I’m going to give my thoughts on a number of topics before I go to Penny Arcade Expo.
Entertainment Consumers Association sent me an email letting me know that they want to hear the positives of video gaming and gamers. If I go to their booth this weekend and retell a good enough personal experience on record, I’ll get two tickets to PAX East. While I’m still pretty awkward in front of a camera, I can admit I have a few nice experiences from video gaming- the weight I lost playing Dance Dance Revolution, the friends I’ve made in all-night LAN parties, and the memories of waiting in line for the midnight release of a video game (next time you hear Nintendo talk about midnight releases, get yourself right to the middle of the waiting line. The most considerate and fun strangers I’ve met are huge Nintendo fans). But even more than winning any prize, I’m curious as to what other people have to add to this. How gaming has affected my generation is spoken of ad infinitum, so hearing about it’s impact on a personal level is something I don’t want to miss.
WET looks like something Quentin Tarantino would make- the levels are separated by (I don’t know the exact word for this) old school film reel countdowns, the cut scenes are deliberately grainy with a brownish shade that gives you the feeling that you’re watching an old cowboy flick, and the main character is a woman assassin who wields twin revolvers and a katana and can shoot ‘em up John Woo style. I want it.
Splosion Man has been out for a few weeks now, but it’s a really under appreciated game. It’s had great reviews, the platforming is excellent, the humor is great, and it’s only ten bucks. So why isn’t it getting some mainstream attention?! My brother and I have been playing it cooperatively for a little while now, so I thought we’d give it a little bit more of the love it deserves by posting a Youtube video. If my brother is too adorable for you, or my voice is a touch too handsome, you can watch one of my other videos. I won’t mind.
The sandcastle Playstation I posted earlier was a behemoth. The girls in the picture were clearly hiding their fear and awe of it’s towering case and the iron fist of it’s Blu-Ray player. Thankfully, Sony has realized their machine isn’t meant to intimidate, so they’ve announced they’re cutting the price to a good $299 and slimmed it up a bit. Yes… the rumours of the PS3 Slim that have been around forever now have been validated. No one’s surprised, but with a 120 GB HDD and a Blu-Ray player for just a little more than a Wii, Sony has done something surprisingly un-evil. For anyone who wants a PS3 Slim, though, has to wait until Sept. 1st. You can also pick up a regular PS3 at the Slim’s price now, too. If you like that sort of thing, I guess.
EDIT: Turns out the PS3 Slim won’t have backwards compatibility. Sony found a way, like it always does, to add a huge annoyance to a great announcement.
So in a few weeks, I’ll be going to the most important gaming convention in this country for the first time. By that, I certainly don’t mean E3, I’m talking about Penny Arcade Expo. Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik describe it best when they say, “the best part of PAX is hanging out with other people who know their shit when it comes to games.” But before anyone thinks it’s just about a bunch of sweaty nerds gathering together to play mind numbing, emotionally desensitizing, and physically sedating video games, take a look at the schedule. With such panels as How Gamers Give: Improving the World through Games, Digital Rights Education, and a panel I swear stole it’s name from a Sesame St. episode, Losing Should Be Fun.
I can’t say how enlightening it will be, but I’m definitely going to make sure the account of my time there is spread to the rest of the Internet with as much description and honesty as I can muster. There have been plenty of Cons that had passed me by, and I remember looking for every tidbit of news I could find, just to have a small taste of the experience. I owe it to the bloggers who came before me to do the same.
And now, for no particular reason, two korean girls in front of a sandcastle Playstation 3.
So the latest buzz with Google is it’s latest project called Caffeine. In theory, it’s supposed to speed up web searches and the returns more relevant to those searches. I’ve tried it out and haven’t noticed much difference, but I think this beta test is more geared towards web developers and the like. What I’m hoping Caffeine will do is get a lot of people excited about Google’s projects. Maybe more people will discover what a great web browser Chrome is, or they could get excited for their upcoming operating system with the same name. Even if a few more people test out Google Squared or Audio Indexing, I think it will really help spur more growth from this behemoth. With all the talk of Google soon becoming a monopoly, I think some take for granted the innovations coming out now. After Microsoft secured it’s place on top, it never really needed to go any further. Vista and Internet Explorer, anyone? So if you like Google how it is right now, I beg you to help it keep changing. Test out Caffeine here
Matt Heston
