I finally managed to grab it :D

Uncharted - Platinum'ed... that makes the 3rd for me.

Hey guys, its been a while I have come to gamespot and posted a blog or commented on your blog posts. The main reason I used to think I was aloof was because I was roaming here and there between cities, but for now I am finally settled at a place. Even though I was unsettled I was still in touch with gaming, still for some reason I just completely lost the excitement of checking out what new games are coming or what my friends are talking about the latest games.

And I finally found out what was wrong. I played Crysis 2 and Black Ops on PS3 and then I played God of War - Ghost of Sparta on my PSP. You know what is wrong? I think we are seeing a really big crisis in our gaming hobbie. It is not hard to see that the games we are playing these days are doing aboslutely nothing new, it is the same first person shooter, hack and slash, racing and platformer.. seriously the same sh*t over and over again.

This doesn't end here. Gaming few years back had an excitement atleast at the graphics and visuals level, people used to be so excited about seeing the graphics of a new game that came to the market and drool over its screenshots. Do we have that now, thanks to the consoles? We are seeing the same stuck graphics of 2006 quality. Its the same quality of images over and over again with little improvement (Uncharted2, God of War, Bad Company 2).

I think this is enough. I think these consoles are holding back the gaming industry like anything. Nothing is new. Gaming has all become about if the game comes on Wii or the xbox or the ps3. You know f*** these consoles, gone are the days when I used to see amazing games from different developers with improving graphics every single time they release something new. No one would even ask if it is some god forsaken console's exclusive or not.

Black Ops, a good game by all means, is more or less the same thing I played in MW, and MW2, or Bad Company 2. Crysis 2 on my PS3 looks like any other first person shooter I have played since last 5 years. 5 years and almost no improvement. I bet Crysis 2 looks bad ass on PC, but then PC has been buried down by the fanboyism of these consoles so much that I don't think anyone cares how Crysis 2 looks on the PC.

You know I am not a big fan of PC anyway, have always been a console gamer since childhood. But looking back, I believe I had the most fun in my gaming years when I played for 5 long years only on the PC. Agreed there always was the worry of upgrading the PC, but those 5 years were quite a ride. Every month a new game's announcement meant amazing new improvements in the visuals of the game. Atleast if the gameplay was stuck, something was changing and kept me going. But now, seriously, I think I have had enough. Even the new incredibly ugly looking Wii-U has a much older GPU chip, I am sure even PS4 and xbox720 will have a cheap ass slow GPU in it. They feed sh*t to us and we eat that right up.

Atleast Kinect, Move and Wii motion controls brought something to the table. Mostly Wii tennis thing is fun. Guitar Hero also is lots of fun. They faded away quickly though, because motion control is just very difficult to emboid into core gameplay, and they remained as a new thing everyone tried and forgot. 3D is getting us somewhere may be, I dont know.

I am continuing gaming but very sparingly. Unless games like Portal, Uncharted 2, Gears of War 2, God of War come to the market, I am going to be very passive on this. The only game I enjoyed recently a lot was Portal 2, that's it. The next game I am getting I guess is that ICO and SOTC collection, because games from the past are my only hope.

Hey guys, its been a while I posted a blog here, I am sorry I could not visit ur blogs because I have been more or less travelling this whole year. I finally have finished my degree. I am a graduate from IIIT Hyderabad with Master of Science :D

I am back at Bangalore and now I work in Technicolor for Dreamworks Animations

Thats all the update I have for now :)

adios till next time

Check out what my friends / office colleagues gave me as a farewell gift from my last working place :D. They are so nice, I am going to miss them.

From a casual point of view, I liked Microsoft's E3 presentation, especially the part from speaking to your xbox to video chatting on live messenger. Kinect's games looked fun but I guess they will mostly be like crappy flash games. It will sell nonetheless, the main reason being that people would want to see this new technology. I mean, hell, even I was seriously thinking of buying it during the presentation. I am hearing things about a killer lag that destroys the whole experience, so I guess I will stay clear from Kinect games.

I definitely liked Halo Reach and Gears of War 3, quite excited about those. But then that was all there was for me as a gamer. The new xbox was a treat! I might get it in the far future but coming to think of it, it doesn't have anything. The xbox still remains that old DVD player for me. Built it wifi? Systems have been doing that from ages, and really, xbox not supporting it earlier was not even a problem since I guess everyone was fine getting a lan cable for a mere few bucks for the xbox.

I am sure, Nintendo's presentation must have been super thrilling for core fans. Me not being a Nintendo fan, their presentation was the most uninteresting for me. The only thing which caught my attention was Nintendo 3DS. But when I came to know about its technology, I started feeling sorry for Nintendo fans who will have no choice but to buy it to play the games.

Nintendo 3DS uses an age old Lenticular 3D technology which gives really bad and dark quality display and a 3D vision at a strict viewing distance and angle. Text is not going to be visible and the aliasing is going to be even worse. A strict viewing distance and angle works out fine for a big display since its sitting in one place but for a handheld, it is gonna cause wrist and neck pain. Taking 3D pics (even though just 640x480) looks fun however.

I dont mind 3DS doing good in the future, I am not even a Nintendo fan that I am feeling forced to buy it. But people should know that the way Nintendo was trash talking "3D with glasses" which gives the best experience of 3D yet (I know as I have worked on stereoscopic technology), was laughable from a technology point of view, and it seemed unfair the way Nintendo used people's ignorance about this technology to make a joke.

Lastly Sony's presentation was best for me since their presentation was all about the games. They spent quite a time on 3rd party titles which was ok but I would have liked demos about Motorstorm apocalypse, Last guardian, Ghost of Sparta, Resistance 3 etc. Twisted Metal's new game was a killer surprise and I look forward to it. I was so much expecting a SOTC & ICO HD pack like that of GOW Collection, disappointed on that front. PS Move seems good and it looks like its precision is gonna invite serious developers to make games for serious gamers.

All in all, in my view Sony's presentation was the best! Followed by Microsoft's and then Nintendo. From a fan point of view, I guess Nintendo and Sony have made their fans crazy with awe during their presentations and Microsoft has disappointed them the most.

Ohkay, I now gotta save money for a 3D TV

... is incredibly annoying. Inability to move and shoot feels so irritating that I feel like throwing the controller down. Everything else is so awesome in this game, killer graphics, story seems to be going well, nice cutscenes, inventory management... but this one thing had to be made bad to spoil the whole experience. I read an article on joystiq which defends the control scheme by talking about creating tension and horror by forcing you to stand in one place while aiming at the enemies reaching near you. Also about resource management and aiming properly to not waste bullets. All this sounds very convincing and thoughful in the begining but if you really think yourself about it, its PURE GARBAGE.

As heard from Resident Evil 4 fans, despite of having odd control scheme, the game got good reviews because it took major steps in gaming at that time, and I am going to believe them, because sincerely I have not played that game to judge it. And even if I play it now, I won't be able to play it with that mindset since I have seen so much more. If Resident Evil 5 was also taking major steps in this era of Gears of War 2 or Uncharted 2, then I would not have complained. However RE5 looks like a yet another third person shooter with an annoyance added which is being called a feature.

Heres why I think "dont move while shoot" is a narrow minded thinking:

1. It emphasized on resource management and that stand and shoot will make me aim better to not waste bullets. Ironically, moving while panning the camera actually helps in quick aiming. Since moving gives me horizontal shift, I can move around to adjust my aiming quickly if I aimed a little wrong. This saves a lot of time! So by incorporating moving while shooting, you still hold your norm of resource management.

2. Since you want to create tension by making me stand while I am aiming at them, you can still achieve that by making my movement very slow while I am aiming. I still will have to leave my ground if enemies come closer. With the current control scheme, I have to look out for enemies, then turn around, run a few meters, again turn around like an idiot and then aim at those enemies. If you allow moving while shooting, I still might have to run backwards, but in that case I will blame myself for not able to finish all those enemies off and thats why I have to go back. This is something Dead Space did perfectly, I never blamed the control scheme, everytime I had to run backwards I thought "I am bad at this game" and not "this game is bad".

3. Because of the stupid control scheme, enemies have been made slower, so that the physically challenged player can aim at them. I have no problem with slow enemies, it just looks so retarded when the cutscene shows dangerous enemies starting to scream and charge at me, and when the control is given to the player, they instantly slow down and start walking like morons. If I were a zombie, I will run to death to kill that human who is aiming at me with a f*cking gun. Again because of move while shoot, dead space was able to provide variety of enemies and not the ones who run fast in cutscenes and then move slow during gameplay.

Capcom "deleted" something to "add" something else to the table. Where everyone is trying to append ideas on top of other, Capcom takes a step backward. Whole experience spoiled. So many expections, all gone to mud. I hate Resident Evil Franchise because I have faith that Capcom will continue to keep the control scheme sh*tty in their next sequels.

1. I think this is pretty much the best game ever made :|

2. Few months ago, I don't know why, it sometimes would come to my mind, that may be GOW3 won't live upto my expections. Now I will slap myself around 10 times for that :oops:

3. I laugh at myself thinking that at a point of time I questioned myself if, by any chance Dante's Inferno will be the game challenging GOW3. What a petulant child I was, how could I be so insolent?

4. Like that Xplay review, I also think that one of the puzzles was totally uncalled for and kinda looked cheap and inappropriate :P

5. I believe gamespot reviwers are supreme morons to give this game just a 9.0, which is really really bad for this game :x. This game easily deserves a 9.5/10 without considering the money from publishers

6. Would be interesting to see what those games=art guys have to say about this

7. The end was quite emotional

8. I will take a break from gaming for some time now

I played God of War III and ...

Dear Sony,

My name is Shiben, and I game on a PlayStation 3, which IMO is a great console and your exclusives are amazing. I am playing since the old school era of sega genesis and all, so I am not limited to your console and have played a lot on Microsoft's Xbox 360 as well.

Microsoft had this game called Halo3 which they released in 2007. Have you seen how crazy people are about it? And after seeing its fame, you must have seen what the game really is right? Have you noticed how non-intense the guns are? And that the dialogs stutter and sometimes not audible? Graphics are below average than generation's? Soundtrack and story are awesome though!... What I am trying to ask you is, have you understood why Halo 3 is super famous?

Now have you seen Gears of War II? That game is so awesome! It has awesome graphics, killer presentation, awesome gameplay, guns feel heavy and **** looks badass, plays badass! IMHO its much better than HALO3, however its not played as much as halo3. Why?

You know, you should be stirring up the whole world and exploding heads when God of War III is nearing release... and I see... nothing! No viral, no ads, nothing. Its like you don't even care about your game. Its like, you will give birth to this baby and will let it roam around in wilderness.

I think you get where I am getting at. Your advertising and marketing has some severe problems and honestly... pardon me... IT SUCKS! God of War III is about to release and I see no buzz. Its going to be one of the greatest game of this generation, but unfortunately you seem to be keeping faith in nothing but its awesomeness. WHICH IS WRONG! You have to tell people that it is awesome. I won't get a dream one night telling me that God of War is a nice franchise. Thankfully I played GOW1 and 2 through friend's recommendations, otherwise god knows if you even care.

Your ads, which pop up once in a blue moon in some corners and alleys of unknown places, in a way say that you guys do things differently and there's a taste of weirdness. I really like them ads. However not everyone does. When you are making ads, you have to appeal to people, not blatantly show them your-way-of-making-ads.

Sony seems like a really awesome place to work. Because you do what you want to do, you feel satisfied and get your sense of accomplishment and then don't give a damn about what will happen to it. Unfortunately I am your customer and not an employee. I instead like what Microsoft does, they eat my brain telling me again and again what everyone is playing and thus I should play it to. And honestly, that works.

I live in India, I have seen your ad on TV which was super meh. You were showing Heavenly sword, ratchet and clank and before I know it looks like some... whooops, ad is over, what did it say? play-something... I dont know. Now comes Microsoft's ad, two most happening Indian icons of 2007, Akshay Kumar (Actor) and Yuvraj Singh (Cricketer) come and do something and tell me, in Hindi (my language), how awesome Xbox-360 is. Please tell me, if I were to choose to buy a console solely based on these ads, which one will I choose?

Are you interested in only your old customers base of PS2 users? Don't you wanna spread? Make new customers? Oh you do? how delightful to hear! New customers will go for Sony by seeing your ad and word of mouth. We will faithfully take care of the later, but you have to do your chore... ADVERTISE AND MARKET YOUR SH*T!

This directly connects to your E3 presentations and all. I dont even want to say anything, just see the way Microsoft presents their stuff and the way you do. And what the hell is up with all the news leaking? You know you would have made people running on streets naked if all those ps3-slim, psp-go, last guardian and MGS peace walker news were announced at the show floor instead of at my feed reader.

Uncharted 2 was brilliant! It has raised bars of presentation! And many more people might have played it, but you just don't want to advertise, its like you have an allergy or something, or as if you are a shy guy who likes to live at home and make superb origami paper planes but only for hanging in your room.

I know you are no indie developer to give the excuse of money, you are SONY dammit, you have the cash, blow some **** brains out!

You know in the end I can just say 'Whatever' and be with it. Problem is, I can't, that's the weight a fan bears in his head.

Your sincere fan,

Shiben

Happy to see my new emblem. Its been a while I got an emblem, so enjoying the moment :)