Gaming

Never knew about the precursor to videogames til now. Game|Life’s latest video features the Musee Mecanique, a place with a large collection of mechanically operated games and thingamabobs:

The first screenshots of the new Prince of Persia has just been released, and they look absolutely fantastic. 5 years ago these screens would have passed for concept art. I’m a fan of cel-shaded / stylized games (I played through half of Eternal Sonata despite the boring as hell combat, oh and that reminds me, No More Heroes and Okami are still waiting to be finished), and this illustrative style takes it to a whole new level.

I’m not too sure with seemingly angst-ridden emo prince though. I hated the second PoP (Warrior Within?) game. Here’s hoping for a protagonist that’s at least half as likeable as the one in Sands of Time. More shots at Shacknews.

It's a shame Viva Pinata didn't do so well commercially, it was a solid game with fantastic visuals that made the title one of the more memorable launch games for the 360. It sat awkwardly between casual and hardcore gaming, but that's a topic for another day. Anyways I loved how the game stood out with its vibrant environment and saccharine filled inhabitants.

Gamasutra's got an article detailing the initial design of the title and how it morphed from a mobile game (!) to what it is now. There's even a photo of a real Rashberry Pinata that Rare made, sweet! (Alright, enough stupid puns)

Check it here.

Despite being flooded with Triple A games that should last me until the end of the gaming drought that follows the holiday season, I'm still inexplicably craving for some Rock Band to come my way. Region-lock loving EA has seen fit to keep the US version of the game out of the Asian (and European, Australian, etc) market, and with no set release date for the NTSC-J version I'm left to silently cursing them while scouring the interwebs every hour or so for information (some rumors point to a March 2008 Singapore launch, ugh...). Baah, I'm pretty sure that when I do get the game, there'll be something else I'll be wanting profusely, gamer habits never die. :(

Vern's comment on posting an entry regularly not being all that easy was spot on. Finding something to write about isn't really an issue, it's the writing and finishing-what-you-started part that's giving me problems. I have around 4 entries here that are half done, and countless others that have been deleted. In hopes of remedying this, I've decided to write shorter posts. Will this work? Hell if I know, but it's worth a try.

Count my Xbox 360 as another casualty of teh 3RL, after 2 minutes of rocking out to "Carry On Wayward Son" on Guitar Hero 2 the console crashed. Turning it on again didn't even get me past the welcome screen. Not good. As I sweated profusely, silently dreading the possibility that my X360 was dying, I gave it another go. And there it was, blinking at me, shades of the frigid bastard HAL 9000, three red lights. F#%K..

After months of telling myself that I didn't really want to drop $300-$400 on Nintendo's shiny white box, I finally caved in, unable to resist the deceptively low price of $230 in Sim Lim Square (Singapore). Of course after the extra controller and the power adapter (in which the crafty bastard of a salesman convinced me that I absolutely needed it, ugh) it didn't turn out so cheap, but that's another story. And after playing it for two weeks, I have to say, I don't regret a thing about the purchase.