Mario Kart Wii (Review)

Mario Kart made it's obligatory appearance on the Wii last year, changing up the formula by adding motorcycles to the mix and what could possibly be the best online mode that Nintendo has to offer. The motorcycles are well balanced in the context of the game, though in my opinion their much better to race with than the titular karts. The new tracks as a whole are pretty good, with most of them showing off something intriguing or different (Coconut Mall, Koopa Cape, and Bowser's Castle are the highlights). The retro tracks are a mixed bag. The stages coming from the N64 game are some of the best from that entry, while the DS game is represented with some dull choices from a game that was full of unique stages.

Sadly the game has an extreme problem with continual item abuse. The dreaded blue shell returns along with more overpowered weapons like the POW block, mega mushroom, and a stupid cloud that makes you speed up but shrinks you if you can't pass it off to another player. These items appear way too often and even strip the unlucky victims of their own items. This causes any form of strategy to be thrown out the window in favor of pure luck, especially in the single player grand prix where the A.I basically cheats by using any of the overpowered items every 3 seconds. As a result, I ended most of my play sessions due to sheer frustration and a desire to break things. This item abuse had been a severe problem in the Mario Kart series for 3 games now and while everyone has been constantly complaining about it, it completely baffles me that Nintendo has not only ignored the problem, they've made it worse than ever.

The game still has that excellent gameplay the series is known for and it's a blast to play with friends, but Nintendo really screwed up with the items. I understand that Nintendo is trying to give casual gamers a chance against seasoned players, but giving them super weapons isn't the right way. If this is the direction Nintendo wants to take the series, I seriously doubt I'll want any to do with it anymore.

Saints Row 2 (Review)

I was very surprised by this game. Saints Row 2 is without a doubt a Grand Theft Auto clone in every sense of the word, but the game managed to do the impossible by beating GTA at it's own game. This is mainly due to GTA4 being fairly restrictive in what it allowed you to do. Saints Row 2 understands want people want from a sandbox game: freedom. The level of customization the game throws at you is almost too much. You can basically make you character look and act anyway you want. You're pretty much allowed to do whatever you want, when you want to and most of things the game has available for you to do are pretty damn fun, like driving around in septic truck spraying poo over everything, and posing as a cop who takes down law-breakers in the most damaging way possible.

I always wanted to play a game where you could take over a location and build an evil empire and Saints Row 2 is pretty close to that type of game. As you seize locations from rival gangs, you'll see your own men strolling down the street and as you buy stores, you gain a sizeable revenue from that store's sales. It really gives you sense that you own the town. One of the only things that bothered me was that helicopters controlled like crap and blew up too easily

I actually don't have have any other complaints about this game. The characters and plot aren't as well developed as a Grand Theft Auto 4's were and the ending is very weak and uninspired, but the whole game doesn't take itself too seriously and honestly this is the route GTA4 should have gone. I loved this game from start to finish and its become one of my favorite games of this console generation. Their apparently working on a Saints Row 3 and I'll definitely be up for more if they make it.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (Review)

So I found out something yesterday that was kinda shocking, but I can't really say it wasn't expected. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the recent revival of my favorite N64 series, failed miserably in stores. Only 140,000 copies had been sold by the beginning of 2009. Wow just wow. I knew that the game's new vehicle based gameplay didn't sit with fans of the old games (I know it didn't sit well with me), but I thought at least 400,000 copies would have been moved. Even though the game was only 40 bucks at when it launched and got mostly decent reviews, I decided against buying the game. A few months ago I finally decided to throw down the 7 bucks to rent the game. I was at final boss when I was running late to return it, so I don't know how it ended.

The game starts off well enough, vehicle editor is really well done, and assuming you're patient, there's a lot of crazy parts to find. The problem is all you really have to do are the missions, which are tried cliched trite that bore you or drive you crazy demanding perfection if you want a damn trophy. Every mission is timed for no reason other than trying to get the trophy and I hated that. I don't like timed missions mainly because I always feel like I'm being rushed and in this game I'm being rushed all the time.

The world's are huge empty shells with little to find or do. There's some music notes scattered around, but they're just money to buy crap. There's a few Jinjos but they just annoy you with one of six repeating challenges. And the mission givers, which are usually your only point in being there. And each world is split Acts to further drag out how much time you waste in them. I wouldn't mind, except the missions are the same old crap. Race, Escort, Kill or some variant of them. Over and over again. And the ground and air vehicles handle poorly. Everything knocks them off course and turning is always a pain in the ass.

In the end I found the game to be very underwhelming, though strangely charming. The best thing I can say about it is that the is well written. Developer Rare has always had a talent for writing funny dialogue and that remains true here. Even though $30 is a steal compared to $60 dollar games the 360 usually releases, Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts isn't really worth that much. I'd say pick up up after the game goes down in price to $20 or lower.

The Simpsons Movie (Review)

The Simpsons finally hit the big screen in 2007 and although it really wasn't worth the nearly 20 year wait, it was still one of the funnier films I saw that year. The show is nowhere near as good as it use to be and that's okay, it's hard to keep that amazing high quality going past a decade. With the movie, Matt Groening and company showed that spark the series had in it's early years...in sizeable chunks. There are some pretty good bits like Bart's nude skateboarding sequence, the family's conversation about Grandpa's vision, and Homer's relationship with Spider-Pig/Harry Plopper. There were even some pretty good inside jokes about the television series.

I did feel that the movie was kinda crushed under the weight of the series though. Although they did a good job of creating an interesting and larger scale storyline, it still feels a bit less "epic" than some of the stories from the series and the plot treads the same old "Homer screws up and has to fix it" story that show has run into the ground at this point. And while I'm on the subject of Homer, one has to wonder how many times he can just about completely destroy his friendships and his marriage before he finds a way to save them at the last second.

Oh well, the movie is pretty good, easily ranking in with episodes from the 8th or 9th season. The movie is unusually short, which I found odd considering how long they were working on this. It's a shame that the episodes made after the movie went right back to the usual mediocre rut it was in before, but whatcha gonna do?

The Whitest Kids U Know - Season 3 (Review)

The Whitest Kids U Know's third year changed the format by airing 20 15 minute episodes instead of 10 30 minute shows. This allowed the season to last much longer (running from January 27th to June 2nd) while basically giving us the same amount of content. I didn't care too much for this change since the show always ended too soon for me, but I guess when a show leaves you wanting more it's doing it's job.

Season 3 wasn't as clever as the show's first two years, which I personally considered both to be nearly flawless. One thing that kinda bugged me with this season was an over reliance on visual shit jokes...none of which made any of the sketches they appeared in any funnier. They mostly appeared early in the season and by the end the kids wisely decide to leave the poop to your imagination. Luckily the season usually manages to entertain more than disappoint as there were still some really funny sketches like Superdog, The homeschool kid who mocks his teacher mother, The fashion show, and the woman who really, really wanted to see the movie "The Loveliest Bride.

I'm not sure if the show will continue for another season, normally someone in the group would have announced something by now. I hope it does come back, as it's still easily one of my favorite current shows.

New Super Mario Bros (Review)

New Super Mario Bros isn't as good as any of the older Mario games that this game acts as an homage to. As a matter of fact, I'd say that it's almost the weakest entry in the main series (Super Mario Sunshine gets the honor of weakest game). However it is a solid and pretty fun revival of the classic era of a stellar franchise. Considering that Mario's ultimate rise to fame was through 2d platforming, it's unbelievable that it took 12 years for Nintendo to revisit the concept. The basic core of the Mario games is still intact here: the running, the jumping, and the classic items are all here on display and feels like old times again. This game did well of reminding me why the series has lasted so long. Of course there are the new things that have been added to spice things up and for the most part, the results are a tad mixed. The triple jump, wall jump, and ground pound from the 3d entries have been included and are implemented extremely well. It's very fun to bounce of walls and hop like a manic through some of the stages.

The new items are the big addition and while the new powers do seem interesting, in reality... they're not. The mega mushroom is my favorite and the most fun to use even though it's really just a starman that makes you giant and grants you the ability to knock over stuff. The tiny mushroom makes Mario really small (and weak) so he can enter hidden areas or reach star coins with his heightened ability to jump...somehow. The worse item is the blue koopa shell which gives you protection when you crouch but when you run you'll start spinning out of control and most likely fall of the stage. The main problem with these items is that only exist so you can collect the optional star coins, unlike the older games where new items gave you a new way to attack and traverse the levels (well the blue shell does that...in the most ass way possible).

Something that really bugged me was how you can only save the game after beating a boss. Granted it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to reach a boss, but still...I shouldn't have to. You can use the star coins you collect in stages to open up new levels and upon doing that you can save...but it's still not the best way to go with save feature. And then for whatever reason, you unlock the ability to save anywhere after you complete the game. Haven't handheld games evolved enough to allow auto-saving after every level? Hell Super Mario Land 2 auto-saved and that was game was released 12 years prior to this. Oh...something else that annoyed me..fighting Bowser Jr twenty-something times before the end wasn't very engaging either.

New Super Mario Brothers is a decent addition to the old school Mario games of the NES and SNES era, it's definitely one of the better DS games. It retains the classic feel and gameplay that those games had, though at times it feels more like it piggybacks off of their success. If the game had been longer and more difficult and had the new items been developed better, the game would live up to the high standards of the franchise. There's gonna be a sort-of sequel on the Wii this year and it looks to be an improvement...it has Yoshi so it has to be much better than this.

Super Princess Peach (Review)

Released back in 2006, Super Princess Peach was the first 2d side-scroller that Nintendo had released in quite sometime and the game launched about 3 months before New Super Mario Bros. Despite the game's non manly appearance, Super Princess Peach is actually one of the better direct spin-offs of the Mario series. As the video game world has evolved to feature females in more active roles, it was only a matter before the Mushroom Kingdom's damsel in distress got a moment in the sun.

It is however a shame that Peach's big chance to kick some ass is spoiled by the game's weird sexist undertone. The thing that makes Peach so super is her ability to get super emotional. Through-out the game, Peach can take on four emotion-based powers: joy, rage, gloom, and calm. Joy will cause Peach to float through the air in a cyclone. Rage causes her to burst into flames and somehow makes her really heavy. Gloom causes huge tears to pour from Peach's eyes and gives her the ability to run really fast. Finally, calm restores lost health. Those abilities are the only thing that really set this game apart from a standard Mario platformer and they are very fun to use to traverse the moderately long stages. The emotion powers' applications in boss fights is pretty interesting, and it's pretty shocking to me that some of the bosses actually put up a fight....not by much, but at least they tried.

There's only 2 major gripes I have with the game. The first problem is the fact that the game is too easy. In most platforming games when you fall off the stage it results in instant death, in this game fall off the stage only cost you one health point and you have to restart that section of the level. Even when you're low on health you can use the calm ability to regain all of your health, which basically negates any real threats. The only time in the game I felt any real danger was during the final battle against Bowser, who is actually harder here than he has been in most of the recent games. The second problem I had (which is really more of an annoyance) is saving the Toads. In every level there are 3 Toads to find and rescue. Their not needed to finished the level, but it is required to save them all to fight Bowser at the end....something the game doesn't tell you until actually get there. Luckily for me, I was only missing about 5 of them, so it didn't take long to get access to the final battle.

Super Princess Peach is a very fun game even though the low difficulty keeps it from being truly engaging. The game is currently out of print making it really hard to find in stores, but if you can find it I suggest picking it up.

Make Me A Supermodel - Season 2 (Review)

I don't normally watch Bravo or reality shows in general, but I started watching Make Me A Supermodel largely out of curiosity and found myself tuning in every week to see who would be eliminated. The show doesn't really do anything differently in it's premise than most of the other garbage reality game shows, it largely how the contestants behave that varies from show to show. What I like about this show was that everyone was respectful of one another (except for stupid Jordan who bitched about everything, especially fellow model Amanda), and there was non of that get drunk and have sex with everything that I normally associate and despise with the reality genre.

Perhaps I only really enjoyed the show because the guy I was hoping would win actually did. Branden Rickman was my favorite from the start even though it really was long shot for him to win. He reminds me of people I normally hang out with. The super sexy british adonis Jonathan Waud was the person everyone including myself expected to walk away with the modeling contract , but the judge's unpredictable nature won out in the end (apparently last season's winner Hollie was also highly expected to win). It was admittedly surprising that in the end it came down to 3 male constants and I fully agree with the judge's decision to choose Branden over Jonathan and Sandhurst. Branden wasn't as good as the other 2 had been throughout the season, but he showed that he was slowly growing as a model and he proved that he was only going to grow even stronger from then on out. Besides I think the judges also saw that Jonathan was hot and talented enough to get a modeling contract without their help.

I don't know if there will be a third season of this series and I don't know if I'd watch it, but at least this season was a pretty good diversion for a couple weeks.

E3 09: Best Games

Okay, this is my last E3 09 post. I decided to end this by listing my ten favorite games that appeared at E3 this year. This includes any game announced or mentioned during the press conferences or games that were said to be on display on the show floor.

These are the 10 games I'm most excited for and the list is in no real order.

1. Super Mario Galaxy 2
2. New Super Mario Bros Wii
3. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
4. No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle
5. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
6. Metroid: Other M
7. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
8. God of War III
9. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
10. Crackdown 2

And that's most of what I want that I found out at E3 this year.

E3 09: Overall Impressions

Well, E3 ended yesterday although I didn't really pay too much attention to it after the major press conferences ended on Tuesday. After thinking about it for a while I decided that E3 2009 was decent, but nothing mind blowing. Each of the 3 companies had their own strengths and weaknesses which I guess I should elaborate on.

Out of the big 3, I felt that Microsoft was the weakest of the bunch. They didn't have have much to present that wasn't already known or guessed at in some shape or form. More so than any company, Microsoft had the least amount of games to show that were ready for launch during 2008. About 90% of what they had were slated for a 2010 release or later. The games that are coming this year were multi-platform games...so yeah. The thing that pretty much everyone remembers from the conference was Project Natal and to me it doesn't look like it's worth getting extremely excited about. The voice interaction is pure awesome sauce, but the full body motion control aspect only seems to be a little better than the Playstation Eyetoy that was released several years ago and given that what the eyetoy brought to the gaming table wasn't much, I doubt that Natal's implementation in games will be too much to gush over.

Where Microsoft really shined was in the enhancements it was making to the 360's role as an entertainment center. The improvements it's making to the Netflix application is long overdue and should have been there from the start. The facebook addition is pretty cool even though i don't have a facebook (been thinking about it though). And what project natal is going to do the interface of the system is pretty sweet as well.

Nintendo had a lot to make up for after last year's embarrassing showing and they did step it up a little by showing that they had actual games coming out this year (although even if they had only one real game to show, it would be an improvement). The problem is, even more than Microsoft, Nintendo didn't have much to show that we didn't already know about in some way. We already knew that a 2nd New Super Mario Bros was coming, we just didn't know it was going to be mulitplayer and for the Wii. We already knew about another major 3d Mario game coming as well. Only Golden Sun Ds and Metorid: Other M were genuine unknown surprise announcements. Nintendo also spent too much time on junk they've shown before like The Wii Motion Plus and Wii Sports Resort.

Also since they've started the whole casual game trend, Nintendo doesn't really know how to do an interesting conference. Seriously, Nintendo's conference felt like a PTA meeting. Nintendo still needs to understand that the casual market their shooting for doesn't watch or care about E3. Nintendo's showings were better than Microsoft's largely because they had decent mix of games that are actually coming this year and games to look forward to in the future. The fact that there are 3 Mario games of actual substance on display (2 platformers and an RPG) is pretty damn impressive and the fact that 2 of them make heavy use of my favorite game character Yoshi is just amazing. Mario may be my favorite game franchise, but I really wish they would have focused a little more on some of their other franchises (The long-awaited Wii Zelda title was revealed to be in development during a roundtable and will released next year at the earliest). Overall Nintendo did pretty well, even though they clearly did the bare minimum to make up for their past failings....just don't get me started on that completely retarded Wii Vitality Sensor...

Sony has never really impressed me with their press conferences. Their E3 presentations aren't bad, their just not that memorable. As such I don't really have too much to comment on with Sony as I did with the other 2. This year was a tad better than their usual showings but not by much so it kinda sad that I feel that Sony had the best presence at E3 this year. Sony had a better balance of stats and games and they revealed the most new games coming out with many interesting features. I felt that Sony's conference had the best structure as well: focusing on the one console at a time as opposed to Nintendo who jumped back and forth between their 2 systems. Although Sony failed to convince me to buy a Psp, I was gald to see them make an admirable attempt to make it appear like a worthwhile handheld (I'm sure it is) and I'm sure that those who own one are thrilled to see some actual games released for the system. If I did get a Psp, I would definitely buy MGS: Peace Walker (In related news since the press conferences, it was announced that the 360 game MGS: Rising is indeed coming to the PS3)

After a few years, the PS3 has finally got a decent number of games and this year's showings have finally convinced me to pick up the system when I have the cash, although Sony's really gonna need to do a price drop first. God of War 3 may not be very different from it predecessors, but at least it's clear that the game is gonna be just as good as what's come before. Like I said in my Sony impressions posts, there was a distinct lack of Ratchet & Clank that really bugged me but I think in the end Sony may have made the right choice focusing on GOW instead since it is higher profile and R&C (much like GOW) hasn't really changed much over the years to really talk about. As for Sony's motion control, if Sony can release some decent software for it, I'm sure it could possibly outdue the Wii Remote...and as I said before at least this thing's implementation in games is more realistic than Project Natal.

So in summation, E3 2009 was okay. Microsoft was the worst to me as they only had about a handful interesting things and most of it won't be out for quite a while, but I won't deny that some of those games mentioned should be pretty good. Nintendo gave their their fans much more interesting stuff unlike last year and Sony just did their thing and came out one top.

Score below is as follows.
CONFERENCE PLACING:
1st: Sony
2nd: Nintendo
3rd: Microsoft

E3 09: Sony Impressions

Okay last one. I've never liked that Sony and Nintendo's conferences are basically back to back. It really tires me out and causes me to be little impatient with Sony's announcements. Unlike Microsoft and Nintendo, I still do not own a PS3 or PSP and while this year's keynote didn't make me crave a PSP, I do still want the PS3...if only because they still have 3 franchises I love: Ratchet & Clank, God Of War, and Kingdom Hearts. Overall I thought Sony really failed to wow me with surprises and I felt that they spent a little too much time with each game demo. The conference was fairly long winded but I did get a few games to talk about.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: Of course I've never played the first game and the only the I heard about it was that it was like a much better Tomb Raider game and you get to stare a hot guy's ass instead of hot girl. This follow up appeared to be fairly entertaining. If I had a PS3 I'd check it out.

PSP Go: They joking referred to this as the worst kept secret at E3 and they were right. The only time I really wanted a PSP was last year when they released the God of War bundle, but I held off on it when I remember that apart from GOW there were only one or two other games for the handheld that were really worth having. And that's still the same story now. The Psp Go is geared more towards media savvy consumers, and it looks slick and sexy, but unless they get some real high quality games for the system, then their wasting everyone's time. They showed off in a quick montage all the games coming to the system and the only ones I would want were the new Jak and Daxter and the game I'm about to spotlight next...

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: The second "traditional" MGS game on the PSP. The first game, Portable Ops, is one of those 1 or 2 games worth having I mentioned. This game looks good and I was pleased that there was actual gameplay footage unlike yesterday's Metal Gear Rising "trailer" (a shot of clouds rolling by with an image of Radien is NOT a trailer). It's also worth noting that MGS Rising was not talked about during the keynote which to me confirms that that game will at least release on 360 first.

Agent: A new game from GTA makers Rockstar. Not much info was given apart from the constant stressing that this was a PS3 exclusive. I think it's safe to say that it will be a exclusive for like a year before the 360 and maybe Wii (it happened with Bully) version are revealed.

Final Fantasy 14 Online: I joined the stunned and confused audience with the sudden announcement that Square Enix was already working on FF 14 and it would be released next year. The reveal that it would be another online game like FF 11 helped this shocker make more sense. Considering FF 11 wasn't exactly a best selling winner, I have wonder if this game is aiming to be an improvement.

PS3 Motion Control...Thing...: Yeah...they didn't have a name for this thing. It looks like slightly better Wii Remote. To be honest the things they were doing with it on stage weren't that interesting, but I will say that this seems to be a tad more "useful" (for lack of a better word) for games than Microsoft's Project Natal.

Modnation Racers: It's like Little Big Planet for racing games. I really only care about Burnout and Mario Kart as far as racing games are concerned, but I might check this this one out.

The Last Guardian: Oh why, oh why, oh why haven't I played Ico and Shadow of the Colossus yet? They've been on my need to play list for a few years now. Maybe if I had played them I would have been a lot more excited for this game, which was created by the same guy who developed those 2 games. The trailer didn't reveal much on gameplay, but it looked really really pretty.

Grand Turismo 5: Given the infamous delay time on GT4, I think it would be amusing to see how long it takes for this game to actually release. I don't really care about Grand Turismo...too realistic for me. Looks nice though.

God Of War III: This is it , Sony's showstopper. To be honest I'm glad the game doesn't release til March of next year, gives me more time to get a job so I can afford a PS3. The short demo they played of the game's opening is very reminiscent of the opening of God Of War 2 only much, much prettier. And I think you can count on the full game pretty much not offering anything truly new over the game's predecessors...just an HD gore fest. But really that's not much of a bad thing since there really isn't anything about this series that needs changing. I'm making it my goal to have a PS3 by this game's launch.

And that was it. I pretty upset that the new Ratchet & Clank game "A Crack in Time" wasn't given any face time during the conference especially since unlike God of War, it actually comes out this year...but oh well.

These last 2 days have been pretty tiring as fair as game news was concerned and I'm actually pretty happy it's over. Overall E3 2009 gave some pretty solid games to look forward to...too bad about 75% of these games aren't out until next year!

E3 09: Nintendo Impressions

Well...This was a pretty good improvement over last year. Sure Nintendo still had those dull, annoying as hell bragging speeches to bore us with. But Nintendo was a bit more on point to the business of telling us about the games they had coming. Nintendo had a tad more games than Microsoft that I was interested in, but I really wish they would have said a little more about some these games.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: This appears to the major triple A title for the holidays that was long rumored for past couple of months. Co-op Super Mario Bros is something that I feel was long overdue. I'm not super excited for it since this appears to be mostly the same as the Ds game and we've already seen that (plus New Super Mario Bros wasn't my favorite iteration of the series). Also why are the 3rd and 4th players both Toads? Why not Wario or Waluigi? Oh well, its Mario...I'm gonna buy it...and the co-op better be online.

Wii Sports Resorts: Really...they showed us all this game really had to offer last year, but at least it looks a bit more like full game now....Still not gonna buy it though.

Kingdom Hearts Ds: We've known about this game for a while and the press conference didn't tell us anything more than a release date (Sept. 29). I love the Kingdom Hearts series but Chain of Memories for the GBA kinda tainted my feelings for Handheld iterations of the series. But at this one isn't card based so I'll probably buy this when it releases in Sept.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story: Another Ds game that we've known about for quite some time as the game has been out in Japan since February. I love the Mario & Luigi rpg games but I don't really have anything to say about this game other than it's release date which was an unannounced date in the fall...why? All they really had to do with the game was localization and Nintendo doesn't really have anything for the summer...so why wait til the fall?

Golden Sun Ds: A nice surprise announcement. The Golden Sun games on the GBA were wonderful and it was a little confusing as to why the series was absent from the DS. Well it's here now and although we were not given a date, it looks nice.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again: Wow more Mario stuff...I didn't care for Mario vs Donkey Kong 2. It's lemmings-like gameplay was too much of a departure for me. The one thing was cool about that game was the custom level builder which Minis March Again basically is. It's a downloadable game for the DSI which I don't have and even if I did I probably wouldn't buy it.

The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: They didn't say anything about this game other than "it's good" which wasn't enough for me. I didn't care too much for Phantom Hourglass, the last DS Zelda game, and this looks pretty similar, just with trains instead of a boat. I'm sure it will be good and it will sell well. I'll check it out...but most likely not at launch.

Super Mario Galaxy 2: Wow..just wow. It was pretty much confirmed beforehand that would be a new 3d Mario title on the Wii and here it is. I was hoping that it wouldn't be another Galaxy...but who cares, the first Mario Galaxy is in my opinion one of the best games of this console generation and this seems to just be an extension of that which is fine by me. It also appears to harder than the first one which would address my only real complain against the original. Oh...and Yoshi is the game...which makes things 10 times better. The game will release in 2010...hopefully in the summer.

Metroid Other M: A new Metroid game developed by Team Ninja of all people. It's a nice change of pace from the Prime series and it'll be nice to see this as a sort of what could have been if Metroid Prime had been taken in another direction. It won't come out till next year along with Galaxy 2 so at least there are 2 big games to look forward to next year..finally.

So all in all, Nintendo did pretty well. At least they have actual games coming out this year.

E3 09: Mircosoft Impressions

Wow...is it that time of year already? E3 is upon us again and like last year I'm going to give you my impressions of the keynotes. Microsoft kicked things off like they always have these past few years. To me personally, I felt their showings of core games didn't appeal to me as much as last year, but I still enjoyed their offerings and can't wait for some of these games.

The Beatles Rock Band: Like last year, a long amount of time is spent talking about what is basically an expansion pack to game that's not worth spending too much time yapping about. I do like the Beatles and it was pretty awesome that Ringo and Peter were there in person to promote the game. Oh yeah and Yoko Ono was there.....

Modern Warfare 2: I don't like war games, but I've heard how Call of Duty 4 was different...although it didn't look different enough from what came before for me to give it shot. Although this follow-up game doesn't look much better either..it did manage to make me want to run out rent the 1st Modern Warfare...so I guess that's something.

Shadow Complex: An Xbox Live Arcade game coming from Epic Games. Cliff Bleszinski said that it would mix elements from titles such as Contra and Super Metroid which sounds good to me, And I'm not too sure but I think they said it was releasing over the summer, which sounds even better to me.

Crackdown 2: I love Crackdown! Everyone was bummed last year when it was stated that there wouldn't be a follow-up to awesome game Crackdown, but it looks like they changed their minds and to me, this was the biggest surprise announcement in the show. While the art style in the trailer was similar to first game, it also seemed a tad more realistic, which added to the shock that this was a Crackgame game. Sadly no release time frame was given.

Left 4 Dead 2: Too Soon... Not Another Zombie Game... Those were the only things going through my mind while this trailer was going.

Splinter Cell Conviction: The Splinter Cell series has fallen in recent years and it seems that Conviction is banking on bringing the series back to prominence. I haven't played the series since Chaos Theory on the Gamecube. The Graphics look amazing and the gameplay seems to be fast paced which would solve what I feel to be the sole problem with the series.

Halo ODST & Reach: I've always been thankful for what the Halo Series has done for first person shooters on home consoles...that doesn't I like the games. I feel the series has never deserved the amount of attention it gets and these games aren't changing my opinion of them. ODST is a prequel to Halo 3 and apart from it's admittedly interesting story telling approach, the game doesn't really seem to be an improvement on Halo 3. The games' developers, Bungie, also revealed that Halo: Reach was the secret game they had in development, dashing hopes that were working on a new IP.

Metal Gear Solid Rising: Rumors of MGS4 popping up on the 360 has been around since before E3 08. What no-one could have predicted was that a whole new Metal Gear would appear on the console. MGS Rising stars Radien instead of Solid Snake and may not be a system exclusive. This game does however open the doors for all of the previous games to be made available on the 360. Personally I think I'd stick with Sony for my Metal Gear...if I ever get a PS3.

Project Natal: This is Microsoft's big answer to the Nintendo Wii and it's pretty damn interesting. It's basically a motion and voice sensing peripheral that will allow you to simulate handling a steering wheel, navigate the 360 dashboard, control a kung-fu fighter, dress an on-screen avatar and so much more. Peter Molyneux's Milo project (which isn't a game, just something he's be using Project Natal to tinker with) was amazing, if not kinda creepy. I doubt I'd personally have much use for Project Natal but I'll admit that I'm excited to try this thing out.

Overall Microsoft gave a solid showing and a few legit surprises. This should be another great year for the 360.

I'm Not Dead

I hate that I always go a little while without posting in here. It really bothers me, I swear it. I just don't know why that always happens. Even when I say it's not going to happen, it seems to anyway. Next time, don't believe me when I say it won't, because it seems that I will always prove myself wrong.