A long time ago, in a country far far away, mainly japan, a game by konami was shown called beatmania, the very first of the bemani(music games by konami) series. At first it wasn't exactly mind blowing to those shown the new game, but over time konami had produced an astounding variety of music games over years since around 1997 or so. America had been affected by it but not nearly as much as Japan itself.

And here lies the question. After seeing the progress of Harmonix from the good old Frequency/Amplitude days, to what it's become now, will we see the US having an explosion of music games of enormous numbers? When I first heard about Rock Band, that's when this idea had dawned on me - Drummania and Guitar freaks had the same thing, just in arcade form. By the way, for those uninformed how many different varieties Konami made back in the Day: Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, Beatmania IIDX, Drummania, Guitar Freaks, Pop n' Music, Keyboardmania, Dance Maniax, Para Para Paradise, to name a few. Will we see a "Keyboard Hero" some day?

Just a thought.

Well money will be heading into my hands tomorrow, in the amount of somewhere over $400. Once I get my other paycheck in 2 weeks I'll head over to best buy and finally snag an xbox 360 plus a game, maybe gears of war. I haven't decided yet...

 

I saw a bioshock demo off of OnDemand from comcast, it has this look that's indescribable, I've got high hopes for that sucker. xbox 360 ftw... ps3 better start hauling ass.

Life Cereal. Where do you get off? A well balanced meal AND nutricious?....

 

But in all seriousness, the nintendo Wii. For the more hardcore gamers it pains me to see a console with such a lack of original and/or good third party games(Redsteel is a great example) be so successful. The PS3 vs. Wii parody commercial rally says it all: Expensive powerful system with crappygames, or Cheap gimmicky system with horrible games? LoZ TP can hardly be called next gen, considering they had a gamecube version of the game come out in Early January. The Remote control itself almost boasts to be a "Next-gen revolution", but in the end it's more of a gimmicky controller that isn'tt that great for most games. If I wanted a peripheral for my game, it would be based on the game itself and be much more useful than a battery-drinking wireless PoS. Kiddies, families, and people new to games will have a ball, as for old-timers like me, I'm stickin with Xbox360, or ps3 if it actually gets something new.

Well, my circadian rhythm is royally screwed. I woke up around 9:37 PM last night and I've been awake since, I should really go to bed considering at 10 PM I have an 8 hour shift. It's geting nuttier and nuttier... Perhaps the high pay for the job has a reason to be so high...

There are some up and coming games living on the darker side of life that I'm really rooting for, and can only hope they succeed. The Darkness is my primary one, a shooter with a very dark twist, interesting storyline, and almost RPG-ish elements involving the dark minions. Here's hoping.

     Another to keep an eye out for is Overlord, though I'm not so sure about this one, I can't help but think of Dungeon keeper 2 when I see this. Whether the pikmin-style slaughter will be worth it is something I can't say quite yet. Finally, Hellgate: London has a certain style to it that may be interesting, but like overlord, I have a bad feeling it will be in the "Classic Hits" bins in about a year for $10. Come onnnn darkness. 

Well, I've been pretty stingy on whether or not to bother getting the ps3 or not as of yet, I would love to start seeing a completely stellar use of its technical processing power, and memory available on blu-ray discs. The only real good games that have come out on PS3 so far since launch are already on XBOX 360 anyways(Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a good example). However, the coming time for this year may yet give sony a chance to redeem itself for a lackluster choice in gaming.

Lair, for one has a great potential, for anyone who's already seen the demo for it, is graphically top-notch. It's just a matter of whether it's well developed as a full game. The darkness may prove to be interesting, though that's on the xbox 360 as well... We'll just have to wait and see once it comes out, but for now I'm holding onto my $600. ;p