E3: Day 2

by Stepto
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Day 2 of E3 I completely and totally lost my shit.  But first, the keynotes!

I got up early to catch both the Nintendo and Sony keynotes.  Standouts from the Nintendo keynote, as I twittered live, were things like Golden Sun DS, Mario RPG, and Dead Space Extraction.  As a Wii owner and DSi owner I was really enthused by those titles. Four player Mario looked neat but I hated the stutter when a player died and the other three had to apparently wait for a half second.  Mario Galaxy 2 won’t be out until next year.  The only things left that excited me were the new Metroid game and the possibility that the Wii Vitality might give us the ultimate video game experience, a game powered by your heart rate, Wii Crank.

Sony started off a tad slow in my opinion, but when they recovered they really recovered.  God of War 3, The Last Guardian, MAG, and PSP Go I think were really really really strong announces.  Their overall briefing had a lot more energy than the Nintendo one and their exclusive line up really has me interested, even if I have to wait for 2010 for most of it.

CNET has a great wrap up of the three keynotes.  Not surprisingly, I tend to agree with the wrap up.  <g>

Keynotes watched, e and PMS Kitty and I went to have lunch to debate the presentations and talk about what has us excited as gamers. 

As a side note, I got weird flak during my live twittering our competitors’ keynotes because I work at Xbox and people expected me to somehow be loyal solely to that.  Look, I’m a gamer first.  I own all three platforms and a DSi.  Yes, I work at Xbox to make it the best possible platform, and I think it is clearly the best platform.  But this isn’t a zero sum game.  I love PAIN, Killzone 2, and Infamous on the PS3.  I love World of Goo, Boomblox, Metroid on the Wii.  And I’m on record that my DSi is by far my favorite hand held platform evar.  Fanboyism isn’t really my thing, because it’s really really limiting.

Then Steven Spielberg walked right by me and I temporarily lost the power of speech.

Wait I’m getting ahead of myself.

So after lunch we hit the crown jewel of the event for my first E3, the thing I was looking forward to the most, that deep fried twinkie/snickers bar combo of dense awesome gaming event goodness, the E3 expo.

Right outside the hall was a full size Ecto 1!!!

ecto

Sony did a great job branding the West hall.

sony

The expo is divided into two halls, the South Hall which was mostly our booth plus Harmonix, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., Square Enix, etc etc, and the West hall which had Sony, Nintendo, Activision, Capcom, etc etc. 

For our first day, we hit the South Hall. Energy there was way up, with tons of title announcers and demos and lines to see the new hotness. We started off checking out all the titles in the Microsoft booth.  For a lot of them we’d of course seen them because, you know, we work there.  But pausing slightly at a demonstration of the Sky integration LIVE feature, I looked up from the demo to see, passing less than a foot beside me, Steven Spielberg and a couple of his body guards.  As my jaw hit the floor with an audible thud, e saw my reaction and took the opportunity to try and engage me in conversation, “Are you ok?”

“He—that—walked just now—things—movie I like—just now—right by us—he…” I stammered.

Did I diss on fanboyism just a minute ago?  I lost, my shit. Steven *fucking* Spielberg walked mere inches from me on the way to our private briefing area to show off Natal.  In retrospect, there was thankfully no opportunity for me to engage him in conversation because I would forever made him hate me by saying “THANK YOU FOR CLOSE ENCOUNTERS/JAWS/SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, btw what the hell were you thinking re: Jurassic Park: The Lost World?”  Of course in my temporary stroke victim status losing my speech center it would have come out “THANK—CLOSE—JAWS—PRIVATE RYAN—HELL—LOST WORLD?”

My mind totally screwed, we proceeded to check titles out.  Standouts are Assassin’s Creed 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, Blur, and Shadow Complex for XBLA.  AC2 looks incredible on any platform.  Splinter Cell Conviction is one hell of an incredible exclusive for the 360. Blur looks to have the same type of longevity as Burnout Paradise. And Shadow Complex is the best looking, most fun XBLA title I have seen to date.  It’s like playing a side scroller version of Gears of War 2, it looks that good.

The final night we rocked the Bethesda party in Hollywood.  I’ll just say there was drinking and karaoke, and I dedicated Pearl Jam’s Alive to The Lone Wanderer. Our execs showed up too and to say a fun time was had by all is a bit of an understatement

E3 2009 was already probably the coolest thing ever.  Day 3 report coming up! (and don’t worry contest folk, you day is coming with special new prizes. I added a first, second and third prize set!)

E3: Day 1

by Stepto
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There’s a certain feeling you get when you enter California.  It’s a feeling that’s very difficult to describe, things just seem to go a bit more slowly, you’re able to look around and appreciate things more.  There’s a distinct enforced lethargy, not altogether unpleasant, as you find yourself going from 70 to 45 to 20. Then, finally, you stop completely and a goateed man with enough piercings to fashion a nice chainmail shirt from his various rings and loops asks you if you have any fruit.

Yup, at the entrance to California on Interstate 5, there’s a full stop checkpoint to ask you one simple question: “Got any plants or fruit?”

“ASK HIM IF HE HAS THE SAME PROBLEM MICHAEL PALIN DID IN TIME BANDITS” my brain fairly screamed to me as my mouth simply said “Nope.” I counted five lanes of traffic stopped in such a way, each manned, as it were, by a fruit checker.  Just a thought to budget broke California, how many times do people say “yes”, and of those times, how often do the plants or fruit have whatever contagion or infestation you are looking for?  I’m just sayin’ you might be trying to solve for the 001% case.

Anyways I arrived in LA yesterday.  It’s certainly an interesting city and I can’t help but drive around it thinking of Steve Martin’s wonderful LA Story.  On 101 heading towards downtown I swear I saw several of the unique houses from that movie perched along some hillsides. 

But the big highlight was this morning.  I watched with glee as we finally got to spill the details on some really kick ass stuff that it’s been really hard not to scream with about how cool it all is.

I was brought into project Natal several months ago, as with any camera based system there’s always the potential for abuse.  My feeling when it was first described to me was a lot along the way of motion games that currently use the vision camera.  But once I saw it in action I was astounded. Using controller-less…controls in games isn’t going to be for everyone.  But the learning curve to use and enjoy a high end console just got a whole lot lower. 

Facebook and Twitter integration are both really well done. And to keep it just a bit removed from your gaming so as to not be too intrusive it’s implementation respects that you might be focused on other things on your console.

We had such a wealth of things to announce today that we actually had too much and had to cut a bunch of stuff.  Stuff you might have missed are the new Xbox 360 Games on Demand and a number of performance enhancements to the guide and friends lists that people have given us feedback on.

So far between everyone working to get ready for the briefing and the crush of announcements and press I’ve not had a lot of time to catch up with various folks on their impressions of our announcements.  But today was a great kick off.

Tomorrow I’ll be hitting the expo and hopefully blogging from the floor.

Oh and I have not forgotten about those who entered my contest!  While the contest entry is now closed, I’ll have some cool stuff to announce about some addition prizes, I got so many good entries.

Questions about GTAIV new content and the XBL Terms of Use

by Stepto
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I’ve gotten some questions about the new Grand Theft Auto IV content to be released in the future called “The Ballad of Gay Tony” and what it means in regards to the prohibition against expressing relationship preference in Gamertags or profiles.

I’m going to start off by reminding everyone we certainly recognize people want the ability to self identify, and we are working on that capability to try and provide it in a way that’s beneficial and can’t be misused.

Having said that, remember that Marketplace and Game content, etc typically comes with a rating, synopsis, and information that you have to go to the marketplace to seek. 

The Code of Conduct policy, inelegant as it is, is specific to user generated text content: Gamertags and profiles.  Remember, the CoC *does* allow you to express vocally on the service your relationship preference.  People are getting this wrong, and saying all instances of the word “Gay” for instance, are forbidden from all of Xbox LIVE therefore this new DLC represents a violation.  That’s not the case. I appreciate the appearance of a disconnect here, but actually there isn’t.

As an aside, there’s other content in GTAIV that likewise would not be allowed in a Gamertag or profile.  There are quotes from movies you can obtain on marketplace that are not allowed in Gamertags or profiles. Rated, purchasable content has all sorts of technical rules and restrictions as to what type of accounts can view them (child or regular for instance), location limitations, synopsis and plot summary etc that Gamertags and profiles do not currently have.

Again, in regards to the current policy on relationship preference, we’ve heard loud and clear and are working with a variety of internal and external groups on how we address that for our customers *and* prevent misuse.  I hope to be talking more about that soon.

Thoughts on the new Star Trek Movie

by Stepto
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This is spoilery.  So if you haven’t seen the movie don’t read this.

I really really loved this movie.

I’m not going to bother to go any further in terms of praising it from a movie or sci fi fan perspective.  I wanted to see it twice before I wrote about it because I enjoyed it so much the first time I wanted to go one more time to nit pick it. It’s definitely not Citizen Kane in terms of its big ideas or narrative.  But so much of what the film gets right about Trek is just absolutely dead on.

I dislike that to fully get Nero’s backstory you have to read a four issue comic series, Star Trek: Countdown, but that’s pretty much my sole complaint.  Everything about the film hits the perfect notes:

Replicating an older film look by using camera/shooting flaws like lens flare or blinding bridge lights. Made it feel like it was rougher, more like the bad sets and cardboard bridge of the old show but without stooping to that level.

Sound cues. From the opening scanner ping noise from the old show, to the torpedo sounds, to the transporter.  Everything was updated, but in a way that supported the alternate timeline idea.  Comfortable, but new too.

Soundtrack: The film has an outstanding score. Go download it.

Original series nods: Kirk form Iowa, Spock saying fascinating, Pike in a wheelchair, Kirk eating an apple during the Kobayashi Maru test, McCoy’s “I’m a doctor not a …”, Kirk’s lady chasing, Vulcan neck pinch, “I have been, and always shall be your friend” and on and on and on.

Kicking original series canon to the curb: Holy FUCK they destroyed Vulcan and all the people on it.  Spock/Uhura romance, Building ships on earth, making the ships far larger and more warlike due to the destruction of the Kelvin, Romulan first contact, and on and on.

I think it’s a wonderful and awesome a reboot as Battlestar Galactica was, without having to go through as many machinations as Galactica did.  Everything that was great about original series Trek is here in the movie.  While some bemoan the lack of some big social message, I preferred for a reboot the message that at some level these people were fated to be together, and fated to be on that ship.

I can’t wait to see what they do next, and again wish they had gone straight to a two season TV show to let the cast gel some more rather than make us all wait 2 years for another two hour movie.

But what I love most about this film, is watching people come out of it.  From the kind of kids who used to beat the crap out of Trek nerds like me in High School, to small kids, to adults who never really got into it.  I love hearing the buzz from them as I leave the theater.  Trek’s cool again, and without really having to give anything up.

TWITTERVERSE! BLOGOSPHERE! FACEBOOKERDOME! MYSPACEAROK! I announce a contest.

by Stepto
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So I have an extra sealed copy of Jonathan Coulton’s DVD/CD combo of his

OUT

STANDING

2008 San Francisco concert, also known as Best. Concert. Ever.

Jonathan was fully compensated for this copy, it was not a gift, and neither he, nor Kristen Shirts, nor Paul and Storm, nor Andy Bates, nor the pink haired zombie lady featured in the DVD have anything to do with what I am about to propose.

I want to give this tremendous gift a good home.  Recently I was inspired by a twitter contest for the crappiest superhero name (my entries?  IronMeh and Captain Corporeal). So I propose that you, if you so wish to have a boon, send me via the tuber web inter world trucks, your submission for the worst titled fictional video game ever.

Here’s my example submission:

Comanche Maximum Overpong Commander IV: The Price of Pong

The winner receives the copy of the DVD/CD set.  Second place?  A set of steak knives*.  Third place?  You’re fired**. Here are the Rules***.

The winner will be chosen when I arrive at E3 in LA Sunday, 5.31.09

ENTER HERE.

Good luck!

* Yup.  You really will win these knives for second place.

** Yup.  You’re really fired.****

*** The posting regarding this contest is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This is a private give away run by myself. The rules may include but are not limited to: 18 or older. This contest has no affiliation with the Microsoft Corporation, nor any of the affiliated artists. I (Stepto) will cover shipping of your prize under normal insurance values. You must disclose a valid shipping address to receive your prize, that address will be known only to me. Only submissions using the supplied link with recipient and subject in this post entitled ENTER HERE are valid.  Submissions are subject to the Creative Commons license for Stepto.com in that you own the copyright and I am allowed to repost your content with attribution to you non commercially. Hi, how are you? I’ve noticed you’ve read this far.  You are awesome and/or a fine print freaky pervert for going to this extent. I find you strangely attractive. You agree to swear under oath that Han Shot first. I agree as a condition of this contest that I am basically giving you something for free if you win and that you should really not be a dick about it if you decide that you don’t like the cover art or something and that all your complaints are really nit picky bullshit that you should take up with Jonathan Coulton but seriously that would totally be a dick move. Lastly I’m not joking about the Han Shot first thing.  Or I might be.

**** Not really.