.... on the sporre front. Ofcourse we have prey, hl2:ep1 and others but i'd really want to hear some news about spore :)

I kinda let e3 go past me for personal reasons, isn't it kinda smart of me to not indulge too much in a show that had so much cool new games (and consoles) to show ?

I mean, when you look at the games that I love and are still a long way (talk, august, october, spring 07 etc), then I think it's better not to drool too much and let all the new info pass quickly. I think when I'm not concentrating too hard these games will be at the front door quite unexpectedly.

But some quick thoughts befor I burry it all: Spore is ofcourse going to shock the rocks and shake the lakes. It doesnt seam to be for everyone because some group of gamers don't really know if the game goes somewhere or the "swiss army knife" aspect of the game will maybe scare away some, but still lots of people will like it to bits and I'm one of them. Especially when I saw the creature editor and the "dark side of a planet" I knew there's a way of transperancy and flexibility to the spore universe that's almost romantic to witness. In the new trailer you can actually see night time scenes with willosaurs (thats the creature the creator made in the game developers conference of 2005) doing a ritual dance, that was quite immersive allong with all the other elements of the game ofcourse.

Now on to the Wii. I actually don't know what to think of it. Umm, the way you handle the two controllers in each hands seem ubercool though, and the fact that you can buy it and then it will have the potential to give you both new nintendo products and as a virtual console you'll have the entire nintendo game history in one machine. That's what I find cool about it.

Although I'm not a graphics junk and I don't want to inspect every pixel to see if it's last generation or outdated or something: I can't help but get the impression that Nintendo should have tried to put in more graphics horse power.

My thoughts of this are inspired by that one mock up movie that was released last year where the revolution was a round helmet shaped device that you cen put on your head and had 2 eye screens that sit right infront of your eyes like a visor. and all kinds of other nifty things

You saw what the fan's impression was of next generation mario and metroid. It's not going to be like that, instead, Nintendo showed us next gen zelda, mario and Metroid: and it looked a bit more like a gamecube title rather than next gen. Well: it's only a tiny bit dissapointing and it actually will not bother me when I finally get to play these things myself. Nintendo always says it's not about the looks but about the games and the gameplay of these new games is really cool. An unexpected "mario in space" game almost reminds me of spore, where you visit small planets and it's cosy cause you first have to run around these tiny rocks to solve a puzzle befor you can advance to the next.

Prey seems very unusual as well. Especially when you see these surrealistic spacial distortions that you have to deal with. There's this tiny box where you have to crawl in and suddenly you're in another locale, and then there's some kind of situation where you have to walk on a sphere and even if you'll walk on the underside, you'll be with both feet on the ground. Pray presents like a world that lets you go anywhere and stand almost everywhere, upside down, on walls, etc etc.. and they do that very intuitively.

So well, everything I'm looking forward to is being said here and I've been struggling hard to find out what I want console wise and I guess I'll just end up with a new direct x compatible desktop computer + a Nintendo Wii.

I've long thought to buy an xbox360 but I'll not do that, there's only so much money a person can spend on entertainment and I'd like to spend it on the stuff that I think are the best. I'm not a hardcore gamer that wants to have and try it all, and it so happens that all the stuff that I find interesting isn't really on the xbox360. Okey, I'd be stupid to dismiss Too human and gta4, but I'll see. This can wait untill october 2007. Maybe at that time I'll have money free to also buy an xbox360

But knowing that the more atmospheric games like alan wake, crysis and spore will remain pc exclusive My choise is clear for now.

In my previous blogpost here , I told about how I'm only a casual gamer; To elaborate a bit : I won't buy sports games, the odd or even FPS, every odd adventure game, fighting games, (oh, I did that once, I bought soul calibur for the gamecube cause I wanted to review it for my late gamecube site.). But I really don't like this stuff longer than 10 minutes.

What I do like however is those rare games that stand out emotionally. Ofcourse this is very personal and I could totally love a game like Another world, yet hate something like diablo or warcraft world. I'm really not into these. THey aren't dumb or bad, just uninteresting to "me". There's only so much emotional investment that I do in games and that results in me buying maybe 3 or 4 games a year.

But this year has been already amazing. I bought dreamfall, tr:legend, supermario kart DS, and then even a belated anticipation rush for GTA:san andreas hit me so I had to get that one.

The thing is I never played a GTA game befor, not because it gives you the freedome to do irrelevant violence, but cause some people are just acting as elitists.

Now when people act elitist about any medium, or musical genre, or book: I get an anti feeling. The "I'm better and smarter cause I play/read/listen to this , " that alone makes me not want this.

But it's the same freedom in this gta game that kind of attracted me and when I was playing it hit me.

WHy in the world are people so shocked with this game ? I mean, important, presidential wife kind of people and lawyer kind of people and stuff. I mean, look at this game, even the police , paramedics and firemen would trash others' cars and pedestrians would flatten a bunch of pedestrians only to get trough to somebody lying on the grond to revive him. I call that over the top humor.

My thoughts immediately go out to tom and jerry, now how friendly are they to eachother ? So this is the same sadisticly childishly humorous feeling I have when playing gta. Just bang everything up abd tget bang you back. Do totally irrasional things.

As long as you can have the desency to be aware of real life morals as opposed to morality towards computer generated content that acutally challenge you to be "virtually imoral", then there's no problem. You can't experience pain from GTA characters shooting at you and they won't experience pain if you shoot them.

In real life you experience feelings and foreboding when challenging people in this world...that should be enough for people to make a moreal balance for themself and to understand the difference.

But well this aint a psychoblog so I'm not going to ramble on about that.

I wanted to come back to the games I bought already in 2006. On their own they're such jewels. Tomb raider legend is sleak, adventurous and mysterious, with a good control sceme and good interaction with her sideckicks.

Dreamfall's story is just massively complex. In the first longest journey you just focus on one or two aspects of the twin world universe, why it's in chaos and how you have to save it. But in dreamfall something more sinister and bigger than the 2 worlds is revealed and you kinda get side tracked from the focus of the first game but it's hugely advicable to let this new story sink well.

What I'm still looking out for this year ?

Spore (build your micro organism and let it evolve to macro organisms that prey, eat, build cities, build spaceships etc....) This will be one experience I don't want to miss!

I also loved the legend of zelda: link to the past to bits. I'm also looking forward to this game. But beyond that ? not much.

No, not that I dislike the game: on the contrary. I just reach the end. My rambligns are on a notepad text file somewhere. I can't begin to try to figure out how all stuf is going to go on, or which threads will have enclusure. The ending of this game is not negative though!.

I just want to point this out cause often you hear the word" dissapointing" together with "the ending of dreamfall". And I don't think people are dissapointed with the ending as it stands, but more dissapointed by the lack of further story. So the ending isn't a dissapoitment, it's a huge cliffhanger.

and we want more!

I'm not going into detailed ranbling about the threads that are cut loose by Ragnar Tornquist in this second TLJ chapter, cause that would be too spoiler-ish. I'd like to wait a few months with that.

Ofcourse now it's back to playing the rest of tomb raider legend on normal difficulty, and then we wait for e3!.

Oh I could go and buy oblivion but first of all i'm not so emotionally drawn into this, and I heard it kinda taxes your pc alot. Knowing that I've got a little-below-average pc (technology-wise) I know i'll hear my harddisk rumble 10 minutes befor I can play the game.

The alternative is to buy an xbox360 but i'm not sure of that yet. I'm against buyig the wrong gaming console and i don't want lots of these roaming around the living room. Oldfasioned ? greedy ? No, it's just the way i've been raised.

One does not overdo the luxurious stuff things so to that extend: i find having 3+ types of consoles overl the top. I want to choose. If e3 has convincing nintendo stuff I'll buy a nintendo... and then it's byebye xbox360 cause then I'll also upgrade my pc lated this year instead.

If it's the other way around and I get hyped by games coming out for xbox360, then it means I don't need to upgrade my pc so it will stay the way it is and i'll play good games on the xbox.

You guys do realise the market just crates all these demands and wants you to buy everything right ?

I'm only a casual gamer and only like to play these game I have strong feelings for, so the investment in game technology has to stay relevant to the frequency and intensity in which I play games.

To give you an idea there's only a bunch of games i'm looking forwared to. Prey, Zelda: Twilight Princess, spore and maybe too human but have to see more of this...

Damn. It's going to be a good year for me. gaming wise. I Just love the games that are coming.

Dreamfall will give me a much needed continuation of Ragnar Tornquist philosophy. I was totally anchored to the way he made the story about the twin worlds of stark and arcadia. The way he let a witty girl next door type girl embark on a huge adventure of world scale epic. There's so much dynamics in the game that started it all and we, the fans are dying to know how the plot thickens, what the conspiracy of the vanguared was, how it relates to dreams. How "going to arcaida" is related to one's state of mind (are you awake when you're in arcaida, and dreaming when in our scientific world ? or is it the other way around ?... all those questions... How is it with brian westhouse, why do we see new pictures of him in jail, how is April ryand doing 10 years later ... questions questions, all going to be answered in dreamfall (or even more questions raised ?)

Spore seems to be a very interesting life creation game that will be a bit more goofy than the sims 2,

In spore Ill create the weirdest life forms and see them evolve beyond their planet (I hope)..

I love being a cummunity support member for the whole trackmania scene but sega's new outrun game will really bring me back to the arcades. I actually hope they'll bring at least a remix of that femous funky tune you always hear when playing the first level. This became so tied to the experience...

Ofcourse I'm also waiting for zelda: twilight princes. I've always loved the zelda adventure series... It's a mix of good atmospheric location, weird creatures that are sometimes biological puzzles you must solve... And the idea that you can just imagine how link and zelda and the other creature sounds make these kind of games kind of a mix between a good book an a good action game. (cause the characters will only speak in text and have no voice)