July 2008

Hey, my 600th post! Kinda. Technically it’s #575, since the first twenty five were simply test entries Jason made while integrating WordPress into the rest of the site. But who really cares, right? Anyway, even thought it’s not like #500 (ah, Japan) or anything like that, I still wanted to do something to mark the occasion, and the original plan was to finally have a podcast for public consumption.

Last Thursday I went over to Mike’s for our third recording session and unfortunately, though somewhat par for the course at this point, there were some technical issues. Something wrong with my mic I believe. But in the end, I didn’t mind too much, since I personally didn’t think it turned out all that hot; it just felt, I dunno, forced? Over thinking will kill anything, especially when it’s as insignificant and stupid as a podcast, but after so many false starts, I just began to feel like it would never happen and therefore became some kind of monkey on my back. I believe it clearly shows that I just wanted to get it done and over with, hence why I was almost relieved to hear the technical issues, since it would justify yet another do-over, despite being annoyed with all the previous aborted attempts. But in the end, Mike was actually able to repair the audio file, so for anyone who is indeed curious can simply head on over to the forums.

I guess me being too lazy to link to it directly is indicative of the quality of the recording, or my opinion of it. Also not helping is how the general topic, E3, was pretty boring to begin with and didn’t leave much room for exciting discussion. Though I will say it does get pretty good near the end, when Mike goes off on Heath Ledger. Anyhow, with one finally done and over with, I’m confident the next one will be much better, and not just because I’m going to actually make a concerted effort to avoid rookie mistakes, like going “ummm” every five seconds. Hey, it’s been a while since I was on the air… granted, it was only college radio, but it still counts!

Anyhow, back on topic: I’ve also been thinking of possible changes to bring forth, including one that I used to be quite resistant towards, but have recently had a change of heart about it. The previously mentioned shortening of posts, which in turn would lead to more frequent updates. Why now? This blog was originally conceived as a place to bring forth information and discussion centering on all the stuff I liked for all my friends (as well as complete strangers eventually), primarily those who don’t have the time nor the wherewithal to find “the good stuff” themselves. But often or not, in my effort to deliver something for everybody, valuable bits and pieces often get lost in the shuffle; sometimes a film fanatic might miss something important because of all the video game chit-chat that comes before it, for example, and the addition of sub-headers hasn’t helped all that much. Plus, in this day and age where there’s a billion other blogs online new sources to check out, even I don’t have time for my own 30,000 soliloquies, so I must adjust accordingly. I’m hoping that separating things according to subject matter might help, along with the addition of tags, which is now supported with the latest version of WordPress that’s just been installed. I’m also wondering if I should go back to doing weekly news round ups, which used to be sorta popular, though I have since let the forums take that role. Yet I’m also still trying figure out what role the fort90forums will play in the grand scheme of things. I guess at this point, I figure what is the point, since I’m not IGN and one can find all the breaking stuff elsewhere, but as I’ve discovered time and time again, most recently via my game reviews (which is yet another new thing I’m going to try and do regularly) that folks sometimes just want to know what your two cents, no matter how “old” the subject matter is.

… Okay, does anyone even care about anything I’ve had to say thus far? At the very least, I am asked on a very regular basis by those who want to get into “the biz” all sorts of questions about “the process”, so maybe this is relevant to them. Or perhaps I’m just filling space because I ultimately have not much to talk about this time around?
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Been kinda slow since my last update; this past weekend was fairly low-key, yet rather eventful, and not because of the Siren Music Fest in Coney Island on Saturday. The day before, Katie and I was supposed to check out some French restaurant for lunch, but it was just too damn hot inside, certainly not much different from the outside, which as everyone in NYC can tell you was beyond oppressive (I guess it was the first day of our current heat wave). Ended up at some Houston Street eatery that had decent food at somewhat ridiculous prices, along with shitty service…. just like most Houston Street resturants! Then we did a little bit of shopping, at least as much as the heat would allow, though I personally was not that bothered by it because I knew there were two ACs at home, keeping the fort cool for our arrival (Katie has noted how much more pleasant I’ve become since the homestead as become completely air conditioned). I forget if we had plans later that evening…. if we did, they were totally tossed aside once we came home, which was nice and chilly and offered little incentive to go back outside. Besides, and I know this sounds incredibly gay, but Friday night has become my fave night to stay in and watch television, because of the stupendous combo of pro wrestling and cable access!

If there’s one thing I absolutely live for when it comes to pro wrestling, it’s weddings. Because they almost always take place in the ring itself, you’re guaranteed a bunch of goofy fights leading up to the ceremony, often taking place in the middle of the wedding isle, which is actually the ramp that leads into the ring, and usually between the bridesmaids. But the real drama is between the groom and bride to be; either it’s a couple madly in love or some bad guy marrying some good guy’s girlfriend against her will because her man lost a match beforehand. So when the priest goes ?If anyone has any objection as to why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, please speak now or forever hold your peace?, you just know there’s gonna be a fight, either to set things right or fuck things up, and if you’re lucky, someone gets tossed right into the big, super expensive looking wedding cake. Yet this time around, on WWE Smackdown, the ceremony took place before the show started, so the actual program was the wedding reception, which is quite the change in form! Both the new husband and wife were the two main bad people of the program, so for two hours they had the people they hate the most get beat-up in assorted matches. Things ended with the brand new husband’s PPV opponent showing a video the night before the wedding of him fucking the wedding planner. It was awesome.

Afterwards was this one nervous, nerdy dude that has a call-in show that talks about comic books and new age junk. I managed to get on the air and asked him what he thought Batman would do if there were a shock jock radio personality in Gotham similar to Michael Savage and if he said the same things about children with autism. That didn’t get much of an answer, so I then asked, if there was an All-Star game in Gotham, similar to what we just had in NYC, which Batman villain would try to do something, and what would he or she do. And later one was the angry, black psychic dude, but I didn’t even bother to try calling him; he’s just way too popular.

Saturday was once again the Siren Fest, which I’ve been going to since it first started, I think eight years ago? And each year I catch less and less of the event (because each year it’s less and less interesting), though this time I managed to COMPLETELY avoid the whole thing. Instead. I simply hung out with Joe Simko, June, and Joe’s buddy from back home John on the beach, where we tossed the frisbee around. Most exciting part? When some asshole tried to jack our shit (we were some ways away from out spot and the crowds, since we didn’t want anyone to get hit by an errand flying disc). Dude dropped his towel or something onto our stuff, to give him an excuse to bend over and check out what we hand to nick, but thankfully June spotted him in time for Joe to scare away.

Because last year was supposedly the last one for Coney Island, before all the long proposed development finally went underway, I was expecting the place to be all torn up and completely different, but that wasn’t exactly the case. In fact, it was for the most part, exactly how it always is… in fact, there was a couple of extra rides, which is neat. Though overall, the place was just as grimy as usual, perhaps more so. The bathrooms in particular let out a nasty combined smell of marijuana and piss. And the boardwalk food was just as shitty as always; because the line at Nathan’s was so long, I had to deal with two lukewarm hot dogs and six soggy little fries for $9 from some shit shack, and was even more pissed when I came across some guidos selling fucking awesome dogs, two for just $3, across the street from the freakshow. Don’t even get me started with how overpriced the corndogs were. Which in the end, made not reaching 100,000 in Ms Pac Man not such a bad thing overall. Oh, I guess the other highlight was the dude who you could dunk into a tank if you could hit the target with the ball. Had to pass that like ten times, and each time he kept calling out for me: “HEY FOUR EYES! WITH THE YELLOW SHIRT! YEAH, YOU!!!” During our final pass, Joe and I both pointed and screaming at him, like at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatcher (which I’m especially adept at… just ask Katie), which the dunk tank guy and his handlers got a real kick out of. But yeah, because it was so hot, even for Coney Island, we had to jet around 6, way earlier than usual.

The original plan afterwards was to have Katie join up with us (who didn’t go to Coney Island in favor of working on comics, and staying cool) and catch a movie, but because the subways were so goddamn fucked that day, it just couldn’t come together. Instead, we would stop by Joe and June’s and then head over to the Columbia University area for some dinner…. that was until their cat began to act very strange. At one point it began to meow very loudly, began to breathe heavily, and collapsed. It was a scene of utter panic, as Joe and June desperately tried to figure out how to attend to their poor kitty. Not helping was how it was Saturday evening and all the pet care numbers they had were not in service. On my end, I called the few folks that I knew that were experts when it came to helping animals, specifically Mike, whose sister is a vet, and Hilary, who has taken care of sick animals quite a bit in her time. In the end, the cat was okay… simply a victim of a heat stroke. But since leaving her alone was such an ordeal was simply not an option, we instead ordered Japanese and watched the Warriors on DVD, which John had never seen, plus a rather appropriate choice, given the day. And best of all, it was the non-director’s cut, without all those retarded comic book segues.

Can’t say much went down on Sunday. Again, because of the heat, Katie and I decided to stay indoors exclusively. We had plans to see Dark Knight… I was almost shocked to discover in the afternoon that some showings later in the evening were not sold out at that point… but passed. We’ll probably see it sometime this week; I hear it’s good, but for whatever reason, I’ve never been super excited to see it, and the current Bat-mania hasn’t really increased my interest level to be honest (I’m still more interested in catching Hellboy 2). I’m sure DK will be awesome, though when people say that Heath Ledger’s performance is Oscar worthy, I can’t help but roll my eyes. I guess I’ll have to see it for myself.

Instead, I decided to give the old Xbox 360 a spin, primarily the demo for Too Human, a game which I was only interested in checking out due to its creator, Denis Dyack’s clashes with NeoGAF. So how is it?

REVIEW: Too Human DEMO (Xbox 360)

It sucks. Not totally, but mostly. It’s basically a combination dungeon crawler and beat-em up that takes place in the future. In the demo you land on some hostile planet and attempt to explore and secure some ruins, but come face to face with a bunch of bad guy robots/creatures/somethings. There’s a few good things about the game, like how the dominant religion for your character’s world is the Norse mythology and not Christianity; given that it’s just a demo, there’s not too much backstory to judge, but there’s some definite potential there. And the bad things look really cool. But that’s where the highlights end.

First off, combat sucks. It’s a combination of melee attacks via a sword-type weapon, and long-range attacks via guns. Shooting is done with the shoulder buttons, which is just fine, but you swing the right stick to swing the blade, which always sounds great on paper but is rarely enjoyable in execution. Though what hurts things the most is the super awkward animations of everything. Too Human also suffers from too much shit going on; you are awarded experience points based on stuff you do, and can use them to strengthen various attributes, but I personally had no clue how to use them, nor what anything did. The menu system is a total mess, and its also annoying how one has to pause the game quite a bit to check stuff, but the whole process is SLOW. Graphics are okay I guess…. again, there’s the wonky animation, and the environments looks kinda okay, but also kinda incomplete. As noted, bad guys look cool, but there’s not enough variety (though I’ll let it pass since its only a demo). Though I can’t let the absolutely retarded enemy AI slide; for the most part, they just stand there like total idiots. Controls are strange; there’s a point where you click the right stick and the camera immediately zooms in and rotates around your character’s face. Okay…. Speaking of the camera, there was a point where I initiated some sequence where I jumped on some huge bad guy’s back and had ZERO idea what to do. It felt like some shitty attempt at doing a God of War moment, but instead of getting instructions on what buttons to press to fell a beat, you just stand there, on its shoulders, like an idiot. Even the audio is annoying; there’s all this annoying gibberish between your team, which is supposed to be immersive, but all it does is drive home how retarded your men are, who constantly bicker at each other or just “OH SHIT!” over and over again. Speaking of your retarded crew, and back to the shitty AI, they are of little help. Oh, and there’s a move called the groin ripper. And the all the female models in the game makes one wonder if anyone at Silicon Knights, the team behind the game, has ever encountered a woman in real life. Everyone looks like a prostitute, with WAY too much make-up applied.

… Since Katie noted that she had heard that AI in Dead Rising was pretty decent, and a whole lot cooler sounding that the one featured in Too Human, I decided to pop that one in, since it’s been a while. And all I can say is awesome game! Too bad I can’t tell what the fuck is going on due to it totally not giving a shit about standard definition gamers. Which is why I’m actually looking forward to the Wii version! But I’ll save the rest of the video game speak for my next post (kinda reneged on my keeping topics separate mantra already… oops).

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Time to delve into…

E3 Day Three

- Continuing where I left off… yet another game I was able to check out first hand at that Sega event a while back (but had to keep my mouth shut about) was Sonic Unleashed. Didn’t get a chance to put my hands on the controller, but I did watch a demo featuring Sonic running around a villa (the same from all those initial screenshots that pretty much everyone has seen by now) and was absolutely blown away. As a one-time Sonic diehard who, like so many others, has been completely turned off and simply annoyed by the never-ending stream of shitty Sonic titles from the past couple of years (with the exception of the DS Rush games), I finally thought to myself “Holy shit, things are FINALLY back on track!” The primarily side-scrolling action harkened back to the good old days of the Genesis; all of that Mario 64-esque adventuring has never suited the franchise, imho (I didn’t mind it so much in Sonic Adventure 1 since it was just so good to finally get a Sonic game at that point, plus the Dreamcast was brand new, ushering in a new era of new ideas and the like). Unleashed appeared to bring the series back to its roots, and back to basics, with mostly left to right action at SUPER fast speeds, with a few from behind, going towards the screen segments, though mostly as QTEs, which I personally didn’t mind, given that controlling Sonic from that angle has always been a pain in the ass. Anyhow, as a result, I began telling people, mostly those in the same boat as me, “listen, I know this sounds nuts, but this new Sonic title has the potential to finally get it right!” I faced much skepticism, but that was expected… I just told everyone to wait and see for themselves.

Though I already knew at that point that Sonic supposedly turned into a werewolf, but was not given any info, and quickly forgot about it. Well today, we finally got this…

And this. All I can say is… Oh dear God. They managed to fuck a totally sure thing, yet AGAIN. It just blows my mind that ultimately, Sega has zero fucking confidence in the core Sonic gameplay. Good job.

Time to check in and see what NeoGAF has to say about this!

- Another title I actually managed to play around with was Yakuza 2, which was quite the shock at the time (I’m guessing most have heard that it’s actually coming to America). Unfortunately I’m not super familiar with the original, but combat did feel a bit snappier this second time around, with fighting multiple foes at once a lot easier. Also, like everyone else, I totally welcome the original Japanese voice talent.

- Too bad Seaman 2 (which instead of raising some bizarre fish-type thing has the player taking care of a tiny caveman) isn’t coming, according to Sega of America prez, Simon Jeffrey via this Kotaku piece. He also says forget about a Shenmue 3, but honestly… Shenmue sucks, so who cares?

- Sega is also apparently pleased as punched about the success with Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone, and are gonna be delivering a bunch more games for the platform, plus Jeffery was also heard saying that the platform is as powerful as the Dreamcast. Okay, so where’s my Jet Set Radio for the device?

Meanwhile, on a semi-related note, there’s been zero word on the PlayStation Phone that is now actually coming down the pipeline. Also, SCEA CEO Jack Tretton has also gone on record by saying that Sony’s considering releasing a PSP with an onboard hard drive. Given how the new thing is to not only pass along games, but movies to the system via the PS3, plus how the cost of memory keeps dropping, and how everyone still hates UMDs, this seems to be an inevitability.

- Sticking with Sony for just one tiny bit more, check out yet another potentially awesome PSN title, called Fat Princess…

- Yes, Dead Rising is apparently coming to the Wii…

Controls will supposedly be overhauled to take advantage of the system’s motion sensing capabilities, naturally. Oh, and it won’t look as good as the 360 version, of course. But they, at least I’ll be able to read the text!

- Here’s yet another trailer for Street Fighter 4. And it’s kinda funny; in motion, its looking quite nice. I’m especially pleased that it’s beginning to look a bit closer to the original teaser, with all those broad brush strokes (and therefore beginning to look somewhat Okami-ish).

Though in still shots, it still looks questionable. Blanka in particular looks pretty ridiculous…

- Speaking of fighting, can’t say I’m entirely sold on this new Castlevania brawler for the Wii, Castlevania Judgment…

… But at least there’s another traditional title coming out for the DS, Order of Ecclesia. And I don’t want to hear people fucking bitching and moaning about “yet another Metroidvania.” Whatever. If sports fans can get a new Madden every year, why can’t us Castlevania get a new one a regular basis as well? Besides, so long as they’re well made and are fun, keep ‘em coming!

- Nintendo has another press conference earlier today, though mostly to go over stuff that’s already been talked about yesterday. Though one new tidbit was revealed: in addition to a new Mario title and a new Zelda game on the way, there is a brand new Pikmin in development as well!

- Oh, and perhaps the best trailer from the entire show would easily have to be this one for the Duke Nukem Trilogy.
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As mentioned yesterday, Microsoft came to town today, to show off basically everything they’ve been presenting in LA for E3. And I was able to spend a good chunk of time this afternoon to see and play what they’ve got in store for the next couple of months!

- First off, got a personal tour of the new dashboard and all that jazz, but I pretty much covered everything on Monday. Though I did learn some new info regarding the Netflix integration. It’s actually very similar to how it already works for those that watch movies on their PCs (which I wouldn’t know since I’m on a Mac); no matter what subscription plan you’re on for solid media, once can watch as many additional movies as they want via streaming. There’s absolutely no limit! Granted, it’s confined to the streaming library, which isn’t nearly as big as the regular stock, but still. Though the best part is the ability to “share” content. I can be watching something at home, and friends on my buddy list and can check it out on their end (provided they also have Netflix), and even chat during the flick or tv show. So basically, create your very own edition of Pop Up Video!
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- There were a number of Rare offerings at the event, including the third game in the Banjo Kazooie series. Whereas the first two games for the N64 were basically in the mold of Mario 64, this one emphasizes vehicles. You basically have to complete challenges in assorted rides, either ones provided for the task at hand, or your own.

As you play, you collect parts to deck out your vehicle. There’s a base land, base air, and base water machine, but with the right add-on’s, you can make that boat fly! I was given a glimpse at the rather robust machine editor and was pretty impressed by all the possibilities. When asked how many possible combinations were possible, the answer given was “in the millions”. It?s not as complex or flexible as Sony’s LittleBigPlanet, but it kinda has that same?crazy vibe, where if you sit down and really work at it, one can come up with pretty much anything. Plus you can share your creation with pals, and that’s pretty good.

Also, a little fun fact that I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet thus far: all those new funky avatars? Designed by Rare.

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Next was the sequel to Viva Pi?ata. Simply more of the same, so if you liked the first one, then you’ll dig the folloow-up. There’s a vague Pokemon aspect to it; there’s real life cards to collect, which when held up to the Xbox camera, will generate a little dude, though how these cards will be distributed (either all together in packs, or piece-meal, a la Pokemon/YuGiOh packs) as yet to be determined.
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- I was at GDC earlier this year, and got to check out first hand Jonathan Blow’s platforming with time magnum opus Braid first hand, but I never got a chance to actually play it (one had to be at the previous year’s to do so, I believe). So that was the first on my list of XBLA titles to give a spin.

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Didn’t get a chance to spend all that much time on it… ideally I wish I could have spent a good hour with it, so just the first level had to suffice. Early on, it?s all so easy, making me all the more jazzed for stuff to come (I saw some examples of later down the road levels at the GDC, and they looked crazy awesome). So all I can is that, Braid looks very nice, with an extremely unique art style for this day and age (harkening back to the day and age of those Pysgnosis platformers for the Genesis and Sega CD), and felt nice, at least as much as possible with 360 controller; there’s one point where you learn that higher jumps are possible by multiple hops on enemy’s heads, which was a bit tricky with the very loose d-pad. The most importantly this is that its actually coming out next month! I thought we’d never see the day.
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- Next was Castle Crashers, by the folks who did Alien Hominid. Whereas that game was an homage to manic side scrolling, on foot shooters like Contra, here we have the same for side scrolling, hack and slash adventuring, a la Golden Axe.

Again, not too much time spent here, but it again looked nice and felt nice. You choose a dude from a selection of four, each with his own attributes. Then you storm the castle, with either a melee attack of a long-range weapon. As you kill, XP is?accumulated, to strengthen whatever attributes at the end of the level, just like in Guardian Heroes. Weapons are also upgradable too. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes, especially the very big, filling up the screen. And like AH, CC is plenty violent while still be pretty cute! Seems like a winner to me, and another one that’s worth the wait.
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- Third up was Geometry Wars 2. Again, not too much to say here… it’s Geometry Wars! The same game as before, but with a little bit more. Enemies are faster and smarter. Oh, there’s also two players action, plus power-ups. As well as a multitude of game options, like endless and timed, though only one was available for me to test out.

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- Also got my hands on Galaga Legions, for a good while actually. And all I can say is… it is fucking SICK. My main question before pressing that start button was if it could possibly approach the level of brilliance that is Pac Man Championship Edition. And it does, dear God it does.
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What’s different? Well, you can go up and down, and my first reaction was BLASPHEMY! Till I finally got a good grasp of how it all works, which something like this: as noted in previous pieces, or simply the press release everyone has been going by, it’s not so much “bullet hell” but “enemy hell”. You have these super fast and dense swarms of ships flying in, and at all angles. Kinda like in the original, but on steroids. They’re not shooting at you, but simply flying into you. Before a formation swoops in, you can check out their pattern in advance. This helps with the strategizing. You have a few offense tricks up your sleeves. First is the standard shot, with an auto fire option available (and it’s actually quite handy in this instance). On both sides of your ship you have mini turrets that follow along your movement, or you can place them anywhere onscreen via the right analogue stick. That’s where the planning comes into play; if you know where a swarm is going to show up, simply place a gun to greet them. Placing and replacing the turrets’ positions is super simple and hella fun. Also, there’s a way to “suck up” a swarm and then use their formation against others. Just imagine the clones in Ninja Gaiden 2, except they simply repeat their same pattern, over and over again.

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The wave of enemy ships is absolutely relentless, and their patterns are an interesting mix of classic Namco and contemporary Cave shump behavior. There are five “stage” with numerous sections, each with many patterns within. I actually did quite good for myself (well, at least better than most reporters before me) and got to mid level three. The game is BEAUTIFUL. Just think the CE aesthetic at work here; the ships are all redesigned, but you can have them look like their classic counterparts. It’s all so lovely. And the sound effects and music are all borrowed from the past, lovingly re-done. I can’t emphasize how amazing the game is.

The MS rep demoing all the XBLA games kept saying that this upcoming August, which is when all the aforementioned arcade titles come out, will be their strongest month ever for the virtual marketplace, and he certainly wasn’t blowing hot air up my ass.
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- Onto something completely different… Lips, the karaoke game from iNiS. Despite them being behind Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents for the DS, which I loved to death, I’ve really had zero interest in their first 360 game… up till now. And my assumption that’s it’s basically Rock Band but without the instruments was wrong.

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The game comes shipped with two mikes, with the thought being, if there’s just one, no one will want to take the spotlight and embarrass themselves. But with two, it’s a bit more safe and inviting. There were a ton of songs available, including some rather interesting choices, but I was told that all of those were for just internal purposes only, to test the game. I ended up singing Young MC’s Bust?A Move, along with the iNiS dude, and I apparently did well, though I couldn’t tell you what I did to get my supposedly best score of the day. You just sing along with the game, like in regular karaoke, to rack points, though there’s rewards for one’s “performance” by waving the mike around, due to the motion sensors in them. I guess THAT’S the Wiimote “rup-off” that everyone was talking about. Another nice thing about the microphones is how they light up (it’s pretty) and can be used as a tambourine by those why just don’t want to sing, but be part of the fun. Up to four other players can use 360 controllers to hit buttons to initiate other sounds, like claps and audience cheers.
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The Bust A Move music video played in the background (“Remember those days?” as the iNiS guy noted, and I do), and I asked if every song would have its dedicated vid featured. That’s the plan, provided there is one. I then enquired if there might be an option to give Kips the real deal feel, with generic footage of couples in love in Hong Kong, the stuff you see at karaoke joints, and he said he’d bring it up to the dev team, since it would really be a good way to solve the problem of a missing video. And nothing?accentuates a powerhouse performance of Black Sabbath’s Mister Crowley more than seeing some young Chinese couple, in love and on the beach, circa 1985. So if it does indeed happen, everyone will know where the idea came from!
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- Then there was You’re In The Movies, which is like those Eye Toy games for the PS2, where you’re INSIDE THE TELEVISION(!!!), but a bit crazier and more ambitious. Again, the Xbox camera films you and then you watch yourself interact with in-game elements. One was really neat where you are riding a moped, and must lean left or right to avoid boxes and aim for ramps for high jumps. But everything gets recorded, and your movements can be incorporated into stupid little movies. Often the action one performs doesn’t relate to the scene later on, which only enhances the B-movie feel. Scenes can be edited and spliced together in any manner one can think of, then uploaded for sharing with others. Best part is, whatever you do is uploaded to just yourself… it’s up to the user to do whatever they want with the finished file. Meaning you can do literally everything, without an moderation getting in the way. Basically, one can finally produce true, video game porn. This one, believe it or not, really impressed me with all the comedic possibilities with the right group of friends.

- Fable 2 was also present, yet another title I hadn’t been following the progress of, simply because I wasn’t all into the first one (just wasn’t my thing, though I did enjoy watching my ex play it those couple of times). But after today, I’m all of a sudden interested!

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For whatever reason, I never found the original’s gameplay hook, that being depending on what actions you take, good or evil, not only determined how the game progressed but how you physically looked, as well as how the world around your character reacted to him or her, all that enthralling. I mean, sure I guess it’s neat if you’re good, all the townsfolk will talk good about you, and you’re a jerk, they either talked in hushed tones or complain about you, but it just felt a bit less than impressive (sure its neat, just not all that technically amazing). Also, just do good stuff or bad stuff for the desired after-effect, not exactly a challenge. Well Fable 2 mixes things up quite considerably. Not only is there the line between good and evil to consider, but the line between pure and impure. Meaning, you can do shitty things but still be a good soul, ultimately, or being someone that does all the right things, but is ultimately an asshole. Now we’re talking serious shades of gray, what people have been really interested in but have yet to experience, at least via a console RPG.

The enhanced combat was demonstrated, which is less cumbersome this time around, and also allows co-op as well, which was all fine and dandy, but it was the stuff that went down in the town that got my attention. The woman who demoed the game for me, knowing my ties to Nickelodeon Magazine, decided to demo a bit of the increased level of interaction and game logic by having her male character try and impress a female towns-person, who in this case is not exactly from the upper crust. So burping was done to make the girl laugh, with the action itself being somewhat of a mini game. Though because it was done incorrectly on purpose, the male character then began to throw up, which caused the woman to freak out. Though he won her back by farting, which again made her laugh. LOL, British people.

Next, the male character came up to a little girl… it should be noted that every character can be seduced, with a possible relationship forged later down the road, but there are limits… so when he tried hitting on her, she freaked out, and then ran off. She then told her parents, who then told the authorities, and the male character was immediately arrested. So no pedos in Fable 2! Another neat little thing, to emphasize the game’s ability to allow the player to not only customize the game’s world, but also be vain, involved going to the resident artist and ask to be immortalized in a hunk of stone, for a statue. Again, there’s a mini game involved, in which the character must stand still, and once more, the demo person messed up on purpose. The result was a less than flattering statue, which in turn makes the townsfolk take the resident adventure less than seriously. So yeah, Fable 2 just isn’t about fighting monsters and making grand moral choices, its about farting to make girls laugh and acting like the nice guy that everyone has suspicions about.

- Last game I checked out was Fallout 3, but by this point, there was zero time left, so I only got the three-minute tour, and much of it was lost on me since I’m not so familiar with part 2. It looked okay to me, but I know fans of the previous game are all up in arms (and upon hearing why, I can certainly see their point of view). Also meant I had to totally miss out on Gears of War 2…
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… Well, E3 is finally winding down, but there’s sure to be some extra things, here and there, to discuss, which I?ll doing so tomorrow, as well as go over once more all the major high (and perhaps low) points with Mike during out podcast! Yes, for the third time, we?re gonna give this thing a shot. I?m also gonna cut this short, since I had far more to write about regarding MS as originally anticipated, so reviews next time yet again. Unless I come up with some other wacky idea for my 600th post!!! Aren’t you all excited. Yeah, I figured.

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