8 posts tagged “nintendo wii”

It's official - Wii Fit is now a part of my life. Every day at around 7PM, I jump onto the Wii Balance Board and get my BMI reading. The picture above was the first BMI reading I got from it, and I was kind of shocked. Obese? Me? Overweight, yep. I am that. Not obese though. Obese? Thing must be broken. Yet I look down and see the developer belly which was hewn from countless late-nighters and an infinite conveyor belt of takeaway meals. Actually, the way Wii Fit shows you your BMI is kind of horrendous if you're weight conscious - your Mii is on screen and thin to start with, but slowly expands as the BMI increases. The end flourish is a comedy sound effect which does nothing to help the fact that there's a cartoon version of yourself on screen looking pretty fat and miserable.

Wii Fit has helped me in the past two weeks or so to a much more nicer BMI of 30.15 - I yearn for the day when I'm not in the painfully red obese oblong and am sitting in the pink glow of being overweight. It's still not a good place to be, but a hell of a lot better than obese. I've been on the thing often as well as complimenting the workouts with some running again. Ah, I've missed the running. I am determined to lose this gut though. Half my wardrobe now is unwearable - I've got slim-fit hipster jeans slowly getting covered in dust, and shirts which don't button up the way they were designed.

I was extremely lucky to pick up Wii Fit though - I somehow managed to get to PC World the exact moment they got stock in (and ironically it was after a 3km run..!) and now I'm getting serious with some rhythm boxing courtesy of a trainer Mii who sounds a lot like Jason Stratham. It's crazy I come out of those workouts with a sweat on, but it all helps. I've also cut out completely the chocolate and sweets. Biscuits? None of that sweet cakey nonsense for me. I've forsaken my treats for a gutless body. Is it natural to be doing this? I guess I just don't want to bounce as much these days.

I went for my annual visit with my optician at the weekend - although my optician has now become a Scottish fella with worse eyesight than me. Could this even be possible? He managed to put myself at ease with all the wacky things which are currently happening with my eyes. I have floaters - one main one for each eye - which drift into vision sometimes to say hello. I hate floaters. I also have the joylessness of seeing light sources shimmer in a next-gen-bloom-kind-of-way - it was a nice novelty to begin with, walking home with a dreamlike sheen over all. Now? It's kind of bloody irritating, evenmoreso when I was out running one night and not only were the lights all shimmery, but there was mist about - which only seemed to make the effect much worse. Oh, and the glasses constantly steaming up through my exertions too. So, yep. I hate my vision.

Mr. Optician also told me of the things to expect if (when?) one of my retinas decides to detach itself from the back of the eyeball. My old optician told me that I should expect a "curtain effect", though the new optician was a lot more descriptive - expect plenty more floaters than usual (like shitloads more) followed by flashes of white light and then the dreaded curtain effect. When that happens, I should phone them up without hesitation. I've been told that this is what you would expect if you are short of sight. On the good news side of things, he did mention that my eyesight hasn't changed that much - although his final test (a new one I didn't experience last year) proved I may soon need *two* sets of glasses - one for reading and one for normal everyday activity.

Getting old sucks. So does the prospect of spending money on spectacles - although my healthcare covers £200 of it all, so I decided to get a new pair anyway and also a pair of sunglasses in lieu of the pair I lost when I was training for the GNR a few years back. I did feel like not taking my vision for granted when I left there, so I decided to watch Watchmen at the wonderous Tyneside Cinema. Verdict? Really enjoyed it, although I've not read the book in a while so maybe when I re-read the book, I can get angry with the film like half of the critics out there. There were some very brilliant bits in the movie though, and there was some pretty impressive gore too, especially the scrap in the alleyway. People who have seen the movie will know exactly what I mean.

What else? Wheelman is going to be out next week! I'm quite excited about this - feedback on the demo has been majorly positive. There are still the naysayers out there, but we've got the majority and that'll do us. The game should be out the 25th (I've seen 24th somewhere though...) in the US and the 27th in the UK. To celebrate this, Ubisoft have produced a brand new trailer which - quite frankly - kicks serious booty -

Now Ubisoft produce some lovely trailers - they have a knack of marrying mainstream music with the action (check out these trailers for Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed and try and tell me otherwise, oh doubter of things!) and the above is no exception. I think it puts Wheelman firmly in the "fun" department. "Look, it's not a seriously gritty thing like GTA4. It lets you shunt cars, spin 180 and shoot shit and leap from car to car with gay abandon!". This trailer has got a lot of positive feedback, though I think it's interesting that the Midway logo has been toned down somewhat - you can see it at the end, but you need to squint a bit.

I think that says a lot about the company in this day and age. I can imagine the marketing men of Ubisoft getting together and realising that the Midway logo is a negative than a positive. This is sad news, though perhaps unsurprising given the slow descent which has been happening. Vin's also interviewed very, very briefly for GameTrailers TV (Note the caption for the interview doesn't mention Midway Newcastle) and it's pretty much telling that Vin doesn't really seem to know too much about the game. I've crunched on that motherfucker for over a year, the least he can do is know a bit more about it.

Vin recently appeared on a French chat show for Fast and Furious, and looked kind of unsettled when Wheelman was shown on big screens and one of the hosts handed him a controller. The result? Vin bouncing off walls and spectacularly ending the demonstration slamming into a roadblock. Thankfully a cop car exploded and the audience went crazy. Thank god for that exploding cop car, or else it would have looked kind of stupid. The host then showed Vin "how it should be done". Vin tried to rescue the situation describing the "Reverse Cyclone" (It's actually called The Cyclone, Vin) by getting up out of his chair and turning on the spot while shooting an imaginary pistol.

So, yep. I get the feeling that Vin would rather talk more about the new Riddick game than Wheelman - that's the impression I get. Has Wheelman changed from the original vision of a straight-laced GTA clone - in Vin's eyes? Is he pissed off that you can do all that fun arcadey stuff? I'm extremely glad we didn't go down the GTA4 route of chore-like gameplay and the seriousness of it all. GTA San Andreas had parachutes and jetpacks. What happened?

I think Wheelman will do well at retail - I think there's been that turnaround we've all hoped for when the gamers of the world realise what we're not trying to be. "GTA4 Meets Burnout" seems like a good description. It's going to be an interesting couple of weeks - review scores (the ones I've heard of have been very favourable), the game's release, sales figures and that possibility of a sequel. If we get to do a sequel, I wouldn't mind at all - it'll be great to see where else we can take the franchise and add the things that we wanted to, but couldn't.

It'll be interesting to see if Vin's on board too - or at least care enough for a sequel. Maybe if we have an unlockable Riddick skin, he'd be interested.

It is the thing that all Xbox 360 owners fear - the dreaded "red rings of death". Yesterday afternoon, that evil technological spectre finally visited me five minutes into a pigeon-hunting spree in GTA4, and I involuntarily yelped like a woman. Two rings, yep, but two rings are the precursor to three rings. It's like discovering a cancerous mole and realising that you may not have as much time on this planet as you expected. Okay, so maybe a bit of a drastic metaphor but to someone like me who plays his 360 with an almost religious fixation, it's just as damning. I checked the xbox.com site and realised I had somehow forgotten to register the thing when I bought it in February 2006. See? It's had a good innings. There were some suspicious hiccups and burps, sure, but I shook them off. Now the thing is that there are things on the interweb which tell you how to avoid getting these rings again - it's an overheating thing, so they recommend hoovering the vents. There's more complicated and tech-savvy options including cracking the thing open and replacing some silicone gel to part of the circuitry, but fuck that. Even though I enjoyed dismantling technology to see how it worked when I was younger, I'm 33 now and I just want to shoot virtual pigeons again. I can play my 360 but the dread of knowing it could quite easily switch back to two - or even three - rings is a bit too much to bear.

So I migrated to my dusty Wii and started to enjoy Metroid Prime 3 - Corruption again. I forgot just how gorgeous and fun playing that game is - for a sci-fi geek like myself, there's a lot of fiction and scanning the lavish environments for the purposes of back-story. The thing is this - when I play my Wii, I really feel confident that it's not going to spontaenously combust. I also like the fact it's as quiet as a mouse compared to the mini-cyclone generated by the 360. I also discovered yesterday that you could download DS demos via the Nintendo Channel (this isn't actually that well signposted in the channel itself) so I marvelled with being able to play Ninja Gaiden on that spunky little handheld (does that sound dirty to you?). If it's one thing Nintendo are extremely good at it's providing a solid gameplay experience. Their online aspect still leaves a lot to be desired, but they're slowly catching up.

I now look at my 360's shame-laden facia with a derision often associated with finding onions in the ingredients list of a favourite pasta dish. It's going to cost me money to send the thing off to be repaired, and money is something which I have more respect for. Maybe the DIY option is the way to go. My warranty has evaporated (even though ex-Xbox bloke Peter Moore kind of admitted they had a shonky product and extended the warranties for those who bothered to register their consoles) and it may bring back those childhood memories of appliance dismantlement. Saying that, I could end up with a pile of electronic components and the uneasy feeling that I should have got it repaired properly.

I've gotten considerably less busy on Wheelman - I think the overwork I did this year has more than paid off and now I'm here on a Sunday in my pants updating my blog while I enjoy the outside world being sporadically doused in rainfall. There are still tasks to perform and I've gotten very adept at reporting bugs on our internal bug-tracking system. You may have read that Wheelman's release date has been delayed until Q1 2009. When this was announced internally, I was in two minds over it. In one mind, I felt a bit deflated that I put in a lot of extra work to try and prevent this delay. The other mind was one of relief and that the game would get the attention and polish it needed. Some gaming blogs cited that as a criticism when they saw the game at E3, but they've not been on the shop floor and seen just how amazingly quickly the game has evolved and form before our eyes.

On Friday I enjoyed a quick Wheelman session where I was being chased by cops - and it was pretty reassuring that the game has become something more confident. I had early reservations about how our traffic would be unpredictable in the way it avoided you as you screamed down the Barcelona streets, but now it's not only predictable but it also has a feeling of intelligence about it. The melee system is a great thing when used against police, though what is even better is that airjacking during a pursuit can actually aid you in evading the cops. Picture the scene - I have four police cars on my tail and my car is pretty banged up. Ahead of me lies a pristine vehicle just ripe for the jacking. I position myself behind the vehicle and leap out of the remains of my old vehicle. As you do this, the police speed past (probably in shock that someone can leap from one car to another with such precision and awesomeness) and getting into the old vehicle tossing the driver out means that I can quickly turn 180 degrees and use the freshly-filled focus gauge to boost the hell out of there.

It's discovering tactics like this which will only help our cause. The vehicle melee is very much like that of a fighting game - the amount of movement of the analog stick determines how hard you hit the car, you can use your pistol to shoot out tyres and make the opposing vehicle more unstable and - this is the doozy - the Mortal Kombat-esque "Finish Him" move will give you an impressive exploding car and police diving out of the airbourne wreckage. It's not just the driving which has gotten more confident though - the on-foot combat is improving nicely too. We've got a new lead desginer in who worked on Crackdown (and placed all 800 of those non-pigeon-shaped-orbs) and he's currently refactoring the on-foot missions so they're a lot more interesting and involving now. The on-foot combat isn't the main meat-and-bones of the game, though it's good that there's just as much care and attention associated with it. We've also got... achievements! Even though we're still developing the thing, I still get that giddy feeling when that achievement pop-up appears on screen. I had to notify one of the lead coders that the achievement notification needs to move from the default position - possibly the top right of the screen where not much actually happens. I wouldn't have noticed this if I haven't been playing the game inbetween waiting for stuff to happen on my PC and after-hours R&R.

Another advantage of the move of the release date is that we avoid the November rush of titles (many of them sequels). We have such videogame behemoths as Gears of War 2 (which has a rumoured special edition version bundled with - yep - a life-size Lancer - perhaps) and Fable 2 as well as the supposed announcement from EA of their next incarnation of their ongoing Need for Speed franchise - Need for Speed Undercover. Check out the trailer...

I've been keeping tabs on this title as when it was announced there was a tingle down my spine. Not because I was excited for a new Need for Speed title - more likely that it was because it had a certain Wheelman-esque tone to it. The racing focus from previous games has been now centered around missions involving driving, although there's no mention of on-foot. I'm guessing there won't be on-foot as the game's going to be mostly fuelled by what you see above - cut-scenes with real-life actors and probably some heavy Burger King product placement. Maybe we'll get missions revolving around Burger King? I'd like missions where I can drive my car through their restaurants throwing Wii Fit money-off vouchers at the patrons within. Check out that November date on the trailer too...

Still, Wheelman is a new IP and bringing it out at the beginning of next year is going to benefit everyone. This Is Vegas - another Midway title - has gone the same way, though again - it'll benefit us all. This has been the longest I've worked on any videogame and I think that our effort will be present on screen for all to see. My motivation is proving those naysayers wrong. Those people who insist on spreading their negativity and opinions in an effort to discredit the game without giving it a fair chance.

Friday night was a bit of a wash-out - we had a bit of a night in at a workmate's place (he used to be my ex-housemate too!) so it was a night of drinking, group-commenting on America's Most Dangerous Car Chases 3 and watching people play videogames with a soupçon of testosterone (especially Fight Night and bloody football) followed by aforementioned ex-housemate in fighting mood after a quantity of booze was quaffed. I cut my loses and slipped out the back door without them knowing while walking home thinking how I could have spent the night being a lot more productive. I wasn't even that drunk. I think that's a reason why I decide to stay in most nights - besides the obvious monetary benefits, I'm now occupying myself with creating artwork and other little pet projects. There's been a bit of a sea change in my heart recently as life has gotten mundane and boring. I wake up and go through the motions - the same shower, the same oggling of BBC Breakfast while slurping tea and munching on breakfast. The same walk down the hill... These pet projects help me justify my existence and make me think less about the things which get me into some horrible mindsets which I once had to endure. The sacrifice for this is social life, but meh. You can keep that.

One of these pet projects is some fan art for Shadow of the Colossus - it's almost done, though I need one more step to achieve and it'll be lovely. Here's step 1, step 2 and step 3. I'm doing this for a friend of mine who kept me in digs when I was thrown out by my maeloveant ex-landlord, so I'm going to use this painting as a guide for an actual 100% bonafide real painting on canvas. I was going to show you the progression of time through the use of an image with the three versions of work-in-progress, but the GIMP is so fucking lousy at being an art package - you can tell it's been crafted by non-artists - I gave up. All I needed to do was copy one element to another layer, but noooooo. Too fucking easy. No wonder people use Photoshop (mostly illegally too). Fuck GIMP.

*deep breaths*

Why is it that people have to fuck around with stuff to make it more complicated than it actually needs to be? DeviantArt v6.0, step forward! Complicating things for the sake of complication so it now takes my journal .css templates and breaks them undeservingly. Facebook, step this way! There's a "new" Facebook waiting in the wings and, yep, it's more complicated than normal. They've added these needless features which it doesn't deserve. MySpace! More guff than you require! Winamp! It fancies itself as the new iTunes so it ends up gorging on so much digital lint, it's embarassing. Even my stalwart favourite, thesixtyone.com, has been messed about with by its creators. We now have some stupid "as it happens" news ticker which means nothing to anyone. The same can be argued for food. I remember when food was simple and straight-forward. Now? They're all manner of faff added to food to give it some kind of mythical appeal. LEAVE IT ALONE. I don't want sodding onions in my food. Fancy some tomato relish and egg mayonnaise in your breakfast roll, sir? No. Give me a fried egg. Give me a sausage. Some baked beans. A hash brown. Right, now go away. Leave me to add my own garnish. Garnish! I don't want your leaves ganging up on my food like a bunch of vegetarian hoodies! Just give me a burger! Two buns! Maybe some bacon! Cheese! Nothing else!

*deeper breaths*

I guess this can be drawn back to the first thing I mentioned in this blog post - consoles. I remember when games consoles were just that - games consoles. You'd stick your game in, switch it on and you'll be playing... a game! These days convergence means that consoles are supposedly required by law to be everything and more. The Playstation3 is mostly more regarded as a Blu-Ray player than a games machine these days. The Wii and 360 are also guilty of this - fancy viewing your digital photos? Listening to music? Gah. These are little things to help bring in more casuals so it's probably a good thing, but this blog comes from the mindset of a crusty old vagrant who has been playing games since the Atari VCS.

Another project I've been working on is The Cult of Karl video. I've grabbed a trial version of Flash CS3 for my home PC and currently taking the animatic storyboards I've been sketching up on my trusty Moleskin while half-watching Top Gear repeats, and editing them together to the music of Mr. Chris Merritt. It's very addicting and exciting to see it slowly take shape because I have a love for animated music promos and I sometimes think I missed my calling due to the lousy anticipation which my old Animation degree course instilled in me and other students. I suppose I kind of fell into games development, but still had it in my mind as a thing I would most likely enjoy doing. The thing with working in the games industry as an artist is that you do get some free reign on things, but there's always a commanding art director to steer the look of your artwork. This music promo is 100% me - undiluted and I have total control of it. This is very exciting for me. The process is super-fluid and a lot of the imagery which currently resides on The Cult of Karl Facebook album comes from my mind as I've been listening to the tune during shopping trips and while in work.

I need to start crafting some vector-based elements for testing in Illustrator, get them imported into Flash and slowly flesh out the animatic until it's fully-fledged. After this, I'll need to get myself a YouTube non-porn account and upload it there. I think it's a great thing to do because it's my way of saying "Cheers!" to Chris Merritt for coming up with such a great tune. Also I'll be exorcising some demons as I attempted a music video during my final year of my Animation degree but failed to finish the thing. I'm determined to finish this thing and get it out there. I think a lot of animators these days are extremely lucky to have something like YouTube to showcase their portfolios and talent. When I was working on my degree, the internet was still in its infancy and YouTube was but a crazy dream along with Wikipedia. Now? It allows me to show you Mr. Merritt's new promo for Mimic (from the excellent Pixie and the Bear double album) -

Hopefully these pet projects will drive me onto bigger things - the last thing I need is artistic stagnation. I envy those on DeviantArt with a lot of time on their hands and a lot of talent. There's people who craft incredible digital paintings, create wonderful characters and intricate pixel art. I feel like I can do these things too, but I need to be a teenager again with a carefree abandon and no notion of morality or mortgages. Maybe my 360 red-ringing was a blessing in disguise, I dunno.

So that's all for today - I need to grab a cuppa, sit down and do some more Karl stuff. Stay tuned for the next update coming soon - I'll be revealing future travel plans to foreign lands! (I can't reveal where and when yet, needless to say I'm extremely stoked and also quite unnerved by it all).

Normally E3 is considered by many gamers as an early Christmas - all their favourite developers and hardware manufacturers congregate in a large room in Los Angeles and reveal wonderous surprises. When console launches coincide with E3, there's mass hysteria and the brains of gamers worldwide fizz and bubble with possibilities. This year though, things were a lot more different. No console launches to be found due to the current lifecycles of "The Big Three" - the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 (or PLAYSTATION 3 as Sony's PR would want me to type) and the Nintendo Wii. Instead we have software launches to look forward to and the normal procedure in this case is that each of the three companies would have media briefings to showcase these imminent releases. By the way, this round-up sounds like I attended E3 but in actual fact I caught it in wonderous stream-o-vision while working hard on Wheelman. Oh... so... tired....

Shake off that tiredness, Steve! On with the opinions!

Microsoft were first with Don Mattrick (ex-EA boss and kinda slimy) introducing Fallout 3 (which looked good but still didn't get my pulse racing), Fable 2 (looking excellent - a definite purchase) and Gears of War 2 (ditto). From that point on, the hardcore - and arguably the core userbase of the Xbox 360 - were thrown a curveball with the redesign of the Xbox 360 dashboard. It's been touted as "the first time ever a piece of consumer electronics has been re-invented through software". The result? The introduction of 3D avatars (or Microsoft's answer to Miis) and a much more plainer interface. There was a stunned silence when the audience saw the result and when I saw the thing I took an instant dislike to it. I've kind of grown to love it a little though since I was shown that a theme background could bring it out somewhat. The 3D avatars were instantly hated by the hardcore, even though they're mature versions of the Mii characters seen on the Wii. We were then shown how these avatars could be dressed up and customised and my first thought was that the clothing industry would no doubt get involved and micro-transaction the arse out of consumers once more. We saw Xbox Live Primetime which had virtual TV shows featuring the avatars which could be played at certain times of the day/night - like proper shows. This makes some kind of sense as TV shows are losing out to videogames with dwlindling audiences. Microsoft also got a deal with Netflix, which means nothing to anyone outside the US.

Thankfully Xbox Live Arcade's future offerings gave me some hope - Galaga Legends is a "true" sequel to Galaga in the same way that Pac-Man Championship is a "true" sequel to Pac-Man - and it's recommended by me too. Sometimes games forget to be fun, but Pac-Man Championship is a joy to play and looks lush to boot. Geometry Wars 2 looks insanely promising too - with four player co-op and lots more stuff being thrown on screen at you. Microsoft did show some of the offerings of the XNA Community and it seems like they're desperate for someone to come along and give the titles a lot more polish to make them more appealing. They still look like they've been put together in someone's bedroom - which they probably have. Still, XNA is a promising prospect and already one title has hit Live - Schzoid. Not had a chance to check this out yet...

There were many casual announcements too - Lips was revealed with slightly more than a Singstar rip-off, there was some Eye Toy rip-off from Codemasters which allows users to play interactive games using the Xbox Live Vision camera, although there was a killer feature to this product which took all the "filmed" footage and turned it into a cheesy movie trailer. Plenty of possibilities in a party atmosphere! Sadly I don't really "do" parties these days. I'm not sure if it's me being a bit older and wiser or not being bothered. Maybe I'm too tired these days, who knows. There was one more surprise in that after the head honcho of Square Enix announced a trio of JRPGs, he surprised everyone by announcing that Final Fantasy XIII was coming to the console. Another Sony exclusive shot to hell? Interestingly, this announcement possibly prevented Bungie from announcing their new game - which has been confirmed as another Halo title - though this was a telling sign. Mattrick said they didn't need to announce it due to their "embarassment of riches" though I'm sure the Halo announcement could have replaced Duffy's live performance?

The FFXIII announcement annoyed one person in particular - the Fragmaster himself!

The genius thing about is that it's not real yet so many people think it is. Mwhahaa!

Sony were next the following afternoon, and they definitely know how to put on a show with huge Sony monitor screens dominating the auditorium. Jack Tretton held proceedings and the usual Sony stuff came out - the "victory" of Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, the Cell processor, their phrase of "new generation" which is an attempt to overshadow "next gen" somewhat, the completely pointless video reel of developers harping on about the Playstation 3's superior power (one of the devs even mentioned that Blu-Ray has "infinite storage". It's all there to appease the fanboys and to attempt to brainwash those who have yet to buy a PS3. To give Sony their dues, they do mention they have three consoles out there which are successful - the PS3, PS2 and PSP. Then there's the possibility that PS2 owners will all eventually migrate to the PS3. I think I sometimes doubt the nature/intention of the PS3 as a games console when Jack himself reckons that the PS3 is "the cheapest and most future-proof Blu-Ray player out there". Hey, it also plays games!

Resistance 2 was rolled out and I was a bit unsure about those "impressive visuals". It didn't look all that incredible for a console which is supposedly better than the 360 with low resolution textures and (in the level) some uninspiring level design. The official trailer was a lot more impressive though only if the footage in that trailer was actually from the game. Sony have a history of blatantly lying to people over stuff like that. The Getaway on the PS3 had some dubious screenshots taken using the engine (they did the same with the PS2 version) and the E3 2006 Killzone 2 trailer which was supposedly all in-game footage only shows up what they've achieved with Killzone 2 recently. Sure, it looks lovely but it doesn't look as lovely as that FMV trailer of two years back.

Sony want the Playstation Network to be the "leader in online console gaming" which means it's targeting Xbox Live. Live's been something of a success story for Microsoft, though it does cost £40 a year whereas Sony's service is free to the customer. Tretton also put the boot in by saying that their service won't be full of games only to boast about how many more games they have in their catalogue. Straight after this, some of the new PSN games were shown and the only ones which really intrigued and impressed were Flower (from the guys who brought us the lush Flow), Pixeljunk Eden (think LocoRoco but wearing a trendwhore t-shirt) and the Ratchet and Clank title. The imaginatively-titled "Massive Action Game" boasted 256 players online fighting each other. It's an interesting prospect, but it'll be even more interesting to see how it's handled and whether there's going to be huge portions of lag to contend with. This was backed up with a CGI trailer. As was God of War III. GT5 Prologue - the proper version, and not the demo you can buy, will also give petrolheads their own streaming TV content with Top Gear episodes, exclusive content and more besides.

Home - or Sony's answer to Second Life - was mentioned again and Tretton continued thanking everyone for their patience - because it seems like content takes an age to appear from Sony's studios these days. Little Big Planet is still a promising prospect, even though the game was used as some kind of horrific statistic tool to show just how wonderfully Sony's doing these days. I mean take GT5 - I'm sure it's been 4 years in development or something and it still ain't fully finished. What gives? No real surprises either, which I think annoyed a lot of the gaming public. Where's our surprises? Where's our early Christmas presents? Maybe Nintendo can save E3!

Nope.

Nintendo's E3 media briefing was pretty lacklustre. Again, no real surprises. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata brought out a load of stats and statistics about how Nintendo is making crazy money and thus don't really need to try. I think that's the whole problem with them - they're resting on their laurels. Animal Crossing on the Wii was showcased and this encapsulates them "not reallly trying". Animal Crossing on the Wii is just like it was on the DS and bits of it from the Gamecube. There's a new city area and the new microphone peripheral known from this day forth as WiiSpeak can be used to link up with pals online so you can go fishing and do all the same stuff you've done in other Animal Crossings of the past. I think UK:R summed up my feelings nicely. They revealed Shaun White Snowboarding with Mr Shaun White doing snowboarding on... the Wii Balance Board! The one thing which is even more rare than the Wii itself!

They also showed a new peripheral called Motion Plus which is attached to the end of the Wii Remote and will give the player a more responsive Wii Remote, though surely Nintendo should have provided this in the Wii Remote as standard? Maybe it's going to be in new Wii Remotes and it should make previous Wii games a lot more enjoyable by being more responsive than they were previously... it seems crazy though. They're even bringing out a new rubber coat for this extended controller... *sigh* Well, it's being bundled with Wii Sports Resort which includes the hardcore pastime of frisbee tossing! There's also sword fighting with the Wii Remotes used as you'd expect, and it's quite promising. I just want Lucasfilm to do something special with that technology - they did showcase The Clone Wars for Wii which appears to be a fighting game, though not first person. You know what I'm thinking? Star Wars Arcade on the Wii including those first person lightsabre bits. C'mon, it'll be incredible! It won't happen though, it's too obvious.

What else? Not much. GTA Chinatown Wars on the DS(!) was the only real hardcore announcement. Call of Duty 5 using the Zapper... not much else to report really. Reggie Fils Amis flexed his pecs as he virtually glided on the waves in a Wii Sports Resort minigame which had flashbacks of Wave Race 64 (why isn't there a Wave Race for the Wii yet?!) and... *sigh* not much else. Nintendo did post an interview to try and appease the angry masses though a quick glance at the comments (I hate reading comments from rabid gamers half the time anyway) will show you that the hardcore are still annoyed. There were some games shown at E3 a bit more in detail like Mirror's Edge which were great to see, though the conferences seemed to stamp a feeling of emptiness and paled into insignificance than the more surprising and bombastic E3 offerings of the past. Leipzig should reveal more hopefully - let's cross our fingers.

Midway had a good showing at E3 - MK vs. DC looked fantastic and some writers have cited the game to be "a return to form" and even comparing it to the holy grail of the series - Mortal Kombat 2. This Is Vegas was coming on nicely and TNA Impact could well be the contender which the Smackdown series needs. Our game was also showcased and I'd like to share with you some footage from the event with help from Mr. Shaun Himmerick -

Notice that this is the first time we've shown the public the Airjack move - it allows Milo to seamlessly move from one vehicle to another. It's inspired by Pursuit Force though I think we've used this inspiration well in that it keeps the flow of the game moving. In GTA4, there's a period where you have to stop your trashed car, get out of trashed car and flag down another car. I think it suits our game more, although we've definitely got more of a Burnout flavour than a GTA4 flavour. I think people loved using the vehicle melee attack too and overall it was mostly good reception. I say mostly because one of the write-ups wasn't the best thing ever written about our game. I'm not going to call it out, but it mostly dissed the E3 build before ending the article with "with more polish this could make a rental". For fuck's sake. It's work-in-progress and it's always being fine-tuned. This is "journalism" though it also reeks of anti-Midway bias. Another article from the same site ended the MK vs DC article with something like "let's see if this can aid Midway's floundering franchise". Floundering? Jeez.

This is what we've got to put up with. It's alarming to see this - like a secret campaign to continually brown-nose what Midway is doing whatever is done. Gamers are a fickle lot though that write-up is doing us no favours - now it seems Midway isn't just trying to win over gamers but the press too. It's a slap in the face for all the hard work we're putting into the game and I only hope the writer of that article falls down a huge concrete staircase into a tank of hungry sharks.

Back onto the development of Wheelman and we're nearing a crucial deadline to get everything we want into the game. The studio's gotten more busy as the night approaches, though I've been crunching since the start of the year and been in a constant state of crunch. I recently played a more refined on-foot section of the game and it's amazing how it's evolved from what it used to be to something which is a lot more engaging. I think advancements like this can only make me feel a lot better about what I'm working on. I still try my hardest to ignore the rabid comments of the gaming populace... it's crazy how one minute they can be trash-talking with "LOL! Vin Diesel!" and the next with "Wow, this has surprised me! Er, unLOL?". It's always extremes. The studio has seen departures and it's always hard when people you know or see in the office spirit themselves away to other job opportunities. Facebook status updates are all well and informative, but they don't really cut it.

I can't stop listening to Chris Merritt's new double album - Pixie and the Bear. I was extremely humbled when I got an e-mail from his manager/drummer thanking me for the support and offering to send me mp3 files of the album as I wait for the "physical" album to be sent. Amazing! The album is such a joy to discover and listen to - there's so much melodic goodness and many of the tracks are uplifting and joyous celebrations. I'm working on The Cult of Karl music video as a fan project and so far it's coming on nicely. I thought I'd upload some character sketches of progress...

It's going to be a Flash-based video and I'm busy storyboarding the thing. My deadline is the end of this year... let's see how well I do! Wheelman's insane crunch should be a thing of the past soon as we gear down for the next project, so I'll use this time very wisely indeed.

Tell me you've seen the Watchman trailer. Ohmy!

Tell me you've seen the Terminator Salvation trailer? Ohmy!

Both are promising. Zack Snyder's 300 was a joy for me especially since I saw the thing in HD for the first viewing in the comfort of my home. I also like the fact Terminator Salvation is part of another trilogy and isn't pretending to be Terminator 4 even though people will treat it as such. Both these movies will be something to look forward to - life should always be full of things to look forward to, otherwise it's totally pointless.

I also just went to see Wall-E and it's quite an departure from usual Pixar movies - for a start, the first 10 minutes of the movie were both beautifully realised and quite depressing as the last working robot on planet Earth is stacking up skyscrapers of squashed metal cubes from humanity's consumerist blow-out. The huge mega-corporation known as BnL - or Buy n Large - is responsible for this and decides to take humanity off the planet and onto a huge spaceship called the Axiom while BnL robots clean up the mess. Wall-E is the last working robot on the planet and it's quite strange to see him navigate around the desolate surface while other Wall-E robots lie in pieces or deactivated. Wall-E's world is soon changed by the appearance of a scanning robot called Eve - whom he falls in love with, naturally.

It's definitely heart-warming and there's some very close home truths seeing that all of the Axiom passengers are hugely obese and ride about on hovering lazyboys while nattering to other people online. Sound familiar? The Axiom interior is a huge vast shopping mall and entertainment palace although you have to think about how these people got on board in the first place - surely all of humanity couldn't afford to travel on the Axiom? It didn't really look like all of humanity was on there too. Maybe BnL stranded the humans who couldn't afford to travel to a fate on a doomed planet? (This is meant to be a kids film too...!). I enjoyed it although it still doesn't top my all-time Pixar favourite - The Incredibles!

I also didn't care for the use of live action humans in the movie too - seems like Pixar are continuing the trend with John Carter of Mars. It's weird how jarring they are, though it's even weirder that there's live action humans and CGI fat people. Is this an admittance that Pixar can't actually replicate humans convincingly? Either give me 100% CGI or forget it. To quote Karl Pilkington - "we're going backwards". I was also surprised the price of the ticket was so low (£3.50) but maybe that had something to do with the half-an-hour of adverts, trailers and the like (mostly aimed at the young in the audience, grrr). Whoa, already it's caused controversy..!

Next week is going to be interesting - I think I'll have all the work I need to have done for Wheelman... well, done. There's an obvious shortfall of work over time though and I'm sure I'll be given more tasks to do. This generates more questions than answers although this is more food for thought. Nomnomnom. Yes, I'm being delibrately obscure for a very good reason.

One day I'll tell you about it.

Well, it's almost as if my landlord has telepathy - he called me into a meeting room during lunch at work and he casually mentioned he was giving me two months notice to move out of here so he could turn this room into a dining room. I wasn't that fussed, but I'm happy that I've been told this because it's the kick in the arse I need. I've also been thinking more positively now since that - so I've been busy sorting bits and pieces out today. I boxed up my ancient Xbox to trade in at the weekend (with the games too possibly) so I don't have it lounging about like the big fat American console it is. Besides, the 360 kind of negates the need to have an Xbox. The Gamecube could go the same way too due to my Wii ownership... it feels weird but I'm rather excited about this. (Speaking of which - Yahtzee's drunk wrong juice if his recent review of Super Mario Galaxy is anything to go by). (Also I got my Wii plastic jackets! So squishy!).

The Thing Is...

I've got no clue about mortgages or first-time buying of a dwelling. I need to start asking about for advice regarding this because I think I've been renting for a bit too long. It's been the easy option, though I think I like it enough here to start bedding down with a proper place of my own. When I had a place of my own in Mold, it was the wrong place to have a place of my own. The people there were basically inbred pissheads who loved fighting and throwing projectiles at my windows. Such a happy place! Seriously, avoid it. You may think it's a quaint Welsh market town during the day but the night draws in and the streets empty ominously. It's kind of like being in your own horror film... this is even more outlined by the fact the buses are all shite and a minute more there is a minute too long. So I'm fed up of all this housesharing in that sometimes this internet connection isn't 100% fantastic. I need a place with a proper TV aerial. I need space to stretch about. Most importantly - I need to be able to make breakfast in just my undies. I am but a man of simple pleasures.

A Truly Wonderful Post-Christmas Treat!

I love Consolevania. I love VideoGaiden too - the BBC-broadcast spin off. They recently broadcast their Christmas Special and it is truly a fine piece of work - probably their best yet. There's some special guests plus some very funny portions of the show (a clip from Series 6 of a certain show comes to mind), but you can be the judge - unless the BBC are up to their stingy old tricks and US viewers can't sample the goods... (Just to remind myself - they still have their Advent Calendar online).

Almost time for bed, so just one more video-related find which I was quite chuffed to see. Radiohead have recently released the "physical manifestation" of their In Rainbows album and to celebrate, they've put a lengthy live performance of the album interspersed with crazy video blurbs up on YouTube which I will now share with you lucky people -

Stop Press!

Computer update... I've finally found out why this PC isn't fun even though I tried my best to get the thing working properly. Ready? HP make fucking godawful wireless mice and keyboards. There's the reason why this sucks so much. It's kind of stupid to think I need to get my hands on another keyboard and mouse and not use the one bundled, but I'd rather do this than rant at their Indian call centre. Grr.

Last night was a good night out. I've not had a night out in Newcastle for some time and it was in the Union Rooms where drink was enjoyed to wish our good friend Piotr all the best for his journey to London after leaving Midway Studios - Newcastle. I thought Piotr was a hoot, so I'm sad to see him go. The reason why he's off to London is because his wife (he got married recently) has a job offer in London, though although he's not fond of leaving Midway, he has to support his missus. This is weird because I sometimes think what would happen if I ever got my act together and got myself hitched, only to have her alter my plans. Sometimes it's good to be single, except the periods of time when you're lying in bed staring at the ceiling and wondering if being single is part of some divine plan which you have no idea about.

Ben's iPhone

This is Ben Marsh. He works as a programmer at Midway Studios - Newcastle, and recently he found himself in possession of the super-sexy-but-sometimes-slightly-disappointing iPhone. When we were drinking lovely alcoholic liquids, he was showcasing the powers of the phone - the browsing mostly. You look at it and think how something so technologically amazing could exist ten years ago. There it is though. The future. Right there.

When You Leave Technology Behind...

After enjoying the company of many workmates and some new friends (including some Polish people who recommended we enjoy a meal at the Polish restaurant in town), we went our separate ways and ended up in a taxi. We nattered about stuff like the Christmas do and other bits and pieces. I tried to entice Ben to come with me and a few workmates tomorrow to a spooky castle, but he wanted to veg out. We got dropped off and there was no tip for the cheeky taxi driver who decided to add his own tip to the price it would normally cost to get back home. Thinking back, we did almost toy with the idea of walking back like the good old days - but it was freezing. Thinking about that though... *sigh*

A Cautionary Tale

To cut a long story short, Ben left his iPhone in the taxi. He only realised when he was home and the iPhone wasn't in his pocket. In his panic to remove himself from the O2 service, he realised he could have phoned his iPhone and hoped a kind soul would have picked it up and kept it safe for him. Sadly, no. The taxi company stated that this type of thing happens regularly, and he may as well treat the phone as "gone and forgotten". This came as quite a blow for Ben - evenmoreso that he didn't take any insurance cover out on it, so the phone couldn't be replaced. It's on a contract too, so I think he'll have to pay out the rest of the contract for - well - nothing. That can't be right, can it? I hope not. It must be quite a horrible thing to lose something that technologically amazing and personal. Then again, it's another reason why technology sucks.

"Get Off My Land!"

I sometimes yearn to be a Grizzly Adams-type of the woods. A huge white beard and an angry temperament in a log cabin deep in the woods of somewhere desolate. Any strangers come by and I would pop out with my shotgun, maybe fire off a warning and shout at them to get the heck away from my cabin. No technology. No mobile phone. No games console. No PC. We rely so much on technology, that it'll be interesting to see how we survive without it. Amazon recently announced they were releasing some stupid ebook-type device which has a battery life. A book with a battery life? That makes me giggle somewhat. What the fuck is wrong with a book? A normal book? No battery life to speak of there. Speaking of books, I ordered myself the 365Lite! book I produced on blurb. When I get it, I'll see how good the quality is, and I may start on the actual 365 book on their BookSmart software instead of InDesign. We'll see.

Technology Update!

I phoned up HP to enquire about my wireless keyboard woes. Sometimes it repeats letters. Sometimes the left shift key doesn't work. The first voice I heard when I phoned HP was a recording of an American woman. Not a good sign. Second voice was an Indian in a faraway call centre. Great. I'm not racist, but my heart sinks when I hear an Indian voice on a phone. It means they can't really understand me and HP are cheapskates. First Indian bloke passed me onto the desktop department and I got another Indian bloke who couldn't really hear me because the connection was dodgy. Well, sod this. I gave my favourite Tech Guys a call! The wonderful PC World "Technical Specialists" who are there to help out, though really all have access to google. The funny thing is that they actually did a very, very good job of satisfying me - they ordered me a replacement keyboard and mouse and I joked to the lovely lady on the other end about how terrible Vista is... and she agreed!

Oh, that reminds me. I need to order Nero. Grrr.

The Lovelyness Of Games

Lastly, I'm still enjoying Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. It's seriously good fun. I need to order some of those free Wii Jackets for the Wii Remote though... you can order them here. All you need is your serial number and address details. Super Mario Galaxy is, well, fun. Some games these days play more like chores than actual exclamations of enjoyment, and Super Mario Galaxy has proven that Nintendo still have it. The game has become the fastest-selling Mario title ever. Half a million units sold in the US in the first week! It's amazing that I know people who still want a Wii, but can't get their hands on one because Nintendo can't make them fast enough. I love the analysts who harp on about the Wii being a flash-in-the-pan, but I don't think so. Not at all. I finished and adored Call of Duty 4 on the 360 (I need to get online with it though, although the thought of going on Xbox Live with randoms these days chills me to the bone) and I've started on the sublime Mass Effect - a game full of epic wonder and excitement.

I'm off to order me those jackets.  

I'm playing catch-up with many, many videogames. This weekend has so far been full of the joys of new game purchases and playing through games that all the serious gaming fraternity cracked ages ago. One of these games is BioShock - from the makers of the scary-as-heck System Shock 2, BioShock shares a lot with this historical game. For a start, it's set in an oppressive atmosphere and you have deranged lunatics wandering about and mumbling/shouting stuff in your general direction. While hiding behind corners.

Me? Scared?

I used to relish seeing the looks on the faces of people who had yet to encounter Resident Evil on the PSOne. I'd always show survival horror virgins a perfectly normal corridor in a slightly sinister mansion and asked them to walk down the corridor. SMASH! Zombie dog jumps through the closed window and the person holding the joypad yells a random expletive. This is proof that scary videogames do just that - scare. Well, the good ones anyway. BioShock is one of those titles which will have you freaking out at times. The audio design is nigh-on perfect at sending chills down your spine, and the location is a brilliantly-realised underwater city built by a bloke called Ryan who also littered the place with Orwellian propaganda and a variety of interesting characters.

But I freak out when I play it in the same way I freaked out playing Doom 3 and Condemned. No wonder I gravitated towards my recent purchase...

Itsa Me!

"Maaaarriioo!". No freaks with hooks for hands here - just good ol' fashioned family-friendly fun. This is the thing - the hardcore who love their 360 and PS3 will diss the Wii for the lack of graphical grunt, but a lot of games I've played on the Wii exude fun in spades. Excite Truck had me yelling and hooting like a little kid - and although it's not as pretty as some more high-end next-gen titles, it has heart and soul. Mario is a lot like that too - a game where you know the developers have gotten together and vow to make your experience enjoyable and nourishing. Super Mario Galaxy is the new Wii title and I was blown away from the start.

Blown Away?

Graphically Super Mario Galaxy is beautiful. It has a very strange dream-like quality about it - when you begin the game heading towards the trademarked castle of Peach, the moonlight catches the crescent-shaped clouds. Stars rain from the sky and you realise you can use the Wii Remote to collect these stars. This is a trick which comes in its own very quickly and soon becomes second nature when playing. All hell soon breaks lose as Bowser comes along to capture not just Peach but the whole castle. Mario is blasted from the castle and lands on a spherical planet which adds to the dreamlike quality of the game.

The Importance of Rimming.

Every planet has a rim-lit process about it which is not seen much in videogames but this is the reason why it adds a unique flavour to the game. Everything soon becomes apparant - the game is scarily well presented and polished. The graphics are lush as mentioned, but the soundtrack is the best Mario soundtrack I've heard - all recreated with a full orchestra. This adds to the impressive space theme even more. Controlling Mario is also a cinch - the nunchuck is perfectly balanced to move him around, though it's a compelling new experience to navigate around beautifully-realised spherical worlds. The makers of Ratchet and Clank had some sour grapes about Nintendo's use of spherical worlds, cited that it was all their idea, before perhaps adding some marketing bullshit about how Ratchet and Clank "wouldn't be possible on the Wii, but is totally possible on the PS3". Hush now. You're out of your league here.

Developers Taking The Piss?

This outlines once more that it's totally feasible to come up with beautiful experiences on the Wii. I cringe when I see some absolute horrific visual dirge made available for the Wii from developers looking for a quick buck. I think the so-called limitations of the Wii are a reason why some developers - mostly Nintendo - try harder to come up with fantastic visual experiences. I mentioned Metroid Prime 3 - Corruption in an earlier blog entry, but it's another great example. What is the point in spending time working on a game which is derative and will paint your company in a bad light? It is annoying, especially for the developers who work on those games knowing that they can't go on forums and harp on about how great their next game will be. Speaking of which...

Me And Gaming Forums.

I used to post regularly on a gaming forum called rllmuk. Don't ask why it has a funky acronym like that. Anyway, I came to the conclusion not long ago that game developers shouldn't get involved with gaming forums. I've vowed not to read any more comment pages and forums from gamers - because some of them can be a bit too vocal and scarily obsessive with certain games. One of the posters of rllmuk slagged off Stranglehold. All well and good, you think. This guy is entitled to his own opinion. Sadly this bloke downloaded an illegal copy of the game and proceeded to rip the piss. Anyone who tried to combat his views - especially me - were greated with a "you've only played the demo - I've played the game!", although his view was skewed on the fact he didn't know if he had the final version and he based his views on an illegal practice. Soon the age-old argument of piracy came to fore and before you know it there were many people who were happy to defend this guy and piracy. So from that point on, I declined to post on that forum.

I've not posted for some time now and I'm glad of it. I would hate to hear the comments about the game I'm working on from that lot because they can be ruthless, tactless and just plain rude. The typical comment of ""[insert game here]" is shit" is far too common. I digress...

WAR.

Call of Duty 4 is an absolute blast. It's insane how intense and how much fun it is - and not just that, it's also brilliantly presented and the voice acting doesn't suck one bit. I think it's the first FPS I've played which is 60fps (a 60fps fps!) and it makes quite a difference. For a start, everything seems to be a lot more solid and real. The eye is tricked into believing what it sees and it adds to the immersion. The game looks incredible - probably the most realistic recreations of war-torn areas I've yet seen - and the introduction where you see through the eyes of a President who is about to be assassinated is scarily harrowing to say the least. It's a world away from Super Mario Galaxy, but the point is that videogames as a medium are a truly diverse one which can appeal to everyone.

Ubisoft's "Surprise!"

I also purchased Assassin's Creed - which is weird because I was having second thoughts about it. There's reviews flying about which are less than flattering about Ubisoft's latest AAA title - the fact the stealth system is broken and it gets repetitive too quickly. It does also look astoundingly beautiful for a next gen title and the plot supposedly revolves around you playing an assassin who has to take out a variety of targets through a mix of the aforementioned stealth, reconnaissance and Parkour. Unfortunately, they've done a Terminator 2. "What do you mean, Steve?". Well, Terminator 2 had you assuming Arnie would be playing the same role as in the original - an evil cyborg sent back from the future to murder a target. Sadly the trailer to Terminator 2 totally revealed everything - he wasn't evil after all! *phew* Assassin's Creed makes the same mistake.

Something's Not Quite Right Here...

On all the preview videos of Assassin's Creed, we're treated to some lush vistas and Altair (the main character) killing and jumping from building to building escaping guards. One thing looked a bit out of place though - the HUD. I'm paid to create such things, and it's hard not to see the futuristic look of the HUD. Targeted characters also display swish status displays and graphics and the screen sometimes glitches with code. So it's not really what it seems and my brain was wondering what could be going on. A virtual simulation? Could it be? Well, Ubisoft could have surprised us all and left out the HUD and the effects altogether. That would have been a brilliant unseen twist that some videogames are lucky to have.

I've also guessed the ending too.

When Opinions Collide!

Now there's a famous site called Penny Arcade which has a large readership and they trust what Gabe and Tycho - the two characters of the site - say about videogames. Recommendations from them are genuine things indeed. When Gabe defends Assassin's Creed then tongues start a-wagging - especially from the likes of rllmuk. He cited the reviewers of the game didn't have enough time to immerse themselves in the game and thus a low mark resulted. The doubters mention that Penny Arcade carry Ubisoft advertising and they've produced comic strips for Ubisoft games including Assassin's Creed. I've not had a chance to fully play the game, though this GameTrailer's review is a pretty comprehensive take on it - it also outlines the stealth glitch as well as a few others. I think Gabe's heart is in the right place but the world of videogames can be a horrible thing indeed. It can be full of more wrongs than right and the gaming press can be easily paid off to give huge scores to games - Halo 3 for example.

"Wha?"

Like Halo 2, Halo 3 was full of promise but didn't actually deliver. It didn't surprise and those reviewers who gave the game perfect scores must have skipped the last two levels in the game - the penultimate level being a frustrating fleshy hole of flood-filled disappointment and the last level was a much more unfair take on The Maw - the last level in Halo 1. Call of Duty 4 pisses all over Halo 3. As an experience, it's much more exciting. It's more polished and has a lot going for it. When well-respected magazines like Edge give Halo 3 10/10, then you start to worry. The worrying thing is that if you want to buy a game with confidence then you have to go into the gaming forums and see what people are saying about the game. Failing that, download the demo and experience it yourself. I don't trust many game reviewers these days, although let's end this very videogame-related post with video footage of a reviewer I do trust - Yahtzee.

I dusted off my poor ol' Wii yesterday and played Metroid Prime 3 - Corruption for the first time. There was hoopla before its release about it being the first "proper" FPS on the Wii to seriously use the controls a lot better than, say, Red Steel. I was excited because I enjoyed playing Metroid Prime on the Gamecube even though I got kinda stuck with it, but it pleases me to tell you that Metroid Prime 3 delivers and ticks all the right boxes.

The beginning of the game is seriously smart - in fact, give the game designers a medal. Two medals. Two chocolate medals. The very first thing you see when you start to play the game proper is the cockpit of your ship. You look around it and already you start wanting to press buttons. It's a guy thing - get a new gadget, press some buttons. Thankfully you can press buttons and things impressively appear from the console and give you some sweet information displays. Mmm, information displays. I'm so geeky that when I watched the Star Trek movies, I was more interested in what was going on with those funky monitor status displays than the actual actors. Says a lot about me really...

Eventually you have to head towards an orbiting space station and to do so, you activate your thrusters. How? Push a button and then when the lever comes out of the console, push the Wii Remote forwards towards the screen. There's plenty of instances of this throughout the game and it made me grin with how amazingly intuitive it all was. When you do dock with the space station, you can calibrate your aiming straight off and have a walk around. One thing which hits me about this game on the Wii - and hence the title - is how beautifully lush the game is for a system supposedly lacking in the graphics department. This is bullshit. I've seen Resident Evil 4 on a Gamecube and the thing looked incredible. The Wii is reportedly two Gamecubes duct-tapped together, so surely you'd have something better visually. Developers are just plain lazy with the Wii, and it's a sad thing.

Looks Are Everything

The graphics have a certain soft diffused feel about them which is very appealing. Navigating with the nunchuck to move is something which you'll get used to pretty quickly as well as scanning. God, I love scanning stuff. I did in the first game and again with this game. Scan a console and see what it does! Scan lifeforms and get detailed schematics and information about them! Yep, they know how to please. Sneakily you can get points for scanning certain things as well as achieving things in the game - kind of like Achievements on the 360, but you can spend these points later on in the Extras section. It's something which works very well and worked brilliantly in Stranglehold where style points could be used to buy things in John Woo's shop.

The fact the ship is pretty harmless to begin with is great for getting used to the game, but when the shit hits the fan and nasties start appearing then you soon get into the habit of shooting them accurately too. I was playing the game in the mindset of the Gamecube prequels though - where you lock on and you know every shot you fire will head to its target. Not so with Metroid Prime 3. You can lock on, though it's only to keep the enemy in view. You still need to secondarily aim to shoot and it takes a bit of getting used to. It's great when it clicks though.

...And There's More!

Super Mario Galaxy is out soon as well and once again - the game looks lush and beautifully realised. I've played too many HD games, but when games on supposedly "lesser" consoles impress me, then it warms my jaded bones. People out there are still trying to produce videogame experiences to be memorable and enjoyable things rather than shit like NASCAR 08.

Oh, and more wonderous new PC woes - my wireless keyboard doesn't like me using the left shift but loves me using the right shift. Not very handy, although I did fix the problem with my new(ish) Samsung U600 phone - just changed the animated O2 screen to a static wallpaper screen and all is now fine. Still can't do much about those "magic" touch sensitive buttons though. Orange - the provider I left for having shite customer service - now offers a good deal for the G600 - like the U600 but obviously better. Grr.

YouTube time...

Witness the wonderful control system of Metroid Prime 3 interspersed with "typical" Wii owners playing the game.