all kinds of alcohol

the wee hours are what they are now, but i seem to not feel very tired, so a brief donation to the blog fund before i try to hit the hay for some brief, although welcome, sleep...

quiet in videogame land, I took a look at our company's other big project the other day (if you're paying any kind of attention, you know what it is) - I hadn't looked at the thin in a good several months. let me just say = very impressed! Coming along nicely, as mentioned earlier I'd love to get on that team - time will tell. As for my own project, it is coming along. I have been making things shiny, lately..

I played through the rest of Uncharted:Drake's Fortune over the weekend (yes Normal difficulty, I am not a bad-ass!). In conclusion,t he game was very good - I am glad I played! I have a lot of respect for the folks who put that project together, it was an excellent job. I have to say my least favorite parts were the quick-time bullshit (it's been belittled by me before) - thankfully there was not an abundance of it. Still it did kind of take a good bit away from what would otherwise have been a more enjoyable final scene. Too bad! Anyway if you've a PS3, I heartily recommend the game - though you should rent it, it's not worth owning (unless you want to support the publisher, of course). It brings up something worth mentioning - games like this, they have little replay value if you're me. I mean, they spend all this time and energy and cash developing this wonderfully linear experience, after which I've no inclination to play through on a harder difficulty. There's extra treasures to find, but so what - collectathons are the bane of gaming's existence, well one of 'em. And of course the game doesn't feature any kind of branching storylines, so what else is left? All fo that is fine, but it hits me over the head - stick in some kind of multiplayer mode! Even if it is local, just do something. You've got this great engine, multi-purpose (adventure platforming, shooting w/ cover, and of course the drving/ski-doo sections) --> I wish they could have taken at least an extra six months and thrown some backend onto the thing. Or at least thrown another level of manpower at it. I know, being on the inside "that's a HUGE pain inthe ass, start of a new generation," etc etc - but it's something that's kind of taken for granted with all your Halos and Gears of Warses out there. If anything, it will make the game much more of a must-buy, instead of a might-rent. I suppose it will be sometime before that becomes more of the norm, yet - wait for your honest-to-godness multiplayer Mario and Zelda, you know? (Keep waiting)

Yeah, listen up Sony, I have a head full of half-decent ideas for you folks. Don't get me started on the Youtube thing, that could be PERFECT!

Anyway, I have a decent backlog of games to get to. Bioshock is sitting in my bag, I have played through a bit of it (I forget where i left off, I think the first big daddy sort of kicked my ass - or close to it). I haven't really played enough of the game to feel a huge pull from it. It is intriguing, but as I have mentioned earlier "I get the point." I guess I am kinda tired of hearing about it in the media though (enough already!) I mean, good to know they are making games like that, but still, go a little further, c'mon. Yeah, I say this in the same breath as championing Uncharted, which is about as cliche as one can get (did i mention, kinda too easy?), but in some ways that's really apples and oranges.

Busy times in Industry News, what with the latest madness being EA trying to gobble up Take2 (including Rockstar, of course). Sigh. Dominance War. This stuff perturbs me, I would already have gone on a decent rant about the Microsoft/Yahoo thing but this hits slightly closer to home. I don't know what to say, other than I am sort of apathetic about it. But mostly I dread the eventual "one console future" which is accelerating from the moves of these behemoths. Where does this leave the little guys, like.. me?

My next expectation, someone will make a grand bid for Bethesda. Maybe Epic or Valve as well. Next 12 months? 24?

Frontlines:Fuel of War released for 360 (and PC?) this past Monday. This was a title I came close to working on, but I turned it down for Project:Georgia instead. Of course with my morbid curiosity I have been keeping an eye on it, it looks like Call Of Duty did a sizable job of rewriting the FPS book as this game's out of the gate and looks a little weary - let's see how it handles. I am thinking another casualty of Unreal, for starters, but let's see if it picks up (hey, all is fair game until GTA IV hits the streets...soon). Good luck guys!

I have a weird feeling like I sort of hope GTA IV doesn't end up kicking too much ass - like, that it feels tired by now. Not my type of game, but the sandboxes never have been really.. and it's a genre I'd love to see get a major kicking-and-screaming overhaul, not just an aesthetic upgrade. I can't fault those guys too much, I mean Rockstar takes first place when it comes to following those games up with guaranteed quality. I just want to see the audience demand more. Something different, something interesting. I guess we have enough time in this whole generation to still be graphics whores, though..

Waiting on the mail. I have a Vectrex out there, also the Turbografx-CD (I believe the sought-after system card finally arrived, cost me a hundred clams plus shippin, owww!) Yeah and I don't even know if this thing will work properly. If it's not what I expect, i will sell it back and just go through the Xbox (hey, it's good for somethin').. but it'd be neat if it just worked the way I WANTED it to. Sometimes that actualy happens, somehow...