Saturday, July 26, 2008

apparently, this videogame will help me to lose weight

yeah, i finally found a wii fit in stock at Best Buy a few weeks ago. I picked one up since my girlfriend'd been hounding me about it for ages - I wanted to buy one for my folks as well, but I think I will do that on Amazon rather than ship the damned heavy thing myself. Anyway I picked her up from her return flight from China a week ago, she'd been awake nearly the whole flight - when we got to the apartment, she immediately set it up and began jumping around and playing with the thing (I was amazed, I thought she would be completely destroyed from the traveling!) Sure enough, she bonked out after that - it was a funny scene though. I have yet to try the thing, I did the "ball dropping game" for one moment. I wanna get in the habit of using it though, my girth could stand it. Urp.

So not much else to say about games right now. I am playing Mass Effect and Gears of War, but I haven't touched either in over a month (nor have I got very far with either). I just haven't time to cool out in front of the tube right now! More than that, I am just not feeling the need right now either. If anything, playing a bit on my GP32 during the trip - I got sucked up into Rolling Thunder 2 (Sega Genesis) during the flight over there. Good way to kill time, started sort of clumsy and dull (and such had my memory of it always been) but playing through it got enjoyable. I might pick it back up - I believe there's a third as well, eh? Also I played the old Mario Tennis GBC game for a little while. Well-fleshed-out, but man - sports as RPG is sort of hilarious in a uniquely boring way. Make it more risque. Something (it's a kiddie game, I know).

E3 just came and went. Yawn! I don't remember the last time I cared so little. I have barely scratched the surface of going over the show coverage, but really it sounds like there really wasn't much to get excited about across the board. Yeah, of course there was a lot of good looking things to show off, but nothing that smacked people across the face. I guess that's a side-effect of removing the grandeur from gaming's biggest party. E3 now is more like a sad fart. Tough times. At least they brought it back to the LACC. Whatever, I am getting too old for that outright madness when it's on full-tilt-assault mode anyway, or something. To make up (well, more like "coincidentally") I found my way to Vegas last weekend, once again. There's enough madness out there instead, anyway.

Game's going alright. I am working pretty hard, late late nights. Sigh, it's nearly 11PM and I am at the office and it is SATURDAY NIGHT!! I can't wait to get home and collapse on the couch - make that the bed, really. It's a full weekend of crunching for me, and a long week ahead to boot. I need a drink....

..too bad..

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

brodelay

what's up, game fiends. I am still on vacation, carousing through the weird bizarre land of China, but thought I would take a few minutes and draft an update to my game-design blog, or whatever one would call this trainwreck, really.

So of course I am quite out of touch with the world of game news these days - hell, out of touch with much WORLD news for that matter - but i do dip in here and there when I can get a moment, just to make sure it's not all gone the way of the dodo. You know, just in case. It sounds like things have been extremely busy in my absence - what's this, talk on an Xbox 360 price cut? Mega Man 9 is a throwback/retro-looking title? Castlevania fighter, and of course the announcement of Diablo 3 for next March (sigh, wish they could push that business back a little further, oh well hmm we will see, won't we. Go Fall!!!) And lots of news regarding all the millions of rock n roll games that seem to be all the rage with the kids these days. Lucasarts layoffs (yeah, more). I am sure there's a bunch of other stuff going on, as the typical summer malaise kicks into videogameland (with no big releases planned for some time). Otherwise, the pre-E3 hysteria sort of generally takes hold and everyone gets ready to be wowed and confused and all fo that, really.

So, Mega Man 9. This certainly looks interesting - can I say that "I called it?" Well maybe I didn't mention it, or figure on this particular instance, but it certainly was the type of very-specific idea I have had going on in myhead for some time, to be honest. I am just a little surprised Capcom was the one to go ahead and bite this time, though I can't say it should come as the hugest of shocks - that would be reserved for a follow-up 8-Bit Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden. Anyway I haven't seen more than the most momentary of screenshots of this thing, but the mind races with possibility. It should be interesting to see how it turns out and all of that, and what the fallout is that ensues. Anyway, lest the world should forget how well New Super Mario Bros. performed on the DS..

In honor of this, I booted up a couple of older MM games. Back in the day, I played (a LOT) through the first 4, by that point I had pretty much had enough. So the last couple of days I checked out 5 and 6 (NES) for the first time in ages and started trying to play through them in earnest, a little. Man. Those games are hard. Not super-duper hard, but they are a bit punishing compared to the ease with which I remember having swept through the earlier ones. Nice looking, each one gets progressively more technically inspiring - though honestly, I will always maintain that Mega Man peaked, for me, with Number Two. It was one of those cases where the game truly oozed with love and devotion, and all the parts gelled. The later ones were certainly cool but it was really getting to feel like a paint-by-the-numbers affair and "enough already," and just not anywhere near as captivating. I mean, if nothing else, none of them just sounded as AWESOME as Two...