Well, I beat the Campaign Mode of Resistance: Fall of Man Monday night.  Wow.  Three days.  Haven't done that one in a while.  Overall, great game.  I'm still playing multiplayer online.  Won't be getting away from that for a while.  In the mean time, I've started going for all the skill points.  It really is addicting.  Not many people outside of Insomniac fans know that Skill Points were around long before the Microsoft in their infinate wisdom deemed it necessary to bring in Achievements for the 360.  I loved it in the R&C PS2 games, and I still love 'em.  More importantly, I love the little quip titles that allude to their use.  "Chicks dig eyestrain" << Find 10 Intelligence folders.

Some of you may remember me raving about my new Wii in my first few posts. (Does anyone even read this blog!?)  I covered the fact that my parents essentially started gaming because of the Wii's intuitive controls and simple games.  Well, now that I have a PS3, I'm beginning to notice that I haven't played the Wii in over three months.  In fact, I have very little interest in purchasing any new games for it.  When my parents heard this little bit of information, my mom surprised me by saying, "How much do you want for it?"  I was dumbfounded.  Not only were my parents never gamers until this past year, I never thought in a million years that they'd try to purchase a console, least of all one I already had.  But it's true.  My parents want to buy my Wii and all my games. ('cept Trauma Center, which I don't blame them for)  I at first was going to sell them the console alone and take the games to EBGame/Stop, but my mom stopped me.  Even though they really would only play it for WiiSports, they said that they can keep the games for my niece to play when she comes over.  My mom then turned to my dad and said, "See, dear?  Now we can get Wii Fit!"

I never knew hell could get this cold in August. 

Sony announced a few new things this week at Leipzig 2008.  First of all, the PSP 3.0 is being released this fall, complete with a Playstation button.  No word yet on whether or not the new R&C:Size Matters bundle will be 3.0, though.  Also, the next PS3 is going to be a 160Gb system.  Normally, I'd be totally excited, were it not for the fact that it only has 2 USB ports and no backwards compatibility.  On top of all this, various rumors have finally been confirmed.  The Metal Gear Solid 4 80 Gb bundle packs are being discontinued.  The sad part about it is, they appear to be the last backwards-compatible PS3s for the forseeable future, and they're going away!

Now I see Sony's strategy in this, because I finally know what will make me break down and buy a PS3: the fear of no backwards-compatibility.  It was majorly effective, because I immediately went to the local stores after work to see if I could find one.  I went to three places before I finally found any.  When I got to Best Buy, I was shocked to see not one or two, but FIVE MGS4 bundles on the shelf.  Seeing this as a sign, I casually picked up the closest one, inspected it, and grabbed a Greatest Hits copy of Resistance: Fall of Man for $29.99.  It felt so rewarding to finally step out of that store with my recently-purchased PS3 in tow.

It's so shiney, too!

I've spent the past few days playing Resistance to try out the system.  It's far better than I imagened.  The story is really well written (not surprises, here) and it plays naturally.  After going through the first few chapters or so, I decided to try multiplayer, not expecting anything new or exciting.  Man, was I wrong.  Honestly, not a whole lot is different in Multiplayer mode than it is in the Campaign.  But I have to say, this is where the gameplay shines.  I never was that big of a FPS multiplayer fan.  I played Goldneye and Halo back in the day and had fun in competition matches, but it never really stuck with me.  I'd always get beaten badly and eventually not want to even touch the game.  This is totally not the case for R:FOM.  I still get my butt whupped by a bunch of people, but I just can't get enough of it!  It's so fun and just the right pace for me.

And MGS4?  I still haven't played it, yet.  Actually, I still haven't finished Snake Eater, yet.  I suppose I should finish it before I play 4, but it looks like Resistance might be a huge distraction from that.  Decisions, decisions, right? 

Well, I got back from SIGGRAPH on Sunday.  I could spend a lot of time re-iterating what I've said elsewhere about the conference, but I won't!  I was one of four people who were selected to report on new technologies, innovations, and other exciting news from a SIGGRAPH Student Volunteer's perspective for FireUser.com.  I posted daily blogs of the events as I saw them.  These posts are being featured on FireUser.com, OpenGL.org, and are supposed to go up on CGW.com soon.  I'm very excited to get this opportunity.  Here's a direct link to all of the SIGGRAPH blogs.

In sad news, I think my Call of Duty 4 disk is dead.

I bought my 360 off of a friend, but didn't see this problem until after he had already left for the summer.  The multiplayer runs with no problem, but the single player campaign only gets to the loading screen for Part 2 of the Prologue, and then displays the infamous "Unreadable Disk" error.  I'm going to make sure it isn't the memory or hard drive before I give up on it, but it's upsetting because I really want to continue the game.  Guess I'll either play multiplayer or Halo 3 if that doesn't work.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since my last entry.  Let's see what happened so far: 

The Dark Knight came out. ==> Really really awesome movie.
Comic Con came and went. ==> TR2N!!!  AWESOME!!!

I finally started my XBOX Live account, as you can see from the new gamer tag.  Finally, I can get back into the regular (time willing) habit of playing console games!  My first priority when I started it up last night was to download a few XBLA games.  I've been wanting to try this new-fangled direct distribution for a while, now.  (Wii doesn't count, IMHO)  I'm trying Penny Arcade Adventures, TMNT (1989), and Soul Calibur, first.  I also downloaded the demos for DBZ: Burst Limit, Too Human, Catan, Carcassone, and Ikaruga.  Man.  I gotta say.  It totally seems worthwhile to provide demos for games.  They're such eye-openers.  The demos I played last night showed me that I probably don't want to waste my money on Too Human, (I was looking forward to the art style ) but will probably get Ikaruga and DBZ:Burst Limit after the summer.  Ikaruga was kindof a given, since I've loved it ever since I first played it on Gamecube.  DBZ was surprising, though.  I wouldn't call myself a hardcore DBZ fan.  I'm a fan, just not totally gaga over it.  However, I've got to say, playing the demo was really fun and nostalgic.  The little cutscenes get annoying, but i love a good button-masher! 

In more exciting news, it looks like I'm going to be a sort of reporter for a computer graphics community site during SIGGRAPH.  It's pretty huge, in my mind, but I'll keep you posted as to how it's going.  You'll find out everything soon enough! (by the end of next week)

I've been keeping up-to-date with E3 announcements this week. (not something I usually do for E3)  To tell you the truth, I didn't have very much hope for the conference this year.  When I heard how different E3 was last year and how many companies pulled out of the ESA this year, I honestly thought that E3 was going to be on its last legs.  It's amazing how I always seem to be pleasently surprised when I expect the worst.

Monday at Nintendo's press conference, Miyamoto showed off Wii Music and the new advanced motion control system.  Finally, Nintendo's getting on the ball.  I was more than a little disappointed when I first played the Wii and found how unresponsive and limited the sensor and accelerometer was in the Wiimote and Nunchuck.  Now they're finally trying to make up for that failure by launching the Wii Motion Advanced for cloase to a 1:1 motion response ratio.  This is what Nintendo should be doing.  Finding ways of improving on their system in order to compete with the various price drops and firmware updates of the XBox 360 and PS3.  Wii Music also looks kinda cool.  I'd be more excited if I didn't already have a 360.  Wii voice?  Don't need it.

Yesterday, Sony's press conference was far more interesting.  Holy crap.  Resistance and Rachet and Clank are now Sony's poster children.  Insomniac was definitely getting the publicity.  They kicked things off by having Ted Price show off the Resistance 2 demo.  Very spiffy, indeed.  They then went into the success of the PSP bundles, announcing a new one.  In October, Sony's releasing a bundle that includes a silver PSP, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, National Treasure 2 UMD, a 1Gb Memory Stick, and a download pass for echochrome.  Sufficed to say, it's on my shopping list.  Next, they announced a brand new PSP title, Resistance: Retribution that will bridge the gap between Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2.  It's being made by Bend Studio, who created Siphon Filter.  Finally, they announced a new title coming exclusively to the new Playstation Network, Ratchet and Clank Future: The Quest for Booty!

Man.  I heard Brian Allgeir and James Stevenson name that as one of the possibilities for RCF:TOD's title.  At the time, I thought it'd be a fitting title for a Ratchet game.  I guess they did, too.

Last, but certainly not least, Alex Evans from Media Molecule took us on a whirlwind tour of Playstation's year-round success and future as a demo of Little Big Planet.  That's what I call a presentation.  I'd use LBP just to create an alternative to Powerpoint.  It's amazing!

I'm excited to see more, but now I have to go back to work.