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Kawaii!

So, the TGS starts in a week now, and we’ll be in out in full force to garner some coverage of the event. Mind you, the staff here (well, me …) won’t be able to do the wonderful live-blogging that some others might, but coverage is coverage. The big boys might miss something.

So, for the readership here, is there anything you’d like to see covered? I know what I’ll be looking out for anything interesting, but if there’s rumours you want quashed or confirmed, please leave a comment or send an email via the contact page!

Yep, I know, it’s an old one, but it’s classic and, well, damnit, I missed it the first time around. Enjoy!

Well, it’s been a week since the event and what do we have to show for ourselves? Seems like a whole lot of nothing spectacular. Sure, we’ve got a PSP Slim goin’ down, a pile of new trailers for games we’ve already know about, and a whack-load of Crysis screengrabs. But anything significant? Nadda.

But seriously, E3, in it’s toned down form just isn’t that amazing thing we all once remembered it to be.

I miss the old E3, where you couldn’t see a day pass without some new incredibly breaking news gushing all over the industry turning it on it’s side. Maybe my nostalgia is calling out for the golden days (maybe I’m just bitter I never got to go to it when it was good) or maybe it’s a good thing that it’s not all jam-packed with excitement for the upcoming fall release schedule. I’m not sure. But it sure is different.

Fine, fine, it’s now aimed at the business and industry itself, trying to be a little more GDC-like in it’s scope, sure. But there’s nothing like a good ol’ boothbabe-filled gamer haven. I guess we’ll have to wait for the other half of the split to hit this fall, E for All, to see if the old bag still has it in her.

Big announcements, I hope we have ‘em.

Ok, so Japanese comedian Tomonori Jinnai decides to take a quick break (on-air) to relax and play a few quick rounds of Tetris. But, this ain’t the game I remember … Green soybean?

[via Japan Probe]

Some rather creative folks have started using teleport hacks to beam sacrificial level 1 gnomes to great heights and crater on impact to form words. It’s a new form of spamvertizing (gnomevertising?) that seems to go beyond the private message spam that many WoW players are accustomed to seeing.

I’m not sure if I should be annoyed or intrigued. I mean, the creativity of it is just so humorous, yet, I can’t help but dislike any kind of advertising spam

[via Raph Koster]

Of course, it’s standard fare to up and build something in any Sim-type game that just causes mayhem and destruction. What would SimCity be without monsters and other disasters? Roller Coaster Tycoon is no exception, of course.

If you’re a sensitive viewer, please do not watch the following video. By sensitive, I mean, have no sense of humour at all.

But, the addition of the free balloons to the killing-fest is just icing on the cake.

via The Last Boss

Over on Destructoid, a 2-part series comparing CRPGs (computer …) to tabletop RPGs.

What makes a RPG fun? What makes you get absorbed in it? Character, of course. Story, depth and the personalities of the characters involved. In this first part, Destructoid explores character.

It’s pretty sad when my work desktop computer is better for gaming than my own home PC. I can rock out some of the newer, as in the last couple of years, games but nothing new. I do want to upgrade, but it’s just not happening any time soon. Perhaps a MacBook Pro with Bootcamp and XP would be best … Any suggestions?

Over the past year or so, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft. It’s a fun game, really. I played a character all the way to the current max level of 60 and joined a guild that does regular end-game raids. This is the story of the last few months of that life.

These are 40-person dungeon crawls over the so-called most difficult stuff the game devs throw down. Basically it’s a bunch of really nerdy guys sitting at 40 computers in 40 different places beating up extremely large bosses. Over and over and over again. Why over and over again? Well, the challenge isn’t over-coming the obstacle of the boss. No. After we’d mastered the technique neccessary to do so with ease, the whole idea is to garner the Phat Loots!! from the boss.

See, each of these bosses drops 2-3 fairly rare game items every time it’s defeated. However, since there’s 40 people of different class types, it doesn’t distribute out very quickly. And it’s not as if each of those 40 people are always there, nor is it the case that only 1 item is sufficient. No, no. These items are part of a set! So, over and over we must travel into the depths of these dungeons to fight evil and all that crap. I haven’t reached the “goal” of getting all of my set pieces. Oh, I should also mention, there’s, so far, 3 different sets, now, for every one of the 8 classes. Complicated loot distribution rules become normal to understand. After awhile it all becomes a blur of colours and button pushing and (at least!) laughing at jokes on the voice comm.

Oh, yes, I wore a headset to play. After all, it’s really hard to button mash and type to 40 people. Communication is key, people. Uber-nerd-dom… very uber-nerd. Anyway …

So, now I’m left with some cool UBER PHAT LOOTS, but not ‘all of it’ for my game character. I’ve grown weary of the same thing over and over again and trying to find creative ways to make in-game money to pay for item repairs and consumable items and all that. I’ve grown tired of the bickering of people who don’t get to go, who don’t get the item they want, fuck, just the general bickering of socially mal-adjusted teenagers and emo-20-somethings. I mean, get a life! I decided when the heat was on at work that maybe, just maybe I didn’t want to go home to a 4-hour raid every night just to have the chance at that new fucking dagger or helmet. No, I had enough stress at work, why would I want to add to it? So, I just stopped playing. Then I went on vacation. I didn’t play then either.

Then a month or so ago, one of my friends that I had made during this time while playing, who also was feeling rather disillusioned with the whole raiding thing, decided to start a new character on another server, from scratch. You know, to relive the old days, pre-raid. It’s fun. Doing the standard RPG questing. Wander around, do this, do that, kill a rat, kill a dog. Whatever. Collect 10 of these things, find my lost slipper. Silly, pointless, yet fun things. Great! Something new to do. Not the same endless boss fight.

And here we are today. I loved playing WoW, but I think it’s time to hang up my daggers and take my own advice and, “get a life”, again. I’m just not even seeing the point in playing this new character that is quite fun, but in the end, where’s it going? Heading in the same direction, I think. More raids, more loots, more crap like that. And who wants to pay $15/month to just … be mindless. I gave up cable television years ago for that very same reason. So, I decided it was time to take action.

Today, I cancelled my World of Warcraft account.