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Friday, May 13, 2005
A rebel from the waist down. | Thanks for your comments on my last post, everyone. I hope you look forward to what we're going to be unveiling this year.
In the last couple of posts I've been talking about Guild Wars a bit and finally, I received my copy yesterday. I'm glad that I only participated in three beta events; the game is a little less spoiled for me that way, although the early stages seem to be stuff that I've largely played before. Still, it's fun. And it'll be great to get into new territory.
I also mentioned that I'll be making a Guild. That'll still happen and when it does, I'll announce it on here for those who are interested.
In the meantime, I've been playing the first few missions with Alex, which has been great. It's really preferable to play with people you know, rather than strangers, I think. Guild Wars is full of great people, but it's extra great to play with people from the network here.
On that note, if anyone here owns Guild Wars and wants to add me to their in-game buddy list, PM me with the name of your character and I'll add 'em. I will also PM you with the name of mine, so you can add me too.
I think I'd rather go the PM route right now, just so that I can filter things and work out who I want to add.
Once we've gotten a few people together from here, I'll probably start the Guild at that stage.
That is a little head-shot of my character, by the way. I decided to go Elementalist/Monk for the time being, although my PvP character (who I haven't used yet) is entirely different.
Anyway, it's been an interesting day. As gamers here might know, Microsoft revealed its Xbox 360 on MTV. The show was pretty awful; clearly not designed for hardcore gamers. But I think it's probably a good way to reach the lay consumer who don't know a great deal about games.
What annoyed me as that they spent less time showing Perfect Dark Zero and more time showing the player's faces. No thanks, I'd rather see the game itself, especially one that's been in development since Jesus hit puberty.
Mostly, nothing terribly new was revealed, save for a few little details here and there. I think the very best thing I saw about it was on GameSpot; their feature on Xbox 360 is comprehensive and their editor remarks at the end are quite balanced. Nice. I like the fact that they aren't as caught up in the hype machine as they could be.
My opinion on the console thusfar is pretty unchanged; if it supports backward compatibility, I'll no doubt buy it at launch. If not, I will probably buy an original Xbox when the price hits rock bottom.
The new details were somewhat interesting. I like the wireless controllers and the way they avoid interference. I also like the fact that they can be "trickle-charged" via USB. And I like the whole idea of the circular ring alerting you to incoming messages via Xbox Live, even if you're playing a game or watching a film (it's known as "Ring of Light" by Microsoft).
And, maybe it's just me, but the 360 still looks quite big. When it was standing on a table by J. Allard, it looked pretty darn large. It seems to me that it only looks marginally smaller than the first machine, although the concave surfaces probably help to hide some of the bulk.
It will seem extra large when compared to Revolution.
Today, Perrin Kaplan confirmed that Revolution would be a tiny little thing. It'll sit horizontally and vertically (like PS2/Xbox 360), but it will be as tall as three DVD cases stacked on top of each other and only a little longer (when sitting horizontally). Go and test that out for yourself. Pretty small, no? Especially for something that should match Xbox 360 in hardware specifications.
In addition, Revolution will use dual-layer DVDs, which should provide approximately 9GB of data (give or take). That's good news, considering that GameCube discs provided something like 1.5GB of data.
Revolution will also sport a very robust online network that will be available immediately on launch and, of course, it'll be free and wireless. Not bad. Oh, and Yoichi Wada (president of a little company called Square-Enix) is apparently very impressed with the online system that Nintendo is engineering for DS and Revolution. Apparently he looks forward to the challenge of creating games for those systems. That's pretty cool, especially considering Square-Enix's interest in revitalizing the Japanese marketplace.
It will also have wireless controllers as standard. Nintendo also mentions "quick start-up time" and "quiet, low-power operation". Low power operation, eh? I wonder if Revolution will be portable. *taps nose*
So there you go, a few little tidbits for those who have been sitting under a rock. I'm really looking forward to E3...I have a very good feeling about a few things, especially Nintendo.
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