TGS

 Just watching the events of Tokyo Game Show play out . All I can say is this thing has fallen from grace. What once was the largest video game show on the planet has almost died. Seems like companies use E3 to make most of their big announcements and then use gamescom and tgs to support those. Oh well, it probably speaks to the state of gaming and japan and those developers seem to be kinda thin on ideas. With Nintendo being an exception, I think Sony falls into this category as well. Isolate yourselves, fail to pay attention, and get passed up by the rest of the world. Hopefully they can get back on track. I like to hang out and look at neogaf sometimes. I dont post on there but a lot of the people doing so are working in the videogame industry. Two kinda funny things happened in there over the last couple of days concerning gran turismo 5. When they put out that release that everyone expected to be somewhat earlier some guy came into the forums and just threw down and even pledged his support to microsoft and bill gates lol. Well guess what a forum moderator came in and called him out. I guess he registered with his microsoft corporate email LMAO. Makes ya wonder how much of this noise on the net supporting these companies is real or fabricated by their own employees. The other thing which I cannot speak say enough of was the community manager for forza motorsport was actually posting detailed impressions of the gran turismo 5 demo to the GT post. I expect he was ordered to check out the progress which I dont blame them for doing on bit. Since the info was pretty damn limited that was pretty cool and it goes back to the japanese just dont get it . Its pretty damn bad when the community manager for your number one rival is getting the word out about your product and he didnt bad mouth them or anything just his impressions and what was available etc. Horrible that he was bascailly doing their job for them, the japanese just dont get it when it comes to a community surrounding their products.

Tokyo Game Show GET!

 Tonight at about 9:30 est the Tokyo Game show kicks off. It works much like the Game Developers Conference where only one of the platform holders gets a keynote speech. This year its Sony. I expect some big things , I just want GT already! I have a feeling that the ferrari videos from yesterday were touched up in both the forza and GT engines. However, I have doubted Polyphony before and they have blew me away. I can't stop looking at the tail light from that video..........

Halo Halo Halo COD

I really dig the lore of the Halo universe. I don't however, dig the games. They are all top of the line games but after getting burned with the ending of Halo 2 I was done. I keep seeing people base their opinions of the new Halo 3 spin off ODST on content vs price point. I was thinking whats the big deal, if a downloadable only game can get high scores and be short why can't this. I know shadow complex got rave reviews and is supposed to be shorter than the campaign in ODST. I think the one kinda weird point to the price of this game has to be that multiplayer disc that comes with it. That disc contains all the halo 3 multiplayer maps ever released. If your a big Halo fan you probably have all those maps already and I don't see how that carries value but it might. I think the one big thing that adds value is the Halo Reach beta. I don't agree with reviewers factoring in the price point of this into their reviews. The worth should be left up to the person buying the game. Well enough of that onto Call of Duty. After seeing a lot of multiplayer footage from the recent event I kinda feel bad for anyone else trying to push multiplayer. Uncharted 2 is going to rock , MAG has a ton of potential but I think once modern warfare 2 ships its just going to overshadow everything.

NFS Shift

Well I finally got Need For Speed Shift yesterday. This has to be the most visceral driving game since burnout. I think burnout kinda falls into a just have fun in a sandbox type of game now though. Its nice to have this type of experience in a semi sim racer. There are 5 different tiers of racing and currently im level 13 in tier 3. I have started to unlock races in tier 4 but I cannot access them yet. A couple of my impressions so far....

Good

-This game has the best cockpit mode in a driving game yet. GT5 Prologue did a great job and im certain Forza 3 wil deliever as well. However, I dont see either being as crazy as this game. The sense of speed you get is on par with burnout and the interior will also change with damage and cosmetically with upgrades.

-The progression system is very unique. You earn stars for different accomplisments on the track. Once you earn those starts they are permanent. What that turns into is say it wants you to spin out 4 opponents to get a start and you do so. However, by driving like a mad man you ended up finishing poorly. You get that star and can go back in and race to get the win next time to get those stars. More stars unlock the tiers of driving events. Also you have a driving exp much like a RPG. Just about everything you do on the track in both aggressive and precision add up to something. You have a drivers level which increases with the exp and each level requires more exp. There are 50 levels to obtain. Going up in level unlocks liveries, special events, bonus cash etc. On top of all that stuff you earn drivers badges. These are for things such as driving a make of vehicle a certain distance or mastering tracks. As far as rewards go though I dont see any point in these. I havent recieved anything for the badges I have earned so far. There are trophies linked to them but thats up to the player.

Bad

-This game has some pretty lengthy load times (PS3 version) even with an install. Not sure on the 360.

-The replays are really buggy for some reason. Very limited controls which pale in comparison to say Dirt 2.

-The soundtrack is horrible. I dont even notice it.

-The control on the car can be just way out of control sometimes. I never really get a feeling like im in control. I think they might have went a little overboard on the physics on the tires.

On a side note. Every car in this game can be purchased with your cash. Not just in game stuff you earn but actual money. Each time you got to buy a car it gives you an option to buy it with in game cash or hit the playstation store. Im not going to pay EA my money for something I can do in game so im not sure how much they are charging.

Kanye West is a Racist .....Period

 Ya know I wonder.......What if Taylor Swift was a black girl? Would that moron jump up on stage and try to shift the glory to a white girl? I think not. Lets reverse this. What if Kayne West was white? He would be labled a racist before he even got kicked off the stage. Why is it in our society that its ok for a black person to step all over and insult a white person and its considered being out of line? Yet if a white person demeans a black person in any way ,even if it has merit and is justifiable; they are labled a racist.