Monday's Report | Reality Intrudes

Wednesday Is The New Monday...

When you're a kid or young adult, you like to think you've got it made, but it's not until you're an actual adult that you often get to see the perks of age and years of focused independence. Being able to drive my car to the home I own at the end of a long workday is about as great as any reward I've ever experienced, especially since the wife and I have worked together for a decade to claw ourselves up to where we are now from a horrible little one-bedroom apartment all those years ago... And as a married man sans children, I have been afforded certain flexibility over the years in how I get to spend bits of our disposable income - mostly in gaming stuff, since I love it. We do our best not to live outside our means, and up until this point things have been going alright. But the other side of the "Great to be an adult" coin is when reality punches you square in the gut. Such as a couple days ago when we discovered my wife's job (which is state funded) is going to be going bye-bye come September 1st when that funding is cut from the budget due to the fact that Michigan is drowning in red ink. Normally, there would at least be the small comfort in knowing that there is two and a half months (ish) available for her to look for new employment. Trouble is, we live in Southeast Michigan - if you haven't heard the news, things are somewhat dire here in terms of employment and job oppertunities of any sort, including the medical field my wife currently works in and loves. I'll also stop being coy and simply say that we have been kicking around the idea of finally having a child after five years of trying, a task that (as it turns out) hasn't been as simple as so many others have lead us to believe. We had spent plenty of time getting our hopes up about that when the job thing hit and now we're staring down the barrel of what the hell we're going to do, both in terms of being a fully represented "family" and how to balance that with something even slightly resembling financial stability. The wife's not pregnant at the moment, but at this point the idea of having to put that on hold again would lead us both down a familiar path paved with disappointment and good ol' fashion Depression Pizza - my #1 food item of choice when the floor drops out from under me. But while I am determined to raise an adorable minion to do my bidding, I'm also concerned about whether or not it's right to bring a new life into a situation that isn't as economically secure as I'd like it to be. My mom, talking about the matter, said the truest (truthiest?) phrase my grandma ever spoke to her was "If you wait until you're ready to have a child, you never will" - and while that's probably correct because my grandma was awesome, I can't help but give in to the more paranoid and defensive part of my nature and indeed wait - I am, after all, already plagued with a feeling of deep dread all around. Nightmares of losing the house aren't out of the question, at least in my overactive imagination. I'm wondering if we should wait at least until we're sure my wife can land on her feet and we're not counting on unemployment for her and *sigh* perhaps getting a second part-time job for me... Ideas are being discussed, plans of action that do take advantage of unemployment and various state aid for things while she finishes school (she's currently attending - almost done) and help take care of the as-yet-to-be kid, but I cannot escape the small voice in the back of my head who is taking the time to both whisper sweet terror in my ear and tell me how irresponsible I'd be...

Heavy discussion for the Bannendrome's usual fare, I know, but sometimes you've just got to scream and get at least some of it out. Consider this that scream.

Why I Don't Gamble And Other Fun Tidbits

Let's Call It A Draw, Shall We?

E3 2009 was a little over a week ago, but I'm back to do some fact check on my ill-advised predictions - also known as "completely random guesses". Thankfully, more than one of my thoughts could be totally open to opinion, so I get to squeak by without having the majority of my predictions simply being flatout false. Breaking things down by company, I failed with Sony the most - and I blame that on being completely unable to figure out what they'd do after last year's snooze-worthy "Year of the PS3" presser that featured a whole lot of video montages and not much else. 2008, what a horrible year for E3... Anyway, let's break these down and see how I did.

MICROSOFT:
Motion Control Announced: DRAW: I'm calling this one a draw because my thought was that the 360 would soon find itself with a handheld answer to the Wiimote. Instead we got Project Natal, a camera-based motion control system that promises unbelievable fidelity that will allow motion-based interaction unlike anything we've ever seen before. Lots of people in the gaming world thought Natal was groundbreaking, and if it functions as shown, perhaps it will be. But when it comes to gaming that doesn't involve a more traditional controller, I'm usualy pretty skeptical - even more so when it involves some sort of camera, something Natal isn't the first at trying. Sadly, the video Microsoft showed seemed more like lies hype than anything else, especially the section where the kid scans his skateboard into the game. I found it amazing that the Natal was not only able to determine the pattern on the side of the board it couldn't see but also somehow ignore the kid's fingers that were gripping the sides. Also, I don't trust Peter Molyneux's video featuring Milo, the virtual boy that seems shockingly lifelike and reacts according to not just your motions but your body language and facial cues. If Molyneux is known for anything, at least to me, it's selling you one thing and delivering roughly 32% of it, and I cannot believe the video wasn't trickery. It's up to him to prove it. Stuff like that always makes me doubt a device's true ability once it's actually released - and we got a sneak peek of how Natal might need a little work when they showed how the device allows you to make your avatar copy your own moves, which instead of being spot-on sent the poor little guy into a series of nightmarish twists and bends that the human form was simply not meant for. On the upside, it did create E3's most beloved meme for 2009...

Casual Games For That Motion Control: CORRECT!: As I figured, you can't have a motion-control-based way to play games without a series of useless minigames to make you live up to the gimmick. Microsoft showed a series of these sorts of games which included one where you kick and bunch a series of dodgeballs and another where you...throw paint. It seemed like some people really dug these shots of what Natal could do, but for me they seem like something that would amuse me for about 45 minutes and then leave me wondering why the hell I just spent $100+ on this gizmo. What the Natal needs is a game that allows for something more universally accepted by gamers, like a shooter. Imagine being able to use real hand-signals to your squadmates or really throw a grenade and have its distance and arc based on your actual arm motion and speed. That's a lot more impressive and fun that using my body to form the illusion of an elephant.

Halopalooza: DRAW: I was wrong that Bungie was done with the Halo franchise - and honestly I'm disappointed they aren't moving on to anything new. What was the point of breaking off from Microsoft again? It must get pretty boring making the same franchise games over and over and over. But I'm not a developer, so maybe I'm wrong. But Sure enough, ODST wasn't the only game Microsoft announced, and now we have Halo: Reach arriving in 2010, and we got to see it in a very short teaser clip. Go me.

360 Portable: INCORRECT!: Maybe it's just simply fact that Microsoft will never enter the handheld console war. Maybe that's actually a wise decision given the fact that Nintendo and Sony are no longer alone in the battle, now facing off against the likes of the iPhone. Warming the bench might be the best place to watch the carnage...

SONY:
God of War III in 2009: INCORRECT!: One of my many PS3 longshots, Sony finally came out to announce that Kratos will follow his pattern of showing up in March and will arrive in 2010. Bummer. I really think it's a mistake seeing as how Sony still didn't show any killer titles for this year's holiday season, even somehow ignoring titles like the new Ratchet & Clank - Insomniac usually gets all sorts of Sony love, not so much this year. Weird.

Fat Princess Now: INCORRECT!: I really do hate Sony sometimes. They tease the hell out of Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake on the PSP but don't even give a release date for the original PS3 version that people (like me) are foaming at the moutch to play. If the PSP version comes out before the PS3 one does, I may have to cut a bitch.

Sony Motion Control: CORRECT!: Sony had their own motion control reveal, though it didn't even have a name attached to it. Seemed boring. Have I mentioned how much I hate motion control?

New Twisted Metal: INCORRECT!: This one hurts, dear reader. I was really hoping Sony would shock and amaze by showing off a new cutting-edge edition of the Twisted Metal franchise, but sadly David Jaffe kept his word. 2010 perhaps?

NINTENDO:
Kid Icarus: INCORRECT!: Okay, fine - it's never happening, I get it. Bastards.

Boring Shit I'm Supposed To Be Excited About: DRAW: Perception and personal opinion make this one hard to declare as either correct or incorrect, but for my money a lot of what Nintendo had to show off was...rather "Meh". I could almost hear the crickets when the WiiFit sequel was announced and while a lot of people are pretty jazzed about New Super Mario Bros. Wii, I think the game looks kind of boring if not a game entire worth the $50 price tag. Once again, internet play is nowhere to be found for a game built around multiplayer action. And while it's cool to have Mario and Luigi jumping around together through levels with bland visual design, the Toads that players 3 and 4 are forced to use are sort of a punch in the mouth considering the rich world Mario games have to pull from. Toads? Who the hell wants to play as a couple Toads!? Why not Birdo and/or Yoshi? While NSMBW is a nice game to add to the pile, I'm not sure it's a killer surprise that many were hoping to hear about. Honestly, the game looks like a rehashed DS title, and for Nintendo that's becoming somewhat typical lately. *coughanimalcrossingcough*

The Trinity: CORRECT!: Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a huge reveal, and it shows the Nintendo at least is willing to give some sort of love to the fans who demand more than cameo apperances in minigame collections. The biggest surprise though had to be the announcement of the new Metroid game that's being co-developed by Team Ninja - who saw that coming!? Retro may have indeed moved on but Nintendo's moving quick to bring some mysterious new twist to one of their most beloved series. Zelda got a quick mention but it seems like 2010 is going to be when we hear more about that.

So there they are - all my predictions for better or worse. I think I came out alright...

Things might be changing in the Bannendrome soon, though not here so much as in my real-life home. The wife and I are working on adding something to the place that may or may not involve the number of people living here expanding by one. This means a lot of things but most critical of those (to me, naturally) is that we're locking down the household budget, and one of the first things to dry up is the once-disposable income I gladly used to increase the amount of games I have laying around. It looks like once Ghostbusters rolls around, I'm done with purchasing any new games for a very long time. I've said such things before, but this time things are a little different and this is the real deal - and between you and me, I'm okay with it... I do have a pretty severe Backlog of Shame I can use to keep me busy and it's great timing that I now live in an era where the lifespan of a game I already own can be extended via downloadable content. Games like Burnout Paradise are adding entire new portions to their worlds and a personal favorite, Fallout 3, not only has two bits of DLC I have yet to enjoy (The Pitt and Broken Steel) but also has two more episodes on the way in the forms of Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta - in particular, Point Lookout is happily including the overlooked mutated redneck population of the Capital Wastes, which was always sorely lacking. It's stuff like this that will be much more affordable and help me get through those tough times when the rest of my pals are out enjoying the latest release while I'm still working on Resistance or maybe finally having the free time to master those LittleBigPlanet creation tools.

As for news on why this clamp-down on cash is afoot, I'll hopefully have word to pass along in the weeks and months to come...