Rob Galbreath .com

As a bonus from yesterday’s zero-sleep-in-36-hours event at the hospital, I feel inclined to double my workload on this blog.  Productivity ahoy!  (Mind you, I really just want to talk about how pumped I am to have reserved tickets for The Dark Knight opening today — I’ll see it tomorrow, and heaven help you all if you spoil ANYTHING!)

Because of E3, a term familiar to all hardcore message board users became a common word among gaming journalists.  That word is Megaton.  Megaton was a term to explain the massive amount of knowledge and unveilings that would either wet or cream the pants of all who hear it, and thusly E3 has been known to create hype about said Megaton.

So where was the Megaton?  Was it PlayStation 3’s upcoming MAG game?  Was it that Nintendo is finally getting a Wii Remote upgrade by forcing consumers to spend more money on their controllers?  Was it Square-Enix’s surprise about Final Fantasy XIII coming to the console for North America and Europe, although still not allowing said consumers to play Versus and Agito?  Did it come from the games, or did it come from game companies and their efforts to upgrade their consoles via firmware?  Who really copied one another, and which will win the console war?

The answer lies in the past, another historical lesson that changes our future.  E3 2006 put way too many expectations on E3, and E3 2007 placed some mediocre announcements last year.  This year, players were hoping once again that E3 was back, and it was certainly better than last year.  But the overall impressions from E3 were that more could have been done.  Are we spoiled?  Do we have too many hopes for games that require years of commitment?  The answer may surprise you.

If you were a Nintendo fan looking at the conference, you should be disappointed.  Hardcore fans had nothing to do with this E3, and I really don’t know why Nintendo bothers spending six and seven digit numbers on something that could have been done in two or three press releases.  Either way, the reporters would have gotten the information out to you and likely in a better light.

If you were a Sony fan, you have much to anticipate.  While I can’t promise that people are going to buy your console in the coming year, there’s interest and desire to see more.  Granted, all your console does is lose exclusives and fails to keep up to Microsoft’s unveilings, but the console may be worthwhile in a long-term financial goal.  Now considering the economy, I don’t think that’s going to happen.  Sony needs much more to impress the gaming industry, and XIII Versus/Agito should have been shown in greater detail to keep gamers interested.  I can’t imagine why Square-Enix showed up at Microsoft’s event and not at Sony’s.  Something seems fishy.

If you were a Microsoft fan, cheers!  You win!  At least for this year, because the Xbox 360 could possibly go the way of the Dreamcast if developers aren’t satisfied with Microsoft in the coming years.  My guess at this point?  Not going to happen any time soon.  Microsoft has a solid foundation, one that publishers love and developers want.  There’s a reason why all of these exclusives are moving to Xbox 360, and trust me: it is NOT cheap to just port a game over after investing all of your time on a single console.  This is a huge statement to fans: Microsoft is clenching on to the gold, and could likely win this generation.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Sony does still have the upper advantage just like the last two console wars.  Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are among the leading software titles that bring console purchases, and there is no exception to this rule to date.  Both Konami and Square-Enix have some major pull in our industry with these two franchises, enough to generate sales even when the consoles look down.  Despite Final Fantasy XIII being cross-platform, the two other sequels to the game are very much exclusive.

The only issue we face now, and has been the issue since 2006, is value.  Is PlayStation 3 worth the money to buy the console and everything that comes with it?  Mixed reactions may ensue, but hardware sales are providing a better answer.  Microsoft is still leading Sony by five million consoles worldwide, but it’s not impossible for these two franchises to give Sony that push.  Sony had a very bad start, but I can’t say they’re out of the race just yet.

And as always, commentary will change daily.  As long as there’s new news, announcements, press releases, and changes to value, these opinions will last all of 24 hours until the next big release comes out.

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At E3 2006, Sony was sure of themselves.  In fact, they were full of themselves.  There was a condescending attitude to the competition that they were the far superior developer with a track record of blowing away the competition and redefining the industry.  They were right, at least for their time.  But as all dictators learn, undermining the little people always leaves you like Ozymandias.

E3 2007 changed that attitude, being more respectful of the competition and realizing that consumers are going to jump ship if the platform does not deliver.  PlayStation 3, for two consecutive years, has not delivered any good exclusives and managed to lose exclusives like Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero games, Assassin’s Creed, and now Final Fantasy XIII.  Things are looking up in Japan, but North America and Europe are not happy.

This year’s press conference proved to be one of their better attempts at drawing in the market.  Focusing on the big win of Blu-ray discs, PlayStation 3 is currently one of the better Blu-ray players on the market.  It offers firmware updates and backed support from Sony that is second to none, pushing for their sales in discs that aren’t as accepted as they could be.

MAG alone is this year’s PS3 megaton.  A home console delivering over 250 players on the screen at once is not only astonishing, but a true revolution to shooter games.  Way too many people?  You better believe it!  But something that epic can’t be all that bad.  This could put Halo to shame, if done correctly.  Mind you that map levels, editors, stages, creative weaponry and replay value make a shooter, so we’ll watch this in the coming months.

Little Big Planet.  Now here’s a tough one.  I enjoy the game, and appreciate its style, but I wonder if this is really a gimmicky sort of game.  The concepts are easy, there seems to be no difficulty factor in any of it, and it’s basically a level developer with a preview button.  This has always been a great demonstration game, but I wonder how far it will go.  I don’t think Little Big Planet is a bad idea at all; I just don’t believe that it will sell expensive consoles.

HOME still interests me, but nowhere near as much as when it launched.  HOME would be great for a console with a much greater ownership, and PlayStation 3 dropped the ball enough times that it won’t be a great experience for another 6 or 7 years.

But PlayStation 3 may or may not have that sort of time.  PlayStation 1 and 2, just as they presented, took a while to catch on.  People bought them, but the real software that changed the industry had not come out until a few years later.  This is true, and is also a fact in gaming consoles.  The first one or two years may not represent the console at all, and the race could still change around tremendously.

Will PlayStation 3 win out eventually?  That’s way too hard to say.  Xbox 360 has more momentum than ever before.  But the presentation was strong.  They knew to play the industry’s history, and that’s exactly what they did.  PlayStation 3 is indeed futureproofed, but what is a futureproofed console if nobody buys it?  Let’s see what the marketing strategy will be, now that they’re losing even Square-Enix to cross-platform gaming.

But is anyone else tired of hearing about PlayStation 2 games?  Sure it’s still selling like crazy, but why do people at E3 care?  They don’t, and those games really needed to be kept to about 10 seconds of the presentation and nothing more than that.

Sony keeps touting that this is the year of the PlayStation 3.  Well, it could be.  But at this point, that’s really hard to say if such a year will be 2008 or 2009, and everyone already owns an Xbox 360 by now.  Can Sony really go up against the odds?  Let’s watch and learn.

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I will not have my evaluation of the Sony Press Conference until tomorrow.

To my defense, I have not slept.  I was in the ER for eight hours, the third time since Friday, tending to my mother’s illness.  I’m low on energy, I can’t assess the entire conference without being brief and that’s not fair to anyone.  I want to ensure that quality content is provided here, not some half-assed, unfair advantage or disadvantage to any of the hardware companies who invested months of time and effort to make these possible.  As this is my own blog, I do not have the ability to rely on other writers to fill the gap when there is a personal issue like this (and won’t have a team until later).

While I can imagine fans to be distressed and fearful that this will happen often, I can assure you that these blogs are posted during set-aside hours away from these events.  My only real issue today is being too tired to focus.

You can count on the Sony coverage.  And I will do my best to secure time to evaluate E3 as a whole sometime next week.

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There’s a sense of been there, done that with Nintendo’s press conference.  The Kodak once again hosted Nintendo’s unveilings of Wii Sports, people playing games, and Iwata can’t believing that he sold millions of “bathroom scales” (his own words), and self-proclaiming themselves as we’re innovative, we’re innovative, we’re innovative.

Mario and Zelda developers are hard at work, and that we can expect some new games coming out for the Wii.  It’s good to know that we won’t have to wait for another console to see their next games.

And sales, statistics, sales, sales, blah, blah, blah, we don’t care.  Stop touting your own horn and get to what’s coming out.  This might be interesting to me, but people want a new game unveiled.

Grand Theft Auto: China Town for DS sounds relatively interesting, but why no screens (at least at the conference, let’s hope TakeTwo is planning some unveiling today or tomorrow)?  Especially if it’s coming out this winter?  And what are all of these ideas about having airport baggage claim checks via Wi-Fi  through your DS?  These ideas are great, and they’re investigating them, but there’s no Wi-Fi on a plane while you’re waiting for the next flight.  Wouldn’t your on-hand baggage be stolen while checking your DS?  These are just jabs at the concepts, but there wasn’t anything really concrete for us to see.  That’s pretty disappointing for a visual presentation.

Wii MotionPlus.  I don’t know what to think about this any more.  After two years of the console being available, Nintendo is finally promising real motion controls on their console.  Up until now, we’ve had cheap reverse IR sensor tricks to keep the console price down and third party developers angry at the limitations they’ve had with their games.  Now all of a sudden, we have to buy more to our existing controllers just to get the feel of the promised experience of that many years ago.  It sounds exciting, but do we really need to buy more for our controllers just to get that experience?

Microphone technology, while intriguing, isn’t innovative — it’s fan service that’s too little and too late.  While certain editors can whine and bitch about Microsoft stealing Miis from Nintendo, it could equally be said that Nintendo is stealing ideas that work from Microsoft.  Granted, microphone technology is pretty standard, but avatars have been around long before Nintendo.  So I see a lot of idea exchanging back and forth, and anything at this point seems pretty late in the game unless there’s substantial backing.  And let’s credit the REAL innovators in these two scenarios: the PC hardware industry.

Swordplay sounds fun for the new Wii Sports title, but it didn’t seem fully 1:1 from what they were doing and what was on the screen.  It was a lot closer and more precise than what we have, but I’m wary whether or not that is just a beta test or the final deal.  We’ll see soon.

There was excitement back in 2006 when E3 Expo unveiled the Wii, and that excitement today isn’t even half the dB of what it used to be.  Nintendo should have shown more games, more interest, more developers, and got the third party companies interested in their hardware.  Is it really just about their hardware?  What about the developers?  What about the consumers who already own a Wii?  C’mon Nintendo, you could have at least tried getting some footage from Konami!

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Microsoft’s conference presented some amazing titles last year, further expanding on their domination of software sales and tapping into the casual market.  Once again, they manage to keep people interested and smash the competition by stealing everyone else’s exclusives.

Take Nintendo, for example.  Microsoft announced a new interface to the Xbox 360, one that seems a bit slow in its E3 presentation.  Stealing the Mii concept, Rare managed to pull off some rather impressive character designs that split between the cartoony look of the Mii and the overly fashionable HOME characters from PlayStation 3.  The result is rather intriguing, but nothing too astonishing.  It’s more impressive to note that players can rent a movie and watch it together even when miles apart, but exploration and movement with the characters seems rather limited.  No 3-D environments to walk around?  No fair, Microsoft.

Sony received a wonderful, swift kick in the balls as a tap on the shoulder in the final minutes of the conference left one of the Fabula Nova Crystallis games open for Xbox 360.  For non-Latin speakers, Final Fantasy XIII will be available on Xbox 360.  Noting that the other two XIII games are still PlayStation 3 exclusive, one can only imagine that Square-Enix is patiently waiting to see which one sells more, and then eventually give the other two exclusives away like a hooker giving away his/her dignity in the red light district.

But in all seriousness, this is quite possibly the best news Xbox 360 RPG fans will ever receive at E3 2008.  Mad props to Square-Enix for taking what little PlayStation 3 still holds dear and smashing it.

Even more impressive is how open good ol’ Alex Rigopulos from Harmonix was to unveil 80 tracks for the upcoming Rock Band 2, including all forward compatibility to Rock Band downloads, and even more impressive to make all of the songs from Rock Band 1 to be free exports to the new game.  Lazy bums across the world rejoice in knowing that their first Rock Band disc can forever be lost after purchasing the next iteration of stardom.  If you’re unaware of the song list, YouTube the songs immediately and a vast majority of them will be recognized for anyone familiar with life outside the cave (trust me, you just don’t know the names!).

This impressive feat also threw Guitar Hero World Tour into the mosh pit, where no one caught it, landed face first, and is currently in intensive care at the local hospital.  Without Guitar Hero World Tour announcing all of their music, the impressive feats of Rock Band 2 may crush preorder sales unless something is done immediately.  Activision, we know you’re listening!

Another one of the very impressive games to be coming out is Viva Pin… damn, I almost said that without laughing.  Casual gamers are in for a treat, however, as NetFlix, NBC Universal, Mr. Rawry Lion Metro Studios, and the new avatar system kicks up the console into a new way.  Is it worthwhile?  Hard to say, but I personally wish I could keep my operating system blades.

Gears of War 2, even for the uninterested gamers, impressed with some amazing detail and play mechanics.  This one was worth wasting countless minutes of the conference, and it’s destined to nab all of the first game’s audience.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 will likely become one of the most loved Live Arcade games to date, as its predecessor on an outdated one-player experience showed the world how amazing Bizarre Creations can be to its fans.  Sadly, South Park will likely be crap just as its Nintendo 64 iteration proved to be just as bad as the cow launcher: a device in said game where the cow is launched up in the air and its anus is wrapped around you until you die without any chance of survival.  Without screens or anything substantial, the cow launcher may prove to be the perfect symbolism.

Primetime is also interesting, but we’ll have to see how that goes.  1 Versus 100 does sound like a really fun time.

That’s my update for the day.  Tune in Wednesday as we take a more in-depth look at Nintendo’s conference, with Thursday dedicated to Sony.  These are not to be missed.  But if you do, come back and you’ll have the whole overview here!

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My one paragraph of personal life: My mother was rushed into the hospital Friday morning, released in the afternoon, I took her home, went to work, and received a call that she was being rushed back into the emergency room.  What a crazy weekend.  When the other sites launch, I’d like to turn this blog into much more.  I won’t be attending E3 this year, but I think there’s a chance someone very familiar may be going…  I may have said too much!

I’ve read some interesting information on CNN regarding one of the new technologies that will be implemented into Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.  Apparently they will be using the “euphoria” system, which is renowned in Grand Theft Auto IV for making people move and seem real in a living world.

While euphoria is a new system, it’s critical to note that most games with bad AI (artificial intelligence) tend to be bad single-player experiences.  This was the case with Red Steel in both positive and negative, as the characters displayed the best and worst of a risky intelligence system.  While they were able to lift up tables and shoot at players, there were other instances where they would run around in circles having no idea what they were doing.  It’s impressive to think two opposite examples could be in the same game!  (Or is that disappointing…?)

But for its time, it was becoming more impressive.  Since Grand Theft Auto IV, we’ve seen new advances in the way the AI reacts.  (For retro gamers, AI was known as CPU, or “The Computer” — these two terms are still used for Artificial Intelligence).  AI allows games to seem realistic by studying and emulating real people in ways that the old systems had no chance of attempting.  That goomba that Mario just hit?  He knows nothing other than to walk forward.  These days, goombas would stop, look, check out the pit in front of them, and walk the other way.

Speaking of good technology, Xbox 360 has kind of sort of dropped its price, but not really.  Offering a larger hard drive and cutting out the 30 GB hard drives, Microsoft is allowing more content for the same price.  The 30 GB hard drives will now be $50 less, but they’re sold in “limited quantities” — that’s retailer speak for “we need to get rid of these things and not sell them any more.”  But who knows, maybe Microsoft will want to keep the low-cost 30 GB consoles around to increase their install base.  It’s pretty solid as it is, but PlayStation 3 will soon be gathering exclusives that Microsoft wants.  Badly.

So what’s the winner of this past week?  Why, Castlevania of course!  Not only do the screens for the Wii version look amazing, but the DS is equally as impressive with the mysterious new female character.  Not to mention that you get to play SIMON F@#$ING BELMONT in the Wii fighter!  Alucard, Maria, and Dracula are all confirmed, but time will NOT be a factor in this fighter.  Expect a few more belmonts, and maybe a few surprises from those support characters in the recent games *crosses fingers for worst character ever: “I am the Dark Priest called Shaft!” (Symphony of the Nights)* …  And DS-Wii connectivity?  Something tells me that new girl will make an appearance.

I think that’s all the time we have for today, kids!  Tune in all over the Internet for coverage on the E3 Expo!  I’m rather relieved to not be covering this event after a few years of staring at every drop of information before our tens of thousands of readers had, so now it’s nice to be like everyone else and watch from the sidelines while the real heroes go out and find your exclusive interviews.

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While I do love your ciabatta bread meals, your McDonald’s don’t have something I am eating right now: Crispy Asian Chicken Salads.  And they are really, really good.  So this is a nonviolent protest to bring these delicious salads to your country.

*Ahem*  That is all.

(Why isn’t E3 here yet?)

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How will games look in 10 years?  What can we expect from the industry?  Most importantly, how do we find credible methods of analyzing the trends of video games without pulling crap out of our rears using fake Jamaican accents?

The answer is all in the cards, err, the past!  The better question we need to ask ourselves is how video games have changed and what sort of improvements have developers found to be most successful?  By analyzing this industry through what is most profitable, we don’t need a crystal ball to tell that the future of gaming looks pretty colorful and bright.

The model console this generation is the Xbox 360.  While the Wii and PlayStation 3 made great strides in changing the industry with alternative methods, third party game developers made more money on Xbox 360 games than any other.  Just like the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, the trends of better graphics and more content proved to be a worthwhile cause.  Take into factoring the interest of third parties and the technology available, it’s no wonder why both consoles found themselves successful.

PlayStation did not introduce the CD-based console, but it did create momentum for the new disc-based format.  Nintendo 64, headed under President Yamauchi of Nintendo, lost itself because cartridges were approximately $30 to create alone, not counting what was on the discs.  When discs are made in mass quantities, they can be as cheap as pennies and provide more money to developers, publishers, and all the little people paid along the way.

PlayStation 2 introduced the DVD not only as a worthwhile gaming format, but pushed the entertainment industry past the VHS days of old and into a new era of digital entertainment.  After years of VHS, the entertainment industry desired a much-deserved format change with better quality, less irritation, less worries of magnetic erasures, and a great method of fast-access storage.

Now the Xbox 360 managed something even more unique: a standard of innovations like achievement points (something that PlayStation 3 is now FINALLY receiving), full integration of downloadable content in games and new software, new media methods that don’t require a high-definition player, and several years ahead of the competition to establish a very large library of games.  Xbox 360 truly pushed above and beyond the standard by innovation, even without the need for motion controls.  Most importantly, developers made money.

By following these trends, the next amazing console will not only increase the graphics and sound, but push for the Blu-ray format after the interest increases and North America is forced to change to digital broadcasting (the United States has its date set and coming soon).  PlayStation 3, while wonderful at trying to push Sony’s product, was way too early in the game.  People are still not flocking to the new format because there’s not enough interest with 1080 upconversion DVD players, imitating the quality to beautiful detail.  As the system was above its time, it would likely sell better in the coming years.

Another critical part of the new generation is to push the graphics as far as they can go, but will 1080p be the new standard?  This is a relatively difficult question, as most games are running smoothly at 720p.  When games run at higher resolutions, it takes more power for the console to show off what it can do.  More textures would be allowed on the screen moving faster at 720p, and most people can’t see 1080p on their televisions if it’s not at least 40″.  For those who say they can for smaller televisions, even 20-20 vision still can’t pull it off.  Sorry.

Gamers are also expecting more from their consoles.  Graphics can only take people so far, and the introduction of achievements and online gameplay has raised the bar in the industry.  We may expect a whole new interface to the consoles, or even something similar to HOME if developers can work fast enough.  Microsoft is likely to implement some variation of DirectX 10 into the games similar to their Windows Vista, and Sony will definitely be ready to counter them after the PS3 debacle.

Oh, and watch out for those controllers.  Those nifty little devices seem to be receiving improvements regularly.  Maybe it won’t be all motion control, but finding a new means to add fun to the games is not too far off.

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The gaming industry has moved from simple paddle-and-ball screens using black and white images to full high-definition experiences in widescreen format.  Yet in the digital transition, some developers have utilized Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, Virtual Console, WiiWare, Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network to push for new content that would otherwise never make it on a full game.

Using these new formats, game developers have the option of either making entirely new games, or reviving older ones.  Take, for instance, Final Fantasy IV.  The game began in Japan, became Final Fantasy II across the rest of the world, became one of the most critically acclaimed Final Fantasy games, received a ported version over to the PlayStation console, received an improved port on Game Boy Advance, and once again returns to the handheld market as a fully 3-D game on Nintendo DS.

Circa 1995.  Chrono Trigger opened the portal… the time portal! (Okay, okay, GATE!)

Similarly, games like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger also, respectively, received and will receive ported versions to the handheld market.  After nearly 15 years of these games releasing on the home consoles, players still purchase what they already own.  Why would people buy the same product all over again, and in what other industry would people buy a product they already own?

The gamers’ market is based on the model available at the time, and the life span of a console.  In the case of most, the Nintendo Entertainment System has had too much dust blown out of the console to where it is barely playable, and much of a chore to have a game working throughout a full experience.  On similar account, most gamers have had their controllers broken or lost parts over the past two decades.  Factor in the life span of some internal save game corruptions like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and it’s no wonder why the Game Boy Advance and Virtual Console received ports of this game.

If your NES could speak, this is what it would say.

Another advantage to these games are additional content for players.  Final Fantasy VI received entirely new dungeons, espers, and boss battles to extend the gameplay beyond that of a standard game.  Final Fantasy IV received a lengthy underground battle that pits the personalities of each character against lunar challenges.

Then there are hardware advantages.  Xbox Live Arcade touts high-definition gaming and revamped color schemes to visually upgrade a game’s design, oftentimes from the ground up.  Similarly, Sony’s PlayStation Portable has more room for graphical improvement and can stored movie clips to help make the gameplay seem more realistic, like Final Fantasy I and II, which received a higher graphical improvement since the original NES game, and its ports on the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance.  The Nintendo DS has several advantages, including touch screen functionality, more storage space, two screens, a microphone, and cross-compatibility with the Game Boy Advanced game plugged into the slot.

Final Fantasy IV bosses: Revamped to be the prettiest girls on the block!

Statistically speaking, major software design companies can maintain profit by releasing games on cartridges and discs.  While the sales of individual game releases are rarely provided to the public (unless you’re Bungie with Halo), game companies rarely have losses in their quarter and fiscal reports despite releasing older games.  Because most smaller companies recognize the failures in too much investment for too little gain, Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare are perfect examples of affordable experiences without expecting too much money spent in the company and gamers paying too much out of their paychecks.

Another critical issue is replay value.  Konami released Frogger for Xbox Live Arcade, Nintendo released practically every first-party NES game on the Game Boy Advance, Atari released Warlords on the DS and Live Arcade, and timeless games spanning up to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night managed to score big points for gamers.

Frogger is revamped in widescreen glory!  …ish…

Capcom also permitted Super Street Fighter II Turbo to be remixed on Xbox 360, launching in the relative future.  Other remixes of Capcom games include Resident Evil, MegaMan Anniversary (among several other MegaMan games), and Bionic Commando.

In fact, very few, if any, gaming company hasn’t released a port or remake of a classic game.  Is this to say that the new games are devalued and lost in over 30 years of great games?  The answer is no, as the next-generation consoles continue to pump out sequels and new experiences unlike anything this industry has seen.  Yet while maintaining these differences, the gaming industry manages to pump out a wide array of nostalgic gaming with new experiences.

Truly a great time to be a gamer.

I have yet another “mini” vacation, this will be my last one.  In light of American Independence Day, I will be doing what most Americans do: go sit out in a cold tent and freeze my ass off while eating canned foods in the middle of the woods.  I will be off until Wednesday, so stay tuned for updates then!  Happy trails, and let’s hope it doesn’t rain!

Square-Enix has released a section of their official site called CTDS (C.hrono T.rigger D. S.), containing the ever-famous time clocks.

While this is highly speculative, but extremely likely with the recent GoNintendo find of an advertisement for Chrono Trigger DS.  Mind you, no North American release is set, no European, and not even an announcement.  But the sheer thought of this is freakin’ AMAZING.

If you like any RPGs at all, you MUST purchase this game.  End of story, end of post!

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Rock Band 2 came out with the one request I’d been harping Harmonix with: will Rock Band 1 songs be compatible with Rock Band 2?  And the answer is a resounding yes, so I think I now have to encourage everyone to go out and buy Rock Band 2.

Although I hear a lot of issues about “hey you can make songs on Guitar Hero!” that really isn’t a great idea.  You see, a great song takes hours, days, weeks, and sometimes longer to create a really great song.  The dedication is so immense that most people give up easily or make the worst strum-to-sound combinations ever.  Think of PERFECTLY hitting a song the first time you play it.  Impossible, right?  And how long does it take to 100% that song?  Well, imagine doing that every day for weeks to ensure that you have that single song correct that you yourself made, otherwise everyone is playing the wrong notes and has to perfect being wrong.

I’m in some talks with a few game journalists right now, so I can’t spend any more time writing this blog.  Enjoy yourselves, I am back from vacation!

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I likely will not update my blog until Tuesday of next week, as my vacation days are leading me to Toronto for a celebration.  For that, I’ll try to make three blogs into one today!  How’s that for dedication?

Electronic Arts is noting a sooner-than-later approach to peripherals, and we’re expecting to see some of these at this year’s E3 Expo.  Now it should be noted, and defended, that one year ago I said that peripherals simply do not work in this market without some major support from development companies.  That much is finally beginning to change.  With the Wii being so easy to develop controller shells for in this market, developers can make affordable pieces of equipment without damaging their budget.  Thusly, EA echoed that notion by stating that they won’t be going as far as a Rock Band bundle.  While Rock Band was an impressive game and defied the market with constantly-updated song lists every week, this unprecedented achievement came from promises of continued support for the peripherals.  Would it have made this much money with no continued support?  Probably not.  And would Guitar Hero IV be something to talk about if they hadn’t announced that you could create your own songs?  Very unlikely, as replay value is a major factor in peripherals.  They go hand-in-hand very often, if not always.

Electronic Arts suggested that this will be an affordable piece to the Wii, which is likely to announce some form of peripheral akin to Mario Kart Wii’s steering wheel.  Not to say it will be a steering wheel, but it’s likely that something similar will come of it.

Next!

Xbox 360 will receive yet another long title to their list: Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.  Try saying that a good 20 times without pause!  Mocking the Street Fighter II names aside, the real mockery might come from graphic artists, who have ripped apart the artistic style for this game since its first few images of Balrog’s Vegas stage.  This isn’t to say that Street Fighter II is renowned for its incredible background graphics, but it’s safe to say the unproportioned characters will be the least concerns of the overall gameplay.

How do you play it?  Purchase a copy of Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3.  I know you won’t.

Next!

Nintendo is working with Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation to donate more than 5000 “fun centers” equipped with Wii consoles to over one thousand hospitals.  This is nothing new to Nintendo, as the company has often donated consoles to hospitals since the Super Nintendo Entertainment System equipped with Star Fox (the original, not N64) games.  Having played that myself in the years of junior high and having my tonsils removed at a local hospital, the marketing is not only impressive but worthwhile.  Nothing says “relax” like destroying flying vessels with your lasers.

Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles is having an unveiling tonight at 10 a.m. Pacific Time Zone.  If you’re in the area, you’ll hear the story of Allen Alvarado, actor and recently traumatized car accident victim, and how Nintendo’s fun centers helped return his motor skills.

Next!

I know this is an old game, but it’s still fun to talk about!

Final Fantasy XII continues to be a great way to waste an entire day, which is exactly what happened yesterday.  For those unfamiliar with this iteration of the franchise, XII allows up to six players with one guest.  While only three players are allowed on the field at a time, all six players are with you in your menu screen.  This means that, in order to reach the level of your guest at Level 18, you need to jump all of your crappy characters from Level 13 to Level 18 twice.

Now this sounds terrible, but there are a few things that makes the game interesting.  While only your three players are gaining experience, the other three are also acquiring License Points for you to be allowed new weapons, armors, status abilities, and other fun jobs.  So really, leveling up twice also means doubling the amount of abilities you have.  There’s awesome bonuses hidden in the charts, so the experience is really fun for something so monotonous.

The second thing that makes this interesting is my personal favorite: respawning treasure chests.  After a set period of time and returning to an area, the treasure chests return!  How awesome is that?  So while you’re wasting phoenix downs and potions on the battle field, it’s easy to accumulate lots of items so long as you don’t have your characters wasting them.

I hope this was enough to satisfy for the next several days!  My fingers are rather tired!

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What have I been doing all weekend long?  Why, creating beasts!  Before Spore is launched later this year, Maxis had a BRILLIANT idea to launch Spore Creator demo for free online, and charge $10 for the full character creator.

While I won’t recommend that everyone run out and spend the $10, I know that I did and love every minute of it.  Though I wish I could create more humanoid characters (hair or a decent mouth, anyone?) after purchasing the creator, I’m rather pleased with the system.

My advice is to go to http://www.ea.com/spore/ and download the free demo of the character creator.  Mind you, this is not the game.  All this does is create characters, but it’s simple and innovative enough to create some really incredible beings.  I’ve made a homage to Final Fantasy, and will eventually share those characters via YouTube when I get a chance to perfect each.  My Bahamut is incredibly wicked, and is quite possibly the funniest dancer of my creations.

If you like the Spore Creator demo, I’d recommend buying the $10 full version.  Most importantly, I’d advise doing that right now.  You can literally have hundreds, if not thousands, of your own creations before the game is released.  This is a very fun experience, and adds real life to an upcoming game.

Historically, I can’t recall a company that released their character creator so early before the game itself!  But from a gamer’s perspective, this is truly ideal.  By spending this time casually forming one’s own creatures, being able to share them online, and exchanging new ideas before the game’s launch, this provides a whole new experience for gamers and developers alike.  Not only that, but cooperating with YouTube to send videos of these creatures out gives a very fast and easy way of spreading the word.

Play around with the character creator demo first before purchasing the full version.  If you like it, go for it!  I’m anticipating Spore to spread the word much faster with this available!

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With all of the new projects and ongoing life changes over the past few months, things have been relatively hectic and needing priority.  Among those things is a day off, which I took the honor of having at Darien Lake in New York.  For those unaware, it’s an amusement park.

So where did the nickname “Raging Rob” come from?  Well, it came from an amusement park ride from this very place.  For a summer during my college years, my former relationship found me a job there.  It wasn’t the greatest job in the world, but there were 12-hour work days for 6 days a week.  Overkill for summer work, but it ranked in enough money to sustain myself.

The ride was known as “The Raging Seas” — a rotating ride that had boats automatically flying back and forth while moving around in a circle.  Not too bad for children, but quite crazy for the drunkards who are bouncing up and down while swiveling back and forth on a ride moving around in circles.  Motion aplenty!

Any ways, employees hated running this ride.  I was the only person who thoroughly enjoyed it.  I would make jokes and start songs for people to sing along and dare people to win dumb things like another ride without waiting in line by having them sing the loudest, or make the dumbest of faces towards me and the first person that could make me laugh would win.  So my boss knew to put me on that ride regularly.

Photo of The Raging Seas, copyrights to Flat Joint.

The Raging Seas, for that year, became known as The Raging Rob.  Sure there weren’t any sign changes or notices about that name change, but the campers in the back area who stayed for a full week would start chanting my name in line or such.  I had a lot of fun with it, and I think a lot of other people did, too.

Raging Rob stuck for about two years after that.  When coming up with new ideas for video game features, I was heavily influenced by Bill Donahue’s (formerly from Ultra Game Players, now PlayStation Magazine) Jaded Gamer.  Ironically, both of us were from the same area and within a decent driving distance of that very park.  I spinned the feature enough to not tread on his direction, but create something more in tuned with sarcastic with, akin to Gamer Hell podcast (although, admittedly, I had not heard this podcast yet!)

So that’s the story.  As more features and expectations came from my other projects, I found that Raging Rob was too good of a feature to turn into a half-assed sequel like most video games.  I’d rather have it remembered as something great and unique, not another need-to-make-another regurgitation.  Not to mention a lot of other pressures that I have mentioned here and there, but let’s not get into those.

Wow that was a long explanation!  And I wanted to talk about indie developers.

I’m intrigued with another New York state gamer, and that is James Silva.  He made Dishwasher by himself and will have that available on Xbox 360.  Dishwasher is a one-man project designed to break the tedious work of hundreds landing a major project.  I will address these issues in the coming months, but consider how these projects could affect the future, and how the past has since altered our perception of indie gamers.  What sacrifices are made, but what pros are there to projects like these?  Oh, how exciting!

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This has been a very bad day for me.  I’ll spare the details and get into what interests people.

The book is coming along, and really not that bad at all.  The names of the players, and their personalities, really shine through this book like a video game (which, mind you, is becoming more and more acceptable as one-word videogame).  The style is very nicely written, and I was impressed to know that the person who wrote this book also claims to have coined the term “The Governator” for California’s AH-nuld.

I should have more updates on the book, and perhaps work to see what kind of interviews I can get.

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