The return of Untitled Podcast and E3!

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

Randomness Organized

Late post, I know.

Drove my wife to the airport at 0'dark 30 and spent the day lounging with my son. We hung out, wrestled around, practiced counting, went to check out my buddy's new baby (though the baby wasn't there, conspicuously), then came back, made some of my homemade organic pizza, chilled and watched some Cards-Cubs (which the good guys, the Cardinals, naturally won), as well as some NBA playoff action. I looked over to him at one point to explain who Lebron was, and little dude was passed out and had burrowed into the couch cushions.

Three is a much better age than two.

So, yeah, a day with just the boy and me was one I didn't want to spend banging away at the keys (even if I did sneak a little Mass Effect here and there.)

So, he's asleep, today's sports action has subsided (how 'bout them Magic?), I've gotten Wrex and Garrus to tell me their innnermost secrets, so now I present to you a blog.

GFW Live and What Should Be
Every time I log onto one of my computers at home, I launch Steam and Xfire, as well as Gmail in a browser. I like to open myself up for a few moments for folks to contact for some action, if there's any to be had. [editors note - that's gaming action, not the type-fwap-type-fwap kind]

What's funny is that if I launch GFW Live, I get a marketplace in which I can spend space bucks on now-fixed Fallout 3 add-ons, and little else. No friends list, no profile editing (aside from an option to delete my profile from this machine), nothin'. I've used it to get exclusive Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2 DLC, and that's it.

Now, if I want a slightly more robust GFW Live experience, I can launch Dawn of War 2, and actually access my friends list, but I am resistant to having that run in the background all of the time.

Why are these two seperate apps? One need only look at the excellent Steam service to see what's possible. I am ostensibly running Steam, and it is damn near the only thing for which I use Windows (as I sheepishly type this from my Windows partition.)

I mean, after Apple purchased Xerox's GUI all those years and turned it into the Macintosh OS, Microsoft turned around and shifted from DOS to Windows, which was based on Mac. Microsoft launched the Zune to compete with iPod. Microsoft has some skill when it comes to recognizing good ideas and aping them (and I'll take Windows 7 over Mac OSX any day, though I am an Ubuntu man most of the time.)

So, why not launch something that functions similarly to Steam, but ties into XBL? Something from which I can launch games, see who's online doing what, and coordinate with them? Where's that service that truly supports cross-play between 360 and PC?

I know the lack of actual 360 servers must be an issue, since a lotta PCs are utter shit, and couldn't handle doubling as a server, but tell me you haven't been in a 360 multiplayer game that was being hosted by some dude in Buttfuck, Montana with a connection resembling 56k. You find a way to change hosts and move on.

It just seems to me that one could attract a lot more PC players to the GFW flag if you promised that they would be supplied with plenty of console FPS players to devour mercilessly. And, yes, I happily play CoD4 and CoDWaW on 360.

What really burns my ass is that Microsoft announced that they wouldn't be announcing anything regarding GFW at E3 this year. I don't know who is in charge of GFW over there, but either they suck, or they're being told to suck.

Maybe this is being held back for the next XBox launch?


Glee
I am many things, but one of the things I am, first and foremost, is a man.

I'm not saying I'm one of those terrified-of-my-own-homosexuality mouth-breather fucktard screeching-on-XBL bigots that pretends to hate anything gay. I'm saying that I'm a comfortably married heterosexual that revels in certain masculine traits. I'm a problem solver, I loathe weakness, I yell at TVs when the Cardinals or Rams are on, I pester my wife for free sex, I eye laundry duty suspiciously, I maintain the yard, I'm obsessed with old wars, I scramble for cover when my wife and her friends get emotional, I think beer is awesome, and I idolize George S. Patton.

I'm also a mature adult. You might call me 'old.' I'll turn 31 this July (eesh, if I was an NFL running back, my career would be winding down.) Most bands I listen to are made up of members that are in their mid-40s now. I am shocked every time I think about the fact that Star Trek: the Next Generation is now 22 years old.

HA! You were just shocked by that, too! Fucked up, isn't it?



As you can see, I have excellent taste in television.

Almost everything I watch is science-fiction, aside from a smattering of 'about a writer' stuff, Law & Order, and anything fictional about a catering crew (I was restaurant manager/catering manager for a LOOONG time).

So, when my wife, who has 75% excellent taste in TV, suggested we watch Glee, I was curious. All I knew is that it had Jane Lynch, who is the funniest woman ever, so I was in.

Remember, I knew NOTHING about it. I am fucking GRITTY, man, GRITTY, and then I watched this:



I think I hated it. I'm not sure.

I mean, I LOVE music, in all its forms. I'm just as likely to listen to a Pearl Jam album as I am the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack as I am the latest Uematsu-san OSV as I am the latest Nelly (all he has is a .net? Really?) record as I am the soundtrack to Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.

This shit, though...this shit was unlike anything I'd been exposed to. I really felt like high school glee club nerds had written it, which I suppose is to capitalize on that High School Musical series of films. I've not seen them, but I've gathered from my wife and sister-in-law that they are fairly popular with tweens.

What's interesting, though, is that there is a teacher who is married in the show, and the portrayal of his marriage is so...off. Any married man who's watched television can tell ya that no one quite gets it right, in terms of portrayal, kinda like the birthing process, but that there are some reasonably okay approximations.

The marriage shown here is a hypo-realistic horny tween girl's fantastical mental diarrhea. I don't think it's supposed to be realistic, but the problem that creates is that I don't give a flying fuck what really happens in that relationship.

Anyway, I am so clearly not the audience for this show, but I was shocked that my wife LOVED it. Well, no.

Now that I think about it, she eats this kinda shit up. I love her dearly, but she's still into the whole high school thing, and still hangs with a lotta her high school friends, whereas I picked a select few with which to maintain contact. Any high school story that doesn't involve hardcore realistic drug use or fucking induces an eyeroll from me.

STOP
I wanna talk more about my PC Mass Effect playthrough, but I'll save it for another day, as this has probably gone on a bit long-ish.

Sorry for the late post, but I was really enjoying some 'man' time with my son. I'll be back at my regular time later today.

-Blaine