Update

I haven't written anything for a few days so I figure I should preface things to come.

I'm going to write a snazzy new review of Persona 4 which I recently played and loved. So biased opinions ahoy!

Then I'm off to the cold Nordberd to talk about Overlord II and the most adorable creatures that pillage villages, drink, and piss all over the snow.

Maybe I'll even squeeze in an article on game's rentals and their effect from my point of view (maybe a little used game sales talk too?).


We shall see!

Press A

Ah the immediate pulse of button mashing that we as gamers have come to know and hate. To be honest, who actually thinks that mashing the X button (or which ever respectable platform you play on) makes for a better gameplay alternative to say a quick-time press or even a combination of buttons like those seen in Mass Effect safe hacking.

The idea that puzzles me is that develops actually think that button mashing is a good alternative to another gameplay input type. Recently I was playing Prototype and the scenario where you hijack a tank came up. I press the button to initiate the sequence to hijack the tank. Soon after initiating this sequence I was prompted with a button with a flashing starburst around it. This symbol, the symbol I have come to hate, signifies that I need to mash the crap out of the Y button until something happens. Not only is this inconsistent in that they do not tell you how many you need to mash, so in theory (and plain far-shot) a developer could make a completely blasphemously long mashing sequence. Of course, no self respecting interface developer would make this terrible decision, but the possibility still remains.

Now, I'm not going to have this post existing to bash Prototype, but another instance I don't care for in the button mashing sequence is that sometimes I continue to get bombarded by the NPC characters. If an instance reveals itself as necessary for button mashing I should not continue to eat the bullets and tank shells from all 360 degrees around me.

I do not mind quick button presses, but haven't we, as a medium, evolved passed the need for button mashing? I'm sure I'm not the first person to voice some opinion against this mediocre solution, but I'm surprised we haven't seen any major changes away from this decision.

Ah well, when I become a dev I suppose I'll turn a revolution!

E3 Nintendo Conference Part 1.

Ah, the E3 conference. Such a wonderful time of year. Stories from journalists seem to entrance me from all of the podcasts I've been listening too. Oh how I long to go to E3 at some point during my life (which will happen assuming I pull this whole journalism thing off).

To start off the day was the Nintendo press conference. To be honest, it being June 8th, exactly a week since the conference my memory escapes me. Nintendo started off the conference with their usual banter about the Wii and all the completely useless titles no one cares about- to be blunt - Probably why I can't recall half of the conference.

The new 3D four-player co-op Super Mario Bros. game appeared near the kick off of the conference. This Mario game is an upscale of the New Super Mario title for the DS. Having played the original games (just like every human being on earth), I am excited for this release. However, how will they tackle the idea that every time when one of the players (out of the four) grabs a power-up, the whole screen stops. This of course is normal when playing the original Mario games, but this feature in a multiplayer environment could prove to be extremely bothersome to the normal player not expecting for the screen to freeze suddenly with the happy noise of a power-up. Nintendo is striving to reach out to the wide audience now, I sure hope they don't expect to keep something like that in the final product. A person who's never played a Mario game (or someone who's returning to the franchise after a long vacation from gaming) may turn to be extremely annoyed by the pauses for each power-up. Besides the power-ups potential issues, the game also appears to be extremely against anything pretty. It appears to lack a severe amount of anti-aliasing. However, cutting down the game aside, it looks like something that could be extremely enjoyable due to the fact that it's competitive as well as cooperative. Players can grief (for lack of a better term) other players in their race to the great flag at the end. You can also jump on a player's head to scale obstacles or completely ruin another player's jump by stopping it in mid-air. I heard about from the Giant Bomb pod cast that a player playing as yoshi kept eating another player and spitting him into a pit. The play getting eaten kept wall-jumping out of the pit-consequently right back into yoshi's mouth. This is amusing, but it kept going on in the "stubborn gamer stalemate". This had the potential to be extremely annoying, but thankfully (I suppose) Nintendo confirmed the lack of online for this game. Local co-op only friends!

Since I refuse to discuss Nintendo's long presentations of peripherals that no one cares about, we're going to skip right across that as quickly as possible. They announced there will be a slew of 15 titles for Wii Fit Plus. They demoed the new Wii Motion Plus controller which looks like it does exactly what the Wii was originally told it would do. The game demoed with the Motion Plus controller was Wii Sports resorts, just what we've all been waiting for. The beginning of the demo had a strange hilarity when one had to watch Mii's fall from the sky. It almost appears as if Nintendo said "Hey we need to be more exciting!" "Add Sky-diving! That's a rush!". after riding some wave-bikes and shooting shot a few arrows with the motion plus, it seemed to be functional; just as we all expected. Nintendo also announces that the games that will support the Motion Plus are Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Grand Slam Tennis, and Virtua Tennis.

Woman's Murder club and C.O.P.: The Recruit are so appealing right?

Although C.O.P. seemed to have some interesting graphics for the DS that I could see. 3D shooters on the DS seems to be such an unapproachable form in my opinion. The lack of joysticks (or my counter-intuitiveness) makes it such a hassle to get around in a 3D space. Constantly tapping and dragging the screen gets bothersome. It's amusing to think of it as a "good-guys" GTA; on the opposite side of the law. China Town Wars paled in comparison to what I'm assuming this will turn out to be, but that's just me being even more projective than needed.

Woman's Murder Club appeared in a large confusion as to why it was even at the Nintendo press conference. After revisiting the trailer for a second time it seems to be a narrative driven game with the primary component being puzzles. From the title one can assume it has the backing of a murder story. Within the trailer it appears to have some sort of "Match #" game (think bejeweled), a mahjong clone, memory, along with point and click elements (Pick up the trash off the lawn?.... for investigation? YEAH!).

I'll continue my summary and thoughts on the rest of the Nintendo conference at E3 '09 tomorrow due to the

fact that it's getting late and I'm tired. Part 2 coming tomorrow.

New Blog.

This is the Glasses Gaming blog site. I would like to eventually start posting things here as soon as I get things rolling with more articles. They will be posted with my initial post to enter in the Gamers With Jobs call for writers.