Don’t think I’ve forgotten you; I’ve just graduated and am now wrapping up a few chores before I can get down and dirty with SPORE, my gaming culture essay and some Beyond Good and Evil.

So as a brief prelude to anything I end up writing this week, here’s a few quick impressions on what we’ve seen at E3 so far:

1) The economy is down, so E3 is very unimpressive. They’re still hyping it up quite a great deal, but coming from the mouth of attendees, E3 is not great this year.

2) Impressions of individual companies’s “big announcements”
Nintendo’s Wii “Vitality Sensor”: The day I need a game to remind me my cholesterol is bad is the day I need to stop playing video games because they’re becoming my mother. The design looks like it may end up being cramp-city. Also, I swear I’ve seen this device before. Didn’t we see a leak preview image of this way way long ago? I’m getting some kind of déjà vu that tells me this should look familiar for some reason.
It’s argued that maybe it could help the game measure which is the best time to COMPLETELY THROW YOUR WORLD TOPSY TURVY like in a jump-spooks horror game, but considering we’re dealing with Wii graphics and Wii hardware here, how smart could the game possibly be for this? Let’s not forget, Super Mario Galaxy may have looked great, but the AI (was there any?) was pretty much limited to “Here Comes Mario, Beat Him Up”. Resident Evil 4 had that same idea down: “Here Comes Leon, Walk Sluggishly Forward And Attack Repeatedly”. Then again, somehow Capcom made it work with Monster Hunter Tri, too.
So, Nintendo, any examples on how this thing will work? What actual uses it has?
Enough speculating; let’s move on.

Sony’s WiiMote: It’s basically everything the original Nintendo WiiMote was supposed to be in its proof of concept video, only with dorky colored balls at the end of it which I suppose are part of the capture process. But of course, if it’s a visual mocap process, there will be horrible glitches involved as with any motion capture technology, which makes me wonder why we are still bothering with freaking motion sense technology. At least they had a technical demo. It made Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s presentations look laughable at best–then again, it’s just a tech demo–the actual product won’t be out until Spring 2010, which means there’s nothing coming this year. Except Heavy Rain. Of course. Which looks as amazing as ever.

Microsoft’s Wiimote “Project Natal”: This is basically an awesome futuristic idea that will never work because Microsoft can’t make it do half of the things in this proof of concept video with any accuracy. It is a wonderful idea, don’t get me wrong. If this actually ended up being what this video makes it out to be, I will personally send a letter of apology to Microsoft, purchase an Xbox 360 and shut up. But I’m quite sure this will not be what it will be like–it’s a proof of concept video, used for patent purposes more than anything, and the likelihood that it gets up and running before Microsoft gets set on releasing the Xbox 1080/720/3/THE OTHER ONE is extremely unlikely. This “Project Natal” doesn’t seem to have any working prototypes, and might as well be Duke Nukem Forever with the amount of working product we’ve seen.

In short, E3 this year is pretty much how I felt yesterday, standing in GameStop, scanning the shelves and realizing I really didn’t want to be there. We’re hitting a low point. The economy is bad. The games are bad. The future looks boring.

We need saviors.

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Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer

Joystiq gave us their hands-on impression of a Heavy Rain demo/bonus level playthrough yesterday, and as I read it I kept having to stop myself from screaming again and again in pure excitement. Read it now.

Everything I remember from Indigo Prophecy/Farenheit that excited me about games as a storytelling/interactive medium is brought back and hyperextended by David Cage, founder of Quantic Dream and mastermind behind both Indigo Prophecy (known as Farenheit in Europe) and the new title Heavy Rain for the PS3 (also known as Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer).

Because most every hit on my website for the past few days seemed to have been somehow related to Heavy Rain (people continue to read my old Heavy Rain article despite the fact that I have written like, sixty others) I decided to continue reporting on every scrap of information I can get–simply because Heavy Rain really is pushing the boundary on games as a medium that should appeal to more than just kids and teenagers. David Cage has an interview up on Gamasutra in which he talks about a number of things, including his belief that games are really marketed far too much towards teenagers, a reflection of how the industry started: teenagers making games for other teenagers. Even a seriously gritty, mature work such as MadWorld seems to be a fest of all the things that a teenager would find cool, from badasses to blood to chainsaws. There’s also this video interview with David Cage to pore over in which he mentions much of the same thing.

And for now, that’s everything. I’ll continue keeping my eyes out for all information I can, including screens, videos and more, especially since I seem to be such a valuable resource according to search engines.

Thanks a lot for your reading, and I hope my providing concise information is of some use to you interested people!

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This just in: new screenshots from the highly anticipated (at least I’m highly anticipating) Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer. Pictures can be found here.

We see a girl, a motorbike, a man, and a knife. All of them look eerily real, and yet still have that uncanny-valley sense to them. Hopefully these beta images are just a shade under the final quality–or animating them will bring lifelike spark to these digital personas.

Source: N4G

PS: Yes, I am playing Soul Cal 4. More on that and some other things later.

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I missed Soul Calibur 3.

And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind getting a little shot at Darth Vader. No, he shouldn’t be in the game. No, I’m not going to buy the game just for him. But really, playing as Darth Vader and maybe even Yoda is admittedly pretty cool.

So I’ve had a bit of Change of Heart, and my opponent has stolen me for a turn and put me on their side of the field (curse you, Yu-Gi-Oh!).

The problem is, it seems like they’re looking to sacrifice me. And all of us.

From this nice analysis put up by “Mike Masashi Murakami III“, seems like Yoda will be unlockable on the PS3 version and Darth Vader on the 360 version–but only if you scrape up the cash as downloadable content. In other words, you have to go on the PlayStation Store or onto the Xbox Live Marketplace and buy something that’s already technically on your disk.

Now, I have absolutely no qualms with forking out money for stuff I don’t have. That’s the point of buying. But when I need to pay money to get stuff I already own, I get a little pissed off. Example: iPhone. I want to use my songs as ringtones. You’d think if I can put them on my phone and listen to them, I should be able to use them as a ringtone. Wrong.

Instead, I have to actually go onto the iTunes Store and buy them again. Not only that, but I think I need to pay a $1 fee to turn them into ringtones. That’s two dollars–for a sound your phone makes when it rings. You may think it’s not a lot, but two dollars is the price of a quarter gallon of milk. Two dollars is enough to buy some stuff on the PlayStation Store that I don’t own. Whereas these songs? I already freaking have them on my phone. Why can’t I use them?

That’s much the same situation we’re finding in Soul Calibur IV right now. I could pay money in order to be able to unlock Yoda on my game. It’s tempting. But at the same time, why should I have to? He’s already on my disk! Can’t I just, I don’t know, beat the game on Very Hard Mode without dying? What happened to unlocking content based on skill?

Mike Masashi Murakami III is calling for people to boycott the downloadable content for Soul Calibur IV. Maybe they’ll make it free if they see how few people are accessing it. Then again, why would they make it free? It won’t benefit them in the slightest.

So I guess we’re just royally screwed. If you 360 fans want Darth Vader, or if us PS3 owners want Yoda… we’re going to have to deal out the Washingtons. Or maybe even the Lincolns.

Or yen and Euros, if you’re that person.

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PS3 Prediction #2: A new color for PS3 will be introduced.
Expect some sexy new colors for PS3, many of which won’t appear in the US. Our European and Japanese friends will get special skinned systems for high profile games, like Metal Gear Solid. America may introduce a new premium bundle in White that includes an even larger hard drive and a hotly anticipated game.

PS3 Prediction #3: Video rental service will begin this year.
Sony will finally allow PS3 fans to download movies from the PS Store later this year. However, just like Xbox Live, the movies available will be rentals only and will require the PS3 to be signed into the PSN for playback. Sony won’t want to cannibalize its own Blu-ray sales with fully downloadable movies. At the very least, Remote Play will be enhanced so that you will be able to stream these movies to the PSP.

PS3 Prediction #4: Expect more price drops.
PS3 finally dropped to $399. Expect it go down even further later this year, so that it can remain competitive against the Xbox 360.

Silver PS3. PSN Video. New 80 gig at $399.

Wow. Hit it dead on the head. With a nail.

Of course, #4 is really a give or take, with the new 80 gig version not being the hardware everyone would like it to be. But damn. They’ve either got a mole in Sony or they just have good instinct.

One prediction left before the year’s over, guys.

PS3 Prediction #5: PS3 sales will get better, but won’t be able to beat Xbox 360 in 2008.
In spite of a much better library of games in 2008, the PS3 will trail behind Microsoft’s competing system. The PS3 will do stupendously in Europe and decently in Japan, but American gamers will remain hesitant about Sony’s system. Momentum will certainly help PS3, and critics and analysts alike will predict even better things for 2009.

Think this one’ll come true?

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I’m not one. I never was one. People, if I were a Sony fanboy, I wouldn’t carry my DS around everywhere. It’s in my backpack right now. I’m playing Animal Crossing. I have Jam Sessions. I loved Twilight Princess. I have a Triforce badge and I own original copies of SNES Chrono Trigger and Earthbound.

The thing is, Nintendo has let me down. Check this comic out, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Scott Ramsoomair knows it. I know it. We all know it.

And Microsoft has been doing things wrong from the start. Porting games to the PC because you want to sell more copies of your software is not good business for your console. You wouldn’t have to charge for online play if you just let exclusives sell your console. But Microsoft doesn’t care–they seem to just want to crush the competition. They deal out absurd amount of money to turn titles like Final Fantasy XIII and GTA4 multiplatform.

What happened to when we were all calling the Xbox 360 the “Xbox 180″? Why have people overlooked the hardware limitations and the RROD? Have we forgotten how cheap Microsoft has been with us? Are we all going to be hypocrites and pretend we like Halo 3 just because everyone else says they do?

Here’s Halo’s story for you: A race of English-speaking aliens whose ethnic groups don’t look anything alike despite supposedly being the same race put a jihad on humanity for no real reason and follow religious leaders blindly to a giant Ring Planet which is secretly a massive weapon (which, for some reason, is left floating in space, abandoned, and easy to access) designed to starve a race of evil crap that lives on it. A dude with no personality called Master Chief (why have people forgotten how stupid that name was from the original Halo?) blows up the ring planet. Then the aliens invade Planet America and afterwards teleport to another giant weapon, and then there’s seven giant weapons.

Then Master Chief just kicks everyone’s ass, practically alone. There’s also an alien called the Arbiter. He has no other name.

The only reason I’ve stuck with Sony–despite delays, broken promises, lost exclusives and titles that are not as impressive as advertised–is because they still release exclusive content and they still have the best policy and strongest hardware out there, trying to give people more power to play with when developing games, allowing them to do more and more. There’s a lot you can do with a pencil and paper, but Nintendo went for construction paper, and Microsoft turned into a printer. When are people going to realize what painting in three dimensional space can do?

PS3 is my only hope for this Next Generation. Come on, guys. Just try to break out of the box and look at the situation.

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Why am I the only person drawing parallelisms?

Anyway, to the conference.

The Good: Greatest Hits games being released. That means I can finally get Sigma for cheap. Though most people who have a PS3 already have these games anyway. It’s really just there to get people to buy more consoles since those games are cheaper. Revealing PS2, PSN and PSP content. The PS2 is still alive? Apparently. Even so much that it’s getting The Force Unleashed. How? Search me.

PSN Video is finally out, and I can rent movies without going anywhere. It’s not as awesome as Netflix, but who wants to pay for Live and Netflix subscriptions anyway? I don’t watch enough movies to care all too much. The feature is cool.

God of War 3 finally announced. Apparently the CGI trailer revealed at E3 is supposed to resemble the actual graphics of the game. That’s kind of scary. Now I’ll need to get it or be killed.

LittleBigPlanet is looking more cute than ever. Apparently you can make PowerPoint Presentations with it. You know I’m never going to use Office again. Sony is also getting two MMOs on the console: DC Universe Online and The Agency. Wow.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm and Fallout 3 (also out on 360) look great. Both are on my to-get list. I’m going to be poor.

Sony reveals MAG: Massive Action Game (or Mega Awesome Game in my book) which is finally what feels like an all-out war between two teams of 128 players, each divided into squads of 8, led by one particularly talented player. Lots of awesome.

The Bad: First off, I want to say that I in no way condone anyone talking like their console is cooler than sliced bread and sounding like you’re in an infomercial, even Sony. This goes for Nintendo and Microsoft, too. This E3 was filled with words like “successful” and “engaging” and “most” and smatterings of features everywhere (“Blu Ray Storage capacities” and “crisp high-definition” and “innovative gameplay”) and Sony was just irritating as they overflattered their system.

PS2 is dead. Leave it alone, Sony. They keep releasing bad softcore versions of next-gen games on the PS2 and Wii and it’s driving me crazy. Wii Rock Band and PS2 Rock Band were awful. Just get with the program.

Nobody likes Buzz. I don’t know anyone who thinks Buzz is a cool game. Why are we getting seven hundred different versions of it? And SingStar is fine, but do you have to make a new version every two months?

You talked way too much about stuff we don’t really care about. Also, releasing two MMO simultaneously is really bad business. Of course, Sony still hasn’t caught on to the MMO craze, since they’re responsible for the disasters that are Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies and The Matrix Online–all of which I have played recently and been frustratingly disappointed with.

What happened to Final Fantasy? Are you going to talk about it? Where’s FFXIII Versus? That’s still an exclusive, right?

And of course there’s the fact that the conference was mostly filled with fluff of developers talking about how awesome the PS3 is and not about how many other games and features we want to see. When’s Home coming out? What’s the new stuff Kojima’s working on? What about Zone of the Enders 3? Or Heavy Rain? The elusive Quantic Dream title was shown behind closed doors, but why?

Sony has plenty lined up for the future–they just refused to share it with us, and instead gave us a lot of lofty crap about how awesome they are. At least they didn’t throw too many numbers at us like Nintendo did, and end with words about how much they’re not a fad. But still, the lack of information was bothersome.

Also, the PS3 80 gig at $399 is not a price cut. It’s a 40gig with 40 gigs more space. Not that Sony ever said it was a price cut, but it was conveniently misleading. So while it’s better for the buyer–get a bit more bang for your buck–remember, it’s not the same as an old 80 gig, which has a few hardware advantages.

In the end, I liked the Sony conference. I had my qualms with it, but I hated the other companies’. I guess you could say that makes me a fanboy, but to be honest it’s just logic that goes into my appreciation for the PS3. The Wii is an overhyped gimmick. The Xbox 360 is a faulty tool that doesn’t push next-gen far enough. In the end I like the flashiest, most powerful and most accessible technology. I don’t pay monthly fees and I don’t have friend codes to bother with. The PS3 and I are a perfect match.

Sony is just evil.

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Final Fantasy XIII no longer a PS3 exclusive. An Xbox 360 version will be released in Europe and North America on the same launch date as the PS3 version.

I think I’m justified in feeling terribly betrayed right now, since time and time again the world was assured that Final Fantasy XIII was to be a PS3 exclusive–the trailers had logos on the end that read “Exclusively for the Playstation 3 System”, the rumors were quelled time and time again, really–we all thought we could trust Square Enix. They have Sony’s back, we thought. Sony saved them when they were drowning after FFX-2 and Spirits Within. They gave them a huge chance with Kingdom Hearts–it’s the only reason they’ve been able to explode back up. And now this.

I can’t imagine the amount of money that must have exchanged hands for this to have occurred–Xbox 360 must have realized they didn’t have all that much in their 2008 lineup and called up Square Enix, begging for a slice of cake. I do, however, get the feeling Square won’t be having to merge with any other company anytime too soon.

To give some good news, Final Fantasy XIII Versus remains a PS3 exclusive, and XIII itself will of course still be released on the PS3. But Square has wounded me this time. I’ve been able to forgive and forget time and time again. But this? This is betrayal. I’ve been stabbed in the back. And not only me–I get the feeling Sony didn’t know about this announcement either. Nor any other Playstation advocate out there.

Square Enix, you’ve got to win back my respect and my approval. Both are gone for now. You have one more chance: make these two games so spectacular My eyes pop out, or become dead to me from here on out.

Let’s hope you make the right choice.

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A while ago, months, I had been talking to my housemate and we started joking as I popped Uncharted into the Playstation 3, “What if PS3 games needed various disks? I mean, what would you fill up Blu-Ray disks with?” He mentioned textures having textures, and I laughed and replied that each molecule would be modeled in order to ensure the maximum possible true-to-life texture. At that, he mused, “It would be tight if developers could set up the code for molecules and how they behave inside a texture.”

As he said this, I suddenly remembered. They already have.

Read that article. Don’t just go past it and keep reading what I wrote. Just look at the pictures and videos if you want, but go to that site.

You did it? Good.

4D technology is essentially the use of algorithms to dictate the behavior of each pixel in a texture, affected by time and forces around the particle as if it were a regular bit of matter.

The amazing thing behind 4D technology which is slowly starting to appear in more and more PS3 games (mentioned in the article are Afrika and Killzone 2) is the way the algorithms programmed into the world allow for minimized use of textures, and yet manage visuals that far exceed most anything games have come up with so far.

That’s great when you’re doing things in High-Definition, where a low-res texture is going to look like utter crap. And if you want to fit thousands upon thousands of gorgeous upscale textures on a single Blu-Ray disc

The reason I’ve mostly used PS3 terminology is because 4D is simply not possible for the Xbox 360 and the Wii. They don’t have the power to parallel process all those behaviors. Without the core processor, there’s no way for a console to calculate the renders. So I once again wave my PS3 flag, and everyone continues to think I am a fanboy.

I really wish I could find positive things to say about other consoles for that very reason. But what do I do?

Anyway, we won’t see the use of 4D to its full potential just yet, but we will start to see games incorporating it rather soon. When this article came out, Killzone 2 was still heavy in development. Nowadays it’s scheduled for next year’s Q1 release (What? What happened to later this year? Our dear Delaystation 3) and who knows when Afrika will be released. Sometime next year.

Still, be on the lookout for this rising technology and its negative effects: soon, texture artists will not be as needed anymore, or their function will change. Get ready to no longer seek to make the greatest upscale texture possible but the most condensed, quality texture in the minimum amount of space. Be prepared to see this lose people jobs and create ones for new skillsets.

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I loved MGS4. Let’s start out honest. I adored it. It was gorgeous, and exactly the kind of thing I want to see in a game. At the same time, I understand exactly why some people were more than disattisfied with acclaims from all over calling this a “Near Perfect” game, not to mention IGN’s PK Rockin’ Omega score of 10/10.

For a great number of people, MGS4 felt like a huge cutscene: a very pretty, very lovely cutscene sometimes lousily voice-acted with occasionally very tacky dialogue. The actual gameplay takes up maybe half of the game, while the other half is comprised of immovable cutscenes that pull you through a gargantuan action story that drags on and on. Were you to be able to compile Metal Gear as a movie you would easily have an 8 hour action adventure epic that would be very difficult for the average moviegoer to understand.

That makes a lot of people turn their noses up at the new Metal Gear, insinuating that it feels a lot less like a game and more like a big movie story you seem to have no hand in. However, what I realized as I was playing and feeling more or less the same along those lines was that there’s nothing really dictating what a game should or should not be comprised of. It was at that moment that I saw MGS4 as something quite different than what I had picked it up as–not as an intricate stealth game but an entire interactive experience, immersing me in the world of Metal Gear so deeply that when the cutscenes rolled around, I still felt like I was experiencing the action. Not to mention that occasionally the movie aspect was enhanced by gameplay aids, like the opportunity to “flashback” every now and then during cutscenes and change the camera’s POV in order to get different takes on the action and foreshadowing for future events.

The actual sneaking gameplay outside of the cutscenes is just as exciting and challenging as ever, with an even more fresh look and feel thanks to a great deal of Western adoptions by Eastern developers. The over the shoulder view, the ability to play through the entire game as Rambo as you like; all those things add a new flavor and style of playing the game that I couldn’t have expected. I’ve watched people barely using the OctoCamo, Snake’s brand-new, nifty equipment which lets him hide out and blend into his surroundings, and instead avoid enemies like mad by hotfooting their way behind obstacles and diving into cardboard boxes and drum cans. I’ve watched people take out enemies one by one, silently, using snipers and knives and a great deal of patience. My buddy Squall is trying to go through the entire game without killing anyone or being spotted once in under 5 hours on Extreme Mode, and after having ripped through most of the game with guns blazing and seeing his careful, precise art of sneaking, I decided to attempt to emulate his dedication. You can play this game in three dozen ways, and that’s just beautiful design to me.

To counter Tycho’s somewhat aloof stance on the game, I believe MGS4 can be just as much, if not more, a game about remaining undetected as any Splinter Cell or Assassin’s Creed, if not more so. You can even remain undetected to bosses if you’ve got your wits about you. The thing is, Metal Gear does not demand you play a certain way. It does not demand you kill or knock out–it encourages you to stick to Snake’s roots, but does not reprimand you for not doing so. You can actually unlock a few interesting bonuses if you go on a few killing frenzies. I think Metal Gear’s openess for gameplay and intricacy in its execution is spectacular. (Note: Tycho recanted a little earlier this week, so he’s been grudgingly let off the hook.)

But to go back a few steps, I have to agree with a few things being put out there. There’s nothing wrong with Metal Gear being over the top in story, but when it seems like the entire story is a gargantuan plot twist, the player ends up feeling a little bit alienated and confused, as if he or she has been led on a massive wild goose chase. Not to mention the fact that a lot of it is tackily written, which I tend to blame on localization. It also doesn’t help that we have some great English voice actors who are incapable of displaying certain emotions.

The game is still very satisfying to me, but not everyone has the intense analysis and following of Metal Gear characters I do, and therefore they wouldn’t be able to understand as much of the plot. It’s why Kojima very cleverly released the downloadable Metal Gear Database. But even the Database doesn’t give everyone what they want out of a Metal Gear game, and unfortunately there’s a crowd out there who just doesn’t like movie experiences in games, like Yahtzee, for example. There’s people who want the game to be strictly that, a game. As someone who loves literature and film and graphic novels, I have a slightly different focus in what I try to achieve with games. But that’s fine–nobody’s saying anyone’s right or wrong, we just have different end goals. MGS4 just happens to be one of the things I want as an end goal, with a few tweaks.

If you have a PS3, just get Metal Gear. It’s a great PS3 exclusive and most people bought the damn console for the game. I mean, even if you don’t like it, Metal Gear Online is the multiplayer shooter of the moment aside from COD4. Just get Metal Gear. Skip the cutscenes, if you like. You don’t have to watch them. Do yourself a favor and don’t be the guy who has a PS3 and doesn’t have MGS4.

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