Still Awesome

Problems with my gaming rig persist, but I've got an old shitbox Windows 98SE machine hooked up in the mean time that at least allows me to use my broadband access. I forgot how much Windows 98 sucks after getting so used to how much Windows XP sucks. It's not bad being able to focus on console stuff, but I get the feeling that my schedule is going to prevent me from getting this shit fixed in the near future.

Soul Calibur III - The rumors (and the GamePro scan) were true. It seems Soul Calibur III is coming out this fall exclusively for PlayStation 2. While I had imagined it being a PlayStation 3 launch title after making a debut on a new nVidia/CELL powered arcade board, having another good 3D fighter this year is a good thing. I'm seriously hoping that by focusing on the development for just one system they add a lot of great features like Tekken 5 and VF4 Evo have. Soul Calibur II felt like Soul Calibur 1.3 with the lack of improvement over it's predecessor. Better graphics, some walls, return of the weapons master mode, and some horribly implemented "guest characters." VF4 Evo came out two weeks earlier at half the price, with twice the gameplay, and with five times the features. Namco seemed to have corrected themselves with Tekken 5, I hope they do the same with Soul Calibur III. It's also amazing the number of games that are coming out this year on PS2, even well into the fall. Gran Turismo 4, Devil May Cry 3, God of War, Tekken 5, and stuff like Final Fantasy XII and Soul Calibur III on the way. Not a bad way to start off the fifth year of a console's lifespan, when other companies would be jumping ship. Pretty damn impressive. It goes to show what can be done with effort is put into securing content, and not arranging gay ass lawsuits over controller vibration. It makes it nice and easy for me as a consumer to see who cares about the audience, and who just wants to fuck people over.

God of War - speaking of this game, I just picked it up over the weekend. Fucking incredible. I'm about five hours in, at the "Cliffs of Atlas" save point. The story is very good so far. The graphics are excellent. The combat system is awesome. The environment design is some the best I've ever seen in a game. It's also nice to see a developer take a stab at a theme, tone, and setting that isn't touched upon very much in games. Is the game itself entirely innovative? No, it's the non-gay version of "Prince of Persia." The non-suck version of "Rygar Legendary Adventure." The combat and weapons upgrading is definately a cut from Devil May Cry's cloth, but it's an adventure game through and through. I had gotten tired of the 3D BEU (beat 'em up) formula after playing the original Devil May Cry and Shinobi. DMC2 and Rygar were major dissapointments. Ninja Gaiden sure as hell wasn't what everyone had been hyping it ot be. Prince of Persia was also extremely overrated. Thankfully, this is a game that delivers in every way. I haven't played Devil May Cry 3 yet (held off on it for this, and I'm glad I did), but i can't imagine it matching up to this. The "three sirens in the desert" sequence was mildly annoying, but the rest of the game is stellar. It probably has more milkbags than any game I've seen, but it's handled in a (mostly) tasteful manner, much like Max Payne 2. The "minigame" shortly after the Hydra battle was fucking hilarious, but the rest of it has been pretty relevant to maintaining a degree of authenticity relevant to the game's setting. Great game all around, and hopefully I can get further into it without having to wait until the weekend to do so.

I really want a PSP.

Awesome Redux

After managing to actually get into Windows XP I switched back to Catalyst 5.2 drivers which took care of everything besides Unreal Tournament 2004 (which crypically requests that an Office XP disc be placed into the CD/DVD-ROM drive). That was until last night when my computer spontaneously crashed, and any subsequent reboot has reintroduced me to the same error screen I was getting after installing the Catalyst 5.3 drivers. There's no hardware problem present but I may have someone I know who is A+ certified take a look. I'm glad that I managed to get a decent amount of CSS and HL2DM in for the past couple of weeks. With the schedule I have through May, this probably is not going to be solved as expediently as it should be.

Surprise News: According to this GamePro scan, Soul Calibur III is PlayStation 2 exclusive. I had honestly expected to hear at some point that the game would be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 2 simultaneously next year (probably at or around the PS3 launch date). But another great 3D fighter this year works for me, and after the across-the-board praise Tekken 5 has been met with, I'm hopeful SC3 gets the series back on track. Soul Calibur II was a massive dissapointment for me, and I'm glad they're going to be focusing on improving the gameplay and feature set rather than cramming a bunch of gay "special" characters into it. Rumors persist that "Hyrule Blade" is being made, a game that will run on this engine but will use characters from the Zelda universe. So if a homosexual elf in Soul Calibur II wasn't enough for most people, this should satiate their lust quite well. Ofcourse, that all depends on "Hyrule Blade" actually existing, which would largely depend on whether Namco is actually wising up or if this is just a massive fuck up on GamePro's part.

God of War releases today (or for EB customers in the North East, whenever a bunch of asshole store managers feel like opening the box that was shipped to them). I doubt I'll find a retailer intelligent enough to actually sell it to me today, so I'm hoping to pick it up before the end of the week. The reviews have been nothing short of phenomenal so far, and even with the current amount of console games I still need to play, my PC going shithouse should afford me some time to spend with the other electronic contraptions in my life.

Some feminina in my math class was complaining of back pain. She has a really nice rack. I've heard that some females have breast reductions to alleviate back pain, so there could be a connection there.

Career Advising: I want the last ninety minutes of my life back.

I'm out of commission until the havoc that Windows XP and ATI's drivers are bringing upon my PC has been vanquished. Over and done.

Too Much

I was just in Best Buy after going to see "The Ring 2" (don't waste your money on seeing this in a theater, it's a rental at best) and realized I had forgotten about the "Two Greatest Hits for $25" sale that was going on. This included Xbox Platinum Hits and Gamecube Player's Choice games as well. Considering you could be getting some great games for only $12.50 a pop (and no sales tax, God Bless New Hampshire). That's less than the sale price of a new DVD. That's less than what people who still pay for music spend on a new CD. You could be tempted to walk out of there with eight new games for $100.

I decided not to get any since I have so much unplayed shit as it is. The $5 Circuit City sales are the ones that are really "too good" to pass up. I've still got plenty of those in plastic. But for Best Buy, Circuit City, or any other retail to run such a promotion suggests to me that there are simply TOO MANY FUCKING GAMES on the shelves. I don't know if a retailer breaks even on a sale like this, or just uses it as a "loss leader" to get consumers to check out more expensive items. But it's plainly obvious that there are too many games. And with Microsoft and Nintendo having no real criteria for what becomes a "Platinum Hit" or a "Player's Choice" title that makes for even more bedlam. Sony should also probably up the requirement to 600K in sales twelve months availability at retail instead of the 400K and nine months shelf life they use now. I see so many unpurchased copies of a great game like VF4 Evo (which is highway robbery for only $9 - $19, thus attempting to make amends for how much Sega has mugged their fan base the past ten years) and I realize that publishers are basically saturating the market.

Is there any point to this bullshit that I am typing? Sort of. We keep hearing that publishers want to charge more and more for games. $59.99 sounds like the starting price just for "regular editions" of games. Who knows what they'll want for "special edtions." Yet there are so many AAA games that remain sitting on the shelf for $19.99 that Best Buy decides to effectively cut the price by another 40% for one week in order to unload some of the games that are taking up shelf space. So they honest expect people who realize that most games aren't worth more than $20 to pay three times that? They're nuts. Going into the next gen, there are five console franchises that could get away this.

01. Grand Theft Auto - lets face it, anything that is in such ridiculous demand will sell at a marginally higher price. People love running hookers over with cars. It's fun.

02. Halo - the "limited edition" (that was about as plentiful as the standard SKU) sold because it was worth another $5 to get a cool metal case and some "making of" footage. They could get away with charging $59.99 for a regular edition of Halo 3 easily. Particularly if they could promise new downloadable content within fucking half a year of the title's launch.

03. Madden - it sold millions every year already, and now it's only the "NFL" game on the market until 2009. EA sucks donkey shit, but rest assured Madden NFL 2006 will cost $59.99 and everyone will still buy it.

04. Gran Turismo - throw in damage modeling and an online mode for GT5 and people would pay even more than $59.99 for it, though I wouldn't expect that unless there are some force feedback wheel bundles. Which would be more than $149.99, and is completely unrelated to the point that I'm illustrating with this post.

05. Pokemon - because the fucking faggots who buy this shit will do so no matter how much Nintendo rips them off.

There you have it. That's it. If every non-bargain console SKU release is priced $59.99 next gen, you can expect a few things to happen. Fewer games will be sold at full price. The bargain bins will fill up so fast that Best Buy will be running "2 for $25" sales every week. And the adoption rate of new hardware will be much slower than what we have seen in this hardware cycle. PS2 managed to sell for $299.99 at record amounts and for what may be the longest amount of time (I don't know if another system has sold well at that price for a year and a half straight) because there were a lot of "good stuff cheap" games the constant competition between third parties drove software prices down. I haven't been paying $49.99 for all but a small handful of games since 2002, and I'm sure as hell not about to go back. I don't see too many people rushing out to buy $299.99 systems if the software pricing sucks.

Another facet of the next hardware cycle that people keep droning on about is how difficult game development is becoming, and how much longer it will take to make games. I hate delays more than anybody, but look at the amount of shit on a store shelf. Look at how many franchises like Tony Hawk and Splinter Cell seem to have a new, barely improved sequel out every single year. Too difficult? For shithead publishers, it seems like development has become too easy. They're not doing anything remotely interesting, and they're churning out boring sequels to boring games at a record pace. I can't wait to see the amount of uninspired, Renderwared, XNA'd, cross-platform manatee dung that the likes of EA, Activision, and UbiSoft are going to churn out next generation.

On second thought, I can wait.

Functioning Alcoholic

What exactly is a functioning alcoholic? My guess is that is someone who consumes unhealthy amounts of alcohol but is able to maintain their job, their property, and whatever their "outside interests" are. They'll show up for a family function and not cause any problems, but they're not exactly tuned in to what is going on. They show up to work on time, but probably only do enough to avoid being fired. They've managed to find a good apartment or house to live, drive a decent car (unless they live in Boston and realize there is nowhere to fucking park), and never look like they've just crawled out of the dumpster. But they are still pretty much indifferent to their surroundings, don't care much about the car one way or the other, and probably only look presentable because they like the easy to manage, miltaristic, shaved face and short haircut look. The clothes are clean and devoid of any food stains, but they sure as hell are not ironed.

I just wonder where people get the attention span to get addicted to anything. Some people are addicted to drugs. Some to nicotine. Some to caffiene. Some to alcohol. Some to punishment. It could be the ADD, but I can't imagine being devoted so much to one particular substance, routine, ideal, pattern, beverage, video game, or particular endeavor. Doesn't it get boring?

I had about a dozen beers last night, felt quite good, and woke up feeling no worse for the wear (or however the saying goes). Could I be a functioning alcoholic? I think I would make a pretty damn good one. But the money and focus required seems like too much. I couldn't really imaging walking into a liquor store again today after being in one yesterday. I also can't imagine buying three packs of cigarettes every day. Or two. Or even one. When I do smoke, it is usually in the realm of half a pack every week. That's two packs a month. Before last week, I hadn't smoked a cigarette since the Superbowl. Is it discipline or just being a broke college student? Probably both.

This behavior, or... ah... lack of behavior, carries over well to gaming. My head starts to heart when I hear about so many titles being released at once. I want to get Gran Turismo 4. I want to get God of War. I want to get a PSP. I want to get Ridge Racer, Wipeout Pure, Twisted Metal Head On, and the other kick ass launch games. But I also want to get around to playing one of the many games I already have that are still in plastic. I saw "Legacy of Kain: Defiance" for the PC for only $11.99 yesterday. But I didnt' buy it because I would never get around to playing it. I never finished the first Soul Reaver. The second one had a horrible glitch that prevented me from progressing (don't make that bird dissapear, man!). I don't care much for the actual Kain games. So I didn't buy it. There's a laundry list of games I said I would get once the price dropped on them, but still haven't because I figure I would never get around to playing them. I haven't even gotten around to playining a lot of the games I have bought. Makes me wonder how the hell publishers think they'll get away with raising game prices next gen. Are they not noticing how fast so many games I hitting bargain bin prices? Doing this is only going to accellerate the process, and result in even more consumers so are willing to wait for price drops. If they want more and more games to be bought at full price, they need to start releasing fewer games that are of a much higher quality. Until then, I'll be taking advantage of their stupidity, and loading my shelves with cheap games that I probably won't get around to playing. A winner is me.

Time Flies

The more I think about the fact that it has been exactly one year since I turned 21 in Las Vegas, the more terrifying it is. Well, not terrifying in the traditional sense. I'm beyond the point of being "scared" by anything. But time really does fly. It's not as if I say "where did the time go?" and think about what has happened. Plenty has happened. The Red Sox broke the curse. Bush beat Kerry senseless. The Patriots won another Super Bowl. I've played plenty of games. I've consumed alcohol. I've smoked cigarettes. Some other stuff has most likely occured that I do not recall at the moment.

But where the hell does the time go? I've still got games like Castlevania Lament of Innocence, Beyond Good & Evil, Socom II, Silent Hill 3, Dark Cloud 2, and Mark of Kri (even though it came out in 2002) from 2003 that are still in plastic. We are nearly one quarter of the way through 2005. We're on the verge of a new generation of technology, as early as it may seem. One year ago I was drunk out of my mind in Las Vegas. I'm drunk now but at least maintain the ability to post and type somewhat fast in a coherent manner.

I wonder what that girl I ran into is up to. I wonder why I watch so many re-runs of Seinfeld in syndication. I wonder how long it will be until there is another great gaming year like 2004. I wonder if I'll ever actually get around to playing many of the games that I have in cellophane.

I've never had a headache, thrown up, or had a hangover from drinking. I wonder if that record will remain intact. I wonder how long I've got until I die.

Twenty Two

Feels a lot like Twenty One.

Evacuation Day

This year has gotten off to a pretty good start. The Patriots won the Superbowl. Again. Antoine Walker is back on the Celtics (what was Danny Ainge hoping to accomplish when he traded 'Toine away in the first place?) and they're on a hot streak. Opening day is less than a month away, with the rings being presented in front of who else... The Stankees. And there's no NHL. Awesome!

While I still wonder where last year ranks against the likes of 1998 as the "best gaming year of all time" I can at least conclude that this year is off to a great start. Having sold my Gamecube last year, I haven't played RE4. I'm not even sure if I will at any point in the future since horror games lost my interest several years, but by most accounts it is an excellent game. Tekken 5 is amazing, and probably the last great 3D fighter of this generation unless Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned gets a $19.99 port to the "Greatest Hits" lineup. There seems to be the prevailing thought that Namco will release Soul Calibur 3 this year, but I hope for the sake of the series that they cool it a bit and wait. Launching it along side a PS3-based arcade board would be killer. The only real improvement SC2 had over the original was graphics (which was diminished by the massive upgrade the original saw going from System 12 to being a Dreamcast launch title). Releasing another installment this year would really be overkill. If Namco should do anything this year, they should make Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on System 256 for the arcades using Tekken 5's engine, and a pimped out upgrade as a PS3 launch title. Save Soul Calibur 3 and Tekken 6 for a true next generation PS3 based arcade board. I'd also like to a see a port of the original TTT's PS2 engine to PSP, with all the new characters from Tekken 4 and Tekken 5. Call it "Tekken Tag," or "Tekken Tag 1.5" or whatever the hell you want, it would kick ass and be immediately classifiable as the best handheld game ever.

Even with the insane number of FPS games release last year (of which Half-Life 2, UT2004, and Riddick were the highlights) there's still plenty coming out this year. Brothers in Arms, Star Wars Republic Commando, and Project Snowblind have all gotten most good reviews across the board. Being completely worn out on WW2 games (Battlefield 1942 and Wolfenstein Enemy territory were the pinnacle for multiplayer, Call of Duty the pinnacle of single player) Brothers in Arms doesn't interest me too much... or ah... at all. It's nice to see Gearbox finally doing original games, even if the concept, genre, and mold of the game are about as "original" as poorly phrased bumper stickers slapped on to the rear of an angry librul's SAAB hatchback. I'm not into Star Wars (don't be misled by my previous movie comments), but if the squad based gameplay of Republic Commando is good, I will check it out. Project Snowblind interests me because it started life as a Deus Ex spin-off, but Chrystal Dynamics realized they weren't making a true DX game and created a new property altogether. Too bad Spector & co. at Ion Storm couldn't realize that they weren't making a true DX game either. They might actually still be in business.

Gran Turismo 4 looks amazing, and the photo mode is a great idea. I haven't had time to even rent it yet, and probably will not for quite some time. I lament the abscence of some time of true online mode (xlink kai doesn't count) but until I have time to play the game I guess I should stop concerning myself with any features that were cut. Devil May Cry 3 sounds as if it makes up for the abomination that was DMC2, and is the game people wanted to play after the original DMC. Unfortunately, after playing the original and Shinobi, all of these games seem exactly the same to me. Shinobi May Cry. Rygar May Cry. Ninja May Cry. Dracula May Cry. Retards who think Ninja Gaiden was anything special am crying. If there's an "action / adventure" game that interests me right now it is "God of War." Incog made "Twisted Metal Black" which is the best vehicular combat game this generation. The videos and previews I've come across for "God of Aware" are impressive to say the least. If it can avoid the tedium that games like Rygar ran into it could be a turly terrific game. I'm not sure I should be considering any new purchases with the amount of unplayed games I still have (with that situation improving at all time record slow pace). But "God of War" looks damn good.

And ofcourse, there's the launch of PSP next week. Finally a savior for handheld gaming. Nintendo was determined to live ten years in the past. Sony will bring handheld gaming into the future. Once again, I don't have the time to get one, but I sure wish that I did.

So it's a good start to the year. I turn 22 today. Good stuff. But I turned 21 in Las Vegas. Getting shitfaced to the max at the "Nine Fine Irishmen" pub inside the "New York New York" hotel. Sprawled out onto a fake Brooklyn bridge with live music, and overpriced beer. $6 for a Guiness Stout. $9 for a Car Bomb. I probably had about seven of each. I gambled. I ran into some girl I went to highschool with and managed to identify her by name (which ofcourse I couldn't remember the next day, or any day that followed). I couldn't remember my own name when speaking to her. It was probably the strangest coincidence of my life, and being more inebriated than I had ever been (and most likely, ever will be) made it all the more hilarious. If I run into this girl again at some point, I won't recognize her, but if I had said anything grossly offensive I'd have been slapped in the face right then and there, so I should be alright. I got to see the Dropkick Murphy's perform at the "House of Blues" inside Mandalay Bay the following night. I did a bunch of other stuff. March 17, 2004: best day of my life. March 14 - 19: best week of my life. This year is decent. Last year fucking rocked.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Kevin Kong

Son of King? Cousin of Donkey? Supplier of alcohol and cigarettes to Diddy? There's no way to be sure, but he has a very funny name, and it was on a package that was sitting in the doorway when I got back from the academic institution.

Phoenix Computing of Ithaca, New York. It's definately a birthday present, but at this rate unless it's a shrunken voodoo head that can lead a holy war against what Windows XP and ATI's CRAPALYST drivers are doing to my black box of machinery, I wonder how useful it could be.

I could install the GeForce 4600 TI that has been occupying the Radeon 9800 Pro's box for the past year and a half, but that would mean going back to playing everything in DX 8.1 again. UGH. I can now somewhat understand why many people swear off PC gaming altogether. The same people who wll play Call of Duty 2 and Quake 4 on a Xenon this fall. That could be an option, until I realize I'd have to trade getting screwed by Microsoft and ATI for...

...getting screwed by Microsoft and ATI.

Super Awesome

This week has been so astonishingly SUPER AWESOME that my head may start spinning and detach itself from my body. First on the itinerary was watching four movies I had never heard of for my "Sociology of Cinema" class. The first movie was called "Matewan" and starred James Earl Jones, Chris Cooper, and some guy that was a head villian in a Dolph Lundregan action movie that took place on a Hawaiian Island. Whatever message about racism and labor disputs the movie was trying to convey was quickly lost as the quality of the VHS tape was so poor that the VCR would replace the static images with a silent blue screen of consternation every three seconds (not to be confused with the Microsoft Windows Blue Screen of Death) making it impossible to know what the hell was going on. Some guy got his throat cut an the sheriff blew somebody's head off on the train tracks leading into town. I think Aliens may have also been involved but as mentioned, the quality of the VHS tape was too poor to make anything out.

Second was "Mississippi Masala," a movie about Denzel Washington falling in love with an Indian girl from Uganda whose father was a political refugee. How or why the Indian natives were in Uganda was not exactly explained, but it was probably not entirely relevant. The film was actually somewhat entertaining, especially to see Indian guys with mullets wearing early 1990's clothing that is now officially a generation old.

Third was "Where the Heart Is," wherein Galatic Republic Senator and former Queen of Tatooine Padme Amadala gives birth to Princess Leia Organa in a Wal-Mart store... in Oklahoma. Luke Skywalker was noticibly absent, as were wookies and and those little critters in Return of The Jedi that are afraid of Darth Vader. There wasn't even a Death Star or Seperatist Droid Army either. But Jar Jar Binks pursued a career as a country music star only to have this legs removed by a train, so it all evened out in the end. Ashley Judd also has six children by six different men for reasons unkown. HOOAHH!

And you know a situation is SUPER AWESOME when the best film of the bunch is a Spanish movie from 1988 that involves Antonio Banderas in his pre-Desperado days attempting to sublet an appartment owned by the woman that his father Ivan was having an affair with but dumped in order to take a feminist attourney from Madrid on a Flight to Stockholm, Sweden only to find out that Antonio's Mom planned on shooting him at the airport and oh yeah Pena's friend had sex with a Shiite terrorist for some reason who was planning on hijacking that very same flight from Madrid to Stockholm for reasons that would only make sense to someone who was suffering from an acute shortfall of adequately oxygenated blood flowing into their brain due to the tightness in which their turban was wrapped around their skull and to round out this abomination of a run on sentence police officers are given gazpacho laced with barbituates. The film was called "Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," and I'm sure anyone who was a logic Nazi would feel much the same way after viewing the movie.

On top of that a lengthy essay comparing the American Revolution to another revolution (Nintendo's next console?) awaits, and ATI's new Catalyst 5.3 drivers have formed a strategic alliance with Windows XP in order to brutally rape and murder my PC.

I'm so glad that I'm not getting drunk, gambling, and getting more drunk in Las Vegas like I was last year for spring break. That would really, really suck.

Cleaning House

Since I finish the long, joyful shock treament of academia in May (or June... whenever the hell they hand you a degree and tell you to fuck off) I've been gradually selling off games and systems that I won't be playing. When I was younger I'd have never considered selling a game I owned or even trading it in. Many people still feel that way, and it can make sense if you consider the various products you've purchased to be a "collection." My father still has every vinyl record he's purchased since the days of bands that actually played music. Maybe it is because I can be classified as having grown up during the advent of the "digital age," but I really don't care about the physical storage that entertainment is delivered on, and I don't have a sentimental connection to any of it. A lot of people remarked about how they didn't like the idea of not having a physical copy of Half-Life 2 when it was sold over steam. I liked it that way. It's on the hard drive. You click an icon to play it. No disc to chase after or wipe because it's been scratched. There is definately a practical use of having a backup on disc, but the DVD-R/W drive takes care of that. I just don't care about discs, boxes, manuals, or any of that crap. I haven't bought a CD since 2000, since the discs to me are nothing but a metallic frisbee used to store the data. Keeping it all centralized on a hard drive keeps things easy, with CD-R or DVD-R backups that hold hundreds (or thousands) of MP3's instead of just twelve lousy songs. Efficiency is a great thing.

Realizing that much of what sits on the shelf has to be ditched or jammed into a UHAUL, I've been considering whether or not it would be easier to just get a device like HDLoader and keep the games (not the coasters they currently reside on) in one place. The lack of a selling point is that I'd still need to keep the discs as backups anyway, and not being into video game piracy, much of the enthusiam for modding a console is lost for me.

So the bottom line comes down to keeping what seems to be worth keeping, and chucking the rest of it on eBay. I already sold my Gamecube and half the games for it last year since I hardly used it. I'm not sure about selling my Xbox yet. I stll play games like ESPN NFL 2005 and Rallisport Challenge once in a while, but the software lineup is starting to thin out with the console's successor coming out this year. The new system being backwards compatible would probably keep me from selling many of the games since I could play them later on, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. The two year warranty I have on it ends in about two weeks, so maybe the best option is to continue using it until it hits me with a DRE and then sell whatever games I have left for it.

I've got enough unopened PS2 games to open a small retail chain, but considering how little I paid for many of them ($5 circuit city sales damage shelf space) I'm not sure it would be worth getting rid of them since they cost less than a rental. But at some point I'll definately have to stop buying cheap RPG's that I have no intention of playing. Bigger dorks than I would shudder if they saw Dark Cloud 2, Wild Arms 3, and BoF V still in cellophane. I guess the best approach here would be to pack everything into boxes in case some day hell freezes over and I actually have time to play them.

You just don't realize how much junk you've bought until you have to move all of it.

No Thanks

More and more info continues to trickle out of the GDC conferences. The more I hear about next generation game consoles the less interested I become. So far for the next Xbox: no next-gen optical drive, no 512MB of RAM, and this little gem...

"Xbox 2 will also feature a central "Marketplace" resource where user and developer-made bonus game content is sold for sums as little as 99 cents, doing away with the clunky Downloadable Content facility currently used by Xbox Live titles, as well as "Gamer Cards", which sound like expanded Xbox Live profiles storing game preferences and other personal information input by the user to help people track down like-minded opponents, today's release declares." (source)

Paying for user created content? Zuh? Blogger is doing a spectactular job of butchering block quotes and just about everything else so 'FIN' for now.

Bad Memory

Along with the constraints on storage medium that jumping the gun on a console release could inflict, the amount of RAM included could be a problem as well. Mark Rein of Epic was interviewed during GDC this past weekend:

"That's crucially important in the next generation of consoles, even more so than it is today, because we have the ability to do unbelievably insane graphics on these next-gen consoles, but we still have relatively low amounts of memory. In fact, I got a video card yesterday from NVIDIA which has probably twice as much memory as the next-generation video consoles are going to have - and that's only a video card!" (source)

It's pretty easy to infer that he's talking about a 512MB nVidia card, and that he believes the next gen consoles will only have 256MB of system memory. Before you alert the sirens, you have to remind yourself that consoles will never need just as much memory as a PC for several reasons. There is no bloated operating system with a 128MB footprint, nor are there a bunch of applications running in the background. Secondly, console games do not run in the same resolution as PC games. Most people are playing on a 640x480 interlaced NTSC television set. Even running in higher resolutions (720p, 1080i), they still aren't reaching the psychotic levels of detail that many people aim for when playing a game on a PC. On top of that, nobody is trying to get more than sixty frames per second out of console games (though I'd certainly hope they aim for that much rather than settling for 30fps). So this means that to expect consoles to approach the specs of what a high end gaming PC will look like going into 2007 (most likely 512MB video cards and 2GB of RAM) would not only be stupid, but would be expecting specs that would end up being limited by the video output devices most people will be using.

So is he off the mark? No, because RAM is one of the most cost effective measures in hardware, and always provides a noticeable performance boost. Chances are that none of the next generation consoles are going to have a hard drive built in (which is a smart design decision since networking to a PC drive or using a USB/Firewire drive is so affordable), so RAM should be a priority. The GPU's that consoles are sporting will be out of date by no longer than a year and a half after the launch date, and none of them of using CPUs that are directly comparable to wintel x86 stock processors. To have cutting edge processors and GPUs be hobbled by a limit of 256MB of RAM would be pretty lousy, possibly worse than the long term limitation of being stuck with a DVD-ROM drive. I would seriously hope that the next generation consoles have 512MB of RAM. There are a number of methods that developers can use to work around having only 256MB of RAM, but how many of them would actually use them? There aren't a lot of games that stream massive environments like GTA San Andreas does, and that was most likely possible due to the technical simplicity of the renderware-provided graphics. If games are going to take this generation's advancements and create new new ways of impressing us as well, having a decent amount of RAM is one of the bare necessities of wading into the next generation waters.

Five Years

The phrase "time flies" sounds like a cliche until you start to look back at a particular date. Today marks the fith anniversary of PlayStation 2's launch in Japan. The North American launch didn't follow until October 26th 2000 (and I didn't get mine until December 24) but either way it marks a milestone in the system's lifespan. Even at five years of age, there are still many great games coming out now and in the near future. I hope publishers continue to support the platform as long as it can be sustainable.

The best way, perhaps, to mark the date is to list my top five PS2 games. Hooray for originality. Here they are, in descending order:

05. GTA San Andreas - GTA3 will probably go down as the landmark game of this generation, much in the same way games like Mario 64 and Virtua Fighter would so incredibly influential last generation. It just did a whole lot of things that had not been done in games before. The original 2D, overhead GTA games seem prehistoric in comparison. The ill-fated Shenmue series helped contribute to these open ended "sandbox" games with its attention to detail, but GTA is unmatched in scale. Vice City added a great deal of production value to the formula, although the mission structures were not as entertaining and Vice City itself was a pretty flat, lifeless terrain. Fortunately San Andreas takes everything the previous two games did well, adds a great deal more to the mix, and multiplies it all by three. Games this enormous and long take me forever to complete, and San Andreas is no expection. I'm in the second city so far (San Fierro) but the entertainment value of the Los Santos and countryside missions alone are enough to put this onto a top five list. Rockstar North managed to come up with even more great ideas to put into the game's formula, and did most of it exceedingly well. While the size of environments and the way the game streams everything to avoid loading times between outdoor areas is impressive, the technical aspect of the series is all that Rockstar North really needs to improve going into next generation. With EA assimilating Criterion and the Renderware middleware tools that have been used for the three GTA games (and countless other games as well), I can only hope that middleware is ditched for next gen. With the money that Take 2 has rolling in, liscenscing something like the Unreal or Source engine would inch the franchise even closer to perfection. Imagine a game like San Andreas with the texture detail of Half-Life 2, and even better modelling and physics. You could very well have yourself the best game ever made in that situation. The possibilities are endless, and I have faith in Rockstar North's ability to continually improve what was already a terrific series.

04. Tekken 5 - Having just commented on this terrific fighter there isn't too much to add at the moment. The variety of fighters and techniques, as well as the customability of your characters just adds a tremendous amount of replay value. The quality of the core fighting engine is what makes it fun to play for a mere fifteen minute jaunt, or for a thumb blistering three hours straight. It's a simply a great game that is going to age extremely well.

03. Ratchet & Clank - Having yet to play the third installment (it's still in plastic, along with numerous other titles), I can at least say that the first two are the driving force in the 3D platform game genre right now. The scale of the game worlds, the inventiveness of the platforming challenges, the "full game quality" mini-games, the weapons, the gadgets, the characters, and the... well, it would take one hell of a run on sentence to sum up what Insomniac has been doing the past two and a half years. Mario Sunshine pretty much failed on every level. The Sly Cooper games are great and take a unique stealh approach to the genre, but they're not directly comparable. Andy Gavin & company at Naughty Dog get my respective for the engines they've made and allowed Insomniac to use. But you can't really tell me that the Jak & Daxter games are anywhere near as good in terms of design and gameplay. As for third party platformers and the drek that Microsoft has published... not worth discussing. The fact remains is that Insomiac have pretty much snuck up on everyone to claim the platformer throne. Maybe Miyamoto and the folks at EAD will put up a better fight over the next few years, but there has really be no competition this generation. Fortunately, even if they're too humble to admit it, Ted Price and the fellas at Insomniac probably know they're the best at what they do at this very moment. Also fortunate is the fact that they don't let success keep them from continually improving what they do. "Up Your Arsenal" is the first online platform game every, and by most accounts, is a pretty unique experience. If the the single player is at least as good and lengthy as "Going Commando," than its no surprise as to why this game, in a genre that really isn't as popular as it was last generation, managed to squeak into gamerankings.com's top ten list for 2004. Insomniac are keeping my second favorite genre alive singlehandedly, and they're a model of how development teams should be run these days. Now if I could just get around to playing the third one... :-)

02. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution - What can be said? Virtua Fighter 4 had already stolen the crown from Soul Calibur's polygonal head as the best 3D fighter on the market. AM2 went back and added the most in-depth single player mode in the history of fighting games, two new characters, exact recoveries, unmatched customization options, new arenas, and the single best "special feature" in video game history: 10th Anniversary Mode. Playing through the gouraud shaded greatness of the original Virtua Fighter with current move sets and the characters from every sequel (minus ofcourse Taka Arashi) was a blast from the past like no other. To top it all off, it was released as a Greatest Hits title with an MSRP of $19.99 USD. Best deal ever? "Wolfenstein Enemy Territory" being released for absolutely free on the PC probably takes that title, but the console release of VF4 Evo is an exceedingly strong second place.

01. Metal Gear Solid 3 - It's hard to quantify how much this game caught me off guard. Metal Gear Solid was my favorite PlayStation game, but the fifteen hour episode of the "Twilight Zone" that was MGS2 had me wondering where the series could go in the future. Add in the fact that the steal genre itself was getting pretty stale. Tenchu hasn't been good since the series like Acquire's hands. Thief III was half the travesty that DX Invisible War was, which is pretty damn bad. Splinter Cell might as well be renamed to "insomnia pill." So perhaps it is fitting the mind that created stealth gaming would come back to save it in one fell swoop. Metal Gear created the mold back in 1987. Metal Gear Solid ushered it into the 3D era, along with the original Tenchu and Thief titles. While MGS2 still seems like sheer insanity pressed onto a DVD-ROM, Metal Gear Solid 3 is the game I've been wanting to play since 1998 and then some. Without mentioning for the third time in this entry how a developer did everything right, I'll simply say that Hideo Kojima and the fine folks at Konami JPN West listened to what fans had been asking for, and created many facets people couldn't have thought up before playing the game. The phrase "everything you hoped for, nothing you had expected," comes to mind. The graphics and audio are top notch and show just how much juice can be cranked out of a five year old piece of hardware. The story is perhaps the best yet in a game, and shows that the quality of the original MGS' narrative was no fluke. The setting and environment are awesome. The CQC abilities are a godsend and pump much needed life into a category of games that have been declining in popularity in this action packed, adrenalin fueled era of gaming. The villians and characters are nearly as good as those of the first MGS, which is an accomplishment tremendous signficance. The stamina, health, and injury management are pure genious. The camoflague index and accompanying uniforms are the best addition to "stealth" in gaming since those panning decapitation camera angles in Tenchu. The number of easter eggs and hidden secrets for diehard fans is tremendous. It doesn't hurt that Big Boss is the greatest badass in the history of gaming. What you do in the game and the story that is revealed in the process confirms this as fact. Add all of this together with many other fantastic aspects that I'm most likely failing to remember at the moment, and what in my mind is tied as the greatest final hour yet seen in a game along with Gordon Freeman's final act in City 17, and you've got what I consider to be the finest console game of the past five years. It could take a while to run comparison's back and forth in my mind, but it is also a strong contender for the single best "single player campaign" ever in a game. From to start to finish, and everywhere inbetween, the game just kicks 1024 degrees of ass. Lesser games should feel priveledged to share shelf space with it... whenver optical media discs get around to developing such abilities.

To sum it all up: PlayStation 2 has been a tremendous system with an unbeatable library of games. The best of the best have just sprung up recently, and with Sony not jumping the gun on a PS3 release this year, some of the best may be yet to come.

Cold Hearted

It might be time to start viewing video game message boards less frequently.

Yes, experienced developers (5 to 10 year of experience) make ~$50K there, and it doesn't go up much from there...

$50K is a decent salary for an entry level (0 to 3 years exp) in the US.

It's horrible and they're mistreated. But then again, you see the pictures of "game school grads" in Japanese magazines and they look like the worst of the worst nerdiest high maintenance drooling fanboy Digipen grad you'll ever see.

In my experience Japanese people couldn't care less of a crap about Katamari or ICO or stuff like some of these Japanophiles have wet dreams about. In my experience Japanese people are more like American movie-goers, they care about instant gratification on several levels and almost psychological-level cathartic relief. It just happens that games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest hit the sweet spot in their stressful day, being content to be able to go home and kill some slimes. If anything games like Katamari and ICO and Rez and Panzer Dragoon are appreciated hundreds of times more in other parts of the world.

Microsoft would find it laughably easy to take over the hearts and minds of Japanese developers by freeing them from the corporate sludge that is so oppressive over there, and those who really know the history know this is sort of what happened with Mega Drive and PC Engine. All you have to do is check out some Mega Drive Japanese fan pages and it's a striking correlation between what's about to go down with Xenon.

The downfall of arcade games and shooter games over there is slowly being overcome by a new generation of gamers and their now seeding desire to do something other than hit the "A" button over and over to fill the void in their empty pathetic lives by leveling their latest RPG character in their latest game-based escape from a concrete, cold hearted, unforgiving life. That is Japan as those who really know it, and not through fanboy goggles, see it.

People with brain cells am crying. tsc tsc.

Mad Rush

Does anyone else get the impression that manufacturers, developers, and the gaming media are really hell bent on getting the next hardware cycle to start before it really needs to? I remember being a bit surprised when Sega decided to first launch Dreamcast in Japan on November 20, 1998. But when you consider that Saturn was a commercial failure (outside of Japan, oddly enough) you can see why it may have seemed like a good idea to pull the plug on Saturn and try to start fresh. None of that factors in how much money they were losing on hardware or how much better off they'd have been by going third party after Saturn's demise, but I'll save that for another time.

Under normal circumstances, 2005 actually would be a reasonable time to start the roll out of new consoles. PlayStation came out in North America in 1995, PS2 followed suit in 2000. But with the way things are going now there aren't really any "normal circumstances." Microsoft wants to rush into the next generation hardware cycle. Some of the reasons are good. Many are not. On one hand, they still lose money on each Xbox unit sold, so there is really no incentive for them to drag out the life span of the product. There's also no hope of Xbox ever catching up with PS2's enormous user base or software library. On the other hand, the system is only a little more than three years old, and had a lot of momentum coming out of this past holiday season with the sales success Halo 2 has seen. I've had an Xbox for just under two years now, and it seems strange for things to be drying up this soon while we keep hearing weekly announcements bout developers starting next-gen projects. PS2 will be a five year old product on Friday (initial launch in Japan was March 4, 2000), but there is still a flood of quality releases coming out. Tekken 5 and Gran Turismo 4 just hit store shelves last week. God of War and Devil May Cry 3 are on deck. Meanwhile, yet another World War II FPS is coming out on Xbox. Oh yeah, there's a bad GT knock-off coming out next month as well. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

I understand the strategic angle of trying to get a product on the market first. Everybody knows that Halo 3 insn't coming out before 2007 unless a worse rush job is conducted than what we saw with Halo 2. So launching head to head in 2006 wouldn't accomplish much. But at the same time, I don't see how it can be regarded as a good thing that Xbox's life span is being cut short, and that Microsoft is surrendering the hardware superiority advantage. Without a new Halo or being the most powerful machine of the generation, what is going to make me want to purchase one this year? Ports of games like Call of Duty 2 and Quake 4 that I'll already be playing on my PC? Tony Hawk's Pro Vietnam Skater? A weak fighting game like Dead or Alive? I'm having a hard time considering under what circumstances I'd want to buy a new system this year. The same can largely be applied to Sony. I already know that there will be no new GTA, Metal Gear Solid, or Gran Turismo coming out this fall, so what would drive me (no pun intended) to run out and pick up a PlayStation 3? There's a possibility that Virtua Fighter 5 will be unveiled this year, running on a new arcade board that once again does not port easily to home consoles. Would it kill AM2 to take the Namco approach going into this generation and build arcade boards around ATI and nVidia chips? Anyhow, even in the hypothetical situation of a new Virtua Fighter launching with a console this year, I still wouldn't buy one.

Why would it be better to wait? There's a few reasons. First of all, even though we are nearing the end of the current generation, system and software sales are still extremely healthy. GTA and Halo 2 tore up the charts this past fall. 488,000 PS2's were just sold in January, which is usually a sales graveyard since it directly follows the Christmas shopping season. Secondly, developers are managing to pump out better looking games. Metal Gear Solid 3, Gran Turismo 4, Tekken 5, Resident Evil 4, and several other new games show that the current hardware can pump out visuals good enough to keep people satiated well into next year. Do any of them look as good as Half-Life 2? No, but consoles have to find a balance between topping what is the currently "drop dead gorgeous" games and being able to sustain a competitive output of games for the next five years. Launching a system in the next six to eight months limits what the system will be capable of going into 2008. That sounds ridiculous, but it is true. With the current development costs and the number of games getting delayed (do remember when we supposed to be playing Half-Life 2, Doom III, Halo 2, and Gran Turismo 4? neither do I), it seems obvious that the next generation of hardware will have to last until at least 2011, possibly 2012. To accellerate the cycle once again and rush out another system in 2009 would be suicide for the entire industry. So if I'm going to be using a platform for a while, wouldn't I want to wait another year or so and get more bang for my buck, and better performance in the long run? Ask someone who skipped the FX line of PC graphics cards in favor of waiting for the 6800's if their patience paid off.

Last, but most importantly, the consumer electronics industry is going to be entering a phase more important than the transition to a new hardware cycle: a transition to newer, bigger, and better storage mediums. A console launching this year is almost certainly going to be stuck with a DVD-ROM drive. That was cutting edge five years ago. Right now, it's par for the course, and it doesn't seem to be an option that will benefit me or any other consumer in the long run. When I've got UT2004 and Steam folders pushing ten gigabytes in size, I've got to wonder how well DVDs will hold up in a few years when games have even more detailed textures, more verbal dialogue, and more complex engines to fit onto a disc. The fact that TV's do not output a resolution as high as computer monitors will save some space in the textures department, but I still don't see the point of not opting for higher capcity discs. The FCC is going to make HD a standard, and there should be a storage medium compliant with the demands of this new standard. Twenty five gigabytes or just under nine? Seems like an obvious choice to me.

I'm sure when Xbox 2 (or Xbox 360 if some marketing retard actually thinks that is a good name) is unveiled at E3 this May it will impress people. I'm sure there will be enough visual candy in the launch titles to entice people. But can I really expect a system coming out in six months to be an enormous leap over Half-Life 2 and Doom III? Can I really expect it to deliver real-time visuals on par with those of Square's CG work? I guess we'll see, but waiting until 2006 could only help.

The next hardware cycle will start when the suits decide it is strategically viable, not when it will be best for gamers. But the good news is that if you're as put off by the this mad rush into the next generation as I am, all you have to do is... absolutely nothing. They need us to go out and buy the products. This isn't like computer application software that comes pre-installed and puts your money into a company's pocket whether you like it or not. I've got a ridiculous amount of current generation software left to play, and I'm a patient guy. Good luck trying to get me to jump the gun.

Tekken 5

3D fighting games have been my favorite genre for about ten years now. The first one I played was the game that started it all - Virtua Fighter. I was in Las Vegas at The Luxor hotel and got to experience it for the first time on an enormous screen with a loud sound system. I could get more technical, but I was eleven years old at the time and had just "graduated" from elementary school. I get cobwebs trying to remember what I did just last week, so this is about as precise as I'll get for now.

Needless to say, about eleven months later I bought a Sega Saturn for $400 USD (plus tax & RF adapter for the junk heap TV I had at the time) at the tender age of twelve. Yes, that's somewhat psychotic, but pales in comparison to the $1,000+ I paid sixteen months later to get myself a new television, VCR, and Cambridge Soundworks Ensemble IV home theater system. That's a lot of damn newspapers to deliver and quite a bit of diligent saving power for a thirteen year old.

At any rate, after playing VF2, Fighting Vipers, and Fighter's Megamix well beyond reasonable amounts of time, I finally caved in and got a PlayStation on my fifteenth birthday. Resident Evil 2 and NBA Shootout '98 solidified the system's worth from the onset, and the rest of 1998 was a relentless assault on a teenager's wallet. Metal Gear Solid and a little PC game by the name of Half-Life were certainly the highlights, but PlayStation managed another terrific feat - it provided me with a new 3D fighter to pour hours and hours into. That game was Tekken 3. It's still one of my favorite PlayStation games.

Fast forward half a decade and I've since had a blast with Tekken Tag Tournament, Virtua Fighter 4, Soul Calibur, and was left dissapointed with Tekken 4. While Namco certainly put effort into adding new features, most of it seemed out of place. I really enjoyed the Tokyo skyline rooftop stage with the nicely designed spartan statues, but the rest of it was a snooze. The wall push maneuvering was counter-intuitive, and it usurped the secondary throw button combination that I had grown accustomed to. On top of that, many of the stages were poorly designed and claustrophobic. The "fight club," parking garage, and freezer arenas must have seemed like a good idea in the concept stage, but were genuinely lackluster when it came to how they were implented in the game. Add in the fact that Jin Kazama was an overpowered nightmare and King looked like a mexican furry enthusiast, and you had a game that fell far short of its predecessors.

The release of Soul Calibur II in August 2003 didn't do a whole lot to convince me that Namco was going to get their magic back. It was and still is a good game, but it ultimately seemed like the original game with walls and nicer graphics thrown in. The whole mess that the dolts at Nintendo created with special characters being thrown into each version was highly annoying as well. I passed on buying a new copy on release day, since the far superior Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution had been spinning in my PS2 for two weeks before then. As luck would have it I managed to pick a mint condition, barely used copy of the Xbox version of Soul Calibur II not even ten days after the initial retail release. It provided some worthwhile entertainment, but whereas Tekken 4 made too many changes that betrayed the formula of the series, Namco seemed satasfied with an "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" mentality for Soul Calibur II. After pouring so much time into the original on Dreamcast, there was nothing about the sequel that caught my attention. Namco had probably expected that ressurecting the "Weapons Master" mode would be a enough, but with what VF4 Evo offered for only $19.99, I was left unimpressed. The fact that the traditional team battle mode (where you could select up to eight fighters for a quick play session) had been bastardized into a three on three arcade mode just made matters worse.

At this rate I was convinced Namco had lost "it" and may not reacquire "it" until the next generation of consoles came out. Fortunately, that is not the case. They seemed to have been taking notes over the last two and a half years, they've just hit the nail on the head.

Tekken 5 is just what the doctored ordered. Namco took heed what had dismayed fighting fans in Tekken 4, and took note of what AM2 was doing to innovate so wonderfully with VF4 Evo. Anyone who has enjoyed the previous installments of the serious will be right at home. The clunky wall push has been dropped in favor of bringing the classic control scheme that everyone knows any loves. Rather than poorly designed areans with various objects cluttering the foreground (as was the case with Tekken 4), Namco has opted for a mixture of walled arenas and infinite plain fields that were the series standard up through Tekken Tag Tournament.

Heavily improved character balance and a wealth of modes, features, and unlockable items help round out the package. The "story mode" is worth running through once with each fighter to view their CG ending and to unlock all but one of the hidden fighters (who are "time released" in the arcade version). But the real draw, in addition to the highly refined fighting engine, is the replayability of the arcade mode and the customization options that players are afforded with each subsequent victory. The best way to put is that Namco simply streamlined the "Quest Mode" that AM2 brilliantly crafted for the console release of Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution. After each victory in arcade mode, you are given a choice to select one of three possible opponents (or varying skill levels and rankings) to face next, or to exit out to the main menu in order to check out what items you can buy in the customization mode. While this isn't as feature laden as VF4 Evo's "Quest Mode," it is a lot friendlier and does not require that a new profile be created for each character. In fact, after losing or exiting an "Arcade Battle" match, you can simply switch to any of the available fighters and work your way forward, fighting to increase your ranking with said character. This just makes for a very straight forward, yet deep and intuitive experience that will keep you playing for hours. I've already had several fifty fight sessions, only to pimp out my fighters some more and jump back into the fray.

How can you not dig that?

The graphics are terrific. The arenas a visual spectacle, while not intruding on the core gameplay. The sound effects are as good as they have been in the series, and the music is quite good as well. If there are any minor faults, its that no tag function was brought back into the fold (perhaps Namco will be kind enough to hit us over the head with TTT2 on PSP?), and Jinpachi Mishima is the worst boss in the series. We're talking DOA/MK levels of cheese here. Fortunately he only has to be conteded with once per run through the story mode.

If Namco can take the effort and intelligent design that was put into Tekken 5 and work it into Soul Calibur III, they will once again be neck and neck with AM2 as the kings of 3D fighters. While there's murmers that Soul Calibur III will also be a System 258 based arcade game, I can only imagine what Namco could pull off with a state of the art nVidia GPU and the 25 gigabytes of space that a Blu-Ray disc would afford them. Make it happen Namco. Please. Make. It. Happen.

XNA Evidence

When Microsoft's XNA Initiative was announced at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) last March I was a bit skeptical about it. What would it really do that various tool sets and middleware programs were not already capable of? The initial videos showcased were not terribly impressive.

A car crash demo prepared by High Voltage Software (of "NBA Inside Drive" fame) showed some nice car modeling and damage physics. However, it was really no better than what we saw in Criterion's "Burnout 3 Takedown" this past fall. Sparks, inertia, and contorted metal. Big deal. The "fur" demo looked like a rejected Rareware game. That's saying something since they love making games with furry homosexual animals. Lastly, there was a "film noir" demo that displayed some slick 3D models but was essentially gouraud shaded and had very little in terms of complexity.

Well, that initial dissapointment will soon be stricken from the record with what Microsoft plans to show at this year's GDC. A clip uncovered by xboxdynasty.de (sehr gut) reveals a new XNA demo that is likely to send the rest of the industry into a tailspin.

Simply titled "Call On Me," the clip shows none other than Master Chief and Cortana kicking it old school. What's amazing is the quality of the models and the animation. You can see each jolt and gyration perfectly. It's honestly quite staggering to behold. How anyone can hope to compete with this remains to be seen. I'm certain more than a few developers will be losing sleep after witnessing this first hand.

Press Start

About that beer I owed me...