GEEK WEEK...
Okay, so unless you live under a rock in which case you wouldn't be reading this, you know that the long awaited ending to the story of Darth Vader was released yesterday. I, like any respectable Star Wars fan took the day off work got in line two hours before the movie was to begin, where I passed out the five tickets I had bought a week in advance to my closest friends, and then shuddered with an anxious over taking that only something this monumental could bring. I'm not going to give you my review of the movie because that could leave a tainted image if you haven't seen it yet. What I will say is that of course I couldn't smile big enough just being immersed from that opening drum rolls that set up the most unforgettable musical piece of my youth, and that smile has yet to fade.
Next topic is one well more suited to the actual Geek. E3, yes not only have we gotten the final chapter in the Star Wars Trilogy this week, but we've also seen the unvieling of the next gen consoles. Xbox 360 is an awesome looking machine with so many cool posibilities that it makes you realise, this thing isn't just for video games, and it will only get better. The PS3, well they showed off some wowing footage of things they claim to be not CGI and rendered completley in real time, but I have a bad feeling that with a system not do out for another year, they are going to do what they did with the PS2...a whole lot of wow on display and it all seemingly missing on launch. The thing that I was really shocked at so far was the lack of anything that really caught my eye for the PSP...maybe I'll hold out a little longer on that one, especially since there were some things for the DS that made me believe Sony may have brought a BFG to a gun fight, but they seem to have forgot the ammo. The DS is more game play oriented, as were the PSP is kind of riding on it's tech and the hopes that cool things will be done in the future, that and I still think that Metriod on the DS is the best looking handheld game I've seen, PSP games are still just dumbed done PS2 games and I'm not a big fan of most of the PS2 games graphically. I'm also wondering how long Sony plans on boasting the same old franchises that everyone is well aware are coming out, i.e. FFXII or Kingdom Hearts 2...we all know they are coming, show us something new and exciting, not just the same old fanboy stuff. I'm starting to feel like Microsoft is the only gaming company that isn't just trying to gain more popularity with the standard zombified fan boys like Sony with FF, and Nintendo with Zelda. The formulas are getting stale, I honestly haven't been excited by a FF since VII, and Zelda, well I'm still less then enthusiastic about it after play Majora's Mask, and Oncirania of Time...they are just watered down parts of two seperate classifications...Action/Adventure and RPG...honestly though I'm starting to question more and more the RPG aspect of these titles, since well RPG to me means control over the growth of the said character, which these games seriously lack. I think the industry has been throwing around the term RPG way to loosely in the past gen of consoles, and anything that has you collect items some how becomes an RPG...this perplexes me considering that you collect items in almost every game. Maybe they think that if you have to collect certain power ups to advance through the game or you have to interact with poorly scripted townsfolk that it's an RPG...the only problem is that you have to do these things there is no avoiding them in the progression of the game...roleplaying is about being someone else yet having choices in were and how you do things...very few games seem to capture those elements. Okay I've bitched quite abit and I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.
Next topic is one well more suited to the actual Geek. E3, yes not only have we gotten the final chapter in the Star Wars Trilogy this week, but we've also seen the unvieling of the next gen consoles. Xbox 360 is an awesome looking machine with so many cool posibilities that it makes you realise, this thing isn't just for video games, and it will only get better. The PS3, well they showed off some wowing footage of things they claim to be not CGI and rendered completley in real time, but I have a bad feeling that with a system not do out for another year, they are going to do what they did with the PS2...a whole lot of wow on display and it all seemingly missing on launch. The thing that I was really shocked at so far was the lack of anything that really caught my eye for the PSP...maybe I'll hold out a little longer on that one, especially since there were some things for the DS that made me believe Sony may have brought a BFG to a gun fight, but they seem to have forgot the ammo. The DS is more game play oriented, as were the PSP is kind of riding on it's tech and the hopes that cool things will be done in the future, that and I still think that Metriod on the DS is the best looking handheld game I've seen, PSP games are still just dumbed done PS2 games and I'm not a big fan of most of the PS2 games graphically. I'm also wondering how long Sony plans on boasting the same old franchises that everyone is well aware are coming out, i.e. FFXII or Kingdom Hearts 2...we all know they are coming, show us something new and exciting, not just the same old fanboy stuff. I'm starting to feel like Microsoft is the only gaming company that isn't just trying to gain more popularity with the standard zombified fan boys like Sony with FF, and Nintendo with Zelda. The formulas are getting stale, I honestly haven't been excited by a FF since VII, and Zelda, well I'm still less then enthusiastic about it after play Majora's Mask, and Oncirania of Time...they are just watered down parts of two seperate classifications...Action/Adventure and RPG...honestly though I'm starting to question more and more the RPG aspect of these titles, since well RPG to me means control over the growth of the said character, which these games seriously lack. I think the industry has been throwing around the term RPG way to loosely in the past gen of consoles, and anything that has you collect items some how becomes an RPG...this perplexes me considering that you collect items in almost every game. Maybe they think that if you have to collect certain power ups to advance through the game or you have to interact with poorly scripted townsfolk that it's an RPG...the only problem is that you have to do these things there is no avoiding them in the progression of the game...roleplaying is about being someone else yet having choices in were and how you do things...very few games seem to capture those elements. Okay I've bitched quite abit and I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.