Goldeneye Source Modder Died

On this Memorial Day, we all know the significance of what the troops do and have to go through. Many, always too many, have given their lives to not only protect us physically, but to protect all the rights we know, love and cherish. I, and everyone else, will forever thank them for their sacrifice.

However, I make this post to another loss; that in independant gaming. Joystiq has posted that Nickster, the lead person behind the Goldeneye Source mod, has died in an appearent suicide (story: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/05/29/r-i-p-nickster-gone-but-not-forgotten/).
Within his final goodbyes, as it was posted above, Nickster said, "So many people go about their daily lives unconcerned with the fact that they are nothing more than an ant upon a huge rock flying through a universe so large it can't even be imagined."
Yet, I doubt Nickster realized how much he affected the universe. For those who doubt the effect that entertainment has on society, it is actually one of the most important things there is. Humans can not endure lives of exclusive work and stress. Entertainment gives us relief, and a common bond to others that otherwise would have never been made.
I may not have known Nickster, or even his name before today, but I knew his work. Goldeneye Source is not mearly a diversion from life, it makes people enjoy life that much more. For that, I thank you, Nickster. And may you rest in peace.

If you or anyone close to you even seriously thinks about committing suicide, I urge you to go seek help. It may not seem like it right now, but there is always something to live for. Sometimes, you just need to get help to find it.

Right Running Away From Bush

Bush knows it, and conservatives (and not just congressional Republicans) know it; the second term has sucked. Whereas the damage control was in full tilt and completely effective during the first term (despite much of it being very misleading), the second term has Reality catching up to the PR based administration.
So what is for far right Republicans, who formerly completely supported Bush, to do? The current stratagy: denounce Bush's conservativism.
Yes, despite many of Bush's very conservative based policies, conservatives are denouncing Bush due to the ever-increasing federal budget (that congressional Republicans contributed to, with pork as such) and "big government" programs. Neo-conservatives, those who avocate bring Democracy to the Middle East, are also denouncing Bush for his ineffective foreign policies involving Iraq.
What I find ironic is that many of Bush's programs, like No Child Left Behind and the failed Social Security reform, was based on conservatives theory of capitalist-based formats (attempts to create competition within governmental programs). But because many of these failed, Republicans are just running away in hopes that they come out unscathed.
Ironicly, I do believe they are correct in the "big government" idea, but slightly different then what they are saying.
The Bush Administration has been trying to concentrate power into the executive branch, because they believe the pendulum swung too far toward Congress. What Republicans don't realize is that they let him gain more power. Congressional Republicans didn't have a backbone, so they never questioned Bush before.
Now it is too late, and rather then rebel, they denounce. I keep writing (appearently to no one) that Republicans need a backbone; that they need to do their job.

Next-Gen: Stop Defending Sony

Via Kotaku (here: http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/sony/playstation-3-too-expensive-or-is-it-175201.php), Next Generation posted an article defending Sony's pricing of the PS3 (story: http://next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3048&Itemid=2).
So here is my (probably will never be seen) response to the artcle. It split up two main arguments:

1. You're getting what you payed for
2. There will be a solid list of games

The problem with the PS3's price is that it is completely aimed at the hardcore, those who will buy the system no matter what. This is why the X-Box 360 sold for as high as $800 on Ebay, because there was a shortage between the amount of hardcore buyers and the very low supply. The only way Sony could get away with such pricing is a shortage, something that isn't too good for their business plan.
Let's face it, software sales a good. Microsoft paid alot since not a whole lot of software couldn't even be sold at the millions. Companies like EA complained that the shortages lessened their profits of their launch titles. If the same thing happens on the PS3 launch, third parties would more likely wait for the PS3's base to build rather then pointlessly release titles.
But really, that hardcore isn't the only customer of Sony's. they have plenty of gamers. For the most part, only fanboys (or the extremely poor) don't own a PS2. That won't happen at $500 minimum. I doubt most people would pay $500 for a DVD player, much less a videogame system.
Next-Gen said it best, "Consumers who want to enjoy a rare experience really ought to be expected to pay. It's not gouging; it's capitalism. Good luck to Sony."
I agree, it is capitalism. Under capitalism, almost everyone agrees that most people won't pay unless they do have enough of an incentive, one that hasn't appeared yet.

Which comes to the games. There were some great games for the PS3, notably Heavenly Sword and Assassin's Creed. But are they $500-600 worth of goodness, or even very different then what we would see on the 360? As of yet, no. Both Final Fantasy 13 and Metal Gear Solid 4 are high possibilities, but haven't shown anything playable yet; only cutscenes.
Sony is behind. The original X-Box had one (Halo), so did the Gamecube (Smash Bros. Melee). The generation before that, the Playstation had Ridge Racer while the N64 had Mario 64. The PS2 only had a reprieve because of its early launch, something the 360 has right now.
Going through some Best-of lists for E3, Gamespot, Gamespy, nor IGN (1up hasn't posted one yet) put a PS3 game as the top game. Let's put some Top 3 of each up, and the highest ranking PS3 game with them (if applicable).

IGN: Winner: Bioshock (X-Box 360); First place: Mass Effect (360), Mario Galaxy (Wii); Second: Spore (PC); Assassin's Creed was a runner-up on Best Console Game award

Gamespot: Winner: Bioshock (360), Assassin's Creed was the only PS3 game of the nine runner-ups

Gamespy: Winner: Gears of War (360); Second place: Bioshock (360); Third: Assassin's Creed

So as Wii see (sorry, I have to continue the puns), only Assassin's Creed (a game listed for a Q1 2007 release on IGN) has any footing to sell the PS3. Heavenly Sword (listed 7th on Gamespy overall) may also be a possibility, but that doesn't currently have a release date, at least according to IGN (it wasn't even listed).
So as it is, the only real justification to buy a $500-600 system is for Blu-ray, a format that consumers are unsure that will become dominate anyway. If anything, pricing the PS3 hurts Sony's attempt to make Blu-ray standard, since casual consumers won't buy something that costs more then an 360 and Wii (I'm still sticking with a $200 max price for it) combined.

When something costs more, people expect more. As it is, we have yet to see something that fits a meets a $500 expectation, less so at $600. Before E3, I was expecting the PS3 to be $400; expensive, but not mind-blowing. Sony certainly raised the bar, just not in the right way.

The Best Political Environment

I'll admit that I don't vote for any of my college representatives. It just feels like it really doesn't do anything, it also doesn't help that all candidates have basicly the same position.
However, traveling by the Student Union Building, you get basicly an outdoor Costco. People haul out furniture and pass out any form of food to entice potential voters. Rarely is there serious rivalry, just pure fun.
A story from last year shows the best college campaign ever made (story: http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/04/the_campaign_of.html). Unfortunatly, the last I heard of him was this: http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2006/03/move_to_impeach.html.

I'm Not Actually at E3: Best Coverage Award

Although E3 isn't over yet, it has slowed down enough that one could start giving out awards. The first goes to a website, not a developer.

I've been surfing to find the best out there. 1up did a great job, especially when you add their podcast to the mix, which was updated everyday (it normally is a wii-kly podcast).
Gamespy and IGN really didn't do much. Some major stories broke on IGN, but they were very slow this year. Conference coverage was decent enough, with real-time updates, but the main E3 show was only updated once a day.
Gamespot was much the same, only that they had all their news shoved to the side, where one couldn't really surf through. Streaming video of the conferences were great, but it didn't really do much with the main show, at least on anything outside the news section.

Then there were the bloggers. Two rose to the top, with regular, frequent updates, was Joystiq and Kotaku. Both had great commentary, and some exclusives.
However, being there are no ties in awards, this would have to go to:


Kotaku


They broke the news on Halo 3 (via an Bungie employee accidently wearing a Halo 3 shirt). More over, Kotaku had plenty of YouTube videos, including a series called "Justify Your Game," as reps had to justify the games existance in 15 seconds.
Good job to Kotaku. Big name websites: look at these guys for what you need to be doing next year.

NSA Spying Case Closed

CNN has posted an article saying that the Justice Department has officially closed the case investigating the NSA Wiretap scandel, all because the NSA refused to grant security clearance (story: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/10/domestic.spying.ap/index.html). This as USA Today posts that the NSA obtains records of domestic calls from phone companies such as ATT, Verizon and BellSouth (story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm).
This as the ATT civil lawsuit is being shut down by the government to prevent "leaks of national security" (post: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_04.php#004613). This is a travesty that no part of the government, from the Legislature to external parties, are being halted into investigating what has been reported as unconstitutional actions. Only the press, the people who can't really do anything about actuall stopping these wiretaps, has been able to get anything. Congress, being controlled by Republicans, won't seriously do anything to protect us, even though that would be the best things for Republicans to do. Others are finding they can't get any official investigations done because of the secrecy and the cover of "national security". This needs to stop.
Hopefully, at least a few Republicans need to get a backbone and actually do the right thing here.

World's Worst in Videogames: Sony E3 Edition

E3 is a huge place, often holding valuable equipment. Heck, every 360 or PS3 station has a HDTV to show off the 1080p games (or whatever is the highest resolution a game has). So security is certainly a consern. So why does Sony get this award? Because they got the police to do it.
As Joystiq reports (here: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/05/11/lapd-at-the-ps3-booth/), only the Sony booth has LAPD officers doing security. While some were confirmed as off-duty, which would be fine, but other booths don't have this kind of protection.
While the article never confirmed how many are actual on-duty officers, it certainly implied (with the bolded words "some of us") that there were at least a few.
I'm willing to retract this if found otherwise, but Sony going ahead and taking tax-paid officers, who are supposed to serve the city, not a corporation, is just terrible. Sony, get your own guards.
And with that, Sony gets the Worst in Videogames award.

I'm Not Actually at E3: 360 Degrees of Wii

To contrast the dull terribleness that was the Sony conference, both Microsoft and Nintendo put on great shows.
I was actually able to watch a bit of Nintendo's conference in real time (darn schoolasular stuff getting in the way; all the more reason to greatly dislike it). Nintendo's focus was definatly at showing games.
My suprises: the rumors were correct. I doubted that Nintendo would include a speaker in the Wii-mote, if only to keep the costs down. Also, I thought Nintendo would reveal a price, but they must have decided not to, possibly even at the last minute. Zelda and Red Steel was the graphicly most impressive games, although RS still hickuped a bit.
I do wish there was only one SKU of Zelda, just with both controls on the same disk. With two versions, I just can't go with a sub-par version.
There were a few others I'm interested in. Alas, no Smash Bros. was shown. Metroid Prime 3, however, sounds like it could actually best the original. The offensive grapple beam alone would make it the best of the series.

Microsoft made up for their poor showing last year with game after game. Plenty of Live Arcade games being shown; I'm especially looking forward to Lumines Live.
Then there were the games. Well, game for me. Halo 3 looks like it could make a climatic end to a trilogy (yes, that is my bet: that Halo is a trilogy). Grand Theft Auto 4 hopefully will be a great addition (and it takes a huge possiblity for the PS3 to get ahead).
The cross-platform feature of Live could be good, mostly with connectivity to the PC. Who wouldn't like mods to some great 360 games? Even if it just comes down to custom level editors, it still would work much better working on the PC.

Two much better showings to lead off the actual show. Now we get to see how well the Wii works, and how well PS3's Wii-ripped functionality works, or if the X-Box 360 will go on to be spectacular.

I'm Not Actually at E3: Sony Digging Their Own Grave

Some speculated that Sony wouldn't reveal the price of the PS3. I did believe that they would hint at a high price point, but actually come down to $400. Today's pre-E3 conference told otherwise.
It was the last item on the list, but Sony did announce that the PS3 will cost $500-600 for the 20GB-60GB models respectively (story: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6149470.html). This is dangerous waters for Sony. More dangerous with the added fact that this was the main part of their drive to get Blu-ray out ahead of HD-DVD. Some speculation is that Sony would sac their gaming department if it meant that they would come out ahead in their home movie department.
While it still is theoreticly half the price of a stand-alone Blu-ray player, $500 is still alot to shell out for a system.
When the PS2 launched, it was often bought as a cheap DVD player, especially in Japan. Even with that presumption, everyone knew that DVD was going to be the next format for movies. Blu-ray doesn't have that advantage. The whole HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray is bad since consumers don't know which will come out on top, and don't want to buy a dead product.
As a gaming machine, it is simply priced out of the market. Microsoft could easily out-bid Sony by dropping the premium X-Box 360 by a hundred dollars. Let's see: a $300 machine vs. a $500 machine; both mostly with the same games as each other. Sony would have to get extraordinarily good launch games to sell the system; something to the end of a Mario 64, Halo or Grand Theft Auto 3. Even then, things become hazy.
Making things worse, another story outlines that the cheap (actually, not as expensive) model will lack some features, like Wifi or HDMI output (story:http://www.gamespot.com/news/6149552.html). Wait, they're herolding this as the HD system, and they're not including a HD output?

On the other hand, they are doing some things right. Free online service is definatly a plus. The new controller (while it may be a Wii ripoff) does have some new potential, but it is still mostly unknown. Just have to wait for the show floor.

Sony has chosen to fail with this strategy. At $500 for the poor version, and $600 for the version gamers actually want, they are pricing themselves out of both the gaming market, and the HD video market.

An Unfortunate Series of Movies

Within the span of little over a week, I have saw three major movies. Two of them put on in the new theater (while better then other facilities in this town, there are better theaters on the west side of Washington state).

The most recent (although not in the new theater) was the much anticipated Final Fantasy 7: Advant Children. If you have read any of the reviews out there (like here: http://dvd.ign.com/articles/701/701928p1.html), they're right. The movie is gorgeous, with CG like we have never seen. Although it still isn't life-like, it still creates plenty of great visuals. As they needed it, with more off the wall, Matrix style action then almost any other movie out there. Which is its problem; the story isn't that deep. Think of it this way: take the beginning of a Square game, then take the ending; that's the story. It goes from humble to epic pretty quickly. Heck, the movie is actually on the short end, being 90 minutes.
But there are still moments which play just to gamers. Even those who have just heard of Final Fantasy see how the writers are just playing to the fans, and do well. Unfortunatly, non-gamers will just have those moments fly over their heads, never to realize how good they are.
Overall, on the X-Play rating system, I'll give this a 3 (Omnislashes) out of five.

Then I saw Good Night and Good Luck. Definatly a good movie. This follows Edward R. Murrow's team of reporters during their rivalry against Joseph McCarthy. A great portrayal of the events, although mostly done through showing cuts of the show itself.
The cast is well done, and shows the characters very well. More over, the situation and themes reflect reality as it is, including for those in the journalism business.
Overall, a 4 out of five.

Then there was Peter Jackson's King Kong. This certainly was a good remake (I should note I never seen the original source material). Characters are fleshed out and well acted. This definatly looked like a uncompromising vision (see Spider pit scene). The story isn't too deep, actually rather simplistic. Some may like the ending (that we all know), but I just found it predictable (because I knew it ten years ago). Also, it is three hours. While nothing was terribly bad, I do think it could have been better if Jackson just cut some stuff out to help the pacing.
Overall, 3 (giant leeches) out of five.