This is more of an announcement than a blog. Astonishia Story for PSP is a very terrible game. I'll play through it I suppose, but its just so terrible.

Alright. So basically I went out and bought one of the new 250GB Xbox 360 consoles and got Splinter Cell Conviction for free. Played it once, its fun. A few weeks later I go out and buy a handful of games I hadn't tried in the past that I really should have got around to. I now have quite a few good games including: Assassins Creed II, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes From Liberty City, Army of Two, Fallout: New Vegas, Dragon Age: Origins, and a couple PSP games not worth mentioning in this blog. Now I'm happy with the recent aquisition of fantastic games, though I'm having a bit of trouble deciding what to play when it comes time to game. The way I see it is I should start a new game every time I finish one. and so I will end up just plowing through a handful of games and end up back in the market for a new handful of games that I should have gotten around to playing whilst playing the aforementioned games that I should have gotten around to playing before that! it seems I'm trapped in an endless cycle of gaming. But thats the not-so-cool life I live...

But to go in a little more detail about something I feel this is necessary -

Xbox 250GB: Now this console was something I never thought I'd end up purchasing but I ended up taking the plunge and going for it. Overall its very nice aesthetically, comes with some nice stuff and the built in wifi REALLY makes all the difference when it comes to versitility of gaming and not wanting to go out and buy a $100 adapter just to have that versitility. Its very sleek and cool and the extra space... well I don't really have extra space, but its smaller thats for sure, and even if that only gives me space to look over my TV at the screen I suppose an improvement is an improvement. Now that being said I have to talk about the issues I've had. I've gone through multiple consoles and have had the same problem with all of them. A rather large humming noise from something that is apparently supposed to be whisper quiet. I think thats just naturally how these things sound, they go from being very quiet to moderately loud back to quiet again. If it hasn't happened to your console I'm sure it will in due time. Though thats a pretty major fault... I still have to say its well worth the price if you don't currently have an Xbox 360... But if you do? Stick with it for sure.

Note: I know I have some spelling errors here, but I'm far too tired to go and correct them.

I picked one of these nifty devices today, I've still not picked up the rechargeable batteries for it, but even without its a very useful tool that can be used to convert your controller to a wired one when your batteries die. I'm shocked I've gone so long without something like this, instead I gave into paying for batteries every time my controller went dead, I can definitely see myself playing a lot more Xbox 360 now that I have this.. If only I had some of the hot games out now to play with my unkillable controller.

I also grabbed Clive Barkers Jericho, which I may write a review for as here on Gamespot its rating a very painful 6.5. Though I understand the reasoning for it being rated this way I have to somewhat have appreciation for it because I only paid $9.00 CD for it. I suppose you get what you pay for and in the case of Clive Barker's Jericho, its definitely worth the 9 bucks paid for it.

So I've began to play a lot of PSP lately mostly due to the fact that I don't have any batteries for my controller to play Xbox 360. Another factor keeping me away from the Xbox 360 is not having any new games for it. I've checked out some possible prospects and sure there are plenty of games I'd like to have for 360 I simply don't have the cash to be throwing away a whopping $60-$70 per game. It's getting to be quite difficult to keep up to date with all the games coming out that I'd like to have. I can't remember the last time I got a new (as far as newly released) game goes. I tend to stick to the bargain bin. Hopefully some of the games I've got my eye on will go down in price in the near future. Until then I'll have to replay some of my older ones hoping to squeeze a bit of value out of them.

I've been playing Super Street Fighter 4 for a while, and Guy has loyally been my main since I've began. Now this is all well and good except I'm not sure I can handle putting in the constant effort to keep him going. I'm not giving into all the hype and saying "Oh Guy sucks" or "Oh its so hard to use him", he's relatively easy to get the hang of, and hes not by any means a bad character. However he is a type of character that you DO need to predict your opponents movements and counter them, his ultra IS dangerous to use unless you're certain it will connect, and a lot of his moves DO leave enough down time to be smacked around if blocked. a few other choices come to mind and I'm thinking about practicing with them a bit.

Ibuki was my first choice. She is another one of the new characters and she seems fast with plenty of target combos. she also seems rather challenging to use so it may be a while before she's taken online with me. as far as her look and personality goes I'm also a fan. she's fun and shes a ninja what more can you ask for?

Sakura was another choice of mine. shes a returning character and bears similarities to Ryu as she follows the whole strict shoto trend. the reason I choose her over Ryu is for a couple reason, one being Ryu is terribly overused, another is that I like the slight variations on moves she has. Her look isn't too bad, but I'm not so sure the school girl thing gives the impression that this tough guy here is going to whoop you. her personality is hilarious and is much like Ibuki in that sense.

I will likely try out many other characters in my search for a new winner, but for now I'll practice a bit with these two and hopefully I'll pick up some solid technique with them. though Guy will remain a sub and hopefully I will always retain the current skill I have with him.

After watching more E3, I noticed that it appears to be not ALL about motion technology as I assumed from my first impressions of E3. I'm happy to see that the previous formula will be sticking around for a bit longer. Some of the things I saw and was looking forward to was Rage, Dead Space 2, and surprisingly a handful of Wii games.

Rage looks like a fantastic game, post apocalyptic wastelands are right up my alley. There were some things about it that looked great, and some things about it that didn't. I liked that it was made by id, growing up I was a huge fan of Doom and Wolfenstein so seeing them return was amazing. I also liked that it had progressive AI and that no two enemies will act alike. As Well as the complete locale being hand drawn so not even two rocks look alike. With that said the things I don't like are for one, that the game reallyresembles Borderlands. I don't just mean a little, I mean from what I saw it was damn near identical, from the wasteland to the people you interact with to the vehicle you drive, it just really had a Borderlands look to it to the point where I was unsure of how they were getting away with this. It also appeared to lack any sort of character customization as far as stats or appearance go. but all that aside Rage looks like it will be a pretty exciting and fun game.

Dead Space 2 looks absolutely amazing. being a die hard fan of the first and playing through it multiple times being so excited for the return of Isaac Clarke and the necromorphs has made this game one of my most looked forward to games. It was a little upsetting to see that I have to wait until 2011 to get my hands on it. a video was shown that displayed some new weapons, new necromorphs and a few new game play tweaks. The game from what I saw was exactly as I was hoping it to be and I didn't really have any problems with anything I saw. I'm excited to get my hands on it in the coming year.

The Wii shocked me the most at this years E3, they're bringing back so many of my beloved childhood games, it appears for the wii, 2010/2011 will be the years of Zelda, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, etc. etc. And thats a great thing to see. one problem I had with the Wii is I figured they'd only be making variations on a formula that weren't necessary, and from what I seen, at least with the Donkey Kong and the Kirby aspects, they were returning to the roots a little bit more but enhancing the experience. I'm glad gaming has come this far but I'm also happy to see that Nintendo can stop and take a look at itself and see that some of the golden games of 20 or so years ago had a certain charm to them, that I'm sure will be brought back in these upcoming releases.

I've yet to see word on any of the games I'm really excited to see like a new Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect 3, but I'm definitely impressed with all of what I've seen so far. I hope to continue to see more exciting great stuff.

So I noticed that theres this whole evolution of gaming thing going on with E3 this year. This whole obsession with Playstation move and Project natal I personally think is going to end up turning me off from the type of gamer I am. Don't get me wrong I think the concept is cool, but despite the massive amount of money Nintendo has made from the Wii I still looked at it as an inferior console, in that it doesn't really appeal to me, to swing something around whilst gaming. Gaming is something I do to relax and remove some pressure from my life. I'm not overweight I don't need the extra exercise from jumping around, and the whole bit thats involved with this type of gaming.

Watching E3 I noticed its really been the central focus as Sony spoke mostly only of this new "incredible" dynamic that Playstation move will be adding to the console. but I find it hard to believe that it can really be as seamless as they make it seem. Going back to Nintendo for a moment I can recall the Zelda demonstration having quite a bit of technical difficulties, not that I blame him, its not his fault that something like that should happen and I felt bad as he was probably embarrassed. This is the kind of thing I can't help but think will be a rising trend with this whole motion technology, constant glitching. And I don't really want to go through the whole stages of error before they get the formula right. I'd much prefer just sitting in my bedroom or living room, and playing as I have since I was young.

I'm not completely against the idea of motion technology being integrated into next gen. I'm just hoping that this won't be an absolutely necessary addition to the next generation of games and gaming. I was always skeptical about how ridiculous it seemed to me that so many games relied on online play when making the transition from PS2/Xbox to PS3/Xbox 360 but after getting into it I found it was an essential addition to gaming and that it was an absolute commodity. I'm thinking maybe its that same sort of skepticism that comes from viewing or hearing about something and generating an opinion before actually trying it for myself. Though in that same sense not every game was online, and it was never forced on me to game online. Hopefully that choice still remains, and some of the real keepers like the Uncharted, Assassins Creed, or Fable series remain being controlled with your hands and fingers rather than your arms and legs.

With that being said, as long as this whole wave of motion technology doesn't completely take over, I'm sure I can learn to live with it but I don't think I'll ever be too interested in it.