Here is the first Untitled Podcast concerning E3 2009. We are doing another episode next weekend to wrap up and review E3, then we're disappearing again until Gotham needs us.
In this episode, we preview each of the platform-holders, as well as the most-hyped third-party games, and just generally talk shit for a little less than three hours.
We also discuss, at length, the possibility of turning my living room into Tony's personal storage area.
I'll be putting up a deeper post later, but I first need to go mow my grass before my shit-headed old-timer fuckfaced neighbor tries to set my house on fire.
-Blaine
On sale now!
20090531
20090528
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
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
20090526
Post-Memorial Day Reawakening
I really want Infamous.
Read the 1UP Review!
Read the 1UP Review!
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It looks really cool, in that Crackdown kinda way.
Memorial Day Weekend
They boy and I met the Lady at her parents' house in Kingston, IL last Friday night for Memorial Day weekend. She had flown up the Wednesday before to get some time to hang with her girlfriends and sister. As I discussed in the last post, they live in a rather remote area, but as usual, it was fun.
Part of the fun was I finally broke down and bought an iPod, as I mentioned previously. I've had some time to really get to know it, and so far, I really like it, but I have some serious reservations about iTunes. Here's a quick love/hate breakdown for ya:
I LOVE:
- the sorting functions; it sorts music in all sorts of helpful and interesting ways
- the slickness; it looks purty while it's doing it's thing
- the way it handles podcasts; I used to waste a lotta time manually managing my podcasts; it's nice being able to just set rules for each podcast in iTunes and just let the thing function the way I told it to once
- I'm actually starting to come around on the way iTunes handles playlists; I hated it for a while since it's different from Winamp, but I've started to kinda dig it these last few days
- sound quality; the sound quality is stunning
I HATE:
- the interface; I know Apple is allergic to buttons, but add at least a couple; context-sensitivity is cool and all, but that one button is responsible for too much; the scroll wheel is cool, at times, for song selection and volume, but it's a little twitchy when it comes to setting ratings for songs
- the initial loading of the library; it should just look at my music directory and go 'okay, here's your songs;' it doesn't; I don't care what fucking encoding a song is in, just play it; I accidentally ripped 2200 songs in .wma (forgot that WMP rips in .wma format by default) when I re-ripped my CD collection; a music player should just play them; instead, it spent 7-8 hours converting them to .aac, in a furthering of the Apple/M$ pissing contest; it then duplicated half the songs, so I had to wipe out the whole library and try again; I didn't properly sync the fucking thing until I'd had it for a day and a half; this was the worst part of the experience
- too susceptible to fingerprints (very minor complaint)
- doesn't play HD Quicktime (small Quicktime looks like shit)
-it doesn't save my place in a podcast; since my podcasting device was separate from my music before this, I used to flip to music occasionally and come back to the podcast later in the day. Now, I can't do that. If I flip to music, it starts the podcast over. I'm starting to see why all you iPod-loving fucks would bitch when we recorded podcasts that were actually a good length. WE weren't the problem, that piece of shit device on which made yourself dependent was the problem! Yes, it does. Oops.
Overall, the iPod and I have formed a decent relationship. We're like those grudging cop buddies in an action flick.
The Lady and I took in a double feature yesterday of Terminator: Salvation and Star Trek. I'd already seen Star Trek, but she hadn't. Wii Apologist John also joined us for Terminator.
Terminator: Salvation was better than I was expecting. Given that it was directed the amazingly hyper-cutting McG who is responsible for such abominations as Charlie's Angels and Fastlane, and the giant dumps AICN had been taking on it, I was almost sad about the movie before even seeing it. Then, when it ended up being a really fun action flick, I was okay. It continues the story of the Terminator films, has great action, and that's what I needed outta this movie. If you see it, I'm curious about something. Did you think it was John Connor's movie, or Marcus Wright's?
Star Trek was actually a lot better for me the second time, since I wasn't wasted this time. This time around, I really felt like captured more of the spirit of what Star Trek is. I do have a hell of a bone to pick with the writers and producers, though. This is NOT an alternate time line. It is the new timeline, and they've obliterated everything that happened in Star Trek, Star Trek: the Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. It's not an alternate timeline because Nero went back and changed events. He didn't create a second reality, he just changed the existing one. Therefore, according to this film, nothing after Star Trek: Enterprise counts. That's sorta fucked up. I don't know how I feel about that.
Anyway, it was a fun weekend, which we concluded with my sister's birthday.
Oh, perhaps you saw this?
It looks really cool, in that Crackdown kinda way.
Memorial Day Weekend
They boy and I met the Lady at her parents' house in Kingston, IL last Friday night for Memorial Day weekend. She had flown up the Wednesday before to get some time to hang with her girlfriends and sister. As I discussed in the last post, they live in a rather remote area, but as usual, it was fun.
Part of the fun was I finally broke down and bought an iPod, as I mentioned previously. I've had some time to really get to know it, and so far, I really like it, but I have some serious reservations about iTunes. Here's a quick love/hate breakdown for ya:
I LOVE:
- the sorting functions; it sorts music in all sorts of helpful and interesting ways
- the slickness; it looks purty while it's doing it's thing
- the way it handles podcasts; I used to waste a lotta time manually managing my podcasts; it's nice being able to just set rules for each podcast in iTunes and just let the thing function the way I told it to once
- I'm actually starting to come around on the way iTunes handles playlists; I hated it for a while since it's different from Winamp, but I've started to kinda dig it these last few days
- sound quality; the sound quality is stunning
I HATE:
- the interface; I know Apple is allergic to buttons, but add at least a couple; context-sensitivity is cool and all, but that one button is responsible for too much; the scroll wheel is cool, at times, for song selection and volume, but it's a little twitchy when it comes to setting ratings for songs
- the initial loading of the library; it should just look at my music directory and go 'okay, here's your songs;' it doesn't; I don't care what fucking encoding a song is in, just play it; I accidentally ripped 2200 songs in .wma (forgot that WMP rips in .wma format by default) when I re-ripped my CD collection; a music player should just play them; instead, it spent 7-8 hours converting them to .aac, in a furthering of the Apple/M$ pissing contest; it then duplicated half the songs, so I had to wipe out the whole library and try again; I didn't properly sync the fucking thing until I'd had it for a day and a half; this was the worst part of the experience
- too susceptible to fingerprints (very minor complaint)
- doesn't play HD Quicktime (small Quicktime looks like shit)
-
Overall, the iPod and I have formed a decent relationship. We're like those grudging cop buddies in an action flick.
The Lady and I took in a double feature yesterday of Terminator: Salvation and Star Trek. I'd already seen Star Trek, but she hadn't. Wii Apologist John also joined us for Terminator.
Terminator: Salvation was better than I was expecting. Given that it was directed the amazingly hyper-cutting McG who is responsible for such abominations as Charlie's Angels and Fastlane, and the giant dumps AICN had been taking on it, I was almost sad about the movie before even seeing it. Then, when it ended up being a really fun action flick, I was okay. It continues the story of the Terminator films, has great action, and that's what I needed outta this movie. If you see it, I'm curious about something. Did you think it was John Connor's movie, or Marcus Wright's?
Star Trek was actually a lot better for me the second time, since I wasn't wasted this time. This time around, I really felt like captured more of the spirit of what Star Trek is. I do have a hell of a bone to pick with the writers and producers, though. This is NOT an alternate time line. It is the new timeline, and they've obliterated everything that happened in Star Trek, Star Trek: the Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. It's not an alternate timeline because Nero went back and changed events. He didn't create a second reality, he just changed the existing one. Therefore, according to this film, nothing after Star Trek: Enterprise counts. That's sorta fucked up. I don't know how I feel about that.
Anyway, it was a fun weekend, which we concluded with my sister's birthday.
Oh, perhaps you saw this?
">
I am more excited about that game than you can imagine. How about you?
Before that, though, what are your big summer entertainment items? I'm stoked about Drag Me to Hell next week, NCAA Football 10, Madden NFL 10, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Watchmen on BD. What about you?
-Blaine
I am more excited about that game than you can imagine. How about you?
Before that, though, what are your big summer entertainment items? I'm stoked about Drag Me to Hell next week, NCAA Football 10, Madden NFL 10, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Watchmen on BD. What about you?
-Blaine
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