2007 Preview

Top 10 PS3 games of 2007:
T-10. Blacksite: Area 51
T-10. Warhawk
9. Battlefield: Bad Company
8. Army of Two
7. Devil May Cry 4
6. Grand Theft Auto IV
5. Guitar Hero III
4. Mercenaries 2
3. Assassin's Creed
2. Lair
1. Metal Gear Solid IV

Top 10 PSP Games
10. Winning Eleven World Soccer 07
9. 300: March to Glory
8. Prince of Persia: Rival Swords
7. Tomb Raider: Anniversary Edition
6. Elder Scrolls
5. The Warriors
4. Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters
3. Sid Meier's Pirates
2. GT4: Mobile
T-1. FFVII: Crisis Core
T-1. PSOne Downloads

Biggest Surprise of 2007:
Kingdom Hearts for PSP

PSP Games too watch for:
Jeff Corwin Experience(I can see some GPS stuff being added into it that could make it a sleeper hit)
Eye Toy Play Portable
DC Universe

Best of 2006

Game of the Year Awards:

Playstation Portable Game of the Year - Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Nintendo DS Game of the Year - Brain Age
X-Box Game of the Year - Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Gamecube Game of the Year - Zelda: Twilight Princess
Playstation 2 Game of the Year - Kingdom Hearts II
X-Box 360 Game of the Year - Gears of War
Wii Game of the Year - Zelda: Twilight Princess
Playstation 3 Game of the Year - Resistance: Fall of Man
PC Game of the Year - Medieval II - Total War
Free Game of the Year - Mount & Blade(www.taleworlds.com)
Game of the Year - Kingdom Hearts II

Genre Awards:

Puzzle - Mercury Meltdown
Innovation - Brain Age/Locoroco(Tie)
Music - Guitar Hero II
Racing - Need for Speed: Carbon
Sports - World Soccer Winning Eleven 9
Extreme Sports - Tony Hawk's Project 8
Fighter - Tekken: Dark Ressurrection
Action/Adventure - Zelda: Twilight Princess
Platformer - Daxter
FPS Singleplayer - Gears of War
FPS Multiplayer - Resistance: Fall of Man
Turn-based Strategy - Civilization IV: Warlords
RTS - Medieval II - Total War
Action RPG - Kingdom Hearts II
Turn-based RPG - Final Fantasy XII

PS3 Network Details

"In addition to a wide array of software titles, SCEA today also unveiled the online and network services provided through PS3, which will offer distinctive benefits to consumers and developers alike. Consumers will be able to enjoy a wide array of PS3 network capabilities, with basic features offered absolutely free from day one.

Developers will benefit from the open platform policy of SCEA, which will allow them more freedom and creativity in the development of their games and online/network services. The end result will be more than just a place to play games, but a rich online environment with strong community aspects as distinctive as the titles themselves.

The entry way into PlayStation Network is XMB (Xross Media Bar), which is the navigation system that enables a complete suite of entertainment experiences in three key areas: gaming; network and web connectivity; and other entertainment contents such as movies and music.

The intuitive XMB interface, which is already featured on more than 20 million PSPs shipped worldwide, allows PS3 users to experience multiplayer games across the network; communicate with other players via chat, voice or video; browse the web; download gaming content; store/view pictures and video; download and listen to music; and shop online.

Through the online PlayStation Store, consumers can find such items as game demos, game-related content and downloadable casual games, including titles developed by Sony Computer Entertainment World Wide Studios exclusively for download and play only on PS3, such as Blast Factor.

Multiple users can share a PS3, and each user has his or her own login, which is represented by a unique icon of your choosing. You'll be able to have a friends list, much like in Xbox Live. Another similar feature to Xbox Live is the ability to text message your buddies. You can either choose to enter words using a number pad just like what you have on your cell phone, or via a USB keyboard. If you use the number pad, predictive text is enabled to speed things up.

Once users create a unique, secure PlayStation profile, they cannot only communicate with other PS3 users, they can also utilize an electronic wallet to purchase content in the PlayStation Store. Downloadable first party games will cost less than $15 at launch. More content will be added on a regular basis." - Gamespy

Assassin's Creed Gameplay Video

My first video edit. Footage from X06 Assassin's Creed Demo. Music by The Dust Brothers

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=136431572416410909

Mercury Preview

"

PlayStation.com

6/27/2006 12:00:00 AM - Archer MacLean's Mercury was one of those unique puzzlers that tested both your manual dexterity and your mental problem solving skills. While the concept of moving a blob of mercury from a starting point to a goal might seem simple, controlling multiple orbs at the same time while not falling from a large table or getting eaten by a malevolent little creature does complicate the game significantly. The first title, while fun, had some issues with respect to its multiplayer, its level design and its lack of autosaving. Fortunately, Mercury Meltdown appears to address every single problem the original title had while expanding the scope of the game itself. For the most part, the concept of getting as much mercury as possible to a goal remains in Mercury Meltdown. However, the artistic style of the game, which is much more artistically animated and cartoonish features prominently within the game design, particularly with some of the gauges, which themselves have a new focus on point distribution. Your Mercury gauge remains to let you know how much of your initial bubble of mercury exists, with a line that indicates how much mercury you'll need to keep "alive" to be able to trigger pressure plates or other switches. The countdown timer returns as well, giving you an indication as to what the par time for navigating around and through the course is. By reaching the finish line in time, you'll receive a happy face in the countdown timer; by contrast, you get a sad face for missing the par time and an angry face for losing all of your mercury altogether.


Once a level has been completed, you receive an updated point tally based on how you did: each percentage point of mercury nets you 500 points, while every second on the countdown clock under the par time is worth 1000 points. Collecting scattered bonus icons around each stage is worth 2000 points each. However, you'll need to do some fancy maneuvering around a number of obstacles and level features to reach your goal. New to this game are status gates: Heaters will speed up your blob, making the bubble move faster and split apart easier. Coolers, on the other hand, slow down the mercury, making it harder to break. There are also solid ball gates that turn the mercury into a solid orb which can be easily launched off ramps or roll around rails on a stage. Players will also have a couple of new objects to interact with on each level. One such object is a friendly blob suspended in a gelatin square known as Stan, who rolls around in an arbitrary fashion. By maneuvering in front of him, you can direct his movement towards switches or other objects. There is also the Huebrick, which is a colored block that you'll need to collide with to push around. You'll also discover that the kind of surfaces that you travel over will affect the movement of the mercury, such as sticky floors that slow down blobs or slippery floors that speed it up. Even the paint system has been redone, with a new color wheel to help you figure out what colors you'll need to mix to get through colored gates and three-way paint dispensers to cover bubbles.


The single player demo that we received focused on a certain number of laboratories that your mercurial blob will explore, such as Chem or Bio labs. While the number of labs appeared to be locked down, there should be more than 160 levels in the final game, which is easily twice the amount found in the original game. That isn't including a number of additional multiplayer and wireless modes that will be included in the final game as well. Mercury Meltdown will also feature game sharing and downloadable content (most likely in the form of skins for your blob), as well as unlockable party games like races, paintable levels and more. We're looking forward to playing more of the game, as well as exploring the multiplayer and party games before it ships in late August, but what we've seen so far looks like a great adjustment on the original puzzle game.
"
Sweet finally the first game I found extremely entertaining on the PSP gets a sequel, can't wait.

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My week 2 NFL pics

Sunday, Sep. 17

Buffalo at Miami* 1:00 p.m.
Carolina at Minnesota* 1:00 p.m.
Cleveland at Cincinnati* 1:00 p.m.
Detroit at Chicago* 1:00 p.m.
Houston at Indianapolis* 1:00 p.m.
New Orleans* at Green Bay 1:00 p.m.
N.Y. Giants at Philadelphia* 1:00 p.m.
Oakland at Baltimore* 1:00 p.m.
Tampa Bay at Atlanta* 1:00 p.m.
Arizona* at Seattle 4:05 p.m.
St. Louis* at San Francisco 4:05 p.m.
Kansas City* at Denver 4:15 p.m.
New England at N.Y. Jets* 4:15 p.m.
Tennessee at San Diego* 4:15 p.m.
Washington at Dallas* 8:15 p.m.

Monday, Sep. 18

Pittsburgh at Jacksonville* 8:30 p.m.

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My week 1 NFL pics

Week 1 Picks:
Atlanta vs Carolina*
Baltimore vs Tampa Bay*
Buffalo vs New England*
Cincinatti* vs Kansas City
Denver* vs St. Louis
New Orleans* vs Cleveland
New York vs Tennesse*
Philadelphia* vs Houston
Seattle* vs Detroit
Chicago* vs Green Bay
Dallas* vs Jacksonville
San Fransico vs Arizona*
Indianapolis* vs New York
Minnesotta* vs Washington
San Diego* vs Oakland
* is who I think is going to win

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'Zune'scape

http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking-news/new-microsoft-mp3-player-targets-ipod/2006/07/22/1153166619002.html
Microsoft is ready to release their new Zune brand and spread the joy and goodness to the world, or so Microsoft executives would say. Now I am not exactly sure what is detailed in the Zune brand. All I know for sure is that it will include a new mp3 player from Microsoft that they will attempt to use to kill the iPod or at least take some of the marketshare(may I be the first to say if the mp3 player is cheaper then the iPod with the same amount of storage put me in line for it) and some sort of iTunes rivaling store. I don't know if WMP 11 is included in the Zune brand, tip of the hat to Microsoft for it regardless, but it is definitely going to be co-operating with it. Also there are plenty of rumours of a Portable gaming device coming from microsoft to compete with the PSP and in their dreams, the DS(also Sony's dreams as well). I think that this entire Zune thing may just be an attempt by Microsoft to take market share away from their two biggest competitors, Apple and Sony.

EA not pure evil?

Normally I am just as anti-EA as every other gamer. But I am beginning to ask myself why am I so anti-EA what did they do to deserve to be the Evil corporation in gaming. Now of course some people might be like "Well duh because they have a monopoly on gaming." True EA does have a monopoly on gaming, but who gave EA the money to make such a monopoly. The gamers, quite simply EA has been making good games since they started. They decided to take the money from these games and turn it into a massive gaming empire with good games coming out in every genre. And so far they've been fairly successful, not only in the games they make but the companies they decide to add to their gaming empire. They've acquired recently, Mythic Entertainment probaly one of the best MMO Developers in the industry, Valve the creators of Half Life 2, and Criterion the creators of Renderware. Now with the exception of Criterion these are top-notch developers and the best at what they do. If you don't believe me then try to put Half Life 2 or Dark Age of Camelot away after one hour. It's nearly impossible to do it. Even before then EA had excellent developer firms and developers under their wing. Think of games like The Sims 2, Spore, Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, Madden, MVP, SSX, All the street games, Need for Speed, Battlefield 1942, Command and Conquerer, I could go on and on and on. The point I am trying to make is that EA is not as evil as everyone thinks they are, they are just smart business men with a good eye for developers. Note this does not make me now a EA fanboy, just purely stating facts.

Superconsole?

I was talking to my friend at EB Games and apparently Sony wants to make the PS3 upgradeable. I know for a fact that Sony wants to make the PS3 have a 10 year lifespan and that could be possible if it can be upgraded however when coupled with the Linux pre-built on the HDD it raises the question is Sony trying to create a console or some sort of value based Supercomputer?

Computer Illiterate

Why can't people be more up to date on computers?
Why do I have to ask if the computer dials or not in order to find out what internet someone has?
Why do people think streaming is downloading?
Why do people think uploading is downloading?
Why do people think Memory is Disk Space?
Let me boil it down for you:
Dial-Up: Your computer has to dial to connect and is not always on...
DSL: Usually provided by SBC/AT&T/Yahoo, Bell Atantic, Verizon Wireless
Cable: Provided by Comcast
Vonage is not an ISP!
Memory is not Disk Space, Memory refers to Random Access Memory(RAM) and Disk Space refers to the Data that is stored on the Hard Disk Drive(HDD). Big difference.
Streaming is when a video or song or something of the same sort is placed onto the Memory from the Internet so that you can watch or listen to it temporarily.
Downloading is when a video or song or something of the same sort is placed onto your HDD from the internet so that it is permantly stored on the Computer.
The Monitor is not the Computer. The Monitor is an Visual Output device.
The Computer is the 'tower' in which the CPU, Motherboard, and other main components are stored.
The only case where a Monitor is a Computer is in an All-in-One computer(ie. iMac)

E3 Day One

Sony Station:
PS3:
Price revealed -
$499.99 version:

- No built-in Wi-fi
- No HDMI port
- No Memory Stick slot
- No SD card slot
- No Compact Flash slot
- 20GB hard drive

$599.99 version:

- Includes everything including HDMI port, built-in Wi-Fi, 60GB hard drive, etc.

Too me it doesn't matter too much since I don't need any of the features missing from the cheaper version anyways.

Games:
Final Fantasy versus XIII looks fabulous I will definitely be buying this when it comes out
FFXIII also looks pretty cool but probaly not a release date buy for me.
Of course MGS4 will be a release date buy for me.

PSP:
New Upgrades, Camera and such not really that exciting kinda expected it.

Games:
Crisis Core looks pretty sweet. Playing as Zack will be fun. But I still want to know what the full party will be.

More to come later

Two More Days

Two more days till the gamers event of the year E3. I will hopefully be able to watch the day to day updates on the event and leave my own thoughts here, but I have no clue what will happen over the course of the week.

Kingdom Hearts II review

March 29th, 2006 what an exciting day
that was. Upon coming home to
school I almost immediatly
jumped into my sister's car and we drove off towards EB Games to buy the sequel
to the best game ever released , well at that point it was the best game ever
released, with my friend scott, I returned home right away and placed the
game into my PS2. My life, at least for the next month, was over. That night I
played through the first 4 hours and 15 minutes until I got to Hollow Bastion.
My first Disney world would of course
have to wait until the next
day. Less then a week later I had already
beaten the game with a total time of about 42 hrs. So I decided
today I'll review Nomura's Masterpiece.
Story
100/100: This, in my opinion, is the main attraction to this game. The
gameplay, sounds, music, graphics, everything else is attractive as well but it
would not be the best game if it weren't
for the story. To anyone who plans to pick this game up I will let you know that
you should plan on playing Chain of Memories before hand. You
start off 6 days before Sora reawakens and my what a
great story did Nomura make for this one. The
Nobodies are an even more powerful enemy then the Heartless
and are alot harder to beat.
The Massive and in some ways complex story gets pieced together bit by bit as
you travel from world to world in search of Kairi, Riku, and the King with a finale
that almost made me cry. It's
almost as if Nomura is trying to torture us with anticipation for the Third Title.
Gameplay
97/100: Now the gameplay is of course
important as well. And nearly every aspect of the game is
perfect in gameplay. The gameplay is fast paced and action-packed and definitely
with looking at. Even things that most developers would look over like the synthesis
and gummi-ship areas have been vastly improved. The
gummi-ship battles are fast and often keep you on your
seat instead of in the first one where you basically
traveled at half the speed of smell on a track. The synthesis portions are my
favourite. With all the new ways you can create items, it definitely is worth
using synthesis this time around.
However my one beef with the
gameplay is the Limits and Summons. The Summons
main fault is that there are so few, I really wish the design
more than 4 for the third. But why I dislike the Limits
and Summons so much is because
I think they should be reversed.
I think that Limits should use the drive bar and that Summons should use the MP
bar. It just seems to make sense
since usually summons are something that consumes Magic and Limits are something
that may or may not contain magic so why would you need to use
magic to use them. Otherwise the gameplay is picture
perfect though. Sounds
95/100: The sound effects in this game are perfect. I mean absolutely
perfect. If you have this game and don't understand why the sound effects are
so
perfect, play the timeless river and you'll find out why. With the classic 1920s-1930s
sound effects and the sound of a rolling film in the background it almost makes
you think everything around you is black and white for a while. The music is just
as perfect as it was in the first game. But where the sound deserves a 95 is in
the voice acting department.
Now most of the voice acting is awesome, I mean Christopher Lee is in the game
playing DiZ, but characters like Demyx, Xigbar, and Cid really need to
get new voice actors. All three of their voices weren't
good at all. Cid just had a voice that didn't seem to fit with the Kingdom Hearts
enviorment and Xigbar sounded like a surfer dude. I really wanted to kill him
ASAP in the battle because the way he says Roxas just pisses me off. Demyx's voice
sound really whiny and the fact that they couldn't get all the disney voice actors
hurt the game as well. I mean most of the voice acting is good, like in Port Royale,
where even though they didn't have the original voice actors they didn't seem
far off, but Barbossa's script reading was a bit dry and Jack
Sparrow sounded like Johnny Depp but still the even small difference made was
noticable. Alot of the Final Fantasy characters weren't handed good lines which
hurts them alot, I mean Seifer says "That is undeniable proof that we totally
owned you lamers." and Aerith's voice actor just kept skipping beats and it sounded
like
crap. Graphics
99/100: Each world in kingdom hearts is like an interactive cartoon.
When your in the disney worlds never once do you say "This 2D character looks
weird in 3D." because it's almost as if you don't notice that it's 3D. Sora, Donald,
and Goofy blend in so well from world to
world that it never once occurs to you that they should be hear. Even in worlds
like the Timeless River, Tron, and Pirates of the Caribbean which most likely
presented the most challenges to the Kingdom Hearts team. That being
said, there are a few minor things that could be improved, like how from far away
the mouths still look like they move randomly and stuff like how the boats don't
leave
ripples in the Pirates of the Caribbean world. Also of course as with all PS2
games not everything is perfectly round. Otherwise with graphics the game is almost
perfect. The animations are as fluid as have ever been seen in a video game yet.
Even things from jumping to swinging the keyblade to complex reaction
commands and drive combo finishers is done as fluidly as humanly possible. There
is no fault at all in the animations. Overall
100/100: Overall I give Kingdom Hearts II a perfect score. Now you might
be wondering why when I didn't give everything a perfect 100. The reason KHII
gets a perfect score is because it has the best combination of sound, gameplay,
story, and graphics in a video game yet. There hasn't been a point since I got
it that I haven't wanted to watch, hear, or play the game. Tetsuya is an absolutely
mastermind at concept design and he brings us along for a wonderful ride. Not
only that but Square Enix and Disney never forgot their hardcore fans. The Beginner
difficulty is easy enough for a 5 year old to beat, the Standard difficulty is
perfect for the average gamer and the Proud difficulty is hard enough to give
any gamer a challenge. This game is the most replayable game known to man, you
can speed through the game in 35 hours and still have tons of fun. This is the
game of the year for sure, no matter what IGN says.

Speaking of titles

I got the iron cross and the german cross from that battle alone, the gold wound badge was from another battle yesturday, not sure why I got it... 

One more kill...

w00t after 2 days I'm only one kill away from getting that coveted title of 'Ace'. Albeit this is a video game and I doubt that I would be able to get 4 kills in any battle IRL but hey, a title is a title... 

Rommel's job is over

Rommel has done his job in North Africa and the War in North Africa is over, now Rommel can move to the Eastern front and help The Third Reich defeat the Soviet Union there... 

There are so many things a blunt object can do to the head

None of them involve the target living... :-p
This is a screenshot from a game that I have recently become obsessed with called Mount & Blade, it's about $17 now, it was $14 when I bought it but the price increases with each version so they can pay for development, either way it's an insanely awesome game and everyone should get it at ( http://www.taleworlds.com ). Trust me it's worth whatever amount of money you pay... 

Take that free french

Words of the Wise: Never ever piss off the Third Reich it tends to lead to massive bombings :)

Various Links

Bebo quiz: http://www.bebo.com/inviteq/233692223a901780675b
Recruiment Links(Please click once a day): http://www.kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php?uniqid=m9q7nbdd
http://www.kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php?uniqid=5996774v
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/the_leviathan
My Forum: http://s4.invisionfree.com/Aospage/
My Percival Characters:
Gavlin
Gavdar
Gavank
Gavahell
Gavalin
Gavshie
Gavalve
Gavagre
Gavadar
Gavetic
Xfire: http://www.xfire.com/xf/modules.php?name=XFire&file=profile&uname=gavalin

First blog

Yay, this is my first blog post with Blogger. Just another example of how great google is as a company and how awesome their programs are. But in personal news like most blogs, My dad has become whipped. He's been dating his g/f for less then 6 months and they already want to move in with each other, and he's acting like it doesn't bother him at all. Which is strange considering how often he is disturbed by the slightest change, it took me long enough for me to get him to use gmail and he still uses juno as his primary email address. It's like all of a sudden she's completely changed everything about him and it disturbs me somewhat to see him act this way for her but not for his own kids...