At least I was there for a bit. Not anymore sadly, as the summer months draw to a quick, sudden and ultimately wet ending. Anyway, back to the point of this posting. When I was in Hong Kong during my holiday, a city of massive skyscrapers, very little litter and, whilst I was there, the Beijing Olympic Equestrian Events (there were no suitable parks in Beijing itself, along with the worry that the smog would upset the horses), I visited Victoria Peak. This is the relatively famous mountain situated behind the Central financial district and Admiralty (where the Headquarters of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) apparently have such good 'feng shui' that just standing in the Atrium is supposed to bring good luck), and getting to the top involves either a long car journey up through the posh suburban Mid-Levels, or a quick journey on an extremely steep tram service. Upon arriving at the top of the mountain, you are greeted by a large building which kind of looks like a giant bird dish: the Peak Tower (see left).

Now, inside this giant bird dish is an excellent viewing platform of Downtown Hong Kong, but also what is probably the highest (in terms of elevation) EA Experience shop and arcade I have ever seen (see right). It just seemed surreal that at the top of this mountain, there would be a giant tower with a shopping centre and an EA Experience at the centre of it. In terms of games, there was Battlefield Bad Company (where things really do like to explode often), The Sims 2 (which was a bit dull considering it has been out for many years now) and Need for Speed ProStreet (again boring as it is already out). Actually, the best thing I saw there was simple a sign for Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX) sound from Creative, which was introducing our of their new speaker systems, and underneath was a pun to make Hendrix fans groan; "Are You EAXperienced?"

Turning to games, I've been playing some more Team Fortress 2, continuing with Tropico, and attempting to solve sound cache problems with Battlefield 1942, where the sound just freaks out and everything starts looping (though thankfully the game itself continues to run without problem. Even though I've asked EA support, they haven't been particularly helpful (considering their answers have all the personality of a depressed photocopier), and none of their suggestions have ultimately solved the problem. And ending on two important things happening in the world utterly unrelated to games; John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his VP candidate, and Hurricane Gustav is barrelling once again to Louisiana and the New Orleans/Lake Charles area. On Palin, she's new, she's a woman, and she has almost no experience beyond being Governor of Alaska for 20 months. However, it is a really clever tactic, because whichever way the Presidential election swings, the US is either going to get its first black President, or its first woman Vice President. Hurricane Gustav on the other hand has caused a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans (fearful of another Katrina) and much of the Louisiana coastline, and because it is heading over the Gulf of Mexico, the winds continue to strengthen until it reaches landfall sometime tomorrow. Anyway, here is a picture of the spectacular view from the Peak Tower in Hong Kong to round off (see above, left).

Giant Bomb Addendum
Not much in this addendum. Since this was post written a little while ago (several days) it's thankful to note that Hurricane Gustav hasn't made the impact many had feared it would, as it was downgraded to Category 1 when it made landfall midway along the Louisiana coast. There has still been flooding, but not to the severity or destruction which Hurricane Katrina produced. Oh, and I've grown addicted to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report". Most people over here in Britain will never have heard of them, but they are extremely well known in America as great political satire. Luckily you can watch full episodes online (when Comedy Central get around to uploading them), so I've partially become an addict for both shows. That all's for now folks!

Playing the Medic on Team Fortress 2 is a singular experience. One of the main background support roles along with the Engineer, the Medic is tasked with healing teammates and deploying Ubercharges to make characters invincible for a short period. The Medic isn't particularly good at killing the enemy himself: his syringe gun isn't particularly powerful except at close range, and it's rather difficult to get near enough to an enemy to hack at him with the bone saw. However, an upshot of the Medic is that for whatever player you are healing at the time, if they kill an enemy, then you earn a kill-assist and are rewarded with points. Deploying an Ubercharge also garners a reward. This is why if you plunge into any game of TF2 half way through, you will often find at least one Medic near the top of the leaderboard.

The downside of the Medic is that often, nearly everyone is competing for your attention. The constant shouts of "Medic!" from every direction or people on voice-chat urging you to heal them even when they are at full health can become irritating. And furthermore, hardly ever does the humble Medic get any credit for helping to capture points, or teaming up with the Heavy and Ubercharging him all the way to glory. Another point is that of all the classes, the Medic is probably the most repetitive, since your main objective is just to heal people by holding down the left mouse. As you may have gathered from the opening paragraphs, I have been playing quite a bit of TF2 recently. If I had to pick my least favourite class, they would either be the Spy or the Sniper. The problem with the Sniper is that you can never find a good shooting spot (where you might be safe for a minute or two) and if you do, I personally can never seem to shoot with the rifle accurately. I also dislike the way the camera zooms out after each shot, instead of when the clip is empty. The Spy has no particular problem; I'm just not very good at playing it.

Favourite classes? I really don't think I have one, although I like the Scout's speed, the Demoman's explosives, and the Engineer's building abilities. Really, it is quite amazing that Valve managed to balance the game so well, because rarely does a game go by where one of the class is totally neglected. In terms of multiplayer experience, it might be lacking in the grandeur of something like Call of Duty or Gears of War, but it more than makes up for it in hilarity and singular comic book style. It has the feel of the indispensible guide I keep with me at all times, "How to be a Villain" by Neil Zawacki (Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans and More!). And with the big updates that are continuing to be released, such as a plethora of achievements and unlockable equipment, it looks like the appeal of the game is not going to waver for quite a time to come. Also, I just love all of the Machinima advertisements from "Meet the..." series. The latest "Sandvich" version is just classic.

Giant Bomb Addendum: Some Famous Last Words
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."
General John Sedgewick, Union Commander killed by a bullet in the eye during the Battle of Spotslyvania on 9th May 1864.
"No."
Alexander Graham Bell, died 1922. When asked by his wife "Don't leave me!", Bell simply replied "No", and promptly died.

The holiday season is ushered in once again, and is marked as usual by sweltering humidity and temperatures, heavy storm showers, and enough assorted insects buzzing around to keep a biologist excited for years. And of course that means that many people are jet-setting off to parts unknown and known, or rushing down in their cars and caravans to the South Coast (if you live in Britain), utterly destroying our planet for future generations, and of course I am no exception. In fact, I am going on holiday to Malaysia, specifically the province of Sabah on the island of Borneo. Two weeks of Sun, Sand and Jungle. In fact, there might be slightly more jungle than sand, because the holiday includes a section of hiking through the rainforest, which should be exciting. I'm flying out via Hong Kong, with a stopover there for two days, and thenceforth onward to Kota Kinabalu. I will be absent for a fortnight, not that it would affect or concern anyone or anything. So that's that part over and done with, now onto the real business.

The other half of this blog is to do with weighing up slogans, specifically those for Sony's PS3, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and Nintendo's Wii in Europe (and maybe North America as well, I'm not sure). The PS3's slogan is the seductive and reasonably incomprehensible This is Living. It's normally written in the stlye you might find on the front of one of those expensive surfing T-shirts by Quicksilver or Rip Curl, all friendly and inviting. I for one don't understand this slogan particularly much. Are they trying to claim that the PS3 is alive, or maybe that you can on feel alive if you own a PS3? Possibly 'this' refers to the feeling you get from playing on a PS3, or that you are 'living' the dream of owning the product. We may never know. All we do know is that for whatever purpose, marketing at Sony believed that advertising that their console had consciousness would sell greater numbers. Still, it would look good on a T-shirt.

Next is the Xbox 360, who went for the solid, no nonsense but still incredibly cryptic and unfathomable Jump in. The font mimics that of the Xbox 360 ordinary title, bold and sleek. Naturally, they are offering you the possibility to jump right in to playing the game of your choice, and that the Xbox is the perfect device to do it. However, again there could easily be other meanings. 'Jump' into the swimming pool, 'jump' for joy because you own an Xbox, 'jump' out of the window. Maybe we should be jumping into the Xbox physically, by a matter transference beam. To conclude, Microsoft are just anxious that you jump for whatever reason. The above picture is the only one I could find on the internet where the slogan is easily visible, and isn't a particularly good example, but there we go. Wouldn't look good on a T-shirt.

Nintendo Wii seems to have had a crisis of faith with their slogan. It began in 2006 as Wii Move You, but today it seems to have changed to We promise to keep the world smiling... In the slogan war, I think Nintendo easily fail. First, their original slogan is reasonably entertaining, as the Wii is the only console which actually makes you get up and move around. However, there have to be a mountain of better puns out there (Wii Will Rock You?), and they really should have put more thought into it. The new 'slogan' (which seems more like a mission statement really, but it was the only thing close to a slogan to be found in the Nintendo Press Conference at E3) abandons all norms that a proper marketing phrase should follow. It doesn't roll off the tongue. It isn't short. Yes, it's inspirational, but in the same way that every Miss World entrant always says they dream for World Peace. I am made to grimace with suppressed rage at all the happy, smiling (and irritating) people. Wouldn't be seen dead on a T-shirt.

The winner of 'The Slogan War'? In terms of solely T-shirt design appeal, Sony. In terms of inspirationality and sales value, it's going to be a toss between Sony and Microsoft. And now, I must fly.

Giant Bomb Addendum
There is no Giant Bomb addendum, apart from these song lyrics:

I'm walking by the sea, and the shingle sings for me,
Crabs are swimming down amongst the starfish.
The rocks all clatter down, and the seagulls fly around,
But the whole trip rubs it in that time is passing.

I was sitting here, absent-mindedly drinking my tea and feeling slightly morose that I am just getting over flu (and in the summer to boot when the weather is just starting to improve), when I realised that I hadn't written a blog in over a month (apologies, I just forget sometimes) and I might as well write about something topical. So, with this big event called the Electronic Entertainment Exposition just around about finished for this year, it seemed the perfect opportunity. It felt slightly more like E3 this year than it did last year (despite, of course, the absence of various people who are now off doing other things), mainly because the show was held inside the LA Convention Center, which is just a building with the scale and grandeur necessary to lend weight to the event.

The Big Three

All of them claimed (as usual) that they were the most innovative, original and had gained the biggest profits. Microsoft decided that they would blatantly copy the Mii system on the Wii with their new Xbox Avatar system, down to the way the little people look, and having the Avatars star in various games. They also slightly took inspiration from PlayStation 3's Home, by having people chat to each other and play together, etc. Microsoft also had a bevy of games to showcase, from Fallout 3 to Fable 2 and Gears of War 2. My personal favourite was Fallout 3, which I am loving the retro-futuristic 1950's style (as though envisaging the future as was predicted in the 50's). They also had a variety of Live Arcade games, such as Portal: Still Alive, which I am guessing is a half-sequel with extra test chambers and challenges. Overall, a good conference.

Nintendo was rather lacklustre in several ways. They announced a remarkably large selection of new games and expansions and already known titles, such as a new Animal Crossing, GTA: Chinatown on the DS, Shawn White Snowboarding and Wii Music. However, although it is impossible to dent Nintendo's incredibly impressive financial record (which showed year upon year sales increases), all of their games have become extremely casual, pick-up-and-play titles. Whilst there is nothing wrong with this, and it is bound to rake in huge amounts of cash, many of the games didn't look like they would have long-lasting appeal. Focusing on the casual market is financially profitable, but it won't get people ever really excited.

Sony also had a large selection of game announcements and showcases, such as Resistance 2 (which had a 500ft monster smashing about), Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet and MAG (Massive Action Game, which apparently will support over 200 players in the same FPS). They showed off their sales figures though the medium of a LittleBigPlanet level, which was infinitely fun and nifty way of putting across both the game and the often dull numbers and financial results. They talked about how great the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player was, and how amazing the PSP was generally because of the things you could do with it (although I'm not sure what they were specifically). An interesting conference again. If there had to be a winner (and there always does), then I would say Micro/Sony.

Any Other Business

The actual keynote address by the governor of Texas attracted a very meagre crowd (since he was incredibly obsessed with the Texan game development industry specifically), as did the speech by the ESA's president (which had a good rhetoric, but did really address some of the problems facing E3, such as dwindling attendance). Considering that Actiblizzard (I am going to constantly refer to them as that from now on) decided to coincidentally hold their own press junket just down the road from E3 at exactly the same time, many journalists hot-footed their way over to find out about a new Wolfenstein, Guitar Hero: World Tour and much else besides, leaving the ESA to cruise along in the slow lane the following morning. Business never changes.

So, on the one hand it was nothing like E3, and on the other, it remained true to form, or at least, the form which has been developing since 2007. Will E3 return next year? I think so, but the ESA will really have to think up some changes to the layout and style of the convention if it is going to survive into the next decade. With other events such as the Tokyo Game Show, the Consumer Electronics Show and E for All (which sounds to me like an advertisement offering drugs to people of all ages), E3 will have to work hard to show that it is still the best in the business.

Giant Bomb Addendum

“This is Tranquillity Base , The Bomb has landed.” Greetings! The site is moving slowly at the moment, but that is understandable given the level of traffic and sorting out the various bugs and issues that inevitably remain after launching. Overall, I am very impressed by the design and layout (although the forums could do with an overhaul), and think that the site should hopefully prosper into a useful and informative resource. Does this mean a complete abandonment of GameSpot? I would think not (in any significant sense), though The Bomb will hopefully be sharing some surfing time from now on.