Posts Tagged ‘Star Wars’
4 items.
BlueCrew,
Planning to play Star Wars: The Old Republic? Wanna game with other fans of the comic? Good news! I decided to take advantage of the Guild Creation tool on the official Bioware site for the game, and created a BlueStar Blues based guild. Order of the BlueStar will be a Republic (Light Side), casual / socail guild on a PvE (normal) server. I will be making a Jedi Knight (I think) and a few of my friends are going to join us, and I’d like to offer anyone planning to play the game a guild to call home.
Back when Final Fantasy XI came out I was a part of the Real Life Comics Linkshell and it was a lot of fun. I’d like to offer that same opportunity and community to you guys, and I can’t think of a better game to play then Star Wars. (Yes, a huge part of that is because I’ve been going crazy over this game since it was first announced like four years ago.) I realize not everyone is going to play, but if you are playing and you want to join us (even just an alt you play once in a blue moon) you are more than welcome. I think this will be a lot of fun.
When I get more information about the server name or anything info wise I’ll be sure to pass it along. But, for now, if you’ve got an account on the SWTOR site all you need to do is go to the guild’s page and apply to join. Pretty much that easy.
May the Force be with you.
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I was pretty harsh on gaming and E3 in my first post, and I didn’t hold back any punches, but I do it with love. Love for you guys not gaming. At this point, I couldn’t care about the gaming industry. They’ve done nothing for me lately.
Anyway, let’s start where everything ended last: the big press conferences. The only conference left was Nintendo. It’s the 25th Anniversary of Zelda, so they started off with that. There’s a new Wii game coming out – but I’m almost willing to guarantee it won’t make it out this year. Still, if you wanted a re-release of any other old Zelda games it’ll be a good year for you.
The other big part of Nintendo was the new system. It’s a HD system with a controller that has a large monitor slash touchpad built into the controller. You can play your games on a big screen or on the controller. It is NOT a tablet. All the stuff that you can do in the controller’s monitor is powered by the system. You can’t pick up the controller, fly to Europe and then play your game on the controller screen. Not possible. It’s a monitor. Just to clarify, because it’s really REALLY apparent people at the press conference (aka G4) didn’t get that.
I don’t know much about the WiiWuu, but here’s what I think. It’s another casual system with the power to be a hardcore system. It’s gimmicky just like everything else Nintendo has made. I will not buy one, just as I did not buy a Wii. If you love Nintendo first party games (Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Zelda, etc) then you have to buy it. I don’t know when it comes out, how much it’ll cost, or very many specs. I just know I don’t want it.
That’s a running theme at E3 this year. I don’t want it.
I’ll be honest: I went in only wanting a few games. That is normal. Typically I find five to ten more games at E3 that I get interested in and eventually want by the end of the year. This year, I actually LOST interest in games. The whole week was like a sponge that had a little water in it. I wanted it to soak up more water and fill up and get fat like it normally does. Instead, gaming took my sponge and wrung it out dry. At the end of this week I feel hollow.
I have lost a hobby.
So, lets start with what I was interested in.
Star Wars: The Old Republic. It looks great, it sounds great, and it always does. It’s never going to come out. Ever. Every year they have a trailer and a new area to demo. Every year I hope more and more for a release date and they vehemently refuse to tell me as little as what year it’ll release. Or expect to release. My only reasonable option is to think it’ll never release. So I’ve given in to my fear and the darkside and I’ve decided that this game will never release.
Mass Effect 3. I didn’t get a 360 until ME2 was already out, so I played the two back to back. Waiting for three has been tough (not as tough as SWTOR) but I managed because I believed in my core that it would be great. Then the demo showed Shepard behind a gatling gun on a rail style mini-game. Then I heard a producer say something that made me think all the amazing decisions you made in the first two games will amount to little more then a few cut scenes at the start of the game. Suddenly, all my faith in this game is gone. It just doesn’t matter now. Sure, I’m going to play it… but, honestly? What’s the point. I guess just to finish off the story. I don’t know now.
Uncharted 3 and Batman are the only games that I went in excited about and then left feeling good about still. Yay.
The newest Elder Scrolls game Skyrim looks amazing, but to be honest I always buy that series and play it for a day and think “Whoa… to much, to big, to intense, to slow, to lost. Whew.” And let out a long sigh and put the game down forever. I’m sure this one will be the same.
The surprise game is Space Marine. Based on the Warhammer 40k world, it’s a mix of shooter and melee combat that looks intense and feels powerful and for whatever reason got my blood boiling. I watched a play demo, looked at Rob and said “Hell yeah.” We’ll see if that sticks when I get around to reading some early reviews.
Final Fantasy 13-2, Tomb Raider, and Gears of War 3 are all interesting looking but I don’t care one way or the other. Dead Island had an amazing trailer but the game itself looks awful. Saint’s Row is not my game so I’ll just say “meh.”
Sorry if this is a bit of a downer, but I really didn’t find much to appreciate this year. In fact, I’m pretty certain this will be the last year I even take time from work to watch E3. From now on I’ll just watch online so I can skip all the junk I can’t stand. No Kinect, no WiiWuu, no Vista. So, basically, a week of video games news will become a half hour trailer. Yay!
Final score for E3? D minus. Woot.
Well, E3 is on us now. Big press conferences from Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and of course Sony. The future of video games outlined in roughly eight hours of trailers, interviews, and conference chatter. For most gamers this is the biggest week of the year. I, myself, take vacation time from work just to watch this stuff live. So, after the first day, I’m excited to announce that it’s all completely a waste of time.
That might sound harsh, but I’m just relating to you what I saw today after watching all that trite filibustering. Video games (as we currently know them) are dead. Well, more accurately, they’re on a life support system because no one (else) is willing to admit they’re dead.
Now, before I get to far ahead of myself – let’s recap the day for you.
XBox 360: The highlight of the show was a little kid saying “fiiiiiiiist buuuuump” after demoing a Kinect game. In fact, the entire show was about Kinect. Guess what? Every single game you think you’d want to play is now designed for Kinect. There’s now Kinect Recon, Forza Kinect 4, Mass Kinect 3, and every EA sports game in Kinect 12 version. There will also be some new games, Disneyland Kinect, Minecraft Kinect, and Rome of War Kinect. Oh! And Kinect is glad to destroy solid, beloved franchises too! Namely Star Wars Kinect and Fable Kinect. Trust me, they both look indescribably horrid. The best part is that every single Kinect game is essentially Sonic the Hedgehog or Super Monkey Ball except YOU run around the room flailing your arms and crying like a four year old with a dirty diaper on a sugar rush. It’s not really gaming. It’s acting stupid while trying to collect coins or mouse ears or not crash your car – all while the game takes pictures of you in all your stupid looking glory and then automatically loads them to Facebook for you, where your friend’s Sims can mock you.
Oh, that brings us to the EA press conference.
Their big announcements were the Sims on Facebook (complete with a disturbing trailer) and a very long demo of Call of Duty: Tank Field 3. Of course they also had a thirty minute showing of FIFA and their very new “foobowl club” system. Yes, the guy said it like that. “Foobowl Club” about fifteen times. I guess since the NFL is on lockout and probably won’t play this year they had to settle for soccer. They also took a little time to completely destroy their Need for Speed franchise – but don’t worry, there’s about sixty other, better racing games out there.
And, no, Driver isn’t one of those. In fact, Driver is one of the worst driving games of all – which is no surprise since it comes from Ubisoft where they solidly believe in killing every good game they ever make with one hundred and twenty sequels within a three year time span. Their newest dead series is Assassin’s Creed. Any time you have to add a gatling-gun flamethrower to your stealth game you should know you’re headed in the wrong direction.
Speaking of the wrong direction: good job Sony!! What in the world will it take to make you guys realize your handheld system isn’t going to sell? It’s not enough that the PSP fails, and the PSP Go fails, but now you need to waste time and effort on a third installment that is just barely an upgrade? Ooooh, it has a creepy touchpad and two thumbsticks. Neato! Talk about stubborn. Well, at least you didn’t do something stupid like give exclusive 3G internet rights to AT&T. Oh… wait, you DID do that? Brilliant. No, really, I can’t tell you how proud I was of the audience for booing you when you announced that, you morons.
Why am I so certain that the Playstation Vista or whatever will fail? Because it’s not a phone. Yes, a PHONE. Or a Tablet, though I’m not sure that’ll be able to kill a phone either. Bottom line: people already spend hundreds a month on a handheld computer they can’t live without. A computer that has a phone, texting, the internet, and dozens and dozens of addictive games that only cost like a buck each. Why does anyone need your stupid ModRacers port when they can play Angry Birds all day? Answer: they don’t. Your PSV is going to fail just like it’s older brothers did. Face it, Sony, you blew it.
(PS- the reason the DS works is two fold: unique games only on DS for a reasonable price and because typical DS players are kids. Sony is trying to capture teens and adults who are already attached to their phones. Fail.)
So, in summary, after day one we found out that Microsoft just wants you to bounce around your room and not actually play any games. Sony has no clue where video games are headed and thus have no intention to make any video games – but they are happy to repackage old games in HD and 3D for you who like to burn money. Ubisoft is strangling their games into a slow, steady death and EA has decided that their best games (basically anything made by Bioware) should never be released to see the sunlight.
Well, that’s not fair. It is true that yet another E3 has gone by without any news on my beloved Star Wars: The Old Republic, but I’m no longer surprised as I’ve now retired this game into the category of games like Beyond Good And Evil 2 and The Last Guardian. You know, games that will never actually exist. Ever. Because their creators know those games are too good for our feeble souls to appreciate.
Still, there are lots of games that will be coming out soon enough. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Tank Field 3, Call of Duty: Space Effect 3, Call of Duty: Future Wasteland 3, Call of Duty: Gears of Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Ghost Squad, Call of Duty: EVE Online Shooter, and the most anticipated Call of Duty: Master Chief.
Oh, and also a Catwoman game.
So, there you have it. The end of video games. Unless you like Kinect or Call of Duty or the third game of a series. Then it’s a great year or two for you. Meh. Maybe there will be good news tomorrow with Nintendo? I’m not really holding out hope. Just saying.
