More neat stuff from the future

At E3, Natal was the big hit of the show. But there was also some surprising technology going on over in the DS section. I'm talking about Scribblenauts, a new action puzzle game with a twist. When you reach an obstacle, you write a word on the DS screen, any word, and the thing you wrote manifests itself in the game world, as usuable in the game as it would be in real life. Check it out:

Video Game - E3 2009 - Videogames

The guy said no copyrighted or vulgar words, but you can be sure that everyone will try to get it to draw a wang right off the bat. But once that novelty wears off, you will discover the thousands upon thousands of words that materialize, whether they have a purpose in your particular puzzle or not. With 220 levels, it will be interesting to see the creative YouTube videos that come out of solving puzzles in incredibly weird ways. In the video, the hero encountered two different dinosaurs. One, he fed a salad. The other, he hit with a crowbar. I want to hit it with "evolution" and make it turn into a man so it can be my sidekick. That would be super awesome.

A few game sites noticed Scribblenauts, but not nearly as many as it looks to deserve. If it works, (Big if? Maybe a medium if.) it will be the coolest game/thing to ever hit the DS. Its simplistic nature combined with an incredible amount of replay value will have many gamers hitting the dictionary in an attempt to stump it. It even has "plumbob." Hope I can go Kiss-style and equip the guy with a guitar and huge amp and slay dinosaurs with the power of rock! I'm giddy already. Please do everything you promise, Scribblenauts!

InferNO?

At E3, people were outside protesting Dante's Inferno, a game based on the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy. With pithy slogans like, "Trade in your PlayStation for a PrayStation" and "EA = Electronic Anti-Christ," these picketers seemed a little too clever to be actually picketing. And, lo and behold, it was a fake campaign to drum up interest for an otherwise uninteresting game. Oh well. In the age of MySpace and iPhones, sometimes companies have to resort to old-school hate mongering to garner attention. Even the fact that it was a fake publicity stunt is getting EA more publicity! Media is fun.

Wow.

This is the first year that I've actually followed E3 as it was happening, and, compared to what I've read in magazines after the fact from other years (Wii Music... Yay.), this may have been the coolest year ever.

Why? Project Natal.

Video Games | Project Natal | E3 09: Project Natal Intro

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Incredible. I hope it works as promised.

And this is my first video embed, and I'm not an HTML tag expert yet... so sorry it covers up the other stuff on the side. But this must be seen by everyone. It's the future. You know, if M$ can make it work.

Sick day...

When you have a debilitating cold, you get to sit around the house, listen to your cockatiel sing along with Primus, and catch up on video game news on the Interweb while considering paying $55 to see Wrestlemania 25.

Remember "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters"? The documentary about the guy trying to beat the Donkey Kong world record. His name was Steve Wiebe and he was ultimately denied the record because he used a DK circuit board that may have been tampered with. Well, he will get another chance to usurp Billy Mitchell's reign at this year's E3. This time, Twin Galaxies (the official video game high score record keepers) will provide the board so there will be no chance of tampering. Also, it will be live on G4 on June 2. Hopefully they don't play the whole thing... that would just get boring. I can't watch people play video games because I always know that I'd play them better! Maybe it'll be different when I can see a guy that actually knows what he's doing for once... but probably not.

OMG!

The team that made Ico and Shadow of the Colossus is finally getting ready to release their next game and they're going to announce it at E3 2009! Yay! First the first time in years, people will care about E3. The new game still won't sell... but it will be awesome.