i was listening to the IGN podcast for co-op and after listening to them bashing split screen i was furious.  ok so 80 percent of console gamers will never take their console online, the split screen is still the most feasable method of bringing friends together to play a game.   example i've never gone online with Halo2 i have probably clocked in close to 200 hours with that games system link split screen setup.  i don't find online entirely appropriate for consoles just like how we pc gamers expect lan support for all online games, we console gamers expect full system link/split screen support for our online games.  to that extent i feel that Co-op isn't the same if you can't turn to your friend look him in the Eye and scream at him after he sworded you in the back even though he was on your team.  splist screen is the past present and future of Consoles.  it is what makes me keep coming to them as feasible video game platforms and part of what makes them unique. if consoles try to be like a pc they will fial and loose what makes them good. getting two consoles and two TV's with two copies of a game is alot eisier than eight computers setup to LAN with eight game copies.  see what i'm sayin games, especially multiplayer games are really striving for community, no matter how hard they try a online community will never replace real live interactive communities, like 12 college students playing HALO 2 late into the night during finals week, screaming and keeping everyone in the dorm awake.  that is community and online can never steal/replicate/replace, that.

Allow me to preview the review of metriod i will be putting out in a month or so, it goes like this.  metriod is hands down the best single player FPS game of the last generation, and stands as a great reason every gamer should have had a gamecube.  that being siad i had problems with the game, some would argue these as strengths, i found about 10-20 percent of the enemies to be annoying un fun or just stupid, enemies like the exploding flower things, the wasps, and other such boring repetetive un fun types, why do i hate those, because they add nothing they only slow or frustrate the player, and with the fact that every time you leave the room they respawn and you get to face them allover agian.  this leads into the frustration i had with the enemies respawning, it slows down your puzzle solving, maybe some dynamic respawns could have worked, but identicle respawns are just boring and in many cases you start to simply run past many enemies because they can't follow you this brings out another anoying problem enemies can't follow you often they won't even pursue you within a single room, the wasps and pirates as an exception most other enemies, i'd say 80 percent don't follow you.  all these things add up to bring down the presentation and the fluid seemless feeling the game has.  on another note i also was frustrated by the back and forth style of the game, you will often have to retred over the same patch of earth 10-20 times in the game, if not more, especially when you don't know what to do the open ended nature of the game forces you to wander aimlessly dealling with all the respawning enemies who slow your thought process down.  ok if you have a play guid or walk through you won't find many of my compliates warented but i never played with a walk through and that makes this games greatest strength it's greatest flaw, often it tells you wear to go but you will have no idea how to get there.  WTF right, exactly.  but if you play the game.  i'll be honest i found Sonic the Hedge hog to be abnormally difficult but that didn't keep me from lovin him and his genesis games.  if you play the game you slowly and subtilly become hooked, don't get frustrated if it is to hard try a walkthrough.  this games presentation is hands down the best of any game last gen, from the rian drops forming on your visor in rian to the fog/condensation when you walk by a water fall, or the frost of a cold area.  when you put on the xray visor you can see samus's hand manipulating switches and triggers in her cannon.  the way puzzles play out, the perfect FPS platforming.  i haven't felt that into a game world since HAlf life one.  this games controls are unique but work fine, more than fine.  the different weapons are simply fantastic, this game also manages to make all the weapons not only unique but amazing.  the 3rd person ball mode is perfect and the camera is the best 3rd person camera i've ever seen.  this game shows such great polish, there are aspects of it that make it feel dated, the respawning enemies and such that i listed above but every other moment of the game was ahead of it's time.  that being siad the build your character up from scratch style of gameplay that worked should never be used agian or else it will feel really forced and stupid.  but i already know they did it in metriod two, alright corruption better not do that.  i would really like a more newb friendly game next time, one where i can more easily find my way around.  thanks guys, also use stronger more contrasting lighting because i found that on a some tv's this game made me get a head ache from squinting to see stuff in the shadows.

i'm sorry but one thing nintendo really needs in their titles is dialogue and in the case of zelda and metriod, they aslo need better music, both titles have synthetic music and the background music of metriod though appropriate and good wears thin on the user after so many hours of gameplay.  sound on nintendo games has never been what makes them great but it deffinately helps keep the adventure from feeling stale, some games work with less interesting music but when solving a puzzle in metriod or in zelda some nonsynthetic music would be appreciated.  on that note i was playing prime and found the puzzles to be fun and inventive but the travling back and forth to be tedious since you face the same or simalar challenges every time, and that becomes boring,  also metriod is a very difficult game for a nongamer without a guide, even with tips turned on i find it hard to navigate and ge where i need to go alot of the time, i need a spider ball where the heck is that, oh wiat a room some where is showing up on my map only to disapear, and i don't know how to get there any way.  yeah it pretty frustrating, sure i got through the game before but it was just as frustrating and anoying that time as this time since i can't remember what i did three years ago.  any way with metriod now a premier nintendo franchise agian i'd like to see them breath life into the franchise once more on the wii.  hears to hoping.

ok so i saw the Halo 3 picks and it reall just looks like Halo two for vista with some new goodies to ofset the wait.  common bungie give us something interesting, and how about less stale enviroments, try adding more foliage, and battle scars to the levels.  the visualls really looked more UT 2k4 Onslaught than anything else, i'm dissapionted.

yeah that's right i want to take my favorite wii games online, ala metriod, i'd love for nintendo to make a multiplayer focused metroid game, so we nintendo lovers can system link and get a halo like experience.  please.  try adding some vehicles, just a few, and i could easily see metriods different weapons system and hunter types make a fantastic multiplayer class based gameplay.  oh how i want the wii.  oh yeah and microsoft is a bastard i want more backwards compatability i want to play POP 2 and 3 in HD with unreal championship.

rianbow six vegas is currently being reviewed as hands down the best FPS game of this generation so far, i don't know since people siad that GRAW was so fantastic and it sucked horrible balls.  i was more than pissed when i discuvered i had been so drastically lied to.  but i really feel the need to get my hands on vegas now, even with the visuals being a little dissapionting i think if the gameplay is solid i'll finally have a tomclancy game i can love agian, Chaos theory was the last one i could recommend flat out, and R6 hasn't been good since 3,  but now i really want to try this game even though i know ubi soft pays reviewers very well as i found out with GRAW.

i want a mech game, there i siad it, with bad mech games like chrome hounds and gundam crossfire, we need microsoft to show how it's done.  mech warrior 5, or mech assault 3, please.  i'd preffer a pc mech game, but really a console mech game could work just release a good joystick.

alright i'm a huge ut junky, and when UT 2004 came out i got it, i had already had 2003, but it didn't rub me right.  i love 2004 just read my review, but my biggest bif is that they don't have the best art design, so many of the Characters don't look cool or interesting like they did in UC2, this brings me to the piont i now have a Xbox system can i expect a UC3, with the same great melee, or can i hope for what i really want a pc UT game with the same great design as UC2, UC2 had great character designs, and better levels, and better art design.  i feel like the UT necris look stupid and retarted, the UC2 necris look cool, the UT egyptians look retarted, the UC2 egyptians look amazing, all i'm saying is give me some sweat skins ok, the levels look cool enough, how about some samurai skins, i just want to want to play as every one rather than just the cool dread wearin aliens and the normal humans.  and a sweat melee weapon wouldn't kill epic either.  i miss the chiansaw.

so i hate sony, i believe i can justify my feelings, but one thing i never siad is that i think they have bad games, the ps2 had some great games, sure most of the great ones where multi platform, but the MGS games, and DMC3 and shadow of the colosus, and God of war were fantastic games, they made the ps3 almost worth it, if i didn't hate the systems over pricedness, or how i felt sony was financially rippin of the consumer.  but i still thought it had good games, the system may have been bad, but i can see how some people bought into it.  as for the ps3, i think they are going to deliver some fantastic games, like MGS4, and DMC4 and their fighting franchises, and LAIR, just to name a few.  i think that sony has a good lineup, to bad i find that the system is far to expensive, and not worth it, but if your a sony fanboy you won't miss out on any shortage of good games, they will just take longer to develope for that hardware.  i know that multi core it the future, but they are still not offering good dev kits.  i liked how the ps3 version of UT2007 is taking so long to develope when the pc version was practically finished.  but oh well.  i have friends who will get one when they are avialable to the average gamer in a year.  then i'll try on the system.

why doesn't nintendo work with sega or capcom to bring a exclusive title to the Wii.  sega can't seem to make a great sonic game for the life of them any more, why not get nintendo's help, or how about capcom and nintendo do another resident evil or a new fighting game like soul caliber.  why not.  nintendo really needs a great must have game so much fun you have to have it after playing only a hour.  i remember how smash, and mario 64 and zelda where that way.  i don't just want a sequel i want a reinvention.  something totally new but with a familiar face, like your meeting a good friend for the first time all over agian.  nintendo is one of the only companies to keep it's franchises alive so long and to do such a good job doing it.  sadly besides paper mario i never felt mario was at home on the cube, they never had anything as fun or rewarding as mario 64.  i'm getting a wii and i want to be able to tell people why.  like how xbox owners can say, well GOW durrrrr.  and soon ps3 owners will do the same with MGS4.  what till nintendo players say, the new metriod game looks like a sequel to metriod prime, and is just to familiar for what i'm talking about, it has to have a whole new style and feel to it.  don't do the same old, i'm the only good bounty hunter agianst everyone else, kinda thing agian.  the lone gunman has bee worked over to much with samus, bring samus into a new world, a new experience.  remember platforming isn't all that she's good at.  yeah and after the Wii launch i'm really left asking how weak is this system, almost all the launch games look behind par for the last gen.  i mean Wii sports is fine i know what it's going for.  but even COD 3 looks worse than the xbox games of last gen, i didn't expect beautiful visuals but i expected a improvement.  common nintendo we don't want ugly games.