As their feet, weak and mostly silent, crossed the cobblestone walkway in Paris, as their voices rose in quiet desperation in Berlin, as the singing faded to silence in New York, as world over they dropped their eyes and shuddered, this is the blog of a phantom.

• 23Dec 09

  Onwards Through Canada

  So I'm at my Grandparent's condo in Toronto right now. I think the dresser in front of me is worth more money than all my earthly possessions. So different than Kelly's place. Super upscale Urban high rise after a farm house. Personally I preferred Kelly's place. I just feel ridiculously poor sleeping in a room with statues worth a year's rent. No offense Grandma, but surely there's some money in the family pot for little old me right? No? Oh well. Anyways, Kelly wrote about playing the God of War 3 demo, but let's just say she didn't quite get across the part about her squealing like a little girl at every screen. She really enjoyed it and I was glad we got to play it. I made sure Chris got her Uncharted 2 for Christmas, and she got Christopher Killzone 2. I'm there for four days and I turned a 360 fangirl into a PS3 addict. I even got Chris addicted. Nothing like an HDMI cable and 720p graphics to change someone's opinion of a gaming system.

  So other than getting Kelly's systems HD-ified and online, we both managed to get sick and puke our guts out. I probably shouldn't have ridden a 15 hour busride without any food in my stomach and then taken a handful of medication before passing out. I woke up puking my guts out. I managed to make a quick enough recovery, but a couple days later Kelly was puking and Christopher was coughing and passed out for half the day. Talk about bad luck, huh?

  Kelly got me Infamous and got Scott... oh wait I can't say that yet, huh Scott? I had a really good time and am hoping to go back up this summer when the weather is warm and the country is beautiful. Tomorrow I am going to see Up in the Air. Nowhere close by was showing Avatar in 3D so I'll be waiting until I get back home.

  Finally, I've been looking at GS's GOTY awards, and I have to say PS3 is sweeping these awards. Demon's Souls took RPG, Ratchet took platformer, Uncharted 2 took action adventure and Killzone 2 took shooter. I try to be unbiased in my gaming, but any 360 owner who denies that the 360 has had an utterly horrible year is lying to himself. Microsoft has a lot to prove next year. Halo Reach is a fine start, but I am seriously tired of Halo, Forza and Fable being all Microsoft puts out that is good. Three franchises just isn't enough. And I am referring to Nintendo with that as well. How many games in the Zelda, Metroid, and Mario series can we play before they just get boring? Again, I try to be unbiased, but Nintendo especially has a massive list of established characters to call upon, and yet we see the same three games over and over again. And let's face it, Zelda has been on a downward spiral for the past decade. This formula is still great, but it's getting old and adding some Wii Motion Plus waggle isn't going to bring this series back to prominence. Nintendo and Microsoft really need to release more games. Crackdown 2 and 99 Nights 2 are both good steps, but neither were great games in the first iteration. Alan Wake is actually looking pretty cool, but that's one good looking game in the upcoming lineup that doesn't have Halo or Fable in the name. The Wii and 360 have both sold pretty poorly this year and it's not hard to see why. Blame the economy all you want, but plain and simple there just weren't any system selling games released this year. I don't need a business degree to tell you that. PS3 was up in sales. Why? Because it had a lot of exclusive games that people really wanted.

  On another note, IGN gave the first review of Bayonetta and while they gave the 360 version a great score (9.5) they gave the PS3 a decidedly less pleasant review. Now since this is IGN doing the reviewing I am not worried yet. But I will be very sad if the PS3 version is really vastly inferior to the 360 version. IGN commented on the game's poor framerate which is something I didn't encounter when playing the demo, but we'll see what the final version is like. I'll be home when it comes out so maybe I'll play it on my bro's 360. I have to do a little designer rant here so forgive me.

  Why the f-ing hell does Sony have to make a system so hard to develop for? Seriously, how do they expect anyone to make a decent game for their system when their architecture requires such a great amount of effort to program for? I don't know anyone who can make a game work on that system. You have to be a fricking super-genius to make that thing tick. If Sony wants good multi-platform games on its system, they have to make their documentation and support systems far more advanced and easy to use. As it is right now I wouldn't blame a publisher for not making a PS3 version of a game. It's costly and damn near impossible. Who has the money to hire a half dozen PS3 specialists just to do a port? Sony dug its own hole this generation plain and simple. If you are going to make such a unique speciality processor you need to teach people how to use it. If you don't then don't blame designers for having problems making games for your system. What Sony has done is unfair to developers and even more unfair to gamers. If I spend $300+ on a system is should be able to play all multi-platform games as well as any other system, plain and simple. Being a designer it makes me doubly angry. First I can't develop games for a system, and second the games I buy for it are usually vastly inferior to the 360 versions. It is maddening. It shouldn't be this way. Sony knows better than to do something this stupid. What were they thinking? Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to make a system that no one could develop for?

  Ok rant over. Later peeps.

  • Posted Dec 23, 2009 8:18 pm PT
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• 19Dec 09

  Life at Kellymae's House

  So all you jealous folks, I'm writing this blog from Kelly's house. Everyone else here is asleep. Something about waking up in the morning. I heard the word morning and nearly collapsed in a fit of horror. Actually Kelly is making Eggs Benadict so I really should get up an eat. Thing to note: You know how Kelly says she can cook? Well damn Kelly can cook. It was her son's birthday today and she made him a birthday cake. I'll let her share the details, but let's just say I have never eaten a cake that good in my entire life. Chris made burgers using meat that wasn't frozen two years ago. It tasted like something resembling fresh meat. For those of you who have lived in a city your whole life, really take the time to go and taste some fresh meat. It really is entirely different than frozen store bought meat.I just said meat a lot huh?

  Okay another thing to note: Kelly doesn't joke when she says she doesn't like people. Like she really doesn't like people. Reminds me of, well, me.

  Anyways, I got Kelly's PS3 to go online. Not really sure what the problem was. I just hit connect and it connected. She is running her PS3 in 480i right now through some composite cables. We will be getting an hdmi cable for that and for her 360 tomorrow. I think she is going to freak when she sees the difference. Nothing like a little 1080p goodness to change one's opinion about a game or system.

  Let's see, what else. Kelly has a lot of crazy game stuff in this room I'm in right now. She has a full five foot Gears of War 2 cutout, a bunch of ridiculous figurines, and a lot of games. She also has a huge dog. Like seriously this is the biggest dog I have ever seen in my entire life. He's initially rather intimidating, but he's actually just adorable. Really one of the sweetest dogs I have ever met.

  In other news, I took a look a GS's GOTY noms and realized just how few games I have played this year. Kelly got me Infamous for Christmas, so that should knock one off of my to play list. I think it shows just how good a year this was for PS3 that over a quarter of the GOTY nominees were PS3 exclusives. I'm not being a fanboy when I say that this was the year of the PS3. Sony really played it's A game this year and I think it really worked out for them. Strong sales, a lot of hype, and so forth.

  Okay I have to get to bed so I can wake up and eat some Kelly breakfast. I missed French Toast this morning. Don't know how I slept through that. Oh well.

  • Posted Dec 19, 2009 9:55 pm PT
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• 17Dec 09

  Avatar: The Term

  So I have been waiting a short amount of time (somewhere around half my life) to see Avatar. It opens tomorrow night. Now certain scheduling conflicts mean that I'll be on a bus at midnight tomorrow. The good news? That bus is taking me up to Canada to see our good friend Kellymae. Bad news? I don't think there are any 3D theaters around where Kelly lives. So that means I am going to have to wait until I get back home to see it. To help soothe the great sorrow I feel I thought it would be nice to leave you all with a little trivia question.

  In Avatar the term "avatar" is used to describe an alien body controlled remotely by a human in another location. But the term Avatar in the purest sense has no relation to this meaning. Somewhere between the earliest days of computer gaming and now, the original usage of the term avatar was changed to its current usage as a virtual representation of a person in an online space. Can anyone on here tell me the term's original meaning and trace it from that meaning, through it's first usage in games, all the way to its modern meaning? There is a specific game where the term was first used, and a later game where the term evolved into its current use. If you are under, say, 15, you are probably going to have to look this up. If you are an old school gamer then you might remember the early days of the term avatar and may even recall playing the first game to use the term. Cookies for the first person to explain it!

  • Posted Dec 17, 2009 12:52 am PT
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