SuperMary Productions!

Biiiiig Post incoming! Let’s get right to it!

Microsoft

Microsoft’s presentation was well done. Very big and beautiful with tons of information. I’m so glad they skipped the “Look how bad ass we are” boasting everyone else loves. While great for shareholders it makes for an absolutely boring presentation for the press. Let’s get to the games.

Beatles Rock Band… oh yes please! Unfortunately, the video feed during the conference was so shoddy couldn’t see much of anything as far as actual game footage. The addition of up to three vocal tracks makes for a great expansive experience. Fortunately, they shared the gameplay trailer - and I gotta say whoooo momma! They made vocals quite intricate indeed. Harmonix you have to… HAVE TO implement vocal practice mode now. Seriously, the fact it’s not in Rock Band 2 pisses me off beyond belief, so don’t throw in multiple vocal inputs without adding an honest and effective vocal practice. Also donating the money spent on exclusive DLC for “All You Need Is Love” track for Doctors Without Borders - cute. Adding McCartney and Ringo to the show - nice. Additionally hilarious since they seemed lost.

Tony Hawk: Ride. OK then. The skate board controller looks well constructed - I wish Tony luck on revitalizing his dying franchise but I advise that if this doesn’t work he please just stop.

Modern Warfare 2 looks pretty tasty. I like how the screen is kept clean by having the mini map attached to the gun. I even like how zooming on your target you loose the advantage of seeing that map. And the terrain looks absolutely beautiful. But Dan has a point, the low visibility snowstorm (that looks great) needs to affect the AI. Too many FPS games are being released with gorgeous yet obstructing visuals that affect the player only.

FFXIII - *sigh*. I’ve been jaded by FFXII to put too much weight into the franchise further. The constant release/re-release/re-mastered release/re-master re-release of everything FFVII has only furthered that bitter. I want FFXIII to do well I really do - but I have serious hang ups with FFXII that leaves me worry for the direction of the franchise’s future.

Shadow Complex - what an interesting game! The style is familiar retro arcade-esque, yet incredibly unique and innovative. I really want to see more of this, and am glad it’s being released soon.

Joy Ride. Avatar racing game? Pass. Oh wait… free? Ok then. Wait, I have to buy most of the content? Pass. Oh wait, I can play them if someone else has them? You know - I don’t really care anymore. Moving on.

Left For Dead 2 - I’m interested in. I *LOVE* Left for Dead it’s my favorite shooter by far. But I really wish it’d work like Rock Band where I can install maps from Left for Dead to use in the new release. Tired of shelving previous shooters.

I’m not interested in Splinter Cell: Conviction so much because I have enough FPSs as is. But honestly this biggest lack of appeal of the franchise is Tom Clancy’s name splattered all over the thing. So sick of egotism like that. Use the awesomeness of your game to sell your game - not your damn name. The movie-esqueness of the playthrough was intriguing and I’m sure Luke’s gonna love this game. But I’ll pass.

Forza 3 looks gorgeous enough and I found it interesting they demoed it from first person view and not third. User generated content seems a bit lacking, but it seems only the cartoon-ey family games go further in depth so I shouldn’t expect much.

It’s hard to support Halo after each game release in the franchise cut gameplay out with each release. The original was immerse and long, the second was ridiculously short, and the third… well let’s just say when we got warmed up, it was over. I don’t want to support a franchise that charges $60 for new maps on multiplayer modes. Halo 3 ODST looks great - but will have to give me more than 10 hours gameplay for my investment. I’m done getting ripped off for glorified expansions. Yes, I know the game is dramatically different, but swapping out Master Chief and switching up the UI is not enough to warrant a pathetically short story mode. Additionally if both Halo Reach and Halo 3 ODST do not deliver a long progressive story mode - I’ll be done and never look back.

Xbox Live news was fulfilling as well. Last.fm free to gold members - not bad. Also improving the Netflix experience with instant play and add to queue thru Xbox - nice! Finally adding the sharing of Netflix with friends and family - thank you! You mentioned that before last E3, but we never saw it delivered, this feature is a very welcome one.

The partnership with Facebook and Twitter was an incredibly smart move on Xbox’s part. They do well making sure every home has an Xbox… and this only helps. I originally rolled by eyes - until I realized how much they integrated it - very awesome. Implementing Facebook friends with their Xbox gamertags - such a simple idea but so genius. Seriously. Facebook Connect is simply brilliant - screenshot and upload direct to Facebook, again - nice work.

Sky TV too - not sure about that so much (unfamiliar with them I mean) but again, great way to expand the audience. Integrating and not ignoring Zune - well done, about time you gave an advantage to having both. What about that Zune phone mentioned before tho?

Metal Gear coming to Xbox? Ha-ha!Way to snipe PS3 exclusive two years in a row Microsoft. The fact that Sony refuses to price drop as their headliners get stolen does not bode well for them.

The motion control, Project Natal, I don’t know… so hard to say. Speech Recognition and full body capture is a great idea. But no controllers? It’s hard for me to believe that it does as well as the video shows. For one thing, it’s movements look too general and broad, and I really would like to see it does as well as advertised, but I seriously, VERY seriously doubt it. Even on the demo you can see the bugs. Good luck guys.

Nintendo

New Super Mario Brothers on the Wii - I gotta say is a pleasant surprise. The original platforming levels with a multiplayer aspect is a lot of fun. You see, I’m having issue with party games staying fresh and challenging for all. When you play a mini game frenzy, some friends are better at some games than others. This leads to boredom pretty fast. You could play a pure vengeance game of Smash Bros Brawl - but those have limited set stages and fights could lead to hostility. With the Mario landscape, even with competition, you have the randomness of original Mario landscaping. It leads to more randomness to winning and team work with cooperation.

Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. Kinda scary, kinda cute - still mostly scary. The Super Mario RPG type of controls tho are some of my favorites.

And Super Mario Galaxy 2? Not too shabby. I love me some Yoshi and the original galaxy game was done so well, it’d be a shame to see it left alone after such a great debut.

Will have to find some footage of Zelda’s new game Spirit Tracks somewhere. Not much info on it during the press conference - but it’s apparently playable on the show floor. Oh! found some.

Wii motion plus is something that amuses me. First, it’s the second year in a row it’s been a highlight of E3. Second… this is what the wiimote was suppose to do in the first place. There’s also a lot of chatter discussing how having true motion capture is a faulty idea - basically asking people to be professionals to be successful in the game. Although, that motivation isn’t really a bad one. The controls do look well done, and it’d be interesting to see how well it compares with the next gen’s attempts. The more in-depth look of Wii Sports Resort was good tho. I, for sure, want to pick that up when it releases.

The Wii Vitality sensor on the other hand… um… yeah. I’ll pass. What the hell do we use that for?

Wii Fit Plus - well I’m glad they finally fixed the biggest issues with the game - especially the inability to set up a pre-designated workout routine was a huge HUGE fault with the original Wii Fit. Unfortunately, their focus is primarily fun, and I really don’t think the that should be the focus with the Western consumer market. We shouldn’t compromise a serious work out routine for fun. And while I do enjoy the balance board peripheral, I think the focus on the board for every exercise is unnecessary and faulty at times. The additional new mini-games are, at first glance at least, more rehashed balance games. I think it’s a step in the right direction, but I hope that they have more to offer than what could fit on a patch for the current Wii Fit.

Conduit, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, and Dead Space: Extraction all look promising. I wish all of these hardcore titles weren’t FPS tho. You can appeal to the hardcore gamers without guns, promise.

Metroid: Other M WOW!! I am REALLY intrigued. Seeing Nintendo pair up with Team Ninja was a surprise, a very welcome suprise. High expectations for that project to say the least.

Still haven’t seen any reason to get a DSI - despite what they keep saying. It’s cute I can upload pictures of my friends with cat ears and whiskers to Facebook - except for the fact I’M NOT TWELVE. The Mario Mini game looks good - just haven’t seen why this can’t be a DS Lite game.

Overall, I do have to applaud Nintendo for constantly pushing the boundaries of interactivity. But with a strong opposition from both Sony and Microsoft on better motion control, will a second look at a delayed add-on to the Wiimote be enough to make the console stay #1? Nintendo’s Wii had the advantage of being the only motion control available (six-axis doesn’t count, since it was a joke), and it was worth skipping on graphics for the added interactivity. But now we have next gen games with better presented motion control products, good thing they announced two Mario games to distract everyone.

But without question Nintendo’s presentation did loads better than last year. They were definitely more focused on products and less about boasting. While the conversation dipped a bit when talking about goals, it still had a point. And more importantly, they addressed the desires of hardcore gamers who want more which they grossly neglected last year.

Sony

Overblown confidence is without question the theme of the conference. It’s funny to hear the exact same line of ‘this being the year of sony’ two years now. I know I wouldn’t say it after saying it last year and then failing. At least they immediately addressed the question of “price drop” by coming on strong with “we’re the shit, we got the best shit, and you need this shit”. Seriously guys… get a grip on reality. Perfect family console? Hardly. And if you’re going to bore us with statistics, you shoulda just used your Little Big Planet presentation mechanic… that was good.

Seriously are you guys STILL going on about how you’re awesome? UGH move on to the games already!!

Focus on the past much? Really pushing the success story with “Look how well these things sold”

OH! Finally! we’re into the upcoming games part! Only took… forever.

So now we have a slow boring presentation of Uncharted 2 that somehow impressed an audience (who apparently never seen a single second of Mirror’s Edge/Assassin Creed/Prince of Persia). While I like real time gameplay footage, the level of play chosen certainly did lack uniqueness that sets it apart from any other open world action games. I believe a trailer would’ve done it more justice. Additionally, physics in the game seem to be unsure of itself. A desk can hold back a helicopter gun turret’s onslaught of bullets but seconds later gets sucked away like a sheet paper.

Again with interesting concepts comes Mag. But I don’t believe more players make for a better experience. Especially when you’re speaking of 265 players, I think this really hurts hardcore players. You go from dealing a few dumbasses sneaking into your game and screwing shit up, to dealing with a hundred or so doing this. The appeal of multiplayer FPS is organized teamwork, and I don’t understand how you can get anything like that with a team of 132. I’m perplexed that a game this size will be hosted on PSN (which generally has a lower online player count) which has a reputation of being shoddy online service. Again, very questionable.

Overall Sony seems to have a lack of content, this is apparent with a long preview into each game.

The casual approach Sony took with Hannah Montanna, Pets, Patapon, Loco Roco was brief and selective. Hard to buy into the “family friendly” nonsense with that line up.

I do feel bad that the big headliner of PSP Go! was spoiled for them, I feel worse they went with the name “Go!” *sigh* And adding something like “Sense me” is not a selling point, k? a program that picks my music based on what I listen to and guesses my “mood”? It’s been done so many times before, mostly on online radio stations. Good luck guys - but what Amazon recommends for me based on my music downloads makes me bitter. Trying to blanket-ly assume what people want to hear by guessing their mood is not something I see as a selling point.

And PSP Go! for the cost of a Wii and more than an arcade bundle of a 360? - pass.

Metal Gear: Peacewalker for the PSP. The demo: Here’s snake running. Here’s snake crawling. Here’s him sneaking. Here’s him walking. Here’s him sneaking up to something. OH! He cracked a guys neck! And now he’s walking again. I know Metal Gear games deal with quite a bit of stealth, I just don’t imagine this game has nothing *but* stealth. Altho I have to say - the part in the demo with the cardboard box (at 6:05 of the below video). Hilarious. Awesome.

Assassin’s Creed 2 - Very impressed. The initial look shows vast improvement in AI and user controls. Assassin’s Creed I think is a very well done game and this looks like it has so much more on top of an incredibly solid platform.

FFXIII I talked about earlier. FFXIV. *sigh* Lost a bit more faith in the franchise.

So now we’re at the the new motion controller. Well done with the true 1 to 1 ratio, it does look very accurate and very fast. The combination of camera + wand I think will put this thing over the top of the others. The demo was good - really sold Dan and I with the demo of the sword and shield. Everything about it looked amazingly responsive.

Modnation Racers looks like a lot of fun. At first glance is a simple Mario Kart rip off, but the customizable track and the ease of use on creation tools for the user (like Little Big Planet) makes it impressive. Overall if I had a PS3, I think I would prefer to play it over Mario Kart.

The Last Guardian looks absolutely beautiful. Just awesome. But I know Eiko, and I know Shadow of the Colossus and because of those - I know depressing. I couldn’t bring myself to play it.

Gran Turismo 5, you have a loooooot of hype behind you, you best be the greatest racing game anyone has ever played, especially after releasing the not-so-great promo disc. Some fear your promo experience is too realistic, and yes, that can be a bad thing.

God of War 3 my biggest problem with you is the lack of love I feel for your main character. I like Master Chief and I like Mario, give me someone who I don’t go “GOD what a whiny bitch!”. Adam Sessler said it best “someone get this guy a live journal and a Linkin Park cd”. I applaud your ambition you have for your game by constantly pushing the graphics and gameplay with each new release, it does have me interested - but without a price drop for the PS3 - interested is all you’re going to get from me.

All in all - most of the videos were repetitious. And for home viewing, they were hard to see. I know they want to minimize the videos so the audience at E3 gets the better effect and people have reason to see trailers they distribute on their sites, but on our 52″ TV, I was squinting to see footage and got a freakin headache. Even tho there were highlights - I’m still disappointed with their presentation - mostly because of the same old bullshit of no price drop because we’re the best thing in this entire world attitude. They focused so much on only exclusive content which there wasn’t much of, so they drew it all out. I really wish they would’ve had more confrontation about the “family friendly” aspect they claimed with no show. They should’ve gotten shit for it, like Nintendo did last year by saying they had hardcore games but really had nothing.

Seriously tho, I cannot take any more of this self-promoting bullshit. Get over yourself Sony. “It’s not only exclusive on the PS3, it’s only possible on the PS3″. Really? REALLY?!

Small conclusion of coverage:

It’s definitely the year of interactivity. The demo of the different uses of the motion controllers up and coming was bested by Sony. While Microsoft does have greater advantages with the speech recognition, full body capture, and being the only one that’s controller free, it looks like they set the bar too high. The “Milo” demonstration from Peter Molyneux was decent, but the other implements had noticeable lag/bugs. And while they look minor now, if they don’t improve before release, they will simply be too inaccurate to really use and enjoy. Nintendo’s add on is more accurate than Xbox, but it’s delay is wearing people down. Plus, it’s accuracy honestly looks like it falls behind on Sony’s, which is surprising.

I think all the presentations were good. I really wasn’t expecting much of game releases for this year, so I was happy to see a healthy amount of games for all three consoles. I’m disappointed in the DSI’s lack of presence, and again, Sony you *HAVE* to drop the price. I can’t believe you stay this stubborn with no real reason why. Microsoft, you play dirty pool but you play it so well. Yanking Metal Gear from Sony was impressive. You answered strongly against Sony’s attempt to be the family console by upgrading Netflix, your video store, and the Facebook/Twitter integration.

So, I really like Xbox’s presentation the best - it helped they had so much celebrity padding. But they spent a healthy amount of each portion on all types of gamers. While Nintendo focused on the different audiences, they mostly just talked about it. And Sony’s focus was all for hard core with a smidge of motion control. Oh and plenty of, “we’re the shit” (I’m not kidding guys, I know I keep bringint it up, but you HAD to hear it.)

I’ll be watching G4’s coverage of EA/Ubisoft probably tomorrow (thinking I’ll find time for Left For Dead too), and I want to fit in some time watching the hands on demos from the show floor this week.

Now I’m going. Because I am le tired.

Media E3, Every Video Game Ever

I’m currently watching the Microsoft press conference as I write this. So don’t mind the occasional “Oooooohhh”s and “Aaaaaah”s and “eh?”s. Wait, I can edit this.

I do like G4’s coverage of E3 events - their commentary is on par of what my friends and I discuss and I gotta say, I do thoroughly enjoy Kevin Pereira’s wit. “Halo made chanting monks cool again”. <3

I'm gonna have to get back to that later... I plan on posting in the next few days a bit more in depth - right now I'm playing catch up.

Sony - you know what I want to hear from your press conference. Two words: PRICE DROP! Blu Ray players are down to $150, you cannot warrant your system being so damn expensive. Refusing to admit your system is not worth as much money as you think it does shows a blatant disregard for your fans - the consumers. And that excuse for a PS3 bundle? Please. PUH-LEASE!

EA Sports Active arrived last week on Thursday. That day I set it up and proceeded to start a 30 Day Challenge. Since I praised Wii Fit at the time I got it, and then changed my mind - I’m going to do an update every few weeks on my review. Bottom line thus far: Thank you EA. Thank you.

I implemented a calendar widget I’m more excited about than I should be. I actually plan on scheduling gaming appointments through this. I’ve been wanting to organize times to play Left 4 Dead, Rock Band 2, Gears of War 2, etc with friends and family. I also wanted to find better ways of posting when webcam is up and running. Twitter was getting a bit old with that. By the way, anyone find a better free webcam agent than Stickam - lemme know.

In social news, I gotta say shame on you California Supreme Court. I’ve been thinking about what to say about this for a while but that’s all I can muster. It’s a crushing blow to human rights that I can’t believe passed. Calling the Prop 8 an amendment and not a revision was a gross mistake that I can’t figure out how it happened. All I can do is leave you with Stewart on this subject, while making fun of such an easy target: Michael Steele.

Technology E3, EA Sports Active, G4, prop 8

Yes I’ve been watching a lot of Futurama recently. Moving on.

Dollhouse is renewed!

Huzzah! Oh very happy day! Good job Fox, I want to gripe you’re only extending it 13 more episodes thus far, but I’m hoping for the best, and am happy I get to see that much at least.

On to other stuff. I love Japan.

Here’s hoping if they import this game to the US they don’t change a single thing. Hell I think it’s even better non-translated.

So I haven’t been able to spend much time with Age of Conan or even Free Realms. Free Realms does have a very casual atmosphere, so the mini-games can be a bit draining after a while. But did I mention that it’s free? You just have to ignore the myriads of “Upgrade now!” and “Station Cash” links and buttons strewn throughout your screen, but again, free. My chick is here, and I stay on Server 4 when I play. Group 4 in the hizz-ouse - represent! What?! What?!

I’m sorry, I’ll never do that again.

But this week will be good! EA Sports Active arrives, and while most of my shows are over for the season, We were lent the first season of Battlestar Galactica, which Dan and I have yet to see. Plus I found out I can watch Naruto Shippuuden on Hulu. Huzzah for Hulu! I gotta say too, I’m intrigued by the Punch Out!! Wii remake. Heard some pretty awesome things about it, and my man is a huge Punch Out!! fan. Or at least he tells me every time that game gets brought up. Every. Time.

Time to run and hide kiddies!

Life, Video Games Dollhouse, EA Sports Active, Free Realms

I hardly had time for Everquest 2, but I find myself recently resubscribing to Age of Conan and giving Free Realms a whirl. Bad Mary! *slaps wrist*

One plus side - Free Realms is… well… free. And while looks super kid friendly (because it is) it’s actually a ton of fun. You can get a $5 subscription fee a month version that enlarges your quest log capacity and unlocks more content in general - but you don’t need to because IT’S FREE. It’s tempting since it’s only five bucks, and when it comes to that quest log space it’s REALLY tempting, but again you don’t need to because IT’S FREE.

I really recommend everyone try Free Realms, there’s a ton of content and it’s pretty damn fun. Lots of mini games and the ability to play on any server is a huge perk. Of course, it’s not bug free - there’s some problems meeting up with group members occasionally, and let’s not talk about how declining someone to be on your friends list puts them on your friends list. But overall, it runs well enough… especially considering (did I mention this) IT’S FREE!

If you do end up paying for the subscription, you get to have pets. The biggest perk? You could be a ninja - with a pirate dog. What’s not to love?

You’re welcome for that annoying squirrel.

Now with Age of Conan, we’ll see how that goes. I whole-heartedly love the ingenuity with Conan, and it has amazing promise, I just think it doesn’t try as hard as it should. One of the reasons I left it was having a level 50 character (out of 80) with no new content. They really expected a level 50 character to mindlessly grind to the next tier of content at 60. No thanks, I’ll play a game that has something for me to play. Now coming back to it, they’ve remedied that situation and have a new load of content for my 50 Herald of Xotli to demolish - but there still seems to be a lot more work that needs to be done. It just doesn’t feel complete. It’s too early to say tho, I want to toy with it a bit more and there will be a major patch coming up drastically altering some mechanics, so who knows?

I hope you guys enjoyed pictures I posted from Eugene’s Bar 2.0 Party, I thoroughly enjoyed them as well. I have some video from the night, but I think I’ll save those for when the appropriate time to blackmail arrives. I’m gonna post some more pictures in a bit (when I find my copy of Adobe Photoshop lying around.) from an experiment I did with a Facebook application. It’s a farm town, you plant crops have them harvested and then plant again. I did the most natural thing you can do with a a blank template and turned it into a tetris playing field. It’s quite glorious. I just need to fuse the photos together to complete the process. Yes I am that special. Here’s a smaller picture of it actually

Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire - you have potential. It looks like you have a halfway decent story and the humor is humorous. I’m worried you putting out the sexual jokes a bit too much, and it normally wouldn’t be a problem but they really aren’t the funny parts. I worry for you my friend, stick with the eye rolling puns and sad jokes please - you’re doing ok with that part. Adult Swim. Seriously go away. I watched a show of yours called Look Around You for ten minutes last night and I can say without a doubt it is the stupidest thing you have ever aired. I turned the station to CNN and watched Lou Dobbs Tonight and was entertained more. Let me add - Lou Dobbs was covering a case of missing children and I was vastly more entertained than your show. Congratulations on proving me wrong about thinking you couldn’t possibly fail more than you did before.

I’m looking forward to EA Sports Active releasing later this month. Trying to break some bad habits before it comes out and use it as a stepping stone for improving my overall health. That makes me smart. I’ll miss you Sake. You sweet sweet nectar of life. For the time being I’m using Wii Fit’s 30 minute step session to get some activity going while watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. That was a tip from Tammi and I can say it was a good one. It doesn’t feel like it does much but the next day I can verify that very much yes it does do something. I’m also midway through writing my lengthy Wii Fit review… after that I’ll finish my Star Ocean: The Last Hope game and review it as well. If you read my previous statements in older posts about Wii Fit you can predict the outcome of that review. Star Ocean: The Last Hope, while it’s a good game, I can tell you right now I still prefer the PS1 version Star Ocean: The Second Story in the end. There’s a bit more too it than that and the overall outcome will not be one that many other will agree with (for good reason) but it’s a review. It’s personal and stuff. Jeez.

I hope everyone is doing well. I hope my sister has a fantastic birthday this Thursday (but she’ll probably be raiding in WoW?) and an early happy Mom’s Day to all the hot mommas out there. I’m just looking forward to a fantastic Benihana dinner with our EQ2 buddy Suzy. We’ll be recapping how awesome we are for pwning The Shadow Odyssey expansion group content boss - Varsoon. Yay, we win at EQ2! Suzy Fraps’ed a video of one of our kill I plan on posting later (this fight is insane) But we schooled him look like the two dollar whore he is. Don’t judge - his whoreness has been established before.

Life, Media, Video Games Age of Conan, Daily Show, EA Sports Active, EQ2, Free Realms, Star Ocean, Wii Fit

Life

I hope you kids had a good weekend and a happy 4/20. Yesterday the temperature around here spiked up to 90 degrees, which I surmised was from the large amount of lighters blazing from potheads smokin’ some green.

Now I actually don’t smoke cannabis myself, cross my heart, but I’m all for the legalization of it. My reasons are ones many of you have heard from others time and time again, so I’ll spare you all the same “pro-pot” campaign speeches. But I was really impressed by the interview Attack of the Show had with Judge Jim P. Gray.

Unfortunately, I don’t see marijuana being legalized anytime soon. At the same time, I didn’t think it was possible we’d see an African-American President anytime soon either. So I guess we need a Sarah Palin of the anti-pot campaign eh?

I’ll post some pictures from the amazing party we had at Eugene’s this past Saturday. Don’t ask me for details about the pictures, since I probably won’t remember what, who, and why. I seriously blame Tammi.

Life, Media Attack of the Show

Yeah I’m watching Baseketball. Don’t hate, you know it’s a great movie. I respect any movie that uses Steve Perry as a strategy.

I’m thinking about cracking open Star Ocean today. Even tho I’m almost coming up on the end of the main story, I’ve come to a crossroad in deciding what to do. You see, there’s no way I’m going to get full completion on this playthru, so I do as many sidequests as possible or wait til the second time before doing all the extra work? Grargh! It sucks I even am considering passing it up - I blame achievements for this. I really honestly don’t care about having achievements that much on Xbox Live, but when you mix the aspect of achievements with RPG sidequests, it messes up my modjo.

I will say this, shame on you Star Ocean for poor planning. I’m now at the point where the game is basically done, so the sidequests I do want to work on I have to travel all over the galaxy for. This isn’t shocking - it’s a staple of RPGs to have this. Now Star Ocean is a three disc game, which isn’t normally a big deal. But get this, In order to go to some worlds, I have to swap discs. So to do the myriad of sidequests I have to spend a good portion of my time actively swapping discs. *Additionally* some of this stuff I have to do for quests involve making things thru item creation. So I’ll go to the first world, farm some monsters to get the materials to make items, then I have to go back to another world, which is on a seperate disc, to make the item (because you can only create items in one specific location). THEN I get to swap discs back to go to the first world to turn the damn quest in. Really?! What genius said “Nobody will think this will get old!”

There’s two worlds on one disc (that also contains the item creator), and three worlds on the other disc, it’s split nice and annoyingly even. Also, you can only hold 20 items. Now, it can take upwards of seven of one type of component to make one item through the creation process. Then the actual quest requires three of the end result item. Yes, that’s right, I’d need 21 of one component when I can only hold 20. Here’s exactly how this plays out. Disc swap to world, get 20 components, disc swap back, make two items, disc swap back, get one more item, disc swap back make the third and final item, and finally disc swap back to turn in. Really? Bad! Fail! Bad!

You know what they could’ve done? Made this easier on people who have the game installed to the harddrive. While you still need the game disc in tray to access a game installed on your harddrive, they could have just incorporated the same activation license on all discs. So, I could install disc two on my drive, have the game play off of disc three, and instead of swapping disc it just accesses the second disc on my drive since one of the game discs is in the tray and not require the exact disc to play it! It’s not that insane of an idea!

*Sigh* but alas… that’s just too logical I guess, I apologize. Even tho your characters are 85% irritating, and some of this crap is inexcusable, I still love ya Star Ocean. You’re still fun to play.

Speaking of fun to play I got a game called God Hand yesterday. It was on Amazon for 11 bucks, and I heard that it’s just stupid fun so I figured what the hell. I’ll play it a bit this week and let you all know if this two year old PS2 game is worth the cheap ass bones it’s selling for, but I got a good feeling.

OK and now to bitch. Family Guy and Adult Swim, it’s time we had a talk. I’ll start with Family Guy. Now we had some fun Guy. Your first season sucked some serious balls, but you picked up and did exceptionally well the following seasons. But now? Why is it so hard to come up with new jokes? The problem with rehashing everything that you already used is that when we see the jokes from the first time they were introduced we roll our eyes. It’s stale! And what the HELL is the deal with Conway Twiddy?? Using clips of his songs twice in the past was actually never funny. Playing an ENTIRE song of his on the show… can you make it more obvious your stalling for time? Same crap with the Christian Bale rant. Filling it in with Peter’s voice would’ve maybe been ok if you didn’t use the entire clip and then it wasn’t. Even. Funny.

Now you had two great opportunities to really do grand slams by having the Fox News segment and the Star Trek TNG segment. The Fox News rip was beyond lackluster and the subplot with Peter’s cartoon show was, again, a deliberate unfunny stall. But you had the whole TNG cast and you put the boring Meg and Brian plot line as the main focus? Really? Well at least when the cast was on it was pretty funny, and your sad re-hashed joke idea actually paid off with Whhhil Whheaton. I guess it’s good that you’re 1 for 20 now in rehashed joke being successful.

Adult Swim you are done. Two years ago you guys were supreme and unflappable. Even shows I didn’t care for were still enjoyable, and didn’t feel my soul draining away from watching them. Robot Chicken, Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Boondocks, Venture Bros, Harvey Birdman, Morel Orel, Family Guy = solid. Your anime on the weekend ideas were more than welcome. Words could not describe how amazing your show line up was.

Then you took the anime off and proceeded to make fun of the people who complained about it. You didn’t make fun of the idiots, you made fun of ANYONE who disagreed. Then you stopped showing most of your regular line up. You added absolute shit shows that are Tim and Eric Boring Show, Squidbillies, King of the Hill, Assy McGee, Super Jail. None of these shows are entertaining, they fall into two categories of attempted humor. Humor through nonsense, and humor through offensiveness. Well King of the Hill… I never understood what they try to do besides be the longest running cartoon that refuses to have a plot or anything remotely entertaining. Tim and Eric tries to be funny through nonsense (like how Sealab, Harvey, and Aqua did) but the problem is they only have nonsense. Nonsense is not funny by default. They hired Michael Cera on their show to turn into a cat. That’s it. That was absolutely it - that was the joke. All of their shit is like this. And then Super Jail, Assy McGee and Squidbillies just try to be offensive and gross to be funny. Problem is again, they leave out the funny.

The cream of the crop? April Fools. For the night of April First, adult swim showed the absolute worst movie I have ever seen in my life called “The Room”. What was the joke? In between commercial breaks they put up a notice saying “What are you Fools watching?” Get it? Fools! April Fools! It’s funny! Wait, no it’s not… not at all. It’s just stupid. Adult Swim you just forgot what funny is.

On to other things. Jon Stewart amuses me. Especially when he talks to Fox.

So I mentioned before the chance of seeing Dollhouse for a second season looks grim, which is sad. The show grew on me pretty damn fast and I consider myself hooked. An interesting article a friend shared shows Joss himself is a bit pessimistic about the renewal as well. The article is a good read for Whedon fans (or fans of any of his shows) and it’s always interesting to see how much writers have control of their own shows. Such as:

When an audience member asked whether he saw it as troublesome that all the actives were unfailingly young and gorgeous, he acknowledged this to an extent, mentioning that early drafts of the show had involved actives of all shapes and sizes to reflect the fact that people’s fantasies don’t always adhere to Hollywood’s conception of attractiveness, and the beautifying of the Dollhouse was one of the realities of dealing with Fox. There had been an entire early subplot about an active named Tango who was an older woman, but sadly all of that had to go when the show’s direction changed.

Man I’m really hatin on Fox aren’t I? Eh, well, easy targets I guess.

Something I’m looking forward to? EA Sports Active. It’s EA’s new fitness game for the Wii. Now I bought into the Wii Fit last year and I don’t necessarily regret it. I think it was a great introduction into interactive fitness, but Wii Fit is not for everyone. First of all, Wii Fit is a game first and foremost. Having that scoreboard with all the activities is great in theory, but useless in practice. For one thing, it’s easy to find ways to “rig” the events to get a better score, not a better workout. Also the scoreboard idea in general causes more feelings of frustration than accomplishment several months in. Wii Fit focused also more on Yoga than cardio, and even when there was a solid cardio workout you could do, they were definitely the lacking parts of the game. The inability to set-up a workout regiment beforehand causes a hefty slow down in between events, which dramatically effects cardio. The dance segment was pretty slow (even at advanced), and fitness boxing was excellent but still had that annoying downtime between patterns. The running segment was horribly inaccurate, and I don’t know how they expected anything else when you have the option to hold the remote, put it in your front pocket, or put it in your back pocket - but had no way of indicating which you were doing in the game. There’s no way those movements between the three positions would accurately translate into the game.

So here’s where EA Sports Active can step up. The workouts they’ve selected are more intensive cardio work, they have preset 20/30 minute workouts, and the added resistance bands and leg strap are an excellent way to give a better workout and more accurate feedback.

Mostly, I’m glad they’re not trying to be a game. I think that’s where Wii Fit fell through by having it’s identity crisis. Hey I’m not faulting Wii Fit for failing, it’s just not for me. One workout does not work for everyone, I actually have a really hard time getting results from most exercise - it’s how my body type is. I did Pilates for a long time and became incredibly flexible and my posture was excellent, I just didn’t drop a single damn pound. Cardio has always given me the results I need and I think the line up they have is lookin right up my alley.

Oh and before I go, spend a quick second with this 1up article. It covers “Misleading Videogame Job Descriptions” and it’s a quick funny read. For instance, ninjas!

Have you ever played a videogame with a ninja in it? How did you know? Because if you saw ninjas, somebody wasn’t doing their job very well. I’ve yet to see a ninja game box cover that displays an empty room, so it’s safe to say that I’ve never actually played a real ninja game in my life.

Good stuff.

I think that’s all I have for now. I’m looking forward to an awesome DnD session this weekend, followed by a Bar 2.0 party as well hosted by Eugene. I have pictures from our last DnD session to post, and I’ll definitely have even more this weekend.

Life, Media, Technology, Video Games Adult Swim, Daily Show, EA Sports Active, Family Guy, Star Ocean, Wii Fit

Fox, you are officially the root of all evil. Words can’t express how much I’ve absolutely HAD IT with your channel…

The reason here

According to Dr. Horrible’s Twitter page — which is apparently run by the Whedon brothers themselves — “Dollhouse” episode 13, the show’s intended season finale, will not be making it to a small screen near you.

/hulk smash

Life, Media Dollhouse

Gonna hate it in a week I’m sure but for right now, pretty funny.

Video Games

I don’t know why I say it, but I do. It ain’t because I’m old, I’ve been saying it since I was 16.

I was playing through Star Ocean: The Last Hope a bit last night, and Dan decided to watch for a bit. He watched some story for a while (because there is a *lot* of story… A LOT) and while the scene was playing I mentioned my favorite combat character was Meracle. It’s funny for another reason, but I’ll get into that once I finish this story (one thing at a time, one thing at a time). Within the first 5 seconds of combat, Dan laughed and made a comment along the lines of “No wonder you like her, it’s the half beast chic from Bloody Roar!”

And he’s absolutely right. I mean, it’s clear a lot of characters (especially in RPGs) are clones of other characters of other games - but with Star Ocean’s combat system, which is a few steps down from a arcade fighting game, it really enhances the similarities between the two characters. Bakuryu, the mole, was my favorite Bloody Roar character, but on stand by was Uriko, the half-beast. And for the record, when I typed out the names and beast types just now, I actually heard the game announcer repeating it in my head. It was quite dramatic.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find much video on Meracle, so the one I provided will have to do. You can skip ahead 20 seconds or so to see the actual fighting. HEY, stop bitching! I already got some of the game spoiled looking for a damn video - I blame you all.

Eh? EH?! See it don’t ya!?

Oh and the whole “Meracle” thing - one of my nicknames. Worked in the “clerical” department at one of my jobs, and answering the phone “Clerical this is Mary” all the time got pretty damn repetitive. So one day, in my zombified state, I said “Marical this is clerical” by mistake. It stuck.

You had to be there.

So I hoped you guys hoped on the deal on Steam - $10 bucks for four Ubisoft games. Two of the games being Beyond Good and Evil, and Far Cry. I have been looking for Beyond Good and Evil for an extremely long time, hoping Xbox Live would put it up for download, but unfortunately they hadn’t yet. So Ubisoft comes to us with this amazing deal and I say, “Why yes, I would like some of this hawt gaming action, thanks.” I can’t say I’m too jazzed for the Dark Messiah or IL-2 Sturmovik:1946. Even tho I severely heart Might and Magic VII, putting the Might and Magic tag after Dark Messiah won’t sell me on it. Especially when this very much looks like a Neverwinter wanna-be. But hey, I might give it a whirl eventually… I mean I’ve been bored before.

I really wish I could play Arcomage without installing MMVII again. I really love Arcomage.

I should’ve posted about the deal on my site when it was announced, but I was slackin a bit and didn’t realize there was a deal til mid-day yesterday. My bad. I still blame you guys tho.

Oh and I want to give out some love to some friends who’ve contacted me recently. To my sister Jen, you are as funny as you are awesome, and while I normally use that line to insult someone without them knowing, with you - it is meant with the utmost positiveness. You seriously rock woman. And Jesse, I’m actually kind of mad you for saying you enjoy my site, I’ve been wracked with caution making sure what I say is funny - and unfortunately when I try to be funny, I’m as funny as the people I use that above mentioned insult on (but again Jen, not you!). GAH! See what you did!?!

And Nick, I expect to see a picture of you riding a kangaroo and drinking a Fosters within a week. I mean Isn’t that what people do in Australia? Oh that and teach ducks to surf. *cough*

Life, Video Games Bloody Roar, Might and Magic, Star Ocean