E3 Day 1 rap-up

It's easier to do these rap-ups than constantly update the site all day long. Microsoft's press event was today and it was big. I was right about this E3 being a big year (well it is so far for Microsoft at least) or, at least, I was thinking it.

• Xbox Live will continue to dominate the world with update coming soon incorporating Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, an improved video marketplace, and probably more.
  
• Microsoft has been working on a motion-sensing add on of their own. It's not what you think. It's not what I though. It actually looks quite revolutionary. It does two big things: it lets you control games without a controller and it lets you interact with games like never before in a 3D space. Lionhead showed off something that can only be described as "artificial intelligence" that has you interacting in unseen ways with a character on screen. I guess that was their big announcement.
  
• It turns out Crackdown 2 was the game recently formed Ruffian Games. It was announced and accompanied with a trailer, but that was about it.
• Alan Wake lives! It was demoed live and will be available in Spring 2010. It actually looks pretty awesome.
• Left 4 Dead 2 will be available on the Xbox and PC November 17th. Trailer was shown. RELOADIN'!
• Epic Games releasing a new XBLA game this summer called Shadow Complex. Looks like a Bionic Commando/Metroid mix.
• FFXIII 2010. (Big surprise there.)
• Halo 3: ODST September 22nd!
  

And the biggest announcements of the show so far:



Actually, this is possibly bigger:



More vids up soon.

Pre-E3 Trailer madness

Here we go...




























More to come.

The Pre-E3 roundup

Leaks,leaks, and more leaks! E3 is upon us! Can you feel it? Here's a recap of all the major announcements before the big show:

• Probably the biggest announcement so far is not what you were expecting: EGM is back!
• Project Trico was leaked. It appears to be a strange combo of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.
  
• PSP Go. It's real. It's real ugly.
• New game from Square-Enix called Nier leaked early. Not much about it at the moment. Also, Front Mission Evolved.
  
• 10 second clips of Assassin's creed 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction leaked. Ezio has legs of steel and Sam Fisher no longer looks like an emo hobo.
• Lionhead apparently has something big up their sleeves. After Fable 2, it better be damn amazing for me to care.
  
• Bethesda announces Brink. Trailer features a giant eyeball. Should be called Blink.
• Gladiator A.D. and The Grinder announced for Wii (obviously).
• Both DJ Hero and Scratch The Ultimate DJ look incredably lame.
  
• Bioshock 2 on Xbox, Playstation, and PC November 3rd.
  
• Batman August 25th, Dragon Age Origins October 20th
• Kojima teaser sight gets wierd. Pictures of Big Boss, Raiden, grass fields, and now a strange Mask.
  

Be prepared for tomorrow, people. I predict a big year.

Wii are hardcore

In the midst of gimmicky family fun, one developer seems to be rising to the occasion when it comes to bringing hardcore to the Wii. That company is High Voltage Software, developers of the old Hunter The Reckoning series. They've developed The Conduit, which isn't even out and I already love it, but in the madness that is Pre-E3 they've announced two new Wii-exclusive titles, again targeted at the hardcore.

The first new game is titled Gladiator A.D. and should be out in the first quarter of 2010. According to an interview with the developers, they wanted to design an intense fighting game with customizable gladiators and combat inspired by the movie 300. The game uses HVS' Quantum 3 engine (the same as The Conduit), but looks a little rough around the edges at the moment. For single player, each gladiator will have his own play style and story, but you can also take the fighters online. Combat will be gesture-based and will support Wii Motion Plus.



Even more interesting is Wii's very own Left 4 Dead styled cooperative shooter entitled The Grinder. The Grinder takes place in the American Southwest where four monster hunters have been called back to action because of a recent monster outbreak. The game will indeed include both online and split-screen coop as players take down armies of creatures such as werewolves, vampires, and zombies. Unlike L4D, however, each of the four characters will have their own unique playstyle including a Japanese assassin who may or may not use a Wii Motion Plus controlled sword. In any case, the game looks absolutely fantastic and nothing like a Wii game at all. The Grinder looks to push the Quantum 3 engine past the limits of what anyone thought was possible by allowing 60+ enemies on screen at once and still looking phenomenal. And I can already tell the soundtrack is going to rock. More info here.



On a related note, it seems like there's a growing trend these days with hardcore Wii games. Even if they're ports, they count because it shows that there's a market for those types of games on the Wii. It seemed to start with games like Okami and moved on to No More Heroes (which is soon getting a sequel) and then MadWorld and the Conduit. It's a trend I hope developers keep up or, at least, High Voltage.

What's that, N-man is evolving?

No! No! NO! B. B. B! B! B!! B!!! BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB!!!!!!!!

Crap.

N-man has evolved into Fuzunga! *boop boop boop boopboop boop boop*

>A

Fuzunga: the fuzzy Pokemon

They use their vast intellect and amazing skill with words to create fantastic things to read. Also, they are very lazy.

Give nickname to Fuzunga?

>No.

Fuzunga was sent to Someone's PC.

Work

Alright! Here we go! Whoohoo!

Kidding aside, I've been working on some stuff. First of all is this page. Where you can read all my my written works collected together completely at some point. Actually, now that I think about it, it'll probably never be complete until I'm dead and everything I've ever written is posted in that one place. That was morbid.

Anyway, the megaevent known as E3 is almost here and we'll have the coverage you crave next week. I Promise!*












*may fall through

A new day is dawning

Not really, but the regular updates are back! Huzzah! To celebrate, here's this:

More than we've ever seen before

3D Realms shut down last week and took Duke Nukem Forever with it. Now, we get more of a glimpse of the game than we've seen in years. The consensus? It actually looked good. Good. Not 13 years of development amazing, but pretty damn decent. And we all thought it was going to suck. Boy, were we wrong. Or not. Forever really will remain that way. Thus, DNF has entered the land of vaporware. Farewell, Duke! We'll miss making fun of you.

This game will define Wii in 2009

So epic.

Rant: For the love of God, stop cell shading my games!

I don't have a problem with cell shading. Or, at least I didn't until recently. Back in the last console generation, it was the new, cool thing to do. Then, the graphical style seemed to fade away. Recently, though, it's made a comeback. Quite a comeback, indeed. I can understand that some people want to make a stylistic choice, and often it works, but lately it's just been too much for me. Games like Madworld and No More Heroes can get away with it because they're over-the-top and aren't meant to be taken seriously. Prince of Persia was quite nice but now it seems that everyone wants to capitalize on its popularity.
Take the game Borderlands, for example. It was announced back in 2007 and was barely heard from since. Why, you ask? Because it was receiving a stylistic overhaul. It went from looking like this, to looking like this. I'm sorry, but how many Sci-fi shooters have you seen that look like PoP? One: XIII. Why did it work? It was over-the-top. I'm not sure I want to be playing Prince of Persia with guns. Another one was revealed today: Red Steel 2. It needs to stop, guys. What's next? Halo? Metal Gear? There was absolutely nothing wrong with the way the first Red Steel looked. You don't see High Voltage making The Conduit look like that. And guess what, it works. The Conduit looks great. Which reminds me, just because it's on the Wii doesn't mean you have to make it look cartoony. Developers can do it with whatever they like, I suppose, but it doesn't make it a good idea. At this point, Champions Online is starting to turn me off- even though they were one of the first to go with that style, they're just unlucky enough to rlease it in a thicket of lookalike titles that zaps the originality right out of it.
It's not quite just cell shading. They call it something else these days like "concept art style" or someting. Truth is, it's not a far cry from the cell shading used in Zelda. Though it looks more realisitc, it retains that element of unrealism. I want more games that look like MGS4 and GoW2. I'm tired of playing cartoons, especially when it's in a realistic setting. For the love of God, stop cell shading my games, dammit!