Yep, just prepping myself for the long haul when this thing hits us tomorrow and I'm out of electricity and running water for the next few weeks. Not to mention no videogames:|.

Off to batten down my guitar equipment to the floor...
Take it easy guys

...P.S. I'm in Jamaica not Texas

* For those wondering I took down my last post as not everyone found it as cute as I did when writing it, and in retrospect I don't find it quite as funny anymore, so in the interest of me not being flamed, It's gone.

Now I used to be huge wrestling fan in my younger days, started on the "WWF", then moved on to ECW, and from there started taking in a lil' Puroresu (japanese wrestling for the unitiated) before kinda floating off wrestling, but being a big gamer , I of course played almost every wrestling game under the sun, first starting with all that crap on the nes, then that other crap on the Snes (WWF Royal Rumble), then lesser crap such as WWF Wrestlemania: Arcade and then bam I got WCW vs. nWo: World Tour on my Ninty 64.

World Tour revolutionized wrestling games for me, as previously I thought that they would not evolve beyond the previous high point of the sf2 esque control button mash fest of Wrestlemania arcade, but this game had that whole wrestling feel down pat, increased realism in the form of fatigue and broken arms, and a great control scheme that allowed you to do a wider range of wrestling moves than i'd previously experienced. So after this new found discovery and the subsequent discoveries of Revenge, No Mercy etc... I started doing a bit of snooping around and found that the engine for all the aforementioned wrestling games was take from another wrestling game from across the ocean in the land of the rising sun, (the name of this game was Virtual Pro Wrestling but that's beside the point) what happened next was me researching all manner of Japanese wrestling games in the interest of something good, found Fire Pro (and got subsequently addicted thus it can claim the no.2 spot as the greatest wrestling game ever) and then I found the subject of this article "Giant Gram 2000: All Japan Pro Wrestling 3" "THE BEsT WReSTLiNG GAmE EVaR".



This Japan only wrestling game for the dreamcast is developed by the once mighty Sega and is an example of what proper game design regardless of genre can acheive.Now while the title has Decent graphics (which of course might look shite' to graphics whores)the real meat of this game lies in it's stellar gameplay. The controls for this title are very intuitive, as instead of overrelying on a set of predetermined motions to execute moves, a lot of moves can be accomplished by simply being in the correct position in the grapple, want to perform a quick elbow to your opponent's arm, simple, just get get beside him and hit the strike button, just like that, no hitting up A B Right 360 setyourselfonfire and jump out a window to perform a backdrop (anyone remember Attitude?). The game also boasts a deep counter system based on the ole' paper-rock-scissors formula which in turn allows players to reverse any move and then from there have their reversal reversed and back & forth etc. Granted it's a bit arcadey and shallower in respect to Simulations like the Fire Pro series and that's one thing Fire Pro will always hold over, but thats nitpicking.




Another great aspect of this game is the innovative Create A Wrestler system. Instead of the usual assiging stats and perks to your created alter ego, you go and train him by squaring off against a wrestler of choice and having them perform moves on your caw to learn them, and from there you perform the moves to improve the potency of em as well as your overall stats. Pretty cool eh, why dont more wrestling and for that matter sport games make use of this?

Now here's a big hitch for casual wrestling fans, as it's a Japanese wrestling game there aren't a lot of recognizable faces in this game in fact, only Steve Williams and Vader may be familiar, and that's for wrestling fans who've been watching for a while, In addition the customization of your wrestler's looks is very limited in that while you can create a unique wrestling avatar for yourself don't expect to be able to create yourself in that hot pink sequined number you saw Randy Orton in on SummerSlam, and another thing some of the modes such as the Caw are very text intensive and this text is all in Kanji, so you may be pretty much screwed if you attempt to just jump in without either a) a working knowledge of Japanese or b) a faq, but that shouldn't detract you from giving it a try, it's a great game






note:-all shots take from Ign as I'm far too lazy to capture them myself.

yup made a banner at 3 AM and here it is, feel free to tell me how much it sucks or bask in the warm glow of my decadent banner...

Highlights

InFamous is an interesting PS3 exclusive, a standard superhero wannabe game, with a very rich looking setting, not sure how this one will turn out, as the only gameplayish looking clips I've seen so far, are one of the protagonist climbing a light post and another involving the use of some "psiops" esque powers, but whatever eh, I'll just keep it on my radar.

Echochrome
Wow my brain died when I saw this game in action, imagine one of those weird Mc Esher like pieces, and then imagine placing a puzzle game over it, where the only control you seem to have is to rotate the camera to solve them...but I digress just run over to Kotaku for a few images of this gameWeb link.

Killzone 2
Real nice looking graphics, not quite up the quality of the original trailer (as to be expected) but lookin better than a lot on the market (see Halo 3). However, After my initial hype at seeing it in action wore off, the excitement for this title died down quickly. You see, while it's a pretty girl, nothing substantial was show in the gameplay to dethrone my current TOP Fps (Half-Life 2), but all being said it still has a while off and we'll see how exaclty this PS3 Prime shooter does against the big guns (ooo accidental bad pun).

Downfalls

Metal Gear Solid 4...
Now I know a lot of the Fanboys are gonna jump on my case about this one, but really, show us some frickin gameplay already Konami. Granted that Duel between ***** and **** at the end was pretty cool (saving you the spoiler if you haven't already seen it) but the trailer did nothing more for me than to reveal that X character and X character were in the game, and that the graphics which Hideo seems so proud of, weren't looking so hot against the current crop of Graphic monsters. While I am a Big Metal Gear fan and will probably borrow/buy/steal a Ps3 for a chance to play this game, it doesn't exactly have me salivating right now. Hopefully TGS will set me straight.

PSN home
Sony tried to make Funny by doing a bit of acting in the PSN "Home" world but it kinda fell flat, this is how it went,Blah blah blah, virtual avatars in a virtual world eating Soy burgers,Kaz pokes fun at himself wit the old "Ridgee Raccccerr" joke,blah blah etc. nah this didn't get me, Neither does the whole concept of PSN Home. Not only does it look ridiculously cheesy like a bad Sims ripoff, but I can't see how this is going to add to my overall gaming experience as yet. Isn't it about time we take a step away from all the fluff* and hoopla surrounding "Next Gen" and focus on creating new gameplay possibilities?

*Granted this isn't half as bad as the two chunks of plastic Nintendo is hucking around these days, Yes, i'm looking at you Regginator... Wiiblaster my hernia.

New StarWars BattleFront Game on PSP
"ZOMGZ, CHewbacca! with a Darth Vader THemed PSP playing Battlfront 2!!" Wtf...please Sony, we know that a lot of gamers are big StarWars fanboys, but even they would have enough pride to notice that bringing Chewie onstage was a weak attempt to cash in on Starwars, to push the PSP handheld (now with a TV out, mind you..............lame).

One big thing that got me throughout the presentation was Sony announcing games such as Assasin's Creed as "Exclusive" to the PS3 console, which made no sense, as a lot of the games were shown just hours before at the Microsoft Presser as coming this year to the 360. Blame it on oversight, bad speech writers or simply, Sony tries to pull smoke n' mirrors and hope no one notices, but it really stood out as a weird moment for me.


In closing, despite all my criticisms of the Sony presser, I've gotta hand it to em, as while it wasn't incredible by any stretch, it was still the best presser of E3 07, showing off a few interesting new titles, whilst highlighting their current crop of games, they managed to keep me interestd. Besides the little Faux-Mtv Awards style presentation was a lot more energetic than the competition's.

Just watched the Nintendo presser and I can honestly say it was more boring than the Microsoft one.

Notes of interest
MarioKart for the Wii in 2008 with online play, A quick demo of Metroid Prime which was looking . slickish, Zelda Phantom Hourglass being demoed on stage (interesting enough but not mindblowing)
...not much else unless you count "Wiifit" introduced by the Great Shiggy, which is Ninty's attempt to get even broader market appeal by offering a Fitness experience involving a "Balance Board" (read Scale) which somehow translates pressure to in game responses such as spinning a hula hoop(whee), doing stretches(whoop dee doo) and Headbutting...soccer balls. There was even a Soccer ball heading showdown involving Reggie and Shigeru Miyamoto, of course Reggie won. With his massive Noggin He easily dealt "ultimate damage to weakspot".
Great....

Really I'm gonna be honest and just say that most of the presentation was Nintendo patting itself on the back and showing how theyr'e gonna widen their scope even more dragging in even more casual gamers, while apparently alienating Hardcore Gamers who bought their console to play videogames, and not get in shape or lower their brain age. Boring Nintendo, hopefully Sony's got a good show planned for us....just maybe.

P.S. a hilarious moment was when Reggie showcased how Nintendo was developing their online approach by showcasing all of five (yes 5) games to go online by next year....Wow Reggie...sucks to be you in front of all those crickets.

I'm sure a lot of you will echo my statement. Microsoft came, gave us the same stories we've been hearing for the past week or so, and guess what their big surprise was... A green "halo themed" 360...golly gee...wowzers. The event kicked off with a Halo "tribute" band, caprisomething or the other, performing the halo theme song, which while not horrible by any stretch simply lasted far too long, maybe if they had explosions,Masterchief playing Madden or some other mind numbing frat boy pleasing gimmick it would have come off a bit better on the crowd, but alas eh. Right behind this Halo Cover band came the one of the most "uncomfortable for Microsoft" moments of the night, only second to the "unveiling" of the olive 360, Peter Moore playing Rock Band with the Harmonix developers, wowch, first mistake was them picking some generic rock song which didn't exactly inspire any hope for me in the Rock Band soundtrack (especially now that Guitar Hero 3 has Welcome to the Jungle in their listing), and the second mistake had to be allowing Peter Moore to play..on stage...in front of everyone..., c'mon Pete if ya don't practice your instrument don't go up in front of a crowd of jaded journalists and clunk about hoping for em' to "Cum on Feel the Noize", the clinch however, was good ole Pete pausing the song halfway through, and then being unable to unpause it, wow...

Anyways, Microsoft covered the bases after that, some PGR4 gameplay, a rather uninspiring demo of COD 4 , now with More "Sean Connery" voice over , I put that last bit in quotes as I didn't realize that the Npc in question had a Connery-esque voice until they mentioned it, and even if it was Sean Connery, one well known old man does not equal interesting Demo Infinty Ward, cmon i wanna see explosions and.... running.... and random screaming. Next came Cliffy B with a quick demo of Gears Of War on Games for Windows, now with added content, blah Gears of War didn't grab me in the first place, and then Jade Raymond from Ubisoft (nerds from all over *heart" Jade) with a demonstration of one of the missions from Assassin's Creed, interesting enough stuff, even if I had read a writeup of this exact same demo earlier yesterday, so I wasn't too surprised. The game looked pretty good but had a glitch or two suggesting that a few kinks remained to be ironed out before it's fall release date.

At some point Moore talked about GTAIV and then proceeded to show/reshow the 2nd trailer which all of the interweb has undoubtedly seen by now. He knew this of course and merely added that it was running on the Xbox360 Hardware to try and lessen the sting of us being re-fed old fodder. (no it didn't help*sob* Pete, I want gameplay). Microsoft also showcased a quick new Resident Evil 5 trailer which looked pretty good, showing off the new outdoor setting of Resident Evil in addition with a lil' plot , with the country/nation this installment is set in, apparently in the midst of Civil War.

The biggest moment of the night for the boys at Microsoft, was the Halo 3 trailer, which, thanks to the fact that whoever handles live broadcast cuts at G4 apparently belongs to either the Sony camp or a troupe of retarded Crabcreatures, was cut in half for Ads.....Grr. In any case the graphics looked only slightly better than the multiplayer Beta, and showcased no interesting gameplay mechanic/plot twists (keep in mind that I didn't see the whole trailer and as such am free to shoot myself in the foot later) but looked decent enough.

But wait, where's my Metal Gear Solid 4 announcement, or a price cut, or even new games in development? Nope Microsoft showcased nothing to whet the hardcore gamer's appetite and all in all gave us a fairly generic presser, but there's still hope as theyv'e promised to bring home E3 like they did last year so maybe we'll see a few demos in the coming days, and there's also the third party developers who'll possibly give us a glimpse into the future of the 360. Microsoft has gotta be a little nervous now though , as the other guys (Sony and Nintendo) have a pretty good chance of blowing away this presser, and should endeavour to do so, but please Nintendo, no Super Mario Level 1-1 cover bands. Thanks.