So after a couple of months that were basically a neverending cavalcade of shit- the person upstairs being a goof, Shay’s car dying, Shay being frustrated with work, me being slightly frustrated with work- things are finally starting to look up for us. Not that it has been all horrible the last little while- the zoo was awesome as usual, bowling was great, Sarah’s birthday was good even though I am awkward around people I don’t really know, and I am always happy being with Shay, but despite all the happy stuff, it felt like there was a dark cloud hanging over our heads.
Now, that cloud has lifted. We have new upstairs neighbors who are pretty fantastic, Shay may be getting a new job, and even though this will probably cause some stress at some point, Shay bought a new car. We went to a carnival this past weekend with Cassi (one of Shay’s old cowokers), this weekend we are going to see Terminator: Salvation with Sarah and Travis (one of my coworkers and her boyfriend), and next week we get to see Evil Dead: The Musical, which we are pretty stoked for. While that stuff is pretty exciting, overall, we are just happier, and it is a pretty nice feeling.
If you don’t give a shit about video games, skip the next 3 paragraphs
Today is the final day of E3, and there have been some pretty exciting announcements and updates. Metal Gear Solid Rising being announced during the Microsoft press conference was a bit of a shock, the confirmation of it hitting the PS3 less of one. Assassin’s Creed 2 is looking excellent and will probably blow the first game out of the water. Batman: Arkham Asylum is also shaping up pretty well, and God of War 3, Heavy Rain and Alan Wake all have my interest piqued. The absence of Beyond Good and Evil 2 is disappointing. The first game was one of the hidden gems of the last console generation and with all the excitement of last year’s announcement trailer and the rumored leaked footage, you would think Ubisoft would want to announce something officially.
Mass Effect 2 is looking very impressive. The first game, despite it’s flaws (frame rate drops, texture pop-in, clunky inventory menu and the inability to check quest information from the galaxy map being the huge offenders) is one of my favorite games for the 360. The gameplay is pretty satisfying with a decent enough combat system, but outside of the story-required missions, the level and quest design is relatively boring. Where the game really shines is in it’s storytelling, which is incredible, and from the looks of things it appears that Bioware is going to improve on all aspects for the sequel. The fact that ME2 will read your save file from the first game and have the story play out based on the those choices is an incredible feature, and the ability to eventually import your Command Shepard from the first game to the second will be a welcome addition. While story details are vague at this point, it has been revealed that based on your choices in ME2, Shepard could die. Yep, the character that a lot of people will have spent hours upon hours cultivating into the character they want, could die.
The game I am most excited for is The Last Guardian, the new project from Team Ico, the design team behind ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, two of my favorite games ever. From the announcement trailer, it looks like the gameplay will be more ICO than Shadow, and I am interested in how the dog-cat-bird will factor into the gameplay. One thing that threw me off was the cartoony look of what appears to be the main character in comparison to the environment and other characters. It could be that it’s just a placeholder and the character design has not been finalized, that they were highlighting the character for the purpose of the trailer, or perhaps it is the final design and it will factor into the gameplay somehow.
Broken Record
It seems I say this all the time, but I do suck at blogging. The big problem is that I cannot find anything that motivates me to blog. My great “Friday List” thing didn’t last long and my life isn’t that exciting to read or write about. I’ve been thinking about what I like doing and talking about, and I think I may start doing reviews of books, video games, movies and music, things like that, but we will see. I’m going to take some time tidy this place up- that header is just horrendous looking and it has been for months.
That’s all for now folks.
