Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. - George Orwell
Haha this is a hilarious one: I’m hearing people talk about Soul Calibur IV as if it’s a little uncomfortable to play. On the GiantBomb.com podcast yesterday Ryan Davis described playing the game as “uncomfortable” and not because of it’s gameplay (which he stated “it plays like Soul Calibur should”). Ryan was of course referring to the outlandish characters and their scale on the perve-o-meter. Given that I’ve always considered Soul Calibur a pervey game I haven’t thought much of it. Until now.
So decide for yourselves, based on the following female characters that are present in the game, is Soul Calibur IV a bit pervey?
Cassandra Alexandra in Soul Calibur IV
Ivy Valentine in Soul Calibur IV
Seong Mi-Na in Soul Calibur IV
Sophitia Alexandra in Soul Calibur IV
Taki in Soul Calibur IV
Shura in Soul Calibur IV
There were tons more characters I could have put here. Look, I’m not going to pass judgement, all I’m going to say is that the artwork is fucking good - pervey or not.
Well after all that hyping over a 360 Wii Remote type extension it seems Microsoft were telling the truth when they said it wasn’t in their plans. I honestly thought that was just media spin and I have a great post saved in my drafts where I call for Microsoft’s hypocritical head seeing as they’ve basically spent the last year or so slagging off the Wii’s success.
But they didn’t do it and instead had a pretty decent showing of games. I was a bit bemused by the way a good half of their show was spent showing off games consumers could buy on a rival platform (*cough* PS3 *cough*) but I almost got a good sense of damage limitation from it all. Call me sceptical, call me what you will but throughout Microsoft’s show (and let me clarify I thought it was a good show) I got a sense of “me too”. Almost like, “well you have all these cool games, but guess what, we have them too”. That’s by no means a bad thing for XBOX 360 consumers at all but I’m struggling to find an experience within the 360 environment that can ONLY be had on 360 outside of Live.
Of course the planned Live updates are very good. The new dashboard looks excellent, the new party system and avatars look like a solid innovation to the experience and Live pretty much cemented itself as being a mile ahead of Playstation Network, again. I think the PS3 firmware 2.4 was intended to make up so ground and I think it did, but in terms of online experience Microsoft can rest assure that their £40 price tag for their online gaming is perfectly justified again and Sony need to go a long way to put that question back into the minds of consumers.
I’ll go on the record now as to say that Fable 2 does not interest me one iota but Gears Of War 2 looks solid, as does Geometry Wars 2 and Lips.
Can I just say on record that I can’t believe that got Duffy to perform live. How much cash do you reckon she got paid for that?
Of course the big announcement was Final Fantasy 13,493,291 being confirmed for 360 release. I’m sure Sony feel like their wife just cheated on them but Microsoft should be pretty hyped at securing that. Of course it’s nothing personal - Square Enix just want to ensure their game gets into American homes and I presume they’re pretty stoked about that themselves. A kind of win/win situation for Square and Microsoft and I’m sure Sony are the only people crying over that announcement.
I’ll be interested to see whether Sony present a bunch of multiplatform games in their show tomorrow though? If they do - we might have already seen Sony’s show a day early, if you get my drift.
Is this Microsoft’s rumoured XBOX 360 Wii-remote? MCV asks the question as to whether this is a first or third party peripheral. It surely looks to clunky to be first person but, whether or not it’s either, it further fuels that fire that Microsoft are poised to step into Wii territory.
The hottest news that I think Microsoft can show at their E3 conference this year is that they’re going to segway into the Wii’s market by releasing a motion controller. Given the amount of slack Microsoft give Nintendo over their “novelty” product they obviously wish they’d released the product first. Being a hypocrite is a sign of bad times but I’ll be interested to see how Microsoft fare bringing (essentially) the Wii into higher definition. Rumours are that the dashboard is going to have a good ol’ rethink to with the inclusion of - ahem - 3D avatars (read: Mii’s).
I’d expect that Microsoft will be wanting to get the “360 Remote” into as many homes as possible if it is a real product and thus: I’d expect it will come bundled with a big first-party game such as Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts or perhaps Halo Wars.
Speaking of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, I am sure a lot more of that game will be shown alongside perhaps a more secret Rare game (new Perfect Dark release?). I expect a lot of Gears Of War 2 hyping alongside perhaps some new information on Viva Pinata 2. Halo Wars will be at the show and maybe some new information on Alan Wake seeing as it has been in development for a long, long time now.
Finally I’m sure Bungie will have something to show off. Perhaps a smaller scale XBOX Live Arcade game?
I’m expecting the segway into Wii’s market to be Microsoft’s biggest element of the show though. I do think they need to be careful if they’re going to try and take the Wii head on. The Wii was developed with family friendly in mind and that reflects in it’s hardware, controller layout, advertising and even dashboard. One look at the XBOX 360’s dashboard is sure to send people running. Are they really set up to take the Wii on in this generation.
I’ve already been listing my expectations for what I think might be unveiled at this years E3. Online website GameTrailers are turning the hype wheel with their ten most anticipated E3 games.
So without further adieu:
What do you want to be announced? Let me know in the comments.
