Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Pre-E3 Press Conference Reaction

Okay, I watched G4's two hour coverage of the pre-E3 press conferences.

Few things to note:

1: Despite the immature nature of the G4 staff, or at least their on-camera acting style, they really do know their stuff, and some of them have been covering gaming for a very long time. Percentage wise.

2: Sony wins the conference round, with the beautiful trailers and the tech demos that they "proved" were real time, not pre-rendered. That said, their biggest trailer, Killzone, looks amazing and Sony says that its not pre-rendered, but one look at it and I can not really believe them. Either that's good on Sony if it is real-time, or bad on them if they're lying their ass off.

3: Microsoft takes second simply because they actually showed their next console and some of the games for it. However, nothing really jumped out at people and demanded their attention. It really looks like they're banking on Live taking them all the way. And since Final Fantasy XI has been announced for the 360, that just might be the case. Lets face it: In terms of online play, the current Xbox wins handily. But Sony hasn't been shutting their eyes and plugging their ears: It wouldn't be difficult to expect Sony to have an online capability at least as good as the current Live, if not near what Microsoft is looking for with Live 2.0.

4: Nintendo loses, pretty much because they don't have a next gen console with games. They showed the case off, but that's probably an internal alpha. No games == booo. Zelda sure looked pretty with the lycanthrope Link, and it will probably excellent and all, since Nintendo remains arguably the best game developer in existence, but it really looks like Nintendo is aiming to undercut both in price, allowing them to continue to be the best second console. And the whole backwards compatibility all the way back to the NES thanks to downloadable games will certaintly raise its stock. But, as I said, they didn't show anything next gen other than a black box. Hell, there wasn't even a controller, which is the biggest thing the press has been talking about: The supposed innovation the controller will implement. Remember, Nintendo has always been ahead of the curve in terms of controller innovation.

5: And, lets not forget, its all about the gameplay! I was very impressed by some of the massive battles that I saw. One of the advantages the extra processing power is that more individual AI's and more indivdual units can be active and moving at the same time, allowing for tremendously immersive battles. I really hope that this will be one of the positive affects shown by the massive graphical and processing improvements.

6: As of right now, were I to suddenly gain the money to purchase a next gen console, and a few games, at any time in the future, I would wait to see what the PS3 actually will be able to do, simply because the 360 isn't blowing me away and I really am not seeing any great games coming out on it, at least until the PS3 gets released and Halo 3 comes out.

Anyone really interested in E3 should watch G4 this week. It really looks like they are toning down the "hip" attitude in favor of covering the event well. And, after all, this is the best way to see everything coming out without suffering through streaming video.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Or not...

Yeah, forgot to post this...

I'm not going to E3. Pretty much because school would get in the way too much.

Yeah.

Well, I'm going to tivo G4's live coverage, so I'll get my "gollies" that way.

It'll be just like being there...

right...?

*sniff*

Xbox Harddrive

I love the hard drive. With my PS2, I kept running into the storage barrier, having to either delete game saves or buy more memory cards in order to maintain paranoid level save patterns (where you create a new save game every ten minutes). And I'm very happy to see that the 360 will also have a hard drive, and bigger too!

And it'll be removable!

Except for one small problem: I think the hard drive is too big.

Its no secret that Microsoft was losing money on each Xbox sold, and a lot of that had to do with the hard drive bumping up the cost significantly. But the whole point of the hard drive was not to keep game saves, rather to allow users to use Xbox live and download lots of content easy.

Its an excellent move. Halo 2 just got a large boost thanks to new maps and a balance patch that totally reshaped game play, mostly by making grenades godly. The PS2 can't really do that. The newer, slimmer PS2 doesn't support the hard drive that came with FFXI, and its sorta shown with the general consensus of the gaming public saying that Xbox Live is the better online system.

One element in many, but an important one to say the least.

Only, I have had my Xbox for almost a year and a half. I've downloaded a lot of content, and saved a LOT of games. I mean a lot.

And, yet, I still have the infamous "50,000+ Blocks" statement on my memory information.

And Microsoft is going to double the storage space.

Sorry, but this is a little overkill. Almost no one has ever needed all of the disc, and unless they're expecting for there to be a ton of content downloads, they're going to be losing even more money on the units than they really should.

Well, either that or that's the cheapest hard drives that Microsoft could buy in bulk.

Probably that.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Xbox 360, and the future

Okay, the new Xbox has been revealed, and boy howdy does it look pretty. It also is pretty powerful, with the absurd 3 3.2 processors with a total of 6 processor lines.

I mean, come on, this is a bit ridiculous!

For a bit of perspective, the current Xbox is a 700 mghz machine. The only reason why its so pretty is because developers can optimize for one hardware set.

Wow.

Anyway, I've been thinking, and besides the obvious improved graphical capacity I think that there are a lot of things that will greatly improve with this next generation for the Xbox:

1: Better processing abilities. I'm not just talking about the even prettier graphics, although those will be nice. There will be gameplay effects. One that I'm sorta thinking of has to do with bodies. I mean, in game, a dead body is just this piece of art. It doesn't affect gameplay at all. But with the ungodly power, the game might be able to remember that, yes, there's this 200 lb bag of meat in your way that you sorta have to step over, limiting mobility, and also possibly providing some cover against grenades.

2: I like the introduction of a free layer of Xbox Live, if only so that badly needed patches can be downloaded by non-subscribers.

3: Moving the black and white buttons to the shoulders was an excellent move. Hell, they were only down on the face to make it look different than the PS2 controller.

4: I really like the addition of standard wireless controllers. I've sorta fallen in love with my logitech wireless ones, just because they're wireless!

Hey, less clutter.

5: The xbox live headset slot will now be compatible with all standard cell phone headsets. Which just makes sense.

6: it will supposedly be backwards compatible, even with respect to xbox live support. This is a major thing, since three xbox live game came out in the last six or so months with just superb online support: Halo 2, Unreal Championship 2, and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Without these three killer apps, Live for Xbox 2 will severly suffer, as there will be no reason for Xbox 360 users to use live. And, with huge power boost, you better be able to write a decent emulator!

By the way, for the tech people out there, here are the Xbox 360 specs: Xbox Specs from GameSpot

And, for comparison, the current Xbox specs: Xbox 360 specs from GameSpot

Dayumn.

Monday, May 09, 2005

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Okay, LucasArts, I trusted you. I really do.

Knights of the Old Republic was one of the best console RPG's ever. KOTOR 2 was still an great game, even though it was unfinished. Mercenaries was just a joyous romp through massively destructible environments. Republic Commando was a great game, albeit a bit short with uninspired multiplayer. And Lego Star Wars, I mean, come on, who can hate a Lego game with lightsabers?

But I should've known.

I should've seen the signs with KOTOR 2, riddled with bugs and lacking a real ending. I should've realized that licensed video games, especially when they come out at the same time as the movie, tend to suck. I should've remembered all of the other Star Wars Prequel games and how much they sucked.

But I wanted to have a good lightsaber combat game. Not a FPS with some melee in it, like the Jedi Knight series. I wanted Ninja Gaiden with Lightsabers!

But no, you shovel Star Wars Episode III on me.

Shame on you, Lucas Arts. Let the developers FINISH their games!

Sunday, May 08, 2005

E3 BABY!

I'm going to E3!

And I'm not paying money to go there!

And I'm not abusing the absolute reluctance of the door staff to stop people borrowing other people's badges!

I get to go the the conference in which all three new consoles will be revealed, as well as a slew of games from just about every corner of the world! I'll probably be able to play demos of games that will be released months or, if made by Blizzard or Sony's Gran Turismo team, years from now!

And all I gotta do is spend 8 hours stuffing badges.

Yay.

Lets see...

8 hours, assuming $6.75/hour comes out to them getting $54 of work out of me.

And I get to put this on a resume, and I get a badge that's worth $325.

HELL YEAH!

Now I just need to get out of class on Monday.

And, of course, find a way to make it all up...