ba hahaha!

an actual comment on in response to my most anticipated games on pcworld.ca. these just keep coming in, to my endless amusement:



oh i do hope this is not the last one of these i get.

the only real downside is that it exposes how stupid a lot of the gaming community is. or at least the digg trolls who are supposedly into gaming.

what they don't get is that i chose my list under no pressure whatsoever.

these were the games i felt held the most promise.

i know about spore and i know about starcraft ii and killzone 2. but i don't care. spore looks boring, to be honest. it almost doesn't look like a game. a great simlution maybe, but it seems to be the opposite of what i look for in games. it doesn't look fun to play.

starcraft is not the surest bet for 2008, much like re5. plus, they haven't released a ton of details, so it's hard to put on a list as anticipated. i'm not even anticipating details about starcraft 2 until march.

but i hope these comments keep coming, because they let me know that there really is no hope for fanboys and gamers online.

lol'ing,

JD

is it wrong to digg a dude?

i know this may make some uncomfortable. self promotion -- like self love -- is kind of frowned on in most areas.

it's the kind of thing you do in private. the kind of thing you don't do in front of others, well, that is, unless you've go something wrong with you.

well i do. or at least, once someone's started me, i've got to have some friends finish it off.

wow. that got way more dirty than i wanted, way more quickly...

either way, i just wanted to call attention to an article i wrote for pcworld.ca that is gathering steam on digg.com:

The Most Anticipated Games of 2008

the lovely gaming community on digg is belittling and arguing over my choices -- which, to the chagrin of some posters, are wholly my own and i made them under no advertising pressure at all -- and it is proving a windfall for traffic.

since i'm all about the attention -- as many of my friends will attest -- i'm calling out for a little hand in keeping this on the top page of the gaming section on digg.

if you don't have a digg account, please register. it's one of the most fascinating time-wasters on the web.

and in the meantime, you can help a dude out.

i'm just trying to launch a writing career, so every little bit of exposure -- and bad as well as good comments -- can help me.

plus i'm a little attention whore, so i wil be forever grateful.

in other news, i now have january 22nd 2008 booked solid in my calendar. why?

you know.

dugged'ed?

JD

gaming present count="0"

i know this little html joke will be lost on countless people, but i just thought i'd outline a growing trend.

it seems that while i get tons of delectable gifts for christmas, that most people shy away from gaming gifts for me.

now, part of this is the inherent cost, which admittedly stops me from asking for many of the things i desire, but part of it i think is the tech gap syndrome.

it's not that my parents and fiancee know nothing about gaming, it's just that they know less than me. they're not experts *he says smugly into the camera*.

i think the holidays can be an intimidating time of year for non-techies who are shopping for techies, and i don't know if there's a solution in site.

i guess one way would be to go the old-fashioned route of posting your christmas wish lists online (via ign, facebook, amazon, etc). this is the proverbial 'letter to santa claus' in the form of wants, but still lacks the surprise christmas polish.

but is there a workaround? can i subtley and pyschically send messages to all my friends about my want for cash (or purchases) of/for rock band, a 360 pro, some 360 controllers and assassin's creed?

is there no way to broadcast my wants without sending valuable demographic info to advertisers everywhere? not yet i presume.

well, i will content myself to make mental lists of the things i want and think of future years, when i can just put it all in a t-shirt and use my portable silk-screen to broadcast it to my peers and elders.

looking to the future,

JD

running out the clock

it's not that i dislike my job. far from it. i consider myself lucky to be in a job and career that i like 90% of the time. there's stuff that peeves me off every once in a while, but for the most part, it's a barrel of f-ing monkeys.

but there's always that time of the year, those last couple of weeks, or last couple of days before a real break, when you start counting every minute and trying to just last to the end of each day.

you get stuff done, sure, but you also goof off a little, and get distracted by virtually anything and everything. all i'm saying is that i will be more productive in 2008 than i will be this week.

in life news, my ticket is booked for macworld expo 08. this is great news, which has softened the blow of earlier news, that i wouldn't be attending ces 2008 in las vegas.

i'm trading in bill for steve, and las vegas for san francisco, but either way it'll be sunnier and 'not-t.o.' for a couple days in january.

hopefully steve jobs will unveil an apple entrance into the console race...but that's ridiculous...isn't it?

dreaming ludicicrous dreams,

JD

adendum

this also made me fantastically happy the other day:



so if anybody wants to be my bffevar that would be a good start.

you can get them here, but a working knowledge of japanese may help...

JD

gaming news/a little help understanding 'dudes'

so first things first, if you, unlike me, own an xbox 360 and a gold superior master race better than silver live account, go right now and download the burnout paradise demo. then report back and tell me how awesome it is. i'll cry, but feel better knowing that it has succeeded in being awesome.

with that out of the way, i'd like to go a little offbase and inform everyone of a fact that should help understand the guy mentality during the holidays.

all men, if they're over 6 and under...dead, think they are super spies.

really, all men think of themselves are extremely stealthy, bond-esque spies, and at no time is this more obvious than at christmas.

you see, we all believe that we are way more sly than we probably are, and i have a suspicion that our companions (females, if you're of that persuasion) probably know more about what we do than they let on.

we think we're oh-so-sneaky, and we love doing it.

but at christmas, it doesn't hurt anybody. you sneak around the mall, checking behind corners, hiding your receipts and bags. you make little hiding spots in your living space that you both share, and you do everything extremely on the DL.

i don't know the reasoning to this, but it's extremely satisfying to have a scheme succeed. and fooling women is no easy feat. which is why i suspect that we get away with less than we think we do.

at christmas especially, there is no advantage to them finding us out. so no matter how sloppy liars we are, no matter how bad our hiding spots, no matter how lame our excuses, these qualities are endearing, and not just deceptive and cruel.

it's a hilarious combination of one sexes fascination with deception and mystery and the other's probable amusement by the effort.

it's a great effort that is worth it on both sides, but suspect in it's honesty (if that isn't the most confusing way of putting it).

under cover,

JD

welcome back kotter

now that was a weekend kind of fun pure and unadulterated double heaping spoonful of hell.

if you can count the hours of sleep you got on the weekend on your fingers, is that good?

and why, might you ask, was i losing sleep and getting grumpy with anyone who would listen?

to bring you this -- only 4 days after the Christmas Tech Guide -- the 2007 Video Game Roundup.

i spent the better part of saturday, and all day and night sunday creating this monster. i did have help, however, from one key freelancer and one key editing fiend -- thank you ted and jen respectively -- but most of the writing, editing, and publishing was done by yours truly.

my portion -- aside from the unappreciated games story that is now coming out later this week -- was:

The Most Anticipated Games of 2008
A Review of SceneIt! for the 360
A Review of Halo 3
and a review of the Wii Zapper and Link's Crossbow Training

now, you may have some idea of why i'm so tired and cranky today. check them out, leave some feedback here, or there, and enjoy!

elsewhere, the world continued to move without me...

manhunt 2 won it's appeal -- or at least the first part of it -- against the British Board of Film Classification. don't know what this will really mean in the end, but it seems like a good step for less -- or at least more intelligent and informed -- censorship of games.

manhunt 2 was banned by the review board earlier this year by giving it an ao rating -- or adult's only -- which prevented any stores from stocking it.

also, i must insist that anyone with a 360, functioning hands and an internet connection download the burnout paradise demo -- featured in my most anticipated games -- that hits the Xbox Live! marketplace this thursday.

now, i guess i have to decide whether i'll continue to wait for the live gold membership to get in at the pr place that provided my console, or suffer the wait punishement that microsoft was kind enough to give silver subscribers for free content...

and that's about all i can stomach for today. sorry kids, it's just the way she goes.

drinking moonshine in the sunshine,

JD

a blustering cold

the above title i only used because i seem to recall this being a catch phrase too often used by weather people on network news. i always picturing blustering as being kind of like bumbling, and it's far colder than any weather could accidentally cause.

as for news, today hasn't been that eventful, or yesterday for that matter.

microsoft released the fall update for Xbox 360 consoles in North America. You can now see the friends of your friends, just like on Facebook. Neato!

but they are also harassing silver level Live! subscribers, not letting them get their hands on free content (like demos and such) until gold subscribers have gotten a week to play/download/talk snootily about them.

As always, resident Xbox representative, Major Nelson, says on his blog*:

This is not done to annoy our Silver members—limited time exclusive access to content is just one of the many benefits of having a Gold Xbox Live account.

yeah, that's it. we're just giving those gold subscribers a pat on the back for handing us shovels-full of money. it's not a punishment per se, we're just not rewarding the unwashed filth who only paid at least $400 for our console and at least $70 for Halo 3. it's a little off-putting.

elsewhere, capcom sent me an e-mail letting me know that the new street fighter was indeed a 2D fighting experience, with updated 3D graphics. sooooo, like soul calibur 2? Oh, it's exactly like street fighter 2, but with polygonal fighters. And about the same control scheme. forgive me if i'm not jazzed.

this week has not been my favorite gaming week really. i'm getting into mass effect, like really getting into it, but like a dumbass, i still can't seem to navigate swiftly through all the things i have to do. once i learn something, they through another new thing at me without full explanation on how to do it.

now, i seem to be stuck on the ship, not able to actually get aground. so we'll see how that pans out. either way, it's getting interesting enough that jen is looking up from her laptop glazed over news watching to watch cutscenes with me and is following the plot closely. i've got the suspicion that she knows more about what's going on than me...

everything else is going good, got some christmas shopping done, most of jen's stuff is in the bag-well, in hiding specifically, but really in the bag as our apartment is really quite small and without hiding spaces.

so i head into the weekend now, with another full feature due on monday-of which i'm writing 4 or 5 articles-and i've got to attend a pr party tonight. whee.

thinking of you all fondly-and with a bit of a dirty mind;),

JD

*link credit to kotaku, my bible

a telling sign

i'm almost feeling slightly bad for gamespot at this point, well...not too bad, but i had to share this screen cap of the story that gamespot posted on their website to control spin.

i think that their site tags stories using dynamically generated tags from both the comments and the stories. a picture tells a thousand words gamespot, and you had better watch how you proceed next...



this just in: Jeff speaks about the review and getting fired-but without any messy, and delicious details-courtesy jostiq.com.

a return to form

as promised, this post will actually be about games, i just had to get that story off my chest.

and what a time to weigh in opinions when the biggest gaming press related story of the last ten years is taking off as we speak...

it's obviously not the firing that is the story here, but the implications rumour facts, that Jeff Gerstmann, a controversial and brutally honest reviewer for gamespot, was let go just after he slammed Kane and Lynch: Deadmen, and gamespot lost an advertising campaign that had the entire site branded by the Edios IP.

everyone is chipping in on this, including my favorites, the dudes at the penny arcade, and it's becoming a riduculously hot topic. the lines between advertising and editorial in online have always been thin and maybe even blurred. if gamespot aren't telling the truth, and this was because of jeff's review, or even if they are, and it really is his 'tone' that got him fired, this may set a dangerous precedent and scare good reviewers into doing not-so-honest game reviewing.

it's a very slippery slope, and of course, edios are doing nothing to help themselves in the situation. absolutely nothing.

i don't know if there is a real cause for concern at this particular moment, but i do think that awareness should be raised. gerstmann wasn't the perfect reviewer, i mean hell, he gave tony hawk 4, a game that took the stupid score-orientated challenges of the first three games to a height that was un-fun and barely playable, 5 stars, but he was an honest reviewer. he took down xxx bmx for what it was, and his review of kane and lynch-if you can find the video on youtube-looks like he's trying to like the game but there were a few fundamental flaws that prevented this.

given, i've never played it, but from what i've heard elsewhere, he can't be far off.

this is a story i'll keep my eye on, so stay tuned. this is not the end of it.

looking shiftily at the advertising staff,

JD

i kinda hate people

the weekend on a whole was great. it was mellow, i got a copy of sceneit! and after some false starts, began my trivia domination.

but i'm first going to blog about the ridiculousness that is the ttc, specifically, the elder crowd on the ttc.

now, this is not an overarching, all the elderly should be banned from the ttc, or the incredibly popular facebook group's title 'i secretly want to punch slow moving people in the back of the head' type of rant. i have a legitimate complaint to make with a specific incident that happened last week on friday.

so i was coming home from work, via downtown since jen wanted to show me some new wedding related stuff before we trudged to the homestead.

i was more than overleaden with crap to carry, because i had graciously accepted a six pack of energy drinks (which i really never have anyways) from my boss before leaving. this was one more heavy thing to carry on top of my backpack (full of the ridiculously heavy 360 i lug between work and home these days) and my satchel (that carries my regular work stuff) and my brand new copy of sceneit! that managed to be courier'd to the office right at 5 o'clock. so i had the backpack and satchel on my shoulders, and both hands full on the subway. don't worry, there is a point to all this exposition.

what i'm bascially trying to say is that i had my hands full by the time i got downtown, and after we looked at the wedding stuff, we got back on the subway and headed for our station. a quick nip to pizza pizza for dinner, and we were back in the station waiting for the bus home.

we just managed to grab one before it left and tried (badly) to snake through the passengers to the middle of the bus and not get in anyone's way, but with backpack, satchel, pizza, sixpack, jen's purse and sceneit!, this was no easy feat. jen wanted us to move inwards (much to my complaints that we wouldnt' be able to get to the doors and we only had 3 stops to go) because there was an old lady that followed us onto the bus.

the old lady followed us to the middle of the bus, and i guess jen overheard her muttering and saw her glaring at us, though i was completely oblivious to this...that was until she pushed me.

yeah, no frigging way you say. that doesn't sound like old people i know, you say.

well, it's true, i couldn't believe it, and tried to convince myself it was an accident, that she didn't mean to shove my bag violently and twist my body, but then...WHAM, again, she pushes my bag.

so this time i turn to her and ask 'what's your problem!'.

she yells right back in my face, 'you're hitting me with your bag!' which was complete bs, and i was trying very hard to compact myself as much as possible and was nowhere near her.
'you should in the seats at the back of the bus with your big backpack'.

now here, i should refer to the reasoning that i wrote three paragraphs on all the stuff jen and i were carrying. there is me with a full backpack (that's really heavy!), a satchel (so double duty on right shoulder), the sixpack of tall-boy energy drinks (that i didn't even want, but carried out of guilt) and one arm barely free for holding a stability bar on the bus. jen is carrying the pizza, on which is stacked the sceneit! box, because she felt bad for me having to carry all of it.

back to the bus...i got pissed at the point that the lady had the audacity to shove me and yell at me in front of a bus full of people when i clearly couldn't move three feet let alone to the back of the frigging bus, so i yell back 'why don't you go the back of the bus!'

she just starts losing her shit talking about 'i have to deal with this all the time, you people should make room for me, i can't believe you, you should use the seats and get your backpack out of my way' though i can't tell you this is accurate because i was fuming by now, and i only had one stop to go.

so i asked her 'why don't you just get a car if you don't like the bus?' which i thought was a fair question. she retorts, cleverly 'maybe if you were nicer to your teachers, you'd be able to get one, i can't afford one' and then she kicks me in the shin!

well, she really barely grazed me, but in her backswing, kicked some defenseless woman behind her to which she told 'it's his fault'. not sorry, not didn't mean to, but 'it's his fault' and points to me.

at this point, some nice guy made some room for me to move a little further back, and it was my stop, so i gave up, muttered 'crazy bitch' under my breath and exited the bus. the entire population of the bus was so dumbfounded by her arrogance and insanity, that they didn't want to meet eye contact with this beast.

i have no idea if this is an average experience on the bus, to meet such f-ing rude, entitled, a-hole elderly people, but i'm going to think twice before stepping out of the way or holding open doors from now on.

it may just get you kicked.

losing my faith in humanity,

JD

i miss you

it's not that i don't like you, people who read my stuff, it's just been a hard time. too much going on, too much to do, not enough sleep, but i love you. you're my special friend. you specifically.

now, with that out of the way, here's the hizzy-haps no what's happening in games land.

firstly, my quest to get a copy of rock band is getting desperate. like, random ebay bids that i know will never win (but secretly show that i'm contemplating a purchase) bad.

sent my 4th e-mail regarding a review copy today to a slightly higher up EA contact, but don't expect a reply on that either. oh, and best buy are supposedly not taking pre-orders and EB will gladly take my money, but no guarantee me a copy of the game, seemingly ever. they told me to come back and check to see if i can get a guaranteed copy of the game. seeing as how i leave for home the day after it comes out here, it's not looking good at getting it legitmately. it's possible to get a copy for slightly over retail (plus $50 frigging dollars for shipping) as there are so many copies on ebay, i'm just still hesitating because of cost, immediacy to christmas and desperate hopes that someone at ea/harmonix will actually respond to one of my pleading e-mails.

i'm still going at ace combat 6, and for anyone looking to try it, it gets much better after the first level. the only problem it does suffer from is really shitty looking backdrops when you're up close (ie, when i crash;)) and very long, repetitive gameplay. i'm over half way and most of the game ends up being chasing around planes-shoot missle-missle misses-shoot more missles-get hit-take too much damage-fly for five minutes to land and get new craft-keep going. the missions can take up to 30 min to complete! it's kind of ridiculous but as the planes i buy get better, it does get slightly more enjoyable, i just can't stand playing more than one mission in a row.

i'm now looking forward to christmas very much, not for the presents, but for drinking scotch and beer with my parents, watching good movies, trying to convince my parents to play games (unsuccessfully of course) and various other sundry activities.

i promise to be more faithful to you people in the future but for now all i can offer is my undying affection, and my body. (or maybe the affection will do?)...

unceasingly faithfully yours,

JD

120 stars/desert bus for hope

still with the quick posts, as i emerge from the horrific carnage that was last week.

not much time for gaming, and i've come to a bit of a crossroads with which games to cover.

i'm still sitting on 3/4 of a halo 3 review, but, like the lazy person i am, lacking inspiration to finish it. i want to have a couple more to through into our gaming feature in a couple weeks (though it should be more like 4-5 ready by then).

here's which ones i'm currently working on:
-tony hawk proving grounds-not finding anything really new or innovative, mostly it's just pissing me off like they all have to some extent since th4
-battalion wars 2-played this a total of 2 times so far and it's hella fun just not as addictive as hockey-mario-or ghiii
-ace combat 6-andrew and i played this for an hour or so but found it desperately boring and long winded
-mass effect-loaned to drew for a couple days but still need to crack it in earnest.

but on the flip side, i'm nearing the 120 star full completion in mario galaxy. this is taking up way too much of my time, but it's the only game my fiancee jen will actively watch/participate in willingly;). it's true, the gameplay does not get boring or old after the star 60 and the original quest is done, it maintains and stays challenging and fun. though i've now started working down from the hardest to the easiest, and few games have illicited more expletives and shouting from me this year-unless you count multiplayer games of nhl 08, but who does?

lastly i want to draw people's attention to a charity that i really support (with money too!) called child's play. in a quick nutshell, instead of just raising more money for research into illnesses that are affecting children, they attack the main immediate problem of kids stuck in hospitals with nothing to do. they get hospitals near most big cities to submit wish lists of systems and games so that kids can get stuff they wouldn't' be able to afford or obtain normally, and allows them some self-sufficiency in entertaining themselves and having some fun.

an off-shoot event being held in victoria bc, is desert bus for hope. it's a hilarious concept. these guys have taken the released code from the never released penn and teller pseudo game, which was more a bunch of tricks you can play on your friends that was meant to look like a game, and they've decided to play one of the most gruelling modes for as long as people continue donating money. all the funds go to child's play, and they're now up to 98 hours of driving time they must spend on the road.

the game 'simulates' driving a bus along a real highway route along the desert for the actual amount of time it takes to do it. there is no end, and the road is slightly curving mixed with straight sections the whole time, making it impossible to cheat. it's one of the biggest 'in-jokes' in video gaming.

they guys who've been handling the 'bus' have already crashed 3 times (meaning they had to restart the trip that many times) and have been running the desert bus relay for 2 days already. you can watch a livecam from their site and donate money to keep their torture going and support a good cause.

revuuuuuss!

check em out me boyos!
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Guitar Hero III Review

Super Mario Galaxy Review

let me know what you think. i'm kind of excited about this stuff, but i'm still learning, i always feel like i am...

love and bricks,

JD

blatant craziness/zapper first impressions

today is shaping up for another doozie (doozy, doozi?). either way it's going to suck.

if you're wondering why no post last night/day it's because i was in the office til frigging, 7 o'clock, working on these 5 contests and a huge feature for PCWorld.ca.

On the plus side, one of you lucky people could walk away with a Fujitsu ScanSnap Scanner, a Palm Treo 750 Smartphone, a Brother WiFi MFC, a Kodak Digital camera or a frigging Viewsonic HDTV. choice products.

check out PCWorld.ca's contest section for that noise.

as for the zapper, this is a tough one for me.

when i heard they were making a gun peripheral for the wii, i was stoked. i was stoked beyond measure. all i could think about was house of the dead style action, or virtua cop, or some other arcade experience that would be amazing with a gun that's better than a light gun, wireless and that has rumble (kickback or just regular rumble features).

in reality, it's a solid gaming experience, but i'm not completely sure about the gun. it's only that the aim isn't one to one. if that were the case it would be perfect. i mean, don't get me wrong, i'm seriously enjoying link's crossbow training more each time i play it, but i think it will be a more full featured game (like umbrella chronicles, or my most anticpated house of the dead 2-3 comp. and ghost squad) that will be the decider.

well, it's been a rough day, so enter the contests, read my new reviews (there's three of them!) and take er easy on the roads. it snowed.

later motivater,

JD

i'm gonna zap things! zap, zap.

the hell week continues to be relentless. if you weren't aware, we are simultaneously running two websites this week: www.pcworld.ca and beta.pcworld.ca, so our viewers can write rude comments on both at once from the 20th to the 30th.

we're also putting together a fairly sizable feature on thursday (which is being organized by moi) and 5 contests for thursday (to go with the contest that launched today). as promised, here's the link to win an ipod by telling us what you think of the NEW pcworld.ca.

i sincerely hope everyone i know enters (except family, who are unfortunately not eligable) and if you don't want to read the blog, or go on the site (though shame on you to not even look for my articles;)), i've started a facebook group to let people know what contests are on pcworld.ca and will continue to put up links to each contest as we launch them.

on the games front, two reviews come out thursday, and links will be added to the sidebar when that happens. i finished up the main quest of galaxy (truly an amazing game) and got my guitar hero iii review done and ready for print.

i also picked up my zapper peripheral (almost solely out of a sick interest to try it and for the zelda shooting game).
!!!!!!!!
will post some first impressions tomorrow (or later tonight if i'm feeling antsy.

hugs, kisses and white fake plastic guns,

JD

don't adults get snow days?

this is going to be an extremely short post for me, as i've been excessively verbose as of late and i have way too much to do right now. i also have noticed that this post has nothing to do with the title, i'm just jonsing for the good old ontario blizzard and getting to stay at home all day, drinking hot chocolate, eating chips and gaming.

quick newsy news about me and others...

the PCWorld.ca beta site launches officially tomorrow and...

you could win an iPod Nano for telling us what you like/don't like about the new design. (assuming you're a) a resident of canada b)18 c)not related to me:), sorry mum and dad). link to follow tomorrow when the contest goes live.

i got a copy of Tony Hawk Proving Ground from the good folks at activision-along with a press kit full of photos and videos. Other devs, take note from activision, i shouldn't have to take my own screenshots of grab from offical websites.

I'm very excited to compare this to the Skate demo i downloaded to the 360 a couple of days ago. They seem like they're nothing alike, and after playing many hours of NHL 08 (with EA's improved skill stick - somewhat like the skate controls) and many hours of the skate demo, i don't know how the old tony hawk formula will hold up. and i've played every hawk game since the original on the 64. hell, i bought a ps just so i could play hawk 2. it was a defining moment for skateboarding and sports games when the th series blew up, and i don't know if there is enough room for two skateboarding franchises (much like the new NHL EA games have turned 2ksports hockey into a fringe series).

Later days, and faster rays,

JD

delayedness - rock band style

what's with the new fad in game design these days, delaying product and telling people that there's going to be stock shortages.

how is it that we can make 1000s of tvs, never sell out of cds, yet video game consoles and software are constantly running out or being delayed.

well the latest hit here is rock band. this is a game i've been super excited about, though still unwilling to reserve, due to it's steep price - in the over $200 for a game range.

well, now, after telling everyone that there would not be enough copies to go around, like virtually none, chris kohler, a man i usually enjoy and respect on wired.com's gaming blog, gamelife, broke the news that rock band was delayed for canada.

i don't understand the hositility chris. and i'm trying hard not to shoot the messenger, but dammmit. this is some b.s.

shell-shocked at best,

JD

i blame super mario galaxy

for missing a day yesterday. i knew it would happen. but staying up til 2 on the first night i got it, combined with a really long work day, and then more galaxy last night and poof! the window for a post was gone.

but honestly, i can tell you this, that you will not find a better looking, more satisfying wii experience this year than super mario galaxy. i'll let that sink in for a second.

i was not a fan of super mario 64. in fact, i was almost an enemy of the game, constantly crowing about how disappointed i was. i mean, there was some novelty at first (hey, mario in 3d! look, a goomba in 3d! is that...a gigantic bob-bomb...in 3d?) but the level design and poor camera hampered the game experience for me. it was just too difficult, too repetitive and too poor a follow up to the supremely excellent super mario world and super mario rpg on the snes.

but everything that mario 64 did wrong, galaxy has gotten dead on right.

let's do the list, shall we?

easy to pick up controls? check.
moderate learning curve? check.
easy first couple of levels that are still fun to play? yes.
satisfying goals that progress at a quick rate (as in unlocking doesn't take you half a day?) definitely.
great graphics (not just for the wii, in general)? yes.
awesome music, bringing old mario themes back in symphonic renditions? oh, hells yeah.

this is mario back to form. given, i haven't yet finished even the last boss, but this is not the same 3d mario at all. he runs and jumps way better than mario 64, more like the mario in strikers (the running, that is). and the puzzles are fun to do. there is the odd "that was so hard i don't want to do it again" one, but i'm having tons of fun getting somewhere in the game. not to mention the 2 player mode.

anyways, i have to leave some gas for my review next week. although, if you have a wii, and like mario reviews, we're giving away a copy of the game in conjunction with the release of my review...not that you should need any reward for supporting a novice reviewer, but definitely check out our contests, thursday of next week.

surprisingly full of headachy goodness, and now motrin...

JD

it'sa me!

if you can't tell from the title, that means that i'm mere hours (hopefully) (EDIT: IT's HERE!!!!) away from getting my hands on my review copy of mario galaxy. this may just pre-empt my going through metroid prime 3, battalion wars 2, and anything else. i'm super stoked.

the premise didn't grab me, a newer, next gen mario 64, a game i basically despised after the first few stars for it's horrific repetition. but from what i've garnered from early previews and reviews, this game does not suffer that at all. it's being touted as the best game since super mario bros 3 on nes (which is perpostorous, since super mario world was better...) but it's a good sign. i also know that jen is excited too and this will be a lot of fun (not to mention the available co-op mode!).

also got a copy of ace combat 6 last night, and it's another game i'm really excited over.

however, when i told jen that i was super stoked for it since i hadn't played a good dogfighting game in a long while (like since the good ol' x-wing vs tie fighter days during the first multiplayer online games) she thought i meant Michael Vick's Pitbull Challenge. i was a little disappointed, because yes, i want to play that game, but it infers that her first thought of me was as a watcher and not as a doer, like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

Anywho, Super frigging Mario Galaxy just showed up, so in the immortal words of Eric Cartman;

Screw you guys, I'm going home *gestures towards door*

love,

JD

gaming news - update

two things i just noticed about the whole rock band/guitar hero thing (besides the fact that i can't get harmonix/ea to send me a copy):

1) cherub rock (smashing pumpkins) and probably some other songs are in BOTH games. is this legal?

2) rock band is now slightly higher on my list of must haves as, according to video evidence on ign, info which no previewer has yet to touch on;

you get to play the song that Timmy sings on the South Park episode where he joins a band (Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld).

Link


EDIT:

here are all the cross over songs JUST from Guitar Hero III and Rock Band (as in i'm too lazy to look up the set lists for ghi and ghii):
cherub rock - smashing pumpkins
mississippi queen - mountain
reptilia - the strokes
sabotage - beastie boys
paranoid - black sabbath
when you were young - the killers

rest guilt

i don't know what it is about my life now, but i honestly feel guilty if i come out of a weekend feeling rested and not more exhausted then when i went in.

i got a ton of stuff i needed to get done, but i also tried to take it a little easy and get more than 4 hours of sleep a night (as per my weekly routine).

finally finished halo 3. interesting ending. in fact, i was downright disappointed with the second last (more like third last) chapter of the game. but maybe i'm just not all about halo like a lot of people. the last two movements were pretty satisfying (sorry for the vagueness but i'm trying to avoid spoilers if anyone reads this post who hasn't finished the game). i'll try and formulate a real opinion on this before i have to write my review (which will be out very soon, will let you know).

got to play my first couple of xbox live games and was thoroughly satisfied with the experience. how is nintendo not watching this. this is how you do multiplayer online. no friend codes. and full chat. after my first nhl 08 game with my buddy will, i went out and picked up the messenger kit (so i could get a headset and not sit in silence listening to the announcers). in another bit of best buy gold, the messenger kit, with the brand new chat pad and original wired headset bundled, was the exact same price as the wired headset on it's own. wow, that's a great way to market the chat pad, but what about the poor guy who buys a headset only to figure out he could have got two things for the price of one. what the hell?

but really, i love xbox live, and it's going to be very hard to give back the system when the loan runs out...

started in on blue dragon right after. i asked for this game before i had received any (so i was a bit desperate) and knew nothing about it. suffice to say, this is a big learning experience for me as jen googled it and found out that it is an rpg that is over 50 hours of gameplay (created by the guy behind final fantasy) and is the first 360 game to span eight disks!!!!!!! dammit!

so, basically, between that and fire emblem, i may not be leaving my apartment for anything but work for a while. but i shouldn't complain, because it is fun, i just wish there were more hours in the day.

hoping to start battalion wars 2 as well tonight, and finally finish jen's and my save the dates for our wedding coming up this summer.

stay frosty,

JD

never trust a game store employee. ever.

this may not be a revelation for most, but i do have a new annoying story to add to the pile.

yesterday i was out looking for guitar hero iii extra controllers. this, was not a big deal. in fact, i wasn't sure i even WANTED to buy one, but i wanted to see if they were in stock and if it would be hard to get one (as i really wanted to try out the co-op career mode and battle mode in ghIII before i submit my review).

i checked the interweb before leaving the office for my lunch retreat (not for eating, as i work during my real lunch, but i sometimes go for a walk and window shop). eb is always a no go as they stock literally nothing, and you can never get a straight answer, but i thought for sure that i could get my regular level of great ok mediocre service at best buy. was i wrong.

the website said they had stock and sure enough, when i got into the store, they had nothing. i asked a sales associate, or ass as i'll refer to him henceforth, if they had any.

he told me 'we had a bunch earlier, i guess they sold out'. i thought about asking ass if he knew when the next ones would be coming in (as i wasn't sure if i even needed another one quite yet) but i quickly asked him if he was sure there weren't any since it said they had some on the web site. to save ass's feelings, i quickly qualified it with 'i guess the site could be wrong, or you could have just sold the last one...' but he got a perplexed look in his eye.

he said, just wait here, i'll check. check what? i thought you knew that the last one was sold? or perhaps you were just telling me what i would hear and get out of the store the fastest. no, not today...ass.

he comes back and tells me they have a couple and that if i'll wait here, he'll get me one. just to show that people want to buy their products, but they're too stupid to stock then, i hang around.

ass goes up a ladder and comes back with a stack of four.

i'm really eating this up now, shit-eating grin and all. in a complete dick move, though almost comical, i ask him 'so how many were up there?'.

'16' he says.

yeah. so when someone tells you that they don't have any, make them check. like every time. whether it's eb, bestbuy, gamestop, or whatever, gamers aren't given much respect. so make sure you ask if it's something you really want. chances are, we assume that they know and care.

JD

halo is finally getting interesting...

Don't mean to double post as a daily thing, but this is today's formal update.

Halo is finally showing some promise. The first couple levels (or chapters, i guess) were kind of ho-hum, find the switch, 'oh, i can just WALK through that' and general getting lost-ness. but now it's getting interesting with, and i'm sure i'll be corrected because i can barely follow the plot at all, but the 'flood' which are these wicked looking zombie like creatures, but more like the brain suckers in futurama. They grab unsuspecting corpses and re-animate them. they're a little freaky when you're in close quarters, but thoroughly more satisfying to fight than just sniping the brutes.

Am writing, currently, a review of the LG Shine, which is in notes stages right now. It's a pretty badass looking phone, if i do say so myself, though i'm not sold on bell's set of features (not really the phones fault i guess). they let you 'download' movies for $8 a pop, but i only figured out after that it doesn't even display the full screen of the phone and it's a one day rental. yep, for the cost of a movie at the WESTIN where i stayed in boston on a business trip, you can watch a horrible quality STREAMED movie on your phone, and only for one day. awesome.

but the phone seriously is pretty bitching, will post some pics tonight if i can remember.

now my only issue is finding enough hours in the day to get through the stack of games beside my couch. it's almost as intimidating as the stacks of books beside my couch during university. though they were easier to ignore :).

should probably get back to my work right now as i'm also writing a piece on the impact of the new youtube Canadian portal on Canadian companies and sponsors. it's kind of interesting but my guitar hero iii review, which will probably come out next week, should be a better read.

til then, my homies,

i pour a fifty on your behalf.

JD

oh! and i added links to some other cool blogs you should check out of my friends Jen the Journalist (who likes spelling and capitals WAY more than me) and GlenJM, a rad up and coming actor from Halifax I met while in school.

it happened on the way to work/crazy gore psychos

this won't be a full post, as i'll update later in the day, but i have to divulge on a crazy occurance on my way to work.

some dude, i guess who was discharged from the pysch ward a few days too early, went a little nuts on the subway platform at the stop where i get on to get to work.

i guess this kid, maybe 13 years old, threw a candy wrapper or something onto the tracks and this guy spots him (didn't see that part).

well he just launches into an incredibly intense expletive ridden diatribe that the kid 'better never do that again' because he's tired of 'little s**t's like you making my subway dirty'. then he asked the kid if he thought he 'was joking, because i'll rip your head off and s**t down your throat!'.

yeah, i'm seriously not paraphrasing here. 8am on a thursday morning and this pyschopath is telling a kid he'll defecate in gaping neckwound he will create, all because of a little litter. i think this guy has been taking al gore a little too seriously. it's not YOUR job to discipline every person with threat of death and corpse desecration.

well some guy invariably tells the guy to f-off and leave the kid alone, which was especially important as the guy had moved so that the kid was between him and the tracks. i was honestly getting concerned that he might push the kid in to get the wrapper. so kudos to you, the guy on the other end of the platform the risked being punched on his way to work to stop the dude yelling anymore at the kid.

just can't really comprehend how this all happened before i was really even awake. it just made me sick to my stomach.

slower day/new blog

I have decided that if I'm going to write something new everyday, and have no one read it, that I may as well do it in a larger format with fancy colours (black) and have it auto-feed into my facebook rather than keep writing notes and pretend it's not a blog, which is what it is.

The purpose of this exercise, barring someone who will listen to my every random thought as i come up with them, is also to let people know what i'm up to, how my job/career is going and what's going on in general.

It's meant to be informal and trivial and everything most people DON'T look for in reading material, but that i value at the utmost.

The news today is that I've caught wind that Activision are going to be getting me on board and providing games (following in suit with Nintendo and Microsoft's in house studios). This is GREAT! I will get a copy of Tony Hawk: Proving Ground and Call of Duty 4 to peruse on the loaner 360 i got.

The bad news is I'm starting to feel the pressure of such a large pile of games, all waiting to be beaten and subsequently reviewed.

This will sound like crap to anyone who is slightly envious of my self-defined role. Mostly, I'm having trouble justifying my complaints to my inner child, the 12 year old that thought video game reviewing would be the greatest job on the planet. He's pissed. He keeps telling me to suck it up.

But as it stands now, this is the damage (and I really will enjoy it, but the sheer hours are getting daunting...):

Xbox 360
- Halo 3 (don't think I'm even a 1/4 in. long game!)
- Guitar Hero III (beat on easy, almost done on medium, but need to find someone to try co-op with and go online)
- Blue Dragon (random rpg i asked for when I had no games lined up, haven't even broke the shrink wrap...)
- Tony Hawk: Proving Ground (just confirmed it today, will be coming soon)
- Call of Duty 4 (another epic, and a game that will take some time to beat. me=suck at first person shooters)

Wii
- Metroid Prime 3 (another big fps...)
- Battalion Wars 2 (really excited about this one, especially online)
- Fire Emblem (long rpg, what was i thinking asking for all these...)

I've also made a s**t-ton of inquiries about other games (particularly 3 e-mails already about a certain 4 player band simulation...) so there may be more coming.

And i've only finished 1 review so far. Jeez.

On the home front, we met the new landlords tonight. Other than a couple qualms about price (as they're not continuing our cable 'deal' that the last landlords gave us) they seem nice. Teachers. I think that sums it up if you know my family...

More soon, but have to start an article on the new youtube.ca Canadian portal.

Watch "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". You'll thank me later.

JD