More PixelJunk on the network

The Q-games created series of simple but addictive game on the Playstation network has grown with the release of the third game; PixelJunk Eden.
I was a moderate fan of PixelJunk Monsters, the tower defense game released on the network a while back. When I say moderate fan, I mean I was interested in the game, played around with it and enjoyed myself, but never really put too much time into it. I passed up PixelJunk Racer all together. Last night I took the demo of the new game, Eden, for a test run.
It is a very unique game in the series and on its own. While older PixelJunk games tend to be more like retro remixes of older games, Eden stands on its own in being a completely unique concept.
It is, in essence, a side-scrolling platformer with a heavy emphasis on physics. You can walk only on the ground, but you won't be spending much time there. The point is you can hop around the plant-like levels. when you hit a vine, stem or any other parts of the garden you're exploring you stick to it, spiderman style. When you jump off, you automatically leave a tether which you use to swing around and propel you to other plants as you collect crystals, which allow you to extend your time in the level, and pollen, which makes other plants grow, so you can reach higher points in the level.
the simple graphic style and mix of physics with platforming reminds me a lot of the PSP game LocoRoco (one of the best reasons to own the PSP).
For only $10 it seems worth checking out. I will likely download it in the near future.

www.godsavethepress.com coming soon...

I just bought a new URL for www.godsavethepress.com. unbelievably it wasn't taken already so I bought it while I could. I'll continue to blog here for now, but as soon as the website is up and running I'm going to redirect my blog onto the website.
Both my blogs will be moved when the site launches.
More information closer to the web site's launch.

Activision dumps anticipated games

The Activision/Vivendi merger has been all over the gaming news for a while now, but Activision has recently announced that it will be dropping two highly anticipated Vivendi games as the publisher, leaving them in limbo.
Brutal Legends, the new Tim Schafer game (of Phychonauts, Monkey Island and Grim Fandango fame) and the new Ghostbusters game have both been dropped by Activision. As a result neither games have a publisher. This doesn't make them cancelled, but it also means their future is a might foggy.
I am not too worried about either game, since they both have enough hype behind them I think it would be unreasonable to not assume another publisher will be eager to jump on board.
Also the new 50 Cent: Blood in the sand has been dropped by Activision. While we are all hoping for a new publisher to pick up Brutal Legends and Ghostbusters, lets hope for the opposite for 50 cent.

Nintendo embaces 2D with new Wario game on Wii

being a gamer who has been around since the 2D sprite days of the 8-bit generation (NES and Master System), I've always been a fan of well done sprite games and think they can still have a place with modern photo-realistic games of today. The best examples of this would be games like Odin Sphere.
When Nintendo announced a new Wario game for the Wii I had visions of the Wario World game from the Gamecube in my head, and lost interest. If it has Wario's name in the title it better be followed by "ware" to keep me interested for long.
However, then I saw the in-game at E3. What is this? A fully 2D sprite game on the Wii? And it's not even a Wii Ware title? It's a full game!
Now my disinterest has seen a full 360. It has some big, beautifully animated sprites. This is the kind of thing we see all the time on the DS but rarely on the consoles.
The visual style looks great, lets hope the gameplay follows suit.

Wii still has no real storage expansion

E3 was something of a flop for a lot of gamers this year, which may be a testament to how little weight it carries now with the smaller design, but more importantly, Nintendo has, yet again, now given Wii owners a feasible storage alternative.
For almost two years now Wii owners have been crying out in wanting of a way to store all their Virtual Console and now Wii Ware games without having to fumble with constantly transferring files back and forth between SD cards and the internal memory.
Given that the Wii currently has only 512 MB of space - roughly 1/40 the space on the smallest model of Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 - i believe it is justified for gamers to want more.
Yes, games you download can be re-downloaded for free an unlimited number of time. Yes, you can back them up on an SD card. The point is we shouldn't have to re-download something again and again and why is it we can't simply boot a game straight off our SD cards? Isn't this something that could be fixed with a simple firmware update?
frankly, I would be happy just to be able to boot off an SD card. having an extra 2GB would still be better. But this subject has been done to death.
Ign.com asked about it at E3.
"There isn't anything that we can announce today, but we have been thinking along a variety of different lines regarding this matter for some time now," said Shigeru Miyamoto told ign.com, "So my hope is that sometime in the not too distant future we will be able to discuss some concrete solutions."
What is beyond me is that it seems like an open-and-shut case. give us a USB Hard drive. Let us boot off an SD card.
piracy is likely one of the reasons Nintendo is being so cautious with the Wii already prone to being hacked by mod chips and the DS losing software sales due to flashcard devices. However they can not ignore the obvious storage problem. They already solved the online chat issue with the Wii Speak public mic device, lets hope we get an answer about this as well, sooner rather than later.

E3 2008 Part 3: Sony

Sony spent the week showing some solid new installments in its core franchises but had little new to bring forward.
E3 is over and Sony has ended up being one of the three that I ended up the least interested in, even though I own both a PS3 and PSP. That's right, Microsoft caught my eye more even though I have no Xbox to speak of. Of course Microsoft also caught my eye for all the wrong reasons.
But I digress, this post is about Sony. While the showing from Sony wasn't really disappointing as a whole, it just seemed to be a lot of stuff that we all already knew about. Killzone looks incredible, but shooters tend not to excite me. The same can be said of Resistance 2 and the surprising PSP edition of Resistance.
There was God of War "shown", and by shown I mean we got to see a prerendered clip featuring Kratos. However, go ahead and burn me alive on a steak for it, but God of War never really appealed to me. To me it was always "Zelda for jocks", even if that's wrong of me to say.
I still haven't jumped on the LittleBig Planet bandwagon yet, since I still don't know what the hell it is, no mater how many articles I read or videos I watch. Does it have any premade levels? Is it just a platformer that I get to build? from what i understand it is a side-scroller with 100% user made content. A cool idea, but i will see how far the idea really flys. Either way, it will be very original and should be a highlight of the Playstation 3 library.
one new Playstation Network game that looks very cool is FLOWer, a game that seems to have you blow around flower petals to create unique music. Looks like a great game to wind-down with. And frankly, the PSN really needs more content.
Unfortunately a lot of Sony's big titles were already showcased at Microsoft's show, like Fallout 3, resident Evil 5 and the bombshell that was Final Fantasy XIII being released on both systems.
Other highlights were the news of both Locoroco and Patapon getting second games. this is good news because my PSP has been gathering dust for the short while I have owned it. Those mixed with the announcement of the Star ocean games coming to North America in the coming months will give me something to do.
One interesting piece of news was the new Ratchet chapter exclusively for the Playstation Network that was quoted as being "a movie length ratchet game". It looks like it will be of the same high graphic quality as Ratchet & Clank Future, which would explain why the downloadable game will only be a couple of hours long. It is supposed to answer some questions left open by the end of R&C Future. It leave one to question if we will see another full-length Ratchet game on the Playstation 3 or if these mini chapters will fill in the gaps from now on. An interesting idea, at least.
Sony still has a big obstacle to pass if they want the Playstation 3 to take the number one spot like it has for the past two generations and that road is paved in exclusive titles. Wii has it own set of games unlike any other. Microsoft has a library of its own games that range from shooters like Gears of War to epics like Lost Oddessy. Playstation 3 is going to have to prove to developers that it can move hardware and make it worth while to make games Playstation 3 exclusive which would in turn entice gamers to pick up a Playstation 3. It's going to take more than Gran Turismo, Metal Gear and LittleBig Planet. Losing Final Fantasy XIII will hurt Playstaion 3 in the long run for the RPG crowd as well, since the biggest RPG of this generation will be multi platform and most others are Xbox exclusive so far (Lost Oddessy, Mass Effect & Star Ocean come to mind).
here's hoping Final Fantasy Versus XIII remains a Playstation only game, for their sakes.

E3 2008 Part 2: Nintendo

Nintendo's show is one that was shrouded in rumor and hearsay, everyone seemed to be expecting big things from them this year, but it looks like Nintendo played it safe with some interesting new devices announced, but little else we didn't already know about.
Those that know me know that I have been a big supporter of Nintendo for as long as I played videogames. So I tend to look forward to the Nintendo conference more than any other. In the end i was not disappointed so much as I felt the show was a bit too dry. Then again the show really wasn't meant for me, it was meant for intriguing the casual crowd and shareholders.
The show opened up with a bit about the new Wii balance board, a device that can sense a subtle shift in the players weight to do some genuinely great stuff, but thus far there hasn't been any games to use the device that really interests me.
In typical Nintendo fashion, they introduced this years pseudo-celebrity to push a new game. this year it was Snowboarding Gold medalist, Shaun White, for the new snowboading game for the Wii baring his name, much like the popular Tony hawk Skateboading games and adequately popular Dave Merra BMX.
It was a nice show, for what it was, but still didn't do much for the hardcore gamers. Skipping ahead we saw all the things we expect from a Nintendo show, most of which are just slide-show sales figures that show just how well the Wii is doing followed by President Iwata's speech on innovation.
One part that kind of caught my eye was more info (ie: actual in game footage) on the new Animal Crossing (City Folk). Along side it we also saw the new voice chat alternative for the Wii, simply called Wii Speak. A device that will be placed on or under the TV and allow for "group chat", meaning everyone in the room will be able to talk to the person/people you're playing online with, rather than having a personal headset.
Given Nintendo's emphasis on having people play together in the same room over online play it makes sense they would use a device like this so that everyone can get in on the game, even if they're not necessarily playing it. Also, it is safe to assume that most (or all) games that use Wii Speak will likely require friend codes to be able to actually talk to each other (like almost any DS game to use the headset).
The other device that Nintendo showed at E3 this year was the new Wii Motion Plus, an accessory that will snap onto the end of the Wii remote (where the nunchuck or classic controller normally connects) and allow for true 1:1 control where the Wii remote will be able to exactly mimic your arm and hand motions in real time.
Along with it they showed the game that will be bundled with the device, Wii Sports Resort. It seems the new Wii sports will have a handful of new minigames based around the beach that include Frisbee, a wave race-like Jet ski game and a sword dueling game, each showing how the 1:1 motion can be used to improve gameplay.
While that was all very cool to see in motion, I have only one complaint about the whole thing. Didn't Nintendo tell us that the Wii remote could already do 1:1 motion two years ago? Now they're telling us we have to go spend another $20+ to get our remote to do what it was designed to do? Will they release a new Wii remote v. 2.0 with the technology built in, or do we need to use the device and make our remotes just a little bulkier? If they don't make a whole new remote will the Motion Plus at least come packaged with remotes in the future as well as coming solo? if we do have to buy them separately, that means the full Wii controller setup will cost upwards of $85-$100 for each controller.
Anyway, all that aside, the new Wii Music game looks like it could be fun, as long as the game doesn't just auto-play itself with you only selecting the tempo and there still is no answer to the Wiis storage dilemma, but overall a decent showing, just not a whole lot to really get me too excited yet. But the week isn't over yet.