New evidence to support moon theory!

Why would someone on EARTH have the EARTH in the background sky? Unless the moon now has land, water, and an atmosphere. Check and mate.

is this….

a) The Moon

b) The Desert or some shit

c) some other place that’s not the fucking moon seriously why would they be there

chime in and help us settle this dispute once and for all!

No I did not go to E3, but instead watched all the press conferences from home, streaming. For the most part E3 was kind of boring, which has been the general consensus. I’m not sure if it’s because the women are gone or it’s the realization that it’s looks a bit like a 6th grade science fair now. There were not big surprises this year, but rather a showing of some more solid games, with no real huge titles on the horizon. Killzone 2, FFXIII, and Resident Evil 5 are still far away from getting crammed into consoles, but I’m pretty sure we’ll make do until then. Afterall, isn’t the joy of E3 finding games under the radar and raving about them? It might be, but since I wasn’t invited, I wouldn’t know that (hint, hint ESA).

Before Sony’s press conference started I started doing lines of coke because I wanted to make sure Sony and I were on the same page. You know, thinking that I was a Superbowl QB for the Ravens and Sony thinking that they are on the edge of beating Microsoft and Nintendo. Okay, enough of that for now. Biggest thing for Sony this year was probably PSN. Sony is trying to pimp the hell out of PSN as being a service which can rival Xbox Live for online marketplace/hub dominance. New content will be added like movies and TV shows. I don’t know who exactly has been clamoring for that sort of thing but they need to shut the hell up, because as of yet, game consoles are still not or even close to becoming the premiere method of getting visual media. I appreciate it, but I would really prefer more game content and better methods of communication with friends. I sincerely hope that Home will be the creature that puts all of that in motion, but sadly I don’t know when that will be. No ones knows when and that’s somewhat of a disappointment. After showing half of the show in the Home world last year, I was hoping for a release date, but instead I saw Jack Tretton parading around while not giving anyone specific details.

Well, it’s E3 time! Guess what Sony will do next? Go on, guess. Wait did you say announce another PS3 sku? Oh, well, you’re right. It’s a new 80GB version that doesn’t have the backwards compatibility of the past 80GB PS3s. I guess it’s safe to say that Sony has completely given up on backwards compatibility. If you want your PS3 to be backwards compatible you’re going to need a 60/20GB PS3 or duct tape a PS2 to your PS3. I’m also happy to finally see some Greatest Hits games come out, games like Resistance 1 and Motostorm will be there which is good news for me because I dropped the ball on the PS3 launch. The PSP is still chugging along and is doing surprisingly well in Japan. The games have finally arrived and are strong games and not just ports that everyone has been complaining about. It’s new big game is a Resistance game. Not a whole lot to say about the PSP to be honest. It’s just…there.

Little Big Planet continues to be Sony’s newest and by far most interesting in-home game. A demo was shown on stage and it really appealed to my sense of simplicity. It’s definitely worthy of appealing to a wide audience. Of course if that isn’t the case, Ted Price from Insomniac games came up and showed off Resistance 2 which appears to be a solid shooter. A teaser trailer for God War 3 was shown and that’s all I’ll say about that…alright, fine, it’ll probably be the same thing you saw last time. I can’t confirm that because it was a teaser trailer, but whatever, it’s at least a solid game the PS3 needs. Ratchet and Clank have yet another game, it’s a good series and all, but don’t go overboard.

Sony has definitely won in terms of games, with a variety that can appeal to just about any gamer. I’d like to see the PSN network address it’s main issues such as having a more unified ID system for all games. Getting Metal Gear Online to go is still a chore in the sense that you don’t actually go in with your PSN ID, but rather separate game ID. I’d like to see that sort of thing reduced

Nintendo’s press conference was by far the shittiest, and no I won’t hold back on that because it’s the truth. I don’t know what it is. Once again, and if your keeping score it’s about 10 years and going strong, there was a severe lack of 3rd party support. I don’t really know who’s at fault here, it is that developers still have a vertical thought process and that games should look better technically or that Nintendo has provided a console that nobody knows what to do with. Animal Crossing seemed to be the only real conventional game that Nintendo pushed out for the Wii. That’s right, I shit you not, Animal Crossing was one of their big games. So what did they do for most of their time, well, they did exactly what they did last year which was put out of another Wii *insert word here* “game.” This year, it’s Wii music. Now, in spite of my pessimism, this doesn’t look that bad. For one, I don’t have to buy anything else or have more useless shit packed in with the game; it needs only the Wii remote. Then reality set in as I read impressions of the game and its planned features. It’s geared towards that party/family group and as such probably won’t be played often by the lone man. Over 50 instruments are supposed to be usable in the game and I’m really curious to see how that works. Especially if pressing the buttons is somehow supposed to generate music that’s even a bit coherent. Wii Sports Resort was next up which is basically more of the same you’ve seen in the bundled Wii Sports. The change this time around? Wii MotionPlus. Fuck. For a second there I thought I would get away from talking about Nintendo and E3 without mentioning a new peripheral. Wii MotionPlus is attached to the bottom of the Wii remote and is supposed to add more precision and accuracy to movements of the Wii remote allowing for a more real time response on-screen. I personally never had a problem with the current Wii remote’s performance, but apparently Nintendo felt it would be necessary for Wii Sports Resort’s apparently high demand for accuracy on the level of NASA space launch.

The DS is still waging war against the Wii in civil war of sorts. In attempt to garner the attention of the more adult aimed PSP audience, Nintendo announced Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Hmmm, GTA on the DS. You know what? I say good for Nintendo, because you got a big name 3rd party franchise on one of their systems. I don’t know how it will look or play, but I’m willing to give it a chance just because they didn’t cram it with another horrid Mario spin-off game.

Nintendo, please, I’m begging you, do more or at least try a little bit, I promise, I won’t hate on everything you do. The one thing Nintendo needs to do more than anything else is get the Wii on shelves. To this day here in the US, you cannot simply walk into any store you want and get a Wii unless you have some sort of strategic plan on par with a CIA covert operation. I don’t expect the Wii to be competing with PSN, let alone Live, but I simply ask that they get a better online system, and this year they dropped the ball on that. Wii online is still as cumbersome and poor as ever and nobody at Nintendo seems to give 2 shits about. Of course if I was raising my earnings expectations every other damn day, why would I care about that. This whole Wii generation of party games and shit really does seem like a step towards the casual, maybe even the less casual 9-5 worker and older family member crowd. Now, that’s fine and all, but let’s not forget that you once made triple A titles and franchises for the Wii. Remember when Miyamoto showed off Twilight Princess while brandishing a sword and shield? I sure do. Remember when Miyamoto dragged Reggie Fils-Aime’s awkward ass on stage to play Wii Fit soccer? As long as I take these green pills I don’t.

Microsoft seems to be in somewhat of a hot potato situation. For the time being, they have the ability to challenge the Wii for top spot, but look jittery and trying to quickly find anything to keep and expand its audience. Halo is gone for now and no one knows when it will be back, sure there’s Halo Wars, but what about that big-time game that attracts the best and worst of Xbox Live into the same place? Ah, yes, Gears of War 2. Aside from GoW2, which has had media coming down the pipe pretty quickly, Resident Evil 5 got a release date for the 360 as well as the PS3 along with a demo that looked great and seems to follow-up on the foundation Resident Evil 4 made.

I heard something about Final Fantasy XIII coming to the 360, I bet no one really cared about that. It’s probably even less likely that anyone went onto internet forums proclaiming Sony’s doom and Microsoft’s victory. Surely none of that happened, but just for kicks, let’s say FFXIII was actually coming to the 360. I would say that’s extremely good news for Microsoft struggling to reach out to the more dedicated gamer crowd (a.k.a. “hardcore”).

The biggest news outside of FFXII was the new Xbox Live redesign. Everything will look different, but kind of looks like the Aero view on Vista or at least will remind you of it. Virtual avatars, clearly taken from the Nintendo box will also be there. So if you’re scrawny, pasty, acne riddled white kid, you can at least misrepresent yourself on Live as a 7 foot tall black guy and until someone hears your voice you might be able to get away it. It’s a nice visual change for the system simply because the current blade system can be a bit redundant. Half of the stuff on the Live blade can be done on the games blade and so forth. It looks functional and as long as it doesn’t brick my system as other update have been shown to, I’m on board.

Nothing major this year. No new controller that everyone was expecting, just some more games. Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, and Fable 2 seem to be the type of games that the 360 has been welcoming with both arms for a while now. Microsoft really needs some more games. I know they’re trying one big shooter every year won’t cut it. The console itself is solid in its base now it just needs the games should be their big picture. The new Xbox Live system is a nice change, though not exactly revolutionary or even edgy, but it’s at least something to keep Live from falling behind PSN. Hopefully next year there are some new franchises to jump on board with.

Shitty or the shittiest E3 of all time? I go with shitty, because for a second generation of games for the PS3 and Wii, and a third generation of games for the 360, I didn’t see a whole lot to get excited about that I wasn’t already fully aware of. Now, I didn’t go in expecting to hear things like Halo 4 or that Rare would start producing games that didn’t suck ass, but rather to hear about some new franchises and a few big name games being shown off. Aside from the games I mentioned earlier, I didn’t see a whole lot of either. I hope next year’s E3 offers a bit more, to be honest I’ll even be in favor of the Tokyo Game Show taking over E3’s duties as the premiere expo for these sort of things. E3, shape up. Microsoft, do something new. Nintendo, do something old. And Sony, just do something.

Published by: SquareEnix
Developed by: SquareEnix
Score: 65

Telling people these days that you loved Final Fantasy Tactics doesn’t really surprise anyone and you’re usually met with more praise for the game as well as “deep” tactical discussion. However, telling others that you’re a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics…Advance doesn’t bring the same reaction. Welcome to my situation because I am in fact a fan of the original Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (FFTA) which originally appeared on the Gameboy Advance. Recently released is Final Fantasy Tactics A2. Notice how they ditched the word advance? The removal of that word, however, may be applicable in more than one way as you’ll read.