O-oh... battery's about to run out... OMG... it's gonna happen soon...
Can I reach the end of this sentence before that?
I COULD!!!
HA! Take THAT!

True, Leigh Alexander's voice might reach some high, shrill, ear-splitting decibels, but that don't make her wrong.
After seeing the E3 2010 bombcast I went back to listen to the E3 2009 starring our favourite girl-gamer-opinionated-blogger to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I'd actually already heard that bombcast but I remembered nothing. So I heard it, and truly, nothing coming out of Leigh's mouth, banshee-esque as it many times was, was untrue.
I coulnd't help but wonder if her "interrupts" and high pitched "heard-above-all-else" squeals are just a natural reaction to being a woman and therefore so easily dismissed in the world of gaming, much as it happens in the realm of sports...
 
S'all good Leigh. I'm witchy'a.

Reboots suck. What's been done in the past, just fucking leave it as is. Don't rewrite shit. Goddammit. This goes for games and movies.
 
Remakes, on the other hand, are awesome, when done right.  
Actually, not with movies. With movies, I feel the same way as with reboots. Leave well enough alone.
But with games... Getting to play games you've always loved, only now with better graphics, sound, gameplay and added content is truly a pleasure, sometimes similar to fucking or shitting even!

I just don't. 
Whether with movies or games, practically every single prequel ever I can think of has been in absolute detriment to whatever franchise it's prequeling.
 
This brings me to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I love the Deus Ex franchise. Of course, the 1st most of all, and I'm one of those rare bastards that actually enjoyed Invisible War, even despite it pissing me off on several fronts. So they announced a new Deus Ex, and holy frickin' mountains of poo!

And then I heard it's going to be a prequel. One question comes to mind: Why? Was it really necesssary?
No answer to these questions can ever satisfy me, but that's how it is so I rolled with it thinking OK, we'll see the "mechs" doin' their shit before nano-biomod augmentations were developed, and that could work.
Or, and after seeing the trailer with the dude with a beard this is what I immediately hoped, maybe you'll actually play as Paul Denton, doin' all the shit he did before JC was "activated". I could imagine tons of well done tie-ins to the 1st Deus Ex but still being able to tell it's own story. Heck, I always thought the Dentons were just clones, not actually sexually conceived blood related brothers but "clone brothers", so I wouldn't mind if in Human Revolution they made it so the protagonist was the original Denton from whom they cloned Paul and JC and who was also the 1st subject of cybernetic augmentation.
And then I hear the protagonist's name is Adam Jensen. Goddammit!
Ah well. I'm hoping maybe this dude's the 1st ever cybernetically augmented dude who, turns out, is also from whom they clone the Dentons. Gonna hold out for that possibility, which would make everything allright in my book.
 
One thing I'm just not digging is the "superfuture" looking environments. The original Deus Ex was dirty, smudgy, gritty, but most importantly, architecture and massive technology was pretty "nowadays". I like the black n' gold aesthetic but I'm not digging the superclean, refined, and "holy shit floating city over city" deal. The 1st Deus Ex had an almost apocalyptic vibe, or rather, a "slummy" vibe. So, like in the STAR WARS prequels, the past was cleaner? Well, I guess that works, if actually explained.
 
Lotta possibilities. Lotta potential. So here's hoping this prequel doesn't do what every other prequel does to their respective franchises and totally avoid taking advantage of the core setting.

I'm not exactly one of those "realism whores". I don't need one hit kills for a game to interest me. However, in games where you level up, it'd be cool if it was handled like in Modern Warfare 2, in that levels give you access to new abilities or knowledge. It'd be interesting to see a 1st person firearms heavy RPG integrate that concept into it, therefore preserving a nice "feel" to combat, where enemies, and yourself, aren't "bullet sponges" and instead the strategic use of your newfound abilities is what will determine victory. 
Wishful thinking.

I love STEAM.
Everything about it.
The store and it's sales.
The connectivity.
The achievements.
Oh the achievements.
God damn the achievements.

Wow... The Kroz series.
Filling up a few Kroz series pages has brought me back to those games in ways I had forgotten I could feel. The crazy levels. The relentless creatures. The expendable whips. The wacky levels and their wacky shenanigans. The ASCII.
 
Oh Kroz. Why have you not ever been remade?
 
I did find that flash version of Kindom of Kroz with updated sound effects, and it's pretty cool, but... Man, I'd love to see a Kroz game brought into the modern era. Specifically "The Lost Adventures of Kroz". My favourite. If I'd ever recommend anyone play a single Kroz game, it'd be that one.

What if governments took a cue from video games and implemented real life achievements which would differ from city to city.
When you're born, you're given a magnetic-band-card which allows you to access your achievements list from any terminal. The way you'd prove you completed an achievement is, for example, when you get married (the Get Hitched achievement, with variants such as the Bosom Matrimony Achievement where a man maries his best male friend) the dude joining the couple inserts the card into a little tricorder like gadget and unlocks the achievement with a special code only dudes who marry other people would have.
 
Wow...
 
Abort rant urgently!

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could get an actual physical reaction other than that "sense of accomplishment" when achieving achievement goals? Like an actual fat burning reaction or slight dick enhancements. I'm happy with mine as it is, just to be clear, but, hell, just like a temporary superhardon thing, so then you can actually achieve her orgasm! Or slight localized muscle tightening reaction.
 
Yeah, playing video games and staying fit and potent at the same time. What a utopia that'd be.

I've had this gripe for forever, and no, it's nothing original, but hell, now it's my turn to vent, dammit!
 
I hate the term JRPGs. Always have, always will.
Japanese Role-Playing Games should actually be Japanese Interactive Soap Operas.
Ok, lemme first clear up that I've played many of the "legendary" JRPGs like the SNES Final Fantasies, Chrono Trigger and Cross, and loved 'em. Those are dear to me. That said, I cannot accept those games as "role-playing games". If anything, I'd call 'em "Tactical Adventure Games". TAGs. JTAGs. It's even easy on the tongue. I'm specifically referring to the old-style top-down JRPGs, of course.
 
The thing is, in my opinion the term "role-playing" is awfully misused in general when labeling such games. If there's a character levelling up system and/or points distribution system, then bam!, "role-playing game".
No. U-uh. I'll never accept that. 
Character advancement by way of stats by itself should not automatically mean "role-play". That's tactics. It's a tactical, purely gamey system.
Sure, this system originates from pen-and-paper rpgs that definately used stats and levels and such, but in those games there was a way more important aspect : actual role-playing! The numbers on your character sheets were just guidelines... parameters... for that role you played. For a character you acted out as if playing an improv role on stage!
That is the gist of my gripe. "Role-playing" is simply that: playing a role. What role do you play when all you do is move your character from cutscene to cutscene, sporadically engaging in purely tactical combat? All your doing then is just watching a soap opera that you interact with in between events that are triggered by reaching waypoints. Kinda like if in LOST you controlled all the off-screen moving around from one place to the other of say, John Locke, so as to trigger whatever event/cutscene happens as soon as he reaches a set destination.
 
Now, to be clear, I have a gripe with the term RPG in general, but in this case, I'm focusing on the "J" variable because Japanese Interactive Soap Operas are just so far removed from any form of actual role-play, dammit! Zelda games have more role-playing in them than any "JRPG labeled" game! JRPGs just don't have the freedom of choice required for any bare minimum of role-playing to happen. I mean, compare the old Fallout games to, say, Final Fantasy VII and tell me in which one you have the closest resemblance to actually playing a role? In Fallout, if you feel like it, you can depopulate the world via shotgun blasts if you were inclined to do so. But in FFVII, do you choose to disguise yourself as a lady in order to infiltrate that pervert's mansion? No you do not. You have no choice on the matter.
Even "sandbox" type games like the GTAs or Red Dead Redemption have more role-playing in them than any JRPG ever!

Of course, I am aware that from a social and I guess business standpoint, you have to label 'em somehow, but that's not the point. What I'd really like is for there to be an awareness of the subject, even if only subconscious, whenever you read, hear or use the term JRPG or even just RPG.
 
Again, this gripe o' mine is not original, but dammit now I have it written down on the internets so as to be able to point to whenever I wanna bring this up, so, yay for me I guess?