Cold fire, you've got everything but cold fire
You will be my rest and peace child
I moved up to take a place, near you

So tired, it's the sky that makes you feel tried
It's a trick to make you see wide
It can all but break your heart, in pieces

Staying back in your memory
Are the movies in the dark
How you moved is all it takes
To sing a song of when I loved
The Prettiest Star

One day though it might as well be someday
You and I will rise up all the way
All because of what you are
The Prettiest Star

Staying back in your memory
Are the movies in the past
How you moved is all it takes
To sing a song of when I loved
Prettiest Star

One day though it might as well be someday
You and I will rise up all the way
All because of what you are
The Prettiest Star

I can now admit something out loud for the first time in my life. I am a Sony fan boy. Always have been. But after seeing the absolute BRILLIANCE that was Nintendo's Press Conference, I think a change is coming...Bob Dylan said it, "These times they are a changin'" and boy was he spot on.

"IT'S ABOUT THE HEAT OF EMOTION."

"NOT THE CHILL OF TECHNOLOGY."

"Our war is over."

"But there’s one more thing I must do."

"It's not about nations, or ideologies. It's not even about profit, resources or ethnicities."

"It’s an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines."

"War, and its vast consumption of human life, has become a rational, well-oiled business transaction."

"War has changed."

"ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear."

"Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their actions."

"Genetic control..."

"Information control..."

"Emotion control..."

"Battlefield control..."

"Everything is monitored and kept under control."

"War has changed."

"The age of difference is now the age of control averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction."

"And he who controls the battlefield, controls history."

"War has changed."

"When the battlefield is under control, war becomes routine."

Naomi Hunter

          “We must not pass our sins onto the next generation."

Colonel Roy Campbell

          “You’re the world’s only hope."

Meryl Silverburgh

          “We are the new FOXHOUND."

Hal Emmerich OTACON

          “The onus is ours."

Raiden

           "My turn to protect you, Snake."

Liquid Snake/Ocelot

           "It was you who killed Abel and was cast out by Eve."

Old Snake

            "War has changed. But there’s one more thing I must do. One last punishment I must endure."

"Some Legends are meant to die."

"Some bloodlines must come to an end."

 

      The Run DMC music in the intro should have been a sign. While I havent the time to write anything lengthy, I will say this; Sony has alot of groundwork to do. Oh and they all need new speech writers.       

You have one real goal in life. Just one. And yes I am talking to you. You're goal, you're purpose in life is to play Killer 7. It is, without any doubt in the world, the greatest game ever made. Don't believe me? Well its a shame your such an idiot. But do me a favor, read my review and then make your judgements. You'll be quite glad you did.

      Well it is very late, were you not previously aware of this fact (though I suppose at the same time it is very very early). Since I should have let work over two hours ago and yet through powers unbeknownst to me, I've been talked into staying later (or is it earlier?) to finalize some final preparations for the morning. I have a spare moment or two so I figured I might as well throw a blog post on here and tell a little bit about what I do.

      I work at a hotel. Now I cannot tell you what hotel or where exactly this hotel is located but here are a few things I can tell you. I am a concierge, one of a few here on the property and in case you aren’t aware of what exactly a concierge is, I will tell you. I am a slave. Well perhaps that’s not quite politically correct of me to say. Not a slave then but a genie of sorts; just as a genie is a slave to his lamp, I am slave to my hotel. It is my duty and responsibility to have all the answers to all the questions a guest might have, have all the resources to get mostly anything a guest may need, right when he or she needs it. For the time that you stay in my hotel, provided your spending enough money (sign of the times) think of me as a personal...well genie.

      As I stare out the window of my office I can see it. The forum. The epicenter for all of this: The Los Angeles Convention Center. That’s right, E3. I can see the huge banner flit softly in the balmy night air in the West Hall. Most of the lights in and around the center are long since shut off but I’m still able to make out the little inserts of sporadic shadows here and there in the courtyard. As one can probably imagine, being this close to the Convention Center, around 80% of our rooms this week are occupied with the entire gambit of video game enthusiasts. We have designers, gamers, “booth babes”, journalists and just about everything in between.

      Well this post did have a point so let me get to it. On my way to check the elevator hall in the west lobby earlier this evening, I happened upon three friends (I can only assume) waiting for an elevator up to their room. As I walked past them, greeting them with a completely prefabricated smile, they began to talk about E3 and what else, the console war. Interestingly enough, each particular friend was sided with each of the individual companies involved in the war itself. There was the Microsoft fanatic, the Sony boy and the Nintendo fan. Even more interesting was the fact that as the three inevitably began to argue about which system would rein supreme, each adopted the personalities of the specific companies they were loyal to. The Microsoft fanatic was precise and methodical, carefully articulating in a very calculated way how X-Box Live would be Microsoft’s ace in the hole this round. The Sony boy was broad and dramatic, throwing complicated jargon and propaganda into the fray. And then there was the Nintendo fan; timid to be sure and sad of eye but calm and steadfast, to perhaps an ignorant degree, about the widespread accessibility of the Wii.

      As with most arguments, words eventually weren’t doing the trick of convincing anyone anything and the two older bigger guys (Sony and Microsoft) began to roughhouse each other, leaving poor Nintendo in the crossfire. Upon hearing this I began to make my way back to the hall and once again be forced to play the tightwad but I was stopped short by the actions of the Nintendo fan. No sooner had Microsoft and Sony began to push and shove each other, the smaller guy shoved the other two into the elevator car and yelled in a voice I can only describe as totalitarian, until the Microsoft fanatic and Sony boy were silent. With a nod he then stepped onto the elevator and they were gone.

      Sony’s press conference is today, its approaching sooner then I think anyone thought it would. Everyone is expecting something big. Something wild and amazing. In short, something Sony. There is a tension in the hotel, an apprehension that one can almost see.

      In the end however nothing is ever certain. And always remember; a small fan can still cause a mighty wind.

Yes, it was that crazy last night...I tell you though, thats the last time I party with ANYONE from IGN.

       Most of the time, I find the musical vocals in video games passable at best. The exception to this would be of course a majority of the work done by Nobuo Uematsu. Even though the music he composes has become the standard to which almost all other game music is compared to, the sung themes that a few of these games implement are usually absolutely dreadful. Now are they terrible ear wrenching sagas? No. But I can assure you that there has never been a time when I had the inclination to pop "Eyes on Me" into my iPod. Meet Angela Aki. No really, go ahead she's right below.

        Well acquainted? Good.Whats spectacular about Angela as opposed to an Utada or a Wong, is that the music she writes has a converse effect. True she is mostly a "J-Pop" artist but her newest CD to come out here (which incidentally has both English and Japanese versions of FFXII's theme song) contains a few songs she specifically wrote in English. Not only that but rhythmically as well melodically, her talent rivals many overpaid singers/songwriters/producers around today. But my words mean very little. The proof is down below.

http://www.rpgfan.com/soundtracks/ff12-kiss/index.html

"What's  in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

--From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

         Labels. I hate 'em you hate 'em and Boy George certainly hates them as well ( just go with it). Throughout our lives we are all subject to the objective views of others, for the best or for the worst.

Case in point: Gamers.

        "Gamer" as it were. What does it mean to be a gamer? What is a gamer? Well in it's most basic sense a gamer is someone who...plays games. This, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a negative aspect. What do we call someone who cooks? Well we call them a bloody cook don't we? However what else do we call someone who cooks? A chef. Now what the hell is the difference between a cook and a chef? Very subtle differences to be sure in a technical sense.

        But when you ask someone what they do for a living and they say "Oh I'm a cook." what goes through your mind? A cook stirs up thoughts of terrifying cafeteria food and two cent diners off of 4th and Luxard Ave. 

        Ah, But when you ask someone what they do for a living and they say "Oh why I'm a chef", an entirely different stream of thoughts trickles through your sense memory. Being a chef invokes prestige and class, an elite feeling of sorts.

Case in point: Gamers.

        But being a "gamer" is not simply being a person who plays games. In society, a gamer can be paired with the word a"dork" or "nerd" or any other number of sweaty individuals outcasted into a derogatory niche. Is this true, are all video game players doomed to be lumped into a category? I truly do not know.

        Ok I'll be honest, I haven’t a damn clue where this is going though I can tell you that it did at one time have a point. Hmmm think about it!

So I have this friend, let’s call her Tara.

            Tara and I were at Amoeba Music off of Sunset tonight; see picture (and no I'm not saying "Sunset" like you should know where the hell that is but it's just something that’s said. Kind of like peanut butter and- ok whatever, get over it) Among our idle banter, ranging from David Bowie's hair gel to the mysterious disappearance of Rosie O' Donald, I brought up E3 since at the hotel I'm currently employed at we've already begun receiving guests for the convention.

            The moment I had finished my sentence, a person wearing Target jeans and an Astro Boy t-shirt (who coincidentally was browsing through Coldplay albums) erupted next us. He, "Timmy", began to tell us his story. I should inform you that it was at that moment I contemplated throwing the nearest disc at him (interestingly enough it was a used Celine Dion album) but decided against it. I figured anyone willing to purchase a Coldplay album in public was already unstable enough.

            Here is Timmy’s Tale: It seems that Timmy was, until recently (last Friday) An employee at Gamestop. As most of you may or may not know, game retail employee’s are afforded the luxury, or as Masoumi brilliantly pointed out,  the misfortune, of passes to E3. Being a member of said market, Timmy was given or was going to get (he wasn’t quite clear on this point somewhere between his third bottle of Jack and his second joint the details must have flitted away) passes to the show. At the last moment however a mistake was made and too few passes were ordered, ergo the store was one pass short. Being the newest employee and thus having the least amount of seniority, it was decided that unfortunately Timmy would not be receiving a pass.

            Hearing this and naturally being upset, Timmy went into a rage and threw himself against the PS2 rack effectively causing all the boxes to fall and making a terrible mess. It was after that point that Tara and I had finally inched ourselves left enough to make a clean break for the exit. Running, the last words we heard from “Timmy” were “Fight the Authority!!”

            On the way back home, all Tara and I could do was laugh; half out of blind terror and half out of astonishment. But I began to think about the situation in general. Sometimes what seems like a perfect situation can turn into a horrible mess and that sometimes a diamond in the ruff is just an oasis. The morale of the story? Never buy jeans at Target and remember, nothing is ever as bad as it seems.