I couldn’t call myself a gamer if I didnt post this: E3 as it has been known for the past couple of years is now officially dead. This (probably) means no more big keynotes from Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, no more 4-days of constant game coverage from essentially every game website, and no more single big event for everyone in the gaming world to focus on. Technically it will still live on as a much smaller event, but it’ll never be the same.
So, the next logical question would be what this new event would be called? Well, since it is essentially just E3 modified (still held in LA and all), the name for it is E3Expo. *snicker* What, you don’t get it? Let me do the math for you:
E3Expo = Electronics Entertainment Expo Expo = E4
Yes, the successor to E3 will inevitably be called by the majority of the gaming community E4. That can’t just be a coincidence. :)
Personal - Dallas
In the past 48 hours I’ve been to work twice, seen a movie, and had only 2 meals. Break time…please?
I finally got around to seeing Cars today, and while it didn’t become my favorite Pixar movie (that still goes to Monsters Inc., just barely beating out The Incredibles), it was still fun to watch. The whole time I was impressed by it and thought it was good, but it wasn’t until the final scenes and the credits that it actually went over into my “love” column. I’m still on the fence about whether or not to get it on DVD, but there’s still a few months before I even really need to worry about that. Score: 8.5/10
The past two days we haven’t been doing anything on The Heretic at all which worked out fairly well with me getting asked to come work. Currently the plan for tomorrow is to start filming again, so maybe that will hold up. I’m actually having a fun time doing that, but there are probably other uses for my time which would be more self-productive (*cough* working on games *cough*). :)
Personal - Dallas
I’m not really sure how I managed to completely forget to post reviews of Pirates 2 and Superman Returns, but I’ll rectify that situation in this post.
Pirates 2 was, as should have been expected, completely awesome. Some people have said that while it was good they didn’t enjoy it as much as the first, but that defintely doesn’t apply to me. Yeah, the movie does seem a little disjointed as the three main chaarcters aren’t together for a significant part of the action, but I still think it transitions and flows well. Oh, and for everyone who has seen the first one and was wondering how they could possibly come up with an ending as awesome as the first, they do. Score: 9/10
Superman Returns I went in to with a sense of reservation. The Batman, X-Men, and Spiderman trailers all made me want to go see the movie; with Superman, I was confident that it wasn’t going to be completely horrible, but the trailer never made me think I absolutely had to go see it. Well, I’m happy to admit that Superman Returns is a very good movie that I think the trailer incorrectly represents. I still give Batman the award for “best new movie in an old series”, but Superman was fun to watch and definitely worth a purchase. Score: 8.5/10
We should also have a Tivo right now (and should have had since Tuesday), but the 2 packages that UPS claimed to deliver to our front door Tuesday afternoon are nonexistant. So, both items (the other is a wireless adapter to let it get on our network) are on their way again, this time with UPS having explicit instructions from me that no package is it be left at our house without a signature (something I’ll get them to remove in about a month, but won’t really pose an inconvenience for the remainder of the summer).
Personal - Dallas
So, this afternoon at about 1:00 EB Games calls my house. Apparently they had me scheduled to work today, but no one had ever called to inform me of this fact. Now, I know I’m smart, and I can be pretty good at making educated guesses about the future. This is outside of my realm even, though. You have to work with me at least a little bit.
FFX is progressing nicely; I don’t think I’m quite up to the part that I originally was at, but it’s far enough along (or its just been so long) that I don’t really remember any of the story. Hopefully a couple more days of playing will let me finish it up and move onto X-2. I’ve heard really mixed reviews over it, so I’ll give it enough time for me to really decide if I enjoy it or not, but I won’t be afraid to just abandon playing it like I did Advent Rising.
Personal - Dallas
Yes, I posted a few days ago that I was going to start on FFX, but websites, other games, and me just being lazy have kept that from happening. However, my goal for tonight is to go take a shower immeidately after this post, put up an away message, and start playing. I have about a month left until school starts, and in that time I’d love to beat FFX and X-2 (not anywhere near impossible) along with Tactics and Tactics Advance (much more of a toss up). After all that, I still have way too many more games to worry about, but my purchasing has slowed down dramatically (partly because more studios are preparing for the generation switch, and partly because I’m not making as many “that game sounds cool, let’s get it” purchases) so maybe my backlog will eventually be reduced to a “normal” size. For now, though, on with the gaming!!
Completed Games:
- Final Fantasy IX (PS1) – 5/21
- New Super Mario Bros. (DS) – 7/5
- Daxter (PSP) – 7/9
Games in Progress:
- Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)
- The Rub Rabbits (DS)
- Final Fantasy X (PS2) (Start: 7/15)
Personal - Dallas
This afternoon I went over to a friend’s house and helped with some of the “puppeteering” for The Heretic, a prequel to the Halo 2-based machinima series The Codex. The website for The Codex (the series that was released last year) is http://www.thecodexseries.com/tc/, and while I haven’t had a chance to watch all 20 episodes, I definitely have a very good take on what goes into the video side of creating an episode (I’m guessing that the voiceover work isn’t all that hard).
Personal - Dallas
I’ve posted 4 videos of the movie that was our final project for Theater Arts my junior year at HP. For those interested, here are the links:
Yes, I have all the in progress, semi-edited, and final versions of the movie stored across 5 DVDs and found them as I was going through the box all my archive/backup CDs are in, so that’s why I decided to go ahead and post them to YouTube. Oh, and I’ve also been bored out of my mind recently, so that was part of the cause also. Had I been busy and entertained with other things, this wouldn’t have happened.
Personal - Dallas
In my last post I said I was going to finish up FFVIII before moving onto X and X-2. Well, while it wasn’t intentional at the time, I think that’s a lie. Yeah, I’m sorry, and I apologize to all the people who suffer emotionally from this news. However, there actually is a reasoning behind this choice.
At my old house, I had a computer that now would be 7 years old down in my room. Connected to it was an Interact DexDrive that allowed me to connect a PS1 memory card to my computer and transfer the save files over for archival purposes (it had other uses, but that was al I used it for). For those of you not familiar with the save system of the PS1, each (official) memory had 15 slots of save space, and each game save took up one of these slots. Well, in games like FF I like to have a long trail of save points if I need to go back due to a poor choice I made. While I could probably get away with just cycling though all 15 and always overwriting the oldest one, I’d rather back them all up using my DexDrive (and in FFVII, I actually saved at pretty much every single save point in the game, resulting in a whole lot more saves than I had in IX or VIII). So, now comes the problems with this setup:
- The DexDrive is an older piece of hardware and connects to the computer via a serial port. That old computer is currently in a closet, and my newest one which is in my room currently has no serial port. — Strike 1
- The DexPlorer software used to interface with the DexDrive is installable off of two 3.5″ floppy disks. Again, old computer this wasn’t an issue, but I chose (after much debate with myself) to not put a floppy drive in my new computer. — Strike 2
- I originally thought I was going to be able to come up with around 5 and be able to comment on how this situation went beyond three strikes, but all the others escape me at the moment. Oh well, 1 and 2 are the two biggest reasons anyway.
This means that after another round of Mario Party 6 tonight, my attention will probably move immediately to FFX and VIII will just wait until a better situation comes up for me to being using my DexDrive.
Personal - Dallas
I typically don’t make posts on a night when I’m up late after midnight, but this time I’ll make an exception because if I don’t make this post now, there’s no guarantee it will ever happen. So, I have two checks, but what for?? My completed game list, of course!!
Completed Games:
- Final Fantasy IX (PS1) – 5/21
- New Super Mario Bros. (DS) – 7/5
- Daxter (PSP) – 7/9
Games in Progress:
- Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)
- The Rub Rabbits (DS)
Yes, I completed two games that weren’t on my “in progress” list, but I was almost done with each anyway. This also marks the first PSP game I have completed, so it (or its case, rather) will go back to gathering dust until I decide to start playing another PSP game or a good one comes out for it that I buy. My mental tentative list for future game progression is to finish up FFVIII, then work on X and X-2 (fo finish out the numbered series of 7+), and after that….maybe some FF Tactics and .hack//Mutation. Yeah, it’s PS1/2 heavy, but I have to start somewhere and just going through series (which typically stay on the same console) is the easiest way to do it. Also, I did complete Prince of Persia: Warrior Within in there somewhere, but since I don’t remember exactly, I won’t bother adding it to the list. For the record, though, I am ready to move on to The Two Thrones.
Personal - Dallas
Here in North Texas (I can’t techinically say Dallas anymore, but I shouldn’t have anyway) we’ve been under drought conditions for a while; think of this drought as relating to the lack of posts that I’ve made over the past three days. Today, however, we had giant storms that dumped water everywhere; the rain we got today is the post I am currently making. See, there’s meaning to everything in life, even my blog posts. *snicker*
I didn’t plan on being at home much today since I was having lunch with a friend and then going to EB Games at 4:00. Well (and I know you can all tell where this is going), my friend called and said he was feeling slightly sick so I didn’t do that, then EB Games calls and tell me to not bother coming. This meant I got to spend the whole day at home, but I didn’t have anything planned to do. So, I guess you could say that since I had nothing to do, I made this blog post. Hmmm? (And completely off topic, but I had a very deep moment earlier reflecting over the phrases “to go” and “on the go”. Not with explaining now though because I have to….well, you know, go. :) )
Personal - Dallas