Ever since the great Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life I’ve been waiting for a new Harvest Moon game that’ll blow peoples minds away. The concept is easy to play with; the overall idea of the game is enough to sell it and honestly I think that the people that loved the early Harvest Moon games would love to return to the franchise. Harvest Moon for the SNES is my favorite game of all time and here’s a game that could be even better, if it ever gets made, of course.

I think that it is necessary for the developer to create an engine that runs the economy of the game. Key to a great Harvest Moon game would totally be an awesome economy system where you, as the player, had opportunities to create your own story and world. Many of the games that have been released to date had some of these functions but in a very, very cheap way.

What if they did it this way? You choose your property, anywhere in the game world. Choosing the property is the first of many choices through out the whole game that drastically changes your story. By choosing a property near the water you have a great opportunity to get your money in the fish industry. Build a factory and export your stuff to earn your money. By exporting outside your village, you do both yourself and the town a favor by getting the village’s economy up. Of course, you could also build your career in animal care, vegetables, fruits and all the other stuff that Harvest Moon comes with usually.

I also think that a redesign of some of the things in the game would be necessary. By buying property you need to complete couple of stages before you can use the property for something. Stage one: security. It’s easy, build a fence around your property, by doing this you crops will not be destroyed by wild animals and your animals will not run away. Stage two: clear the ground. This one is a classic, you need to cut down trees, hammer the shit out of stones and of course get it all free from bushes and stuff. And then of course stage three: fertilize/prepare. If you want to plant crops, then you’ll need to fertilize the ground. If you want to build stuff then you’ll need to prepare the ground. If not, your crops get messed up and the buildings will fall apart.

The whole economy system needs an overlord of course. A major for this would be a perfect man. The major own the bank, and the bank basically owns you. By buying property you could easily choose to share your earnings with the bank. So, lets say that you have a great harvest and you’d decided that the bank would have 25 % of the money that you get out of the Harvest. In this way, the economy would develop because you have suddenly a lot of stuff to export. But, if you have a crapy season, then the bank stands for 25 % for the money that is necessary for you to have to carry on. So if you are playing it bad, then you’ll drag the whole economy to the ground.

All this, combined with all the great Harvest Moon stuff would make this a fantastic game. Of course… The game engine is important though; it’s almost necessary for the developers to create a whole new style for the game. A combination between Lionheads Fable II engine and the Euphoria engine would be awesome.

All this is a dream and I don’t think that it will happen for a very long time. All this on Xbox 360 and/or PlayStation 3. 

 I am one of few who actually believe in the Kinect for Xbox 360. The technology seems tough enough to power some big titles. Below you can see some ideas I hope to see the coming years.

Head tracking to first person shooters

Kotaku put up a video that basically shows that you will be able to sit down and play with the Kinect. If this turns out to be true, then I’d love to see this feature in future shooters. Keep things like this out of the multiplayer though! 

Dice rolling for board games

Voice control in different ways

Point at stuff! 

I would want to put out my soldiers on the field with my hand and also select them and say – kick the S out of these ones or something like that.

And hey, I am almost ready to put money on Peter Molyneux announcing Black And White 3 for the Xbox 360 with Kinect support at GDC or E3 2011 and that my friends, that would be amazing!

 Well, the time to shine is now – I made it to the university. I am going to study media with focus on PR for three years and then two years of mastering. Of the first three years, one will be either in Australia, New Zeeland or The United States and then the two following years will be wherever, really.

So hey, you’ll see some blogs from me every now and then because I’d like to expend my vocabulary as much as possible. Really, this is the perfect place. I love video games and I own two consoles from every generation since the Super NES and also, its GiantBomb.

Let’s get this thing going with some kind words about Rockstar Games Red Dead Redemption. I got the game the date of the release but didn’t finish it until yesterday. I think that it’s a fantastic game that has some awesome moments and by far the greatest voice work in any Rockstar Game. Also, it’s a game that you don’t want to end. The ending of Red Dead Redemption was great if you’re looking at it from a story perspective. But, are you looking at it from a gameplay perspective - then it was even better. I loved the whole getting together with your family part and seriously; we really need more of this.

Mass Effect 2, which is my game of the year by far this year, didn’t really do this and thinking back to it; it’s a shame. It’s worth mentioning that these games are very different, although the possibilities were there for Mass Effect 2.

Just before the release of Mass Effect 2 BioWare went out and said that there will not be a New Game Plus mode in the very anticipated sequel, because of the possibility of playing further more after the end of Mass Effect 2. BioWare ended up putting New Game Plus back in the game but really, because of that I personally ended up finishing the game and then going for a New Game Plus mode where I did everything in the game. Although I did stop doing story missions just before I got the option to basically get to a part of the game where there’s really no return.

Mass Effect 2’s perfection would be even more perfect if the player had the choice to get back to the crew after the ending. Or what if we could interact some more with Captain Anderson/Udina or just a tease of a future relationship with Ashley/Kaiden.

But once again, the game is as perfect as it could be and this would be small little detail that some people would hate. And hey – there’s some DLC coming to Mass Effect 2 that will tie the second and the third game together. 

The first review of my personal most anticipated game of - THE FUTURE - is now out on the webs and people are getting crazy! Nobody have confirmed this and that feels kind of wierd. Afterall - the next Issue of the OXM is going on sale 11 february and as far as I know - no game site even got the game yet?  Ofcourse - OXM are print and they need to get everything a bit earlier - but why in the name of god is a review of a game that are going be out in three weeks done now?  
 
Don't get me wrong, I am just saying that Mass Effect was a huge game. The universe was enormous even though most of the things were not available to visit and there were a lot of sidequest. With all the respect for the OXM - it feels wierd that only one person have completed the game out there and are ready to put up a review more than one month before it should be done.  
 
What are your thoughts?

So my company back here in Sweden just posted the Game of The Year article. For you Sweeds - www.underbarspelvarld.se. But for you others, here is the translation.  
 
" With a great story, fantastic world and interesting characters, this game stands as an easy winner. It's not the most pretty game out there but it takes something new further on, and that is what we are after.  
 
The dialog-system isn't that deep as the companies earlier project - but this just shows how many different ways thay can handle it and still make it mindblowing.  
 
Game of The Year - Dragon Age: Origins"
   

Hi guys, as you know I run a pretty big game blog here in Sweden. This week we're going to DreamHack (Words lagerst LAN party). So, I am going to have two major interviews with Blizzard and DICE so I would like you guys to send me some question. No Diablo III-questions though, keep it all StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm on the Blizzard front.  
 
Send the questions below or e-mail me at - kalle.kovacs@underbarspelvarld.se. I will post the show here on my blog so you get the information.  
 
Thank you guys, have a nice thanksgiving! 

Hi guys, this is going to be a short post - I just want you to know that the first track from my new EP is available on my Facebook Fan Page. Before you even ask - Yes, Mass Effect was a huge inspiration!

Become a fan and enjoy: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charlie-Smith/123714891317?ref=ts     
 
You can also find the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W40gdiqEwuk

Man, who would thought that living the dream would be this hard. As you guys may know – I am running a Swedish game site and believe me, ever since we’d take the dicision to have it as a full time job it have been a hell of a lot of work. The sad part – it’s not a lot of fun. But hey, you know what? When you have been working on something for month and then you see that thousands of people are appreciate your work, then it’s totaly worth it.

So, I am free from work now, believe it or not. While i missed titles like ”Prototype”, ”inFAMOUS” and ”Fight Night Round 4” I ended up playing ”Grand Theft Auto IV” and ”Mass Effect” when I got the time. That is not all though, I’ve been playing eight hours of ”Tales of Vesperia” and I absolutely love it! For you who missed it – the game was released just weeks ago in Europe. I have also been playing ”The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition” which was one of my favorite games back then and, believe it or not, it still is. Love the puzzles, love the humor and I love the new design, it’s awesome. Little worried about the controlls though. I ended up not using ”Look at” and ”Pick up” alot of times, only because those options wasn’t on screen. But hey, it’s Monkey F:ing Island!!!

It’s awesome to finaly have some time for Giant Bomb again, hope you all are having a nice summer, see you!

I going to be honest now - I don’t like reading. Last week I’d bought two books to read in school and then review them for my media class. First out was Bret Easton Ellis American Phycho. After finishing that I’m going to read Mass Effect: Ascension, I guess it’ll be just in time for the release of Mass Effect 2.  Enough of books, Microsoft send out the Ninja Blade demos for the journalists earlier today and I want to write my thoughts about that.

I can’t even remember when the game was shown; it wasn’t that long ago so it came like a surprise for me that the codes came this early. One thing that I already hate about the game is when the interactive part comes in the cut scenes. It’s nothing wrong with pushing a button fast, but to keep you alert; every time you are close to these parts the camera zooms in on your dudes eyes. It’s always the same clip and believe me – after ten times is just annoying.  The graphics were all right, the weapons were cool and the animations were good. That’s it for Ninja Blade, I am not completely sold yet, we’ll see though.

So now to the serious part: I have to say that almost every game, released this year, turned out to be disappointment. My two favorite games this year are Halo Wars and Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned. I know, it’s two Xbox 360 exclusives but that have nothing to do with that. I am not saying that these to games are better then Killzone 2, Street Fighter 4 and other games. What I am saying is that I completed Killzone 2 and put it on the shelves, I played Street Fighter 4 a little while and then I realized that it’s fun with friends, otherwise it’s just frustrating.

Skate 2 was the first big release of 2009 and that was also the first disappointment. While the skateboarding was completely amazing the world, storyline and the walking was horrible. I am a skater, and I can say straight away that San Vanelona is so not a skater’s heaven… I loved the original Skate, the sequel, not so much.

Since Skate 2 we’ve got – Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost And Damned, Killzone 2, Halo Wars, Warhammer 40 000: Dawn of War II, Street Fighter 4, Empire: Total War and Silent Hill: Homecoming (Finally!). Of all these games, I only enjoyed two and this line-up should be quiet amazing. I guess that the best are still to be released, and I hope that those games are going to be more fun then the ones I just wrote.

What do you think about the first Q of 2009? And what games are you looking forward to? 

I would like to write so much about Mass Effect right now, but I am not going to.  It’s been a lot of Xbox 360 in my blog, unfortunately it’s going to be a little more today. I promise you that I will write about the PC and the Playstation 3 later on. The truth is that I use my Xbox 360 a lot right now. Not only as a gaming platform, but as a media center as well. So when I get a little free time, then I just push the green button and I am playing a game. 

 I spend my weekend with Commander Shepard and Ashley Williams. Don’t worry; I will leave Mass Effect for now. Thanks to a fan of my site who massaged me on Xbox Live and wrote that I should check out Star Ocean: The Last Hope if I like Mass Effect. I heard about the Star Ocean series but I never got a chance to play the games. I remember the launch trailer for The Last Hope and I am completely sold on the game now. So I need your help guys; the game launches in late April here in Sweden and I would like you to tell me what I need to know about Star Ocean before I am getting into The Last Hope. 

I also got my Mac on Thursday and I am in love. I have nothing against Windows or PC so doesn’t get me wrong now. But seriously, Microsoft Office works twice as good on a Mac as it do on a PC. It’s very easy to find everything and it all looks amazing. This is a quiet expensive machine and so I am glad as hell that I am happy with it. I will write a little more about games on Mac when The Sims 3 hits the shelves. 

So, please tell me what I need to know about Star Ocean: The Last Hope. You can either post something in the comments or just send me a message. Hope you had a great weekend, I’m out for this week.