Some E3 Commentary

So, yeah, I've been a bit blog-shy this week.

Part of it has been that I spent Monday overloading my brain with press-conferences, and then Tuesday was a total clusterfuck. First, I was working my real job while streaming the Nintendo conference, then my stream collapsed in on itself during the Sony conference while I was still working, then when I was off-work, I lost power.

Summer storms in St. Louis are nothing to fuck with. We'll get hit for an hour with end-of-the-world weather, and in the past, it's left the city without power for weeks. We're right at that point where the Gulf Stream hits those northern bursts, and every summer, we get nailed at least once.

I remember, back in 2006, after that monster storm, spending my birthday trying to save my restaurant's food from going bad by loading up a U-Haul with all my food and running it to a buddy's store that had just gotten power back.

Anyway, Tuesday, my family and I, assuming it would be a few days 'til power was restored, holed up at my parents' house, which, despite being a rather castle-like structure with any amenity one could crave, is so remote that it has satellite internet, and is not the kind of place from which one would desire to download video.

Wednesday, I found that Ameren had actually restored our power overnight, and we moved back in. I was pleased to note that all of our trees actually stayed up this time, with minimal branch loss (we once had part of a tree fall on a neighbor's house, and the branch loss is usually so bad that we fill our entire front lawn with branch debris for pickup by the city), and no visible damage to the house.

One last thing about the summer storms here.

It's interesting to see my neighborhood during our 10-20 power outages a year, as that's when a lot of us seem to finally come out of our houses and share a laugh or give each other a hand. My super-cool neighbor, who's close to my age and has a wife and son, as well, and I went down to the playground a few doors over, and cleared some of the debris off the playground so that access wasn't restricted. We took our boys down, talked some E3, then got into a fascinating discussion about gaming shows in general, as he works for a company that helps game developers in the late stages of products or demos. He works on physics engines, and actually has some serious development cred. I haven't asked his permission, so I'm not gonna reveal his identity here, or what he's worked on, but suffice to say that some of the projects he's worked on have left me jaw-dropped. Basically, he's one of the guys who gets called in when a project needs to meet a deadline and isn't going to, whether it be a game or a conference demo.

So, yeah, it was an amazingly enlightening discussion about the game industry, and how much goes into just showing off a game that isn't out yet.

Anyway, having neighbors that pitch in and help is awesome.

That E3 Thing
So, I just wanted to talk a little about the motion-control outbreak that's happened.

I'll start with the Wii, since that happened several years ago.

I love the motion-control possibilities of the Wii, but have yet to see them implemented in a truly meaningful way. I don't understand why the Wii Motion Plus is a $20 fix instead of something that shipped as part of the final controller. I know that the fact that it's a GameCube with motion control was an effort to keep price down, but the games look like ass now. Since it's not totally relevant, I wont bring up the abomination that are Friend Codes.

Now fast forward to this year's E3.

Microsoft, after a really solid showing at their press conference, closed with Project Natal.

What's interesting about Project Natal is that it's basically stereoscopic cameras doing mo-cap on YOU, instead of a controller. That opens up a lot of possibilities.

Fighting games, provided you can clear out enough space in your gaming area, are the first thing that come to mind. Shift to a first-person perspective, get your reflexes ready, and you've got the makings of a bad-ass bare-knuckled brawler.

If you can scan in weapons, a first-person Soul Calibur could be awesome, assuming you can leap 20 feet into the air.

The Sony 'wand' thing is pretty neat too, and I really dug the sword-and-shield bit. For some reason, I actually feel a little better about having to hold something, since I worry about things like triggers and minute inputs.

That being said, I'm going to go back to my original concerns about the Wii, since they still hold true for the MS and Sony implementations.

There's no resistance when hitting a ball or an enemy, and you can't truly move infinitely in a 3D space.

What that means is that if I'm locked in combat with an opponent, and they score a blow, I'm not knocked off guard, or if they block a blow, my forward movement doesn't stop. It's still a fairly empty experience.

Also, if I'm playing Doom 4 on my console of choice (the one with acceptable visual capabilities, not the Wii), I'm having to use a stick to move my character, instead of capturing that intense need to creep through the halls. Yeah, I can still make him creep with the stick, but how much more intense is it to capture that movement yourself (if you've ever played Paintball, you know what I mean. I won't dishonor our troops by comparing their life or death experiences to a game of Doom), and pop around that corner to catch an enemy unawares?

I know I'm throwing a fit that we don't have the holodeck yet, and I understand that this a natural step in that direction, especially if they can combine this with 3D tech, but I'm just pointing out why I'm a bit skeptical.

I am very curious to try out both PS360 setups, and really what it comes down to is SOFTWARE. If the software is there, then so am I.

E3 Games
If you've followed my Twitter, then you have pretty good idea of what games have me stoked.

It seems like we're gonna choke on a glut of games again this fall, as I'm slated to snag NCAA Football 10 and Madden NFL 10 this summer, followed by Alpha Protocol, Dragon Age: Origins, Modern Warfare 2, BioShock 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Heavy Rain, and Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days. Those fall games are all in less than a 2-month span. That's crazy.

That's not even touching the stuff that's not out 'til next year. If all the Q1 2010 games actually release in Q1 2010, we're gonna see a busy January-March, which could be kinda weird.

Oh, and I want/need Final Fantasy VII on my PSP NOW! Ooh, and the original Medal of Honor is available for $6? Man, they're really starting to make some headway with the PSP downloadable market. If I can get portable versions of every PS1 Final Fantasy released thus far, I'd be thrilled. Between my DS Lite and the PSP, I'd have FF1-9 portably. Really, I'd love a portable version of FFVIII, one of the only Final Fantasy games I've never finished.

Okay, enough blabbing. What's got you all hot and bothered @ E3? I'll be back to my regular blogging schedule tomorrow. Also, we're recording the second E3 2009 Untitled Podcast either Saturday or Sunday.

So, yeah, like I was asking, what are you happy about from E3? Did you listen to our PRE3 Untitled Podcast: Special Edition episode? What'd you think of it?

Cool. I'll be back tomorrow. Peace out.

-Blaine

Installing and Wine-ing and Random Shite

First, check this out if you didn't last night. Very education, no matter which side of the political fence you sit on. Whether you be a citizen of Gondor or Mordor, you will get something out of this.



I'd advise just to let that run while you read on or open a new tab and surf the net. Seriously, it's good stuff.

Random Gaming Musings
Here's some of the stuff that's come out over the past few days that I thought was note-worthy..

- the PSP's got some exciting stuff going on; I like the redesign, mostly. I wish the internal storage was upgradeable, and I have concerns about them being able to provide their entire library for download. Otherwise, if Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, and FFVII: Crisis Core are available for download, count me in.

- I don't think it's a smart move for Squenix to limit Final Fantasy IV: the After Years to WiiWare. That's not their target demographic for the game, and never has been. Final Fantasy IV came out in 1991, which was before most Wii players were born. I think the smart money would be on releasing it on PSN for play on both PS3 and PSP, and making it so the two systems could share a save. An XBLA version definitely wouldn't hurt, either. I think that quite a few Final Fantasy fans happen to also own a Wii, in addition to their actual gaming consoles, and thus there will definitely be takers on this potential purchase, but not nearly as many as if it were spread across multiple consoles.

- A Mass Effect shooter on iPhone? Pfft. Yuck. Way to start sullying the franchise, guys.

- I gotta say, I am really looking forward to Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny on PSP. However, I guess I'm gonna hold off on buying it until it's available for download on PSP, since I don't wanna buy it twice. Regardless, I've always really enjoyed Soul Calibur, and the PSP actually seems like a good platform for the franchise. I was thinking about the controls for past entries, and this seems like it would translate well, and there wouldn't be the option for the cheesedick button-mapping of throws.

- my favorite NCAA Football feature finally returns in NCAA Football '10: school/team creation. A bunch of my friends and I all went to Columbia College Chicago (an art school) for our undergrad, and I used to always make us as a school/team in NCAA, and then go on to make a horribly obscene stadium, uniforms, players, and on and on. I'd drop us in the Big 10, since no one gives a shit about that conference (as opposed to the Big 12), and then I'd bump someone bullshit (like Northwestern) from the conference to make room for the Columbia College Chicago Killa Beez (no shit, that was the school "mascot" at the time.) Anyway, this feature was stripped from the PS360 versions, for whatever reason, but is returning this year. However, what's cool is that it's all PC-based, so you'll be able to work on your school/team whenever, and then upload it to your actual game. The team editor is supposed to be available starting in June, so that your team will be ready to humiliate the rest of the NCAA when the game ships in July. I am super, super pumped, as I used to go wild with this feature, and having it as an online app could, if properly implemented, open up all kindsa possibilities. Read about it here.

New Games
I've got a bad feeling about this year, guys n' gals. It's gonne be another crazy back-loaded year for releases. This year, I've gotten a handful of games, like Resident Evil 5, MLB09, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, but almost all that was in February and March. Looking ahead, I know I'm getting NCAA Football 10 and Madden NFL 10 this summer. This fall and winter, though, will feature BioShock 2, Disgaea 2 (PSP), Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, as well as whatever else is coming out that we don't know about yet. I know early 2010 will also see Final Fantasy XIII, Mass Effect 2, and Star Trek Online. Additionally, there are titles like Star Wars: the Old Republic, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Final Fanatasy Agito XIII, Parasite Eve: the 3rd Birthday, Again: Eye of Providence, Alan Wake, Heavy Rain, and Guild Wars 2 that just don't have release dates yet, but could drop in the next year or so.

The point is that, once again, despite a few publishers pledging to break the cycle, we're gonna get 80% of this year's games that are worth owning all within a 4-month span. Bad. Just bad. August through November is gonna be crammed full of games, and some really worthwhile titles are gonna get crushed underfoot, especially since the Dubya Depression is really gonna limit how much cash we all have to spend on games.

This is stupid. Why not release some of these over the summer, or next summer? It seems like this time of year is totally barren of releases, and would be a great time to position a game for success. Actually, this time last year, GTA4 dropped, and I heard it did okay.

Lame. Just lame.

Open Source FTW
I reinstalled Ubuntu on my main desktop again, and as usual, it went all nice and smooth. I've been an Ubuntu user for about 3 years now, and I really gotta give 'em props and how nicely Ubuntu 9.04 handles drivers now. It used to be a bit of a challenge, at times, getting everything to work drivers-wise, but now ya just boot from a disc or a flash drive, and BAM! Everything installs, and you're ready to rock n' roll.

During that install, I was trying to install OpenSolaris on my second desktop, which has been stuck on Ubuntu 8.04 for what seems like ages. Every time I've tried to upgrade from that release, it's refused to boot afterwards. Every time I've booted it into another OS with a disc, it's started to install, then just hung. The OpenSolaris install was no different, which is unfortunate. I've been a big fan of Sun Microsystems for a long time now (OpenOffice.org and Netbeans FTW), and I like playing with Unix, and I really want to learn more about maintaining a Unix server, but the fucking machine refuses to let me install anything else on it. This is the weirdest issue I think I've seen in ages. I'm gonna play around with it a bit, and see if I get any different results when I boot from a flash drive.

Gaming on a Linux Machine
After installing Ubuntu, I proceeded to blow out a lot of the Ubuntu-provided software (I hate waiting on Ubuntu to get my updates for Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.), and then install the non-Ubuntu versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Netbeans, Wine, etc.

After I added the Wine repository, I installed Steam and XFire, then initiated the download for Quake Wars and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II.

I haven't tried Dawn of War II yet, since I can already predict some problems getting that to run on Linux. x

I fired up Quake Wars this morning, and it actually managed to not crash during the DirectX install. It made it all the way through the install, which was shocking, then actually started to load the game, when it seized up during the UI loading process.

So, yeah, I'm back to messing with Linux gaming, since everything runs beauuutifully on the new laptop.

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow with more foolishness.

What's up with you guys? Anything new? Anything ya wanna comment on?

-Blaine