Blog

I'm looking to get into writing some user reviews and would like to build up a small follower base to help get things started.  I play just about every game that comes out, so there won't be a shortage of information once I get the first couple knocked out and posted.  For those of you that are interested, I've already posted a couple blogs about my impressions from each of the 3 major E3 press conferences on my profile.  I know they're over a month old at this point, but they'll give you a little bit of insight into my tastes and what you can expect going forward.  Thanks in advance to anyone that chooses to Follow me.  I'll have some content for you soon.

Sony had a great press conference this year I thought.  They were really well organized and just kept showing more and more games.  Even though some games appeared only in trailer format (Infamous 2, I'm looking in your direction) I thought that they kept the pace going pretty smoothly.  How crazy was it when GLADoS interrupted the show and Gabe Newell came out eating a huge slice of humble pie.  I know there had to have been some money involved in that one.  He said some bad things about Sony and the PlayStation 3, so for him to be there shocked everyone I'm sure.  I was pretty pleased with the titles they demoed and showed for the Move.  They probably should've stayed away from showing us Tiger Woods though, cause that was definitely boring and dragged on a bit too long.  Also it really showed that EA isn't really working too hard to integrate the Move very well on that title.  Since the swing animation was just a canned animation that fired once you swung the Move controller.  I was definitely surprised by the Twisted Metal announcement, and it was good to see David Jaffe back in action on the Sony stage.  Can't wrap this up though without saying something about Kevin Butler, his appearance was pretty hilarious even if his interactions seemed a little bit stilted.  Also the new Marcus PSP ad campaign was pretty funny, hopefully they can find some good games to advertise this fall, but I'm not holding my breath.   Overall, and after seeing all 3 conferences, I think I'm liking Sony's the best this year.  They were just more well organized and showed us more of what we wanted to hear about without getting into huge speeches about tech and spreadsheets.

Nintendo started off strong with the big reveal of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but unfortunately the demonstration by Shigeru Miyamoto was riddled with technical problems.  Those problems really had me turned off to the motion plus support that this game was now using.  I have since read / seen other testimony about the controls for that game and have a lot more faith that it'll play really well when it's released.  I can't say that I really like the art style for this new game, but I'm sure that's mostly because, like others, that I was expecting this game to have a darker look to it than Twilight Princess.  I'm sure the vibrant colors appeal more to a wider audience, so I understand this choice.  The one thing that I can't find any excuse for though is the ridiculous amount of "Screen Clutter" Nintendo has thrown onto the UI in this new Zelda.  Almost half of the screen has either a map, health bar, inventory button, controller diagram, or other gauge on it.  Hopefully there'll be a way for more experienced users to turn some of this off, since I know I don't need to have the controls laid out constantly for me on the screen.  I can't remember if Twilight Princess was like that or not, it's been too long since I finished that.  I was really surprised by Kirby's Epic Yarn.  I was just telling a friend of mine several days ago that Nintendo was blowing it by not releasing a new Kirby game on par with the origin of the series, and here Nintendo seems to be delivering.  The art style, while decidedly cute, is really slick looking and fits the character and environments nicely.  I can't wait to get my hands on that one to play with some of the interesting mechanics they've created.  The other big surprise from that show was the new Donkey Kong Country.  As one of my favorite SNES series, DKC was one of the main reasons I played my SNES as much as I did.  Here again though there was a bit too much of a UI on the screen,  hopefully it'll fade out when you don't need to see it.   None of the games suffered as much from too much UI as Metroid: Other M.  That game probably has the biggest mini-map in gaming history.  I may have to look into that to verify it, but HOLY HELL.  like 1/4th the screen was mini-map. The Epic Mickey presentation was good, but I could've used a little more explanation for what was being demoed instead of their creative process for what they were doing with the game overall.  It was nice to see the game in action though, and I look forward to playing it, hopefully soon.   As expected the 3DS was finally unveiled at the end of the show.  It was good to finally see it, but there's no way I can tell if it delivers on anything that they're promising until I'm holding one in my own hands.  I'll just have to take the Giant Bomb crew's word for it for now.  Don't worry I trust their judgement pretty well, since they're usually on par with my own thoughts on games and hardware.  Overall, I thought that Nintendo had a lot of great surprises and announcements and that their presentation went pretty smoothly except for the technical hiccups at the start with Zelda.  This year they beat out Microsoft for sure, in terms of most interesting press conference.

Microsoft got things rolling this year with some pretty good announcements at their conference.  I felt that the Kinect stuff that was shown was still a bit too "gimmicky" to really appeal to the core of the gaming community, and we'll still have to wait and see if there's a huge triple A title that will give the hardcore players a reason to buy Kinect.  I was surprised that they didn't talk about their Summer of Arcade lineup since they made such a big deal about that last year.  Finally being able to see a glimpse of Metal Gear Solid Rising was great, and I really think that the cut anything mechanic will make that a crazy game.  The Gears 3 demonstration was pretty sweet, even if it only really proved that Epic Games is giving us more of what we already love about the series.  Since the info on the XBOX 360 slim had already leaked out the day before, some of their thunder was stolen on that announcement, but I was glad to hear about it just the same.  Overall, I felt that Microsoft had focused too much on the Kinect software, and showing demos that didn't really make it seem very appealing, instead of showing more of their lineup for the next year.

The 4 S-Ranks that I have under my belt have updated now and completed the first part of the quest chain.  I'm gonna have to get on the ball and work on completing some more of the other games that i'm close on.  There should be some time here up until Crackdown 2's release date.  I'm currently enjoying Red Dead Redemption, Skate 3, and Lost Planet 2.  After watching several of the interviews about Toy Story 3: The Videogame, I'm seriously considering picking that game up just for the Toy Box mode.  Seems like a fun time waster during these few weeks where there aren't any other releases that I'm interested in.  I'm also working on a few pieces for my portfolio as I try to get back into my artwork.

I have 4 S-ranks, but for some reason they're not showing up and completing the quests.  Must be a time thing.  Who knows?  Oh well.  4 isn't exactly that impressive anyway.  I guess i better get back to finishing up some of those games that are either easy to get an s-rank on or that i'm close to finishing.  I think probably the next one i'll try and finish up will be Lego Star Wars.

I've never blogged before, but here goes. 
 
There's nothing happening in my life that's important enough to share with total strangers on the internet. 
 
Thanks