Geek on Stun

Bullpen Style

I have post-E3 partum syndrome.

• The newest Sega Ages collections will make it to the United States, apparently.
• Fat He-Man and Christopher Reeve versus a copulating George and Barbara Bush? How about some leftist politics and damning of the Windows sticky keys "feature" while you're at it? Ok, BushGame it is, then.
• It's almost summer blockbuster time! Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Spider-Man 2, The Chronicles of Riddick and their respective video game counterparts aren't for off. It's not exactly the Siliwood (ug...) envisioned in the early 90's, but movie-licensed games are getting better and better. That means it's time to finally snatch up some more John Carpenter properties, like: They Live, Big Trouble In Little China and Escape From New York. Come on! They Live would be an amazing first person shooter/adventure!
• Where did all the good Game Boy Advance games go? I haven't touched mine for months.
• Finally, I call bullshit on this editorial that goes nowhere and says nothing at top volume. First of all, the author moans that "one parent’s lack of attention means my own blood wants in on a game that boasts virtual rape". He's talking about Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which neither boasts nor contains "rape". Yes, you can have a woman get into your car, then, while you both remain completely stationary, the car will rock from side to side, your health meter will increase while your cash decreases and then she gets out. That's it. No one's boasting about that, except some giddy-as-a-schoolgirl guys who clearly have too much time on their brains. Second, he lambasts Manhunt under the assumption that "shock is all that matters now, everything else is secondary". How about we play these games before we write about them next time?

The Bad E3 Report

There is no doubt that E3 is a lot of fun, but it can also be painful and tiring. Its packed with pushy, chubby punks, surly, over-tanned booth girls, loudspeakers cranked to 11, and in-your-face N-Gage reps.

It looks like the guys at Penny Arcade hated everything I liked, so here's what I didn't have fun with at E3 this year:

• War: The Expansion - Huh, good God y'all, cool it with the war already (and the colons while you're at it). America's Army: Special Forces Overmatch, Battlefield 2, Battlefield: Modern Combat, Brothers in Arms, Call of Duty: Finest Hour, Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, Men of Valor, Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, and ShellShock: Nam '67 were all vying for attention at the show, but they all blended into one washed out war experience. With action games like Doom 3, Halo 2, and Half-Life 2 present, too many of these games felt like last generation fare.
• Starcraft: Ghost - Maybe I just didn't get it, but this felt like another generic third-person action game with annoying controls (note that I played the Gamecube version) and a questionable frame rate, not the high quality gaming experience I would expect from Blizzard.
• Bacon-wrapped hot dogs - Ug.
• Waiting in line - Granted, Valve put on the best display for Half-Life 2 that I've ever seen, but was this something that required over an hour wait? E3 is loud, and the audio was important to the experience, but couldn't they have had these demos running round the clock in a booth in the Concourse Hall? Doug Wood was accommodating, answering a question or two after each session, but he should have been spared the sauna that was the ATI demo booth and let everyone watch the demo. Over at the Doom 3 preview booth, the class war was in full effect, as we were shooed away by the smug suit who didn't like our credentials.
• $10 AA batteries and $3 Mountain Dews - You fuckers.
• Rumble Roses - This game is goofy as hell, with a mud wrestling feature that would offend even the coolest girl. This was just campy in the wrong way for me.
• Few or uninspired EyeToy games - Sega SuperStars uses the EyeToy to massively underwhelming results. DDR Extreme has somewhat cool EyeToy support. Harmonix EyeToy: AntiGrav kicks complete ass on the innovation front, but no one seemed to care.
• Infinium Labs and the Phantom (Gaming Service) - Apparently the Phantom Game Receiver plays Unreal Tournament 2004. After a handful of yawns, taking in all the confused looks, noting all the future lost shirts and explaining to people what I think the Phantom actually is, we moved on.
• Nothing from the ICO team - Hello? NICO? Where are you?! Give us a sign!

E3 sucks. I can't wait for next year!

The Good E3 Report

I'm back from Los Angeles and E3. I didn't play Doom 3, Half Life 2, the Nintendo DS or the Sony PSP, but I did play some very good, decidedly fun games. One of the difficulties of playing a game at E3 is that you generally have about 10 minutes worth of playtime before you start pissing off the guy behind you, which doesn't leave you with much time to familiarize yourself with the control scheme and get some good impressions of what a game has to offer. Playing Silent Hill 4 at the show was a fruitless endevour, quite the opposite of playing Gradius V.

Since I don't have media giant access to a bunch of great videos (that's what Gamespot is for), I'll just tell you what I had fun with at E3:

• Gradius V - Spot-on control, simply beautiful graphics and classic Gradius gameplay, plus two-player simultaneous play made Gradius V one of my favorite experiences at the show. Also, it has a mid-range price ($29.99 at EB). Well done, Konami!


• Katamari Damacy - The Namco booth was filled with yawn-inducing sequels (Tekken 5) and me-too gameplay (Death By Degrees), but this previously mentioned title was playable and extremely fun. A simple, tank-style control scheme and cute, stylized graphics made this a must-have (for me anyway), but the camera could definitely use some tweaking.


• Blood Will Tell - Known as Dororo in Japan, and based upon the manga of the same name, this Sega game was surprisingly fun to play despite being one of the 3rd-person action/adventure games that seem to be glutting the market. Again, the camera was troublesome in spots, but the control scheme was easy to pick up and the action was fast and furious.


• Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - Clapping your hands and smacking conga drums are the only way to control Donkey Kong in this musical platformer. Again, simple controls made this another reason to pick up the finely crafted conga drum controllers for the Gamecube.


• Killzone - First, let me just tell you how much I dislike playing first-person shooters on a console: I dislike it a lot. Now, let me tell you how much.. fuck it, I loved playing Killzone. Excellent graphics (for the PS2) and intense gameplay combined with a smooth frame rate, plus free beer from SCEA made this the game of the Sony Meeting Room.


• Burnout 3 - Not only were the developers extremely nice, they made a kick ass game that kicks ass. I couldn't be more tired of racing games, but when the objective is to smash the crap out of your car and run your opponents into the walls, I get giddy. Easy to pick up, a joy to play, Burnout 3 takes all the pain out of a racing game and leaves only fun.


• Astro Boy - This Playstation 2 game, while, at times, difficult to control, made for an enjoyable experience. I was definitely put off by some of the camera difficulties, but the game still has potential. Hopefully, Sonic Team will take the few remaining months it has left to tweak the control scheme and camera issues and make Astro Boy into a day-one purchase.


• Transformers - It may already be out at retail, but this was my first chance to pick it up. Reviews have only been above average so far, but my 15 minutes with the game was a hell of a lot of fun. The transforming aspect was extremely cool, the control was tight, and the license was handled well. Thank God we're beyond Beast Wars!


• Half-Life 2 - No, I didn't play it, but the 30 minutes worth of demo that Valve presented got me more excited than any other game at the entire expo. It was just plain fun to watch. The announcement that Counter-Strike (and the original Half-Life) had been ported to Source, the Half-Life 2 engine, was pants-wettingly exciting.

Other games that I didn't get to play, but spent a good deal of time watching were Final Fantasy XII (which smacks so much of Vagrant Story I will have to pick it up), Resident Evil 4 (which looks to breathe new life into the series) and Doom III (which actually looked pretty damn good on the Xbox).

I also had fun outside of E3, including a trip to the Getty, a facility so beautiful it warrants a Counter-Strike map and, following day 2 of the event, we took a ride over to the Little Temple bar in Santa Monica for a night of video game inspired performances. We were treated to an informal Street Fighter II tournament (I lost twice as Dhalsim, then won six matches as E. Honda) and a set from the honorable Daedelus.

Good times. Good, extremely nerdy times.

Look for The Bad E3 Report and some photos of the event soon.

Infinium Announces Phantom Game Service, Fails to Mention Games

This press release (PDF) should contain everything you need to know about the forthcoming Infinium Labs "game receiver". I won't bore you with all the details but should point out a few interesting facts about the Phantom:

• "The receiver for the Phantom Gaming Service can sit in any room in the home, connected to the TV and any broadband Internet connection, and be used by various members of the household at different times of day." This should allay any fears that the Phantom game reciever is powered by the moon or that it has mysogynist tendencies.


• "Should the hard drive approach capacity, the service will recognize this and will manage the cache in the background, invisible to the user, removing those games that were played least recently." I'm sure that this sentence is intended to be read as "The user will be able to manage his or her current library of titles and determine which games to remove from the drive."


• "In a game industry first, the company plans to provide the Phantom Gaming Service hardware free of charge to consumers who sign a two-year contract for a basic subscription to its flagship online gaming service at $29.95 per month." I guess this is technically correct since a free Dreamcast based on a 2-year subscription to Seganet was billed at $21.95 per month.


• "With the Phantom Gaming Service, publishers can get a title to gamers within hours of when the gold master is cut,” Bachus said. “They hand us a disc, and we’ll do the rest, making it available to consumers in record time because we don’t have to deal with physical manufacturing and distribution." This sounds like a great deal for development houses who do not plan to follow a traditional publishing model, but I find it hard to believe that traditional publishers will allow any release to be available on the Phantom Game Service in advance of its appearance on retail shelves.

More questions than answers, I'm afraid, come from this press release. However, at this point, the one answer I do have for Infinium is "no thanks, not interested".