Long time no see boyos and girlios! I'm not dead, but I am going to back into this journal thing very slowly.

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September has passed and so too has the MASSIVE amount of work I was forced to squeeze into it. I think I put in somewhere around 375 hours work during September (between two jobs), so not really a whole lot of time for gaming and to be quite honest I stopped keeping track after the first 100 hours. October was spent picking up the pieces of all the stuff I let go to hell during the month of September and becoming (yet again) completely absorbed in post-season St. Louis Cardinals baseball. It may comes as news to some of you, but my boys actually won it all, as in the World f'in Series! I was stunned and overjoyed that St. Louis brought it all together at the perfect time and gave us a World Series trophy. 24 years it has been since last we saw one. A long time it has been, yes. October was also spent giving myself to a few little treats to celebrate the Cardinals win, for my being such a swell and upstanding working man, and because I had a birthday somewhere in there along the way. The first treat was the ~Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 DVD Boxed Set~. A super colossally awesome kick-ass show that EVERYONE should be watching (but probably isn't). I've watched the first disc and the show hasn't lost one bit of it's impact. Great stuff. The second treat was ~Okami~. I sat down on the Sunday I bought it and played all day and into the night (about 8 hours total) and if you can make it thru the incredibly dull and wordy tuitoral/intro you'll find yourself in a very happy, happy place. Reviews are comparing it to Zelda, but I really don't see it. Maybe it's similar because it's cel shaded and the combat is fairly simplistic, but when has Zelda every had a wolf and a magical cosmic paint brush? The comparison is a very weak one. Okami is it's own beast and is apparently the swan song for one of my favorite developers, Clover. At least they can go out with heads held high. My third treat, and by no means smallest, ~an Xbox 360~. I bought it online via the soon to be dead ~Amazon.com~ deal. I picked it up along with ~Oblivion~ and ~Dead Rising~. I also plopped down $25 and downloaded ~Geometry Wars~, ~Uno~, ~Smash TV~, and the Lego Star Wars picture pack. I'll say right now, I haven't touched Dead Rising, but Oblivion and I are intertwined, intimate, and embarassingly in love with one another. If there was ever a case to be built around the reasons the world really doesn't need online gaming, Oblivion would be the foundation, all four walls, and the roof (and maybe even the sun deck). Oblivion is really beyond proper description to it's greatness. I made my character as a Dark Elf/Crusader (actually very dark, blackish skin, red eyes, and white hair, like a Dark Elf Skunk with the heart of a champion) and walked thru the excellent tuitorial as I was unwillingly assigned to protecting King Jean Luc Picard. After I, also unwillingly, watch Picard get jacked by some bad ass assasin, he gives me an amulet and tells me to take it to some dude on outside. After fighting my way thru the sewers to the exit and stepping out into the VAST and OPEN world of Oblivion, I audibly gulped. Like an actual hard swallowing *gulp*. That's how bad/good Oblivion is. It's intimdating, but in a very cool and epic way. You really feel like "the hero" when you step out and start exploring. As for the rest...Smash TV and Geometry Wars are basically two games of the same cloth, twitch shooters that are very "pick up and play". Geometry is MUCH harder than Smash, but I dig overwhelming, wave after wave of enemy games, so I'm good with the difficulty. Uno showed me two things. One, this is definitely THE game for anyone and everyone. Simple and intuitive. My grandma would love it. The computer opponents seem to be incredibly good at having just the right card at just the right time, but that sort of leads into the second thing. Two, Xbox Live (on random play) is, and ALWAYS WILL BE, totally broken. When I can't play a game of ****ing Uno with random strangers because the dudes running the game kick me out because I don't own a camera (and I didn't have my mic plugged in), there is something seriously wrong with the online experience. When a goddamned card game is being over run with Halo 2 facists, a goddamned card game, there REALLY needs to be something done. Does Microsoft honestly think that my grandma would play Uno on a 360 when she's surrounded by guys calling her a "****ing idiot" within the first 10 seconds of a game. Why are losers like those even paying for Xbox subscriptions? Why would my grandma? I can't even fathom their thought process..."Oh man! I can't wait to get home and RUIN a few games of online Uno for a bunch of ****ing idiots! I rule!". Please die.

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So, that went on a bit longer than I thought. I guess I've got about 2 months worth of pent up thoughts bubbling to the surface. Wish me luck, I pick up my copy of ~FXII~ tomorrow afternoon. I also ordered a region free (cheaper) copy of ~Marvel Alliance~, for 360, from play-asia.com, and I won a 360 copy of ~LotR: The Battle for Middle-Earth II~ from a trivia contest on Gamespot back in July. I didn't even know I had won and thought someone had made a mistake until I pieced together the memories. Anyway, excellent timing. I didn't own a 360 at the time, but the copy arrived just a week after I actually did buy a 360. I thought that was cool. Haven't played it yet.

Before I go off on a tangent, I hope everyone saw the-

~Circle Jerk~

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/10/g4-jack-thompson-yell-at-each-other/

-from G4's "round" table discussion with Jack Thompson.

This is a discussion that deserves at least an hour of television time and they give it about six minutes. Completely meaningless and it does nothing but make Adam Sessler look like a crazy bullying goon. GameDaily CEO Mark Friedler makes an EXCELLENT point that it's all about good and bad parenting and not video games, Jack says "that's not the point at all" and then the whole segment gets cut off. As if they were afraid to even go there, when going there is exactly where they should go. Jack has nothing he can stand on if you hit him with a "government raising our children" commentary.

I applaude G4 for trying to take on someone like Jack, but next time they need to give more than a half-hearted effort.

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Finished-

~Black~

 http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/black/player_review.html?id=347449

 -posted a review.

For some reason I played about 3/4 thru Black and then stopped. It only took me about 2 days to polish it off and post my review. Good game, not super-collosal, but a very good "weekend rental" game.

Currently I'm playing Indigo Prophecy and REALLY digging it. I'll post a review when I finish, but I can't help but think that this style of gaming would come off incredibly well on a Wii. Wii could be the second coming for point and click adventure games in general if they are of the same caliber as IP.

I also picked up Shadow of the Colossus for $20, but haven't even broken it out of the shrink wrap yet.

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Now, onto the rub of this entry, a world without physical media and, more importantly, used games. I was thinking about this the other day and, for as much as I really enjoy the idea of digital distribution (done right), I can't help but think that it could become a very bad thing for the industry (if done wrong).

I personally don't really use the used game market at all. I might pick up a really good deal at Gamefly, but in general I see the used game market for what it is, a scam for gamers like me. Now, I can see where it can be a pretty good deal for a ceratin type of gamer, the gamer who buys a game at release, plays it in a marathon session, beats it, and turns it back around to the store, used, for a maximum return, but that's just not me. I buy the occasional "must have" game like a MGS or a Final Fantasy or what I like to call "keepers", but those games that I would typical buy and then "flop" back to the store are not the games I consider "must buy". By the time I come around to wanting to play those games the return on investment is practically nonexistent. 6 to 12 months after release I can either trade it in for pennys on the dollar or the price has dropped to the point where I can buy it new for $20 (or less).

But that's one of the MAJOR problems I can see with DD, without that used market, we could see a big dip in those early buyers if the powers that be don't pass along the savings to the user.

If there were no used market, would those first day buyer still buy the game at $50-$60 if he/she had no outlet to flop the game back to? Would gamers like me (outside of the occasional keeper) even see a price drop under a structure like this? A structure where a Sony controls the price and all means of acquiring their product?

I personally think that, unless the reduction of cost for DD is passed onto the consumer, it could be a death rattle for any game other than a super-mega-triple-A type game. New gaming would have to become more of the equivilent of going to a movie for most gamers. Maybe not as low as $10, but something in the $20-$30 range sounds pretty good. It would have to get down more towards impulse buy territory in order for someone to be able to live with a poor choice in game. No one would be (or at least I would hope) willing to make a $60 mistake.

And by "most gamers" I mean those kids, tweenagers, and single moms who don't have a lot of extra income for a $60 download that they would own, but have no real outlet for resale. A non-physical media world sounds like it would cool, but there are dangers that come with it. Some very real "cutting off the nose to spite the face" financal dangers.

Let me get this out of the way, at first glance the idea of SingStar for PS2/PS3 is about as close to being the last "game" I would ever want to play. Even further down the line than, say, the American Idol game. With that, the more I ponder, the more I'm start to see the true (or at least potentially true) genius of this "game" and it doesn't even involve the game's true aspects. I'm a Guitar Hero fan not a glorified karaoke singer, but take away the mic and just look at what SingStar offers and I think you'll find the greatest music service on the face of the earth. Imagine if SingStar was just a music service ala itunes, but with a twist. Say you download an entire album of your favorite artist for the same relative price as itunes, but with the SingStar version you get all the applicible music videos that go with those songs. With the overall gymungus nature of a PS3 hard drive you could hold a LOT of The Village People music videos and songs on it (if The Village People is your sort of thing...not judging). Imagine if the service alerted you when new videos were released or even a couple of live tracks, with the live footage. If you wanted to you could sing along with those songs if you wish, I mean, it is SingStar, but also imagine if SingStar/PS3 let you dump your SingStar tracks onto the PSP along with those selected videos. Perhaps I'm totally crackers, but I see a lot more potential in SingStar as a replacement for, and something far more INNOVATIVE than, both itunes and connect.com combined. It's something that Sony could truly point at and say, "See that? We did that first!". Like itunes on steroids. It would appeal to a much wider audience and could end up making the PS3 a lot of peoples virtual jukebox.

I would have done it exactly the way this last month has gone, without a word and very little hoopla. Unfortunately I'm still here and I've used a cheap title hook to make you look at this entry. Sad. I have to say that I haven't been around much because I've been spending entirely too much time at work. People going on vacation, people retiring, and general good weather has lead Tim on a quest up the corporate ladder. I will hopefully be one rung away from becoming a "made" man by September. All of this hasn't left much time for gaming. I did finish ~Psi-Ops~ last week and ended up loving it. This is a super cheap (I think I saw it at Wal-Mart for something like $10, new) game that is absolutely worth your time. I haven't really picked the next game in the backlog, but I'm looking pretty hard at maybe polishing ~Indigo Prophecy~ off. That is if work will allow it. Seems I good for finishing about one game a month. At this rate I should have my backlog finished in about 5 years 8o.

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In the world of music I recently downloaded two gems. First, and easily one of the best albums I've listen to in over a year: ~Muse - Black Holes and Revelations~ Listening to a song like "Supermassive Black Hole" really made me think that Muse had tweaked their sound in the wrong direction. A more pop-y sound, but listening to the entire album completely and repeatedly makes me realize the brilliance of the album. I could always draw a line towards bands or artists that I thought had a similiar sound. Maybe a Radiohead or a Nirvana, but I can't really do that with this. Muse is Muse. They have their own sound, they are their own band. They have stepped out of the shadows with this one. I would walk across a room of broken CDs to see them do "Take a Bow" or "Knights of Cydonia" live (and I NEED Knights on some future version of Guitar Hero, this song would eat my GH controller). Good (perfect) stuff. Second, and pretty impressive in it's own right:
~Thom Yorke - The Eraser~ Impressive in the fact that it's not a huge departure from anything that Radiohead has ever done, but for how much more personable the entire thing sounds. Maybe it's just the solo-ish aspects of the title, but these songs sound a lot more heartfelt than anything I've heard Thom do in a long while. If you're a Radiohead fan, this is a no-brainer, but if you're not, this might be a really nice jumping on point for newbies. It has a quality, it's a really hard quality to pin down and it's not a quality that you're going to hear immediately, but it is there. It's a long haul album, like The Walkmen's "Bows+Arrows" or "A Hundred Miles Off", they all grow on you with repeated listening. Good music stuff during the month of July. These two make up for my disappontment in the Flaming Lips newest. Hopefully I can find time to post more often, but I might be pretty spotty between now and September/October or at least until the dust settles at work. *joy*

"See you in 10 years!"

In the most recent issue of EGM there are several Q&As with the big 3 video game powers and shakers. One answer, to one question, by Kaz Hirai either spoke intelligent volumes or it was the sort of statement that could kill them in the next-gen. I'm resigned to believe the former. EGM: Let's talk price. The PS3 may be pretty, but it's going to cost a whole lot of pennies. Is $599 a viable price in the long run? KH: If you look at what we've packed into the box, I think it actually is a good value proposition. Now, in absolute dollar terms, is it higher than $300? Yes, it is. But I also think that we have a history of making sure that our consoles have a 10-year life cycle. We've done it with PS1; you see how vibrant the PS2 displays are out there, both in terms of first- and third-party software support, so we're well on our way to making sure that the PS2 has a 10-year life cycle. So, to me, even if you buy it at the intial $599-dollar price point, that's a viable console that you're going to keep for the next 10 years. For me this a double edged statement. On one side I am completely in Kaz's corner with the 10 year console idea. Not only is it the most profitable model for Sony, but it's a very profitable model for developers, and I would go so far as to say the most beneficial for gamers too. Huge user base, low hardware and software development costs, equals better pricing for gamers and developers who are more willing to roll the dice on something like a Guitar Hero, a Katamari Damacy, or an EyeToy peripheral. On the other side, it's an invitation for users to just wait, giving the competition a chance to lap Sony. A potentially deadly combination. But then again, maybe that's Sony's grand scheme (well, maybe not the lapping part)? Paying $600-ish every 10 years sound like a pretty good deal versus $600 every 5. Maybe this is Sony's way of forcing the market to start stretching it's hardware life cycles? Maybe the cost WILL scare off some of the devoted from picking one up on launch day? Maybe developers won't support the PS3 as fanatically as they did the PS2, but they'd be fools to abandoned the vast user base of the PS2. Maybe two or three years from now, when there are more mass market HDTVs out there, a hand full of top tier exclusives, one or two price cuts, and the PS2 is 8 or even 9 years old is when we'll see the true power of Sony's strategy? This could be Sony's grand scheme to turn the console race from a sprint into a marathon.

***THIS A WARNING. THIS MY FIRST GAMESPOT BLOG ENTRY AND IT'S BASICALLY A COPY/PASTE FROM MY OTHER BLOG AT G.A.P. IF YOU'VE READ IT THERE, THEN YOU'VE READ IT HERE. I MIGHT TRIM SOME TEXT WHEN I POST HERE, IF I'M ADDRESSING CERTAIN GAPsters, BUT IT'S ESSENTIALLY THE EXACT SAME ENTRY. I'M A BORING PERSON AND POSTING TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ENTRIES REALLY ONLY TAKES WAY FROM GAME PLAYING TIME AND WHO REALLY WANTS THAT?***

There's something that I've always wondered about when developers cry about their growing budgets for next-gen games and having to come up with creative new ways to find new cash flow. Be it downloadable content or charging $10 more per disc, the question is this:

Why doesn't the same logic apply to handhelds?

Has there been any developer come forward and say that the PSP is/was a "hard system to develop for"? The DS? If anything I would assume that the systems are quite easy to develop for and, in the end, quite a cheap business model for them. This could explain why PSP is getting a lot of "Cram it on a UMD" PS2 ports, but shouldn't it be the sort of system that developers should be using as testing grounds for some really wild gaming ideas? Shouldn't it be, if budgets for next-gen are going to be so incredibly high, where the vast majority of small publishers should be focusing their efforts? Couldn't the PSP be to Sony the equivilant of what Xbox Live Arcade is for Microsoft, a place for independent publishers to peddle their wares?

More games like Loco Roco, PXL, and WTF are the exact direction Sony needs to be taking this system in, small downloadable arcade ports are the other. Simple, quick, slightly quirky perhaps, and most importantly portable in feel is where this system needs to be.

Maybe, if the development herd begins to thin during the next-gen, it could become a goldmine for the portable market. Portables might become the cheaper alternative for developers and the next big idea might just be in your pocket.

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Sidenotes:

-I married my DS Lite on Sunday. I don't know whether it's a legal, binding contract, but we're spending so much time together that it just seemed like a natural fit. Love makes you do foolish things.

-I have a Lvl 9 Shaman Troll, on WoW, on the Thrall server, and I've been playing it off and on for a little less than a week. What I find to be the true genius of this game is just how well it holds your hand as you explore. The way in which the game gives you missions, but at the same time slowly rolls the world at out without the player even noticing, is, genius. Everything is super-intuitive and the menu layout is stunning. This is absolutely the game to play if you've ever wanted to try an MMORPG. Anyone, and I mean anyone, could most likely play this game and get something from it. My only other MMORPG experiences were PSO and FFXI. WoW seems to be a nice mix of both. More complex than PSO, but not NEARLY as intimidating as FFXI, and not nearly as addictive as I thought it would be. I sort of mentally tell myself to try and do two missions per night which usually equates out to about two hours, and surpisingly it works. It still leaves me with enough time to play...

-My backlog. I finished Freedom Fighters a couple of weeks ago and I'm currently working on Psi-Ops. Psi-Ops is without a doubt one of the most under appreciated tiles in, like, forever. The storyline is a slice of cheese, but the gameplay is tear inducingly fun. I'm roughly (I think) about half way there (still missing Pyrokinesis) and I'm stunned that there's no word of a sequel on anyone's lips. The amount of freedom you are given on how to approach each level is almost everything a person would want from a game like this. I can't wait to finish it and I'm ashamed I left it on the back burner for this long.

So, to recap, PSP should be PSLive Arcade, WoW good, Freedom Fighters good, Psi-Ops ***Tony the Tiger style*** GREAT!