www.a51.org.uk

Just been watching the press conferences over the last few days and there seems to be plenty to get excited about towards the end of the year.

Microsoft – So Project Natal is now just called Kinect. I cringed at first but now I think the name is starting to grow on me, but I’m not sure if I’m convinced about the technology yet. It all seems a bit “too good to be true” and I have a horrible suspicion that the motion tracking involved won’t be precise enough to be used for anything other than fitness simulators and party games. Saying that, I really hope to be proved wrong on this!

Also, Gears of War 3 is looking amazing.

Nintendo – Well I actually missed most of this because it was apparently more important to go to Morrisons to get petrol and food. Misguided priorities there, eh!

I just get back in the house to witness the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS though. I have to say that I’m absolutely gagging to have a go on one of these as it sounds like Nintendo may have gone and done it all over again! Apparently the top screen on the new handheld is displayed in full 3D requiring no glasses using an auto-stereoscopic display. (Just google that term if you want more information, it’s takes a fair amount of explaining!)

My first impression was that it may be a bit of a gimmick that doesn’t really work that well. But then I remembered I thought the same thing about a dual screen handheld with a touch screen and a new console with motion control previously. So it’s probably safe to put a bit of trust in Nintendo by now as they’ve proven that they know what they are doing. They were also ready to let the whole E3 audience get up close and personal with the new hardware too which implies they are suitably confident about the technology.

New Zelda on Wii. (Damn, I need to catch up on all the previous Zelda games too!)

Sony – I’m starting to get a bit hyped up about Playstation Move now. My big issue with the Wii-mote is the lack of precision. You can play Wii Sports fine but the tracking just isn’t good enough to work in a first-person shooter or any other serious game. I’m hoping the blurb is accurate and that this is not the case with Move though. The technology certainly seems viable and believeable.

It’s great that Sony seems to be making a serious effort to push this technology into hardcore games too.

Strong support for the PSP. Well, I have to say I’m sceptical on this one as we had the same speech last year and apart a few new (albeit great) games it hasn’t really been pushed at all from what I can see. Come on Sony! Splash out on some proper TV advertising and make people more aware of the console. The PSP game section in GAME has almost disappeared!

Killzone 3 looked great. Would love to see this running in full 3D for myself!

Portal 2 and Gabe Newell from Valve. WOW! I didn’t see that one coming at all. At least Gabe had a bit of a joke and didn’t mention anything about sticking forks in anything! Portal 2 is definately one to watch and it will be interesting to see how they integrate the PS3 version into Steam.

There. My initial impressions on E3 anyway. I’ve probably forgotten loads more I wanted to comment on too. That’s the problem with E3 – Too much stuff going on!

Dead Space 2 as well…. I want!

If you don’t already own the brief but excellent Portal, get over to http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/ before May 24th and you can download it completely free.

As Valve have released a new version of the Steam client recently (which I think is a big improvement over the old one incidentally) the only catch is probably just to get more people using Steam.

This is well worth doing though! In fact, stop reading this and get over there and download it now.. Quick!

It’s just dawned on me that I’ve been doing this blog for about a year now. Where did that time go?

Well, a reasonable chunk of the last couple of months has been spent on Final Fantasy XIII. I’m slightly ashamed to admit I’ve clocked up over 60 hours on it now…. Although the first 30 hours of saves went down the drain with my broken PS3. It died just as I was about to get to Gran Pulse. Annoying eh!

I’ve also just started Dragon Age Origins as I was tempted by it’s current £15 price tag. Although I’ve been reading about the “freezing bugs” on the PS3 since the release of Firmware 3.30 so I’m trying to hold off playing this too much until they get a patch out, as the thought of restarting another RPG from the beginning again isn’t my idea of fun! (Saying that, I’ve only had a single freeze but I’m being very cautious.)

Not sure where I’m finding the time to play all these games. Although I don’t think I’m getting as many hours sleep as I should!

Isn’t it great when an Xbox 360 advert reminds you of Little Big Planet on the Playstation 3: http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/live/bestoflive/connectnow.htm

It is a great tune though and it’s called Get It Together by The Go! Team.

The original album: Thunder, Lightning, Strike is well worth picking up too!

I had a bit of bad luck followed by a bit of really good luck the other week.

My XBox 360 DVD drive had been reporting intermittent “unreadable disc” errors on random discs for the past few weeks. I’d been persevering with it but it was the final straw when I bought Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 and it said there was a fault with an absolutely pristine disc.

With a sigh I trundled off to register the console for repair on the XBox site. I tapped my serial number into the site and Microsoft said the console was already out of standard warranty! Huh! I’d only had the thing six months so this was slightly annoying to say the least. I couldn’t ring them either as it was a Sunday.

Plan B. I’d bought it from Sainsbury’s and I had the receipt so I thought I’d just take it back there. Result! Swapped it over with no arguments and actually gave me an brand new black 120GB Elite in exchange for a dusty old broken cream 60GB Premium.

I had to sacrifice my hard earned save games but an extra 60GB of hard drive space for nowt was worth it. My warranty is also reset to 12 months again and this time the Microsoft site agrees!

It doesn’t happen very often but it’s nice when it does!

It’s almost 2010 and it would be great if this could be the year that the games industry finally becomes widely accepted as mainstream entertainment.

The advent of the Wii and the “casual” gaming scene is helping to shed the “games are for teenage boys” image but it would be even better if they were considered a medium of entertainment and not just “toys”.

Another promising sign is yet another report that games are outselling movies by the Daily Telegraph (via. the Computer and Video Games site). (Hopefully generating a shedload of tax revenue deems them worthy of being taken seriously!)

Perhaps the best indication yet that games are being accepted is the inclusion of games creators in the new years honours list as reported by the BBC. The two brothers behind the Championship Manager series were given MBE’s “in recognition for their services to the UK’s computer games industry”. I kid you not!

Just a very quick late night post to tell you that Steam has another sale on at http://store.steampowered.com

At the time of writing they are flogging Grand Theft Auto IV for only £4.99 which is a bit of a bargain if you have a PC that can handle it.

Keep that page bookmarked too as the offers are changing every day.

It’s not often that Microsoft gives you the opportunity to earn cold, hard gamerscore for nowt. But if you don’t mind installing the Games for Windows LIVE client from http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/live/Pages/livejoin.aspx you can also get Tinker for absolutely nothing which includes 200 points worth of achievements.

Tinker is an isometric 3D style puzzle game which you’ve probably seem a hundred clones of previously but it’s polished, good fun and worth a download.

By the way, the system requirements for Tinker imply that it needs a 3GHz processor and a Geforce 6600/ATI 1300 graphics card… My own system is substantially below that specification and it runs fine!

Because it certainly seems like it. For example:

• Steam are selling some really good games at stupidly low prices here: http://store.steampowered.com/early-holiday. The THQ complete pack for £26.49 is very tempting but I’d never get around to playing all the games.
• XBox Live is allowing Silver accounts to play online for free all weekend as part of Xtival at http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xtival09winter/.
• Sony are giving us some free Uncharted 2 downloadable content as confirmed by C&VG
• To celebrate Killzone’s fifth birthday it’s a Double XP weekend for Killzone 2 on the PS3 and there is the possibility of some free DLC at killzone.com

Not bad eh!

Well, the Modern Warfare 2 release didn’t go too badly eh! Launch party in London’s Leicester Square and it sold 1.23 million copies on the first day in the UK alone (according to gamesindustry.biz).

I wasn’t planning on buying it but I couldn’t walk past it in Morrisons when it was priced at only £25.99. (So much for the £55 everyone was expecting to pay!)

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it online at all tonight. I’m hoping this is just a temporary glitch and Infinity Ward haven’t underestimated the amount of people trying to get online. (Surely they’d have to be completely stupid if that were the case though?)