Well, the 2008 Spike TV Video Game awards aired tonight, and I watched the whole thing.  Can I have my 2 hours back?  Please?  Yeah, it was basically a big joke, once again.  The only reason I even watched any of it was to see the "world premiere" footage of God of War III and Brutal Legend.  Anyway, I took some notes during the show and here are some of my thoughts on it:

- Jack Black was the host, and he did a good job whenever he was on stage.  I guess he kinda has an excuse since he's a voice actor in Brutal Legend, but most of the other people they had as presenters, had no reason being on stage at all.  Jack Black was only on stage like 4 or 5 times though, so he didn't even feel like the host.  They just had guest presenter, after guest presenter each time.  The opening to the show was really funny, but if you had shut the show off about 5 minutes in, you wouldn't have missed much.  There was an interesting bit with Jerry Stiller where Jack Black said "shit" after Jerry Stiller said it, and the second one got by the censors.  I'm sure someone got in trouble.  The very last bit they had with Jack Black and Tim Schaffer was freakin awesome, mainly cause they brought out Rob freakin Halford!  Plus Jack Black had a working flamethrower

- They had several musical guest performers; LL Cool J, All American Rejects, 50 Cent and Weezer.  I could care less about all of those bands/people except for Weezer.  Weezer "headlined" the "show" with an interesting performance complete with a choir.  It was interesting but I didn't like the song much.  I haven't listened to Weezer since Maladroit, and I have no idea what song they played.

- The God of War III footage was nice, but EXTREMELY short.  I think they showed maybe 15 seconds of footage.  I hope they show more soon.

- Peter Moore came out on stage to promote Fight Night Round 4.  I could care less about the game, but seeing Peter Moore again makes me wish he still did the presentations for Microsoft at E3, TGS, GDC, etc.  He has a great stage presence.  They also trotted out Mike Tyson to promote the game.  I couldn't believe how childish he sounds.  He literally sounds like a 4 year old.  I'd heard people make fun of his voice before, but I had no idea how he really sounds.

- The first award went to Gears of War 2 for Best Shooter.  Big surprise there.  They also said that it also won best 360 game, but they never announced the nominees.  WTF?

- The second award went to World of Goo for best Indy game.  This presentation had Neil Patrick Harris doing a bit with some "fan" in the crowd.  The fan makes fun of Mr Harris for being Doogie Howser.  Then he pulls out a fake (realistic looking) gun and "shoots" the fan.  That was an extremely stupid bit, and all it really does is promote gun violence.  It says to children that may be watching this program, "have a problem?  Solve it by pulling out a gun and shooting someone."

- Keifer Sutherland was given an award for his work in Call of Duty: World at War.  I have no idea WHY he received that award, there were no other nominees.

- I should note that after the world premiere trailers were shown, there'd be a little advertisement for GameStop that says "head to gamestop and preorder this game NOW."  Enough with the fucking pre-orders GameStop.  GO AWAY.

- The next world exclusive was for Dante's Inferno.  The game looks pretty interesting, but I'd like to see some gameplay footage and know what character you play as.  Seems like either a survival horror game, or just a straight up action game.

- Wil Wright received a lifetime achievement award.  He certainly deserves it.  His speech went a little long, but I didn't care.  He could talk for hours, and I would gladly listen.

- GTAIV: Lost and Damned looks like you will be riding around on Motorcycles the whole time.  Great.  I hate driving around in motorcycles in GTA IV.  They are extremely hard to control and I crash all the time in them.  Consider me not interested in this DLC.  The heavy metal playing in the background in the trailer was great though.  I wonder if they will release new music with the DLC?

- Best RPG went to Fallout 3.  It is certainly deserving.  The other nominees were Fable II, Warhammer Online (um, why?) and The World Ends With You.

- Next was an Uncharted 2 cutscene.  It looked nice but I would have rather seen gameplay footage.

- Then they showed a Terminator Salvation trailer.  Looks pretty good.  I was getting a Gears of War vibe from it.  It seemed to use a similar cover system.

- And then a Mafia II trailer - No gameplay footage again.  Not interested.

- After watching Silver Dollar....wait, I mean "50 Cent" do his thing while I had the TV on mute, a Watchmen trailer was shown.  The game looks alright but I don't think this game is going to turn out well.  I've never read the Watchmen (shame on me, i know), but somehow I feel like that graphic novel doesn't exactly translate into a video game well.

- Next was the award for Best Music game.  Rock Band 2 won, but the most shocking thing is that they nominated Wii Music.  Why nominate a toy?  They mentioned Rock Band 2 also won for best soundtrack, but what were the other nominees?

- Next was Studio of the Year.  This award confuses me.  What are the requirements for being nominated?  Do you have to put out more than one game in the year?  It seemed like just another game of the year award.  MediaMolecule won for LittleBigPlanet.  They also mentioned it won for best PS3 game.  Again, WHAT THE HELL?!  What were the other nominees?  Where is MGS4?

- At this point in the show, they played a video montage of like 10 or 15 different awards that were apparently given out, but none of the developers were given any praise, and none of the nominees were even announced.  WTF?!  I saw an award for best driving game (went to Burnout Paradise), best fighting game (Soul Calibur IV) and a couple awards for best voice actor/actress, but most of them I missed.  What is the point of even having an awards show when you're only going to give out 5 or 6 awards live on air, and then run a video reel of like 15 more awards??  Couldn't you have just put out a 15 minute video on your website or something?  Really, really lame.

- Next was the Brutal Legend footage, and the little bit with Jack Black, Rob Halford and Tim Shaffer I mentioned earlier.  The game seems like something I'd really enjoy (since I'm a big metalhead), but I'm a bit worried by the trailer.  The trailer showed a LOT of driving sections in the game.  Like half of it was you driving a car.  I hope that is just one level and it is not representative of the whole game.

- Game of the Year went to GTAIV.  Not a big surprise, but I was expecting them to give it to Gears 2.  Out of the choices they had, I would have given it to Fallout 3 easily.  Of course Dead Space didn't even get nominated for anything.  At least not that I saw.

So yeah, overall this awards show was basically a waste of time.  It's late, I need to get to bed.  I'd go into more detail about this awards show and why it sucks in its current form, but I'm just too damn tired......*snore*

• I just checked my Gmail and I've been invited into the Playstation Home Beta!  Cool!  (I think?)  Haven't downloaded it yet, but I will let you all know what I think of it later.  I've heard mixed things about Home, mostly negative, but I'm looking forward to checking it out.
• Also got Left 4 Dead from Gamefly today.  So if there are any of you that didn't buy the PC version, but have the 360 one let me know.
• You may have seen me playing a lot of A Kingdom for Keflings, the latest XBL Arcade release.  Its actually a pretty neat little game.  Kinda like an RTS but without the combat, just the base building and resource management parts.  I more or less finished the game last night and got almost all of the achievements.  It was a nice change of pace from the games I've been playing recently.  It took about 10 hours to complete and obtain all the different building types.  The game also has some multiplayer modes but I haven't tried those yet.  If you have any interest, check out the demo, I was very surprised at how much fun I had with it.

Fallout 3:

For the past 2 weeks or so, I've been completely addicted to Fallout 3. Last week I finally finished the main quest line after about 75 hours of game time. I certainly could have completed the main quest long ago, but I wanted to experience as much of the Wasteland as possible, and finish as many side quests as I could before I locked myself in for the final battle. After the main quest line leads you to Megaton, I put the next step on hold and just went off exploring. I just picked a direction and thought, "I wonder what's over this way" and started walking.  Most of my enjoyment of the game came from just wondering around in the Wasteland discovering new towns and locations and picking up interesting side quests along the way.  Once I had discovered all the major locations in the Wasteland I continued the main quest, but you know what?  I didn't want to.  I wish I could have wandered around an even larger world and discovered even more interesting things.  I never wanted this game to stop, but unfortunately, the main quest forces you to.

At times the main quest would be very interesting and enjoyable, but other times it was extremely disappointing and I didn't like the direction it took.  I won't go into details about the main quest so that I don't spoil it for you, but overall I was disappointed with it and the ending of the game.  There's a very "Star Trek II" moment in the middle of the game that was very emotional and impactful but I think it came too soon in the story. (I would go into this more, but again I don't want to spoil anything).  I think the ending was anticlimactic.  The final battle was awesome, but then when the action stops, and when the "boss" is defeated, all I could think was, "What?!  That's it?  75 hours and this is all you give me?"  You may have heard that there are hundreds of possible endings.  Not really.  The ending "cutscene" isn't a cutscene at all, but just a bunch of still pictures (LAME).  You'll see a few different still frames depending on what you do in the main questline and some of the side quests.  I saw the good ending, and then a slight variation on that when I screwed up something right at the end.  You could say I pressed the wrong button on the controller, but it isn't quite like that (people that finished the game will know exactly what I mean here).

Anyway, when you see the credits roll and you see "The End" on screen, that's it.  THE END.  You can't continue playing the game after finishing the main questline like you can in Oblivion.  The game is over no matter what choices you make at the end of the game.  I suppose it's understandable considering this is Fallout and not Oblivion, but in all seriousness, this game is basically Oblivion with guns.  That is both a good thing (because Oblivion is awesome) and a bad thing. The good points are obvious: the world is huge, the graphics are fantastic, the characters are all voiced well, you can be good or evil, there are many quests to complete, and cool items/weapons/armor as well as other things I can't think of right now. Fallout 3 has a lot of the same types of glitches that Oblivion has. Characters will get stuck on walls and other objects, some npcs will completely disappear and people have reported items disappearing from their storage compartments in their character's home. These glitches are all pretty minor though. I've experienced some npcs getting stuck in the geography (which allowed me to kill them easily). I've also had an important NPC die on me somehow (which really pissed me off at the time), but it was late in the game so it didn't affect me too much.

Overall, I really enjoyed Fallout 3 and I wish I didn't have to stop playing it.  The disappointing ending is really the only big issue I have with the game, aside from some minor glitches and the level 20 cap which I reached extremely quickly with only 1 rank in the +10% exp perk.  The highlights of Fallout 3 are the vast Wasteland and numerous places to find and side quests to complete, as well as the interesting characters you meet and neat backstory.  I probably won't be playing the game again until Bethesda releases some downloadable content, because I've seen and done pretty much all there is to see and do in the game.  I did start an evil character, but I'm having a hard time being an asshole all the time, especially when I know the characters so well now that I've completed the game.  Ah well.

Gears of War 2:

Last night I finished the single player campaign in Gears of War 2.  I think it took maybe 8 hours total play time to finish.  Overall, the game is much better than the first.  The story still isn't anything too special, but it is a hell of a lot better than the first game.  The most important improvements are to the graphics, both technically and artistically.  For one, I can actually tell what the hell I'm shooting at now.  In Gears 1 you couldn't tell a Cog soldier from a Locust, they both looked a boring grey color.  Now the drab grey is still there for the most part, but at least you can tell the two apart.  The Cogs all have small bright blue LEDs on either their armor or weapons so this makes it extremely easy to tell if you're looking at an enemy or a friendly in the distance.  Also, if you put your crosshairs over a friendly target, there will be an "X" in the circle telling you not to shoot.  I found that extremely useful as I had a hard time telling friend from foe at a distance in the original game.

The most important change to the game is the addition of color.  Most everything in Gears 1 was a drab, boring shade of grey (or brown).  In Gears 2 there is thankfully, many more colors.  This variety in color brings with it a variety of interesting levels.  There are levels underground that are not only brown like you'd expect, but there are a lot of organic things that show up in some nice greens and blues.  There is an outdoor level on a snowy mountain with a lot of white, blue and brown.  There is a level where everything is crumbling or on fire and you get a lot of red, orange, yellow, brown and black.  There is an "indoor" level with tons of shades of red and black.  The addition of color immediately makes the game more interesting and grabs your attention (and looks great in HD as well).

The story is certainly better than the first one.  You aren't just running around shooting Locust, there is at least some reason to it.  There is even a somewhat emotional part with Dom and his wife, but that soon fades away in all the gunfire and you will more or less forget all about that part of the story as the sinking of the city becomes more important.  The final boss was all too easy, and the ending wasn't as bad as Halo 2's cliffhanger, but it's obvious they are making Gears of War 3 (oh noes!).

If you know me, you'll probably know that I wasn't much of a fan of Gears of War 1.  I disliked it so much at the time that I almost traded the game in to Gamestop (that's a no-no for me).  I'm happy to report that you can consider me a fan of Gears of War 2.  I will be glad to replay the campaign in co-op with anyone that'd like to try it on hardcore or insane.  Multiplayer on the other hand, doesn't interest me as much.  If you'd like to invite me to your team sometime I'll give it a go, but I've never been much of a fan of competitive multiplayer games.

On Monday night I finished Dead Space and I'm currently on my 2nd playthrough. (That for me is pretty rare, I don't often play a game more than once). I can honestly say, this is the best game I've played in quite some time and it currently gets my vote for Game of the Year 2008. If you've been living under a rock for the past few months, Dead Space is a survival horror game that takes place on a stranded spacecraft. You play as an engineer, Isaac Clarke, who is part of a rescue team sent to investigate a distress signal received by the USG Ishimura, which is a mining ship stuck in orbit over the planet Aegis 7. When you dock with the Ishimura you soon realize that things have gone horribly wrong and you spend the game fending off necromorphs while trying to figure out what the hell happened as you try and get the Ishimura up and running again.

This game is all about atmosphere. The mood, the look, the sounds, the ambience, the lighting, the interface and the graphics all come together in perfect harmony to suck you in and creep the hell out of you. This game isn't the "jump out and scare you" type of game, it's just creepy all around. If I had to compare the creepyness to another game, it would be most like Silent Hill. The sounds, music and lighting are what scare you, not monsters jumping out in front of you, although that does happen every once in awhile.

Dead Space does a great job of engrossing you in its world. Once you start up a game, you are never taken out of the world and always feel like a part of it. While there are menus in the game, they appear in the game itself. Your health bar and stasis bar are on Isaac's back. Your inventory screen, map screen and objective screens are all projected holographically by Isaac in the game. Messages from crew members will be projected in front of Isaac in the game itself. You always feel like a part of the game this way. It may seem a little weird at first, but you will quickly get used to it. I absolutely love it and it really adds to the experience.

I am always on edge while playing Dead Space and the sound is the main reason for this. You are constantly hearing strange noises while walking around the Ishimura and you always think somethings going to be around the next corner. The sound in this game is perfection. It's hard to explain sound effects in text, but you will hear rumblings in the distance, moans, screams, whispers, objects rattling and the walls creaking. The music itself also adds to the fear. It is often subtle ambience, but when a necromorph appears the music gets much louder and heightens the tension. The sound and music are really something you have to experience for yourself. I recommend you turn the volume way, way up. If Dead Space wins any awards at all, at the very least it should win an award for best sound design. It is that good.

The graphics are some of the best I've ever seen and probably the best I've experienced on my HDTV that was purchased this past summer. I highly recommend playing this game on a large TV if you have the ability to do so.

The creatures themselves are like a cross between the abominations in John Carpenter's The Thing, and the nightmarish things in Silent Hill. They are all extremely creepy and they scare the shit out of you when you see one coming straight for you. That's right, these things run, they don't always walk. They are not zombies or parasites, rather alien in origin. One unique thing about the creatures in Dead Space is that you can't kill them easily by just blowing their heads off, or just shooting in their direction. The quickest way to kill them is to sever their limbs. Shoot off a leg, shoot off an arm, and they go down much easier. There are some exceptions to this rule though. A few of the tougher enemies will punish you if you don't shoot in the right area. I won't spoil the fun, but just keep an eye out.

You may have heard some of the negative comments about Dead Space, but I think they are all horse shit. Some people have said the game is nothing more than Resident Evil 4 but in space. Whoever says this is an idiot and should be shot in the kneecaps. It is nothing like Resident Evil. Just because it is a survival horror type game and uses a similar over the shoulder camera view doesn't mean its a Resident Evil clone. Clearly these people aren't even paying attention to the game they are playing. Or they haven't even played it themselves. Other people have said Dead Space uses inventory management and lack of ammo to add to the tension. Inventory can become an issue, this is true, but I don't think it adds to the tension. If anything, running out of ammo in a firefight and spending precious seconds reloading your weapon are what really causes the tension.

Inventory can become an issue if you aren't playing the game right. In Dead Space you can carry around up to 4 weapons at a time. What will happen if you do this, is that you will begin to pick up ammo for the 1 or 2 weapons you aren't using when you really need ammo for the ones you do like using. You will naturally find a couple weapons that you like and carry a couple extra for emergency purposes. I had this issue at first, but I have a solution: I decided to carry around only 3 weapons. 2 main ones and then 1 for emergencies. Later in the game, I found I was getting tons of drops for the 1 weapon I didn't like to use much. That extra ammo fills up space I could be using for other things. Then I decided to just carry 2 weapons around (my 2 upgraded ones). This completely solved the problem and I never again had an issue with inventory management.

Aside from this one minor problem, there is nothing negative I can say about this game. Overall the game is fantastic. It's as close to perfection as you can get. I've had an absolute blast playing this game and I highly recommend it to everyone. I feel like this is 2008's BioShock, only Dead Space is suffering by being released around the time when other huge sequels are coming out like Saints Row 2, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Resistance 2, Gears of Wars 2 and several others. BioShock did it right by releasing in August when you weren't being barraged by dozens of other AAA titles. Its a shame really, because this game deserves as much attention as those other games are receiving, if not more so. Do yourself a favor and check this game out.

Do you remember 9/9/99? Today marks the 9th birthday of Sega's last video game console, the Sega Dreamcast. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge this date on my blog and bring some attention to the much loved Dreamcast. I don't have a fancy video to show you, or even a picture of my own Dreamcast, but I will tell you of my initial experiences with the console.