Am Busy

Still have articles and reviews to write, and on top of that, I just found out that a comic book proposed to a kid’s magazine by the Wife and I is a go, and that a pilot script for someone’s animated feature got the green light, so suddenly there’s a whole lot to do. Oh yeah, and a novel and a Real Comic book.

And somewhere in there I’m suddenly why wondering why leg warmers and leggings are back in style. Not that I’ve seen them in Singapore, where it would be essentially stupid to wear them, but if the internet buzz is anything to go by, how the hell did these come back?

The E3: Geek Summary

Since someone made the request and since I didn’t actually talk about what was COOL at E3, I figured I’d better do that now, although for some more detail, my thoughts on certain booths at the E3 can be found at the GameAxis website, talking about Capcom, Ubisoft, Company Of Heroes, Activision, a fast and bad evaluation of the Warner Brothers Interactive booth, some good news about free games from NCsoft, Sony, Will Wright’s AMAZING Spore, Alone In The Dark by Atari, some Star Trek games by Bethesda, creators of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and some quick impressions of Guitar Hero II, and the Atlus booth.

But if you’re looking for my thoughts on the consoles–which up until now I haven’t really written about–here they are.

This year’s E3 was where we finally saw the Big 3 put their cards on the table. The Xbox 360 has already been out for a few months now and is finally easing out of its launch pains. Nintendo has announced and shown the stupidly named, but brilliantly conceived Wii, and Sony has finally unveiled details–and more importantly, playbable games–on the Playstation 3. Here’s my quick n’ dirty scorecard evaluation:

Microsoft

One thing has been made abundantly clear after this year’s E3 presentation, this is the “vanilla” console, that sits comfortably between the two extremes of the Wii and the PS3. It is neither the cheapest nor is the most expensive console. Is neither the least powerful nor most powerful. It will have neither the best nor the worst games. The most that can be said about the 360 in my opinion after seeing the E3 is that for online junkies, the Xbox Live system is quite advanced (Meaning less of that painful, awkward development phase) and the games are finally going to start getting good. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was the first “Must Have” game for the system, but a few others are finally starting to come in, including Gears of War, though my personal favorite, of the games I actually got play was Dead Rising, an utterly HILARIOUS version of Shaun of the Dead meets Dawn of the Dead, in that it’s a black comedy game about a reporter with 72 hours in a shopping mall surrounded by a horde of Zombies. There’s just something about dressing up in a lego brick man head and grabbing a plasma TV from the electronics store to bludgeon zombies with it…

Microsoft, it seems, is going to be the console to go to if you love ports of PC games, or sports games. While it has a few exclusive titles coming out for it, like the aforementioned Dead Rising and Gears of War, the really exclusive titles that fans of Japanese software development companies want to play are still reserved for another console. Still, the 360 is FINALLY showing off some decent games (I have played a horde of terrible launch titles on the console already which have left a bad taste in my mouth about the system) so by Christmas, it’ll be a system actually WORTH owning. Right now, honestly, the only reason you’d get a 360 at the moment is to have bragging rights about a next gen system, OR, you can’t afford a $3000 system to get Oblivion to play at max setting; for serious gamers, it’s just not there. Yet.

Nintendo

This is the one that has everyone excited. At first the Wii was exciting simply because the new controllers are so different, and during the press conference, it was finally revealed for certain that the left hand controller of this “nunchuk” system is ALSO motion sensitive. Watching Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in action was pretty impressive as the demonstrator used the left controller to knock back an enemy with Link’s on screen shield, then used the right controller to swing the sword down for an amazingly intuitive left-right combo attack.

Of course, what impressed everyone even more is the new rumor flying around that the Wii will sell for US$199. If this is true, then it suddenly becomes console EVERYONE is guaranteed to get, in addition to their “real” console, which will be a 360 or PS3.

Of course, it’s not all good news. The Wii is not the most powerful system and its graphical limitations are ALREADY apparent compared to some of the higher profile 360 and PS3 titles on the horizon, but my major concern, one which hasn’t really been addressed by anyone, is the fact that the Wii IS NOT A MARATHON FRIENDLY SYSTEM. By that, I mean the typical hardcore gamer who plays upwards of 4-6 hours straight, or MORE, will not be able to do that with the Wii. The game is best played standing up, and the constant movement of the arms will tire you out pretty fast. So while I’m excited about this system, and am entertaining plans to possibly get it, I’m also not completely on glowing terms with the changes its bringing. But, it’s cheap, the games are good, AND, you’ll be able to download old Nintendo games off of it, and that KICKS ASS…

Sony

If Nintendo was the cheapest, most innovative system, Sony has the most advanced and expensive one. While the control is nowhere near as innovative as what Nintendo has (Though it does have motion sensitivity built in) the console itself can calculate your hyper drive jump to the Mutara nebula. Sony’s not making any friends with the announcement of the two sets, one at US$499 with a 20 GB drive and one at US$599 with a 60 GB drive, Wifi broadband connection, SD flash memory card reader and HDMI support, but the system does look monstrously powerful. The two critical 3rd party software companies, Square-Enix and Konami have both unleashed TOTALLY FREAKIN’ AMAZING TRAILERS of their flagship titles, Final Fa
ntasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and so, for the hardcore, the battle is already won, with those two titles, a certain contingent of gamer is almost morally obligated to get the system, and I am one of those. However, in addition to that, titles like Assassin’s Creed by Ubisoft, and Heavenly Sword by Ninja Theory are also looking at this stage like amazing games that the Xbox 360 just isn’t offering. Yeah, sure, I can play Yet Another PC port on the 360, or Yet Another EA Sports game, but why would I want to when so many original titles are coming out for the PS3 and they look BETTER than what the 360 is offering on its older, less powerful hardware?

From an objective viewpoint, this is how I’d rate the systems:

Xbox 360: A safe bet. The price is going down, the games are getting better.

Nintendo Wii: It’s cheap. The games are brilliant. No brainer, definitely get it.

Sony PS3: It’s EXPENSIVE. And it’ll be a while before that changes.

However, from a gamer’s viewpoint, this is how it plays out.

360: The “worst”, but most importantly, unoriginal batch of games.
Wii: The most innovative games, plus access to entire Nintendo library.
PS3: The most beautiful and compelling “traditional” games, with lots of original titles on the way.

So my personal take is, the Wii is probably something everyone should get, and I’m going with Sony and ignoring the 360. Sony is doing some questionable things regarding how they’re handling the console itself, but the games are still undoubtedly the best around, whereas the 360 is going to be the port/sequel fest the Xbox already is, with only a few engaging titles and the rest being a mess of EA sports games and other ripped off intellectual properties.

Housewarming & Kingdom Hearts II

As in, that’s all that I did today.

The E3 Trip

Since things have calmed down somewhat, I can finally get around to addressing this.

There’s not too much to tell about that beginning as I’ve written about that here already, but the actual E3 itself is… to put not too fine a point on it, total chaos. Arriving at the Los Angeles Convention Center and seeing the waves and waves of industry related humanity crashing on the doors was an intimidating sight. Heck, while I was waiting in line to get in, the president of Nintendo America went waltzing past with an entourage of lackeys that I found both impressive and disappointing at the same time, kind of like “Well, the president of fun shouldn’t be so… corporate.”

I have discovered one thing about the E3. Though I’ve been wanting to attend this event for years, now that I’ve gone, I never want to repeat the experience again. While it is insanely cool to be able to play games months or even years before anyone else does, the noise, the PR smog, and most important of all, the Marketing Frenzy all tend to kill the fun. I got a kick out of playing the games, and I got a real kick out of talking to the developers, who all seem to be real, genuine geeks that I can relate to. But the whole Booth Babe, Marketing Rep, “Hey, let’s do dinner, hey here’s my card, hey, let’s catch up the next time I’m in town and see what we can do for each other…” All this stuff, while necessary cogs in the vast machine that is now gaming industry, really kill the purity of the whole enterprise, that being, these are games and should be FUN. The developers get that. The players get that. Everyone else around them does not.

So while I was very nearly catatonic with glee over messing with Heavenly Sword on the PS3, or Guitar Hero 2, and while it was righteous cool to talk to the Red Octane guys about Guitar Hero and tell them to their face, “You have no idea how happy that game made me,” and while it was MINDBLOWING to see Will Wright actually demo Spore… All of this is also let down by the noise and static and sheer mean spirited greed that is the artifice and mechanism that frames these efforts.

I guess that’s why I prefer to be a gamer and game reviwer rather than a software development public relations flunky. The job just seems irritating, thankless and not a whole lot of fun.

Speaking of games, it’s back to Kingdom Hearts 2 for me. This time for 100% and the secret ending movie…

I’ll Make A Longer “This Was My Trip” Post

Right after I get over the jet lag and this irresistable need to sleep in the middle of the afternoon.

Or that could simply be because summer weather has hit the tropics, meaning that it’s gone from unliveably hot to hellishly hot…

Still Busy

E3 articles are winding down, mostly ’cause the deadline for the issue is looming, but I can report that my birthday present from the Wife is the brand spanking new PC I am typing this on. Thank the gods, I can finally play more recent PC games, even if it’s not at the highest possible graphics settings…

Still Busy

Back from E3, tons of articles to write, all is under control, but lots to do…

Home Again

But no lengthy post, since I don’t actually sleep on planes and so am feeling lagged out and in a disjointed in that curious way that comes from not standing or lying down for 16 hours, causing a strong urge to do either one.

However, I do have an interview by phone with Radha Mitchell of Silent Hill fame coming up in the morning, so I guess I’d better be somewhat fresh for that.

The Retroactive Post

This is the post I would’ve made had I had access to the Internet at 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.

As is, I’ll just have to make it now and pretend I’m still making daily posts…

It’s My Birthday Today

And I am dead tired and ready to go home.