The Damned

New Zelda trailer! Starts off by showing Link from the previous models. The game is called "The Skyward Sword". Miyamoto confirms it uses Wii Motion Plus (duh) and that proper stances will affect the use of the sword and shield. Like, if you hold your nunchuck up, the shield will work better. Enemies will be cut differently depending upon the angle you swing your sword at. One example is a door with an eye in it. It tracks your sword, but if you try to cut it, it will close its eye. So you have to use a special attack at the right time and way to hit it. Using the shield can deflect enemy attacks back at them, sort of like the old Mirror Shield. Enemies with weapons will hold their clubs or shields to defend themselves, and you have to swing your sword to get around them. Items are handled as if they are in a pocket. So you have to "reach in" with the Wiimote to access them, and then turn your Wiimote to slect them. Also, with Motion Plus, you no longer have to aim at the screen when using the slingshot (and I would suppose the bow and arrow). Bombs can be rolled by using the same motion as bowling. Incidentally, Miyamoto isn't very good at his own games. Designer first, player second, I guess. There were a few comments from Miyamoto about "wireless interference", which may be true. Lots of cellphones and laptops everywhere. Miyamoto says the game will be out next year.

I guess when you get something for free, there's a reason. http://www.destructoid.com/e3-10-new-xbox-same-old-disc-destroying-problems-176508.phtml Oops. Guess they haven't figured out how to fix that yet.

What? Too hard? Really? I'm asking, because I've gone through all the campaigns on Expert with random people (legit, not any of those jetpack or private servers), and it was difficult, but still doable. Hell, I've been trying out Tank runs on Advanced recently. Lots of restarts from having Tanks smash you all at once, but we managed to get to the end. Mind you, I do play it almost every day for at least one round, so that might have something to do with it.

Hello, fans. Look at your console. Now back to me. Now back to your console. Now back to me. Sadly, it isn't me. But if it stopped using gamepads and started using motion control, it could play like me. Look down. Back up. Where are you? You're in the casual market with the console your console could play like. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it. It's access to the casual market that you like. Look again. The casuals are now hardcores. Anything is possible when your console plays like the system that everyone bought three years ago. I'm on a high-horse.

Also, isn't Nintendo coming out with a new portable this fall? You know, that fancy one with the 3D display you don't need glasses for? Isn't that new hardware? I mane, it's got a very different processor, loads more system memory, larger screen, that whole 3D thing, motion sensors, camera, mew games for it...

Yeah, giving away 300 to 350 new, unreleased hardware (even if it is just reduction of the same system) was the ballsiest move any of the big three have ever done at any event. That (at least for the people in the audience) made up for the boring presentation. Looking forward to see what Sony and Nintendo will try tomorrow.

He'll do it, too. I've seen him say things, and then he goes and does those things, and everyone was all like "DAYYYYYYYYYM!" and then they died. Most exploded for no reason, but some just fell over dead like they were shot or something. True story.

All Nintendo has to do is show a 3DS mockup, play a Zelda video, maybe show some Metroid Other M footage, and that's it. No one is really expecting Nintendo to do anything really big. The only way they could do something big is "oh, by the way... Wii 2 next summer. OK, good bye!" and then walk of stage. MS and Sony, on the other hand, are expected to show us what their motion-systems are supposed to do, and wow us with them. So far, MS isn't really doing that. Maybe Sony will do that Oh, and they just showed a much smaller 360 model. Looks to be about a third smaller than the current one. Same price as current one, and ships as of now. Like, today now. In stores later this week. And the audience just got free mini-360s! EVERYONE GOT A FREE MINI-360!

prophet's remix is in! Thank you, good sir! You are now free!

So... MS is showing how innovative they are with their exercise and mini-game demos. Yeah.

Ahh, the MS conference has been delayed a half hour. Guess I could go have breakfast now. OK, Gamespot has horribly fucked up. None of their video streams are going. No one can see anything. Hit up Gametrailers instead, they have it running.

For my area, they start at $40. That's for one child. They go up from there. I've seen upwards of $120. Not scalpers, this is the official price set by the venue. The Video Games Live and Walking With Dinosaurs tickets weren't that much. Hell, for the price of one adult Cirque du Soleil ticket, you can go buy three of their DVDs. Or two new games for your system of choice. Or one hell of a nice dinner for two.

Still got a list of WAVs that are MIA. First page and all that.

Or maybe one of the richest companies on the planet handed them a big enough check to get them to perform. You know, because two businesses couldn't possibly work out a deal. Cirque du Soleil is just as much about money as every other performing group. If they weren't, then the tickets to their shows wouldn't be so damn much. That entire quote is pretty much a corporate soundbite. I'd take it with several grains of salt.

Well, if that's true, then my original plan to wait for the third version may very well be the right one. Mind you, as soon as someone gets Zorua and Zoroark on their game, you know it's going to be uploaded and copied like new music. I bet that most people will "acquire" the two somehow. Overflow, don't worry. With the DS games, Nintendo seems to be more geared towards wifi downloads then physical events these days. Remember the Rotom event for Platinum? The special Pichu for HG/SS?

I can top that. The only Survival achievement I was missing was the one where you get a medal using only a melee weapon. Using the balcony in The Passing's Underground map, I set up a nice ring of defenses in case thing went wrong, and had both ammo boxes spread out in the middle, away from the rails. Now, this was just me and the three bots. This is important. Also, I didn't set the game to be friends-only. So, I start the horde, wait just long enough to kill a zombie with a crowbar (DOCTAH FREEMAHN!) and then run up to and climb the hidden ladder that gets you up onto the balcony. As the horde come in, and the first tank and wave of special infected swarm the bots, I was sitting up there, safe and sound. Four minutes went by. Then five minutes. Where's my message saying I got the achievement? Oh, that's right. I had messed up this one on an earlier attempt by shooting something, and that was past the first medal. OK, no problem, just got to sit tight until seven minutes. Six minutes and thirty seconds, three people join in. All of their characters are dead in the street below me, and I'm only a a few dozen seconds from the achievement. Someone votes to restart the map. Three votes yes, map restarts five seconds before the checkpoint. Fucking L4D2 community sucks.

We have an OCR L4D2 server? Daaaaaaaamn, I never noticed.

Pokémon Colosseum games for the GameCube. They were based upon Nevada, according to the game designer at Genius Sonarity. Mind you, no one even counts those as part of the series, and more like a random side-game that shouldn't be mentioned. The RPG side was weak, but the GBA-cart battling was nice.

OK, so the new mutation is out... and it sucks. You're in any of the finales, but this time, you can only have one player make it. It's called Room For One for a reason. It basically, you and the other three survivors try to make it to the end, but as soon as you do, it's time to FF the fuck out of everyone. It's essentially a Valve-sanctioned grief mod. As soon as I saw the chopper in Dark Carnival heading to the left side of the stage, I ran over there... and then had someone try to shotgun me down. He already set the other two on fire and tried to incap them. Seriously, this is a terrible idea. I can't understand why they would bother with this. Any regular player sees this exact same shit in every other finale.

Yes, that is exactly how the fanbase works. I recall when Ruby and Sapphire were coming out, and we got to see things like Cradily. "Oh my god, it's sooooo ugly" they were saying. And yet, within a few months, it was popular because of its typing, stats and moveseets. It was a self-healing wall in a metagame of hit-first-and-hit-hard. Once people realized the pure and utter stalling you could do with it, people were all "I LOOOOOOOVE Cradily, he's so awesome in every way". After people get to use the new ones, we'll see a bunch of people reversing their opinions. Oh, also: RANDOM ONLINE BATTLES. Finally. Now we don't have to bother with trying to hunt down friend codes or setting up times to play. You can just go online and find someone you've never met before and fight their team. I am, though, hearing talk of triple battles, as in, three on three at the same time. No proof anywhere so far, but it's in the same batch of rumors that all the most recent info came from, so there might actually be some credibility to it.

The new CoroCoro scans are out. New pokémon and a female professor are confirmed! http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/More_Black_and_White_information_surfacing Weird, strange new pokémon... just like every new generation. Some of them look very odd compared to the others, while a few look like they would fit right in with the existing ones. Of course, like every new gen, everyone will complain about them, then get used to them, and then accept them like they do the first 151. Damn fanbase... Also, one of the new pokémon has an ability called "Earthquake Spiral", which is supposed to raise attack every time it defeats a few. So, after a few kills, it's already boosted its attack stat twice. Revenge killer? Sweeper?

Honestly, I can't recall. I think I was on lap three of Rainbow Road at that point. Ah, Mario Kart DS... how many shitty movies have you saved me from?

Doesn't matter. It's a fucking stupid title. Even if he did know some amount of karate, the movie is about him learning kung fu. The title makes no sense. While it's a little ranty, I do have to agree with José. It's a poorly conceived movie... but I highly doubt Will Smith qualifies as "the world's biggest star". Yeah, he's up there, but the biggest? Nah. Overall, I get a very strong "shit movie" feel about it. After seeing it, I just can't help but think it's just not a good movie.

These days? Mostly pushing a few buttons on a laptop while a guy five feet away does all the dirty labor. I used to do the labor part, but now it's all "push button, watch screen, push another button". Here are a few links to cover my primary work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy-current_testing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_testing

I have to. It's part of my job. I'm mostly Ultrasonic and Eddy Current, with occasional Radiography work. It sucks, and I hate it, so I avoid it if I can. I think this is one of the few times we agreed on something. I know, DarkeSword. I'm scared, too.