I finally found my Caleb Roosa Essay from College.  Received an A+ for this.

Wow.  That’s all I can say.  Not the biggest year for Nintendo, but still a lot more than I expected.  Obviously there was some stuff that was just bizarre and uninteresting, but Nintendo brought out some big guns.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword:

Uses the Wii MotionPlus and Nunchuk to actually control the sword and shield.  During the game play portion, there was trouble with this aspect that they chopped up to interference.  Very well could have been, every person at that place has a headset, cell phone, laptop, IPad, ETC, so I’m sure each spectrum is pretty full.  They have promised that real game play would be more fluid and I look forward to it.  A problem I have is the game is not as visually stunning as Twilight Princess was.  It almost seems like a cross between Twilight Princess and Wind Waker.  While there is no true problem with this, I love watching a Zelda game like Twilight Princess push a system to it’s max.

Mario Sports Mix:

Another Mario sports game.  Looks like some casual fun.  I’m not really interested.

Wii Party:

Wii Party is literally Mario Party minus Mario.  It looks ok.  I will have to actually play it to get an idea.  I don’t understand the point of making another Mario Party and not including Mario.  Those games were awesome.   Nintendo really dropped the ball by not continuing the series once it hit the Wii where it would actually been even more fun.

Just Dance 2:

Yuck. Another stupid dancing game. Just what we need.

007 Goldeneye:

Yes. Yes.  This is amazing.  Looks to have the same feel as the original.  Daniel Craig will be in it instead of Pierce Brosnan.  This game looks like it is made to be more or less a copy of the original.  The multiplayer looks just like it did.  It appears they did this on purpose as this was one of the first truly addictive multiplayer games.  I spent a lot of nights playing this with my brothers and friends, and I can’t wait until this drops to do it again.

Epic Mickey:

I have been watching this for some time.  It is a darker version of Mickey than we have seen previously.  The game pulls locales from various Disney creative sources including the theme parks.  What is unique is that Mickey will have a paint brush, and you can either create, or erase your way through problems.  The way other characters will interact with you depends on whether you create to solve problems or erase.

Kirby Epic Yarn:

This game looks pretty fun, I have to admit.  Graphically it’s nothing special, but it just looks fun.  It seems Kirby will have many more power ups than ever before.  One of the more notable was him as a flying saucer.

Dragon Quest IX:

I’ve never played any of these, but this looks like a good RPG for the DS.

Metroid: Other M:

Amazing.  So happy about this.  I LOVE Metroid games.  Samus Aran is a badass.  This game returns to the cold isolated feel of the originals.  This game is going to be darker than previous installments.  In a trailer seen last year, we saw Samus run up an enemies body and shoot him right through the back of the head.  I am very excited to see how this turns out.  It looks great.

Donkey Kong Country Returns:

I think this was the biggest and best surprise of the show.  Holy hell does this look good.  It looks just like Donkey Kong Country, but updated with better graphics.  If you know anything about me,  you know I love Donkey Kong Country and that I ALWAYS play through the game in one sitting.  This game was beautiful.  It is a platformer like the original.  It appears there will be both a background and foreground for Donkey and Diddy to travel adding to the 3D aspect of the game.

Kid Icarus:

This is the first game really announced for 3DS.  This game looks pretty good.  It seems like a hack and slash type game, with flight involved.  Looks like it could be a solid game.

Nintendo 3DS:

We had all heard the rumors.  A completely new DS in 3D.  This thing is a monster.  Early estimations are that it is as powerful, or more powerful than the Wii itself.  Using 2 screens, one in front of the other it is able to create 3D without the use of glasses.    The 3DS can even take 3D pictures.  One of the best things about this system: It will play 3D movies.  That’s right.  It can play 3D movies.  That alone makes it worth having.  I am also hearing that the system will be wirelessly connected to the internet, with no monthly fee.  After unveiling the 3DS we are shown developers talking about it.  We also see some of the titles coming.  The ones that struck me were, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 3D, and Kingdom Hearts.  I am very excited to see more from this device.

Conclusion:

Nintendo did a much better job than I would have thought.  I went into this conference believing we would see nothing new or impressive.  I was happily surprised.  Although, to be honest, they probably could have just announced Donkey Kong Country Returns and I would have still felt like it was a huge success.  There is no denying it, Nintendo has some impressive software on the way.  Too bad 3rd party games are still terrible, and that we have to play these games, in disgusting 480p.

Today was the first day of E3.  If you know anything about me, you know I look forward to E3 every year.  I’ve watched the conferences all day so I could write about the best things I saw.

Microsoft Conference:

The first conference was for Microsoft.  The first thing shown was Call of Duty: Black Ops.  I am not really into these types of games, but holy shit did it look cool.  The next game was very interesting to me.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising

First off, this game just looks nuts.  The first video they show a huge robot walking around a room looking for something.  After a short time Raiden jumps out and slices the hell out of the robot.  After the cinematic, a gameplay trailer starts.  You see Raiden slicing through everything in sight.  The coolest thing is watching him slice through the environment.  He slices through some support beams and collapses a balcony on unsuspecting bad guys.  The next cool thing is a slow motion attack where it shows a line where you can cut.  You can angle it anywhere for precise chopping.  They show Raiden chop someone up into little pieces.  They show the same thing on a van after that.  The coolest thing they showed was someone (obviously very good) take a whole watermelon and chop it down into individual pieces.  Very excited for this game.

Gears of War 3:

Holy shit.  This was amazing.  I love Gears of war.  The series has an amazing storyline and it’s just a blast to play.  The series follows Marcus Fenix as he tries to eliminate the locust.  After the second game, we see a mutation that causes some of the locust to become “Lambent”.  While the first was pretty limited on scope, the second was a much more epic adventure.  The 3rd seems to be taking that to a whole new level.  We get to watch the 4 player co-op on screen.  Each person controls a character and tries to return to a nearby base.  The players show off a couple of new weapons and features, like being able to swap weapons.  Before long the group comes on lambent locust.  These locust are able to morph and explode.  After fighting through a bunch, a lambent berserker comes out.  If you’ve ever played the first two games, you know these creatures are incredibly hard to kill.  After getting the hammer of dawn online, Marcus and the group make it inside the fortress and the hammer comes down on the berserker.  After a couple moments they realize the berserker is still alive, and it jumps over the wall, and that’s where the cinematic and demo end.  Incredible. This game is going to be insane.

Fable 3:

A new trailer was shown at E3 but no true game play.  I was very surprised we didn’t see live game play.  This game is due out in the next couple months, (October I believe) and I would have thought they would be ready to show it off.  It looks graphically better the second, but only by a bit.  One thing that did strike me graphically was that the locations in the game seemed grander in scale.  Mountains, deserts, oceans and the like.  The other thing is combat and the way the player moves seem much more fluid and authentic than previous entries in the series.  It appears you start off the younger brother of the recently made king.  Your brother is a harsh king who basically enslaves the land of Albion.  It becomes your duty to overthrow your brother, and lead your kingdom to prosperity, or become a worse scourge of humanity than your brother was.  I loved the original Fable.  I loved Fable 2, but I felt it got away from too much of what made the original Fable great.  Fable 3 is like a leap from Fable 2, compared to Fable 1 to Fable 2.  I am not sure how this will all turn out, but the game, at this point looks to be epic and I will be anxious to play it.

Halo Reach: I am a very recent Halo fan.  While I don’t really care much for online shooters, Halo has a very good and deep story.  The first thing that struck me about this game was the graphics.  They are absolutely beautiful, some of the best I have ever seen on the 360.  The character details, and the scope and detail of the maps is just amazing.  I would play this game just for the graphics.  The game play looks fun, but it is at it’s core, mostly like it’s predecessors.

ESPN:

ESPN support was announced for the XBOX360 allowing you to watch a ton of games on it, and interact socially like never before.  Might be a good reason for me to start watching sports.

Kinectimals:

Kinect technically came before this and ESPN, but I would like to save it until the end.  Kinectimals is a very interesting concept. You get a virtual animal that you can play with.  Using Kinect, the animal interacts with you based on what you are doing.  You are able to pet the animal, play with it, and even play hide and go seek.  When you leave, he looks for you.  While I can’t see myself playing this game and truly enjoying it, my girlfriend’s daughter who is 4, is going to become obsessed very easily with this game.  I think this is a very good game for young kids.

Kinect Sports:

What Wii sports should have been.  Kinect Sports is really the exact same concept of Wii sports.  You start it up, and pretend to do some sports.  What I really love about Kinect Sports is the fact that you need NOTHING to do it.  No controller, no balance board, nothing.  You can play multiplayer with no additional accessories.  I can see this truly being fun and not at all a pain.  I was very interested in the boxing.  I liked the game on Wii, but it just did not listen correctly.  I believe the Kinect will work much better in this capacity.

Dance Central:

Rock Band, but dancing.  What else can I say? Uses Kinect to follow your moves, and grades you with stars…. just like Rock Band.

Star Wars Kinect AKA Old Republic:

Amazing. The cinematic about Alderan being overtaken by the empire, then a surprise attack by the republic on the empire.  It was awesome.  Ended with a Jedi vs. Sith fight.  Game looks incredible.  Another cool feature was the fact that everyone gets a unique ship with their game.  I think that’s just awesome.  No game play footage, but very very cool.

XBOX360 250GB:

I need one.  This thing is smaller, with a bigger hard drive, wifi, and it’s quiet.  If you own an XBOX360 currently you know that it sounds like an F-16 during use.  Supposedly not so, with the new 250GB version.  The new system also features a new hard drive system which comes stock with a 250GB hard drive.  I’m not sure why you would need one bigger than that.  My 60GB one is out of room, but that’s very small compared to the new one.  The wifi is an added bonus.  I hated having to run a cable through my house to use XBOX live because shelling out $100 for a wifi adapter is just ridiculous.  I have a setup now where I can plug my XBOX360 in with a 3 foot patch cable, and I would rather do that than use WIFI, but the choice is nice.  The other nice thing is that this unit uses less power.  It also has a port on the back for Kinect to connect directly too.  On the older systems, you will need to get a Y adapter to add Kinect, and plug Kinect into a wall outlet.  This makes the new 360 a very easy setup with Kinect.

Kinect:

I’m not sold yet.  A lot of hard core gamers have been hating on Kinect.   For the most part I agree.  The thing is I think Kinect could become a hard core gamer add on as well.  It’s very obvious that the reason behind Kinect is to get some of the casual gamers that Wii has attracted, and that Sony hopes to attract with the move.  While I hate most casual games, and casual gamers for that matter, I think kinect is different.  Kinect allows you to use your hands and voice to interact with XBOX360.  This in of itself is amazing technology.  You can scan items, clothes, and even your face into games and use them as props or skins.  I love the idea of having my avatar in a game use my face.  The other difference Kinect has, is quality.  The quality of the casual games is much better than you find on Wii.  That truly isn’t hard to do, just go to Walmart and look at 90% of Wii games not made by Nintendo.  I think Kinect can and will be used for some cool things in hard core games.  The voice recognition could be used to give orders to your squad in a shooter.  It allows you to interact with a number of games with voice.  The Kinect sits on an automatic stand that follows you, by your skeleton, everywhere you go.  You can control anything on screen with your hand, or your voice by saying “XBOX {Contexual Menu Option}”.  This is awesome when they show off watching a movie.  Don’t you hate that?  You get a late night call, the lights are off, you have to fumble for the remote, and even when you get it you have to find the mute button.  Not anymore.  If someone calls now you just say “XBOX Pause” and it pauses it for you.  Same with playing the movie.  I think Kinect has potential for both the hardcore and casual gamer.  It is the ONLY device I think makes any kind of sense for video games.  I am definitely getting one, and will write a review as soon as I can.

EA Conference:

The EA conference was not as good as the Microsoft one, but it still had a number of titles that belong on this list.  EA is known for ruining a lot of good games, or just releasing pure crap.  If you don’t believe me, look at what they did to Command & Conquer 4.  I seriously can’t get over that. Others couldn’t either and it was rumored that staff got death threats because of how bad they ruined it.   Other games worth mentioning that I won’t go into detail over are: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Cool but not really my thing; EA Sports:Madden 11, again not my thing, but these games always impress me with the level of detail. They have reworked most of the way Madden 11 works, which I’m sure will please most Madden fans;

Dead Space 2:

Holy shit yes.  This game is going to be amazing.  Visceral Studios has yet to let me down.  Dead Space 2 takes you to the Sprawl.  This is where Isaac will face the next horde of Zombie/Alien/Monsters.  Looking out the window in the game play, you could see that this world is huge.  They have also added several new weapons and enemies.  The overall graphic feel for the game seems much more polished and detailed.   Most likely it was invested in heavier due to the success of the first, which was awesome.

EA Sports: MMA

Ok.  I’m not sure.  As a martial arts fan, I really would like to see something authentic and awesome come along.  I am not sure how you can really take something as complex as MMA and boil it down to 14 buttons.  The game looks pretty sick, and EA Sports is one of the only sections of EA that I really have any respect for, as they are consistently the best in the games they do.  Really, I don’t play sports games, but the details shine through.  I am going to watch this game and hope it is as great as the original views of it suggest.

EA Sports: Active 2

Not just for the Wii this time.  This game surprised me.  I wrote this off as another EA abortion after seeing pieces of the first one, but this one means business.  It will be launched on all 3 platforms, and come with heart rate monitors.  The way the game operates varies slightly by the method of input on each console, using the amazing Kinect system for 360.  The game looks really cool.  We saw a mountain biking demo on the Wii which was interesting but nothing ground breaking.  On the PS3 we saw a workout that used weights, and you followed the instructions on the screen. This was good for people who are not used to working out, and need help on form.  The 360 one was the one that made me truly interested: BOXING.  This looks like it would be a lot of fun.  I can imagine playing this for a long time and burning a lot of calories and not noticing.  Especially with wrist weights.  The BEST part to me, was the fact that all of these games, link to an online community.  It keeps track of your workouts, calories burned, and other information. This in of itself is great.  It is like an automatically updated dailyburn.com but for your console! I will buy this and review as soon as I can.

BulletStorm:

A new franchise for EA.  Made the quote of the whole day with “You scared the dick off me”.  This game looks interesting and unique.  Basically anything in the game is a weapon.  You are armed with guns, but the environment and the bad guys themselves can be used as weapons.  Looks very interesting.  Not sure if it’s for me, but it’s definitely something to watch.

UBISOFT Conference:

Easily the worst one.  Ubisoft, like EA has some amazing games, but also puts out complete crap.  At the top of the crap list is Shaun White Skateboarding.  I have never seen such a horrid piece of software.  It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.  If you want to buy this game, I have a better idea. Email me and I’ll give you an address that you can mail me your 60 bucks.  Seriously that’s a better way to spend 60 bucks.  Another Kinect sports package was shown, but I think that it was pretty crappy.  Ghost Recon is not for me, but the game does look great, lots of details and seems to be very complex, with a lot of real world ideas put into it.  Michael Jackson ending was pure shit. Simple.

Assassins Creed Brotherhood:

I want this game to be out so bad it hurts.  The trailer was released/leaked earlier in the day so I had a good idea what to expect going into this.  The trailer is amazing and shows the overall theme, that Ezio is returning, and this time he has friends to help.  The game play starts in his Villa, where it is attacked and his uncle is killed.  The game play ends at fast forward to Rome, where Ezio is seen scaling a wall with other assassins in his flank.  Versus multiplayer confirmed.  From the trailers, it almost seems like the campaign could be multiplayer co-op.  This would be interesting.  I seriously can’t wait for this game to come out.

Battle Tag:

This really saved the Ubisoft Conference in my opinion.  This game makes me wish I was 8.  When I was little, we all had guns and ran around pretending to shoot each other.  There would be arguments about who got who, which could never be solved… until now.  Enter Battle Tag.  It is literally laser tag, that works with your console.  You start up the game, put on the vest, grab a laser, and go to town.  The game keeps score for you and other statistics.  Seriously? What is more badass than this?

Innergy:

Using the vitality sensor, this very simple game is about controlling your breathing.  You try to keep your breath in the middle as you breathe in and out.  While the game itself is stupid, the concept is not.  The idea is to make your breathing much more efficient.  They even brought up the fact that it may lower your blood pressure.  If that turns out to be true, this could be a very fun way to do so.

Your Shape:

This looks pretty good.  Using the Kinect it watches all your movements as a blob of sorts.  It scans your image and you are able to see it in a color up on screen.  It is able to watch your movements and make sure you do the moves right, AND at the right rhythm.  It has many programs, from personal trainer, to yoga.  This will be very interesting to watch.

Other:

Another trailer for Fallout: New Vegas came out today.  This game is going to be insane.  If you have not played Fallout 3 yet, go to Walmart, buy the GOTY edition, and get to it.  This game is hardcore.  Not only are the maps huge, the game itself is just epic.  The details in every house, in every area are just amazing.  I can’t even imagine the work put into it.  New Vegas looks to be just as big and just as badass as the original.

Day 1 Summary:

All in all it was an eventful day.  I think there were a lot of cool new gadgets and ideas being shown off.  We are seeing a growing trend in games focusing on fitness.  I think this market is going to grow in the near future especially as systems introduce motion sensing devices.  Some of these fitness games look absolutely amazing.  They seem like a good and happy medium to me.  I like the idea of the heart rate monitors, and the web log.  I would love to see an extreme fitness regimen on these systems.  Can you say P90XKinect? I don’t think there was anything truly groundbreaking at all today.  Most of the games shown had previously been announced.  I think the take away for today is that Kinect is awesome, Fitness games are coming by the truckloads and that sequels are better than anything new.

Tomorrow will mark the Sony and Nintendo Conferences and I can’t wait.  I will have some kind of day 2 review up tomorrow.  I am not sure as to the format, I may work on it as the shows are going on and release one for each show, or I might just do a big one like I did tonight.  Either way, I can’t wait for the Sony conference so I can see some sweet Infamous 2 eye candy.

I apologize for the lateness of my review, but I have been busy. I would first like to say I was a big fan of the original movies. (Original being the ones not involved with Hilary “Looks like a horse” Swank) When I saw they were doing a remake, I thought it would be terrible, just terrible. Finally the trailer came out. I watched it about 5 times, before thinking “this could work”. I was very happily surprised by this movie.

The movie starts off with Dre (Jaden Smith) moving to China because his mom got transferred. I actually love this premise. In the original, Daniel moved for the same reason, but he was still in the USA. A different part, but still the USA. For Dre, this is a huge cultural shift where it would be almost impossible for him to fit in even under the best circumstances. He clashes with the Chinese boys who know Kung Fu right away. After being beaten up several times, which in this movie look very authentic, he is cornered by the young Kung Fu users. Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) steps in to save him, leading to one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever seen.

Mr. Han then takes Dre to the boys school to ask them to stop beating him up. The instructor is a brutal man, just like in the original. A fight is about to break out after the instructors speak. The story is pretty much the same here, Dre is given time to train for a tournament, and the boys are instructed not to lay a hand on him. After this Mr. Han takes Dre under his wing and shows him Kung Fu in very abnormal ways.

There were a lot of things done right with this movie. The setting is amazing. The Chinese landscape is all rich and new. You can feel why Dre would feel outcast in this new world. He cannot speak the language very well which further makes him an outcast. Jaden Smith was great in this role. One thing that bothered me about the original Karate Kid was that there was very little real martial arts involved. They took a total 180 with this one. The Kung Fu is not only very real, but Jaden shows remarkable flexibility to boot. I cannot stress this enough. As a martial artist it was very hard to watch the original and believe any of it was martial arts.

Jackie Chan was also very good in this movie. Like the original, there is a deep problem Mr. Han has to overcome. This is very well handled in the movie, and very authentic, helping you to understand the character. Jackie Chan nails this. He is not greatly known for acting deep and touching, but he does both in this movie with flying colors. I was amazed by his acting performance. He was also great at the Kung Fu, but well, he’s Jackie Chan, it’s expected.

The other thing I liked was how balanced this movie was as a remake.  It was new enough to be worth watching and doing, but played homage to the right spots.  I really liked some of the twists on the original story that made it new and refreshing.  One of the best twists on the old, is when you think Mr. Han is going to catch a fly with chop sticks as Mr. Miyagi tries to do, but then just swats it.

The only thing I truly disliked about the movie was Dre’s signature technique. In the original, Daniel learns a kick that he sees Mr. Miyagi do quite a lot. This technique is not hard technically, and he is able to do it to win the fight. Dre, on the other hand, witness’s a Kung Fu master using Chi mastery to control a snake more or less. Dre is able to use something similar at the end, with a kick that no amateur could do, especially at his level. As a martial artist this bothered me. The kick for obvious reasons, but the level of Chi mastery he presented at the end, in martial arts theory, would take years of training and study. Not a couple hours a day study, 12+ hours a day. I know this is a movie, so there is some leniency with this, so it is more of a pet peeve.

The only other negative worth mentioning, even though it really isn’t a true problem, is that the feeling is off from the original. I felt like there was a true chemistry between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. You don’t seem to get that same feeling from this movie. I’m not sure if it was just me, but that was a bit distracting to me.

Overall I give the movie a 9/10. While it isn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, it is very very good, and I can find no real fault with the movie itself. If you haven’t seen it, go out and watch it. I plan on purchasing it when it comes out on Blu-ray.

I just finished Faking It on my Kindle. I just had to buy the book after seeing it. The title made me laugh and I thought it would be a good read. It was. The book reads very easily and is very entertaining. I especially enjoyed the section on Arts and Culture because these are things I know nothing about. The one problem I had was that some sections were covered in great detail, and others were more of an outline. If this book is meant purely as a joke, this is acceptable. A lot of times it gives serious ways of doing things, but in a funny light. As an actual how to manual with humor thrown in, the book suffers from some of the shallow sections. All in all, as a humor book I give it a 4/5, but as an actual howto manual, I would lean more towards a 3/5.

If you would like to read any of my other book reviews, visit:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1H4XM5M1XIHQK

I recently read Strengths Finder 2.0 on my Kindle. The information was very interesting and was definitely worth a read. After taking the test and finding out my 5 strength themes, the site creates a custom PDF for you. The PDF contains your themes, descriptions, and an action plan on how to play to your strengths. If you are interested in learning more about your strengths and what areas you influence naturally, this is a great book. I am giving it a 5/5. While I wouldn’t say that it is an information intensive book on it’s own, it does exactly as described and has plenty of content online once you have taken the test.

If you would like to read any of my other book reviews, visit:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1H4XM5M1XIHQK

I had my lt diet coke last night. If you know me, you know that I am rarely seen without a diet coke. In my “prime” I drank several gallons of it a day.

I have decided to stop because of the health risks that have been linked to Aspartame. Which, from one site I read, is as addictive as nicotine. I knew that it hurt my knees. I did quit for about 2 months at one point, and my knees stop hurting so bad. Aspartame disease is a very little known disease that is growing among avid diet coke drinkers.

If you are curious, search google for Aspartame Disease. I think you will be very surprised at some of the thing it is linked to.

I am currently working on starting a managed services company. I have been thinking and talking about this for the last couple of years and the time seems to be right. I would like to offer a wide range of IT services including Network Monitoring and design, to web hosting. I am in the middle of doing the ground work, creating the business plan, figuring out my startup costs and how I will market and advertise. I believe that it is a lucrative and great business to be in.