Golden Bird Award: Sony and Media Molecule

I hate doing this, but here we go. Sony and Media Molecule, you guys win my Golden Bird Award for screwing over your devoted fans a second time in a row.

Patrick and I talk about EA

Excerpt from a conversation that Patrick and I had on Facebook:

Patrick: When the heck are we going to see a true sequel to Paradise City? I still pop that in and cause some good ole' mayhem.

Kelly: Never. Criterion is on Need for Speed duty. And making the mediocre franchise pretty awesome now, too. The new Hot Pursuit game had Burnout written all over it.

Patrick: I don't care what they call it, as long as it's open world and gorgeous to look at steel frames crunching under the kinetic energy being unleashed upon it.
     It could be called Dick and Jane go for a Drive. As long as it's more awesome Paradise City. It had the potential to just continue getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Kind of like how Madden has the potential to just have release every three years and sell an updated roster. Oh wait, then they wouldn't be ripping off our customer base.

Kelly: Eh, yeah. That is unlikely. But after seeing Hot Pursuit in action, I may give it a shot. I hate that EA pulled the plug on Burnout and Paradise City, though.

     Not sure how I feel about Need For Speed: The Run though. Why should the series have a narrative with "characters" and a story? Seems stupid.
     EA is probably gonna force Criterion to make their games the way they want Criterion to, then when people say "Hey, these games suck!" they'll pull the plug on Criterion and shut em down.

Patrick: Yay for shutting down creativity!

Kelly: Pft, like EA knows what that is.

Why I haven't written in a while.

Blah blah blah excuses excuses. So I haven't written in a long time and while I don't have any good reasons here's a list of excuses. I made up 10 of them. You be the judge of whether or not any of them are any good.

Getting back into Poke'Mon

Not long after posting the article about falling out with Poke'Mon, I decided to pick up Platinum and give it another shot. I got into it again, but wasn't going nuts like I do in other stat-building games like Disgaea.

Last weekend, I went to Metrocon, the largest anime convention in Florida. There was a panel about Poke'Mon training that I decided to attend to see if I could learn anything.

And now I'm too afraid to play because I think I'll be fanatical...

10 Things Kelly picked up from E3

I hate the video game industry.

This E3 was really kind of depressing. I had a hard time watching some of this stuff (and mostly didn't and chose to just read about it online), but with all the bull crap that goes into these presentations it's just.... it's painful. That is why I let other people watch it so that I can read about it later.

Anyways, here are 10 things I picked up from this years E3:

My falling out with PoKe'Mon

When Patrick and I began Dual Analogs at the start of the year, we talked about doing little joint ventures, be it debates, discussions, or competitions. When PoKe'MoN Black and White came out, Patrick proposed a little contest to see which of us could complete the National 'Dex to quickest. Seems like it would have been a lot of fun, but I had to turn it down. Unfortunately, PoKe'MoN and I have had kind of a falling out recently.

Golden Bird Award: Ubisoft

Ya know what? I am a little mad with a little company called Ubisoft because of a little "timed exclusive" they are running with a little game called "Beyond Good and Evil HD." Then I remembered that I had a place where I could rant like a madman. So conflabit, I am doing it.

So here begins my Golden Bird Awards. If you want to know a Golden Bird is, it's an award that I am going to hand out to companies that can go screw themselves.

Minecraft ate my wife.

Damn you, Minecraft, give me my wife back......!!!

...4-player split screen on a 20 in. standard def. TV used to be awesome.

Gamers these days  are spoiled. Widescreen LCDs larger than 32 in. and they want to hog it all to themselves. Why, back in my day.....

"The Dice Are Trying to Kill Me"

I'm learning that there is a lot of superstition involved in tabletop games. Some players have ritualistic behaviors they use to ensure good dice rolls. I'm not sure if it actually works or not, but I need to figure something out. Most of my die rolls are pretty bad.

Fortunately, the internet is full of good dice rituals that just might help.

Gamers and posers.

There are a lot of us who describe ourselves as a hardcore gamer. We use this term to set ourselves apart from everyone else, who I can only assume are labeled by us as softcore gamers. Maybe not, but many of us look down on people who are not self proclaimed hardcore gamers or that we think of as posers. But many of those who claim to be hardcore are, in fact, not.

I actually hate this term "hardcore gamer".

Where there is motion gaming, there is useless peripherals.

Playing Wii Sports Tennis feels more realistic with a tennis racket attachment? Have you perhaps tried playing real tennis? The market is flooded with these add-ons for Wiimotes and now the Playstation Move. But Microsoft's Kinect is safe from these useless peripherals, right...?