Boss VG Reviews

We're cranking out new types of videos this month! Boss VG LIVE and now Boss VG Reviews. Check out the review Joe and I did of APB.



Also, the review Xenodyne did of Sin and Punishment.

Wii Games Summer 2010

Nintendo announced the Wii Games Summer 2010, a nationwide event that will take place in major cities across the country on July 16. Teams will play games like Wii Sports Resort Bowling, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Wii Fit Plus, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Sports Resort Basketball. Sounds pretty lame, right? Well the grand prizes are pretty good.

First Place

* Winners in the family category will receive Royal Caribbean cruise for their entire team.
* Free 1st Party Nintendo Games for One Year
* Netflix Membership for One Year
* Black Wii Console
* Ultimate Entertainment Package (including flat screen TV and surround system)
* Feature in Nintendo national print advertisements
* Gold Trophy

Second Place

* Black Wii Console
* Free 1st Party Wii Games for One Year
* Netflix Membership for One Year
* Silver Trophy

Third Place

* Free 1st Party Wii games for One Year
* Netflix Membership for One Year
* Bronze Trophy

If you like the Wii, this sounds awesome. Huge events like this always seem really cool to me, even if I'm not participating. The intro video with Olympic Gold Medalist Shawn Johnson and some person in a Mario costume is pretty funny actually. Shawn Johnson being hot helps too.

Hardcore players will want the Kinect? lol

I wanted the last bit of hate on the Kinect to be my last, since all we've done is hate on Microsoft. They seem to want to make it impossible to stop hating on them though, by saying stupid things almost every day. Microsoft's worldwide marketing manager, Ryan More, is quoted as saying "I think we know that hardcore gamers will be the first to go out and buy it, as they are with any product."

I don't know how to respond to something like this. There are so many casual games that they showed off at E3 for the Kinect, I don't know where he's coming from with this. Unless they announce some sort of Halo game featuring the Kinect or something like that, I can't see hardcore gamers wanting one at all. The interviewer does bring up the fact that Metal Gear Solid: Rising was sandwiched between Kinect demos at E3. Perhaps that would make the Kinect appealing to the hardcore gamer, but I doubt that it will even be compatible.

Kinect Technical Specifications

Despite being completely addicted to APB, I am still reading gaming news. The specs for the Kinect have been posted by a British retailer.

Sensor
Colour and depth-sensing lenses
Voice microphone array
Tilt motor for sensor adjustment
Fully compatible with existing Xbox 360 consoles

Field of View
Horizontal field of view: 57 degrees
Vertical field of view: 43 degrees
Physical tilt range: ± 27 degrees
Depth sensor range: 1.2m - 3.5m

Data Streams
320x240 16-bit depth @ 30 frames/sec
640x480 32-bit colour@ 30 frames/sec
16-bit audio @ 16 kHz

Skeletal Tracking System
Tracks up to 6 people, including 2 active players
Tracks 20 joints per active player
Ability to map active players to LIVE Avatars

Audio System
LIVE party chat and in-game voice chat (requires Xbox LIVE Gold Membership)
Echo cancellation system enhances voice input
Speech recognition in multiple

They're really not that much to behold, to be honest. However, there is one line of information that is of interest. The Kinect tracks "up to 6 people, including 2 active players." That sounds mighty peculiar to me. What do the other four people get to do, if they aren't "active players"?

Also, why is the Kinect limited to only 2 at a time? Microsoft is just disappointing the living hell out of us this month.

Enslaved preorder bonuses listed

Everyone is excited for Enslaved including me, and its shaping up to be game of the year status with its crisp bright visuals and excellent animation. The games set to hit store shelves in October, so they have announced exclusive DLC for 5 different stores.

* EB Games Canada/GameStop: Ninja Monkey, with "rare stun and plasma blast staff ammo."
* Walmart: Classic Monkey, with costume based on Journey to the West and double melee damage
* Best Buy: Sexy Robot Trip, with increased stun abilities for both Monkey and her EMP blasts
* Amazon: Bonus soundtrack bundle
* Target: A bonus mini comic bundle

Like usual Target gets the shaft, but its ok at least they try.

Parents group wants Best Buy to move Mature games higher on the shelf

Everyone loves to look at the back of Games, shit sometimes I do it when I dont even want to buy anything, I dont know why I just do. And so do kids, so an advocacy group Parents Television Council has asked Best Buy to put their more mature titles up higher so children cant reach them.

I don't really understand why since parents are the ones buying these games for their kids in the first place and you don't see anything bad on the back of the box like ever. But these people mean well and its nothing to serious, So move up them boxes Best Buy.

New Pokemon Black/White trailer hits the internets

So I cant read Japanese but It doesn't matter because this game looks fucking bad ass regardless. In the video we see some 3v3 battles, a handful of new pokemon, and a bunch of menus in Japanese that look confusing as fuck, but that's probably due to the Japanese.

I did some digging to try and find a US release date, but I could only find the Japanese one which is fucking worthless to me. But its coming out on September 18th, so have fun you Japanese assholes. Fuck you.

PS3s are finally profitable

Sony has come out with a statement saying that after four years of losing money on their PS3s that they are finally making money. And because of this they will not be dropping the price of the system any time soon.

"This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3," says Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida. "We aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to."

"When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand. At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production. We have lots of great games coming out and innovations with Move and 3DTV, so we don't believe this is the time for us to think about a price drop."

This is really good news, and like he said this looks like its going to be a good year for Sony because of the Move and some really good games. I'm still not liking that they are going to try and push 3D tvs on me, but maybe if enough people feel the same way they will just quit trying until they are cheaper.

Fist of the North Star trailer makes my head explode!

So at E3 we saw a ton of really cool games, but shoved in the corner where almost nobody saw it was a Fist of the North Star game. I have only just watched the Fist of the North Star movie while we were at Fanime and I loved it so I am really excited to play this game. From what I hear the game is just as ridiculous and awesome as the series, its just to bad there is little to no hype for it.

The game is a spin off of the Dynasty Warriors series expect now you poke the shit out of people and watch them explode seconds later.

Microsoft responds to 360 Slim Problems

So its no surprise that Microsoft is getting a lot of shit about their 360 slims crashing, but yesterday Microsoft came out and issued a statement regarding their slims.

"We couldn't be more proud of the consoles we are building now, as well as the new Xbox 360. This console is the culmination of years of continuous innovation in design, testing and learning. Today we are confident we are shipping a high quality product."

I have been doing nothing but bitching about Microsoft for the past week so i will just leave that ridiculous quote up there and leave it at that.

Boss Talk and BossVG LIVE!

This week's episode of Boss Talk can be viewed here.

If you're wondering at all why it took me so long to post it today, that's because we have some exciting new content to unveil that I've also been working on tonight.

Boss VG is proud to present another type of video besides the normal Boss Talk. These new videos have been dubbed "BossVG LIVE". Now, YouTube cannot live stream, so we're not actually live, but bear with me here while I explain. BossVG LIVE videos are clips of gameplay footage that include commentary with little to no editing. I start a video, the guys say what they think about it while its playing, and then I post it. The first two BossVG LIVE episodes feature the Crackdown 2 demo (and the nifty exploit to remove the time limit) and the recent Co-op DLC for Red Dead Redemption.

We hope you enjoy the new videos. Remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We'll be bringing you news, reviews, and skits with better quality as we go along. Its a learning process, and we're all learning. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

As always, if you have any feedback about anything, send it to foe@bossvg.com or jervan@bossvg.com.

Infinity Waaaaaa?

So I'll keep this brief because I am operating on 0 hrs of sleep, and I tend to get ranty when I stay up more than 20 hours.

Today Infinity Ward opened up a voicemail line where you could voice concerns about their game and leave feedback over what you think they can improve. For those of you wondering, that number is (402) 500-0119 .

Glad they gave it to me so easily. I know who I'm drunk dialing next time the bossvg crew gets together for a night of beer pong.


If they wanted feedback they didn't need to ask the community; they could have just asked me. My response?

"Well I think that CoDMW4 could have been better if it had a better bug testing team. Also, it would be nice to see all the hackers get cleaned up. Also, how lame is it that the PC users can't have any dedicated servers? Pretty lame if you ask me.

P.s. Have fun sucking Kotick's dick for staying instead of leaving with all the other people.


See? I told you I get ranty.

On Paying for Nothing and Paying for Ads

So we were all dreading any news regarding the PSN pay service. We didn't know if it meant that normal users would get cock-blocked like Xbox does for it's non-gold members. Thankfully, it's just an optional service.

I was browsing IGN this morning and stumbled across the details of the "Playstation+" subscription service. It's priced about the same as a Gold Membership yearly, and it includes a few neat amenities, such as free games, and also free episodes of the Playstation Network show Qore.

And this would be all fine and dandy. Free games? Sure, I'd love em! Playstation news? Sure, that's cool too. Paying money and then if you unsubscribe you get nothing?

Wait what?

That's right, if you stop your subscription for any reason, all of the games/content you got through the subscription is frozen (read: unable to be played) until you resubscribe.

That's fucking bullshit. That's like subscribing to a magazine, and then canceling your subscription and having the company tell you to give them back all the issues you ordered up until that point.

I'd be 100% interested in this service if after I canceled the subscription I could keep the games.

You know what else is bullshit? Paying a subscription fee to a game that is making money through in-game advertising.

Jervan just told me about how the new MMO All-points Bulletin (APB for short) will be making money off of commercial broadcasts during loading screens once every 3 hours. So naturally, I hunted down an article talking about it.

According to Bit-Tech, it's a deal between Realtime Worlds (the creators of the game) and Vivox, who provides the VOIP for the game. Now the voice quality is pretty good for the game (though hearing people mouth breathing and dogs barking in the background while you're designing clothes is pretty annoying), but I'm sorry, if I'm paying a subscription fee for a game, I'd like to remain ad-free. I already bought your game (most games that are bought don't have advertisements, unless you count EA Sports games), but I'm also paying a promise that I'm going to play the game for the allotted time.

Ads were already all over the place during the beta, having advertisements for the Suicide Girls, and I can only imagine that there's going to be a lot more in-game marketing once the game is live.

I won't be getting this game. I'll just continue to sit here with my cup of haterade and World of Warcraft, and just wait for TOR to come out.

While We Wait for APB

When I went to the usual sites in search of game info, a post on Kotaku piqued my interest. It appears that APB Lead Designer EJ Moreland will be on Kotaku's next podcast show taking questions. The show starts at 10 AM here, so I'll most likely wait until its up in its entirety.

We all played APB's Key to the City event during the last week or so. Joe, Krinkor, and I especially fell in love with the game. The amount of customization is astounding, and if you remember correctly, was the main reason I was excited for this game in the first place. The gameplay is admittedly tedious if there aren't enough opposing faction members in your instance, but playing with a couple good friends is fun enough. I don't want to ruin too much, since I want to do a video review of the game once we can get back in for the pre-launch event.

Realtime Worlds has also seen fit to forbid reviewers from posting reviews of APB until ten days after the release date. Does this seem a little fishy? It should because it is. They're worried about a lot of the negative shit people have been saying about their game.

I'm not worried though. If the game is like the one we've been addicted to for the whole KttC event, it'll be awesome. More on that later if I can manage to scrabble together a decent video review. If not, we'll have to deal with a text review. Either way, you assholes get to hear my opinions. Circle of life.

3D Video Chat on the Horizon?

According to an interview with Saturo Iwata over at Forbes, the 3DS opens the way to new features previously unseen in current technology, such as 3D video chat. The obvious downside to this is that only other 3DS users could chat with you, since nothing else exists that supports the technology. It feels weird to say that.

So, if that becomes a reality, expect to not only see dicks in 3D, but moving dicks in 3D.

Kinect? $150? Outrageous!

So it was announced by the official Microsoft website that the Kinect will cost $150.

So their shitty peripheral is going to cost $50 less than a full console (if you can call the Wii that, I guess). Sony's peripheral looks like so much more fun, and it costs $30 less than it (and that's with the full bundle)!

Remember how excited I was for all the motion controller? Well after E3, I put a reserve down at Gamestop on the Move, but not the Kinect.

With all of the negative media surrounding Microsoft after E3, I can't see 3rd/4th quarter of 2010 and 2011 being the best times for Microsoft.

Viva la Playstation!

360 slims shut down to prevent the RROD

It hurts to see all of this Microsoft hate flying around. But shit happens. And when you present gamers with a stupid motion controller and an "updated" version of your system with as many flaws as the previous, your going to get shit talked.

Jervan already brought up the fact that the system stick fucks up your disc if you move the system. And he mentioned to me last night that people are already getting red rings. They are actually not red rings anymore and instead are red dots.

But the slimmed down 360 will actually shut down your system if its on the brink of getting the red dot. I really don't know why they couldn't just fix the fucking problem instead of replacing a huge annoyance with a slightly less annoyance.

Its not a bad idea, they could have just gone about it better in my opinion. I look forward to seeing how often these new 360s actually get this error.

3DS price speculation

One of the bummers during the Nintendo conference was that they didn't give us a price or a launch date for their awesome new handheld. But during a recent interview Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated that they won't be selling the console for less than production cost. Its pretty obvious but it brings up some points as to how much the device will cost.

When the DS launched it was $150. So how much do you think the 3D tech, 3 new cameras and some beefed up processing power will cost.

The rumor going around is $200 $250. And I would gladly drop that much to get my hands on that shit.

Kotick wants a subscription service for Call of Duty

There is a lot of hate toward Activision and Bobby Kotick these days, but this guy seriously brings it upon himself. I was already put off by the fact that they are charging so much for their DLC but if you thought that was bad lets take a looksie at what he told the Wall Street Journal when they asked "If you could snap your fingers, and instantly make one change in your company, what would it be, and why?"

"I would have Call of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow. When you think about what the audience’s interests are and how you could really satisfy bigger audiences with more inspired, creative opportunities, I would love to see us have an online Call of Duty world. I think our players would just have so much of a more compelling experience"

WSJ then asked if a subscription service was heading towards Call of Duty Kotick replied said "hopefully" and that gamers were "clamoring for it".

I swear to god people. I really feel like we gave Activision the idea that we would buy anything they throw at us regardless of price. How far will this shit go? I really feel like this has got to end. And hopefully gamers express how they feel to these clowns. God knows we love petitions anyway.

Watch as the next Call of Duty game gives you a rifle and a sidearm but you need to fork over real cash for all your perks upgrades and additional weapons. What a crock.

Xbox 360 Slim can suck it

Not even a full two weeks after E3, and complaints are already coming in about the quality of the Xbox 360 slim. Besides a video of the console tearing up discs when moved, new reports of a "red dot of death" are surfacing.

First, the disc scratching issue. I initially waited to mention this because E3 was still going on, but now that the show is up I feel as though I can vent a bit. What the fuck, Microsoft? As the video shows, the console was barely moved and it destroyed the disc inside. I've never heard of this issue with any other system before, and the fact that it exists shows either a poorly manufactured unit, or bad testing on Microsoft's part to make sure their consoles are durable. Accidents happen, and moving a unit while it is in use shouldn't be the end of the world (or game inside).

The funniest part to me is the comments section for that Destructiod video. It is positively littered with people calling the guy a dumbass and blaming him for ruining the disc. Yes, he was warned by the sticker on the front, but if the hardware was designed well it wouldn't be an issue. Something so simple shouldn't be an issue. Period. Go ahead and read those comments, they're hysterical. People are so ready to defend Microsoft for making garbage.

Second is the more familiar issue with the Microsoft system. You'd think they would have learned their lesson with the fiasco that was the first RROD plague. Granted, it doesn't seem to be as big of a problem as the RROD, but the Red Dot of Death could pop up more often now that more people have been buying the slim. I predict that it'll get worse. I really have no trust in Microsoft anymore.

Maybe what Joe said in our E3 video was right. This could be Microsoft's worst year ever. Their new version of their console sucks, and their precious new motion controller blows. You think the Kinect will break if you shake it?

E3 Coverage

Our E3 footage is on YouTube. Watch it.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Video Game, E3 2010: Storming the Village GP (Cam) HD | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

The above trailer is showcasing one of the big games I'm looking forward to this year. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, the next generation of 3D Castlevania games.

Just a little info about Castlevania. It's usually been a sidescrolling dungeon-crawling game with a Halloween theme to it. Usually it centers upon the story of Dracula's resurrection, and your attempt at stopping it, or killing him once again. Usually you play as one of the Belmont clan, who has been fighting Dracula for years. Sometimes, the main character shifts to someone unrelated to the Belmont clan. The hallmark weapon in the game is a whip, because for some reason Dracula and all the horrors he enlists as his minions can only be killed by a whip.

The game is known for it's great art and sometimes brutal difficulty. Sometimes there are waves upon waves of enemies that you have to battle.

There have been several forays into the 3D world for Castlevania, but none of them have been very successful. They've been plagued by poor execution, controls (both camera and otherwise), and the games overall haven't been that fun.

With Lords of Shadow, hopefully this changes. It's being supervised by the legendary Hideo Kojima, who's got a track record of successes. The voice cast has some amazing voice actors as well, including Robert Carlyle as the main character, Patrick Stewart (!) as his mentor, and Natascha McElhone as the main character's dead wife. You know Konami is going for a homerun for this game.

From the trailer I linked a the top, the game looks beautiful. The framerate is quite solid, the action looks fun. Only problem I can see with it is that the grab system looks a little flawed. I can't really see using it in the middle of combat with a lot of enemies. Then again, I usually just hack and slash my way through everything until nothing moves.


Let's hope there's an easter egg where you can cut at a wall and expose a ham. Points if you know what game I'm referring to (hint: it's a Castlevania game).

No release details yet, but hopefully we'll get a date by the end of the week, or within the next few months.

E3 Day Two Impressions

So today we saw the big press conferences that we've been waiting for. Luckily, both conferences were a lot better than Microsoft's wet noodle of a conference.

Nintendo (The House of M)

George-

So Nintendo had a lot to live up to today. They announced their new handheld system, the 3DS a few months ago, right on the heels of the release of the DSiXL. They announced that it would have full 3D without the use of graphics. They finally showed the system off today, and it looks....

Like a DS with a bigger screen on top. Along with announcing the 3DS, they announced a new Kid Icarus game for it, which looks fucking amazing. Also they showed a bunch of interviews with 3rd party game developers, and they had Hideo Kojima saying that he wants to bring the Metal Gear Solid series to the 3DS. I hope I get to grope a 16 year old IN 3D!!!! Just kidding, but still, amazing stuff.

A bunch of games that I didn't even know I was looking forward to were demonstrated today. Kirby's Yarn was announced today, and it really looks fun. It brings me back to the old days of Yoshi Story. Hopefully this can be played with a Gamecube or a Classic controller, because I think the motion controls would just ruin it for this game.

Also announced was Donkey Kong Country Returns. This is being brought to us by the same stuido that has handled the Metroid Prime series, and looks very promising. I know I logged a billion hours on my old DK Country cartridge, and the last time we played a good DK game was DK64, which was fun, but didn't scratch that itch that rare filled so many years ago (during what I remember as the magic years of gaming).

Another big announcement I was looking forward was kinda ruined for me by the fact that the Wii's hardware is such a big limitation on the games that are going to be made.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was announced today, and I thought it looked pretty cool. They blended the graphics of Twilight Princess with the midrange colors of Wind Waker to create a vibrant looking world. Only problem was, while Shigeru Miyamoto was demonstrating the game. It will be in full motion controls with the Wii motion+. As you notice even the screen that Miyamoto exits out of doesn't cut in 1:1 motion. I trust in Miyamoto as a game developer though. I think that after the embarrassment of getting up on stage in front of a lot of people and having his child embarrass him so badly, he's going to fine-tune the motion controls so it does not have any possibility of happening to anyone.

The only other disappointing thing for me about this conference is that Nintendo only gave a vague statement as to when their newest console would be available (even though they looked as if they're ready to ship today). They stated the usual "Holiday 2010" that every game developer gives when they mean the 4-5 month period before Christmas, and they didn't drift a price past us. This kind of irked me, as I use this show to judge how much money I'm going to be throwing away in the next year.

A company that did follow through with this though...

Sony

George-

So everyone kind of didn't know what to think of Sony this year. They knew that there was going to be Move news, but they didn't know what other news would be released. I was pleasantly surprised with the plethora of information that I gained by watching the conference.

To kick things off, Sony introduced the Move. What they also introduced was an attitude that they weren't afraid to take pot shots at their competitions' showcases. They talked a lot of shit about Microsoft's motion controller, which makes me happy inside. It means they've finally bucked up and they're confident that they have a product that has the ability to move units.

And they proved it too by demonstrating some games.

First off, from what I can tell, the motion control is 100% 1:1 accuracy. Unlike the Wii, if there's a cursor on screen, there is no jittering or random misses. They showed off Killzone 3, which although I'm not too excited about, was at least worth mentioning that it was delivered pretty well.

The next game they showed was Sorcery. It was 1:1 and had pretty awesome magical gameplay. Can't wait to get my hands on it myself.

What kind of sucked is that they didn't have any news about a PSP2. Instead, they brought out a new marketing campaign for the PSP. Also showcased their sports suite.

This got me the best about the conference though: THEY ANNOUNCED BOTH PRICE AND LAUNCH DATE FOR THE MOVE. This was the big sticking point for both Nintendo and Microsoft. The Move will launch on September 19th for North America. The main controller will cost $49.99, and the sub-controller (think Wii nunchuck if you will) will run $29.99. The PS3 Eye is normally $39.99 but Gamestop has made it unavailable online.

They announced 2 different bundles for the Move. The first package is similar to how the Wii was relesed. Comes with the main controller, the camera and a sports game. This will run for $99.99. They also promised a bundle for $399.99 for a PS3 Slim and the $99.99 bundle. The complete bundle (assuming you have a PS3 already), including the sub controller, will run for about $129.99. Not bad for so many things, and a game that would probably be $50-60 on its own. Buying everything separate would run you about $120, so the extra $10 gets you a game that will serve as a tutorial (and a fun beginner game).

They also announced a lot of good games to look forward to in the next year. InFamous2 looks awesome. Also, Gabe Newell (who has been very outspoken about how much he hates the current state of consoles) had to eat his words and make nice talk about PS3. Also he announced that Portal 2 will be on the PS3, and that they will have some form of a Steam Platform that will allow the Steam Cloud. Does this mean that if I buy Portal 2 on the PC, it will be available on my PS3? God I hope so. I laughed in the trailer when GLaDOS says "I think we can put our differences behind us and work together for science. You monster."

I think that was specifically referring to how Gabe Newell had to just get up in front of everyone and ate his own words. Either way, I'm frustrated that there was no HL2:EP3 announcements or HL3 announcements. Though as I was venting my frustrations, Foe did remind me that they may be waiting to release Portal 2 as part of a Box just like they did with the original Portal. I mean, they even did delay it from a January release...

But that's just wishful thinking.

An exculsive I'm not excited for is Gran Turismo 5. Every time I've picked up a GT game, I can't even get past the licensing part of the game thanks to the shitty handling of the starter cars you get. I'll give it a rent when it first comes out, but I think for now I'll stick to Forza 3.

We also got an announcement about a game that has been denied up, down, left, and right for about the last 2 years now. Everyone should remember the original Twisted Metal game. It was basically a maniacal car shootemup that was extremely fun. Over the years it got darker and darker. There hasn't been a true proper sequel to the game since Twisted Metal: Black, which was one of the release titles for the PlayStation 2.

It's about damn time we get something new. This game looks very crazy. It has aerial combat in addition to ground combat. Also, you have the ability to lean out of your car's window and use a sniper rifle. Very cool. I can't wait to try it out. I remember having hours of fun on all of the titles as a young kid.

On a final note, I have to say I was impressed by Kevin Butler's speech. I'd link it, but everyone posted the G4 stream of it, which had a breakup in the beginning of it. It was an epic speech in which Kevin Butler not only joked about the competition (The Kinect reveal party, and Nintendo's Mii's lack of arms and legs). He also defended casual gamers, with one of the best arguments ever:

"Say you have an awesome girlfriend, then someone else gets an awesome girlfriend too? You know who wins? EVERYONE."

You know what though? The entire speech was very inspiring. It makes me believe that Kevin Butler isn't just a character. He's actually a man that enjoys his work and genuinely loves the world of gaming.

Long live gaming FOREVER MAY HE REIGN.

Oh: and Sony officially won. From start to finish.

I'm off to go mark X's on the calendar every day that passes until the Move comes out.

E3 Day One Impressions

The conferences for Day One are finished. Some of the previews, as usual, were better than others. Here are our opinions on the different conferences.

Microsoft

Joe- The Microsoft Conference started off extremely well. They showed some Gameplay of the new Call of Duty which looks really good, very Call of Duty-ish which is a plus for some, negative for others. But judging from the trailer it looks like Treyarch will have no problem taking over the franchise.

Then they invited Kojima and the producer of Metal Gear: Rising out to show off their game, and HOLY SHIT this game looks cool. The game is way more graphic than I expected. You are chopping peoples bodies into about five pieces and then chopping those pieces into smaller fucking pieces.

So the conference is still going well and they invite our favorite douche bag Cliff Blizsenski out to show off Gears of War 3. He says that the game is going to support 4 player co-op and invites 3 more people to come out and play the campaign.... When I heard that I just about shit my pants. That is the most awesome thing I have ever heard and I can't wait for the BossVG team to play it together. It also helped that the game looked awesome. Showed a couple small changes like being able to trade guns with teammates, but no big changes to the gameplay. I'm ready to jump back into that world and fuck shit up.

After having my face melted off by Cliff Blezsenski they showed a trailer for Fable III the game looked pretty cool but it was short. The first two games were good so I don't see why this one wont.

They started to talk about Halo: Reach talking about how great the Halo franchise is and showed off gameplay from the single player campaign. It looks like a prettier Halo so I wasn't impressed, but I'm sure a ton of people creamed their pants. Good for them.

Alright and this is were the conference lost me. They go on to talk about the Kinect and how it will revolutionize consoles like Live did. And start talking about how the device works and how you will use it for viewing movies.

Basically you tell it what you want to do by saying "Xbox" and whatever you want it to do. For example "Xbox Zune" to get to the Zune page, or "Xbox suck my dick" if you want it to suck you off.

It should be noted that while they are showing off the Kinect the audience did not cheer once, nor did they laugh at any of the peoples' jokes.

They finally start talking about games for the Kinect. And while I hate the idea of these motion controllers I was looking forward to seeing how they would integrate the Kinect to games I like to play, which is anything besides a party game or a fitness game.

Well guess what they showed? A bunch of party games and a fitness game. Fuck my life. It had to be the most embarrassing 45 minutes of my life. They were talking about how fucking good this idea of no controllers was going to be and they back it up with bad kart racers and a stupid pet game. No talk of how they were going to integrate it with "good" games just them pretending to be excited about these shitty games were you just run in place and jump.

They announced a Star Wars game and it was so bad looking I threw up. All you can do is wave your arm around and dash forward.....

Only recently have I become very pro Microsoft. And to see them like this...it hurts. They finish the conference by saying that this year is going to be the biggest year for the 360. No its not Microsoft. You showed off like 3 cool games and wasted my time with the Kinect's party games. No fuckers, this is the year that your system crashes and burns.

Jervan- I went into this not excited at all. I had already heard about the Natal's official name- the Kinect. I must admit that I wanted to see what Microsoft was planning with their motion controller, seeing as we knew the least bit about it. Also, the camera-only route was an odd choice which, now that I've seen it, I doubt will pay off.

Call of Duty looked, as Joe put it "very Call of Duty-ish" and I'm confident that Treyarch will be able to take up the reins from Infinity Ward and keep the franchise successful.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising, as a Hideo Kojima game, was greeted with applause. Rightly so, I think, since the destructable environments and enemies make this game one to watch. The part where Raiden cuts the van in half was one of the highlights for me. It actually reminds me of Samurai Jack, and makes me want a good game based off of that series as well. Actually, now that I think of it, the opening part features Raiden cutting up an android or mecha of some sort, and oil sprays out. Not that Samurai Jack has a monopoly on cool katana vs. robot action, but this video is making me want to watch Samurai Jack again.

Gears of War 3, as expected, blew some minds. The 4 player co-op sounds awesome. I don't have much else to say about this game. It's going to kick ass.

Halo: Reach looks a lot like every other Halo game. I have no idea where all the hype is coming from on that piece of shit. For a little while, we were all excited about the beta. When we played that shit, we realized that its the same bullshit. If you like Halo, you'll love it. But if you don't, you won't have to worry about washing the taste of Bungie's collective semen out of your mouth every time a new Halo comes out.

On the Kinect- as I said, I wanted to see where they could go with the idea. I was disappointed to see that a lot of the applications of the Kinect are similar to those of the Eyetoy games I used to play with my PS2. It depresses me that all they can think of doing are fitness games and party games. I guess if they're copying off of the success of the Wii with motion controllers, they might as well go for the games as well. It makes sense, but I expected more out of Microsoft. Here's to hoping that Sony's Move will be better.

George- Microsoft Conference:
Nothing that really got me excited. You may have recalled the fact that I was willing to give Kinect a chance, just like I've given the Wii and soon the Move a chance. This has pretty much changed since I saw the conference. Microsoft is making the same mistake that Nintendo did with the Wii. They're not trying to integrate both audiences into the experience, instead focusing on the casuals.

The games that Joe talked positively about got me pretty pumped, except for COD: Black Ops (BO? Haha). I'm tired of generic FPS's that bring nothing new to the table, and don't contribute to the FPS genre. Skimmed a lot of this footage because a lot of the games looked like garbage (of course aside from Gears3, Fable3, and of course, Metal Gear Rising). Something kind of interesting was Codename: Kingdom. There was a live action trailer that showed what looked like 3 gladiators. No gameplay, but hopefully they take the concept somewhere interesting.

I'll talk more about Metal Gear Rising later. What Joe said holds true, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Kinect is going to be terrible. There is no real application to this other than video chatting and flailing your arms around uselessly. I have a Wii that already serves this purpose. The only cool application to the Kinect was in Forza 3. For those who don't know, Forza 3 happens to be the only racing sim that I have ever liked, mainly for the handling and the ease of getting into the game. Kinect gives you the ability to approach the car, pop the hood, sit in the car, etc. This is cool because it means I can deck out the Mustang I've always wanted, and dream that I actually have that Mustang.

I was expecting both a date and a pricing for Kinect, which I did not see. We got a date but not a price, which is a little retarded.

This didn't stop Gamestop from setting online pre-orders for $150, which is too much for even me to justify the purchase.

Microsoft's conference this year = epic FAIL.

EA

Joe- Going into the EA press conference I was extremely excited. We were going to get some TOR news and hopefully some Valve news. And out of the three I enjoyed this one the most.

It was cool to see a new Need for Speed, will I play it? Probably not. But I remember enjoying the older ones.

Even though I never played the first one Dead Space 2 looked awesome and disgusting. I say disgusting in the best way possible. After watching that trailer I felt like playing the first one and look forward to seeing more.

The next game they presented in my opinion showed up Microsoft's new footage of Call of Duty: Black Ops. They showed off the new Medal of Honor, but instead of showing us a single player trailer they dropped some monitors down and had 25 people play multiplayer. And the multiplayer looked WAY better than Call of Duty's. Call of Duty was fun don't get me wrong, but this is a much more realistic approach to the Modern Warfare setting, and you will not be seeing people infinite sprinting around a small ass map with duel shotguns. The only buzz kill was the fact that our stream kept switching away from the action and showing us their hands playing the game for some reason.

After this they teased us with an expansion to Bad Company 2 set in Vietnam. I wish I saw more but all of us got a half boner off it.

I fell asleep during the sports games part as well as the fitness shit but was awoken by Georgie B's crying about the Sims 3 trailer.

But its OK because next Cliffy B came back out with some friends and showed off more BulletStorm. They called the game a blood symphony where the player is the conductor and your weapons are your instruments. George said that this has been said before, but no one could argue the fact that this game looked BAD ASS. You see the player doing these awesome combo kills, my favorite being the one where he kicks a door in so so hard it flies off the hinges and across the room killing a guy in the process. And the trailer ended with one of the most awesome chase scenes EVER.

I wasn't sure if they could top that trailer, until I heard Star Wars music. One of the Bioware doctors came out to talk about The Old Republic and announced that players would have their own ships that would serve as their home base as they explored the galaxy. They then preceded to show off one of the most bad ass cinematics I have seen in a long fucking time. I am not even going to ruin it, just go fucking watch it.

And that was it, I would have been upset with the lack of Valve news if I had not just seen the Bulletstorm footage and that awesome cinematic. They were definitely the day's highlights for me.

Jervan- I didn't expect very much from EA at all, and as I'm writing this, I realize that there was nothing I was really looking forward to on Day One. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the EA press conference.

The Need for Speed cinematic looked pretty cool, but the part where they got to actual gameplay was really something. The start of the level began with what seemed like a cinematic intro, but each car had the name of the player over it when they went into slo-mo by the camera. Then the game transitioned into a game mode where one player as a policeman tries to stop the other player as they speed away. It looked pretty fun, actually.

I remember watching Xenodyne play the first Dead Space, and it looks like the second one will deliver more of the same mindfucky xenomorph-slaying scarefest. The xenomorphs look a lot more frighting this time around, since they've grown in size and grotesque factor.

Medal of Honor stuff followed this. I hated how the stream I was watching kept showing the hands of the people playing. I don't care about how feminine your hands look, motherfuckers. From what I gathered from the huge ass multiplayer wall of screens, the game will be just like other Call of Duty-type games. I can't say I'm excited for it though. Why would I want to play an FPS on a console? Personally, it doesn't interest me.

The Bad Company 2 expansion in Vietnam looks sick as all hell. I'm glad that we'll get to play a Vietnam game. I really like the uniforms and weaponry from that time period, so I'm glad that we'll get to go there.

The Sims 3 AI stuff is really fascinating to me. I'm always interested in advances in technology and to see how the AI has been shaped in a game like the Sims is a treat. I loved the first Sims, but I kind of got burned out on it for a long time. Maybe I'll try out 3 now that we'll get to actually go to work.

Bulletstorm almost stole the show. I was hyped up for this game enough, but when I heard the pants-jizzing voice of Steven Blum, I knew I needed to play this game. Seriously, if I had his voice, I would never stop talking as long as I was conscious. The kills in this game are badass too. I just want to see more of it.

Finally, the game that did steal the spotlight (for me at least) was The Old Republic. The Star Wars music always amps me up, and this time it was no different. I hadn't even seen that much of the trailer and I was already salivating. What I absolutely loved was the hardcore fighting style of the Troopers. The part where the main Trooper punches the hell out of some Sith had me almost cheering. This game better be as cool as the trailer, or I'll go Anakin Skywalker on the BossVG crew. Not even the younglings will be spared.

George-
I was excited for EA's press conference. I was expecting some word out of Valve, seeing as they promised some sort of surprise. While I got a few pleasant surprises, I also got a few "eh" reactions to the games shown.

Not excited at all for the newest Need for Speed. I haven't played a Need for Speed game since the N64, and this one doesn't look like it's going to change my mind. I would have liked to see a Burnout instead, but there probably would have been just about as much hype out of me, except I'd be entertained by the destruction.

Dead Space two is where I finally got hooked in. After reading about a lot of Dead Space 2 footage, it inspired me to make room in my busy game schedule to finally finish my copy of Dead Space. The game had a creepy ending that left me wanting more. And the trailer only makes me want it more. Better graphics and what seems to be more frantic situations. Color me impressed!

Next they showcased MOH. While the game looks fun, this brings me back to my opinion about "Generic FPS." The companies know they will sell if they make it look like Call of Duty, people will buy, and thus they keep making these games. /yawn

Then they talked about the Gun Club. This is basically something that will allow you to get special bonuses for buying EA shooters, such as beta access for MOH starting this week. The only problem with this is that they ruined it with country music. Completely ruined the mood. I like the idea of a reward system, but I could really care less for this portion of it.

The Battlefield trailer looks pretty cool, even though Battlefield has already been to Vietnam, hopefully this outing will be even better. I can see myself playing this game for about as long as we played the original Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Then we moved into the sports section. The commercials with the EA Sports guy (the guy that always announces things) was kinda funny, but beyond that no interest from me. We're *gasp* going to get a Madden 2011. Shocker. What was kinda cool was that with the MMA game they're saying that there's going to be live, narrated matches for certain online events. Nice touch, but I don't know if they're actually going to be moderated, or if there's going to be the same sound bytes playing fairly intelligently, like wrestling games have been doing for years.

Blah blah blah Fitness game, blah blah blah woman demonstrating with pants that gave her a toe a camel would be jealous of.

The reason why I was complaining during the Sims portion was that they came up on stage and started chatting about free will and the AI from Sims 3. Not really pertaining to the new expansions or anything. To me it felt more like something to talk about in an interview with a gaming magazine, or in an article talking about AI. Personally I find Artificial Intelligence to be a very interesting topic, but at the same time, this is a game show where we're looking for announcements on the next big title, not on a game that's already out.
But then they announced that Sims 3 would be coming to the home consoles. That then validated the 5 minute lecture I sat through on Artificial Intelligence.

Bulletstorm. Joe already talked about how awesome this looked. As for the description a "symphony of destruction" Yeah, I'm pretty sure there have been many other games that have been described in that way. But you know what? The game looks fucking sick. Remember earlier how I was hating on COD and Medal of Honor for not bringing innovation to the FPS Genre. This game blew innovation out of the water. It's over the top, the action is extremely fast paced, it's not just dozens of corridors with enemy soldiers coming at you, you're not just always ducking behind a box. You're up and in the fray, and that's the type of game I love.

As for Crysis 2, I actually am kind of looking forward to it, so that I can benchmark my computer. Also, the first game was actually pretty fun (although most people didn't play more than 5 minutes, which they used for the aforementioned benchmark). They used the console version, which looked much worse than the PC version will.
Ubisoft

Joe- So I almost did not watch Ubisoft's conference because I am not that interested in anything the company has to offer. But I did and I was pleasantly surprised with a couple of announcements they made.

Shaun White skateboarding does not look like complete balls and I am actually considering picking it up now. When they first started talking about it I was like, "they keep talking about innovation, but its just going to be like every other skateboard game." and I couldn't have been more wrong. The world starts off as a colorless and boring ass place, but as you do tricks around the world it fills with color and the world transforms. It really is this huge playground where you can do anything. If you are grinding you can make it go wherever you want, you can lower or raise ground, etc. It doesn't make sense, but who the fuck cares because it looks fun.

They also showed gameplay of the new Ghost Recon game. I have never ever even considered playing a Ghost Recon game. But this game looks tight. Straight up predator status fucking shit up being all invisible and what not.

But other then that, the Conference was fucking retarded, I saw some models play laser tag and some dancers dance to Michael Jackson music. It made me want to kill myself.

Jervan- I don't think any of us were psyched for Ubisoft's presentation, and we almost opted out of it. I am glad that we didn't skip it, since it held some interesting surprises.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood looks like more of the same action that made the other two games so popular. Except now, you can assassinate with your friends. None of us at Boss VG have really been huge Assassin's Creed fans, but I'm sure those who are will enjoy the latest one.

The intro for the Shaun White skateboarding game seemed really lame to me. There was a point in the video where it looked like a guy was pounding a nail into the wall with a skateboard. I mean, what the hell? However, once Shaun White himself came out and began showing off the game, things got really interesting. Joe's already explained the premise, so I won't waste time on that. I will, however, waste time by saying that it definitely looks promising.

I'll take a breather here to mention that Joel McHale, star of Community and The Soup, was acting as host for this event. He ridiculed and mocked every single developer who showed something off at the conference and it was hilarious. I couldn't believe he was getting away with some of the stuff he was saying. He had an awesome suit too, it reminded me of the windbreaker jacket I used to wear in elementary school.

Another highlight of the show was Battle Tag. The idea is pretty cool: those nifty plastic laser tag guns and vests that everyone had in the nineties, but the game system keeps track of points. The way they showed off Battle Tag, was terrible. High energy music came on over the speakers and models wearing the vests and wielding the guns played a quick game in the audience. The nerds sitting in the audience seemed completely uninterested. Which is probably how everyone will be when the "game" comes out.

Innergy sounded really funny to me at one point when they said you could take it anywhere. Now you can look like an idiot outside instead of just in your own home! Who makes a video game based on breathing exercises, anyway?

I swore that Project DUST was a Black and White 2 sequel. It probably isn't, but I hope that we'll get one anyway.

The Rayman game that was announced was the high point of this show so far for me. It sounds dumb for me to say that, but let me explain. I spent so much time playing Rayman when I was a kid. You have no idea. This game appeals to me due to nostalgia, and the fact that its a return to the 2D platforming Rayman I used to know and love. I just hope my friend Spyro gets a similar return to his former glory, but probably not.

I'm still confused about the Michael Jackson dancers. I like Michael Jackson, but they literally announced nothing. They just danced. I have no idea whats going on anymore.


George/Xenodyne-
Everything I was going to ridicule pretty much has been ridiculed. I'm pretty excited for the new Rayman game, it's the first actual Rayman platformer in years. I have to confess that I haven't played a Rayman game before (I was too busy with many other games for the N64 and PS1), but this definitely looks like a title worth picking up. It's got a very quirky sense of humor we haven't seen in a while.

Not going to hate on Assassin's Creed. The next one looks pretty cool, even though I'm not a fan of the fact that it's going to be multiplayer. I haven't played any of them since the first (which was pretty fun, and I also like mysteries, so bonus!), but I'm told they're pretty good games.

All the aerobic and fitness shit they showed looked stupid. Especially the breathing thing and the laser tag. They started talking about innovation with the laser tag, which set of my WTF meter.

What I did find cool was the game they opened with. Child of Eden looks pretty cool, which is to be expected of a spiritual successor the the trance-rhythm game Rez from the PS2 / Dreamcast era.

The new Driver game looks cool. Hopefully we'll get some nice and responsive driving mechanics. Tired of being able to make turns in my car that I can't make in a videogame, due to the handling of all cars being so BAD.

As for the Michael Jackson show, I recieved word that Ubisoft is actually going to have a Michael Jackson game. Seriously? There are a TON of new IPS out there, and they choose a dead child molester to make a game about? None of this too soon bullshit, honestly it was sad, but his death does not mitigate the videos and the claims of many families (bad parenting imo, but that's neither here nor there).


Ubisoft scores a 4/10 on the cool meter. They had a few high points, but also a lot of weird shit.

Stay tuned for more E3 opinions and coverage.

Here's only....Everything (MOVE)

More PlayStation Move Videos

So IGN has posted a pretty good pre-E3 FAQ regarding the Move. The movie I linked above actually just got me so hyped I had to make a second post regarding this. Everything the video showcases was things that I was expecting the Wii to be like.

HD Graphics?
Check
1:1 motion control?
Check
Quick response time?
Check
Amazingly accurate sword fighting?
CHECK (note that was last year's E3 conference.)


Seriously though. I'm already sold on the Move. I still need to see a little more about Natal before I'm 100% sold.



Remember to keep tuned over the next few hours as concrete details are unveiled out of E3.

As for the archery, I'm pumped for that as well. The fact that the system can detect that you're reaching for an arrow out of your quiver, then letting it loose?

I don't have words enough to express how fucking pumped that gets me.

K'nex or Kinects?

So yesterday, Microsoft held a small press conference (similar to some of the ones that Sony has been having over the past few months), and capitalized on the E3 conference to announce the real name of Project Natal. It's now called the Kinect.

Does that sound dumb or what? What is it with hardware designers calling their systems goofy things? I get it. I get exactly what they're saying with the Kinect, and the reason behind it. They want to connect (get it? Kinect?) people to the virtual world. Question is: how do they propose to connect people without any form of physical input? Granted, it means that if there's any fitness games, that we won't be forced to pick up a remote then put it down for the exercises that don't require any input on that particular controller, but at the same time, it removes the physical feedback that the controller provides. Regardless, I'm looking forward to it coming to the home systems (read: waiting for it to come out) so that I can get my hands on it and test it out myself.

Hopefully during E3 we'll hear a price point for both it and the move.


Another idea I think they'll announce as a Kinect accessory? The Pheal. It's a force feedback vest you can use so that when you get shot it stimulates a certain spot on your chest area.

See Microsoft? I can misspell things to come up with goofy names for products too.


Edit @ 5:47am: Also, I call an August release date for the kinect. 2 months should be sufficient time to roll out the marketing on it. Also, they want to get a jump on the Move, which is set for fall, soooo.....

Boss Talk: June 10, 2010

XCOM

So I wasn't too hyped for XCOM until I saw this trailer.

For those of you who have never heard of the original XCOM, it was basically a tactical game that was a cross of Sim City and Civilization games, except you were trying to thwart the alien menace that was attacking the earth. Now, I never played the original XCOM games (and I'm not very much into tactical games so I'm not really interested in going to play it), but they came out for MS-DOS/Win98, to give a judge as to how old these games are. A few of XCOM's sequels have been released on the PS1. Aside from the first game, the original creator, Julian Gollop (founder of Mythos and later Codo Games) only oversaw the first and third games in the series.

This time around, 2K Marin (formerly known as Irrational Games), the people in charge of the original Bioshock game, are in charge. As you can see from the trailer above, it looks fucking amazing. The aliens look crazy, like to the point where there seems like there will be a lot of frantic action. Also, it seems there's a lot of different destructible objects, which so far hasn't really been featured in anything they've made in recent memory.

The weird thing is that this is the E3 trailer. Maybe I'm just high off of cold medicine right now, but doesn't E3 start on Monday, June 14?

Sony states why it has so many pre E3 game reveals

This E3 is shaping up to be a big ol' disappointment. Developers are releasing all these announcements BEFORE E3. I have no idea why they have this shit backwards. But out of everyone, Sony is the worst. We already know what Sony has in store, including Killzone 3, LittleBigPlanet 2, inFamous 2, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, and of course the fucking Move. They will also be showing off the PsP2 which will be amazingly awesome.

When asked about this, PlayStation Blog's Jeff Rubenstein gave us a straight answer.

"Whose games have people been talking about for the last 3 weeks straight?"

Yours... I guess you fag. But while you have an entire presentation on 3D gaming and motion controllers I am going to go Microsoft's where they have The Beatles and naked girls and play with the Natal... with naked girls.

Clifford Blezsinski thinks that Microsoft and the Halo franchise sucks.

The gaming community has a love-hate relationship with Cliff Bleszinski. On one hand you have an amazing game developer and on the other you have well, a douche bag with a big mouth. So it doesn't surprise me when journalists misquote him. The Gears of War creator was alleged to have stated that Japanese studios couldn't keep up with Western technology, a claim that Cliffy B claims is false.

"Internet tabloid alert: I said *nothing* about Japan not being able to keep up with the US regarding tech," Tweeted the developer. "There are plenty of existing and upcoming Japanese titles that look amazing. I have nothing but the utmost respect for those devs. If this 'journalism' continues devs will only be able to recite fact sheets verbatim.

"Websites intentionally publish misquotes and out of context pullquotes to create forum flamewars which generates traffic and profit."

There are tons of rumors, speculation, and drama in the video game community. And it is shady for websites to post shit like that. But what about the developers' PR departments who pay people extra to give their games good reviews or over hyping the hell out of their games that turn out to be complete ball sacks? Those sound a lot worse than a little misquote that's fucking true anyway.

Ps4 viral videos are fake

Earlier this week, two viral videos popped up hinting that the PS4 would be announced at E3. If you haven't seen the videos, don't because its a total waste of time. They showed a bunch of really freaked out Japanese people running around Sony's R&D facility and found a guy having a fucking seizure because of the sheer awesomeness of the PS4 or some shit.

But today Al de Leon, Sony's hardware PR representative, confirmed that those videos are definitely not from Sony and that they are a pile of bullshit, and that the PS4 will not be shown at E3.

This is good news because it made no fucking sense. If this was like past E3s we would be seeing new systems. But times have changed. Microsoft are going to be showing off their motion controllers and Sony is going to try and sell us on 3D gaming which will extend their systems' life spans by like 5 years. The only new system we are going to see at E3 is the 3DS, so I didn't understand why Sony was pushing this PS4 shit.

Halo 3 sold more than Ps3 exclusives combined, who knew?

So if we needed more proof that Halo 3 sold like hotcakes, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg came out and opened his asshole mouth. He is quick to point out that Halo 3 sold more than all of Sony's exclusives COMBINED!

"Just in from research team (NPD): Halo 3 has outsold Resistance 1 + 2, Uncharted 1+2, Killzone 2 and God of War III COMBINED ... wow," boasts the Microsoft demagogue.

I really don't know how to feel about this. That's pretty embarrassing. Most of those games listed above are ten times better than Halo 3, so its a real shame. And Microsoft, you came off like a real douche with this quote. We know how well your game sold. We knew it back in 2007, you fucking dicks.

How does 3D work?

With all this talk of upcoming 3D gaming, 3D movies, and 3D television, I think its a little important to understand how 3D works. For the sake of post length, I'll not be going into depth (haha... perception joke) with this.

Obviously, 3D refers to the ability of images to create the illusion of depth perception. In other words, the illusion that what you're seeing is "really there". This illusion is created through a technique known as stereoscopy (you've seen this word before, no doubt), which shows two images, one to each eye. Each image is from a slightly different perspective, the right one is slightly farther to the right than the left one, for example. When your eyes perceive these two images at the same time from the correct angle, the illusion of depth is created.

This technique has remained relatively unchanged since it was invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838. The original stereographic images required no glasses or other viewing aid, they required the viewer to simply cross their eyes at the right distance from the page. A stereoscope, a device that looks somewhat similar to a pair of glasses, exists for viewing these images as well. The steroscope utilizes lenses to magnify the images in such a way that the viewer no longer needs to cross their eyes, reducing eye strain and making the viewing of stereoscopic images much more easy.



Today, many more techniques exist for fooling our eyes. After the 3D movie craze of the 1950s, most people are familiar with the red/blue (or green) 3D glasses. The movie itself is shot on two cameras, spaced next to one another the same distance that the human eyes are spaced. This is important, because if the spacing is off, than the images will not look correct when our brains try to put the images together later. In post-production, the film from one camera is passed through a red filter and the film from the other camera is passed through a green or blue filter. Then, these images are placed together again in the final film with the same offset in which they were shot. When the light from the movie reaches your eyes, each lens filters out the opposite color and you'll only see one camera's point of view. The obvious downside to this is that you can't really watch color films, since the whole gimmick relies on red and blue (or green).



The same technique is used for those fancy polarized 3D glasses that you see in movie theaters today. Two different images are shown on the screen, but they involve polarized light that will be filtered out by each lens. The obvious advantage to this system is that movies can be shown in color, since is relies on blocking certain polarized light. (Think of it as being similar to polarized sunglasses.)



Now, the concept of 3D gaming is by no means a "new" or "innovative" concept, despite what the other blogs say. The original Sega Master System supported 3D with a peripheral known as "SegaScope 3-D Glasses". These were LCD shutter glasses that connected to the system itself with a wire. This technique (known as Alternate-frame sequencing) is also used in a lot of 3D televisions today, like Sony's Bravia 3D televisions. The way it works is the lenses rapidly alternate between the left and right being opaque, at the same time the images on the television alternate between left and right. This technique requires the glasses and television to be "in-tune" with one another. In the case of the SegaScope glasses, the wired connection to the Master System allowed them to be regulated to the correct timing sequence. Today's glasses are kept in tempo with infared so that they can be wireless. Unfortunately, this 3D technique requires the glasses to have a power source, so if you forget to charge them, you can't have 3D.



More famous (or perhaps infamous) is Nintendo's Virtual Boy. This eyepiece-shaped console used a technique called parallax to imitate depth. Images in the foreground were farther apart between the two screens, and images meant to be far away from the user had little to no offset. Red LED pixels were chosen to create the display because they were the least expensive, drained the battery less, and were more visually striking. A color version was tested in development, but users complained that it just made them see double instead of 3D.



This brings me to another one of the newer 3D techniques (and frankly, the one I'm most excited to see) called Auto 3D. All of the other techniques used for 3D movies require lenses or special glasses to help separate the images. Not with Auto 3D, which is short for Autostereoscopic. This technique relies on special lenses in the television itself that redirect images for each eye to different viewing zones in front of the television. The obvious downside to this is that if you aren't sitting at the exact right viewing position, you won't see in 3D. One of the fixes to this is tracking the eyes of the viewer, so that even if they move, the television moves the viewing point with them. (I think this is what Nintendo will end up doing with the 3DS.)



I did leave out quite a bit of information. You can read a lot more about 3D at howstuffworks and Wikipedia, which are where I got many of these helpful diagrams. If I got something wrong, be sure to correct me. Thanks for reading!

First Wave of PS3 3D Games Tomorrow

Over at the Playstation Blog, the news was released that the first wave of Stereoscopic 3D games will be released tomorrow. I found humor in the first two paragraphs, where John Koller states that "the PS3 system is the only console on the market that can support full stereoscopic 3D gaming — right from your living room, and with no additional charge." In the next paragraph, however, he opens with "[t]oday, our sister company Sony Electronics announced its 3D capable BRAVIA HDTVs are now available for pre-sale and will ship to retailers later this month."

The "I don't have a 3D TV" hurdle will be one that plagues 3D gaming for a long time, I think. Just read the comments on the blog post. The comments section is peppered with statements like "I wish I had a 3D TV" and "Who cares about 3D gaming?" Not only is Sony faced with the incredibly daunting task of making 3D gaming seem viable, but they also have to push people into buying 3D televisions.

The games list released on Sony's blog is MotorStorm Pacific Rift, PAIN, Super Stardust HD, and WipEout HD. They also stated that "The Fight: Lights Out" will be in Stereoscopic 3D. "The Fight: Lights Out" is the final title for the fighting game they've been showing in the Move commercials.

Now that I think about it, mixing the Move and 3D gaming might just be the way to go to make both things more appealing. Not only do you get better motion control than the Wii (the "motion control system"), you also get stereoscopic 3D images that work together with the Move. I am now intrigued by your promises of 3D gaming, Sony. Not interested, but intrigued.

Making Games is Hard

Valve is pushing back the release date for Portal 2 because "making games is hard." I wish I could make that up, but in a press release Valve stated the above truth and that Portal 2 would not be ready in time.

I'm all for pushing something back if you don't think its quite ready yet. I'd rather wait a few extra months for a good game than get a garbage game sooner. And, even though I really enjoyed the first Portal, I'm not yet feeling hyped for the sequel.

In other Valve related news, the following image has been popping up around the internets.

Note that June 14th is Valve day at E3, so many people guessed that Episode 3 news would be released. However, one of the writers at Halflife2.net emailed Gabe Newell himself for confirmation. It appears that the image is indeed a fake. Damn it Valve, why do you have to make me love you and hate you at the same time?

Explanation for Mortal Kombat clip

Earlier today all of us here at Bossvg were hanging out talking about our plans for the future when George made us watch an awesome short film that had gone online today.

The clip was a graphic re imagining of the Mortal Kombat series. It showed Reptile as a flesh eating mutant and a really cool fight scene between Baraka and Jhonny cage. If you haven't, you have to check it out because this shit has potential.

But no one on the Internets knew what exactly it was for. Speculations were that it was either for a new video game or a new film. Which is pretty obvious. But the actress who played Sonya Blade in the trailer came out and told us what was up.

"Okay, so... Mortal Kombat. It's not a game trailer. Actually was made for the director to sell WB on his vision for a reimagined MK film. [...] I did it as a favor to a friend. No idea yet what WB's reaction to it was. And I'm not sure how you can contact WB to push them to make it. But you guys are resourceful...! ;-)"

Fuck hopefully someone at WB knows how tight this movie would be if done right, fingers crossed!!!

Fuck Eva Green is hot.

So I agree with George on the fact that the GoldenEye remake will lick fat nut sacks. But for different reasons.

The thing about GoldenEye was that it was an amazing game and was basically the Halo for that generation of systems. And when I think about it I remember it being a great game and playing the shit out of it. But that was then and I have no intention of playing it ever again. Because the only thing that game has going for it now is nostalgia.

So I have no real reason to play a HD port of a classic game. The game was great back in 97 but it would look and play like a pile of shit nowadays.

The fact that they are using Daniel Craigs model for the game is actually the only real reason I would ever give the game a chance. It doesn't really bother me that its not Peirce Brosnan because both Brosnan and Craig play the same character. They both get the ladies and they both thwart plans for world domination. The only difference is that Peirce Brosnan needs pussy ass gadgets and Craig is all up in their face and ruthless as fuck. Not to mention that the babe Daniel Craig fucks is way hotter than anyone Brosnan fucked anyway. Eva Green is SO FINE!

So Activision needs to stop before they ruin one of my most memorable childhood games EVER. I don't even want to think about a shitty HD port when someone brings up GoldenEye, its bad enough that they made Rogue Agent. I just want to get lost in my love for one of the greatest N64 games of all time.

Actually should I even say HD port? Because everyone knows the Wii aint got shit for HD.

007 Pink Eye

Recently there were some leaked details about the potential remake of 007: Goldeneye, a game which holds a fond place in many people's hearts as being one of the best console FPS's of the N64/PS1 age of games.

Gamrfeed has the story about the leak. Apparently some of their sources received anonymous tips from Activision (the company handling the remake)about a survey for the cover, as well as other leaks about the character in the game.

The thing that pisses me off the most? They're featuring Daniel Craig as the main character, instead of Pierce Brosnan, who was actually in the original movie.

Um, ok, let's make a remake that has the same story, but give it a character that has no absolute ties to it. I'm not the biggest fan of the Daniel Craig movies (they're good, nice and action packed), probably because I grew up watching Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan play out the role of the suave Super-Spy who constantly encounters and seduces femme fatales, and thwarts plans for world domination during the cold-war era.

So yeah, Daniel Craig in Goldeneye is not going to make me want to buy it.

You know what else makes me not want to buy it? The fact that it's coming out on Wii. Now, I've defended the Wii in the past, but for FPS's the console is so-so, bordering on dreadful. You'd think with all of the motion controllers coming out, they'd feature it on a system that's more advanced than an N64 with a motion controller.

Now I'd love to see this in full HD graphics on the PS3 or Xbox360. But judging by the leaks, this shit won't happen.

Half-life 2: Episode 3 will not be shown at E3

When Valve announced that they had canceled their Portal 2 E3 event and would be replacing it with a surprise, the Internets went wild with speculation. And every Valve fan period was hoping it would be Half-life 2: Episode 3. But that fat asshole Gabe Newell has stated that they are not showing Half-life 2: Episode 3 at E3.

What the fuck are they waiting for? I can't say that I am surprised by the news, but I'm sick of waiting, give me a screenshot or SOMETHING! Alright new speculation: They will announce Half-Life 3 and will also make an announcement saying that they scrapped Episode 3 to use Half-Life 3's engine, BOOM.

Japanese RPG devs have become 'Complacent'

I wouldn't say that JRPGS are terrible nowadays since I am actually enjoying my time with Final Fantasy 13 right now, but there are those that would. I will admit that there was a time when my most anticipated games were from overseas and usually RPGS. And over the years that has become less and less true since western developers are making more innovative and appealing games while Japan is basically doing their usual games thing with better graphics.

BioWare's Greg Zeschuk believes that the Eastern developers have grown complacent, while Western RPG experiences are heating up. And its no secret that Bioware's RPGs are fucking amazing and probably the best RPGs around lately. He had this to say about Japanese RPG developers and the games they are making.

"I think what happened is they got very complacent for a very long time," he explains. "They kept making the same thing, and the same thing, and, in a sense, almost provided an opening for all of us to jump in with our style of games. I know first hand that they’re looking at our games now; they’re kind of looking at our stuff, the Fable stuff, and Fallout, and all that, and going, 'what are these things?' I think they had gotten used to making the same thing over and over, and it was working.

"I think the other thing, too, is that the Japanese market has gotten quite a bit weaker and weaker. It’s just not as strong a market. It used to be a tremendously strong game market, so I think they’re kind of looking at it going, 'man, we’ve got to figure out where else we can sell these,' and I think the traditional, very structured, old-school structure RPG wasn’t selling anymore; so now, I think we’re going to see some changes."