First, please watch this.
I love that kinda shit. Now, to set the tone for E3, lemme continue an annual tradition. Please watch this next.
I love that even more.
Now, onto business.
UNTITLED PODCAST: E3 EDITION
Three or four of you were utterly heartbroken when we put Untitled Podcast on indefinite hiatus. I've already talked that point to death, so I won't waste your time with any more rambling on how weird my life is.
Anyway, it had occurred to me more than once over the last couple weeks that we should sit down for 2 episodes and do 'pre' and 'post' E3 shows. I approached Tony about it yesterday, and after a few long conversations, we agreed on some details and hashed out a rough schedule.
The 'PRE3' show is set to record tomorrow night, and the 'post-E3' show will record next weekend.
For the 'PRE3' episode, we'll do a quick 'what's new?' segment, then jump right into talking shit about various games and vaporware and hardware and whatever the hell we feel like talking about. And, yeah, it'll be around 2-3 hours.
Right now, I'm thinking we'll go Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and 'third party,' in that order, with each company being divided into games/hardware that we know will be there and rumored games/hardware that will be there. For the confirmed stuff, I think we'll just kinda throw out every game we or you care about, and then we'll sift through that, and comment on the stuff we wanna comment on.
For the second part, we'll each make some predictions, and then make fun of stupid annual rumors (M$'s mythical motion-controller.)
We'll bring our usual shit-talking cynicism, as well as genuine enthusiasm about the good games.
Of course, the most exciting stuff is always the surprise announcements (when they're both exciting and surprising, that is.) I'm kinda curious about this year, as I keep being told that Sony is gonna melt the brains of anyone that cares about games with some announcement that's even more staggering than the launch price of PlayStation 3. Right. We'll see.
I'd considered skipping Nintendo's press conference altogether this year, but my eyes need some exercise, and watching Iwata-san jerk himself off onto the faces of the screaming throng in the 'games press' corp is always interesting. And, against my advice, they're trotting out Cammie Dunaway again, so we get to hear about what middle-aged soccer moms like to do with vibrating phalluses for the second year in a row.
I, also, never miss a chance to watch Reggie Fils-Aime talk. I love that guy. He's the best thing about modern Nintendo, and M$/Sony need to have their talking heads watch how this guy does his thing, 'cause he's the best in terms of all the console execs that do E3 presentations. Once Peter Moore went to EA Sports, the mantle went to Reggie.
Oh no. I just realized I'm probably gonna have to sit through Jack Tretton (Sony) and Don Mattrick (M$) again. Boooring. Well, their presentations should, at least, be better than last year's. I have no idea why, but that's my belief. Sony should just have David Jaffe do theirs and M$ should just publicly execute all those douchebags with the 'cheater' mark on their gamercards. That would make for an exciting show.
I'm also looking forward to all of gametrailers.com's horrible off-screen shaky video of the games that, until I saw horrible off-screen shaky video of them, I was excited about. Oh, and I love the interviews with PR people having to scream so loud over the noise that they go hoarse in the course of the interview.
Actually, I'll be using a few sources to figure out where to focus my attention, aside from having some idea of what developers can be counted on to show a solid product. I'll be watching the aforementioned gametrailers.com, 1up.com, g4tv.com, and giantbomb.com to see what's what each day.
Anyway, so yeah, before we record tomorrow night, drop me a line here if you have anything in particular you wanna hear about, or anything you wanna comment on in advance about E3 in general or a particular game/company/whatever.
Infamous
I snagged Infamous yesterday, and it rocks. It's similar, mechanically, to Crackdown, but has Force powers and story, two big plusses.
I've played it quite a bit the last two days (Infamous and podcast prep are pretty much why I didn't post yesterday), and I really, really like it. It's sort of like a 'summer blockbuster' kinda game. It has a story, though it's not the deepest, it's VERY heavy on the action, it's got some amazingly thrilling moments, and big explosions. It's one of those games that, with its sandbox nature, you're able to make your own amazingly thrilling moments.
My only gripe so far is that while it's very forgiving in terms of death and allowing you to keep XP and all that, you die way too often. Maybe it's the way I play, but I've gotten very conservative in my approach to most shootouts (of course, I have lightning bolts instead of a gun), to minimize the the number of times that I make the jog that I know I'll have to make in order to get back to where I need to wipe out 20 dudes and three truck-mounted machine guns.
Also, there is nothing like kicking an annoying machine gunner in the crotch so hard that he goes flying off the top of the 20-story building you're fighting on top of.
Overall, though, this game kinda replaces Crackdown for me, at least until Crackdown 2 comes out (assuming it's better than the first.) I'll also be keeping an eye on APB (from the Crackdown devs) this E3, as well.
Lemme know what ya wanna hear about Friday night!
-Blaine
