SWAMP THING

Sitting at my kitchen table downstiars, listening to the girls upstairs washing toy animals in their bathroom sink. I have no clue why they love doing this but Lord knows they do...there's some clean motherfucking toy animals upstairs in my house, I'll tell you that. I do recall loving to sit in the bathtub as a kid and play with my super hero action figures, making forts and secrets bases out of bubble bath and stuff...that was fun.

Noticing more and more games are starting to look like play action sets/claymation...and in a great way. For example, in the underground caverns of Gears 2 right now (loving it!) and there's this part where the river is running thru the caverns and it LOOKS like I've stepped into a little claymation set or something...it's like things look real enough but they also look kind of toy like...and this is not an insult. I LOVE Gears 2 and think it sports some of the best graphics this gen so far. This is an observation of many great looking next-gen games. Things sort of look...toy like. Or stop motion like. Hell, I noticed it in Madagascar 2 this weekend as well...it was almost like watching stop motion/claymation...what is that? It's not the old, PS2 era generation bad art stuff where the skin of characters was too shiny. We're way beyond that now... again, I LOVE the graphics in Gears and really like this effect but I just can't put my finger on what it is and/or if it's intentional or just a side effect of graphics getting closer and closer to real life....

Anyway, sorry for lack of posts this week- we're rushing to a few major milestones we have coming up in the next few weeks so all hands are on deck. Just totally swamped. A few rambly things:

a- What will my Xmas game be?!?! Prince of Persia maybe? I will have Gears 2 finished by the time Thanksgiving hits, so that is out. Oooh, I need to play Fallout 3...perhaps that and Prince? And shit, still have not played DEAD SPACE. So there are choices :)

b- STILL playing JEAN D'ARC on PSP and still FUCKING LOVING IT!!!! I play in little spurts, really get into it for a few days, get 1-3 battles done, then put it down for 1-3 weeks...but I always come back to it. Man, it's a great game. I don't think it got the love it deserved but hell, TURN BASED RPGS never really do in the states....

c- PSP store is really cool! I just got on it a few days ago...had not been on before...truth be told, not a lot of stuff on there that gets me excited (I dloaded the MLB 08 demo...that was fun!) but it's the same interface as PS3 store and it really gets me jazzed about PSP2 (I know nothing, just speculating that the new PSP- whenever it hits- will let us get games via the store and bypass UMD)...I still love the PSP altho I know there always has been a drought of amazing games...I still think it's a crazy impressive system and it's done well but in the shadow of the DS it lost a good deal of its luster...was it a mistake to assume portable players WANTED a console experience? Is that where it went wrong? Along with the biz model causing portable games- which are usually pretty inexpensive to make- to creep into the 4-8 million dollar budget range?!? I would guess yes...wonder if PSP2 will focus more on less expensive more casual style games or keep the more 'portable console' take...

d- Speaking of DS, man it's EVERYWHERE! Waiting for my doc to come in the other day for a check up and outside the door I hear my doc and the nurse (both women, no less) talking about how they are playing different games on their Ds's...pretty cool!

e- Craving Uncharted 2! I have such fond memories of playing thru the first one last Xmas season. Perhaps I will dig it out and play it again...prob not tho...too many new games to play....but who knows...

Ok, need to get the kids some breakfast then get to work...chat with you guys soon!

David