Pagoda of Gaming

It’s Officially Summer. I can confirm simply by the appearance of my usual monsterous form being made moreso repulsive, as on tuesday morning hayfever tooks it’s toll. My eyes are stingy and constantly red as if assaulted by bags of polleney death, my nostrils are now broken taps of mucus and the back of my mouth prickles on occasion. Not to mention the heat, that is making atleast 1 part of my body sweaty-moist at any given time. The past few days represesents what people call good weather, but in the mind of a present cretin of the internet, it promotes sympathy for the vampire. This entire season is destructive on my person and I really cant wait until it’s over.

When I’m playing Prototype I’m always at polar opposites with my opinions. Edge gave the game and 8 - and I’d have to agree. But sometimes the game can be a downright 4. On the good side there’s the candy shop of the character’s skill choices, the way the character throws himself about the city for transportation, and little things like the Web of Intrigue. But on the opposite there’s the horribly written cut scenes, the constant gameplay ending brick walls(metaphorical), and the stupidity of some things; like the main character’s wardrobe of leather jacket ontop of hoodie, ontop of white shirt.

The game is ripe with gameplay imbalance. One moment I’m taking down army guys by throwing cars at helicopters and then some Hunters (think mini Incredible Hulks) show up with their one hit combo that takes of more than half your health that has an attack radius that seems to encompass my exact vicinity. The bosses are equally rediculus, some taking about 30 minutes to kill, because all I can do is steal helicopter after helicopter to slowly shave the health off, because otherwise I’d be hit by the 5 attacks the boss is simultaniously launching. What’s worse, I feel, is that the game presents a concept that you should be able to brawl with these enemies like your standard God of War Affair, but you just cant. I’m always either a giant walking badass or a constantly failing weakling. I should also mention that I was playing on the easiest gameplay setting.

But at the same time, the game can be extremely satisfying. Grabbing someone and literally and violently consuming their being for a chunk of health and sometimes a 20 second clip of some dude’s memories, is always fun and totally relevant to the gameplay. And running up the side of any structure, even the tallest building in the city, with a simple press of L-Stick and the right trigger. It’s got enough good things in it to warrant attention and even to warrant a sequal, with hope a more balanced one.

I soldiered on and Finished Mass Effect, that is, I finished the main story. I was a little surprised to know that the game doesn’t remain open after the final encounter. Instead there’s a replay option that allows your level to be retained and continued, it’s an offer I might take upon. Theres so much extra story and achievements yet unnatained all set in a wonderfully eskewed modern Sci-Fi universe that I’d love to consume alot more of. I will say that for myself, that playing it on the easiest difficulty really made the game playable, as opposed to any other instance where the game would struggle to function as a game. It is a great game, but only in part because we know 2 and 3 are always on the way, and all round improvements are promised. Right now it’s just a T-T-T-Texture Popping good time.

Did you hear that DJ Hero is going to be £108. I’ve said it all before when it came to Rock Band’s pricing, atleast these days I know a little better. This may be the last mention of DJ Hero on this site.

Now that the M10 spoiler is complete, I’m less excited, more “that’ll do”. There’s officially no Wrath of God, and that’s going to make the white players scream, though they shouldn’t, since some of the cards they got are downright amazing(see the 2-mana Glorious Anthem and Baneslayer Angel). And for them to say that half the set is brand new cards is a little misleading - Alot of the “new” cards are simply reskinnings of old ideas. For example, they have reprinted Grizzly Bears, Hill Giant and Civic Wayfinder and all they’ve done to them is rename them and change the creature types, so now respectfully we have Runeclaw Bears (which remains bear), Canyon Minotaur (which trades Giant for Minotaur) and Borderland Ranger (which traded Elf for Human). But the set is warrant for them to make some cards that wouldn’t normally fit into a modern magic block so easily, the prerelese card is proof enough of that.

Today’s video is some early trailer footage of Fallen Earth - a post-apocalyptic MMO with more than a pinch of Fallout in the mix.

There’s also this following video, that is a reminder of how retarded Batman used to be, and how thankful we should be for Christian Bale’s weird forced bat-voice.

IT’S SUCH AN OBVIOUS TRAP! SHE’S TALKING IN RIDDLES AND THE BARMEN ARE WEARING GREEN SUITS! OF COURSE THE RIDDLER IS GOING TO FUCK UP YOUR SHIT!

I’m nearly ready to ship out come tomorrow night, at the latest. From then on I will be internetless for a week, essentially. I should have pleanty to do, and I’m contemplating Transformers 2 either saturday or sunday, and all the short distractions Aberdull brings with it. I have new access to Civ 4 and Fallout 3 (which both play surprisingly well on the Nintop) and ALOT of stocked up TV to get through. I’ll be Tweeting along the way, so keep an eye on the FEED for updates.

I’m a little peeved that I’m going to miss BF1943’s PSN and XBLA release. It’s been a while since I’ve sat down with a tight Online FPS and something that’s a refinement of old content that I actually missed first time round. And an experience the new console battlefield engine stokes my game boner like a BBW.

I’ll see you motherfuckers in a week or so, when I’ll have tales of M10 prereleases, tasty giganta-burgers, and ruling the Capital Wasteland for something like the 4th time now.

nights were so much hotter then

Ok, let’s do this. I said that I was going to post something this weekend, and I really should, so here goes. 3-2-1-let’s jam.

The Dueling Of Planeswalkers
For the first while I was playing Duels of the Planeswalkers, things went a little like this:

(I’m the Log) And online, my opponents were very….

But now that my Trueskill ranking is high up enough, I’m playing alot more skilled people, to the point that I actually lose some matches. There is certainly a noticable gulf between people who are new to the game and Veterans like myself, and I know for a new player how utterly cunted they must feel having their only three land Violent Ultimatum’d, it’s enough to get them to quit out of a game, and they do. Maybe I was being a little agressive, but damn, it fills me with a little bit of joy.

The same goes for how I see people having problems with the challenge puzzles - where the game sits you up with a near-impossible and convoluted soltion to win a game in a single turn. I blasted through all of them in about half an hour. Not to toot my horn to much, and to not and try and sound like an utter cock, but I love playing something that I’m actually good at for a change.

As you can see by THIS and many a forum post that Duels of the Planeswalkers is really polarising the community. My stance is towards the good side. It’s not supposed to be a replacement for either MTGO or the Paper game, but an alternative - for people who neither want to spend a fortune or have the surrounding community to support their playing of the CCG. The game also presents a rather level playing field, where everyone is playing from preconstructed decks (Though more like the Duel Decks and less like our modern Intro Packs). Yes, cards are unlocked, but the core of the deck remains the same, and most of the time the cards that are unlocked are skewed to be more interesting than powerful.

If you think about it, it’s alot like a fighting game and less like a CCG. Picking a deck is more like picking a character that has movesets and combos, and your opponent given enough knowledge of the game can react knowing the overall strategies of the deck. There is no way to cheat and there is no way your opponent can spend £100 and come to the table with a deck vastly more powerful than yours.

There are a few bad things. For starters and to continue the metaphor, the campaign is as weak as any fighting game. It’s simply 17 duels against the AI, using different decks each time and with a slight increase in difficulty. There’s nothing tieing the fights together and there is absolutely no form of narrative. There’s nothing that explains the lore of the game, let alone what a planeswalker actually is. The deck customisation, or lack thereof, seems to be the main problem. There are people out there who are after complete customisation between every card in every deck, and those people clearly don’t get what this game is about. But it is a bit of a pain to not have the basic level of customisability within a deck. The only thing you can add or remove are the cards you unlock, ergo you have no control over how much land you have in your deck or any way to remove some of the more boring cards in the main deck.

So what could they add? There is indeed DLC planned for the game, we know asmuch that there is going to be some Dragon themed DLC, with more puzzle challenges, more ‘campaign’ and hopefully more decks. But how often will we see releases? - Once a month would confirm my purchase. But beyond that they could do so much more - It’s the perfect forum for things like the Duel Decks and the World Championship Decks and even better, to preview cards from an upcoming set by letting people actually play them. Online Co-Op would be a great boon, rather than have myself sit there with a controller in each hand playing two decks at the same time (as I actually did to complete all 17 stages of the Co-Op Campaign). Some more personalisation options would be nice too - some more varied playmats and some more player portraits couldn’t hurt.

The people who think that this game’s release is damnation to the franchise can fuck off back to Magic Online, it’s an XBLA game FFS. ARCADE. It’s made by the people who made the XBLA version of Uno for christs sake. The game knows what is it is and it isn’t ashamed of it. Edge gave it an 8. And it’s deserving of it.

I also finally found an interesting use of my Live Vision camera too - to brodcast episodes of the Gilmore Girls to my opponents. I figure there has to be some distraction value in there somewhere, and who doesn’t want to see the Gilmore Girls. Had it not been 3am, and had I not been earphone’d, my opponents might’ve been hearing the show too.

Hillbilly Ghoul Zombies
I spent a nice 5 hour chunk of saturday sat down with Fallout 3’s Point Lookout. By far, I find it to be the best DLC they’ve released yet. Unlike the previous offerings that presented us with very linear areas to go through, with little sidequests and distractions inbetween, Point lookout presents a proper chunk of wasteland, ripe with random encounters and nice little things to discover. The story is pretty great too. The premise is that the swampland area of Point Lookout is a place for people to find a fortune, as the boatman puts it. He ferry’s you there on his steam boat and your instantly presented with a beautiful post-detonation fun park and a mansion ablaze in the distance - your first point of call. From there it’s everything from enterprising ghouls, Shotgun toting Druggie-Cultists, A chinese spy mystery, Hillbilly Ghoul Zombies, and one of the best hallucinations I’ve ever seen in a game. Perfectly placed in a post-nuclear swampland. And I did Everything. Including the sidequests that aren’t tied to Achievements.

I felt extremely satisfied when my character left Point Lookout, back to his Suite in Tenpenny Tower for some well earned rest. More satisfied than I’ve felt in the past couple of weeks with any game I’ve played. So uttery satisfied that I just dicked about on Duels of the Planeswalkers all night whilst watching Gilmore Girls.

I really hope that Bethesda keep going with this. We’re currently at #4 and DLC #5 is both confirmed and round the corner. I’m sure they’re making a decent buck off of this, so why stop? Keep it decent and keep it coming at a steady pace, throw in a couple of achievements and some decent loot for my dude to carry over with and I’m your guaranteed customer. How awesome would it be if Fallout 3 was my Game of the Year for two years in a row? Very Awesome.

And on a somewhat related note - Bethesda totally bought id software last week, Carmack and all. How crazy is that?

Payne in the Butt… Ha Ha! Payne to the Max!
As a longtime Hardcore Max Payne Fan, and I can quote you things to confirm such a title, I’m a little off-put by what I’ve seen so far of Max Payne 3. I find the decicion to move the setting to Brazil very odd, I always loved the depictions of New York in the series and the whole atmosphere might be lost without it, trading the cold concrete for the searing dusty heat of a continent that’s half-jungle. I’m not sold on the new look yet either, I understand that he’s supposed to be an old man now, but as with the city, Max’s appearance was part of the charm. And I suppose the old Voice actor had to go too, but given rockstar’s golden track record for voice actors, this might not be a problem. From my point of view this could easily not be a Max Payne game, and may end up being something that just leverages itself on the title of the franchise. All will be revealed when the game is released, I’m just alot less excited now.

Today’s video is the newest Starcraft 2 Battle Report.

After watching that, two things come to mind. First, there should be hella more of these, like once a week. Second, I really shouldn’t buy Starcraft 2 - because no matter how much I hope, there will never be a multiplayer RTS that will ever have a matchmaking feature to pit me against someone who’s actually at my own skill level. I should just play magic instead.

In Closing…
I’ve got some weird plans for the next couple of weeks. From this weekend I’ll be exiled to my Grandmothers whilst parentis wines and dines in Italy. Despite my initial thoughts, I should have pleanty to keep me occupied. I’ll be living off the Nintop, minus the internet connection, for the whole time. And as long as Steam Offline Mode holds up it’s part of the bargain, there’ll be things like Plants Vs Zombies, Company of Heroes and VTM: Bloodlines to keep me occupied.

I also finally got round to buying a PC version of the Fallout 3 Collectors edition. So feel free to call me an idiot, I just love this game so freaking much. I’m a fanboy, but in the way that fans of the original scoff at me for my ignorance. Though I could remind them that I did actually pick 1 and 2 up on Good Old Games… I just haven’t played them yet. If it arrives in time, it’ll certainly keep me occupied that week.

The weekend after (From Friday the 10th) I’ll be heading down to Fundee to play in the M10 prerelease and generally bask in the city’s glory. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to it. It didn’t take much to get me Excited for M10, A 2-mana Lifelinking Vampire was all that it took. The list so far looks like the best Core Set we’ve had yet, and Wrath of God’s fate still remains undetermined.

So what have I missed talking about today? Prototype, Mass Effect, Plant Vs Zombies. Stay tuned and I’ll maybe squeese them in before I’m Disconnected for a week. And hopefully I wont write another 1700 word post in the process.

You can clean your kitchen, Baby!

Having Words With The PSPGo
To get is plain and simple, it’s not the product that I wanted. My wants are threefold, for starters, why don’t you just give me a damn second analogue stick? It pisses me off so much that it isn’t there, the thing is supposed to be a playstation in my pocket (I mean literally, a damn PSone) and the games there used a second analogue stick - even if it were optional. Slamming a second little nob on there instantly gives every psp game made from that point onward some proper camera control, or a freaking twin stick shooter that actually has a second stick! And don’t bring the fucking face buttons into this, they’re not analogue and they’re supposed to be for jumping and punching and shit.

Secondly, why the fuck do you insist that beautiful screen continues to be all out in the open - ready to get scuffed to fuck in my pocked? It’s probably easier to build something flippy than something all weird and slidey.

Third, well, you actually get some points there - getting rid of the shitty UMD drive and bolting on a decent hunk of memory for a soon to exist online game store brimming with titles. Unfortunatly, I can basically do that with what I’ve got in my hand right now - all I have to do is get a bigger memory stick.

So no, I will not be buying a PSPgo. I’ll already have had one once they kick their download service in high gear. Consider this Words Had.

The MTG 2010 “Patch Notes”
Magic the Gathering is getting a major update, akin to something a MMO would get along the lines of a pre-expansion patch. The changes they’ve outlined are sure to be controversial, stirring up the fanboys as we speak. I suppose when it comes to MTG I should really end up in the fanboy catagory, so here’s my peice of pie. I like the wordy changes, stuff like “Into play” becoming “onto the battlefield” is all good, it adds to the fiction of the game. And honestly, it became a bit inevitable once they started keywording stuff like crazy(see Lifelink, Vigilance).

The Combat damage thing, I’m still trying to wrap my head around - At this moment I’m thinking that it’s going to stop me fucking about with combat damage, which at times I thoroughly enjoy. Basically, all combat damage has Split Second? Right?

I don’t think I like the removal of mana burn - I always found it to be extremely flavourful, the thought that a mage could absorb so much magical energy than their abilities could deal with. It brought a bit of science to the game - that all energy, especially those accidentally absorbed, needs somewhere to go, and usually it goes to a bad place. Regardless, I’ll be sad to see Mana Burn go.

Duels of the Planeswalkers
Whilst all that was whirling in my head, an ad on the site reminded me that there’s a MTG game coming out on XBLA, and that event is happening next week. I’ve always thought that Magic could do something more than Magic Online - something a bit lighter on the wallet - and maybe Duel of the Planeswalkers is a step in the right direction. My deepest hopes see this game becoming a success and sees that Wizards continues to add and support this game as an official offshoot of the card game, with many many sequals. It promises a grand Single Player experience and a rich Multiplayer experince - but after experienceing MTGO, proof of this will have to be in the purchase. So I’ll find out next wednesday.

It’ll also be interesting to see if they are going to integrate the new terminology and game changes to this digital version of the game - It would work as a fantastic bridge for existing players. And also, how many times will MTGO crash after these rules are patched in. I do however know that a purchase of Duels of the Planeswalkers gives a physical Garruk Promo. This is a crazy awesome thing.

Charting the Uncharted Beta
There’s something special in here. It takes most of the Gears of War standard of online gameplay and adds a Tomb Raider level of climbability. It’s very satisfying to jump from rooftop to rooftop chasing after some motherfucker, and it’s more satisfying to set yourself up a nice camping spot - hanging from a wall, peeking over the top of it with a one hit killing deagle. It’s surprising, they’ve added verticality, and it took me afew matches to reset my mind to it.

The Co-Op mode is also very interesting. I haven’t really dug into it yet, as there seems to be only one map available, but it looks like they’ve taken chunks from the single player, removed a couple of the puzzles and cut-scenes, and in it’s place some team player elements. It has Narrative. Granted, it’s probably watered down from the main plot, but it’s there. It’s good to see a multiplayer component like this removed, tweaked and tuned from it’s single player counterpart. Usually you’d be plonked into the same map as the Host to play sidekick. A Magical ninja person who wouldn’t appear in cutscenes or play silent bob throughout.

But overall, this remains hinged. The big question is how the leveling process is going to be handled. Right now, your XP is being called $, presumably because you get money for killing people - just like in real life. But will the money be spendable? will I get more than 12ish character skins to wear? are there more than 8 ‘perks’ to put in my slots? It feels less like a beta and more like a teaser - which is probably exactly what it is.

Game/Designer Rant of the Week
It came to my attention after playing some Red Faction and the Uncharted Beta that they’re both using character skins from the game for your multiplayer appearance. It’s a little dismaying these days to enter a team of 8 and see 4 people are carbon copies of Nathan Drake. I realise it’s a reusing of assets thing, and alot of people don’t care about their avatars. But when there’s two year old games like Halo 3 that are doing amazing yet simple things with digital appearance, and then there’s APB with it’s Barbie Maker Machine. By comparison it’s hard to take these multiplayer components seriously.

I dont feel invested in a game that won’t let me customise or show off, and usually it should be through an avatar - A character I create or a character who I’d like to be. I want to be able to display my cool shit so that people want to run away from me on the battlefield. And I want to be able to run away when I see a crazy looking, trophy covered, motherfucker coming towards me with a sledgehammer.

Having Words With InFamous
So I finished Infamous the otherday, and I have to say that the game has it’s ups and downs. Like a huge down in the middle and some nice peaks at the start and especially at the end. The story, and the seems Douchebaggy. It’s appears as a parody of comic books but you know they want to be totally serious about the whole thing. You could take the characters, remove the third dimension and you’d have a decent kids american-anime show on your hands. It starts with the explosion that gives your character his powers, and then after that the entire back story is played out through small snippets of cut scenes. I would’ve rather seen the protagonist as the Delivery Boy in action, delivering the package that changed his life.

I’m putting a spoiler warning here, because In the next paragraph I’m about to talk about the game’s ending.

It’s fucking retarded is what it is. Suddenly your enemy is a timetraveler that’s actually you from the future, come back to fiddle your dick and your future to face an enemy that’s described only as “the beast”. Surely this is a setup for a sequal, where you spend the entire game being the Scooby Doo to Inevitable Fire Guy’s evil plots. The way it was all delivered was all so sudden. I saw no hints of time travel on the lead up to the finale, and then it’s all summed up in a two minute cut scene. What the hell guys?

Spoilers over.

The powers your character get are taken to extremes at some points. The whole memory downloading thing he does is really weird, and is probably the most far removed of all the ‘powers’. But there’s a couple I think they missed to. For instance, if he can use electricity to glide, why can’t he focus it into a burst of energy and use it to jump really freaking high? Save me from climbing my ass up the side of another building - which you do all the time. The final power, I must say is certainly worth the wait. And that power’s surrounding mission is amazingly satisfying. You basically get a lightning storm rape button, that creates a trail of death in any specific direction you want - and by that point in the game, enemies are being thrown at you in a volume that you want a rape button.

The enemies are really odd. They’re always there and they always know you are there, and therefore they are always shooting at you. It’s really hard to find a quiet spot within the city. There’s no presence of Stealth in the game, and adding it would’ve been very welcome - I mean, your protagonist is supposed to be a freaking Urban Ninja FFS.

The moral choice thing is a bit black and white. To play the game properly, there is no middle ground. The game has essentially two stories, and straying from one after you’ve made your first ‘moral choice’ actually lowers your character’s potential for maximum power. It’s not really a bad thing - when you strip out the further choises the game presents to you it’s as if they werent there at all. The problem can be sourced, I’m sure, to marketing - It’s a unique selling point that simply doesn’t exist if you think about it.

There’s nothing like it on the PS3, but I can’t help but feel that I’ve played some of it before, quite possibly on another console. The game has little derivatives of everything from Assasin’s Creed to Crackdown - and in doing so it’s never totally it’s own product. But it’s still good, and it doesn’t take forever to get your fill of the game - as open world games often can, choke your fucking throat with too much content.

After the drudgery of the game’s middle section I was actually surprised that I’d do it all over again as a good guy.

So in conclusion, the PS3 has two games worth playing. InFamous and MGS4.

A Big APB Interview
Joystiq got a really great interview with one of APB’s Lead Designers at E3, and I totally missed it last week. So HERE it is. They get into a little bit of the nitty gritty of character customisation, matchmaking and the game’s economy. It alleviated some of my conscerns and stoked my game boner at the same time. And Let’s hope they don’t dissapear down a hole with game info as they did last time.

Today’s video popped up on Kotaku the other day and I find it very funny. Moreso if you understand TF2.

Le Weekend
I’ve been blessed, this weekend of the week my 360 is ressurected, with an extra day. That’s why I thought I’d post the big weekend post a day earlier - to make sure it all begins on friday night.

Goal #1 - Fallout 3 Broken Steel
Goal #2 - Fable 2’s ‘See The Future’ DLC
Goal #3 - Finish Red Faction: Guerilla’s Main Campaign
Goal #4 - Play some Prototype

A quartet of 360 gaming goals. But will the nefarious monster Parentis foil our hero’s plans to summon a mighty weekend of gaming?!? Will I order Pizza, or Chinese or BOTH!?! Tune in next time to find out, when I will touch on Prototype, Duels of the Planeswalkers and my usual gaming escapades.

It’s all about the Hamiltons, baby

#1. DJ Hero Stage Demo

Before I saw this, I was really on the fence about DJ Hero - the whole scratching thing and the music selection available in the game really made me shy away, I’ve never been into that kind of music. But now I’m thinking that it’s going to be a hell of alot of fun - this video is proof of concept for me, the only thing that will proove my purchase is the price. I think this is the only instance I could ever put up with Gwen Stefani - especially if I can rape her music by scratching the fuck out of it.
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#2. First Gameplay Footage Of Alan Wake

Not only did they show some awesome gameplay from the game, but they took Sam Lake - writer and face of Max Payne out on stage to introduce and narrate the segment. I have no question in my mind that Alan Wake is going to be one of my most favourite games of all time, and this video continues to convince me of that.
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#3. Left 4 Dead 2 Reveal Trailer

There were really two ‘what the fuck?’ moments of the show, one of them being the Final Fantasy 14 reveal (before we saw the ‘online’ tag. Fucking Grindan Shit) the other being Left 4 Dead 2. I had no idea what this game was - maybe a new Dead Rising Trailer or something - and then the music kicked in and I was overwhelmed. Questions still remain up in the air in relation to the first game and how Valve are going to handle the Over 9000 pissed off fans. But this gameplay has me sold. It’s more Left 4 Dead - and there’s nothing fucking wrong with that.
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#4. The Old Republic Cinematic Trailer

I think this Trailer wins the award for most Cinematic, most CGI, Trailer of the show. The Old Republic, from what I’ve heard through interviews and impressions, is headed towards being a more Refined MMO of this generation. With the storytelling focus and options available, along with how it tackles the liscence - may put a dent in WoW’s armour. But how can Bioware put a more Mature face on a franchise that currently tells it’s stories through childhood bastardizing CGI cartoon shows? Because it’s them mature folks they need, the ones that hold the Maestros and the Mastercards, that pay the subscriptions.
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#5. New APB Footage (2 Videos)

APB is becoming more real with each passing day. The Game is pressing for a Spring 2010 release window, and the Official Site has launched with their first Vodcast (which coincidentally is about future podcasts) - So hopefully we’ll see a constant stream of information from now on, and hopefully, I’ll get into the Beta. The customisation tools continue to impress me, which you’ll see in the first video. And the Second it the trailer that popped up at the EA Press Conference - which shows some of the game’s style and features all ingame footage.
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#6. Peter Molyneux With Project Natal - Milo Demo

It’s not so much speaking to a little kid that excites me, it’s more what Molyneux can do with it. He’s hinted at Fable 3 in the recent past, and this is a direction that he could take it. You could be the hero more than ever before - Allowing ourselves to be a game’s main protagonist is something that we’ve been trying to perfect for years, and this could be a step in the right direction. Think less about Milo and more about being Darth Vader, standing atop the bridge of a star destroyer, telling your commanders how wank they are and then choking the fuck out of them. That’s an experience I’m very interested in.
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#7. Well Bam! There It Is

I present to you, the Meme of the show. I was hoping that it was going to be the Epic Kojima Manuver, but hey. If anything it’s proof that Natal isn’t quite there yet - but seeing what we saw from that segment of the press conference they’re certainly on a track to making something special. Here is the video’s Origin.
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#8. Batman Arkham Asylum

There’s nothing I’ve seen of this game that’s been bad in any way. Infact, why haven’t I preordered it yet?….. Consider it DONE.
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#9. Splinter Cell Conviction

We haven’t seen Splinter Cell in a while, and what they’ve done here seems far removed from what they showed of Conviction’s original concept. I think the thing I like the best is that it seems all very simple - which is what I like in my stealth games. There’s nothing more I hate than being discovered by the twitchiest AI in the universe within the first 5 minutes of gameplay then having the game turn into a sub-par 3rd Person Shooter for the rest of the level. All in all, it seems like a more simplified, cinematic experience - consider me sold.
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#10. The Last Guardian

I’m sorry to say that I’ve never really played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus - if they were remade (without waggle) I certainly would. But otherwise, that ship has sailed. The Last Guardian - I feel I really should play to make up for missing the latter games. There isn’t much to say about the game right now, what we’ve seen is very lacking in the gameplay department, but one thing’s for sure, this game is going to try it’s hardest to get me to weep like a little little girl. Because you just know they’re going to kill off The Guardian at some point.
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I left out some of the more obvious things in my little presentation. Things like Assasin’s Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2 and God of War 3 are very much Known Quantaties at this point and I’d honestly like to see less of them between now and their respective releases. What I’ve tried to show are the things that really popped out at me this past week, and I hope you enjoyed it.

I’ll have a bunch of stuff to talk about in the coming weeks, especially when I get my 360 back. First on the docket is going to be the PSP Go and now that I finished it last night - InFamous. I’ll be having words of varying emotions in my next post. When exactly that will be - you’ll just have to stick around to find out.

‘Nin Out!

Kotaku has Bioshock Multi Screens
Though, they don’t really reveal anything we don’t already know.

Section 8: Your PC is your Console Shooter’s Dedicated Server
This is quite clever, kinda weird aswel. Like a dog trying to mate with a cat. I remember reading about Section 8 in an old issue of Edge, and it sounds pretty awesome - like Tribes meets Counter Strike meets Planetside.

Activision CEO Wonders Where The Price Cuts Went?
Maybe they went up his ass. He should totally go and take a look - and take that lawsuit against Brutal Legend with him.

There Are Atleast Over-9000 People Angry About Left4Dead2
I’m not one of them - I’m still living with the mindset that Valve can between now and the sequal’s launch - release several bouts of amazing additional content for the original. They did say in an interview with Giant Bomb that they are not done with L4D before the sequal hits. Don’t make me wrong Valve.

MGS: Rising Is Not A 360 Exclusive
I guess MS just gave Kojima some incentive to announce it at their press-con. He was at the Sony conference aswel. This leads me to wonder what the lead console will be for development…

Joystiq Puts Their Hands On Raven Squad
Raven Squad is a shooter, that is also an RTS. You are in control of both - with a button press you’re either an eye in the sky or one man army on the ground. Looks very Advanced Warfighter-ee - and it’s nice to see a shooter do something extremely different these days, to the point that the game is 50% in another genre.

Gamasutra Reports - There Will Be An E3 Next June!
Mark your calendars for the 15th of June next year! The article’s got some nice statistics from this year’s show.

And we have the finale in the Giant Bomb roundtable quadrology as today’s video.

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So that’s it. E3 is over for another year, and from now til the next we’ve got one amazing year of gaming infront of us. Tune in tomorrow for my top 10 video’s of the show - all embedded for your convenience - and tune in next week when I should have some proper stuff to discuss from the show given that I’ll have some time to gain some perspective.

THIS should be watched because it is utterly hilarious. “WHAT SAUCE DO YOU HAVE THAT CONVINCED YOU SO THOROUGHLY!!!”

‘Nin Out!