:: Guy in a Suit Productions ::

Thursday 5.30.02 - 6:58pm PST

Here are some pretty good movies from E3. The Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball trailer is worth a look. I wonder if the game is fun, or if it is even playable. Also, check out the Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance trailer. Both of these are for Xbox.

Tuesday 5.28.02 - 7:32pm PST

All the recent videogame news will be on my E3 Wrapup page. I archived the old stuff, so check the Archives if you are looking for older game news.

Over the weekend, I beat Dungeon Siege and Jedi Knight II. Both are very much worth your time. That leaves only Ghost Recon left to beat...and the Clone Campaigns expansion for Galactic Battlegrounds...and Disciples II...and a number of other games I have that aren't even installed.

Neverwinter Nights and Warcraft III are still due out next month. Also, the Earth and Beyond demo is taunting me to play it.

Monday 5.20.02 - 8:28pm PST

This Wednesday I hope to be going to E3. They are cracking down on security, I hear, so there is a chance I may not be able to get in. I had an industry contact who made empty promises about getting me in with the greatest of ease. This is the same person who was going to get a pseudo-interview for me with Computer Gaming World, but that may not happen either. I may have to take this in my own hands and drop his name. I am hoping that my own credentials will get me in just fine, and I think they will. I'll be writing my impressions on the games I see throughout the week...hopefully. If I see something that must be seen, I'll take my camera in there and tape it the next day.

Here are the PC games I am hoping to be able to see or play. I have noted next to the games that I have seen at previous E3s. I'm not even going to list Warcraft III because it is coming out soon and I've seen at 2 previous E3s.

Doom III
World of Warcraft
Tron 2.0
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Deus Ex 2: Invisible War
Ghost Master
Neverwinter Nights (2nd year)
Unreal II: The Awakening
Unreal Tournament 2003
the "unannounced role-playing game" from Interplay
Star Wars Galaxies
Age of Mythology
Asheron's Call 2
Freelancer (3rd year)
City of Heros
Strident
EverQuest
Planetside (2nd year)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Raven Shield
Command and Conquer: Generals

And the console games I'll be watching:

the Wolverine game
Blade II
Minority Report
Tenchu III
Daredevil
the two Superman games
Terminator: Dawn of Fate
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Star Wars Bounty Hunter
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars Clone Wars
Auto Modellista
Onimusha 2
Soul Calibur 2
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
Crazy Taxi 3
Shinobi
Final Fantasy XI
the new Metal Gear game
Midtown Madness 3
Metroid 4
Super Mario Sunshine
the new Zelda game
Metroid Prime

No doubt there will be some announcements and some games I missed. I'll let you know how it goes on Wednesday.

Monday 5.13.02 - 11:12pm PST

This is why I play RPGs...for these kind of moments.

This is zoomed out as far as I can go. My guys are the little things under the massive head.

A closeup of my guys in close.

Saturday 5.11.02 - 7:51pm PST

I finally found a copy of Spider-Man: The Movie for Xbox at Blockbuster. The last 3 times I've been in there, there has not been any copies, despite their "guaranteed in stock" nonsense. So, I did get it free.

This is the best superhero game I've ever played. The Spider-Man game on Sega Dreamcast was very good, but this is much better. The graphics are quite impressive, the gameplay is complex, but easy to learn, and the voice acting is better than any game in recent memory. I mention the voice acting in particular, because Tobey Maguire does the voice of Spider-Man, Willem Dafoe does the voice of the Goblin, and Bruce Campbell does the voice of the trainer (the guy who talks you through the training). There is a lot of Spider-Man dialogue in the game, and I think it is great that Maguire did his own voice. The game captures Spider-Man's wit even better than the movie. Whoever is writing the dialogue for this game needs to be involved with the movie. You can also get Spider-Man: The Movie on PC, but you'd need a gamepad to play this thing, and I'm not sure how the graphics would hold up. If you are a Spider-Man fan, you have to play this thing. It follows the movie, but also goes off on a lot of tangents. So not only do you fight the Green Goblin, but you battle Vulture, Scorpion, Shocker, and Kraven as well. Sad not to see Venom, but maybe he is later in the game. I have not finished it yet.

Gamespot did a review of Morrowind. I still can't decide if I want to get this. Well, I know I want to get it, I'm just not sure if I'll like it. I've read some negative reviews that complain about the open-endedness of it. I think that sounds cool. It has been described like a single-player MMORPG. Apparently, there are some niggling bugs, but nothing big enough to dissuade playing, and nothing near as bad as its predecessor Daggerfall. I played Daggerfall as much as I could. As it turns out, it was unfinishable because of a bug. It was very open ended, and I liked that. So, maybe when I finish Dungeon Siege, Jedi Knight II, and Ghost Recon, I'll consider picking up Morrowind.

Speaking of Dungeon Siege, I still think it is a great game, but it is noticably shallow. For instance, I don't know the names of any of my characters. They never say anything, and the quests don't involve them at all. In Baldur's Gate II, the characters talked to each other. They bickered, and the side quests were typically wrapped around a character. I still consider that the king of role-playing games. Dungeon Siege is superior graphically and has much more action, but for story and role-playing quality, it doesn't beat Baldur's Gate II. I hope that Neverwinter Nights is the combination of both that I am looking for.

Thursday 5.02.02 - 10:39pm PST

T R O N 2.0

The site for all things games put a very brief preview of Tron 2.0 up. When I bought my 20th anniversary Tron DVD, there was a little bit at the beginning of it that mentioned a URL that created a lot of buzz in the movie industry. The URL was http://www.tronkillerapp.com. At the time, I thought it might be a rather creative ploy by Disney to drum up interest in a Tron sequel, which apparently, is in the works. However, I thought it also might be for a game, which I guess it was. This is the first I've heard of the game, and I assume, unless my friend in the biz fails miserably, that I'll get to see it at E3. It looks to be a first-person shooter but promises disc arena combat and light cycles. It could be brilliant...it might suck...I hope for the former.

I rented FIFA World Cup 2002 for Xbox. It seems pretty good so far, but a little limited. There are only two game types, no create-a-player, and no practice modes. I'm hoping that FIFA 2002 will be released for Xbox...or that FIFA 2003 will be pushed out soon. I haven't played a soccer game since World Cup 98. This one might satisfy my jonesing for a while, though.

Here is my video game release list. This is the stuff you should be watching for if you're "in the know".

PC
Avail Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Avail Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Avail Freedom Force
Avail Ghost Recon: Desert Siege
Avail Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

5-13 Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns
5-21 Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix
5-28 Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne

7-1 Icewind Dale II

6-18 Neverwinter Nights
6-18 Unreal Tournament 2003
6-27 Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

9-1 Age of Mythology
9-1 Unreal II
9-14 Hitman 2

10-1 Empire Earth Expansion
10-1 Team Fortress 2: Brothers in Arms
10-9 Duke Nukem Forever
10-15 Lord of the Rings

11-14 Command and Conquer: Generals
11-15 Star Wars: Galaxies

Xbox (these are for renting first)
Avail SSX Tricky
Avail Genma Onimusha
Avail Tony Hawk 3
Avail Spider-Man: The Movie
Avail FIFA World Cup 2002

5-14 Jedi Starfighter SE
5-21 Redcard Soccer 2003
5-21 Hunter: The Reckoning

6-4 Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing
6-15 Sega GT 2002

7-2 Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon
7-23 Buffy the Vampire Slayer
7-23 Dead to Rights
7-23 Crazy Taxi 3

8-1 The Terminator: Dawn of Fate

11-1 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Wednesday 5.01.02 - 6:34pm PST

Gamespot put up a preview with some screens of EverQuest II. This is the first official word on EverQuest II that I've seen, and the first screenshots. It looks like they have a good engine to build on, but these games are more about gameplay elements than graphics. The preview is actually an interview with the lead designer on the project, and he doesn't say much about it. What he does say sounds good, though.

I bought EverQuest the day it came out and played for about 6 months on my own. Some of my friends bought it later and I got back into it, but it never got its hooks in me like it did some people. I just didn't think it was very fun waiting to fight the same monster over and over. I prefer the single-player RPGs like Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale. I've played a few of the online RPGs (Ultima Online and EverQuest), and I bought Anarchy Online when it first came out. Much to my dismay, it was the worst excuse for a finished product I have ever had the displeasure of still owning. I was invited back for a free week sometime ago, some 7 months after the game's release. I thought the game still sucked, and I won't be playing it again.

Without a doubt, EverQuest is the most successful MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). They have released 3 or 4 expansion packs and have more planned, so a sequel was inevitable. When EQ first hit the market, its competition was Ultima Online and the soon to be released Asheron's Call. The MMORPG market has changed significantly since then. With the release of 2nd generation games in this venue like Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot, EQII will mark a 3rd generation of MMORPGs. It will have plenty to contend with in the form of the two giants of gaming: Blizzard's release of World of Warcraft and the Star Wars online role-playing game Star Wars Galaxies (being made by Verant, the company responsible for EverQuest). There are several others coming out in the same time period, but nothing stands up to these two.

In addition, Gamespot also ran a nice preview of the expansion Star Wars Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns. My friends and I used to play Battlegrounds every Friday, and it was lots of fun. However, as games do, it grew stagnant and the games became practical stalemates. I am hoping that the expansion with two new civilizations and additions to every current civ will put a fresh spin on the game. Some of the graphics have been given an overhaul as well. The best news is that the Jedi units have been made much more powerful and less expensive, and AT-ATs can attack air units with an upgrade. They might be damn near unstoppable now. I will have to force my friends to buy this.