Anyone who's read my impressions of last year's E3 knows I'm no fan of Nintendo's press conferences. So, what did I think of this year's conference? Half an hour in and they'd already kicked Microsoft's ass, though that wasn't a hard feat.

They kicked things off strong by showing a new Zelda game called Skyward Sword. At least it was a strong start until they showed the bow mechanic at work and the controls dicked up. Hopefully, that was just interference like they said. It'd be a shame for a game that looks that good to tank because of bad controls. Overall, the way motion controls were implemented looks pretty cool and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

From there, it was all uphill with Nintendo announcing a whole slew of promising Wii-exclusive titles ranging from casual party games to more traditional games like Goldeneye and Metroid Other M and even retro-style games like Donkey Kong. They had something for everyone this time around.

I wasn't sure what to make of the new Metroid when they announced it last year. This year, I'm still not sure in what direction they're going to take it. They showed a little more gameplay, but most of it was stuff we've already seen. I suppose you can't improve on perfection, but I'm just wondering if they're planning to try anything new with this one. I guess they could include items that upgrade Samus's boob physics. Call that vulgar if you want, but anyone who's played a Team Ninja game was thinking it.

Next on my list is Epic Mickey. I'm not really a Disney fan, so it's kind of funny that I'd find a game like this interesting. Of course, I never thought I'd like a game like LittleBigPlanet, either, but enough digressing. What really caught my attention was the whole "paint/paint thinner" mechanic. Allowing the player to "paint" in a platform to reach a higher ledge or throw paint thinner on an obstruction, if done right, should allow a great deal of creativity and replayability. The game also featured some sidescrolling platforming segments. I've always preferred that over 3D platforming, so that's another in this game's favor.

Last one I want to talk about is Kid Icarus. I never got very far in the original Kid Icarus on NES, but it's good to see that Nintendo is dusting this frachise off for a seventh generation outing. I can't really say much about this one, but hopefully it'll follow up on what made it's NES predecessor good unlike some other reboots I've seen.

The presentation was capped off with a showing of their new 3DS handheld system. Obviously, they couldn't show what this system's 3D effects looked like over the E3 stream, so they did the next best thing and had some game designers describe their experiences with the new system. I guess if they're impressed by it that's good enough for me.

Nintendo's E3 was delightfully refreshing in that for once their presentation wasn't the worst of the Big 3 nor was it bad by any standard. The question now is; can Sony hold up their end? For the most part, yes.

They started off showing Killzone 3. It's pretty much what you'd expect Killzone 3 to be. Not exactly reinventing the wheel here, but the jetpack combat looks exciting. From what I understand, GG's putting more focus on environmental destruction this time around and while they did show some of it, I couldn't tell whether or not it was scripted. Either way, I'm looking forward to this one.

Most of the first hour was devoted to their new PS Move peripheral. I'm not terribly excited about that part, but they did show a few games that looked interesting like Sorcery and Heroes on the Move. Well, maybe the latter more for fandom related reasons than anything else, but still...

Aside from PS Move games, Sony also had a pretty good line-up of exclusive games. The one's that interested me the most were Infamous 2 and LBP2. The latter caught my eye mostly because of the versatility in the level creator thus living up to it's tagline; "A platform for games". Hopefully, that also means plenty of creative premade levels. Day one purchase for me!

One thing I noticed about this event was that most of it was dominated by sequels. While that doesn't make the line-up any less impressive, it does make for a rather boring E3 event. Fortunately, the event was not without a few surprises. Kevin Butler's appearance was both epic and amusing (albeit pointless), but seeing Gabe Newell show up to announce that Portal 2 would be PS3 bound absolutely floored me. I never saw that coming at all.

The show was concluded with the announcement of a new Twisted Metal. While I never got into the Twisted Metal series, there's also many other franchises I never got into until now and this one looks epic. I'm not sure how to put what I saw into words aside from saying that it looks like loads of fun.

Now for the verdict; Sony had a strong line-up of exclusives, but I think Nintendo's was a little stronger. Sony made up for that with some entertaining moments and a few surprises, but at the end of the day, it's the line-up that counts. Microsoft on the other hand, simply had nothing to offer. Their line-up wasn't very exciting and all the potential that Kinect had was wasted on rubbish that had already been done on the Wii.

As a side note, an EA rep announced at the Sony conference that PS3 owners would get some exclusive content for a few of their games. On one hand, I'm not crazy about developers creating content for multiplatform games that will only be available on one platform. At the same time, PS3 owners have had to put up with getting the short end for so long that I find it hard to get broken up over EA swinging things the other way in this case.

The wait is finally over and Microsoft has shown their hand at E3. In '08 they shocked us with a 360 trailer for FFXIII and in the following year they unveiled Natal (which is now known as Kinect), so what surprises did they have in store for us this year? Nothing. It was actually quite disappointing.

In all fairness, I missed most of the multiplat segment on account of Glitchspot's stream f***ing up. The only part I caught was Metal Gear Solid: Rising's "cutting" demo. I understand Call of Duty: Black Ops made a showing as well, but I haven't given a crap about this franchise since CoD4 and even then it wasn't that good. Multiplat games just don't seem to "wow" me as much as the exclusives do.

Regarding MGS:R, cutting down and collapsing structures on top of enemies is cool and all, but this mechanic as it pertains to normal combat seems rather gimmicky. The bit with the watermelon at the end didn't do much to dispel this impression, either. Furthermore, this game is starting to look more and more like a straight forward action game rather than a stealth game. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that, but if they're going to call it Metal Gear, it should play like Metal Gear.

From there, they showed us their exclusive line-up. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything unexpected with the exception of a new IP by Crytek named Codename: Kingdoms. Admittedly, they made headlines with Crysis as far as graphics were concerned, but that was with high end video cards. I highly doubt they can pull off the same feats on MS's console or for that matter, any other console.

The rest of their line-up consisted of new installments of their long-running 360 exclusive heavyweights. I'm sure anyone that's familiar with these franchises would find them interesting, but I never really got into them. As such, this was my reaction to this segment:

Gears of War 3 - Four player co-op, yeah, yeah...

Fable 3 - ... yeah, yeah...

Halo Reach - Whoa, space combat!!!:shock: I mean, yeah, yeah...

It pretty much went downhill once Natal or Kinect or whatever the hell MS is calling it rolled out. I'll try and give a quick run down of what was shown, though forgive me if I can't be bothered to remember their names. The first was a collection of minigames which you'll get bored of in five minutes. Afterwards they showed an Eye-Pet clone. Like Eye-Pet, it's serves as an alternative to tying a steak around your child's neck so the dog will play with them. They also showed a blantant Wii-Fit ripoff courtesy of Ubisuck. It wasn't all bad since I got a good laugh out of the shoddy hit detection (I swear that last kick was dead on, but it didn't register).

*enter rage mode* :evil:Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I don't see how tripe like this even qualifies as entertainment, let alone games. Wake up, MS! If anyone wanted to play this crap, they would've bought a goddamn Wii. Same goes for you, Sony! Eye-Pet's a piece of crap! Dropping Eight Days and Getaway 3 in favor of that was a crime against humanity.:evil: *exit rage mode*

Now that that's out of my system, let's move on to something that didn't suck. By "didn't suck", I mean it at least qualifies as a game. The demo they showed for Dance Central was probably the best Kinect stage demo present. That's probably not saying much, but it does seem like a pretty decent game. If DDR's your thing, this is probably right up your alley, although given what kids listen to nowadays, I doubt I'd want to dance to any of it.

From there, they droned on about all of Kinect's features. Maybe I'm being a little oversensative, but that bit where one of them said "no controller to learn" was downright insulting. Do people really find a controller with only ten buttons that intimidating? I'm typing on a keyboard right now. How many buttons is that? For that matter, how is figuring out a controller's button layout any harder than figuring out what movements register and what they do?

So, this year's E3 MS conference was disappointing. I was at the point of praying they would make some surprise announcement at the end. Even just announcing that they would help Square-Enix ruin the Final Fantasy series a little further by paying them to port Versus XIII over would at least have made this somewhat entertaining, but I guess that's asking too much.

In closing, I'd like to say one last thing concerning Kinect's voice recognition technology. In fact, I've been wanting to say it ever since they demonstrated it -

Shout at your 360 all you want. Those three red lights aren't going anywhere. :D j/k

And now I bid you adieu. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

After writing a rather lengthy blog on Microsoft's E3 press conference, I felt obligated to share my impressions of Nintendo and Sony's conferences as well. Here goes.

Most of Nintendo's conference consisted of the same tripe that made up previous conferences where they boasted about their massive console and handheld sales and their dominant position in both markets as if we gamers give a sh**. When they managed to refrain from congratulating themselves on a job well done, they showed off their selection of rehashed first-party titles and low-rent shovelware games which made me wonder how the hell Nintendo managed to top the other consoles this generation.

An hour into the conference they'd shown nothing even remotely decent aside from Golden Sun and I say that mostly because I have a soft spot for RPGs that aren't made by Square "Epic Fail" Enix. Fortunately, with that hour of rubbish out the way, they finally showed off their heavy hitters, starting with Super Mario Galaxy 2. SMG2 seems to follow a gameplay formula similiar to it's predecessor, but I can't comment on what it does differently since I never played SMG1. Still, it looks like fun and that's all I really care about.

There were other notable titles shown off such as Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, and Dead Space: Extraction, but the one that really caught my attention was the new Metroid which appears to be a collaboration between Nintendo and Team Ninja. I mean, what's there not to like? It's Metroid with Team Ninja on board. Anyway, the gameplay seems to be primarily combat oriented with a heavy emphasis on melee, but hopefully they'll find some room for the exploration element that many fans enjoyed in earlier Metroid games.

Overall this conference didn't impress me. While I don't know if it was as bad as previous Nintendo E3's (since I didn't watch any of them), but it seemed to reflect the disdain Nintendo has consistently shown for their hardcore fanbase in favor of catering to casual/non-gamers that as I said in my last blog wouldn't know a good game if they tripped on it.

Thankfully, Sony's conference didn't disappoint. They got off on a strong start showing new gameplay footage of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The first one was (and in my opinion still is) a stunning presentation of just what the PS3 was capable of, but this sequel has an incredible amount of detail and even with all these explosions and debris scattering around, the framerate never seems to dip even a little bit. Not only is it graphically stunning, but it looks like a blast to play as well. No doubt this will be a day one purchase for me.

The next game they showed was their much touted squad-based 256 player online shooter, MAG. They display the tactical element to this game quite well, showing how airstrike and squad commands worked while executing an attack on an enemy held bunker. To encourage players to work as a team, bonus points are awarded to players that act on the orders given to them. Despite supporting a massive number of players, I didn't notice any lag in the demo at all. Hopefully, the final build will hold up that well when this game releases.

I remember hearing some time ago about an exclusive that Rockstar was planning for PS3 owners. For a while, I thought they were just blowing hot air, but there's finally been an official announcement concerning this subject. The upcoming exclusive is called Agent. This game is set in the 1970s and as the name implies is centered around espionage. Sadly, I haven't heard many details beyond it's name, but I'll be keeping tabs on this one.

Probably one of Sony's worst kept secrets was Team Ico's upcoming project. Some time ago, a trailer was leaked onto the internet showing a young boy running towards a cliff and being rescued by a large winged animal just as he's about to fall off the edge. Upon it's appearance on the interwebs, many questioned the legitimacy of the trailer entitled Project Trico and I'll admit that even I simply blew it off. However, all suspicions were dispelled when the finished trailer was unveiled today at E3 under the title The Last Guardian. Not very many details were released concerning gameplay and given that I haven't played ICO or Shadow of the Colossus, I don't really know what to expect. It looks like it will at the very least be something unique, so I'm definitely interested.

The last exclusive shown was God of War III. I think the coolest part was when Kratos stuck his blades in the harpies and used them as platforms to cross gaps and kill them. As usual, over-the-top gratuitous violence is the name of the game and this one doesn't seem to hold back any more than the others did. It still uses alot of QTEs, but personally, I always felt GoW pulled them off in a way the they seemed far less irritating than in other games *coughResident Evilcough*. The demo was rapped up shortly after a miniboss battle against a chimera concluded with Kratos ramming one of it horns through it's skull. Now that's hardcore.

Not just exclusives, but also multiplatform titles made an appearance. Assassin's Creed II showed a considerably more impressive degree of variety than predecessor (which is really why I hated it). Both the tools at the protagonists disposal and the weapons available to him vary considerably. Also, it appears that other weapons can be unlocked by syncing ACII with the PSP AC (a feature exclusive to the PS3 version, no doubt). The missions still look somewhat linear, but I can forgive that if they simply do a better job of mixing up the action this time around.

Final Fantasy XIII took the stage once again. This time, instead of three propagandists rambling on, we were shown a trailer revealing some rather vague incites into the story that I still don't fully understand. It did get me a little more interested nonetheless. Perhaps it's enough to make me reconsider my "no games by Square Enix" policy. It didn't end there however. Another trailer followed providing a sneak peek at Final Fantasy XIV Online which is set to release on (I sh** you not) 2010 exclusively for the PS3.

Of course, they had to draw in the casual gamers with that silly motion sensing controller. I should probably give credit where it's due, though since they at least presented it on an RTS-like interface at one point, given that such a use would actually have some practicality for most gamers. If nothing else it was a good source of lulz.

There were other things that caught my eye such as the new PSP Go (Sony's other worst kept secret) and the new MGS: Peace Walker on PSP, but there really was too much at this conference for me to remember all of it. That in my book makes Sony the clear winner at E3 this year. There are some things I was rather disappointed with such as White Knight Chronicles and Demon's Souls not taking the stage at all. I know with everything they had on there plate already, they probably didn't have time to show everything, but considering the shortage of RPGs on the PS3, one would think they'd show a little more effort to cover their bases in that area. Oh well... I guess you can't have everything.

I'm not exactly a Microsoft fan, but given all the rumors swirling around (like MGS4+Oxide), I felt compelled to watch their E3 conference anyway. I have to admit I'm quite surprised by how well it went. That isn't to say I didn't sleep through at least half of it (i.e. Project Natal, Final Fantasy XIII, pretty much everything concerning their online community), but given how much I typically lean on the PS3, keeping my attention at a MS conference isn't a small feat.

I'll start with the MGS4+Oxide rumor. There's good news and bad news. The bad news is there's no 360 port of MGS4 in the works. The good news is that there is an MGS game in development for the 360 called Metal Gear Solid: Rising. Wait a minute... is it supposed to be the other way around? To be honest, I'm somewhat conflicted about this whole subject. I'll be straight about it, the Metal Gear franchise was a major reason that I bought a PS3 and I didn't want MGS4 or any other game in the franchise to be released on the 360. At the same time, I can't equate this to the level of douchebaggery that Capcom and Square Enix displayed by pitching their games as PS3-exclusive and then turning around and porting them over when things didn't turn out as well for Sony or their PS3 console as they thought. Although I'm not exactly surprised nor disappointed by this turn of events, I think this best describes what was going on in my head:

*Hideo Kojima appears*

My Inner Fanboy: What!? Kojima, what are you doing here!?

HK: I am proud to present to you...

MIF: *suddenly frantic* Oh God! No, Kojima, don't do it!

HK: ...Metal Gear Solid...

MIF: :cry: NOOOOOOOO!!!! :cry:

HK: ...Rising.

MIF: *whew*

Well, that's not word for word, but I think it emphasizes what my inner PS3 fanboy was going through at that moment well enough. Of course, if you think that's hilariously ridiculous, you should see what's being posted on the GameFAQs MGS4 boards. The drivel going on there was so lulzworthy that even I would never get behind it.

I haven't heard any word on whether or not MGS: Rising will be released on the PS3, but given that no one used the term "360-exclusive" (unless I missed something), I'm holding out hope that it will be. Given that MGS4 was pitched by both Sony and KojimaPro as the penultimate reason to own a PS3, it'd be more than a little outrageous to be told I have to buy another system to play this game.

One game for which I lost all enthusiasm some time ago was Splinter Cell: Conviction. I thought Double Agent was mediocre and underwhelming, Ubi Montreal's next-gen outings (namely Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia) were generally unimpressive, and the demo footage for the early build of Conviction gave me the impression that the development team was going for a cross between a lame Hitman-clone and a low rent brawler. The fact that Sam Fisher looked like a washed up hobo didn't help, either. Fortunately, that build was scrapped. The new build they showed at E3 looked more like a return to Splinter Cells roots that built on what made the series great. High-tech spy tools, sneaking through shadows, and athletic stealth techniques were all present in the new E3 demo. After seeing this, I'm now actually looking forward to this game's release (the PC release that is).

I think Alan Wake deserves an honorable mention, although they haven't really shown anything I haven't seen before. The story reminds me of Silent Hill in which the protagonist was searching for a missing loved one and the gameplay reminds me of what Armake21 fondly referred to as "Alone in the Dark: The New Sh**mare" where light was used to ward off enemies. That said, it does look interesting, but I need to see something more original before I'm willing to drop $50 on the PC version.

A few guys from the FFXIII dev team showed up to pitch their game, but they didn't stick around very long. Thank God for that. I don't think I could handle an entire half-hour of the these idiots rambling on about the next installment in the most overrated franchise of all time. Don't get me wrong. I loved Final Fantasy IV on the SNES, but after that Square forgot what class/character balance and decent gameplay was and after VIII they forgot what good writing was. So I didn't care about FFXIII at all and felt what these guys showed amounted to little more than Square's usual MO of stringing along their fanboy base to maintain interest in their game.

As for the whole Project Natal thing on which they ended the conference, let's say I found it interesting from a technological standpoint, but from a gamer's standpoint it reminded me of all the garbage such as Nintendo's Wii Sports and Sony's Eye Pet (See? I insulted Ninty and Sony, therefore I am not a fanboy. :D) that's been flooding the market lately to lure in "casual gamers" (IOW, noobs and non-gamers who wouldn't know a decent game if they tripped on it). Okay, I didn't really sleep through this one as I claimed earlier, but it still doesn't do anything for me as a gamer.

That's everything I felt was worth mentioning. I can't really comment on ODST or Reach since I've never been into Halo. Other than that skateboard controller (which looked cool, but I prefer an ordinary controller) and the stuff I mentioned earlier there's nothing else that really caught my attention. Oh... There was that social networking bit most of which I slept through because it bored the hell out of me. Overall, I had a positive impression of MS's E3 this year and I sincerely hope Nintendo and Sony have something to match it at their conferences tomorrow. I'm looking forward to both of them.

Edit: I almost forgot, Modern Warfare 2 looks awesome. If Infinity Ward mixes things up as well in the full game as they did in that demo, it's a day one purchase for me.

The Resident Evil 5 demo was recently released on PSN. Admittedly, I haven't been a fan of Capcom's work lately given their disappointingly lackluster Devil May Cry sequel and that half-ass PS3 port of Lost Planet, but I still wanted to give this game a shot. Afterall, it's Resident Evil; one of the greatest survival horror franchises ever and the one that popularized the genre on consoles. Capcom couldn't possibly mess this one up, could they?

The first thing I noticed in my initial playthrough was the changes made to the controls. 'Aim' is mapped to the right stick instead of the left, which seems like a good idea on paper since that's how most shooters are designed, but because you still can't move while aiming, this change seems rather pointless and tends to be a little irritating considering that 'run' is still mapped to a face button.

The ability to move sideways was a nice improvement on mobility, or at least it would've been if the character could move faster than just walking speed. I mean, who the hell actually walks in this game anyway. In every RE I've played, I held down the 'run' button almost throughout the entire game. I don't even know why this game still has one given that movement speed can easily be controlled with the analog sticks anyway.

Fortunately, there are three alternate controller schemes one of which uses the traditional RE4 controls with one exception; the 'fire'/'examine' and 'run' buttons were switched. Granted, such changes as startling as they may be, can be an improvement over the original formula. To this day, I still can't understand what possessed Capcom to map 'menu' to the circle button and 'cancel' to the triangle button in earlier REs, considering that everyone knows it's supposed to be the other way around, but what game makes me press square to look at sh!t and open doors?

I'll admit I can eventually get used to all these changes, but they're changes that didn't need to be made and don't make the game's controls any more fluid than they were before in my opinion, however one thing I can't get used to is the AI. Like in so many other "great" games, the AI teammate they stuck me with is about as smart as a bag of leaves. She grabs everything that isn't nailed to the floor half the time, pisses away ammo like she has an infinite supply of it and I've lost count of the number of times she's been killed by that chainsaw wielding freak in the Shanty Town level.

The inventory menu was another source of frustration until I figured out I could quick-select items with the d-pad. Nonetheless, the fact the game doesn't pause when bringing up inventory, while understandable as far as co-op is concerned, is unspeakably frustrating in single-player, especially when you go into inventory to use a green herb you just picked up that may very well save your life only to have the living crap beaten out of you by approaching enemies.

After playing through the awful single-player segment, I began to lose any hope that Capcom may have gotten their sh!t together and produced something of reasonable quality, at least until I tried out co-op. After playing through a few games, my suspicions that Capcom had omitted in-game chat with the co-op segment were dispelled when I finally managed to find someone that was using a headset and at that, actually knew what the hell he was doing. At that point, the most remarkable thing happened; I had fun.

Overall, I find the single-player mode frustrating and damn near unplayable, but playing in co-op with a teammate that's reasonably competent negated most of the frustration to which this game subjected me. While I can't say I find this game terribly impressive as either a Resident Evil sequel or even as a generic shooter, I feel that since I found just one aspect of the game enjoyable, it doesn't seem to matter that much. I'll probably get it eventually, but I'm not sure if it's worth dropping $60 on release.

On a less relevant note, maybe it's just me, but it seems like Sheva's melee attacks look monumentally cooler than Chris's. Perhaps it's because of the inherent superiority of kicks over punch, or the fact that she stabs downed enemies rather than stomping on them. Of course, it may just be because beating the crap out of the locals is more fun when it's a hot chick issuing the beatings. I just felt like throwing that out.

It's been nearly a year now since my rant on DMC4 and due to a fair blend of crappy sleeping habits and round-the-clock trophy whoring, I've been relatively inactive. In fact, most of my activity on Gamespot has consisted of updates on my games list and an occasional comment on a friend's blog. Nonetheless, about a month ago, I had a lapse in judgement and spent $30 which I'll never get back on a copy of Assassin's Creed and subsequently found another game to pick on.

Before I get started, I'll throw out a few things I actually liked about this game, namely the visuals. For a game released on multiple platforms in 2007, the graphics look incredible. The textures and character models have a lot of detail and the draw distance stretches almost endlessly. There's also a few subtle details like carrion birds appearing overhead after you kill alot of people. There are some occasional framerate hitches here and there, but nothing serious. The story's not bad in my opinion, either. Unfortunately, amazing visuals does not a good game make.

The moment I got past the first story event and brought the main character, Altair out into the open world setting was when the game fell apart. The bulk of the gameplay consists of climbing towers and looking for "investigations" to carry out as well as a few helpless citizens in need of rescue, ultimately leading up to an assassination mission. This wouldn't normally bother me, but once I was finished, I had to do it all again and other than the assassination mission, it all played out exactly the same.

As irritating as climbing towers and performing repetitive and pointless "investigations" may be, none of that is as bad as the lame obstacles Ubisoft Montreal saw fit to place in Altair's way. One example is the annoying beggars that constantly stand in front of Altair demanding "just a few coins". I suppose it would be easier to hand over a few coins and send them on their way, but since Altair is such a cheap-ass, the only choices the game offers me are to either risk blowing my cover by punching them or tossing them out of the way or to "accidently" kill them with the hidden blade.

If it isn't the previously mentioned beggars, it's those damn whackjobs that take a swing at Altair every time he comes close. Strangely, they only do that to Altair while completely ignoring the dozen or so random NPCs that pass by in similiarly close proximity. I suppose it's Altair's "pleasant disposition". Either that, or he needs to start bathing more regularly. Although this obstacle poses a different sort of annoyance, the appropriate solution is the same as the last assuming just walking around him isn't an option.

The occasions where I had to eliminate someone brought another glaring flaw in this game to my attention; the AI. In most cases, I could walk right up to any NPC and murder them right in front of dozens of witnesses so long as I used my hidden blade. Even during missions that normally would require extreme discretion, I could usually get away with "assassinating" my target in almost any location provided that I was a good distance away when the guards found the body.

When discretion failed me, I could either attempt to flee and find a hiding spot or draw my weapon and fight off my assailants. The latter option was typically the easiest. Combat in this game can be summed up as a trial of patience and timing. Essentially, it was a matter of executing a well timed block followed by a well timed attack. That's pretty much it. The combat is just as repetitive and unchallenging as everything else in this game.

Finally, I got to the assassination mission, which in most cases started off with a cutscene that disabled my weapons and all abilities other than walking and... falling. This also often forced me to approach my target from a specific angle, which in many cases was a disadvantageous one that forced me into an open combat situation. This is the part that makes no sense at all. In a game with the word "assassin" in it's title, why am I forced to fight in the open? In a game set in an open world, why am I not allowed to approach my target from an angle of my own choosing?

In all the time I've spent playing video games, I've seen all kinds of overrated garbage, but this game received almost universally positive reviews despite doing almost everything wrong except the least important things. I understand that opinions vary even among professional reviewers, but I'll never understand how they justified slapping a 9/10 on this piece of sh**.

As just about everyone to whom it matters knows, Devil May Cry 4 was released about two weeks ago on the PS3 and Xbox 360. I'd been in love with the DMC series ever since I played the demo which came with my copy of Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, so I was pretty psyched up for this game. I thought for sure this would be one of the best games for this gen. I was wrong.

The gameplay has it's strong points, admittedly. I had quite a bit of fun messing around with Nero's Devil Bringer. The problem is he only uses two weapons (one sword, one gun) and he can't use "styles" like Dante. This leaves Nero with very little variety in his attacks for which the Devil Bringer simply doesn't adequately compensate.

When you finally take control of Dante, you'll notice fairly quickly that his moves are all exactly as they were in DMC3. Nothing new here. Of course, I stuck it out knowing that Dante (as was the case in DMC1 & 3) would eventually acquire more Devil Arms. The first one I nabbed was Gilgamesh which was basically a rehash of Ifrit from DMC1 with a few moves recycled from Beowulf from DMC3. Once again, nothing new. I found my next weapon, Pandora, quite enjoyable, though. This one functioned sort of like a rocket launcher with multiple forms, however most of them were just amped-up versions of the same thing with the exception of a machine gun which was useless. Finally, I received the last of Dante's Devil Arms, Lucifer. I think I used this one about two times before I realized that every move did exactly the same thing. Boring!

DMC4's difficulty wasn't terribly rewarding, either. I mean, other than a few frustrating moments, the game was generally piss-easy. I completed it in about three or four days which without taking DMC2 into account (I completed that one in less than a day) was a record for me. Capcom claimed that this game would start off easy and the difficulty would eventually ramp up to match DMC3's, but this simply never happened. In fact, the final boss turned out to be the easiest boss in the game. The only part of this fight that got even remotely hard was near the end when he started executing these "stinger-like" charge attacks in rapid succession. The only way to hit him was to nail him with a perfectly timed Buster. That wasn't really all that hard, either.

Speaking of frustrating, the boss battle in Agnus's laboratory takes the cake in this regard. What really steamed my balls about this one was the way the floor kept being electrified forcing me to stand on a small platform that was too small to allow me to dodge anything. Considering that three of the sword demons were charging up an upward swing attack, I quickly found myself becoming the subject of a three-way a** rape that there was simply no way to avoid without taking damage.

Admittedly, Devil May Cry has never been known for it's engaging plot or it's second-to-none storytelling or any of that malarkey, but even for DMC standards, I found the story particularly uninteresting. Whether this was because of the stereotypical corrupt theocracy or the predictable plot twists that led up to it's exposure, I'm not really sure, but perhaps the numerous elements surrounding Nero that went completely unexplained trumped both of those. Most notable was the lack of backstory concerning Nero's origins or that of his Devil Bringer as well as the lack of any kind of follow up on the line he uttered upon obtaining his Devil Trigger ability which led many fans to suspect a connection between Nero and Vergil. Personally, I think they just threw that line in for the advert in order to sell the game.

One review I read on this game claimed that the graphics showed the muscle of the PS3, but anyone whose bore witness to the graphical superiority of Heavenly Sword or Uncharted would see that statement for the steaming pile of bullsh** it is. Generally, the character models don't look terrible, but the facial animations don't have an edge on anything released after '06. Aside from that, the rest is utter crap. The environmental textures looked especially bad, but probably the worst of it was the shadow resolution which came out looking unbelievably blocky and suffered a ridiculously short draw distance. Despite the mediocre graphics, this game managed to display numerous drops in frame rate, most notably during the Bael boss fight when he charged up his ice breath attack.

The worst part of the whole game, however, was the level design which proved to be both linear and confusing. Several times I found myself wandering around areas I'd visited previously trying to figure out where the hell I'm supposed to go next. Of course, this got even worse when I assumed Dante's role and proceeded to replay all of Nero's missions backwards. This included the forest level which had an added feature of having almost every exit of every "room" obstructed by some kind of teleport barrier making the already confusing level design even more confusing. After going around in circles three or four times, I was about two steps away from climbing up the fu**ing ceiling and ritualistically slitting my wrists.

Final words, this game fails to excel in most aspects and just plain fails in every other. How it received an 8.5 average, I'll never understand. For anyone thinking about getting this game, my advice is that you rent it first. Even the most average gamer will probably beat it before having to return it, anyway. Finally, my advice to any non-DMC fans that are actually masochistic enough to buy this game: cut along the vein, not across.

I know it's probably strange to post another blog entry concerning these confirmation stories only a day after posting the last one, although that last one dealt more with Screwattack (and what I felt was their track record of incompetence and unprofessionalism) rather than Metal Gear Solid 4's status as a PlayStation 3 exclusive. However, after running a google search, I stumbled on an article that claimed to have confirmation that Metal Gear Solid 4 is indeed coming to the Xbox 360.

Instead of simply ranting about this particular subject, I decided I would post the article in it's entirety and try poking humor at it sentence by sentence. I figured it would be fun to post this a**hole's own words and use them to make a fool out of him. Although in truth, I don't need to say anything to "make a fool out him" as he does a perfectly good job of it without my help, but it's more fun if I do.

Anyway, let's get on with it. Statements written by the "a**hole" will be posted in italicized lettering while my statements will be in red.

"Formely..."

Formely? FORMELY?! JEEPERS FU**ING CRIPES!!! IT'S THE FIRST WORD IN THE ARTICLE!!! WHERE THE FU** DID YOU LEARN TO SPELL, YOU INBRED, HALF-WIT, MOTHERFU... Urgh! *one hospital trip later* Now that this moron has blown his intellectual credibility to sh** (and my blood pressure has returned to normal levels), let's see the rest of that statement.

"...announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive,"

...and reannounced several times.

"Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will now also be released on Xbox 360,"

In which delusional fantasy is this supposed to happen, again?

"with a cut-down Nintendo Wii version also a possibility, according to online reports."

Yep, according to reports from a bunch of guys who forgot to take their anti-psychotic drugs before posting their next blog entry at three o'clock in the morning in their underwear.

"The new game in the multi-million selling franchise will feature objective-based missions,"

You mean there're missions that aren't "objective-based"?

"while Xboxliveaddicts claims the Xbox 360 version will also include exclusive content and gameplay not offered in the PS3 edition."

...and if an obvious Xbox fansite says it, that must mean it's true. There goes the rest of his credibility.

"Starring the infamous character Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, as with other titles in the series, is being created by renowned designer Hideo Kojima."

...as has been the case with every MGS title. What a minute! When the hell did Solid Snake become "infamous"?

"A Konami spokesman said of the PS3 edition:"

You mean the only edition, don't you?

"'The game is set after the events of MGS2 and players will reprise the role of top secret agent Solid Snake with appearances by characters throughout the MGS series. With the addition of online capability, MGS4 is a leading product and will signal the dawn of a new gaming era for the MGS series.'"

First statement in the article that's actually factual. Too bad it's not the author's.

"The firm also added:"

What the hell? I thought this was a spokesman talking.

"'MGS4 brings a totally new concept and situation, resulting in the toughest Metal Gear infiltration mission ever devised.'"

That wouldn't be Metal Gear's most impressive feat. Anyway, that's two factual statements, so far.

"Industry insiders claim publisher Konami is also in talks with Nintendo to bring a cut-down MGS game to the Wii."

More claims from unnamed "industry insiders". Unfortunately, the only "industry" they're "inside" is this writer's plentifully vacant head.

"Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will be released in 2008."

...only on the PlayStation 3.

Now that that's over and done with, I'd like to say that after the crap with Screwattack, this article truly made my evening. However, this is my first true attempt at comedy and if I totally botched it, flame gently. Either way, thanks for reading it and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

The above article can be viewed in it's complete, uninterrupted form from the link below (that is if you actually want to reread this drivel all over again).

'Metal Gear Solid 4' confirmed for Xbox360*cough*Yeah, right!*cough*

On the other hand, if you want to read the true story about Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots's exclusivity status, click on the link below to Gamepro's article about the subject. It's about a month older, but it's still more factual than this steaming pile of bullsh**.

Kojima confirms: Metal Gear Solid 4 will be PS3 exclusive

...and a more recent confirmation by Kotaku.

Ces08: Sony Touts Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 Exclusivity At CES

Recently, I had the displeasure of subjecting myself to the most nauseating load of bullsh** ever posted on YouTube. It was a video clip of the upcoming PS3 exclusive, Metal Gear Solid 4, with a dubbed in audio clip from Screwattack's radio show in which the hosts brazenly stated without any source that the this game was coming to the 360. I don't know what's more frightening; the fact that these idiots used Screwattack's influence as a somewhat relevant gaming media figure to make these absurd claims without any evidence, or that their audience was stupid enough to believe it and go so far as to post a video with that audio clip on YouTube.

Admittedly, I wasn't fond of Screwattack even before seeing this. Especially after that "Top Ten" list of PS3 exclusives which omitted Uncharted and Folklore (admittedly that one received mixed reviews, but IGN gave it high marks and I trust them more than anyone else) and falsely stated that Virtua Fighter 5 was a 360 exclusive. On top of that, the fact that the highest selling next-gen console has reached no higher than 20 million sales as opposed to the PS2's 100 million sales shows that the vast majority of gamers have not chosen a next-gen console, yet. Why is that relevant? Because until these gamers choose a console, none of these consoles are anywhere near the end of their life cycle, rendering any "Top Ten" list meaningless.

I personally think these two incidents are indicative of Screwattack's malignant fanboyism and positive confirmation of their utter lack of credibility. Well, that and the crappy retro games they promote. Anyway, if any of you are feeling brave enough, a link to the video that incited this rant is posted below. If any of you manage to sit through all 46 seconds without getting sick, you've got a one-up on me.

Get your vomit bag ready!

I picked up a Playstation 3 at Fry's a couple days ago and I can say now that anyone who still chants the xbot mantra, "The PS3 has no (good) games" evidently hasn't played any of them. I haven't built up much of a collection, yet, but the games I've played so far are more than satisfying.

The first game was Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The cover system is similar to Gears of War, but the ability to fire from hard cover and dive between cover positions is where the likeness ends. One of my chief complaints about Gears was how frustrating they made the simple process of dismounting from cover. It might seem like nit-picking to some people, but the fact that I had to leave the analog stick idle in order to dismount seemed extremely irritating to me. In Uncharted, it's a simple matter of pulling back on the analog stick. Moving around corners requires the player to hold the stick forward and press O (or X, but I prefer O). Vaulting over low cover is done by holding forward and pressing X. No hassle here.

Aiming feels nice and smooth. I haven't had any incidents so far where I missed an enemy because of the "cross-hairs" overshooting my target. It's no KB&M, but as far as console shooters go, I can't complain.

The physics are pretty good, though I don't think I'd say their anything revolutionary. Walking over most foliage causes it to bend over and enemies recoil back when they get hit by gunfire. Death animations also appear to combine scripted animation with ragdoll physics, so you won't see dead enemies flying back fifty feet and flipping backwards three times after taking a head-shot from a 9mm nor will you see them keel over and bring their upper body to rest on a seemingly invisible platform over a bottomless chasm. On the other hand, environmental destructibility seems to be nearly non-existent with only a few exceptions. On a few occasions, players will find crates being shredded by gunfire, but not in a way that looks terribly realistic. Then again, I can't name very many games that get that part right, anyway.

The enemy AI is another strong point. In many games I've played, the enemy tends to show no indication of seeing or hearing a threat other than shooting in it's general direction. That is not the case with Uncharted. Enemies will use suppressing fire to keep your head down, try to flank you, throw out grenades to flush you out, and when fired at will try to dodge gunfire using lateral movement and go for cover or duck back behind cover if they're already mounted. Bad AI is a common problem in most shooters (both PC and console), so it's refreshing that this game doesn't follow that trend.

The graphics are undoubted Uncharted's crowning achievement. Almost everything looks nearly life-like, but the water effects and the lighting are what stand out the most for me. It's probably not all that difficult to render a character to appear wet after being completely submerged underwater, but creating a realistic appearance of being wet after walking through a knee-deep river strikes me as a much more impressive feat. Mind you, I'm not an expert on graphics design, so take that for what it's worth.

As for the lighting, whether it's sunlight beaming through an open hole in the ceiling or a flashlight casting shadows across the pitch-black depths of a long abandoned tomb, this game offers lighting about as close to realism as it gets. I can't think of any game I've played with better lighting.

Sound is the next important factor in a game's presentation. If the sound of gunfire and explosions or the voice acting are not convincing, the presentation won't hold up. Between this game and Heavenly Sword, I can't make up my mind which offers better presentation overall. It's that good.

Normally, plot is not a hugely important element in any game (except maybe Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy), but Uncharted's story offered enough intrigue to keep me trudging through even the most frustrating firefights despite being repeatedly (*CENSORED* taken advantage of in an anal fashion *CENSORED*) by the ruthless AI. That said, I'd say it got the job done.

Uncharted excels in it's strongest points and is above average at worst everywhere else and it shows just what the PS3 is truly capable of. I don't think any objective gamer will look at this and say, "This game is ass!". Now all the PS3 needs is some better PR and more games like this one in the future (as well as a few improvements to PSN) and it will be set to be a truly formidable competitor in the console war.

Now that I'm done gushing over my first PS3 game, I'll throw in a few words about the system. My first impression when I unpacked my PS3 was a slight bit of confusion. I was well familiar with most of the parts that came with my system; AV cables, USB cable, power cord, mostly the usual equipment, though the technology of touching panels (a novel albiet useless concept) to start it up and eject disks rather than pushing buttons might have caught me a little off guard had I not seen it in a YouTube video beforehand.

So, what was the confusing part? Well, getting it connected to the Internet. What I missed was that I had to select an option on the system menu to turn on the wireless router. Aside from that, getting everything set up was a fairly easy process with only a few minor annoyances.

After a few failed attempts to register my PSP with my PS3 console due to my failure to read simple instructions that would've informed me that my PSP had to be in USB mode (I know, stupid me. Duh!), I set up an account with PSN and got started downloading what was most important to me: game demos.

PSN offers a variety of game demos for just about every game genre as well as a few PSN exclusives. The exclusives look like mostly rubbish (For 5-10 bucks, what did you expect?), but Blast Factor looked pretty enjoyable in an arcade-ish sort of way and even implemented a few interesting uses of the SIXAXIS's motion sensors.

As for the other demos, the games that caught my interest were Heavenly Sword, Folklore, Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet and Clank Future: ToD, and The Simpsons Game. I was expecting to get a kick out of Ninja Gaiden Sigma, but when I played the demo, it didn't feel much more inspired than your average repetitive, button-mashing hack-and-slasher. Not that that rules it out of being an enjoyable game, but with the universal acclaim it received, I was expecting more.

After playing the Genji: Days of the Blade demo, I got a pretty good idea why this game was rated poorly. Less than impressive graphics (even for a game released near the PS3's launch date) are one thing, but did they have to position the camera so freaking close that I couldn't see most of the action around me?!

The Ridge Racer 7 demo proved to be an interesting experience in that true to the original Ridge Racer formula, I spent more time moving sideways rather than forward. LOL!!! BTW, in case anyone's wondering, Reiko Nagase still looks hot (at least from what I saw of her in the RR7 icon on the system menu). Though, I guess anyone who cares already knows that.

That's enough for today. It's past 10:00 and I've already drawn this out longer than any of my previous blog posts. I just wanted to share my first experience with a next-gen console with my friends and for that matter, anyone here at GS that gives a damn. BTW, to anyone here that takes exception to my comments about Gears of War; don't take what I said personally. I probably don't need to say this, but I've seen some pretty nasty flame wars start up over comments like that. I'm not saying Gears sucked, although I have in the past. I just didn't like it.

Edit - And to any of my friends who have been wondering about my extended absence; it's all Blizzard's fault.