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Welcome to Untitled Gaming, repository for unfiltered, uncensored opinions on all things related to games, and best of it all, it comes from two adults that don't live in their mothers' basements. Additionally, we do not think it's the coolest thing in the world to scream racist and homophobic slurs, all in the name of drawing attention to our sad, little lives. We do other less obnoxious things to draw attention to our sad, little lives.

Oh, and we've been accused of podcasting from time to time. You can check out the most recent one just to the right of the blog.

We're here to have discussions, so please enjoy and engage us in the comments!

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Blaine's Other Blogs

20100616

Who would have thought...

Now that the 'Big 3' have each shows their wares, here are a few more impressions after digesting Nintendo, Sony, the rest of EA, and everything in between.

I need to correct my excitement over ESPN on 360 to zero if what I have heard since then is true. Basically if you don't already have the channel through Cable/Dish you cannot watch it. If this is correct, please tell me what the fuck devoting that much of your show to it was for, since 'free' price is in fact NOT free if that is the case. I really hope I am wrong, but it wouldn't surprise me.

As for Nintendo, how the fuck did they pull off the best show, even with some really awkward parts? Is it that the others were just incredibly BAD (and they really made Microsoft look flat out AWFUL in retrospect) or did they just make me excited about the Wii AND somehow look forward to the 3DS despite swearing off handhelds?

I cannot convey how happy I am that Zelda looks like it requires the Motion+, since more serious games that use motion controls benefit immensely from it. I really really worry about the shield controls though, as from my experience the motion sensor in the nunchuck is piss poor. I hated any moves in Twilight Princess that used it in that manner, as it was spotty at best. I hope it was more a software issue and not hardware, as the accuracy of the controls will make or break this game unlike any other in the series so far.

Now I just feel like jumping to the 3DS, which if the effect is really as amazing as I keep reading, and if the analog stick works well, seems both awesome and incredibly awkward at the same time. Think back to all the games that you felt really used the DS - chances are the "main" game screen was the lower one. With the focus almost having to be on the top screen due both to the larger size and the 3D effect, doesn't that take away 90% of the point of having the touch screen?

I understand it from a backwards compatibility standpoint, but otherwise it also really impacts adventure games (which seemed to be making a minor comeback on the system) and all of the games that use the DS as a book. It also seems to get rid of the popular effect of spanning both screens due to the different sizes, though I am sure developers will do it anyway. It really is almost two distinct systems in one right now, which makes me feel like they should have gone all-out to one big 3D screen and set it up like the PSP Go (they couldn't go the other way with touch, as it would just be an iPhone). Think about a game like Nintendogs, one of the all-time bestsellers on the system - it would never be made for the 3DS. I am really interested to see how many developers skip the touch aspect altogether with the analog now available to control and a larger 3D screen above.

Sony didn't really wow me, though I am really excited for Infamous 2. What struck me more about their presentation was the odd EA partnerships, which exclusive special editions of EA games. Then I thought back to how Microsoft was pimping Activision DLC, and how they chose to show the Ubisoft Kinect workout game as a feature instead of EA Sports Active 2, which is also for Kinect. Could this be the two heavyweights choosing sides for the next couple years?

The other scary part is that there has been no price announced for the 3DS (somewhat understandable) OR Kinect (baffling). I will say my magic price for 3DS that would make it a day 1 purchase is $149, and I will consider around the $179 range (with strong launch games), but my guess is $250. I can see $200 if they don't want it to be more than the Wii though. Kinect just doesn't have anything I care THAT much about, so I think $79 is my magic price there, or $100 if they announce some more uses that appeal to me. The rumored $150 is just way too high, and I think may cause it to be a massive flop.

20100615

Blaine's 6/14 impressions

First off, props to me. I went through nearly 11 hours of E3 coverage today AND worked a full day AND took care of a sick wife AND played with my son AND handled the letdown of the Microsoft presser like a man.

Tony, in the prior post, correctly conveyed the MS presser was essentially a turd, though he is excited about the ESPN thing because he is Costanza-like in his thriftiness. The Kinect Star Wars footage looks neat, but also reaks of vaporware.

I thought Gears 3 looked fantastic, as expected. Fable 3, like its two predescesors, never shows well, but will be a solid game.

I kept waiting for that annual Xbox surprise, and it ... never ... came. They poured all their effort into Kinect, which seems like a neato device with no actual games. Bad choice. This is now the year the 360 cedes this console generation to Sony.

EA, on the other hand, had their shit together. They swooped in, showed 5-6 solid titles with some random crap thrown in, showed signs of some kind of irritation with Microsoft & much love for Sony, then closed with a bang. Need For Speed, Dead Space 2, Medal of Honor, Madden, & Star Wars: the Old Republic all looked very promising. Nicely done.

Oh, and before I forget, it was GREAT to see the Witcher 2 show a quick demo on G4TV. It looks VERY dated visually, but the party interaction, dialogue, and combat all look fantastic.

The Ubi show was one I could've skipped, but still see every year. I don't know why. The laser tag was kinda neat.

In closing, my biggest shock was how little Microsoft seemed to care. They have a very comfortable approach at E3 now, and with Peter Moore gone as long as he's been, they seem to go through the motions with the actual games, and then let Kudo lose all the street cred for them. Good thing all the press members received free 360 slims this year, or someone other than Morgan Webb might actually call them out.

I am very, very curious to see how Nintendo and Sony respond to Microsoft's newfound indifference to gaming tomorrow.

-Blaine

20100614

First day of E3 festivities, and...

I am not quite sure what to think after I saw the end of the Microsoft conference. On one hand the Kinect came off looking like a crappy PS2 Eye Toy all over again, but on the other hand some of the voice command was OK. There was not a single 'new' game that I could get excited about, and even Gears of War 3 looks like more of the same (but still a day one purchase for me). Fable 3 is also a purchase, but I knew that going into it.

No, it was not the games that surprised me, it was the ESPN announcement, for no extra charge! I do not even pay for cable right now, so if this is really what it sounded like (and I am leaving room to be let down by blackouts of local sports, please I hope this doesn't happen) then I will be in heaven. In an age where live sports was the only reason I wished I had cable/dish, Microsoft may have my solution. I would have never guessed this going into it, especially with how much they rape you for sports on the iPhone/PC/etc, that is why I seriously doubt that most of the content will be free, and fear many games will be 80 Microsoft points, etc.

The one game announcement that does have me pumped for the holiday is Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, especially considering it is being made by Criterion. I did not care at all for last year's Shift, but this fall I should be done with Blur, and unless Sony actually gets off their ass and finishes Gran Turismo 5 this new NFS may turn out to be my racing game of choice for the holidays.

20100613

PRE3 Drives Us to DRINK!

This is so not my fault. Tony started drinking at 9AM and then just kinda showed up at my house, ready to record. Lucky for you all, I filled him full of caffeine and pain-killers, and we rolled this motherfucker out. We combed through our sources and the internet to find every potential game worth talking about, and assembled a 3-hour EPIC PRE3 show for you that hearkens back to the old days of Untitled Podcast madness. Gone are our recent attempts at concision and we lay out for you a plentiful harvest of information and correct opinions.

From Dragon Age 2 to Rock Band 3 to The Last Guardian to the final Nintendo 3DS specs, we have it all for you, and we tell you exactly what we're watching for, what's got us excited, and what the Cardinals were doing while we recorded this.

Explode your mind here!

Keep an eye on this blog, as each day, both of us will be carpet-bombing you with updates and opinions, be sure to keep an eye on both of our Twitter feeds for moment-to-moment reactions:

Blaine

Tony

PLEASE let us know what you wanna hear about from us, and also let us know what you think is going to be the hottest shit during the show!

I'll give you one teaser here. I'm gonna keep a sharp eye on Brink. It's being developed by Splash Damage, who I think are the absolute best when it comes to class-based shooters, and the mix of single-player and multi-player sounds amazing. Check it out.



That looks hot. I like how the cinematic trailer really gives you a feel for the type of gameplay they're shooting for. I trust the guys at Splash Damage, and can't wait for this one. Keep an eye out for it @ E3.

-Blaine

20100610

Untitled Gaming & E3

First, we must absolutely indulge in an old tradition:








I never, ever get tired of that. God, I used to love G4TV.

Anyway, so we'll be doing some E3 podcasting and some E3 blogging. We're recording on Saturday, and will have it out a bit earlier than usual, due to some crazy scheduling, and then throughout the week I'm going to blog a bit each day, and I'll try to bug Tony into doing the same. Additionally, you can follow Tony and myself (Blaine) on Twitter, for our fairly-live reactions to each of the pressers and announcements. Somehow, some way, we're going to do a post-E3 podcast. I don't know how, but maybe we can do something cool and different with the wrap-up podcast.

It seems, more and more, like this is the year that a) console makers are justifying the lack of new & more powerful hardware by introducing various waggling methods, b) waggling methods might really catch fire and replace what we know and love as 'fun games,' and c) that my cynicism might take a real punch to the nuts because Bioware & Squenidos team up into a Voltron of gaming awesome and introducing a waggling method for menu-navigation and win my love forever.

So, yeah, it's going to be an interesting year for me, because I have my expectations way lowered. While I'd love to see something about Dragon Age 2 & Mass Effect 3, I'm expecting Bioware to throw all their weight behind establishing Star Wars: the Old Republic as the WoW-killer that EA needs. Now, this isn't a bad thing, but it's something I already know exists ... in the distant future. A release date and pricing scheme would be nice.

Additionally, Nintendo is going to show the 3DS with a handful of awful kids' games, and I'll do what I do with their handhelds every time and wait until they start releasing either original interactive stories or Final Fantasy ports in the system's second or third year.

The PSP2 has the chance to be great IF IF IF there's a second analog control. If there's not, it's going to be a hard sell and Sony should fire every fucking moron that was involved in that decision.

Natal & PlayStation Move also have a chance to be very cool IF IF IF the software is there. They need to demonstrate this technology as something so immersive and accurate that it is truly a better gaming experience than the controller or mouse/keyboard combo. The lack of force feedback is a real problem, though, just like on Wii.

Which leads me to what E3 should always be about, which is the GAMES. I don't think there's anything coming out the rest of this year that I'm really, really excited about, which is a very strange feeling for me. Dragon Age 2, Gears of War 3, Final Fantasy XIV, Star Wars: the Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, and maybe Mass Effect 3 are all next year. I am curious to see if Obsidian can take the Fallout 3 formula and make it NOT painful to talk or fight in the game, with their Fallout: New Vegas.

So, we'll see. I'm pumped for E3, but it's a very tempered, curious 'pumped.'

What about you? How are you feeling going into E3? What's got you pumped? What are totally negative about? Are there going to be any surprises this year? If so, WHAT?

As always, thanks for reading, and expect to see a LOT here over the next week!

-Blaine

20100602

Justified: Gaming Edition

It used to be that if you wanted to know someone's opinion on a game, you either picked up EGM or heard about it from a friend (or, if you wanted to see a bunch of excited as fuck dudes next to a 5.0, picked up Gamepro). Nowadays every video game site in existence puts out a review for almost every release, making it easy for everyone and their mom to find at least one person out there who agrees with your minority view. This has a strange effect as well, making it easy to see who is in the minority and majority on most game releases. Given that game prices are now a small investment, the urge for people to make themselves feel better about their purchase has grown, leading to an odd phenomenon where you need to justify not only purchasing a game with below a certain score on metacritic, but NOT purchasing a game with above a certain score.

This used to exist just with more expensive items, such as in the car world (see Mustang v Camaro, Muscle v Import, etc) and in the mid 90s video game consoles (at it's height in the Genesis/SNES and Game Boy/Game Gear days). Metacritic seems to have changed all that though, and in the process made game discussion forums at least 70% bitching about reviews or saying why a certain review that agrees with you is the be-all-end-all review. I remember feeling like I had to justify my purchase of Lost Odyssey to a bunch of people on my friends list, as merely playing the game caused a slew of 'I heard that game sucked bad, how is it?' It has gotten so specific that you can pretty much use the scale below:

Under 80 - It obviously sucks, and should not be even touched
80 to 90, it obviously sucks/rocks more than X game that got that score
90+ - Why the fuck are you not playing this game, if you don't like it you obviously hate gaming and are wrong

I personally have always been a huge fan of the old EGM Good/Bad/Ugly part of the review, which has been replicated to some extent on various sites. I look at the good, see if it intrests me, then at the bad and see if it is something that would piss me off. Lost Odyssey was too traditional, something that was a GOOD for me after playing many newer RPGs. Sacred 2 had glitches I was willing to look past as they didn't impact the core appeal of the game to me. Too Human... err, I don't know why I put 60 hours into it, I still believe it had subliminal messages and Blizzard was just taking too fucking long getting out Diablo 3, so they are to blame.

The strange part is that I have suddenly had to justify why I was NOT playing Red Dead Redemption. In this case, the western setting was a turn off for me, the GTA controls were something I didn't want to fight, and the HUGE single player game was not something I wanted to tie myself to as the weather gets nice. Despite this, I cannot think of a game that I have seen so many 'If you are not playing this there is something wrong with you' posts, though some of the Nintendo games were a little like that (and Mario Galaxy is the same way). Oddly enough I decided that for me Blur was a better purchase and something I would enjoy more, even though it is obviously the wrong choice with a score in the 80s.

I'm not sure what to make of the new culture, this is more of a plea to everyone to please take a step back and look at games as more than a score. You don't need to pretend to like Mario Galaxy 2, and you don't need to automatically hate Alpha Protocol - there is normally a reason there is a majority opinion, but there is also a reason that everyone will make different top 10 lists and fight over them nonstop. Buying blindly on review scores has caused me to waste money on games I only played for 2 hours (Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros Brawl, Scribblenauts) or did not enjoy but finished just because I spent the cash on them (GTAIV, Resistance, Killzone 2, Halo 3, Need for Speed Shift, Half-Life 2). On the flip side, looking past them have allowed me to discover some excellent titles (Killing Floor, Lost Odyssey, Sacred 2). A high score will not make you like a game that doesn't sound interesting, and a low score on something that sounds awesome to you may not prevent you from enjoying it.

I will say that I love video reviews for seeing what people find frustrating/annoying about a game. Hearing the controls in Alpha Protocol are bad is nothing compared to seeing someone miss shot after shot when it is lined up (a la Fallout 3, which I learned to just use VATS). I have found these a lot more useful to get a feel for if the reason it scored low was personal preference or fundamental issues with the game I will not be able to overlook. Past that, go ahead and say your opinion, just remember that Metacritic doesn't tell you the right one all the time when it comes to your own gaming enjoyment.