Sleepy Gamer

I know the Net is already saturated with God of War III info, but I thought that I should share my 2 cents.  Being a huge fan of the God of War franchise myself, you can probably take my opinion with a grain of salt.  But when you have tight controls, beautiful graphics, and the hi-def boobies … who isn’t a fan of that?  Show me a game with all those qualities that didn’t make your top 10 list.  Garret and I waited well over an hour just to play this game at E3, so was it worth the wait?  Hell yeah it was.

Story
If you’ve completed part 2 of the series, you must have wanted to kill yourself after witnessing that disappointing cliffhanger.  Seeing Kratos leading the Titans to Mount Olympus for the climactic battle with the Gods sure was exhilarating.  Until you were abruptly left with: “The end begins…”  It might as well have said, “Please reserve God of War 3 at your local Gamestop”.  Unfortunately, this 20 minute demo doesn’t reveal anything new about the story either.  As soon as you press the Start button, you’re immediately thrown into the heat of the battle with no where to go, but forward.  You only see the fire Titan in the background throwing fireballs and wrecking havock in the city below.  But other than that, the entire demo doesn’t explain where your other Titan buddies went.
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Van and I were fortunate enough to attend E3 this year down in Los Angeles, and although most of the good stuff was shrouded in secrecy behind closed doors, we were able to try out what we could on the showroom floor.  If I’d have to classify the show’s vibe, I’d say the ESA took a line drive down the middle, between the spectacle of E3’s of the past and the invite-only reduction seen in the last few years.  There was enough foot traffic and crowds to know what was hot, yet the lines were not long enough that you had to pick what to see and what to bypass.  So take a look at what we saw and played.

New Super Mario Bros Wii

NSMB Wii was Nintendo’s olive branch to the hardcore for 2009, since their other debuted must-haves (Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid: Other M) won’t be out until 2010.  The fresh take on the classic platforming formula moves to the Wii with a Zelda: The Four Swords-like approach to multiplayer.  We were able to try out one of the 4-player levels in its cooperative, but mostly competitive, 2.5-D sidescrolling mayhem.  As always, the controls were solid (what Mario game isn’t?) and the action was intense.  However, it was more fun trying to screw with your rival buddies, flinging each other into pits and bouncing on heads, than it was trying to navigate the level honorably.  I’m assuming the final package will include every bit as much gameplay as the single player DS campaign did, and coupled with multiplayer, it looks to be quite the party game this Fall.

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Although most of the announcements at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) were a bit boring, there was one that peaked everyone’s interest: OnLive.  Why is it such a hot topic?  Well, if they are successful, it could possibly lead to a unified game console future and put all of the Xboxes, Playstations, and Wiis into the gutter.  With all the debate regarding digital distribution vs. disks, could OnLive prove the deciding victor?

So what exactly is OnLive?  Think NetFlix movie streaming, but for video games.  OnLive is a video game on-demand subscription service that allows you to instantly buy and rent titles in the comfort of your own home.  What’s so special about this service is that all of the games are hosted on OnLive’s powerful servers, while the game content is streamed to you over the Internet.  Unlike services like Xbox Live, which requires you to have a the software and hardware locally, everything is executed online.  Anything you see on the screen, every button you push is transmitted back and forth to you via the Internet.  Since the games are streamed, you no longer have to deal with discs, lengthy downloads, software installations, or annoying driver updates to enjoy your favorite games.  The best part about this is that you can play high-end games on basically any entry-level hardware.   Since all of the processing are done on the remote OnLive servers, you can play power hungry games like Crysis in full 720p resolution on any old Pentium II desktop.  There’s no longer a need to drop a pretty penny for the top of the line video card.  Not only is it compatible with your PC, it will also work with your television and even Macs.
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You may have heard that the federal deadline for the digital television transition has been postponed until June 2009.  However, a lot of the local channels are still beginning their digital only transmissions in just a little less than a week from now.  So what does this mean to you?  Starting Feb. 17th, you may start seeing static on your favorite television channels if you don’t have the right equipment.  If you’re a bit worried about the digital conversion read on to see what you can do to save yourself from the the white fuzz.

Digital to Analog Converter Box

If you are currently watching your beloved shows through an old tube TV hooked up to antennae, you’ll definitely need to look into purchasing a digital converter box.  These boxes essentially take the incoming digital signals and converts it to an analog output so that your old TV can view it.  This is by far the most cost effective choice since these boxes are quite affordable and typically rang from $30-$60.  On top of that, the federal government is offering two $40 rebates towards the purchase of a digital converter box.  You have until March 31^st to apply for these rebates, so do it soon.   If the struggling economy isn’t treating you very well, this is the way to go.

Cable/Satellite TV

Believe it or not, cable TV subscribers will be affected by this transition as well.  If you have a standard cable subscription without a digital cable box, you’ll need to pony up the extra cash and upgrade to the digital service.  Fear not though since this digital upgrade can enhance your TV watching pleasures if you tack on features like DVR and movies on demand.  The digital service is typically $10-$15 more than your standard cable service depending on your provider.  Satellite subscribers shouldn’t need to worry about upgrading anything since most, if not all satellite receivers accept digital signals anyway.

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Let’s face it, every game has it’s fair share of painful load screens.  Maybe they come up early, as you boot the game up, perhaps they are sprinkled at the ends of levels, but they’re inevitable.  Technology has certainly improved, but so too have the resources required to run most games, which means don’t expect a load screen-free utopia with fairy tale wishes and rainbow dreams any time soon.  Thankfully, there are a number of strategies developers can employ to keep load screens to a minimum, or at the very least hide them in creative ways.

The Cinematic or Cutscene. Story devices such as pre-rendered or in-game cutscenes are just about as old as gaming itself.  They control the pacing of a game and can portray important story elements in ways the game may not be fully able to, such as complicated action sequences or emotional set pieces.  They also tend to restrict player involvement, which can be useful when large portions of data are needed to play the next area of the game.  Mission briefings in military FPS or RTS games like Gears of War use these breaks to feed you with objectives and background intel, while enormous amounts of texture data are piped in behind the scenes, keeping the actual downtime to a minimum.

Ridiculously Long Elevator Ride. Although similar in nature to the previously mentioned lengthy hallway, this techique differs slightly in that these more blatant transitions do not usually require any player action whist in the load screen. Portal had many such elevator rides, with one after every puzzle. Some games choose to use this time to also convey some story elements, such as was the case in the Metroid Prime series. Likewise, Mass Effect was famous for it’s incredibly long elevator rides, but also supplemented the trip with relevant radio broadcasts pertaining to some of the player’s more recent endeavors. Another similar technique is the laughably long, door-opening animation, found in early Resident Evil games and many other 3D action titles. The animation for opening a desk drawer or treasure chest could even give the game a split second to process whatever random loot you happen to find in that hidden stash.

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With the phenomenal sales of the original PS1 and PS2, Sony was once way ahead of the curve.  So it’s come to be quite a disappointment to see the PS3 limping along this generation.  When Ken Kuturagi unveiled the PS3 back in 2005, it was touted as the most powerful and revolutionary gaming system ever made.  Apparently, all that power and revolution didn’t mean squat.  Looking at the December 2008 sales figures, we can see that the Wii completely outsold the PS3 almost 3:1, with the Xbox 360 outselling almost 2:1.

* Wii — 2,150,000
* Xbox 360 — 1,440,000
* PlayStation 3 — 726,000

Sony needs to do some damage control, and they need to do it fast.  Here are some suggestions to make 2009, the year of the Playstation.

PS3 Price Drop
Since there’s no way for the PS3 to compete with the Wii, the best that they can do right now is fight for 2nd place.  With the current recession, it’s obviously not a good idea to be the most expensive system on the market.  With the PS3 models retailing at $399 and $499, it’s much more expensive than the Xbox 360 at $199, $299, and $399.  Sony justifies this price difference due to the built-in blu-ray player capabilities, but it appears the general public is still quite happy with their DVDs and can’t justify paying the extra premium for this feature.  To top it off, most PS3 versions of a game often look worse than its Xbox counterpart.  So why pay more when its competitor is providing a better gaming experience at a lower price?  Sony needs to drop the price to $299 to simply compete with the Xbox 360.
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