More Belated Loot

Here are a few other things that trickled in Post-Christmas:

The Wife is a big fan of stupid movies that don’t attempt to bash you over the head with how smart the director is, or how dumb you are. This fits the bill nicely. I have to admit that while I enjoyed it immensely, it once again drove home the “I’m an old man” point of how different comedy is in the 21st century from what I grew up with.

To me the pinnacle of comedy genius is still Monty Python, their movies and other comedies such as This Is Spinal Tap. Superbad is definitely funny, and it made me laugh, but I can’t ever see myself reverently quoting it in the years to come the way I might intone lines from The Quest for the Holy Grail or The Life of Brian. And to be honest, it’s really hard for me to imagine anyone topping the sheer audacity of the Stonehenge performance in This Is Spinal Tap. I’m starting to wonder, especially after watching this, if comedies in the Monty Python vein are still being made and I’m just no aware of them, or whether it’s simply a fact that the time for that kind of comedy has passed, and it’ll be a few generations before we see it arise again.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is one of the better games to come out exclusively for the PS3. Actually, if we’re talking strictly games that are only available on the PS3, then this is probably the best one so far. I joking referred to it as “Dude Raider” when I first saw it, and that’s really not that far off the mark. It’s a combination of Tomb Raider-y exploration, jumping and treasure hunting, combined with the duck/cover/shoot system popularized by Gears of War on the Xbox 360 where enemies can actually aim, and the only way to survive firefights to seek cover and strategically take your shots when opportunity arises. Running and gunning is pretty much guaranteed suicide. I like the game. I enjoy Tomb Raider more play-wise, but as a PS3 exclusive title, this is the one I’ve enjoyed most so far. Well written, gorgeous graphics, tried-but-true game mechanics and some excellent pacing all contribute to make this one a promising start for a new franchise. I remarked over and over while playing that it felt eerily like you were actually IN an Indiana Jones movie, with the orchestra and the manly fisticuffs that took place if you were crazy enough to actually get within hitting distance of an opponent. All in all, it’s an easy recommend to anyone with a PS3 looking to get a good game, and is actually sucking up time previously allotted to Rock Band, though that game is still played almost religiously on a daily basis.

REALLY looking forward to eventually watching this.

Satoshi Kon, the writer and director has quickly established himself as one of the oddest balls in Japanese anime, which is already pretty oddball to begin with. His take on the homeless in Tokyo Godfathers and his commentary on Japanese society in the Paranoia Agent TV series set him apart as a thoughtful, playful director with one of the most bent and random imaginations in the anime industry.

The best way to describe his works are “dream-like” because they have the same flowing, organic and seemingly random surplus of imagery that one normally associates with a dreaming state. This is even more apparent in Paprika which is about a woman with the ability to travel into other people’s mental worlds, a la Jennifer Lopez in The Cell but without the constant nagging suspicion that you’re just watching an extended version of R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion music video.

No Bladerunner or Battlestar Galactica: Razor just yet, but those are just a matter of time.

Restocking

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What does it say about your life when something to look forward to is the fact that a virtual shopping mall will actually have stuff in it.  Up until now, the “Mall” in the Playstation Home virtual space has been bereft of any kind of merchandise.  The reason for this is simple; Home is still in beta testing, and up until now, all that they wanted to test was server load capacity and how it would hold up to huge numbers of people using it concurrently.  However, if Sony wants to keep its promise of releasing Home

to the PS3 public before Christmas, then I guess they have to ramp up their schedule and get ready for the micro-transactions that they are trying to integrate into the system.  The end result?  This is the last day that the mall will be empty.  The servers are going down, and the next day there will be (free for a limited time as a “thank you” to the beta testers) stuff in the form of clothes, furniture and even property for people to pick up.

Another Boring Post

No prizes for guessing what I did today…

Cheap Ass Gamer Saturday

Because there isn’t going to be another major title (I’m not counting downloadable games when I say this) out until at least September, we ended up picking up a couple of other titles today that had been on our radar for a while but we just hadn’t gotten around to playing.

This particular title was finally picked up for one major reason. Sony had finally started pumping out their “Greatest Hits” line of games, meaning that titles which are older and sold a certain number of copies are now being reissued at the original price. Resistance, being a launch title, obviously qualifies as that, and at $30 is basically a steal. It’s a solid First Person Shooter, that does nothing spectacularly, but also does nothing wrong either, so it comes off as a pretty fun though not especially innovative title. We could have picked it up used at a similar price point, considering the age of the game, but since we’re actually friends with someone at Insomniac Games (the developers of the title) we would have felt pretty guilty about depriving them of the money since game developers make ZERO DOLLARS off used sales, only the retailer itself makes any profit.

Oh well, at least now when Resistance 2 actually hits later in the year I’ll have the story fresh in my head.

This title, on the other hand, I have absolutely no problems with picking up used, which is exactly what happened. The reason for that is the game is developed by Electronic Arts, a company which has been the bane of the gaming industry for many years (though they’ve recently started cleaning up their act), and while I enjoyed the demo when I messed around with it sometime last year, there was no way in hell that this game was worth $60. $25, though? Okay, that’s pretty darn reasonable.

The game is simple, but fun. And fortunately all the voice actors from the series are here, with dialog that’s genuinely as funny as the series itself. It also helps that the PS3 can more or less perfectly reproduce the look of the show so it does eerily feel like you really are in Springfield, but with better frame rates.

Argh. Another One.

The screen shot above is for a game who’s demo recently appeared on the Playstation network and absolutely blew me away.  Called Mirror’s Edge (published by freakin’ Electronic Arts of all people…) it’s essentially a First Person Parkour game.  Yes, you really can jump from roof tops, wall run and all kinds of other totally crazy, incredibly agile moves, without ever needing to break from the first person perspective.  And somehow it works.  The immersion is so great that in moments like the above (ie, leaping from huge gaps) I could actually feel my guts twisting when I looked down and saw the immense height yawning down beneath my feet.  I was kind of, sort of interested in this title as a “Yeah, sure, maybe” title at some point, but after the demo I’m firmly sold and want it bad.  The feeling of freedom, agility and vertigo is unbelievable.  I never thought a first person game could be like this, they always seemed stuck in the usual grind of “shoot, kill, shoot some more.”

Same Old, Same Old

Yup, still playing Rock Band.