Manual is a collection of a few of my favorite web authors brought together with a common theme (“how to…”) and meant to be read far away from a computer screen. I naturally skipped a lot of the articles and went straight for Scott David Herman and Kevin Fanning.
Agent Collier and New Deep Cover Agent Horvath infiltrated the E3 again today, but were unable to penetrate Rockstar’s GTA: Vice City blockade. Oh well, the game *was* just announced like last week. If they don’t have a Delorean in it, I will boycott on principle. Didn’t see amazing skateboarding like I did last year. Chris Gentry, Kevin Staab, Neal Hendrix, and Shawn White were all at the halfpipe, but none of them were quite up to what Bucky or Mr. Hawk busted out with last year. My main game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 was somewhat underwhelming, as was the show in general.
Last year we had two console debuts, and the PS2 really coming into its own. Metal Gear Solid 2 was on the way, and stopped crowds everytime its video played. There was really nothing like that this year. DoomIII had a two hour line to see a 15 minute making-of clip. Mario, Zelda, and Metroid will all be amazing games (unless they *really* drop the ball) but none of them are revolutionary in any way. Well, Zelda really does look amazing. Not quite like anything around, but it also doesn’t scream “we have just reached a new level in gaming.”
This year felt more like a trade show. As in: “This is our Fall line of games. Would you like a t-shirt?” Burger, fries and a soda cost $10. And they suck. Everywhere is crowded, especially Nintendo. Booth babes are veeery few and far between, unlike other reports. You start to realize that there really are a lot of really crappy videogames out there. Did you know that people still develop for the Super Nintendo? Scary, ain’t it?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m incredibly glad I attended this years E3, but following last year’s show is a difficult act. I got to play all of these amazing games (the big Nintendo ones, THPS4, Shinobi, FinalFantasyXI, and more that would take too long to mention), and I got to play my beloved Super Monkey Ball 2. Sega developing for Nintendo at its best. Leave it to monkeys in hermetically-sealed see-through balls navigating labrynths in search of Dole bananas to brighten my day everytime. Thanks monkeys. Thanks a lot.
Agents Collier and Neely have infiltrated E3 once again. We are tired. We would have liked to see more booth babes. Alas, not enough thongs. Oh well.
Zelda is great. I eat my words. Oh well. Amazing graphics, but its a looong ways off. Mario is…well, its Mario a la N64. Fun, but not groundbreaking. Very pretty though. Metroid has loose controls, but is coming along very nicely, and it is reminiscient of the old NES classic in every way. Nintendo has the most fun at its booth, thusly it is the busiest, and I find myself staying away from it more than I’d like.
Grand Theft Auto 3 is having a sequel in Vice City. More of a semi-sequel, it’s set in Miami in the 80s. Very few games make gamers excited with the phrase “set in the 80s,” but if you know GTA, then you know that this is a great idea. Tomorrow I may press my media crendentials and get a private Vice City screening at the Rockstar booth. We’ll see. It’s not on the floor, so private screenings are the only way to go.
What else, uh…Microsoft seems to be just like last year: not bad, but really kinda dull. Nothing to really grab you. Tony Hawk 4 is has a demo on every system, even Game Boy Advance. One of its levels is very reminiscient of UCBerkeley, and in the Zoo level, you can dodge monkey poo.
This little press room has about 70 computer stations, and they’re all Macs. Thought you guys would appreciate that. I feel incredibly hardcore posting from the media center. It’s amazing that I’m here again. Kevin has skills that we should both fear and respect.
If anyone has anything specific they’d like me to check out tomorrow, lemme know. Agent Collier out.
There are some new retooled iBooks out this morning. They have finally managed to surpass the old G3 PowerBooks.
Yoda kicks fucking ass.
So, I live in Qwest land, and in Qwest land you are basically going to sign a contract, pay out the ass, pay for installation, and get a shitty ISP if you want DSL on the Macintosh. So, being the frickin’ cheap skate nerd I am, I ordered MSN for Windows with no installation fee, a free month, no contract, a USB modem/router, and no Mac compatibility. Now, this sounds stupid so far (especially considering I have 3 macs that I want to put online), but I figured, shit, it’s DSL, it’s TCP/IP, I’m cheap, I can share this through a PC and figure this out… So I dust off my last remaining PC, delete linux, find a pirated version of windows, install it, boot it up and run the MSN installer and it fails horribly. I think, hmmmm, maybe I can just plug my Airport into this USB modem that just happens to have a fucking ethernet port (liars) as well and guess what, it just fucking works. Gotta love pure standards based TCP/IP networking. Gotta hate Microsoft and there bullshit marketing of compatibility requirements to keep us Mac users feeling left out when in reality they are lying to us as usual. FUCKERS.
One down side to my new wireless DSL access is that I have to bay those bitches every month, I have been assimilated, I am now part of the problem.
On the upside, the PC is going back into the dusty old closet and the connections dont have to be shared through some shitty wintel box.
Episode II: Saw it with my 4-year old today. trying to view it from his perspective and remembering what it was like to see the first ones when I was his age, I think this one (and the last, for that matter) were fine additions to the list.
Why do so many people I’m around think otherwise? I think the reason is because these films don’t have the same oomph as the first series. To this I would say that the lack of interest you have is not because of the movie but because of yourself. You saw this series first when you were a child and were enchanted. You’ve seen the new ones as an adult and are not. This is not Lucas’s fault, it’s yours. The fact that you/I are incapable of having a movie affect us like we used to and like our children are is by no fault of ILG. We cannot suspend our immense disbelief long enough to accept terrible dialogue, and we cannot forget the mass amounts of marketing long enough to enjoy it without thinking about how they’re going to try and sell our children on this starship or that trooper.
But if you go back and view the first (last) three, you’ll find exactly the same dialogue (if performed by perhaps a more suitably put-together cast) said the same way, and still, you’ll find those 3 to be better than the latest 2. Why? Because you still hold onto those from a child’s perspective. And if you go about the difficult task of viewing them objectively as an adult, you’ll probably find yourself wondering why you even thought those were half as good as you did. And then you’ll come to the conclusion that hey, it’s just a movie and that it’s time to enjoy the newest ones as much as you can, because you’ll set yourself up for disappointment if you try to enjoy them as an adult. It’s what happened to me 2 years ago with Phantom Menace and I’ve resolved myself to enjoying it as much like a child as I can.
Oh, and seeing Yoda prove the reverence felt by his fellow Jedi was cool.
Hey! The fourth one down (ServiceObjects) is a client of mine. Yipty. Via 2Things@1nce
