So, I am still making my way through Assassins Creed...I have been enjoying it a lot in doses of about 1-2 hours or so. Any more than that and I begin to get a bit bored (but for an hour or two a day AC is a blast). I was just looking at the screens of a game called 'Mirror's Edge' and I started thinking (I think because of the tall buildings and potential for jumping/climbing.. haha) about a very cool direction they could take the story.

**potential spoilers**

They may already be going this direction with it, and I wouldn't know since I am not finished with AC, but here it goes anyway:

In the current Assassins Creed Altair is in the time of the crusades and is tasked throughout the game to assassinate certain wealthy/influential/corrupt people of power. Altairs victims are allegedly "bad" people doing "bad" things. The story seems as though it might take a twist at some point (perhaps the assassins guild might be the bad guys after-all).

Anyway, there is also a back-story involving time-travel of sorts, which has so much potential to be a very cool and integral part of the story of AC. Ok, so back to my thoughts this morning, while I was looking at the screens of the modern buildings and cranes, I thought how cool it would be if the reason for the time-travel story line was for the present day incarnation of Altair to study his ancestor assassin and his skills; in order to master them. He would then use these skills to essentially do exactly what Altair was doing for the crusades, only in present day. Assassinating present day dictators, warmongers, tyrants, terrorists, etc.

I think this would be such a cool turn for the Assassins Creed story to take, and it would really involve the time-travel part of the story in a slick way. Obviously, Altair would be able to use modern day weaponry and stealth tech, but I think it would also be cool if he mostly stuck to the old-age stuff (blades/knifes/fists/etc.) since he trained extensively on those after-all. Maybe a combination of both of them... Learning how to apply the training from the crusade era to our modern day world would be a really neat experience for the present day Altair (and the gamer) to master.

Again, this is precisely where the AC story might be already headed, and if so great!

Just some thoughts.

-S

What does Nintendo need to do to continue the success of the Wii?

What are the qualities of the Wii which have made it such a SUCCESSFUL system thus far.

1) Its Unique: The basic play mechanics are unlike any other system on the market right now. The combination of both left and right handed motion sensing through the use of a gyroscope and infrared sensors provides a truly unique gaming experience.

2) Its Cheap: The basic Wii system costs only $250, which is about half of what a Playstation 3 would cost you and $150 less than an XBOX360 would.

3) Its made for multiplayer: The Wii is a system which thrives on having more than one person playing together. It's a party system and it succeeds with multiplayer fantastically (when you have the right games).

4) Its user-friendly and Intuitive: There aren't nearly as many buttons to worry about while playing many Wii games—allowing people to spend less time worrying about learning complex button combinations and locations. Instead, much of the controls are done almost thoughtlessly through motions using one's arms or wrists. Much of the Wiis success hinges on this: it is approachable and friendly to many who might not otherwise play video games.

5) 1st Party Nintendo Games: They make great games; they know how to put out a product that people will like and emanates with quality, polish and fun.

Perhaps its more important to pick out what they have done wrong, and WHAT MUST BE IMPROVED:

1) 3rd Party game support: There are plenty of games developed by 3rd party game developers, however most of the games created by such developers are poorly executed and look and feel dated. The Wii is inundated with cheap, ugly games which use the motion sensing controls of the Wii horribly—yet still sell like hot-cakes to many Wii owners eagerly awaiting new games to try out. These developers are making big bucks by taking advantage of the success of the Wii and churning out crappy games very quickly.

Nintendo has GOT to get more choosey about what they allow to be made for their console. Otherwise, the Wii will quickly become known as the one with weak games, and the unique and intuitive motion controls will quickly be labeled as gimmicky and cheap. Nintendo must garner support from stronger 3rd party developers and really make sure they step up the quality control used to evaluate potential games.

2) Supply: Nintendo Wii's are STILL hard to get a hold of…after an entire year of being on the market. That is simply just ridiculous. If I was to decide I wanted to buy my sister a Wii today (which she has been wanting for so long) I would not be able to walk into a store and buy it. Nope, instead I would have to wake up at 4am, head down to the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Plaza (only possible because I happen to live in NYC) and wait in a line, all the while crossing my fingers that I am one of the lucky few that MIGHT end up actually getting one.

I can understand this happening for the first couple of months a system is out, however, after a year of being on the market and in production, supply should not be anywhere near as much of an issue as it has been and still is. Nintendo has GOT to step up production and ship more Wii consoles to stores.

3) The Hardcore Gamer: A seemingly almost forgotten member of the Nintendo community these days. In order to continue dominating the market Nintendo must not forget about its hardcore gamers. They have a few games out to please them (and they are fantastic games) with Zelda/Metroid/Galaxy/Paper Mario etc…But they must keep them coming. The Wii controls aren't ONLY suited for multiplayer games, they can also be implemented beautifully for a great single player experience as well. Nintendo would do well not to forget that (especially because I consider myself one :) ).

4) Hardware: Two words: HARD DRIVE. Nintendo, did you hear that? I said HARD DRIVE.

5) Wii Channels: The channel feature is one on my Wii which I have yet to use. I have done the software upgrades when I plug into a Wi-Fi network or get a new game, so I have seen the weather channel etc. Its…unimpressive and essentially useless. Its fun to spin the globe I suppose…If I want the weather I go to weather.com. Nintendo needs to overhaul the ways in which it uses the Wii Channels—because as it stands now, its just one more screen I have to get through to get to playing my game. Its obvious a feature is not implemented properly when most users would rather it not be there at all.

6) Demos: Make them downloadable. Its that simple. Nintendo, put out demos for download…its so standard these days its pathetic its not possible already. Oh, wait, whats that? It wont work because there isn't a way to store them on the system? Hmm, maybe a HARD DRIVE is in order?

Assassins Creed is a gorgeous game for sure. The environments in which you (Altair) inhabit are just amazing. I am only about 4 or so hours into the story but it has been a lot of fun so far. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, ledge to ledge, or climbing up to the tops of parapets and towers is just a blast. The story is getting more interesting as it moves along--there is an element of the story which I still do not quite understand (I wont say more for fear of spoiling it) but hopefully it will be woven into the overall story nicely.

The controls work very well and come together to make everything from climbing walls to sword fighting very intuitive and fun. The swordplay has gotten increasingly complicated but equally fun as Altair learns new skills and swordplay moves. The mission I have completed so far has involved saving citizens/eavesdropping/climbing towrs to gain perspectives/pick-pocketing/interrogation (or in other words beating people up until they talk) all of which are rewarding and fun to accomplish.

There is a lot of dialogue in A.C. thankfully it is all very nicely voice-acted. I have only had to perform one assassination so far and I didnt manage to do it very stealthily...unfortunately. I'll have to rethink my strategy next time. One strange thing is Altair cannot swim for some reason...he just dies and very ungracefully too. Anyway, so far so good--Assassins Creed is not dissapointing at all.

-S

Ok, So I finally opened Trauma Center: New Blood (only because my girlfriend was sick of watching me play Halo 3). We immediately began with the co-op play on the "Normal" difficulty setting.

Here are some first impressions of the earlier levels:

The campaign mode if fun, before each level, or operation, there is a story section in which drawn still versions of the characters talk about things going on in the story or their lives. Its all pretty nicely voice acted, but the animations are stiff since they don't move. After each story section you cut to the crisis and the operation.

Next, a nurse will go over the operation with you in the "conference room" and explain the surgery you are about to perform. She will tell you what the goals are, what to look out for etc. Its a useful beginning to each surgery.

The surgeries themselves are really fun (and get very difficult, even with two people). They have been progressively harder, and my girlfriend and I aren't even out of chapter one yet. At the end of each surgery you are graded on your performance as a surgeon. So far, we have not been able to achieve anything greater than a "C" rating as a "Rookie" doctor. Its no wonder they are in school for 7 years...it takes a little while to master this stuff.

Anyway, its very fun with two people. We split the tasks up as we go along, and it can get very intense when theres many different things to do at once (which happens fairly often). During any given procedure you will have to prioritize tasks by importance (very quickly) sometimes within seconds or your patient will die on the spot. If you are working with another person, you two will have to coordinate very quickly in order to do everything (otherwise you will be tripping over eachother, or performing the same tasks while others get neglected and your patient dies).

Overall, I am impressed so far. The graphics are simple, but adequate. It seems to me they went for simplicity and clarity rather than realism with this one.

-S

So, being a person who plays his fair share of video games, one might think I would enjoy something called "the video game awards." If everyone else enjoys Awards shows about things they are passionate about...why wouldn't I enjoy this?

One couldn't have been more wrong...Spike channels VGAs show was so hard to watch I ended up switching channels in-between the award announcements. I just couldn't take it. Ok, so they get lots of celebrities to host it and announce the awards and such. Thats fine, I would assume (since I am watching a show SOLELY about video games) that any celebrity on the show enjoys video games as well(and if they don't? well i don't particularly care). Well, that wasn't enough--each host felt the need to announce, scream, explain, that he/she LOVES VIDEO GAMES! WOOOO!! YEAH VIDEO GAMES!!! VIDEO GAMES ROCK ASS! VIDEO GAMES!! It was almost as though the producers of the show, and the celebrities assumed we weren't into games...like we needed some reminder that they are cool and that they "rock ass" as the announcer put it a couple of times.

Also, when a show says things like "we'll continue to rock ass when we come back," (as though its supposed to get you pumped up and into the show) i suddenly feel a lot of hatred towards the writers, and a lot of sadness that the American public doesn't even think twice about how stupid a statement that is. Yes, lets please rock some more ass.

O.K. we can move past all this (since its a SPIKE TV production after-all) we can get to the 'good stuff', the stuff pertaining to games. Surely they can at least get the "Games" part right, right? Well, they had these amazingly exciting things called "WORLD PREMIERS." Wow, cool, I get to see some great, well edited footage of games that noone has seen before...only...nearly all of t hem were boring, filled with old footage (most of which we have seen online already) strung together in fairly uninteresting ways.

As if they felt the need to one-up their own stupidity, SPIKE also managed to add the highly coveted award of " MOST ADDICTIVE VIDEO GAME FUELED BY DEW!" I mean...'shameful' doesn't even begin to describe it.

Anyway, to simplify: it was very disappointing.

Ok, so as you could probably predict, I opened Halo 3 first--and still havnt gotten to Trauma Center. I am having a blast with Halo 3--out of about 10 missions I have completed4 of them on the "Normal" setting. Its a beautiful game, nicely upgraded from Halo 2.

However, I have one worry/complaint so far, its too damn short. I can already feel the end coming soon and Ive only played the game for around 3 or 4 hours. Yes, shooters generally are fairly short with regards to single player campaigns, still, I expected a longer story here. But again, its still very early for me to be judging the story since I am not even half way through it yet.

-S

And the winners are:

I need something other than a shooter butI cant resist buying Halo 3. Trauma Center looks like a very different experience than im used to. So that should be really fun.

-S

Here is the link to the article in Wired Magazine about him.

For the past couple of years I have mostly been a loyal go'er of IGN.com. I know...sacrilege right? well...what can I say, I think I just liked their brighter website better.

Anyway, recently there was a podcast in which one of the IGN staff crossed a very important line of unprofessionalism and respect to its readers and fellow colleagues. So, I packed up andheaded over tomy GameSpot account which I had created ages ago.

Now, two weeks into using GameSpot, I am confronted again by more foul-play in the industry...with Jeff G. getting fired from GameSpots staff over what looks like outrageous and unreasonable reasons. On top of this, Eidoshas been fabricating reviews, using quotes from "previews" ofits game, and even wentas far as lockingout user reviews of its game--simply because their game SUCKS and they cantbe honest with themselves.

On top of this, a staple of gaming information,GameSpot and its parent company CNET, sympathised with Eidos and allowed them tolock out user reviews...and FIRE one of their longtime and well respected employees.Jeff was fired, it seems, becauseEidos was a largesponsor of GameSpot, and he reviewed Eidos' new game unfavorably (because it sucks). Eidos undoubtedly complained to CNET and threatened to pull advertising money. CNET, following their money sniffing nose, didn't hesitate to fire Jeff with the thought of money in the forefront of their minds, and walked away unscathed and unconcerned.

It is so shameful GameSpot allowed user reviews of K&L to be blocked. They probably locked out user reviews of K&L because people weren't really reviewing it, but rather the decision to fire Jeff. However, ifJeff wasnt wrongly fired to begin with, and they had let an honest review of a bad game stand,the problem could have been avoided all-toegether.

Gamers NEED places like GameSpot.com.GameSpot needs to take a stand here, as an independent part of CNET, and defend Jeff, and not allow these types of lies and deliberately deceitful behavior to happen.GameSpot is supposed to be aplace where gamers can go for an honest, no **** review of games, software and hardware. It is often times the only information we can get about a game without actually buying it. Please, GameSpot, take a stand for honest journalism and rectify this situation. Its your responsibility to do so.

-S

Check this out as well.

Oh...which game to buy next.....so many choices...