PixlBit

Today is the 14^th anniversary of the release of Final Fantasy IX, one of my favorite games of all time.  The timeless tale of Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Vivi, and the other characters lodged itself into my heart the first time I played it in my shitty rundown apartment in San Francisco, and ever since I’ve continued to play it every few years, because it brings me joy I can’t really find in anywhere else.  According to Wikipedia, it’s the highest rated FF game on Metacritic, and for good reason: it’s the fucking bomb. 

E3.  Game orgy of the highest order.  I’ve heard a lot of people say this E3 was the best in years… and I’m inclined to agree.  I think MS and Sony’s conferences were pretty lackluster – though they definitely had their moments of grandeur, but Nintendo’s was the best.  I’m not just saying that as a fanboy, but as a person who has worried about big N lately, but also well enough aware that hitting a low doesn’t mean your demise.  Nintendo needed to shock and awe this E3, and they did so on the internet, without any sort of real conference.  They also did what the other big boys didn’t seem to want to do: show game play.  Most of the games who had a presence at E3 didn’t show much other than pre-rendered trailers and other gunk.  I’ve heard multiple people on twitter hoping that the other big companies do next year what Nintendo did this year:  show in-depth looks at their games. 

 I was chilling watching my twitter feed when Mothman commented that every year he gets excited about E3, only to be disappointed that all the games are about people shooting each other.  I responded that that is why I mostly play ramshackle unpolished indie PC games.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love shooting people too, but I gave up waiting for consoles to dazzle me.  I’m just not the target audience.  I mean, I love games like Skyrim, and Left 4 Dead, and Red Dead Redemption, and many other AAA games.  But I’ve just kind of burned out on shooters.  That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them, I just have played them up to here, and am waiting for them to do something new.  Now, I haven’t played Titanfall, and I heard that brings a lot of new things to the table (except for the aesthetic, which is bland as a Saltine cracker).  But as I watched the show open up today with Microsoft’s conference and they showed the new COD, all I could think of was, is this Halo?  Modern Warfare was an amazing game, and some of the other iterations of COD have been okay (though not warranting their success), but why are shooters become more and more this one, homogenized Halo-esque sci-fi thing, bereft of ideas?  I am excited for the Halo collection they announced, I would love to play Halo 2 again (the last place I enjoyed the franchise) but I guess I need an Xbone first.  Maybe I’ll get one though.  Who knows.  But what I’m really complaining about is the fact that all of these shooters seems to be melting into one generic experience – it used to be COD was about WW2 or Modern Quake-like gunplay, and then you had Halo for sci-fi, and then you had Battlefield for more war like experiences.  Now they all seem to be congealing into one lame sci-fi vision with the same dropships, same guns (didn’t that gun in COD today look like it was Halo’s assault rifle?), and same little cut scenes.  Sigh.  Anyway, that’s where I’m at. 

Well, I think we can say BaD was a rousing success this year.  Not all of us finished a blog a day (I didn’t – missed one or two) but that doesn’t matter.  For those that did, I commend you.  There were some great blogs this month, with standouts by Greenman and Gigantor, who managed to write deep, industry related blogs every day.  Then there was Travis’s Kong a Day (crippled by that infernal Frothy Bird!) which I enjoyed as well.  I can’t remember everyone’s blogs, but I made sure to read as many as I could, and commented as much as I could.  Some of you gave up, some of you tried your best, some of you managed to do all 28 days.  All in all, I think it was an exceptional turnout, and really an example of how awesome this community is.