Loki's Wild Ride

After dealing with numerous technical issues on Live.com, I've finally decided to pack up and move my blog to IGN.  I might still post on hear every once in awhile, because there is still a great community of gamers here.  However, IGN's blog setup is less bloated and more stable, so it will be my primary blogging tool for the foreseeable future.

First of all, if you don't know anything about the recent firing of Gamespot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann read this article from Wired.  Anyway, I understand that the gaming media has to walk a fine line between editorial integrity and keeping their advertisers happy.  I'm not naive enough to believe that many games get slightly higher scores on many sites/publications if their publishers are major advertisers.  The yearly overrating of the Madden football serious is a fairly obvious example, but most intelligent gamers read these reviews with a grain of salt.  However, to fire an editor for not overrating an advertiser's bad game definitely crosses the line.

Gamespot was know for it's fairly in depth, high quality reviews.  While other sites/publications tended to review games in group think, Gamespot seemed buck trends and offer different takes on many of the most highly anticipated games.  These differing opinions made Gamespot one of the most highly regarded review sources available.  Now, because of some idiot upper manager's quest for a few more dollars, that reputation is dead.  And rightly so, in my opinion.  It doesn't matter if every other reviewer out their panders to their advertisers or not, Gamespot's blatant, obvious disregard for integrity deserves nothing more than a complete fall from grace.

Sure, upper management will try everything in their power to spin this firing as something else.  They will make an extreme effort to show their impartiality in future reviews.  But the damage is already done, and those of us who actually care about video games need to keep the knowledge of this transgression in the front of our mind.  I implore everyone out there to stop reading Gamespot, stop visiting the site altogether.  The only way to show companies that we don't appreciate being treated like chumps is to talk with the almighty dollar.  When their hits go down, advertising revenue goes down, and Gamespot's idiot management is taught a valuable lesson about know where their loyalties should lie.

As I leaked last week on several message boards, Mass Effect has gone gold.  Also, here are all the details on the Limited Collector's Edition and Bonus Disc from Bioware's website:

Fans of this year's hottest RPG - available exclusively on Xbox 360 - can now get their hands on unique and collectible content by pre-ordering Mass Effect at participating U.S. retailers.

This year started off fairly poorly for video gaming, but will finish with a flourish.  With only a handful of good games across all platforms in the first half of 2007, the second half has already brought us a number of gems, like BioShock, Jeanne d'Arc, and Heavenly Sword.  The next few months will prove to be even more amazing with Halo 3, Unreal Tournament 3, and Super Mario Galaxy on deck.

However, one title stands above them all in my book.  Bioware's epic sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect, will be one of the best games ever made if it plays even half as well as it looks.  Bioware has never failed to deliver anything less than a great game before, and I see no reason to think that Mass Effect would be an exception.

If you don't believe me, check out IGN's extended hands-on article and video.

It's a great time to be a gamer!!!

IGN has a short-but-great video showing the depth of character customization.  This game is going to be so amazing!

 

Anyway, I'm off to Seattle for vacation. Can't wait to get my hands on the Halo 3 Epsilon and see what else is going on at Xbox HQ!

Sure the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war has been good for consumers in some respects.  The prices of players have dropped incredibly fast, and sales of devices and media are steadily increasing.  However, the longer the war goes on and the greater the chance that a large number of consumers will be stuck with re-buying their whole collection in the winning format or maintaining their obsolete hardware.  And as bandwidth increases, there is the possibility that by the time one format wins people will no longer buy films on any form of media, rather just stream them in HD straight to their TV's.

With the sales of Blu-Ray films quickly out pacing their HD-DVD counterparts, this war looked like it might be moving towards an ending.  That is, until today, when the HD-DVD association (who are led by Toshiba, Microsoft and RCA) announced that Paramount and DreamWorks Animation were changing from supporting both formats to HD-DVD exclusively.  This news now assures this format battle will last well into next year and most likely beyond.

What the headlines don't tell you is that Microsoft paid $150 million to these studios to get this exclusivity, and it's not necessarily because they want to see HD-DVD win the war.  In fact, with Xbox Live being the #1 HD video download mechanism in the world, Microsoft would be far happier if both formats died a miserable death leaving their digital downloads as the true successor to the DVD.  While I'm not interested in purchasing either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray until this war's settled (if ever), I don't want to see Microsoft control my primary delivery method for movies either.  That would be a horrible day for all consumers.

Source: GameInformer

2K games has announced that they will publish the "Mad Max meets Diablo" game Borderlands, which is being developed by Brothers in Arms developer Gearbox.

The game is described as an RPG-shooter with 4-player drop-in, drop-out co-op built in.

It will also feature what Gearbox calls a "groundbreaking content generation system" which will allow players to customize their own weapons, enemies, characters and missions.

"Borderlands represents an important evolutionary leap in game design and technology," said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K in a press release. "By utilizing revolutionary new technology to create thousands of unique, randomly generated missions, weapons and situations, Borderlands will raise the bar for next gen action games."  Gearbox plans to release the game sometime late next year on the Platstation 3, Xbox 360 and Games For Windows platforms.

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Sounds very cool.  I really can't wait to see how far their going to take the whole customization piece.  I know we still have the best part of 2007 ahead of us, but 2008 is shaping up to be an incredible year as well.

Sorry for the lack of updates, life has been crazy.

Anyway, 360 owners should drop everything and go download the BioShock demo off the Marketplace now.  It's arguably the best demo I've ever seen, and a must try for any mature gamer.  The game comes out next week, and unofficially kicks off the fall blitz of great games for the 360.  Blue Dragon comes out the week after.

I just wish I had more time to play!

When I did this list for the 2nd quarter of 2007, it turned out that only 5 out of 10 titles were releases in that time frame, and at least a couple have been pushed back indefinitely. Let's hope that this list ends up being more accurate, and we see most of these titles in the next three months.

10) Halo 3 (Xbox 360 - Sep. 25)
I know this title is at the top of most gamers' lists, but after playing the fairly lackluster Halo 3 Beta I'm not that excited about this game. Of course, if Bungie states definitively that there will be online co-op and the single-player campaign rivals the first game, Halo 3 could fast move up my list. As for all the Special Edition/Limited Edition nonsense, you won't catch me shelling out money for crap like that.

9) All Pro Football 2K8 (Xbox 360, PS3 - Jul. 16)
I'm not going to call myself an EA or Madden hater, but I have long become sick of the publishing giant and it's money-making juggernaut. EA has a long, storied history of releasing re-hashed games and removing features and then re-adding them years later as new content, and it has gotten worse since they obtained an exclusive NFL license. While 2K Sports hadn't always hit a home run with their football franchise, the few years of head-to-head competition with EA kept the giant somewhat honest. Hopefully even without an NFL license, 2K can be competitive once again with All Pro Football 2K8. And competition is a good thing for all consumers.

8) Two Worlds (Xbox 360, PC - sometime in Jul.)
Tantalizing me with dreams of Oblivion, Two Worlds could end up being the game of the summer. An action-based RPG with a large world and a ton of options is definitely a good formula for success. However, I'm hoping the game doesn't end up being an Oblivion-clone or just a cheap attempt to ride that games coattails. If Two Worlds has a great story and some level of depth, it will make many RPG fans very happy. That's what I'm banking on, but I have been known to be disappointed before.

7) BioShock (Xbox 360, PC - Aug. 21)
I'm intrigued by 2K's RPG/shooter/adventure hybrid, and its dark and disturbing plot. It is getting a lot of hype, which I'm not quite buying into yet. However, the RPG features and chance of a good story have this game on my radar. Also, 2K has really been revolutionizing the horror genre in video games, and I expect that BioShock will be their best attempt to date.

6) Lair (PS3 - Aug. 14)
This Factor 5 exclusive for the PS3 focuses on a genre not to often seen in the current gaming landscape -- a dragon simulator. Well, a dragon riding simulator to be precise. While not the first of it's kind, Lair actually looks very promising. The graphics are impressive, the story looks promising, and if the fun factor matches up, this could be the sleeper hit of the summer. Unfortunately for the PS3, it looks to be the only exclusive title of the summer, so for Sony's sake this had better be a hit.  But either way, it will be refreshing to see something a little different from the standard shooters that we normally see all year long.

5) Project Sylpheed (Xbox 360 - Jul. 10)
As a huge fan of space sims like Wing Commander, X-Wing and Freelancer, I have been pretty sad that the genre has all but died over the past several years. With game developers so focused on big money shooters and MMOG's, the space sim has been among the genres who have suffered the most neglect. Well, kudos to Square-Enix for bringing us a starfighter game, even if it is quite a departure from the afore mentioned games. After playing the demo and experiencing the shear madness of full scale galactic space combat, I expect this game to eat up quite a bit of my summer.

4) Eternal Sonata (Xbox 360 - sometime in Sep.)
Supposedly, this Japanese RPG will be released right around the same time as Halo 3, which will probably push it rapidly to the darkest corner of obscurity. However, I for one am far more excited about this game with a potentially engaging story and deep gameplay. This is going to be a great year for RPG fans on the 360, and Eternal Sonata could be among the best of a large number of titles from the genre.

3) Metroid Prime: Corruption (Nintendo Wii - possibly in Aug.?)
The two Metroid Prime games on the Gamecube were both among the best gaming experiences from the last generation. Even though the Wii isn't particularly more powerful than a Gamecube, the idea of taking control of Samus via the Wii-mote is a very pleasing thought to say the least. So far, everything we've seen from Corruption looks fantastic, but many people have their doubts about it being released this year, let alone this quarter.

2) Too Human (Xbox 360 - possibly in Aug. but who knows?)
Who knows when Silicon Knight's adventure/RPG will be released? If by some miracle it is this quarter, count me first in line to sample the potential brilliance over a decade in the making. Denis Dyack and company have never let me down before, and I expect this to be one of the deepest and most enveloping games to be released this year (or next).

1) Blue Dragon (Xbox 360 - Aug. 28)
A Final Fantasy-style RPG on my Xbox 360. What more can one ask for!?!?!? How about the fact that Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, is behind this game. Blue Dragon has been out in Japan for several months now, and has been received with great critical praise despite the lack of 360 acceptance in that country. It has all the hallmarks of a great role-playing game, a great story, likable characters, a good combat engine, and an audience hungry for these kinds of games for their console. This is one of my most anticipated titles of the year, and I can't wait two months to play what looks like a masterpiece.


Overall, it looks to be a good quarter, even if some of these games aren't released.  However, with Q4 looking even more tantalizing, publishers really need to get their titles out now before the holiday log jam turns potential hits into afterthoughts.  Regardless, we will be enjoying more new games in the next couple of months than we've seen the first half of the year.  For gamers, Q3 will be a blast.

According to Team Xbox, publisher Microsoft Game Studios has just announced that Blue Dragon will be released on 8/28 in North America for $59.99 MSRP.  This Japanese RPG was developed by Mistwalker, under the watchful eye of the creator of the Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi.  The expectations are very high for this game, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

The United States men's national soccer (football) team won the Gold Cup, the championship of North and Central America (CONCACAF), today with a dramatic come-from-behind victory over bitter arch-rivals Mexico.  Nery Castillo, Mexico's amazingly talented forward was the first to draw blood near the end of the first half by breaking through the US defense and crossing the ball to a wide open Andrés Guardado, who hammered it home.  This seemed to actually fire the US up for the second half, which saw the Americans get the better of the play in the final 45.  Brian Ching started the come back with an excellent run into the penalty area, where he was brought down Jose Magallon.  Landon Donovan scored on the successive penalty shot to tie Eric Wynalda for first on the all-time US MNT scoring list.  Several minutes later, Benny Feilhaber completed the victory with one of the most sensational goals you will ever see, volleyed from 22 yards out straight past the keeper into the far back corner of the net.

I'm really enjoying watching this new generation of American footballers, and I think this team will really shine in the years to come.  I have been watching the USA-Mexico rivalry most of my life, and I honestly think this was one of the best games these two nations have ever played against one another.  If you aren't a soccer fan yet, but have some interest in the sport and in the US team, now is a great time to start watching!

Next for us, bring on Argentina and the Copa America!!!!

U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!

All I can say is, "Wow!"  If this guitar is any indication, Rock Band could be the best release this year!

Seriously, if you are a fan of games like Wing Commander, X-Wing/TIE-Fighter, and Freelancer, you need to check this game out. Project Sylpheed is the closest thing we've seen to a starfighter sim in a number of years, and it's coming to the 360 very soon. This is a genre that I have sorely missed, and if Square-Enix's title is somewhat successful we may see more space shooters in the future. Also, Square has gone out of its way to bring this to the US 360, and if it sells well we could see more Square games in the future.

Anyway, the demo is on the marketplace as of yesterday, so go give it a try. Also, when the full game is released it will only cost $39.99. Definitely one to consider even if you're only a casual fan of Square or space shooters.

If you're a fan of RPG's, you should be following Silicon Knight's Too Human very closely by now.  TooHuman.net begins its weekly interview with the developers with the head honcho himself, Denis Dyack.  It's definitely good information for anyone interested in the game.  I look forward to more of these interviews.

Activision has announced more tracks for the upcoming Guitar Hero II expansion disc for the PS2, titled Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's. I'm so glad I still have my copy of GH2 for the PS2, as the even if these songs are released as DLC on the 360, this will probably be more bang for the buck.

Here is a list of the tracks announced:

Hold On Loosely - .38 Special
No One Like You - Scorpions
Only a Lad - Oingo Boingo
Radar Love - White Lion
Ballroom Blitz - Krokus
The Warrior Scandal
What I Like About You - The Romantics
Wrath Child - Iron Maiden

They join the 13 tunes announced previously, which are:

I Wanna Rock - Twisted Sister
I Ran - Flock of Seagulls
Round and Round - Ratt
Metal Health - Quiet Riot
Holy Diver - Dio
Heat Of The Moment - Asia
18 and Life - Skid Row
Bathroom Wall - Faster Pussycat
Lonely is the Night - Billy Squier
Nothing But a Good Time - Poison
Play With Me - Extreme
Shaken - Eddie Money
Synchronicity II - The Police