The BioShock demo was released...and there was much rejoicing!

Here are my thoughts as I progressed through the demo:

-The menus were very well presented. The soft piano notes that play everytime you highlight a different option in the menu created a nice juxtaposition with the ire crashing waves in the background.

-Opening plane crash sequence though short was very entertaining...and pretty.

-First thing I noticed when I reached the steps on the lighthouse...another FPS where your character has no legs...LAME! (I heart the darkness)

- Oh wow this game has nice graphics

-Somewhere beyond the sea...If this game has more 60's classic tunes Ill be in love.

-RAPTURE!...

-Who is this Mr.Ryan fellow? and Who does he work for?

-I have a feeling after what happened to that guy you first see get shanked you're not going to see many friendly faces down here.

-I could sure use an Atlas down here...problem solved...wait I have no legs :(

- Nice water effects, very dark, creepy...wrench!

- Love the Little Sister's voices, those big Daddy's are quick.

- The Hacking feature won't last for many players. It will be one of tohse things were you do it once or twice then just buy it out everytime after that, it just takes to long.

- The world is richly detailed with all sorts of things that remind the player this was once a flourishing city.

- Great ending to the demo.

Best demo on XBOX Liveat the momento. Can't wait for the full game to come out. Hopefully they release a PC demo before the game ships so I can decide which version to get.

Quickly here are my favourite games that were shown at this years e3:

Game of show:
Mass Effect

Runners Up:
Call of Duty 4
Crysis

Best FPS:
Call of Duty 4

Runners Up:
Crysis
HL2: The Orange Box

Best RPG:
Mass Effect

Runners Up:
BioShock

Justbought The Darkness today. There was something telling me this game is a better rental than a full purchase. I'm not to far into the game yet but so far I'm impressed,

-The gun play feels very satisfying. Shootin' dudes in the head and seeing them (for the most part) fall and drop realistically is very fun.

-The graphics are very very slick. Some of the best on the 360 so far that I've seen. Locations are richly detailed and full of junk. Especially in Jackies girls place. I love the real time tv broadcasts that pop on the tv's showing what's going on. Is that To kill a mocking bird? Weird choice but totally awesome.

-Sound is nice and crisp and spooky setting a nice atmosphere.

A few things I'd like to point out that have caught my attention:

-First I like the sort of free roaming world where you have choices deciding what you want to do ie, story missions, side missions, item collecting. Interesting to see in a FPS.

-Secondly I loved the interaction sequence you have with your girlfriend Jennyin her apartment on the couch. It was a great way to develop the realationship between the characters and it's a good way to build character depth in a videogame. Nod to the developers for that one.

-Opening sequence was quite a ride

-I wish more FPS let you see your characters body when you look downward, makes the game feel a lot more realistic and gives your character a real presence in the game.

- The Orpahaninch portion of the gameis by far the best sequencein gamesI've experienced in quite some time. Going in thinking you're going to have this massive firefight and end up not firing one bullet was amazing. That's a sign of good game design, knowing where to draw the line between action and story. Intercutting the elemets of flashback with your ghost was very well done. And the climax of the level, oh WOW. That I did not see comming and I litteraly went OH SNAP! However I can't say I'm not dissapointed and sad as to what happens.

Can't wait to play more! Hell looks awesome so far! Nazis?? What is this a WWII FPS? Awesome!

That's it for now more updates to follow!!

The projected forecast of games comingthis Fall and holiday season looks fantastic. Although it might be anexpensive time for usit will sure bring a lot of great games and good times. Here's a look at some of the games I'm looking forward too most:

Half-Life 2 Orange Box
The biggest question for me with this game is whether to get it for the PC or 360.I'll be purchasing a new PC in thecoming weeks and this would be the perfect game to test the new rig on.The only real draw for the 360 that I can come up with is achievements. However I'm making it a point not to make achievements the deciding factor over which version to buy. Control will obviously be tuned for a mouse and keyboard and the graphics will have a leg up on the PC...Alright I've made my choice, PC it is.

I once finished about a half of the game once at friends house on the xbox. I never owned an original xbox and I'm only now upgrading my pc so I was never reallyable to play HL2. I'm really looking forward to playing this game and exploring the HL universe completely for the first time.

Portal and TF2 look stunning and a hell of a lot of fun so I know I'll be spending a lot of time with this package of goodness.

Mass Effect
I love Sci-Fi so this game is a no brainer for me. I picked up the prequel book and enjoyed it which has really got me into the ME universe. I enjoy open ended/Sandbox games but really it's about the story/characters that attracts me to games. And this one is looking like it will deliver a very deep, rich and engrossing story.

It's like Oblivion in space, can't go wrong.

BioShock
Another game I'm having troubledeciding onwhich platform to go with. With BioShock I'm leaning a little more to the console side, why I'm not so sure. I'll have to see what the review is like; and if one seems better than the other, I'll go with that.

There's no other game I've read andheard more hype about that this one. I really hope it delivers. All this talk about the players freedom to chose how to go about dealing with all the scenarios the game throwsat yousounds great. But I'm wondering how much freedom the player will really have. Yeah sure go in guns blazing or go in stealthy has been done before. It just seems like they're talking up all these great things that aren't really in the game or are but aren't really that great. Get where I'm going with this?

Well we'll wait for the review I guess. Like I said I hope this game does deliver on all it's promises. Andeven if the gameplay doesn't turn out to be all that revolutionary, the story and environment will hopefully make up for it cause this games surelooks rad!

GTAIV
There's no doubt in my mind this game will deliver the goods. You know what to expectfrom GTA games now but everyone is still chompin' at the bone of San Andreasin anticipation for this one. The last GTA game I played was Vice City so I'm in somedesperate need for my GTA fix. The one thing I'm most looking forward to about GTAIV is what kind of missions are we going to be thrown into this time. GTA has been known for someunique (yet sometimes frustrating) missoin scenarios. I wonder what Rockstar has cooking this time?

Assasin's Creed
As time goes on my enthusiasm and excitement levelfor this game seems to fade. I don't know if it's because there's never any new footage released or what but I'm sure not as stoked for this game as I was when it was first announced way back when. I loved the original Prince of Persia SoT and I find the setting and mysterious going on's behind the scenes in the game to very interesting but for some reason I'm losing interest. Once again, with this game like BioShock, I'll be interested to see how much freedom you really have with the environment because like all games at some point there has to be restrictionsfor the player.

But I guess if they keep pulling Jade Raymond in front of the camera to talk about jumping into piles of hay, us maleplayers will keep our mouths shut.

No More Heros
I don't have a Wii yet but once this game is released I'll be sure to bein line for one.Killer7 is one of my favourite gamesand I can't wait to see what SUDA has in store for us this time. His story and way of telling his storyin 7 was so developedand weird that it got me hooked right from the beginning. The gameplay might have been a little repetitive but it was the story and characters that, that game was all about.

The one thing that has got me a little worried however is the idea that SUDA may tone down the violence and storystructure to make it appeal to a wider audience. God forbid gamershave to think a little when playing a game.

There are a few more games that I'll be playing be these are the ones I'll be spending most of my time with this Fall.GameSpot sure hasthere hands full with reviews and Game of the Year nom's this year. Good Luck to you! If I had to pick a game of the year winner right now....I'd go with Mass Effect.

After three failed attempts to make the kill, the fouth seemed to be my lucky number. For I now have the elusive Zelda Twilight Princess for the Cube.

Success is sweet.

...so sweet

The End

Tomorrow I venture off to find the elusive Zelda for the GC. Wish me luck for I will surely risk life an limb to bring one back alive.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

TO BE CONTINUED

Time for Mii Impressions after Gamespot's big 'Wii Marathon'.

I was excited as anyone waiting to finally see the Wii in action during the marathon last Friday. Now after having seen those 4+ hours of action I must say, Mii disappointed, Mii very disappointed.

Let us start at the beginning here. The console and packaging looks nice and slick. Nintendo hasn't lost a beat keeping up with its competitors in that area of things. Even a note from Reggie; is that going to be in every box? Yes packaging only gets you so far but once the Gamespot folks got the thing up and running things were still looking good. The menus looked clean and a little more 'friendly' and inviting than those of the 360 and PS3. One thing Nintendo is doing different is their odd approach to your game identity. This whole 'Mii' idea of creating your own avatar person to be your identity has me a little curious to see where Nintendo is going to go with this. Where exactly is this thing going to show up rather than just your character in Wii Sports? Will it show up in other games? How will it be used in communicating online with other players? ect. After my initial impression I'd say I'm in the same boat as Jeff as being a little unsure about this whole thing and that the character models themselves look a little stupid. However with a little work like all the main console menus things should work out.

Now GAMES! GAMES! WII GAMES! First off was....was...oh yeah Super Monkey Ball....again. Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. The impressions I got from watching the editors play this one is that the mulitplayer fails. It didn't seem that they were having too much fun playing this one. The games although plentiful seemed down right boring and un original. Not to mention a few sync issues or broken controllers(is this going to be the problem that plagues Nintendo the months following its release? We shall see...) It seems to Mii to be another failed attempt at the party game genre. We didn't get to see any of the single player game which is what Super Monkey Ball has been known to execute well. Oh well...who was really planning on getting this one anyway?

Next up, Wii Sports. Wii sports, the only game being packaged with a system this generation. Fantastic! It's about time too that these company's stop being cheap mothers and give something back to it's consumers. So, Wii Sports comes on the screen and we get some 4 player tennis action! Tennis is awesome!...Real tennis is awesome!... Wii Sports tennis?... Terrible! Not being able to control the movement of your own player? What's up with that Nintendo? So the only really action in this game is swinging the controller? Now I didn't hear any editors comment on whether you control the spin or speed of your shot but let's hope there's something else in this game that requires brain power. It also seems there's going to be a little bit of a learning curve with these games, as far as timing your shots goes. So far this one seems like a disappointment.

Next up was baseball.

Same deal as tennis basically. Everything about the real game of the sport has been striped and all you do is take turns pitching and hitting. Once again correct timing to connect with the ball seems difficult. And the characters have no arms (!!??!!?) I think I'd rather play Charlie's Angels....just kidding.

After Baseball, Bowling.

What a mess this one was! It seems it's impossible to throw the ball straight and not only do you not have any arms, the freakish looking Mii people bowling next to you have no arms OR legs!! Who the hell wasted the production budget on this one? (Reggie I'm looking at you!)

Golf next.

This one actually seemed like you played a real game of golf. But then again who's playing Wii sports for the golf?

Finally (!) we have Wii Boxing.

Wii boxing seems at first to be one of the most exciting to play with the Wii remote. This one also throws out any brain power required, where all you need to do is throw out your arms with reckless abandon and you will no doubt win the bout. Sorry Jeff but it's Wii boxing, not Fight Night Round 3.

All in all Wii Sports had to be one of, if not the biggest disappointing game. Little to no production value, little to no actual gameplay and a whole lot of questioning the Wii remote's ability to accurately correspond to your movements. I guess a console packaged game was to good to be true. CRAP!

Excite Truck is next. There's not a whole lot to say about this game really. The first thing that I'm sure that jumped out at everyone including myself was that you had to actually finish the training before you could play the actual main game itself. What if you're some 10 year old who gets the Wii for Christmas with Excite Truck and the kid can't beat the training? What then? He's screwed! No game for you boyo! I do like however the 'real time map alteration' that goes on when you collect that power up. The steering controls seem fun, however by the reactions of the gamespot crew it's a little to responsive and like most games will take some getting used to. Still the theme so far with these Wii games is that they don't have too much to offer in the way of content. Another disappointment? Well, who really had high expectations for this one anyway?

Next up was, well lets be honest here, probably the only game us video game players were looking forward too, Legend of Zelda...Twilight Princess! Now if that awesome demo Alex put on for us doesn't get you excited to play that game, I frankly don't know what's wrong with you! This game looks great! I'm super stoked to play this one...on my Gamecube! (If you haven't figured it out by now I'm not getting a Wii at launch) This series just doesn't disappoint does it? The graphics and especially the animations have been upped significantly it seems (as to be expected) from the past games in the series. The lack of real human voice work still gets me though. I think it's about time the series used real voice actors. Don't you agree that it would elevate the series to that next level, it needs to compete story and character wise with games like Medal Gear, Final Fantasy ect? Anyways back to the demo. It was a great demo, for as many times as everyone was yelling at Alex I was yelling with them. Great stuff. Exploring the world is half the fun. There's going to be so much to do in this game. So buy this game, but is it a system seller? Yes, if you don't own a Gamecube. No, if you do own one, so you can buy it for that one instead.

So that's all. Wait...forgot Madden, but intentionally because I'm not one for sports games. It looks like a solid football game if you're into it with all the new Wii controls. So buy that if you want too.

Conclusion time. To be blunt I'm not going to buy this system at launch based on the unfortunate signs of only one or two games that interest me. If there's one thing to take away from this Marathon its got to be that Twilight Princess is going to be awesome! It was a great Wii Marathon Gamespot. Thanks!!

I am now officially sold on the Nintendo Wii. All because of the new game from SUDA-51 (creator of killer7). Heroes is the title and if the trailer is any indication of what the final game will be like, I'm THERE!

Why you ask?

...because ' Your shinning armor and fine words won't get you anywhere!"

WOAH!

4 years of waiting and waiting and playing video games and the time is NOW!!

WORLD CUP 06! BEGINS!!

ALLEZ FRANCE!
Send Zizou home happy!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6148462.html

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