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? 

Wow.  It's not every day that I can say I was surprised about something.  Least of all, a JRPG!  Two days ago, I heard on a few gaming sites that SquareEnix had released Song Summoner, an RPG for the iPod available through iTunes.  To some, this might not seem like much, but to me, it says a lot.  First of all, it was released almost silently.  SquareEnix didn't even announce it until its release date.  Secondly, they're completely distributing through iTunes!  I half expected that a large company like SquareEnix (especially one overseas) would probably publish separately at first (would be a huge hassle for iPod owners) and eventually release on iTunes after a few months or so.  Not so!  SqEnx seems to have thought ahead on this one.  Not only that, it stands out as one of, if not the only non-casual and non-puzzle game on iTunes to date.  At only $4.99, I just had to download it and try it out.

Okay.  I'd never installed a game on my iPod before, so I was very surprised at the graphic quality of the game.  The display is practically flawless.  It looks like you're playing a next-gen portable game!  The interface uses the iPod's click wheel and really shows off how intuitive it really is.  No more tapping the D-Pad forever!  Not only that, the gameplay itself is really fun and interesting.  You control a single "Conductor," Ziggy and his "Tune Troopers."  To start off, you can create your "Tune Troopers" in practically the same way you created monsters in Monster Rancher.  You can open up your artists, albums, or songs list and select a song to make a "Tune Trooper" from.  The character that's created and his/her stats are based on various aspects of data associated with the song, most important of which is the number of times it's been played.  Once you make the characters you want to play with, you can progress through the story and battles.  The battle system reminds me most of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.  Each turn, you control all your characters (Ziggy and three Troopers of your choosing) one-by-one, picking where they move and what attacks or skills they use.  Unlike FFTA, however, each Trooper has a limited number of battles they can be used in before they become unusable.  You can "rewind" or give them more chances with certain items, but I've yet to see if this is limitless.  The storyline as far as I've played is pretty much what we're used to with JRPGs.  What's completley different, however is the experience system.  Instead of gaining experience, you gain items that you can purchase new skills with at the end of each battle.  You can increase your stats of your Troopers and level them by...wait for it...LISTENING TO MUSIC!  That's right.  After you install and start playing Song Summoner, the songs you used to make Tune Troopers actually increase their stats when you listen to them more times.

All I can say is SquareEnix has surprised me with Song Summoner.  I can't get enough of it, and I'll happily say it again.

In other news, WALL-E was every bit of the geeky, sci-fi movie I'd hoped it would be.  The lighting was spot on!  Siguorney Weaver cracked me up as the computer.  Tons of particle effects?  Awesome!  Pristine shaders?  Totally awesome!  No dialogue for the first 15 minutes? (not counting the music, mind you)  Brilliant!  I loved so much of this movie!  That's why it pains me to talk about the disappointments. 

I'm looking at you, live-action composites.  They just didn't fit.  Besides, the lighting was perfect as-is.  Why did they even need live-action to begin with?  Including it just made it and the CG seem out of place.  My solution:  Dump the live action altogether.  The film really would work better without them.

My quoms aside, I really loved WALL-E for what it was.  The best Pixar film. (so far)

I took a break from classes and updating my website tonight to go see Cloverfield. Well, actually, my roommate and I wanted to go see Meet the Spartans at first, but after getting to the theater and finding out we would have to wait two hours for it to begin, we decided to go with our second choice. Having already eaten a quick meal, (Burger King...good) we were wary of the numerous complaints of motion sickness from our friends, who had gone to see it earlier in the week. I'm not going to ruin any of the plot details, because J. J. Abrams went though many steps to hide them from the public. I sympathize with him in this, because when I make something, I always want people who read it or see it to be surprised and not be expecting it. That's not to say there weren't any predictable scenes in Cloverfield. I mean, come on. When is it ever a good idea to go down a long, pitch-black tunnel when there's a giant monster rampaging above you?   more »

Normally, when newspapers find out when they've written a false statement, they print a retraction.  This is kinda like that.

Last week I posted raving statements about ILM's superb work on Transformers.  It turns out, I was mistaken.  Not about the quality of the work done, of course.  About who did it.  After speaking to Professor Tan (my head of Visual Effects) about the movie and how I was overwhelmed by ILM's work on the robots, he surprised me.  "That's not ILM," he said.  "Those shots have Digital Domain written all over them."  After he said that, it made a lot of sense.  Digital Domain is notorious for highly photorealistic mechanical effects.  ILM, not so much.  What surprised me about this, though, is that if I remember correctly, ILM was credited first at the end.  Digital Domain was second, which generally means that ILM was the primary and DD was the secondary house.  I'm planning on seeing it again this weekend, when I'll be sure to take notes on who is credited for what.  (I'm that much of a geek)