony's own games will though, that being Resistance and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom.

No matter the negatives I think the PS3 is going to sell well and could possibly take over the Xbox 360 in system sales. The price will be a deterrent, but once Sony gets into 2007 and starts bringing out high profile exclusive games, the allure of the PS3 might be too strong for many people. Sony will continue to have the mindset that the Playstation brand name sells until they are proven wrong. The consumers would have to prove them wrong here, but somehow I don't see it happening.

Quality "Old School" Adventure Games This Week

2006-09-18T07:12:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Evil Avatar and their weekly roundup I found out that some quality adventure games are coming this week. I'd say late last year these were rumored to be coming and now they've snuck up on me. Each one is $19.99 and here they are:

The King's Quest Collection (KQ 1-7, I am guessing Mask of Eternity is the one left out)
The Space Quest Collection (SQ 1-6)
The Leisure Suit Larry Collection (LSL 1-4 + 6...remember there was no 5)
The Police Quest Collection (1-3 and Open Season)

I put them in that order simply because if you had to choose only one or two I'd pick KQ and then SQ. These new collections also run in Windows XP (and I can only guess Vista when it comes out) which was a hit-or-miss trial with the original versions of these games. No clue on whether they have the redone #1s for each game (the VGA versions) or whether the later versions include the original CD-ROM release voiceovers. I hope both are the case.

These games will of course feel ancient today. I think the latest release is Space Quest VI: The Spinal Frontier, which came out in 1995. It was a sad day when Sierra stopped making adventure games and it was an even sadder day when adventure games pretty much died. I wish LucasArts would bring out collections of their old Adventure games, especially the CD-ROM talkie versions.

Anyway, these are great pickups at $20 a piece and I can't recommend them enough.

Game Informer Wii Article

2006-09-18T06:28:00.000-05:00

I'm sure many of you have read Billy Berghammer's "Will Wii Be Disappointed Again?" article on Game Informer this weekend. Before I get into it I would like to point out today's post on Penny Arcade. In the last paragraph, Tycho talks about the article and points out something that many people may not know: Billy used to run Planet GameCube.

I've met Billy on a few occasions, but I doubt he remembers me much. I used to know a few people from Game Informer since it is a magazine based here in Minneapolis (I think it is the only major gaming magazine not located on a coast once EGM left Chicago for San Francisco). The last time I remember seeing Billy was at the Cube Party I covered for Console Gold in 2002.

Anyway, I don't want to get too off-track. Much like Tycho I have to believe this was pretty hard for Billy to write. He is one of the biggest pro-Nintendo people I know, but in the end his words do ring true. Nintendo will have only 2 launch titles at release, one of which is a GameCube title that has been re-jiggered on the Wii (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess). There is also no Mario game and I was disappointed to hear there wouldn't be a Metroid game either, no matter how much I hated the scanning needs in the previous 2 games on GameCube.

There is also a good chance that 3rd parties could go the way of the dodo bird a while after launch. Billy also makes a good point that if multi-platform games start to take on the "portability" factor and are not built ground-up on the Wii that the versions of those games will pale in comparison to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. It takes less money to make a port than it takes to build the game separate from the other versions. Will companies take the cheap way out or will they continue with what they're doing here at launch? We'll just have to see.

Wii: 11/19, $250 w/Game...is it Enough?

2006-09-14T07:46:00.000-05:00

I'm really sitting on the fence about the Wii news today (and by the way, welcome back; I know I've been gone for a bit). The system comes out on Sunday, November 19th, which is 2 days after the Playstation 3 release (more on this in another post) and it will come packaged with the Wii Sports games that now include Boxing and Bowling along with Tennis, Golf and Baseball. The price will be $250 in North America and roughly $215 in Japan minus the game on December 2nd.

The price and the included items (along with some other key components) are what have me on the fence. The price would be nice if an extra Wiimote (the controller) was in the box. Why would you put Wii Sports as a pack-in and not have a second controller along with the system? Wouldn't you be interested in playing the game with your family? I know I would, so I'd have to spend an extra $40 to get another Wiimote (and add $20 more for the nunchuck's add-on). For those that have larger families (such as children), you may have to spend another $80 on top of that (and another $40 for the nunchucks) to have the full complement of 4 controllers in order to play 2-on-2 tennis for instance. The absence of a second controller is a huge thing in my mind, especially with a pack-in game that screams multiplayer play.

At $250 with a game and one controller it seems a bit bare compared to even the Xbox 360 core system. I don't know how much the SD cards will cost for the Wii, but I do know the 64MB memory card for 360 costs $40, so those are addition costs just to save a game on either system. It does show the Wii as a cheaper value, but we once again fall back on the idea that the Wii is just a glorified GameCube at its core. The hardware power is not up to snuff against either the 360 or PS3, and for many people that will be a big thing to them. This doesn't speak about the games created for the systems, but it is tough to swallow $250 when there is a $300 more powerful system option out there.

Nintendo has made other mistakes with the Wii release as well. The first one is the fact that the Wii will drop 2 days after the PS3. Why not bring it out before even if there are lower numbers of systems available? For those that want all 3 systems and don't want to pre-order the 2 new systems, that means standing in line in the middle of November for 2 days in the same week. For people in the upper Midwest (like myself), things can get quite nippy that time of year. Many will decide between one or the other or they may decide to buy neither.

The second mistake is that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will be available on the Wii at launch, but Nintendo has PUSHED BACK the GameCube release of the game to December 12th?!?!?! What in the hell is up with that? I hate when Nintendo backs out of what they said. Reggie said at E3 that both copies would be out at launch, but now the GameCube version comes out weeks down the line? The dirty thing is that this may push some people to pick up the Wii version simply to have the game first, but many of us have been waiting years for the GameCube version (such as myself). I personally am not too excited about the Wii version of Zelda because I think the Wii controller aspects were added way down the line and may not be as fully implemented as they could be. I think there will be a bunch of tired arms out there after playing this new Zelda game that will supposedly be very long. The only thing I was excited about with the Wii version was that it was in widescreen while the GameCube version is not. However you will NOT be able to play the Wii version with the old GameCube controller, so you're stuck with Wii controls for the game, which is a mistake in my opinion.

The third mistake is that they announced Metroid Prime 3: Corruption won't be out until 2007. I'm not necessarily surprised by the announcement, but I think it would have been a strong signal if that game was available at the launch of the Wii. We all knew that Mario Galaxy wasn't going to be out at launch, but Nintendo did leave the door open for Metroid.

The fourth mistake can be interpreted as not being a mistake. Nintendo announced the prices of the NES, SNES and N64 games via the Virtual Console. They will rely on Wii points in at least North America, which means it will be much like the Microsoft Marketplace points. You go the store and pick up 2000 points for $20. Here is the breakdown of prices (they did not announce TG16 prices for games like Bonk's Adventure which comes out at launch):

NES: 500 points (or $5)
SNES: 800 points (or $8)
N64: 1000 points (or $10)

They expect to have 30 games at launch and 10 games every month thereafter. When taking the Xbox Live Arcade titles into account I see no problem with the prices, but this is also a double-edged sword because chances are high there will be far more people interested in the games released for the Wii than the ones on Xbox Live Arcade. Live Arcade has had its share of old titles (Gauntlet, Smash TV, Pac-Man, Frogger), but it has also been home to some great original games like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and Wik. In the case of the old titles, many have been given High-Definition updates and run for about the same price as the NES games above. I think a lot of people are not too giddy about the prices, but I think Nintendo is standing up to Microsoft quite well. Microsoft will be the leader in original Arcade things, but I think the Nintendo library is going to be huge on the Wii; especially for those of us that played those old games.

In the end I doubt I'll be picking up a Wii at launch. The lack of a 2nd controller and the whole Zelda fiasco is enough to put me in that camp. I am interested in seeing an actual live demo of the Wii as well. The system sounds excellent in concept, but actually sitting/standing and moving your hands in order to control the game may not work in practice. There may be a lot of tired arms out there, but the concept is certainly innovative.

Assassin's Creed Goes 360...Could Other PS3 Exclusives?

2006-07-25T18:44:00.000-05:00

Although UbiSoft is not confirming the worst kept secret in videogaming, Computers and Videogames came out with an Assassin's Creed Preview...for the Xbox 360. They also branded it with the Official Xbox Magazine logo, meaning it will probably be in the next issue of OXM. Of course, Ubi isn't saying whether it is true or not, but honestly this is the worst kept secret in gaming.

"PS3 only" were the words floating around Assassin's Creed at E3 (although no one announced exclusivity to the PS3, it is just that only the PS3 was named for the game). The game was previously shown at X05 (a Microsoft event) as Project Assassin. Several sites, whether true or not, say that the game was shown at E3 on an Xbox 360 with a sheet over it, hiding the fact it was running off of that and not a PS3 prototype. In the end the fact is that Assassin's Creed will most likely come to the 360, whether it be the same day as the PS3 version or after a timed exclusivity agreement. This kind of thing made me think about another game that may teeter on the multiplatform edge considering the amount of bad press Sony is getting and the general unexcited attitude of many developers about the system.

That game is the 3rd party crown jewel for Sony and the PS3: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

You guys are probably thinking I'm crazy, but this could possibly happen. Kojima said MGS4 was PS3 only at the "current time" in June 2005 and that he had no plans to port it. However, his tune may change given how news of the PS3 has hit here in North America and Europe, the two countries where the MGS series sells very well versus the Japanese market. Given the fact that this game probably won't see release until the latter half of 2007, Kojima and Konami could find that the Xbox 360 has a stranglehold on overall system numbers everywhere outside of Japan. They may release it PS3 only in Japan and release it multi-platform here, possibly giving the PS3 version a more special treatment...or they could make a 360 version as the base system from where to make the PS3 version.

I don't know if the 360 will ever put a dent into Japan, but if enough of the Japanese developed 360 only games are of high quality they may start to make headway. I'm not saying MGS4 will be coming out on 360, but who really knows. I think Sony has created its own possible catastrophe everywhere outside of Japan (and possibly in Japan to when put up against the Wii).

Civil War #3 Discussion (SPOILERS)

2006-07-23T16:33:00.000-05:00

So, Civil War #3 came out this past week. If this issue teaches me anything it is probably that Marvel has little to no hope of outdoing the nuclear bomb from the reveal at the end of the second issue unless there is another big event that revolves around Spider-Man (such as Aunt May or Mary Jane meeting their maker). The big thing from this issue is that Thor shows up at the end and is evidently with Iron Man, but who really knows. His SHIELD codename is "Lightning"...lame.

It is also revealed that Daredevil (or Fakedevil as many are calling him) is not Matt Murdock. The person may look like Murdock somewhat, but it is obvious this person can also see. Supposedly Fakedevil's identity will be unmasked this week in Daredevil #87. I find it funny how this identity reveal is left in the main book, but Spider-Man's unmasking happens in Civil War instead of Amazing Spider-Man.

Another thing I have learned is that Civil War has a problem I was afraid of a long time ago (in this post). Unlike the majority of DC's Infinite Crisis, the whole story of Civil War is not self-contained and almost pushes you to pick up the other tie-ins to totally understand what is going on. I figured ASM would be the only tie-in worth it, but I've found almost every Civil War tie-in helps catch you up for when the next chapter of the main book comes out. There is also the Frontlines issues as well to understand things even more. Bottom line is that this series will be far more expensive to comic book readers than IC was.

I have to believe Spider-Man is going to pay for his unmasking. My money is on Aunt May dying simply because IF Marvel kills Mary Jane I'm done with them. Aunt May deserves to die for pushing Peter toward unmasking and I think all the signs point to it. I think Joe Quesada's whole Peter/MJ anti-marriage argument is a red herring for us to think about her being the one eliminated. Then again, maybe Marvel isn't going to eliminate either, but I rather doubt it. Like I said earlier, they have to do something to outdo what happened last issue or they blew their load way too soon in my opinion.

Console Gold/GamingTrend Wikipedia Article

2006-07-23T16:04:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's been a long time since my last blog. I really haven't felt like writing anything or I find myself too busy to find time to sit down and type out my thoughts on things. So, my first post back is going to be about the site I used to work for.

Before I begin, I'm saddened to say that someone picked up the CG domain and turned it into a porn link site. I had been regularily checking to see if the domain was becoming available, but the day it was switched I was out of town. I think it happened on a Saturday because I know I checked the status on Friday. It does kind of piss me off to know the site I helped work a lot on has been changed into this, but I guess that's the way the ball bounces.

I don't think I've made it a secret that I still lurk around the GamingTrend board, but I refuse to contribute in any way to it. I noticed that one of the users set up a Wikipedia article on GamingTrend. This is all fine and dandy, but it seems the article is up for deletion (but may yet survive). My problem with the article is that it is skin and bones. There is a vast history on CG/GT that is not even touched on in the article. The main reason this was probably written is because of Ron's stance on the Starforce copy protection software and that he will take 10 points off of the final rating if a game contains Starforce because one of the games destroyed his computer.

To me I think this whole idea comes by as too little, too late. If GT wanted to strike its own path it would have done this a long time ago when Starforce was at its high point. Nowadays most publishers have eliminated using Starforce (UbiSoft and CDV being the big ones), but this was brought up because of the last game CDV sent out to GT had Starforce in it (along with a game from Midway, who really doesn't release that many PC games). This is akin to jumping onto the Titanic after it started to sink. GT wants to make this big news (Ron posted it in Starforce's board and on Evil Avatars board from what I've seen), but it's just too little, too late in my estimation.

I personally would have put the idea that someone was thinking of putting an article up on the forum and then have everyone contribute to it, including the staff. There isn't a whole lot of staff left that can comment on things before around 2001 outside of Ron, but a more broad history could have been made. I personally would delete the article simply because there isn't a whole lot of information on it. Of course, maybe that is a problem with Wikipedia in itself because many of the articles don't contain enough information. Then again there are many comprehensive gaming related articles as well, such as Penny Arcade or 8-Bit Theater (which, granted, are both webcomics). For a gaming website perspective there is a site younger than CG/GT, Gamers With Jobs, that has a larger article.

Bottom line is I would be more happy if there was more information, but as it is now the article really doesn't add anything to the information superhighway.

Civil War #2 Discussion (Major SPOILERS)

2006-06-15T01:47:00.000-05:00

Simply put, if you haven't read Civil War #2 or haven't read any of the news on the internet you shouldn't read this post. With that out of the way I'm about to get into it.

I learned that Peter Parker was going to unmask in Civil War #2 about a week ago. It was a rumor at that time and I hoped it was a red herring that Marvel was putting out there, but now I have the book in front of me and Peter does indeed unmask himself in front of the world. The question is: how do I feel about this?

Those that have known me from other websites I frequented, I am a huge Spider-Man fan. He probably goes above Batman as my favorite comic book character. Spider-Man just had that everyman feel to him, like you were along for the ride with his life and that it often ran parallel to your own (through the generations, mind you). I'm not a big fan about this reveal even after I've had time to reflect upon it.

Joe Quesada, Editor in Chief at Marvel, has been dropping on my good list quite frequently since he took over. I'm starting to believe that Quesada runs Marvel as a dictator with final say on things while Dan Didio seems to listen to his writers over at DC. You can look at the main "event" books happening right now and see what is going on. Millar pretty much has control over Ultimates 2, but he seems to be guiding the ship with Civil War, not controlling the overall movements. 52, although a collaborative effort, seems much more writer-centric to me.

Quesada has been talking about the marriage between Peter and MJ for quite a while on the Newsarama piece he does. Maybe that was the red herring to get people talking about Peter before he dropped the bomb on us all; or maybe he's hinting at things to come. I don't know how they are going to reverse the fact everyone now knows he's Spider-Man, but I have to believe that will be the end result or I may be done with Marvel.

I am indeed interested in where they are going to take this through the rest of Civil war and the "War at Home" arc in Amazing Spider-Man. I have a feeling I know what is going to happen. Spider-Man's flip from one side to another with the Registration Act has always been talked about, so at some point he'll join Captain America I'm pretty sure. So, the question will be what the trigger of the change will be. Could he become aware of Tony Stark's pupeteer play on him? Could the death of a hero move him enough to change sides? No one knows, but I have a bad feeling it is going to go down another road: The death of Aunt May, MJ or both.

At this point I'd throw Aunt May into the fire after she pushed her feelings onto Peter in ASM and moved him away from going underground. In general timeframe, May has not known Peter was Spider-Man for very long. MJ's feelings should count more than May's feelings in this case. MJ has lived through the bad times with Peter and had her life in danger plenty of times because of Peter being Spider-Man. If I had to choose one to die it would be May, but she's died before (albeit a clone of her). The more likely choice is that MJ will die and then I'm for sure done with Marvel. I'm pro-Pete/MJ marriage and think many a great story has come out of their marriage versus Pete being single.

The interesting thing about all this is that it kind of ties into House of M and the Spider-Man mini that came out during that time. In the House of M universe everyone knew Peter was Spider-Man and he even owned his own company. He also was the Green Goblin, but that's where this mini gets all crazy. The key part is that Peter lived through the House of M and remembers everything in that universe. He hasn't touched on it much in his main books, but it should have been touched on when he was making the decision. The House of M aftereffects were not very nice to him. I think the last time it came up was in Son of M #1 when he was talking to Pietro.

My hope in the end is that he will pull a Tony Stark from the past. He can say that the plain clothes Spider-Man was just a decoy and that the real Spider-Man is Iron Spidey and you don't know his secret identity. Peter will be asked why he did it and he can say he was just helping Spider-Man out. Either that or Wanda has to come back and re-arrange things again.

I'm still not happy about this, but I will see Civil War through unless they kill MJ. I love the forums at Newsarama and how people are saying May and MJ are safe because they're in Avenger's Tower. Trust me, they aren't safe, especially since the Avengers are soon to be disassembled again and who knows what the new lineup will be and if Spider-Man will even be in it. They could be out on the street with only SHIELD to protect them (and we know how good SHIELD can be).

The rest of Civil War #2 was interesting. I love seeing Captain America doing the underground movement. I think it's brilliant he got the Young Avengers and I notice that Daredevil is with Cap. Chances are excellent that the Daredevil in CW is Clint Barton (Hawkeye) while Murdock is in jail. It could also be Iron Fist or any number of other people. I can't wait for that reveal, but him being on Cap's side is a strong indication it might be Clint. I also found it interesting that Tony was apprehensive about what he was going to do the night before he unmasked himself. Maybe he's starting to doubt himself. Maybe in the end Iron Man will also change sides and it will be them against the hero hunters and SHIELD. We'll see though...

Civil War #2 - Pre-Talk

2006-06-14T06:12:00.000-05:00

For those interested in my thoughts I will probably read the comic and give some time to digest what I read. I'm not going to spoil the ending even though the New York Post spoiled it this morning evidently. I'm sure almost the whole world has heard what the ending is by now, but I'm not going to talk about it at the moment until some people have been able to read the whole comic and digest it.

As of yet I have not read the comic, but I do know the ending and have been thinking about it since I first found out. I want to read the whole comic before I discuss the end, but the post will be upcoming.

Comic Catch-Up (June 7)

2006-06-07T05:45:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the weeks of no posts. Work hit the busy time and I took some time off to rest and relax after some long hours (and weekend) of work. I'll start my new posts talking about something near and dear to my heart: comics! (BEWARE: there may be spoilers below)

52: We are now entering into Week 5 of 52. So far I've been pretty impressed by the series, although I'm finding it to be a lot like Infinite Crisis in the fact that there is too little space for how much is going on. They attempt to split the comic between the different characters (main ones: Steel, Booster Gold, Montoya, The Question, Black Adam and Ralph Dibny) and the 7 days that represent the week. It's obvious other things are going on every day than what they hone in on, but I think this may be the ultimate undoing of this series: too many characters and not enough time with them. So far the main views have been from Booster and Montoya/The Question. Steel and Ralph have had their time and Black Adam had one big part but has been absent since.

Civil War: Over on the Marvel side there's this mini-series. So far there's been only one entry and I talked about that in a previous post. Spider-Man's entry into the series came out last week with the first of the 7-part "War at Home" storyline in Amazing Spider-Man. I liked the first part, but it also seemed a bit rushed. The end sees Spider-Man supposedly about to reveal his identity to the world, but I bet he won't do so. With all the rumors flying about Quesada and his dislike of Peter's marriage to MJ, I'm willing to bet the "big destruction" coming out for Spider-Man will be the death of MJ. It just came to me yesterday honestly. It's a way for him not to reveal his identity and jump to Captain America's side. It wouldn't make me jump away from reading Spider-Man, but if he revealed his identity I think that could push me toward that.

I'm not sure if Civil War is going to be self-contained or not and it would really be a disservice if it wasn't pretty self-contained. That was a plus with Infinite Crisis for the most part and I hope Marvel keeps with that. I still say the Spider-Man arc is going to be needed, but hopefully Civil War stuff will be kept in CW.

Sin Episodes: Emergence

2006-05-16T01:13:00.000-05:00

Just thought I would write a little about this game since it did come out while E3 was going on. I've only played a couple hours of it, but so far I am pretty impressed by the game. I still say the Source engine does a really good job in game experience over a year since the release of Half-Life 2. I hope to have more once I actually beat the game, but so far I am enjoying it and think it's a pretty good pickup for $20 via Steam (or at your local store). I have no idea how long it is, but nothing quite beats seeing the main bad girl in skimpy clothing right at the beginning.

Remember that HL2 Episode I is only a couple weeks away from being released as well. That should be just as exciting and Valve has said it is their best single-player experience yet (which is high praise coming from them).

Post-E3 Thoughts: Games (Sony)

2006-05-16T00:21:00.000-05:00

Sony, Sony, Sony...what are we going to do with you? I've talked ad nauseum about my thoughts of Sony's moves, but now we'll look at the games on their systems. Let's start with current systems and then get to the PS3.

Playstation 2

God of War II (Sony, February 2007): Sony and the Santa Monica studio can spin it however they want, but we should all be very afraid that this game is coming for PS2 3 months after the release of the PS3. There is no reason the GoW engine shouldn't have been moved and updated to the PS3 for this release. This game will be big, but I still question why it is being made on the current generation and not the next generation.

Final Fantasy XII (Square-Enix, October): It's about time this game comes out. The good news is that FF XIII will probably not be as long of a wait as there was between FF X and FF XII (the two single-player games). This game is set in the world of FF Tactics and that by itself will make this game great.

Guitar Hero II (Red Octane/Activision, Q4 2006): Never played the first game, but Bill Harris swears on it. I will probably pick up the game at some point and this is probably going to be a huge release with the whole duet capable thing. Bill and Gloria can do duets!

Yakuza (Sega, September): This game just looks interesting to me. It looks very Shenmue-esque, which is high praise coming from me. The same group isn't making Yakuza, but chances are this could be good. Only problem is it won't sell worth squat.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Midway, October): This is only coming out for the current generation, but it will effectively close this chapter of the MK universe. Every fighter to ever take part in the game will be playable in this game, almost an impossible undertaking from a balancing aspect. I wish them luck and I hope this game is as good as Deception was.

PSP

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (Konami, 2006): This game is a sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3 and has the possibility of making the PSP a popular choice again. I don't personally have one, but games like this would make me think twice about it.

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (Sony, 2007): The awesome platformer goes to the small screen come early next year. This will be the first year this series has not had a game during the holiday release. If this is as good as I've heard Daxter is this could be another winner for the PSP.

Killzone: Liberation (Sony, Q4 2006): Set after the events of the first game this game features a top-down perspective versus a first-person perspective.

Coded Arms: Contagion (Konami, 2007): The first game wasn't well received, but if they fix the problems of the first one here they could have a really good game on their hands.

Lumines II (Buena Vista Games, Q4, 2006): The sequel to the popular puzzle game.

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (2007): Even though Gamespot gives a 2006 release, I'm doubting that. This game is set before FF7 and seems to be quite interesting. If there is one thing Sony has over Microsoft it is that they have Square-Enix in their pocket and Microsoft has nothing from them.

Playstation 3

Resistance: Fall of Man (Insomniac/Sony, Launch): This game will supposedly be a launch game. It happens in a world where World War II never happened and aliens landed on the earth. The game looked cool in videos, but I get a very "been there, done that" kind of feel from this game. It has to show that it is bringing something new to the FPS genre or that it can standout over other WW2-era games, of which there are a plethora.

Warhawk (Insomniac/Sony, Launch): Also supposedly a launch game and will show off the gyroscopic controller. I remember playing the first game and enjoying it, however I don't know if I will enjoy the controls this time around. I think Sony is just creating a way to play the game differently, but that it just won't be the same as having a Wii controller.

Virtua Figher 5 (Sega, 2007?): This is a pretty big deal since it is exclusive to the PS3.

Final Fantasy XIII (Square-Enix, 2007? 2008?): Ditto.

Unreal Tournament 2007 (Epic/Midway, 2006? 2007?): This is an interesting game. Word coming out of E3 this year was that it was no longer exclusive to the PS3 on consoles, but no word yet from Epic or Midway on that.

I'm sure I missed a few here and there, but there really isn't much of anything yet to excite me on the PS3. Granted, the Xbox 360 didn't have the biggest games either. I shall wait until tomorrow to maybe get my PC game thoughts out there sine it is getting late...

Post-E3 Thoughts: Games (Microsoft)

2006-05-15T23:45:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving Sony for last (except for PC games). This post will talk about Microsoft and 3rd party games coming for the Xbox 360 this year and into next year.

Gears of War (Epic/Microsoft, Q4 2006): This was evidently shown behind closed doors, but it seems some people got to see it. I think Tycho put it best today in his newspost today in that this game was an experience and easily the best game of the show. For Microsoft to open their pre-E3 conference with this game was powerful. With Halo not showing up until next year, this is the game that will power Microsoft this holiday. It looks dark and gritty, but it will probably be one of the first games to show off the Unreal 3 Engine. Keep your eye on this title, it is going to be big.

Viva Pinata (Rare/Microsoft, Q4 2006): Yep, many of you laughed at this game, but laugh at this: Gabe says it has "lots of potential" and Bill Harris thinks much the same way I do (6th paragraph). This game is going to be hot for children...red hot. Like Bill said, "Here's one other thing about Microsoft: if Viva Pinata was a Nintendo game, people would be bursting with proclamations about how it demonstrates the genius of Nintendo. That game is going to be huge, and I'm not sure anyone quite realizes it yet." You will soon realize it!

Too Human (Silicon Knights/Microsoft, Q4 2006): Many people had low expectations for this game as well and I think when they actually played it they thought differently. This will probably not be the blockbuster that Gears of War will be, but it will be right up there.

Forza Motorsport 2 (Microsoft, Q4 2006): Yes, it was only shown via CGI pre-rendered movies, but the first game was red hot and I expect this one to be as well since it will be a second generation release. Peter Moore said it would be out by the end of the year, hopefully that is true. In addition they will release a wireless wheel controller, something never seen from Microsoft in the Xbox life cycle.

Fable 2 (Microsoft, 2007?): I can only guess at the release of this game. It was also shown in pre-rendered CGI. I was not a huge fan of the original, mostly because of the length of the game. On the aspect side of things the original was Aces, it just wasn't long enough. Now that Lionhead is owned by Microsoft I can see this game being quite big.

Mass Effect (BioWare/Microsoft, Q4 2006): I don't for one second believe BioWare will have this out by the end of the year given their track record. This game, much like Too Human, is set up as a trilogy. That could be a boon or a curse depending on how you look at it. Given how great KOTOR was, chances are BioWare could strike gold again with this one.

Shadowrun (FASA/Microsoft, January, also on PC): For most people this game will be seen as a tragedy, much like the MechAssault games (although those were good in my mind). Throw away all the things you remember about the original RPG IP and FASA is about to re-write the Shadowrun world. This is an FPS which is pissing a lot of people off. However, if it sells anything like the original MechAssault it will be a big release for Microsoft...they'll just piss off fans of the series and the SNES game.

Alan Wake (Remedy/Microsoft, 2007): Remedy may not have showed the gameplay of this game, but the big news is that Microsoft is publishing and it will only be coming to Xbox 360 and PC. Remedy is a relatively big name in the industry thanks to Max Payne and I hope this game turns out to be everything it can be.

Halo 3 (Bungie/Microsoft, 2007): Just that little 2+ minute demo blew me away. It could have been the musical score or the Covenant ships flying all around, but it got me excited. Post-E3 the news was that the demo was done in real-time and not a pre-rendered CGI. That would be pretty cool if true (as well as put a damper on the Metal Gear Solid 4 showing). This game is the knockout blow for Microsoft if they time it right...an early 2007 release could be devastating for Sony.

Sports Games (2K Games, EA, 2006): I'm putting these all in one. Indications are that each series that saw a shoddy port on Xbox 360 last year is going to see a much better game this time around. Arguably the only sports game to stand out was NBA 2k6 last year, but that was really a graphical upgrade more than anything. Now it seems teams are creating two tracks of games...one for next gen and one for current gen. I think Madden 07 and NCAA Football 07 are the most promising, even though they are missing some features from current gen release (although they are also adding other features) I think they could be big. This could be the year EA makes amends for what they did last year...we shall see.

Lost Planet (Capcom, 2007): Yes, I played the demo and was pretty impressed by the game. If it has a good story I think this game could be a nice little exclusive release for the 360.

Table Tennis (Rockstar, May 22nd): I have not played this game yet, so I don't know what to make of it. It seems the kind of game that will lose its luster after a while, but then again it could turn into a great and addicting game. I guess we'll see in a week. At least it is budget priced (for Xbox 360 that is).

Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar, October 16th, 2007): Big news that the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions will be releasing side-by-side and Sony won't have exclusivity on it. Not a big fan of San Andreas, but I loved the other 2 games since the move to PS2/Xbox. If Rockstar can recapture the magic and don't try to balance on the absurd this could be big for Microsoft if the Xbox 360 is ahead in system sales by the time it releases.

I only touch on mostly first-party titles here and I was a bit surprised that Microsoft didn't announce any secret games at E3. In fact, I'm surprised that no one really announced anything of a surprise like they have in past E3s.

Post-E3 Thoughts: Games (Nintendo)

2006-05-15T22:15:00.000-05:00

Let's get down to it, starting with the:

Nintendo Wii

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Nintendo/Retro Studios, Launch): it's official, this is a launch title for the Wii and it's looking pretty good. From all indications the controls are pretty nice with the Wii controllers. I was never a big fan of Prime's reliance on scanning, but I am a big Metroid fan at heart and can't see myself not picking this up at launch.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo, Launch): Big Zelda fan and Nintendo can really do no wrong with this franchise. There will be two versions of this game, one for GameCube (and its controller) and one optimized for the Wii. I don't know if the graphics will be different, but from all indications (and facts put out) the Wii graphics will not be that much greater than the GameCube.

Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo, Within 6 mo. of launch): This will be the late release out of the big 3, but chances are that Miyamoto will create a great game. It looked pretty cool in video form and since the controls have always been a staple of the series I can only believe the Wii controller will be used correctly.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo, 2007): I'm not a big fan of the series and have never understood its appeal to be honest. The addition of Solid Snake is interesting, but I still doubt I'd touch this with a ten foot pole. I know there are a lot of people out there that swear by this series, I'm just not one of them.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Nintendo, Unknown): The twitch game that set the GBA and DS world on storm is back and this time using the Wii controller to do a number of things (lift barbells, slice watermelons, swat flies, etc.). This game will sell like wildfire if it is anything like the others.

Wii Sports (Nintendo, Launch): This will consist of the tennis game shown off at the pre-E3 conference, a golf game and a baseball game all packed into one. Obviously this title is there more for the multiplayer aspect and overall use of the Wii controller than anything else. The graphics aren't spectacular, but I bet the gameplay is on all the games. This is more of a family release and I think it will be very popular when it comes out.

Red Steel (Ubisoft, Launch): I was pretty big on this game before the show given the preview in a recent Game Informer. Many sites are saying the game is not all it is cracked up to be. Now, this would usually be a problem if this game was the top of the heap for launch, but the two games above easily trump this game in importance. This game could be good, but it sounds like it isn't as "free flowing" (from a controller perspective) as it could be. Take a wait and see approach on this one I think.

Madden 07 (EA, Launch): The only reason I put this here is because the whole control element sounds very interesting (and somewhat tiring). If EA Tiburon doesn't do a half-assed job like they did with Madden 06 on the Xbox 360 I think this could be a great pickup for someone that wants to experience football in a way they never have before...except on the field.

Nintendo DS

Many may have laughed at the DS when it was first announced, but it has built up a strong user base of people that want to play something different from the regular path (sound familiar?)

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo, Q4 2006): The first Zelda game for the DS. Chances are this is going to be great. The graphics come right from Wind Waker (which some people did not like the look of, I personally did) and the dual screen use sounds intriguing.

StarFox DS (Nintendo, September 25): StarFox once had its day, but this may not be it. The game doesn't look great from the movies I've seen, but you can't judge a game just by its graphics. I'm sure the gameplay is there and the promise of online play is a big plus. Maybe it can create the magic of the first game again.

Yoshi's Island 2 (Nintendo, Q4 2006): The beloved Super Nintendo game finally gets a sequel. Given how awesome the original game was chances are this will be great as well.

Final Fantasy III (Square-Enix, September): The only FF game to never grace these shores with an English version. Instead Square-Enix is going to give it a 3D facelift and bring it out here. This game was the introduction of the job system that was used again to a larger extent in FF V. This should be a big game for any FF fans out there since many have not played this game at all.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (Konami, Q4 2006): Konami has had a great run with portable Castlevania games and I expect this one to continue the trend. No word as of yet how the stylus will be used, but they probably went back to the drawing board after the last DS game.

Next post is Xbox 360 offerings...

Post-E3 Thoughts: Systems

2006-05-15T22:00:00.000-05:00

I've ripped Sony up and down in previous posts. Maybe many people think I am pro-Microsoft or Nintendo...really, I'm not. I'd say I own more PS2 games than Xbox or GameCube games and I usually believe in Sony. I think they have a fantastic first party game lineup (Ratchet and Clank, Jak, Sly Cooper and God of War among them) and they've done a good job through 2 generations of systems now. With that preface I'll get into my thoughts on the systems coming out of E3.

Playstation 3

Sony has put itself in a precarious position. They've come out with 2 SKUs, much like Microsoft did last year. However, the lower SKU isn't worth its weight at all and the only way you'll get a competent system is with the $600 option. In the end, given that the Nintendo Wii will probably sell at around $250 that means a person could pick up an Xbox 360 Premium ($400) and a Nintendo Wii ($250) and come out with two systems for $50 more than the PS3 and only come out with one.

Sony showed off a few PS3 games, but they neglected to say what would be out at launch at their pre-E3 press conference. If you watched Gamespot over the course of E3 you'll see that Resistance and Warhawk are expected to be out at launch. Those aren't exciting games, but arguably neither was the 360 lineup outside of Project Gotham Racing 3 for me.

I think Sony has painted itself in a corner. Yes, we could all be wrong and the PS3 will sell like gangbusters come this holiday, but I also think Sony is going to play the short supply/great demand card again like they did when the PS2 came out.

Xbox 360

Microsoft stayed the course for the most part. They showed off Live Anywhere and their commitment to the PC gaming platform now that all the gaming divisions have been brought under one umbrella. To me it sounded like PC games will be sharing space with videogames if Microsoft has anything to do about it. I'll talk more about the games in the next post.

Nintendo Wii

Nintendo easily had the most sought after system at the show with upwards of a 4 hour wait to play it. I don't know whether that excitement is going to translate to the general public or not. Nintendo is being innovative again, something that has helped the Nintendo DS be where it is today even though it is far less powerful than the PSP. The only problem with the Wii is whether the third party support is going to be there or not outside of the launch. Nintendo could very well come out at #2 this go around.

Next up are my thoughts on the games...

Nintendo Wii Update: 2 of the Big 3 at Launch

2006-05-11T07:05:00.000-05:00

I talked about the possibility that Nintendo will have it's big 3 (Mario, Zelda, Metroid) out within the first year of the Wii release. Well, Eurogamer has let it be known that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption will also be a launch title along with Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. So, that's 2 of 3 at launch. No word on if Super Mario Galaxy will be out at launch, but if it is that creates something that has never happened in the history of Nintendo.

DC's 52 #1

2006-05-11T00:05:00.000-05:00

Going into another gear for a moment and touching on another topic I talk about a lot...comic books. Today, DC released its ambitious comic that will cover the time between Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later jumps that all the books took.

I was impressed by the book and I think they have an all-star team working on it (Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Grant Morrison write...Keith Giffen on art breakdowns, setting up the storyboard for the rest of the art team). I think it is important to read Newsarama's 5.2 link every week (this week's entry) after you read the book because it should explain some things. Now onto the contents of the books...MAJOR SPOILERS if you have not read it yet.

The book will have 6 main characters: Ralph Dibny (yay!), Renee Montoya (from the Gotham police force), Steel, The Question, Booster Gold (yay!) and...Black Adam?! Other people will evidently come in and out throughout the series in order to fill people in up to One Year Later.

The key things to pull from Week 1 is this:

1. Wally West, Linda and the twins are just fine. As Bart says, "they're taking time away". This puts to rest everyone's worries that they were all dead. Bart also says the twins have grown.

2. It's fantastic to see Booster Gold as a central character again. I loved his short-lived series and his time in the Justice League off-shoots. I'll attempt to make an observation of why Skeets' was wrong about Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman showing up. I think it all revolves around Booster changing the Brother Eye future. Remember when he told Batman that he never found Brother Eye in Booster's future...well, they found Brother Eye and took it down, thereby changing whatever future Skeets had in his brain. He's still on the old future and not the new one, plus the fact Skeets may be gone for good (*sob*). This is just a guess on my part though, we shall see.

Those were the two main things. This was obviously a setup issue to show off the main characters. I think they've picked an interesting group of people to build the future of the DC Universe around. Can't wait for next week!

E3 Conferences: So, Who Won?

2006-05-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

It's easier to say who lost in this case. Sony easily put itself in the same position Microsoft did last year and had a horrible showing. Where did Sony go wrong? Well, I have a few ideas:

1. Sony didn't open with a splash of any kind

Microsoft opened showing off Gears of War, their top title for the holiday. Nintendo had Miyamoto come out and show off the controller and people behind him show off Ubisoft's Red Steel...and then they went into a little marketing video showing off people playing games with the controller. Then they showed off Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess about 19 minutes in, their biggest game of the holiday season. It took Sony 25 minutes before they got to any PS3 game, that being Gran Turismo HD, which was just a demo built on assets from Gran Turismo 4. Roughly 50+ minutes in before another PS3 game is shown.

2. Sony chose to push numbers first

Nintendo and Microsoft put them in the middle. Why did Sony push the numbers first? Well, it's the only thing they can stand on at this moment. I still believe Sony's thought process is that the Playstation brand is so ingrained into people that they will go out and purchase the PS3.

3. Sony should have released the price later

Yeah, this was dumb. Word going into E3 was that Sony was not going to release a price, which would have been the smart thing to do...unless they want people to start saving early.

4. The price is way too high

If people know about the differences, who in their right mind is going to go out and purchase the $500 version instead of the $600 one? Sony is beating its own self with this price. The 360 will probably outsell it here in the US/Europe and the Wii will probably outsell it in Japan at that price. Nevermind that the system is 11 lbs. and about the size of the original Xbox. I seem to remember Japanese people saying they didn't like the big box design of the Xbox...now Sony is bringing out a system that is just as big?

5. What games are coming out at launch?

Microsoft faced much the same problem last year, although they did end up bringing out Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo and Project Gotham Racing on launch day. Sony didn't show off anything first-party to me that will be out at launch. They showed off some first-party stuff, but didn't say whether they were launch titles or not. Once again, I go back to my God of War II thought...why is it on PS2 and coming in February with the PS3 so close? Possible answer: Sony is farther behind on PS3 games than they want to be.

In the end the winners are both Nintendo and Microsoft, but I'm not sure who to say is #1 coming out of the conferences. Sony now finds itself being outdone by both companies. The Wii has a better 3D controller than the gyroscopic PS3 controller. Microsoft is going to broaden Live to allow people to play cross-platform on PC and 360 along with tying it will cell phones as well. The only thing I saw Sony show off about the online system is their new music store that will probably fail when put up against the iTunes juggernaut.

As my friend Bill Harris said, Sony may be in total disarray at this point. From sources it sounds like the gyroscopic controller was a relatively new development and they didn't show it off very well with Warhawk honestly. The best game they showed off was Resistance, but once again...is it a launch title?

In the end I'd give the slight nod to Microsoft simply because their presentation seemed more tight and they had a lot of good looking games to show off. Nintendo showed off the innovation and have an instant system seller in Zelda, but they didn't reveal a price or date as of yet. In the end I think the last image of Halo 3 at the end of Microsoft's presentation was reason enough to believe Microsoft may have taken the place of Sony as the 800-pound gorilla...we shall see...

Microsoft: The 800-pound Gorilla

2006-05-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

This year was a far better pre-E3 conference than last year for Microsoft. I think they didn't hype things enough last year and spent most of the time talking about the circle and the community of Xbox Live instead of showing off games. This time around it was obvious the games were forefront while Live was given quite a lift as well.

For me I'd say Microsoft showed off the best games. Of course it helps when your system is already out. Gears of War, although it may not appeal to everyone, was quite impressive with the demo that Cliffy B went through. I think he's proud of this game and that's a pretty ringing endorsement even though he working on the game himself.

Then came the sequels. Fable 2 and Forza Motorsport 2 were shown in pre-rendered glory. Forza will be out by the end of the year, but no word on Fable 2. Then they showed off Splinter Cell: Double Agent, which is coming out in September, meaning the 360 will have it before the PS3. All 3 games honestly make me pretty excited. I wasn't overall thrilled with Fable's length, but the game was still very good.

Then they showed off Viva Pinata. I know a lot of people are not interested in this game, but I still say this is Microsoft's major children's release coming up. I don't think we know everything about the game yet, it could be very Animal Crossing-like in the end...who knows.

After this Peter Moore decided to show off his new tattoo (remember back when he had the November 9 + Halo 2 inked into him...it was still there). We all thought it was going to be Halo 3, but it turned out to be that they were announcing that Grand Theft Auto IV will be released on 360 and PS3 simultaneously on October 16th, 2007. This will be the first time the Xbox people haven't had to wait for the new GTA. Moore also announced that Rockstar and Microsoft is in an exclusive agreement to release episodic updates to GTA4, which of course makes it more interesting than the PS3 version probably.

Then they moved into the PC games. They first showed off, via playable demo, Crysis from Crytek/EA on Windows Vista. Later on it was found out that the game will also run in Windows XP, which probably means the game will be out before Vista is released. The game looked excellent, but I expect nothing else from the company that gave us Far Cry. Then they showed off the new Conan and Flight Simulator X.

Then the big rumor that was never kept quiet, Microsoft and FASA are bringing Shadowrun to the 360 and the PC for a day and date release with Vista in January 2007. They then showed off their new acquistion in my aforementioned notably absent Alan Wake, now being published by Microsoft for PC and 360. Then Bill Gates came out...

To unveil Xbox Live Anywhere, a system that will connect the 360, your Vista computer and your mobile phone. They showed this off by one of the workers going to Major Mike on his computer and ask to play a game of Shadowrun. They were then playing Xbox 360 to PC on the game, which is probably showing the XNA architecture at its best. I can only guess there will be more games like this in the future with simultaneous releases now that Microsoft has re-organized all their game divisions into one entity. They also showed off being able to tune a car on a mobile phone, re-paint it on Vista and send that car to the Xbox 360 for use in Forza Motorsport 2. It all sounds very cool, although I wonder if this is going to cost PC users anything or not.

Then we came to the end and Halo 3 was shown. Even though it was totally CGI built I have to say I was more excited about that even after seeing the demo for Metal Gear Solid 4 yesterday. I don't know, Halo just does something for me. Maybe it was hearing the awesome music again or seeing the huge Covenant ship flying by. The movie was awesome even though it showed no gameplay.

In the end I think Microsoft gave a really good presentation. I wish there had been more playable sections of the big games coming, but we do have the new demo for Lost Planet on Marketplace along with lots of videos from E3. I have yet to play the demo, but I have downloaded it...hopefully I will have some impressions up later.

Microsoft showed it may be the new 800-pound gorilla on the scene after this. We'll talk more about that next though...

Nintendo: We Do Things Differently

2006-05-09T21:17:00.000-05:00

Nintendo's conference was very interesting. I have to say out of the 3 speakers for the big 3 I've always thought Reggie Fils-Aime at Nintendo does the best job of explaining things to everyday people.

Nintendo did what it wanted to. It showed off key games on the Wii, such as:

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (a GC and Wii version will be released)
Super Mario Galaxy
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Those three games within the first year of the release of the system is like hitting the trifecta in Nintendo land. I can't remember a time where the big 3 titles in Nintendos library would be coming out within a year. Now I am guessing that they will be released within the year of the Wii releasing, maybe we'll know more as E3 goes on. Nintendo also showed off a Warioware game for the Wii as well and that will be super hot as well considering how well the games did on the GBA.

They also didn't leave the Nintendo DS in the dust, showing off both the new DS Lite coming in June and snippets of some games, such as:

Yoshi's Island 2
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
StarFox DS

Obviously the biggest news was the showing of the Wii version of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I'm not sure what kind of differences there are going to be outside of control between the Wii and GameCube versions, but the graphics looked pretty good on the Wii version...could that be a slight upgrade as well? Reggie said it was the best Zelda yet, while the guy playing it on the Wii said it was "one of the best"...guess he didn't attend the marketing meeting.

It is cool that Nintendo will sell a Sports pack at launch with a tennis, baseball and golf game. That will show off the controller really well. So will Red Steel, but anyone who reads Game Informer already knows what the game is all about. The demo shown wasn't the greatest until they showed the sword fighting at the end.

If there's a lasting thought from the Nintendo conference it comes at the end where Miyamoto, Fils-Aime, Iwata and the Nintendo winner are playing tennis. The lasting image is that the Wii is fun, especially in groups/parties, and Nintendo will keep doing what it's done all along.

The one disappointing aspect is that Reggie had a bullet-point image at the beginning that talked about release date/cost. He said it would be released Q4 2006, but he never gave any indication of the price. I'm wondering if Nintendo is thinking about adding Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess to the system and that's why they didn't say a price. I'm going to guess it will be $200 for the system, but what do I know.

After I post about Microsoft's conference I'll do a catch all on my feelings about all 3 conferences and who came out on top in my mind.

PS3 20GB Has Less Options

2006-05-08T23:35:00.000-05:00

Interesting, this is via Gamespot. I'll blockquote it for reference:

According to the latest specifications released by Sony, the PS3 now only comes with one Ethernet port and four USB ports. Also, the lack of a second HDMI port means that the dual-screen setup running 1080p function that was shown off last year is no longer a possibility.

The PlayStation 3 will come in two configurations, one will have a 20GB hard drive and the other will have a 60GB hard drive. However, losing 40GB isn't the only downgrade with the 20GB version. The 20GB version, priced at $499, will not have Memory Stick, SD, or Compact Flash inputs, Wi-Fi capabilities, or any HDMI output.

So, they're basically attempting to make the 60GB version more appealling for the $100 extra hit. That's all well and good until you look down and see yourself paying $200 more than the 360 and who knows how much more than the Wii. I'm not saying this to slap Sony in the face, but there is a price point people won't pass and I think they aren't going to bite at $600.

That the 20GB version is so neutered (no memory inputs, no HDMI port and no Wi-Fi is arguably more detrimental than the 360 Core) makes the 60GB one even more enticing than the Core vs. Premium decision with the 360.

The other interesting thing in the story is presented here and goes back to my previous post:

The new motion-sensitive controller, included standard in both the 20GB and 60GB models, will lack a feature that was present in the PlayStation 2's DualShock 2 controller--vibration. Citing the new "six-degree," a statement from Sony says "vibration itself interferes with information detected by the sensor."

No vibration means Sony doesn't want to pay Immersion to use it in case they ultimately lose the suit (as they have been for a while now), even though they pass it off as vibration interfering with the sensor. I'm not sure vibration is going to matter, but it does give a little more sense of "being there" than a controller without one. The one question I have about the gyroscopic controller is whether you can turn it off or not. I know I have the habit of moving the controller while in a driving game for instance. If the "six-way motion" was on I'd be screwed so to speak.

This isn't a knock on Sony, but I'm not sure how much they're going to use the gyroscopic characteristics of the controller. Yes, Warhawk looked pretty cool, but in the end do I want to fly like that or use the analog stick? If Sony's going to rip off Nintendo they also need innovative games with which to use it. We'll have to see if that takes off or not.

And, yes, Metal Gear Solid 4 looked sweet, but I also saw the "Coming 2007" on it as well. This means it isn't a launch title. Final Fantasy XIII looked sweet too, although that was mostly pre-rendered stuff. I do wonder if Square-Enix has anything planned for the Xbox 360 or if they're sticking with Sony again. I'm not sure Square-Enix has the hold it once did on gamers and their loyalties, but I could be wrong.

One last thing on this post. This whole price point is a good indicator of where Sony feels its place is in the market. They feel they are #1 and are riding on the fact they've been #1 for 2 generations now. They are smug enough to believe that people will unload this kind of money to play the next Playstation machine. We'll have to see whether that works out for them or not...I remember a lot of people in line with me who were complaining about having to scrape together $400 for the Xbox 360.

I can't wait to see more from Sony, but at $600 for the higher system it seems like a tough pill to take...

Playstation 3: Worst Fears Realized?

2006-05-08T21:19:00.000-05:00

I missed the last part of the presentation, I'll catch up on it when Gamespot brings out the streams for it. Obviously I missed the Metal Gear Solid 4 showing (probably the biggest reason I was tuning in). Early word was that Sony was not going to announce a price at E3, but they proved the rumors wrong. Sony will have 2 SKUs, much like the Xbox 360 but this time both will have hard drives. Here they are:

20GB Hard Drive - $499
60GB Hard Drive - $599

At those prices I think they may not have as many people picking up the system as they hope. They will sell the extra $100 (for the low end) as the fact that you're getting Blu-Ray support with the system. Although that is well and good, I don't think it is enough to sell a system when millions of people already have tons of DVDs.

The controller also went to the old standby of looking the same as the other Dual Shocks. Smart move on Sony's part because that boomerang look was stupid. They also added in gyroscopic controls into it, trying to take a page out of the Nintendo Wii book (but not going far enough). I haven't seen the gyroscopic controls in action yet since I missed that part. I wonder if Sony borrowed the technology from anyone considering they are still in litigation over the vibration function.

Having not seen the last section of videos that showed off the "big" games I can't say how enamored I was with the overall presentation. What I did see (up to the Resistance showing, which was impressive...but more on that later) made it feel a lot like Microsoft last year. I didn't feel Sony used the time well enough to show off the power of the PS3. Instead they had the head guy from SCE come and he made things really boring from my perspective. The one thing I took out of it was that Sony is going to try to hone in on iTunes and in the end they will fail yet again.

As I said, Resistance was impressive, but dare I say that FPS games are starting to be too much alike. A world where World War II never happened and aliens are hopping around. It sounds cool and looks cool, but will it have a story to pull me in? Who knows.

As far as I know there were no games announced as launch games. It sounds like Gran Turismo HD will be out "soon after" launch (is it just me or were any of you also not impressed by the GT HD showoff?). The one thing that really stood out for me in the GT HD video was the last one at the Grand Canyon from GT4. The car was going through it, but there was no dust kickup nor were the tires making any sort of impression into the dirt. I realize this demo was built on the assets of GT4, but even Project Gotham Racing 3 has skid marks and they stay there through the whole race. The F1 game with the PSP connection looked pretty cool, although I still think the PSP is a big rip-off that they're trying to tie into anything that is successful.

I hope Sony announces some big launch games, because nothing currently stands out. Since I didn't see MGS4 I have no clue if that is a launch game, but I can only guess it isn't. In the end are we going to stand in line for a system that is $100 more expensive than the Xbox 360 with only the possibility of a minimal power gain? It's a question worth thinking about and I hope the rest of E3 gives us some answers.

I'll be back with my thoughts from Nintendo (who usually put on a good show) and Microsoft tomorrow.

E3 Game Preview: Part 2

2006-05-05T21:41:00.000-05:00

This time we will cover the big 3 and Electronic Arts. Let's get on with the show:

Electronic Arts

Army of Two (PS3/Xbox 360): Recently announced. No pictures have been shown as of yet, but it sounds like it is a cooperative game ala Contra.

Battlefield 2142 (PC): DICE and EA are going to the future with the series. Mech combat and sci-fi weapons are the order of the day it seems. Supposedly this game will be out before the end of the year and I would expect a somewhat playable version on the floor at E3.

Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Sun (PC): To me this series has never done wrong (outside of Renegade) and I hope this one lives up to the legacy that Generals gave this series.

Madden 2007 (All systems): Unlike its sister game down below (NCAA), we don’t know much about this game other than it will supposedly be built more around the running game. I’m hoping draft class import will be available in the 360 version and I also hope that the next generation versions will keep all or most of the goodies from the current gen versions (unlike NCAA)

Medal of Honor: Airborne (PC/PS2/Xbox/PS3/Xbox 360): Recently pushed back to Q1 2007, this game must have a bit of trouble at this point. I would expect them to show it, but EA’s winter is looking quite bare with this, Spore and Superman Returns all being pushed back.

NCAA Football 2007 (Xbox/PS2/Xbox 360/PS3/PC): I’m not enthused that all the goodies in the current generation version will not follow to the next generation versions. Granted I’m not all that excited to follow a player from entrance into graduation, but I am a bit leery about the supposed imbalances with playbooks (with the current generation having expanded ones) and only having Division I to work with. As long as the 360 version has the franchise mode and the ability to transfer draft classes into Madden I’ll be happy.

Project Gray Company (PS3/Xbox): This game is being named for the lead designer. Chances are this is an LOTR RPG game given the images that are shown on the Project Gray Company Site. This sounds like an expansive open world RPG game ala the recently released Oblivion. This game is currently named Gray because Steve Gray is the Executive Producer.

Spore (PC): Although it has yet to be announced, this game has supposedly also been pushed into 2007. This game blew away everyone at E3 last year (at least the people I talked to) and I think a lot of people are disappointed this game will probably not be out before the end of this year.

Superman Returns: The Videogame (All systems): This game was also delayed, but to the end of this year. It was supposed to come out with the game, but EA gives the reason of needing to work on such an open world that the game takes place in. The game will be released with the DVD this holiday season. This is kind of sad because the game looked cool, however. The only thing I am worried about is that EA Tiburon may be stretching itself thin with this, Madden, NCAA Football and possibly another NFL Street all on its plate.

Microsoft (all Xbox 360)

Fable 2: I can only guess this will be one of the surprise titles that Microsoft hasn’t announced yet. Now that they own Lionhead/Big Blue Box, the studios obviously have to be working on something, right?

Forza Motorsports 2: Oh yeah! It was tough to top Project Gotham Racing, but the original game did just that. Sure, it was a different game, but Forza blew the doors off of everything and even challenged Gran Turismo 4 as the best simulation out there. I can only believe that part 2 is going to be awesome.

Gears of War: Microsoft’s big game of the year, bar none (unless there is a game they have yet to unveil). This game is being set up for holiday release and will have a massive marketing campaign behind it. This game is guaranteed to be on the show floor in some form and will probably have a lot of people looking its way.

Halo 3: The rumored 2-minute video looms large over E3. Will the game be Halo 3 or will it be named Forerunner as Bungie is currently calling at least one of its games (if not only game). I hate to say it, but Penny Arcade was right on about the rut Bungie has found itself in for better or worse. I don’t know if they can have multiple games being made at one time when people are clamoring for another entry in the Halo series.

Mass Effect: BioWare’s Sci-Fi RPG entry into the next generation world. Given their superb work in the past, chances are this game will be great as well…too bad we won’t see it until 2007.

Too Human: Along with Gears of War, this game will also power Microsoft through the holiday season. This is the first game in a trilogy and it is made by Silicon Knights, one of my favorite developers thanks to Eternal Darkness. The game is based around Norse mythology and will have an interesting control system (right stick will be your melee attack movement while the triggers will fire the left and right guns). This game sounds like a cross between God of War and Devil May Cry.

Viva Pinata: You can laugh at this game, but Microsoft is obviously going all-out with this game that seems geared more toward children. A TV show is in the works along with this game. This could be the type of game that will bring families to the Xbox 360, so don’t dismiss it right off.

Unannounced Xbox 360 Games: There will probably be a few surprises by Microsoft and possibly some games that are unannounced that are coming this year.

Nintendo

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Cube/Wii): The game I’ve been waiting for. It is now delayed to later this year, probably before Thanksgiving. Chances are it may release the same day as the Wii and Miyamoto has said there will be Wii-enabled sections of the game. At this point in the GameCube’s life I think it would be smart to make this a fully Wii game and you have your automatic system seller from the start. I think this game will still loom large at E3 this year, but it may not have the hype it had last year.

The Legend of Zelda (DS): There is a DS game in the works and I personally can’t wait for it. The Zelda games on the handheld systems have been top notch and I would expect this game to follow suit.

First-party Wii games: Obviously there will be other Wii games from Nintendo. I’m not sure what is going to be their key launch game, but I have to believe there is a Mario or Metroid game in there. We’ll see come Tuesday afternoon.

Sony

God of War II (PS2): Quite possibly one of the top 5 games being shown at E3 this year. I obviously loved the original, so it should be no surprise that I am hot for the sequel. The negative aspect of this game is it is coming February of 2007 and that it isn’t on the PS3. In the back of my mind it makes me wonder what types of games Sony will have ready for the PS3 come November and into next year if this game doesn’t top the list of launch games for the PS3.

Killzone: Liberation (PSP): I liked Killzone, but I didn’t feel it was the best thing since sliced bread. Chances are this PSP title will be a really good seller for the system, although I question how good it will be without a right analog stick on the PSP.

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (PSP): Much like the recently released Daxter game chances are this one will also be a fantastic release. So far the series hasn’t laid an egg and hopefully that won’t change with this release considering how badly the PSP needs good games.

Unannounced PS3 games: You’ve got me on what Sony is going to show at their conference on Monday outside of ports. They have to have at least some first-party titles, but I doubt things like Killzone or Ratchet and Clank will be ready for November. Sony has been very quiet about everything surrounding the PS3. If they have a big title it will help them a lot in reversing the recent negative PR.

E3 Game Preview: Part 1

2006-05-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

I used to do this for CG/GT before E3 and I figured I'd have it live on here. I don't cover every game, but I have the list that is interesting to me and what I want to see via the news sites. This is Part 1 which covers all the companies and the key notable absence except for the big ones (EA, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony). Off we go:

2K Games

Bioshock (PC/Xbox 360): This is going to be an interesting game to see in motion. Billed as the spiritual successor to the System Shock games, it has a lot to live up to. The game looked interesting from the Game Informer preview earlier this year. This game is due out in 2007 unless Irrational/2K says differently

Civilization IV: Warlords (PC): The expansion pack to probably the best Strategy game of last year and possibly the best PC game of last year. Firaxis seemed to hit on all cylinders again with the original game and adding 6 scenarios plus the new “Warlord” unit this sounds like a worthy pickup later this year.

Prey (PC/Xbox 360): This game saw a miraculous resurrection last year at E3 and it just recently got a release date of July 10th. The sad part about this game is that it will fill the coffers at 3D Realms and the vaporware that is Duke Nukem Forever or whatever their next game is. 3D Realms has lived off of their licenses since DN3D came out. This game looks interesting and another test for the 360 versus a PC.

Sid Meier’s Railroads! (PC): We all remember Railroad Tycoon, right? Well, this is the next game in the series without the name. I’m hoping this will get as much love as Civilization IV got. I don’t know how many RT fans there are out there, but I’m pretty excited about this game.

Blizzard

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC): The expansion pack to the biggest MMORPG out there. I still haven’t played this game and I have 2 versions of it. One of these years I’ll install and play it. Just have a problem with that monthly charge.

Diablo 3 (PC): Rumors have pointed to this being in development and what better place to unveil it than at E3?

Starcraft 2 (PC): With StarCraft: Ghost finally giving up the ghost (heh), there may be a chance that this game is in development as well. If this and the game above are in the oven be prepared for Blizzard to take over the world!

Capcom

Dead Rising (Xbox 360): This game has seen some delays, which usually isn’t a very good thing. Chances are Capcom will have this on the floor in a playable state, but who knows now that the release date is August for this game.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Xbox 360): An intriguing game that looks like a 3rd person shooter and a mech combat game rolled into one, this could be very hot! The cool thing about this game is that there will be a demo released on Marketplace on May 9th, the day of Microsoft’s pre-E3 meeting.

Devil May Cry 4 (PS3): This was shown last year and I would expect them to have more about this game at this E3.

Resident Evil 5 (PS3/Xbox 360): Announced and E3 2006 may be the first time we see the game in motion.

Eidos

Hitman: Blood Money (PC/PS2/Xbox/Xbox 360): Another delayed game from Eidos although given how good the other games in this series has been chances are this one will follow suit.

Konami

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3): This game will most likely create the most hype for the PS3 of any game out there. Chances are this game will not be out until 2007, but Konami hasn’t given a release date as of yet. If this game comes out a launch expect there to be a bigger problem than the Xbox 360 ever experienced at launch. I know many people left this series after the 2nd part, but 3 was awesome and I can only imagine 4 will be as well.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS): Given how well Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow was received this game should be a slam dunk. This time around the game is based during World War 2 and you are able to switch between 2 characters at any time during the game. You can play as vampire hunter Johnathan Morris or the magically adept Charlotte Orlean. No word as of yet on how the touch screen will be used.

Unnamed Kojima Wii Project (Wii): Konami sent invitations to several media members that a game will be shown off on May 9th. I have no clue what it is, but could it be a Metal Gear game re-done in first person with the Wii controller? *shrug*

LucasArts

Untitled Indiana Jones Project (PS3/Xbox 360): This was rumored last year, but they may finally show the game off. Chances are this is coming out in 2007, but LucasArts certainly needs a hit to continue being even a blip in the gaming scene outside of the Star Wars games.

Midway

Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox/PS2): The final game in the series. Supposedly you will be able to play as almost all the prior characters in the game including boss characters. It will also have another RPG-type game option that should be more tight than it was in Deception.

Unreal Tournament 2007 (PC/PS3): I can only guess this will be shown off on the floor. Whether it comes out at the end of this year or not is up for debate. Also up for debate is whether it will actually make the PS3 launch or not.

NCSoft

Tabula Rasa (PC): The next game from Richard Garriott and it’s an MMORPG. The overall feel of the game changed from E2 2004 to E3 2005 and the game is now a sci-fi based game. I’m pretty interested in this game and I think it could be one of those sleeper hits as long as Garriott can live up to his older games.

Rockstar

New GTA Game: This will be interesting. I’m not sure Rockstar is working on another GTA game after the backlash sustained by San Andreas. I could be very wrong, but whatever they do I think they’re going to not push the envelope as much as they used to.

Table Tennis (Xbox 360): This game should be in pretty much full playable form on the show floor. This is the type of game that could become very addicting very fast.

Sega

Phantasy Star Universe (PC/PS2/Xbox 360): This game offers both a large single-player and multiplayer experience, so both camps are covered. This could be a huge game come E3 if Sonic Team has done a good job. I think it will be a big game on PC if done right and the monthly charges aren’t that much. This series used to be at the top of the RPG world and it’s my hope it will be again.

Sega Rally Revo (PC/PS3/Xbox 360): Chances are it can’t compete with the simulation racing games out there, but I think this game could have its own niche in the market. The original arcade game was pretty hot back in its day, but Rally may be a relic of the past.

Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3/Xbox 360): This is a huge game for Sega and Sonic Team. The last good Sonic games were on the Dreamcast and even those didn’t live up to the greatness of the ones on the Genesis. If they can fix the issues from the Dreamcast games and create a game that will pull in both old and new fans alike I think this game could be big.

Virtua Tennis 3 (PS3/Xbox 360): The king of tennis games is back, but not until 2007. Top Spin was certainly great, but nothing beats the innovator. I don’t know what kind of licenses this game will have (it doesn’t look like they’ll have the Opens given one of the screenshots here being named the French Open), but the early graphics look pretty darn good.

Yakuza (PS2): This game looks pretty cool and from what I understand was pretty hot in Japan. It looks a lot like Rise of Honor in the overall feel of the game. I just hope the controls aren’t the same. I think this concept sounds cool being a member of the Japanese Yakuza. Sega is working on the localization right now and it should be out on PS2 by September.

Notably Absent

Alan Wake (PC/Xbox 360): After hearing about the awesome preview of this game behind closed doors at E3 2005 I am surprised that Remedy is not showing it off this year. A lot of questions could be asked, such as whether there is trouble with the game and if the game is going to make a 2006 release or not. It’s sad it won’t be there because the game looked really good.

Observations: Infinite Crisis #7 and Civil War #1

2006-05-03T22:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finished reading both DC's Infinite Crisis #7 and Marvel's Civil War #1. I read them in that order and I have a feeling my opinions on these two titles may have been different had I flipped the reading order, but who knows. So, let's get to it (WARNING: Major Spoilers below, so if you haven't read either book do so and come back):

Infinite Crisis #7: I'll talk more about my overall feeling on the series as a whole later in this post, but for now we'll concentrate on this chapter. Right from the beginning I see a problem with this issue that has come up once before in this series. For those that hadn't read the Villians United special that came out last week you will be lost immediately at the first page. In the special the Secret Society broke every person out of all the prisons around the world, creating the hero vs. villain battle royal that opens up this chapter on Page 2. DC did this once before (that I remember, there may be more) during this series when Superboy Prime took on Superboy the first time and the story spilled off into Teen Titans. DC made it a point to portray that IC would be standalone and for the most part it is, but there have been parts here and there that flood into IC.

Early on it is obvious that both Alex and Superboy Prime are still alive post Tower blow up from last issue. Alex makes the observation that some things have changed in the new unifed Earth, such as the fact that Wonder Woman was a JLA founder again, that Batman still fought the Gotham criminals even though his parent's killer was caught and that there are recorded rumors that there were Superman events before he was in Metropolis (meaning he may have been Superboy, something he never was after the original Crisis). DC has said that the reframing of characters will be answered during the backup stories in the 52 series that starts up next week.

Lots of bit characters die early on in the massive hero vs. villain fight in Metropolis. We finally find out who was in the Flash suit at the end of Infinite Crisis #5...and the rumors were true, it was Bart. He took Barry's clothes and evidentally had just enough speed left to take on Superboy Prime one last time in this issue. At the end of the book he hands the costume off to Jay Garrick and says he isn't going to be the new Flash and also says he was gone for 2 years in the future and that Wally, Linda and the twins disappeared.

In the end there were a few surprises and a few foregone conclusions. Earth-2 Superman ended up dying taking on Superboy Prime with Superman, but Prime ends up not being killed (the surprise) and is now trapped by the Green Lanterns and makes the statement that he's gotten out of situations far worse than that before. Superman and Earth-2 Superman end up pushing Superboy through the Sun near Oa (Prime was going to destroy Oa and create a new Big Bang) and that burns off his suit he was getting his powers from. Superman loses his powers, which explains the current run One Year Later. Bruce goes with Nightwing (who got hit by a blast from Alex, but evidently survived) and Robin. Wonder Woman goes off to find herself and that begins the year without the big 3. Alex escaped capture and is seen in Gotham City, but he ends up being killed by Luthor and Joker because, as Luthor says, "You didn't include Joker in your plans". In the end it leaves Prime alive and it should be interesting to see if he escapes or not.

Civil War #1: It may be a consequence of reading this book last out of the 2, but I just wasn't overly excited about this issue after reading it. Millar has done political intrigue before in the pages of what is (so far) the vastly superior Ultimates series. I have a feeling this book may have been pumped up too much by hype and it didn't seem to grab me as much as it could. Unlike IC I think Civil War is not going to be contained just within the core book, but will spill out to the crossovers..the biggest of all being the Amazing Spider-Man 7-parter.

The coolest thing about this issue is that Captain America goes rogue on the US Government and that Iron Man, Reed Richards (?!) and Hank Pym (I'm guessing he's in the Yellowjacket outfit) is helping the government. The art is easily better in this book than in IC, but I think Marvel may have set itself into a sitaution that is too big to handle. Obviously the big story will be which side Spider-Man takes as news points to him being the central character with a decision to make. It is interesting he says in this book that he won't give up his identity because he could come home and MJ is impaled on an Octopus arm and Aunt May is begging for her life. Daredevil also makes an appearance here and I am guessing that is the one currently loose in New York while Matt Murdoch is in prison. Word is the identity of the new Daredevil will be spilled in the next issue of Civil War (note the overall crossoverness of it all).

Overall this issue didn't impress me, but much like Infinite Crisis #1 it is only the build up.

Overall Infinite Crisis Thoughts: This is a tough one. Overall I enjoyed the series, but I do think they could have pushed it to a 12-part series like the original in order to pack more story into it. It seems nowadays that special events are framed around a 7-part series (Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis and Civil War prove this theory) and that just condenses the overall story from my perspective. I think Identity Crisis would have been better had it been longer and there was less to work with from a character perspective with that series. In the end I don't think IC is going to stand up very well when compared to the original Crisis. I will say that I was only 9 years old when Crisis was going on and I remember how awesome that was. Now I'm 29 and am reading this Crisis and am obviously looking at it from a different perspective. The major deaths were not as big this time around (Superboy and Earth-2 Superman/Lois versus Barry Allen and Supergirl in Crisis) and there just was never the shock value that could have been there honestly. I certainly enjoyed reading the whole series and look forward to 52 starting next week, but in the end I feel it just wasn't as defining a moment as the original Crisis on Infinite Earths was. Feel free to e-mail me and tell me your feelings.

Nintendo Wii: Maybe Not So Dumb

2006-04-27T22:34:00.000-05:00

Yes, the jokes started flowing after Nintendo announced that the Revolution was changing its name to Wii. Most jokes pointed to the fact that the name (pronounced "we") can be used as a synonym for urinating or part of the male anatomy. Heck, even I had a few laughs at its expense.

Revolution was a great name, but I think we all knew it was just a codename like Katana (Dreamcast), Dolphin (GameCube), Xenon (Xbox) and many other systems had. I still think a lot of people have a problem with the name, but once you get over the initial craziness of it all it starts to grow on you. Let me throw some names out there for you:

Yahoo
Google
iPod
GameBoy

When those four (and I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting) came out, what was your first reaction to the name? Yahoo was the first in that group and you had to laugh at it. Now the creators are rich and they can laugh to the bank. Same goes for Google and they have become even bigger than Yahoo.

The iPod is the #1 digital device out there and Apple is always adding functionality to it. I know I snickered the first time I heard iPod and I'm not sad to say I've owned one for over 2 years now.

The last one (GameBoy) was considered a stupid name when it was first announced, it is just that we didn't have the internet at that time like we do now. In the end the GameBoy has become the #1 system of all time, selling over 110 million units. That's crazy, but the name stuck through several iterations and people got used to it.

In the end who is to say that Wii isn't going to catch on like the four above? It is far more innovative than Microsoft (Xbox 360) and Sony (Playstation 3) have been with naming their new systems. It was also smart for Nintendo to announce this before E3 as it gives people time to let it sink in. I still think the Wii is a very interesting wild card going into the holiday season. Chances are there will be more units of the Wii than the PS3 in Japan/North America by the time the end of the year rolls around. Nintendo is still the innovator, they just need the 3rd parties to come along with them and not leave them in the dust like they did with the N64 and GameCube.

So, come back and think about Wii in a few days after the jokes have subsided. I think it may grow on you...or I could be entirely wrong.