• 21Jun 09

  Moving on

  Well, e3 is... erm... LONG gone, but I was so proud of the last blog post (look at that length ) that i left it up for a while. Hopefully it was useful to some peeps.

  But e3 IS gone, so we look to the gaming future. Again. It's what we always do. We're all very much looking forward to Mass Effect 2, Assassins Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2 and all the other amazing games that were unveiled at e3 this year. And why not, right? The next generation of games will be better. And the generaion after that even better. When does the cycle of graphics, framerates, story, gameplay, processing power and all jazz getting better, just stop? Where does the end for gaming lie?

  In the Uncanny Vally maybe? That weird level of graphics that look so much like a real human, but get the facial expressions juuuuuustwrong enough to be eery? Or maybe the end for gaming will be when developers build a fully interactive online world that you can enter into, create and customise your character and such, but it's like real life? Hopefully they make it so that if you die in game you die in real life too, as by then the planet will be horribly overcrowded and we'll need to clear the gene pool of stupid people to save space.

  There's one gamer who isn't looking to the future though. Screw those big budget Christmas release games coming out in a few months. I've got my KotOR and my Halo 3 and my Oblivion. I'll be fine right here. So long as TVs in the future have scart adapters and the mains plugs still have the same receptors, then that isn't going to change. My state of fineness that is.

  Speaking of Oblivion, I recently started to powerlevel *THE PERFECT CHARACTER*. I'd never done it before, and I wanted to have that all important 'perfect' save before I put down Oblivion for a long time. I've been using omgItsHorde's guide, which one can find at least in the 360 cheats and walkthrough section on Gamespot. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone wishing to powerlevel a character. It's simple but provides enough detail so you know what's going on, and once you get down to it it's not all that boring.

  Maybe I just have a high Willpower level

  • Posted Jun 21, 2009 11:49 am PT
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• 1Jun 09

  Metal Gear Rising?

  So the Microsoft conference is over, and God it was amazing. We saw Modern Warfare 2 (the first real gameplay) and it rocked. Splinter Cell: Conviction was shown, with loads of gameplay, and it rocked. TWO Halo games were shown. Halo 3 ODST was demonstrated in all its glory with plenty of gameplay. It's the first FPS Halo game to not focus on the Spartans, and as such we don't have any of their super powers. It's a welcome change though, and looks like it will rock on 22nd September. There was also another announcement - Halo: Reach - which was news to me but apparently had already been leaked. It looks like a prequel to the Master Chief games that centres on the Covenant destruction of Reach - the planet that the Spartans were trained on. It should rock come 2010. Alan Wake was FINALLY pranced around. The visuals are unprecendented and the atmosphere sh*t pants scary. It should rock - the boat.

  On top of the strongest games lineup I've seen at an E3 to date, Microsoft also showcased a number of things coming to the Xbox experience. Joyride is a free and slightly tacky racing game for your avatars, and should help ingratiate the whole family into gaming. Great now my parents can not only boot me off my 360, but play on it after they do. In my room.

  Music is coming the dashboard. A partnership between Microsoft and last.fm has been announced, and this should feature tons of radio stations and music on your 360. It looks like Microsoft's plans of making the 360 the centre of your home entertainment are coming to fruition. On top of that, it's free for XBL gold members, so it's at least worth checking out.

  Then there was a load of crap about Facebook and Twitter which didn't interest me in the least.

  Then there was the arguably best and worst announcement. Hideo Kojima himself appears onstage accompanied by a familiar '!' sound, setting 360 users' hearts the world over pumping. Metal Gear Solid is indeed coming to Xbox 360, but not in the form many have hoped. Not only will we not get MGS4, the first MGS game we will get will focus on Raiden. Yeah, that's right, the Raiden Konami themselves took the p*** out of after MGS2 for being such a terrible main character compared to the Snakes. But I'm being quick to judge. We havn't seen any gameplay yet, and Konami havn't disappointed Sony before. Hopefully they can keep that track record with Microsoft. The announcement also implied that ALL future MGS releases would be developed for the Xbox platforms (I say this to include future Xbox platforms, not past ones ). If this is the case, then we just robbed the PS3 fanboys of their one good exclusive. It felt good.

  Xbox Fluid was finally unveiled. After getting past my initial misgivings (which are still present to some extent) I began to realsie that Microsft might have just captured the essence of motion sensing controllers with their approach here. I doubt that motion sensing will replace the conventional controller for a LONG time, but I think that Microsoft has taken a step in the right direction. The painting game was especially interesting. After a dubious start, we eventually ended up with a pretty decent picture of an elephant in (?) Kenya. It will be fun to see the amazing things the more creative members of the XBL community will be able to do with this.

  The next and final demonstration was of something Lionhead Studios has been working on. 'Mylo' is a boy entirely created on the computers. He can recognise sounds (even differentiate between people), colours, moods and even has his own personality (this according to Peter Molyneux. We all know he hasn't got a reputation for over-hyping things ). While it's an extremely interesting concept, I can't see how it can be a useful application for the Xbox Fluid. I don't mean that Xbox Fluid can't interact with Mylo - it was shown in the demo that it can - but that this 'Mylo' has no good future. I'm quite the pessimist, and so I can easily envision people shutting off their faltering social lives and instead creating lots of understanding 'friends' to talk with and interact with. This isn't me being horrible to motion sensing, more me trying to protect gaming. See even as I write this I'm trying to phrase it so that I don't hurt Mylo's feelings. It was an extremely convincing simulation, but if that simulation becomes too convincing then the media could jump on any sad people who get taken in by that and turn the public against gaming. A simulated boy who understands how you feel and is an unfaltering friend could lead to some serious mental breakdowns, and some seriously damaging news reports. Call me paranoid if you like.

  In other news:

  More was shown of the Microsoft/Sky partnership. I can't wait to watch my avatar meet up with my friends' avatars and watch them watch TV. It'll be awesome...

  Tony Hawk talked about his game 'Ride'. I'm not a big fan of skating games myself.

  Final Fantasy XIII is coming to 360. That will be one heavy box what with all those discs.

  Epic Games is working on a side-scroller named Shadow Complex with an emphasis on boss fights. Unfortunately for Cliffy B, it glitched right at the end. That's one for Failblog methinks.

  Crackdown 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 have been announced.

  Forza Motorsport 3. I personally hate racing games, but this looks okay. I've heard that Project Gotham is better though.

  Netflix was briefly mentioned again.

  Videos from XBL will now be available in 1080i, videos will stream instantly, and there will now be support for 18 countries.

  Steven Spielberg popped in to say hello for some reason.

  I don't seem to have got my badge...

  • Posted Jun 1, 2009 1:13 pm PT
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• 22May 09

  Rescue Ranger?

  What an anticlimax...

  What? Did you think that this post was going to be on anything else?

  :@

  • Posted May 22, 2009 3:06 pm PT
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