Hello readers. I was going to start this post with another apology for not posting in over a week and then I realized that I usually start my posts with exactly that - so I think at this point it's a given. Hopefully when summer rolls around I'll have a bit more time to blog but until then keep your eyes open every week or so.
Now that that's out of the way let's move right on to what I wanted to blog about today: the Nintendo 3DS. If you haven't been keeping up on the video game front and have no idea what a "3DS" is then check out the official specs and features here. All right, now that I don't have to go in to descriptive detail about the unit itself let me start by saying: yes, it works.
Even though I should probably be writing a paper for school right now I just played the first 30-45 minutes of Homefront and decided I would take this chance to start (what will hopefully be) a new series here on the blog that I'm tentatively calling "Gut Reactions." Basically I'm going to spew out my thoughts on the first thirty minutes to an hour of games I play and hopefully form some sort of opinion that will help you judge if you want to give the game a shot or not. I'm thinking that this format (without previously used ratings scales or lengthy and formal prose) will allow me to actually update more often and quicker than a full review. Make sure you let me know what you think. Without further ado: enjoy!
Homefront - Gut Reactions
The game begins with actual video of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a press conference discussing a North Korean attack on South Koreans that occurred not too long ago. Homefront uses this incident and other similar ones as a jumping off point and spirals through years 2012-2027 (the latter being when the game takes place) all the while showing various clips, news reports, and stock war footage in order to weave a story of North Korea eventually occupying the United States. While the concept is tied together well enough there are certainly some gaping holes and the intro really felt more like a xenophobic conspiracy theorist's dreamworld than an overly realistic outcome of the next quarter of a decade.
Since I haven't posted anything in ten days - I was actually busier than I thought this Spring break and really didn't feel too inspired unfortunately - I thought I would take a few minutes now to copy/paste an essay I wrote last month for my Nonfiction Workshop class. I believe I got an A- on it (which I'm quite pleased about) but definitely let me know what you think with a comment below. I really will try to post something else before the week is done but since I do have another paper or two to write I can't make any promises. Stay tuned though and enjoy the essay below.
The Boggling Gardener
Though both of my parents come from fairly large families, I can’t recall a time when we lived within the same city (let alone the same state or province) as any of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. At first, this might seem like a negative circumstance, but growing up it felt grander to me to see my relatives after a long family drive to a distant land. More than any other location, though, I yearned for the times when we would travel to Sault St. Marie, Ontario, to visit my grandparents. It didn’t matter that the drive from Montreal, Quebec to Sault St. Marie was roughly twelve hours long. When we eventually pulled up the dirt road to that quaint yellow house my grandfather built with his own two hands over half-a-century ago, the rush of nostalgia and the fresh country air made it all worthwhile.
I should first state that the 360 in question is actually my third or fourth 360 due to various issues with freezing and the system generally not being built even remotely well. I managed never to get the dreaded Red Ring of Death but that doesn't mean I avoided the other avalanche of issues that plague one of the most faulty products I can think of. Imagine if other items you purchased had a 54.2% chance of failing? Would you drive a car where the odds that it would break down were better than the odds that it would actually work? Having worked at Gamestop for a little while now, I can also attest to this statistic. I don't think I've yet to work a shift where someone has not either traded in a broken X-Box 360 or called about/mentioned issues with one.
However, this is not the reason I'm trading in my X-Box 360 - miraculously the unit is still somehow working - no, I'm trading it in because there simply isn't a reason to have both the 360 and PS3. Like many, I used to simply have the 360 because of the fantastic online capability and party system... but when it comes down to it, I'd rather not pay the eight or nine dollars a month (I'm monthly subscribed for some reason) and enjoy PS3s comparable FREE online.
The only real benefits to the 360 that remain then would be the exclusives and the FPS-centered controller. Well as for the controller, I think I'm going to try this and this. And as far as exclusives go, let's look at what's been planned exclusively for PS3 this year:
Killzone 3
LittleBigPlanet 2
Resistance 3
Infamous 2
Socom 4
Uncharted 3
(just to name a few)
Now let's take a gander at X-Box 360's exclusives:
Gears of War 3
Kinectimals
Umm... Halo Map Packs?
I sure hope X-Box is up to something and has some serious plans for E3 this June because at this rate I think the choice is fairly obvious. But what do you think? Do you have any 360 stories to tell me? Am I just being a ranting fanboy?
So here I am again with another Simpsons reference (in case you missed it) because I feel like it pretty much sums up what's been going on here in New Hampshire - lots and lots of snow and rain. Luckily my school hasn't been canceled despite me wishing as hard as I can x_.x. But hey it's March 1st, that's exciting right? I thought I'd just do a quick little update/blog post. I guess the first thing I should talk about is the Academy Awards (and thanks to everyone who came over and watched them - I had a great night!). So I have to say it was probably one of the most unsurprising Oscars I have seen. The King's Speech pretty much swept as everyone expected it to. It was, however, nice to see Inception win best Cinematography (and rightly so). Not too much else to say here really other than the obvious about Hailee Steinfeld being robbed (even though I knew it was going to happen it doesn't make it any less annoying).
