The Next Big Thing

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was held last week in Los Angeles. It is always interesting for me to watch the coverage in the gaming media during that week, looking at live blogs about the different press conferences (Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, primarily), and gathering everyone’s opinions about the proverbial “future of gaming.” Essentially, E3 is the time where most consumers hear about what games or platforms will be available for the holidays, or shortly thereafter. All the major media outlets tend to cover it in order to tell their viewers what they’ll be buying for themselves or their kids this Christmas.

You may have read in the news about Microsoft’s Kinect, or Sony’s Move. Both of these systems are attempts at cashing in on some of Nintendo’s motion control success that the Wii had. Microsoft focused a bit too much on Kinect, while Sony did a little better job of showing some games that the wider audience would want to play. No pricing has been announced for Kinect, but $150 seems to be the prevailing wisdom, plus the cost of the console. The Move will cost $120 or so to get started, but an additional $60 per person in order to get the “full motion control effect.”

While Microsoft and Sony were duking it out over motion control, Nintendo went a different direction: the Nintendo 3DS. I kinda wanted to post something about it last week, but I wanted to hear more analysis from the weekly podcasts I frequent, as they were able to get some “hands on” experience with it. To quote Jeremy Parish over at 1up:

Then I actually got to use the 3DS, and… wow. It works. It doesn’t strain my eyes at all, yet I can absolutely see the depth. I’m not exaggerating that the realization that my poor eyesight won’t shut me out of the next generation of portable gaming was the single happiest moment I’ve ever had at a gaming industry event.

To get a sense of what the 3DS can do, check out this YouTube video. This video does NOT take place on a 3DS, but demonstrates the kind of visuals and gameplay it should be able to handle when it comes out in 2011.

Nintendo will have a tough time demonstrating the 3D technology in TV commercials as very few TVs actually display 3D images. The tech is rumored to work by having two LCD screens overlapping, where the top one is shifted slightly such that one eye sees the top one and the other eye sees the bottom, allowing for stereoscopic 3D without the need for glasses.

That last bit is why this technology will be the new hottness next year, and why this thing will sell like hotcakes. You don’t need 3D glasses. And it’ll probably sell for close to $200, making it affordable 3D, as opposed to needing a multi-$1000 TV and 3D shutter glasses that sell for a few hundred dollars each (like Sony was demonstrating). This product marks the first time real, working, 3D images will be available to consumers (no, the Virtual Boy doesn’t count).

The Nintendo 3DS even has two cameras on the outside, allowing you to take 3D pictures.

Also, Nintendo was demonstrating some 3D movie trailers on the 3DS as well, suggesting that the device will have the ability to play movies. So, your kids that loved “How To Train A Dragon” or “Shrek 3D”…they’ll be able to watch it in 3D, and you won’t have to spend that much money to make it happen.

So, for the average consumer, the 3DS is a pretty big deal. The Nintendo DS has sold 130 million units, making it the most successful console ever. Parents buy them for their kids for Christmas without even thinking about it. It’s a way to entertain the kids at home and in the car without requiring you to give up your TV. If it sells for less than $200, it will still be a no-brainer. But, the fact that it has true 3D without the need for glasses will get the average consumer that doesn’t have kids to sit up and take notice.

I’ll be first in line when it releases in Spring 2011 (projected release time frame).

Scribblenauts

So, once Brooke got her netbook, I promptly installed Plants vs Zombies for her to play on it, a game developed by Popcap that involves defending your house against an onslaught of zombies. You use plants (like “peashooters”…that shoot peas at the oncoming zombies…or “wallnuts”…that are just giant wallnuts that serve as walls to help…just watch the video to get an idea, eh?) as defensive measures to prevent the zombie horde from eating your brains. Brooke has been addicted to it since I installed it on her netbook, so after she completes it, I’ve been trying to think of the next thing to keep her occupied.

Well, this week was E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in Los Angeles, where all of the upcoming gaming announcements come out for the coming year…or, at least, damn near all of them… One game that came out of it is for the Nintendo DS, called Scribblenauts. Joystiq had a blurb about their hands-on with the game and the thing sounds absolutely awesome. Basically, you play the game as Maxwell and you have to get him from point A to point B, depending on how each of 220 levels is set up. As their article describes, you could have Maxwell in a desert and you need to get his thirst quenched, or you could get him across a shark-infested pool to the other side. The catch is that you have to write things down on the DS touch screen to help him out. So, as Joystiq describes, in the case of the desert, you could write water and some water will appear. Or, to be more creative, you could give him an oasis.

scribblenauts

This is one snippet from Joystiq’s description of their time with the game:

“Ludwig was tasked with navigating [Maxwell] through a zombie apocalypse to reach a helicopter with his brains in tact. He attempted to hold the undead off with a wall, but he couldn’t get build it fast enough to hold off the horde. He whipped out a shotgun, but their numbers were too large to dispatch with a firearm. Naturally, his next instinct was to craft a time machine, which took him into the prehistoric ages. Of course, he was surrounded by unfriendly dinos, so he made a robot dinosaur, which he then mounted and used to destroy his scaly adversaries.”

Apparently, nearly everyone at the show was trying to “break the game” by coming up with as crazy a noun as they could, only to find that the game had a seemingly limitless dictionary.

So yeah, maybe this will fit the bill? Sounds pretty creative to me, certainly…

Edit: Joystiq posted another article with ten words they put in and what the responses from the game were. The only one that wasn’t recognized was “plumbob,” while others like “stanchion” and “lutefisk” came up fine. Craziness!!

Thanks, KMIZ…

So, KMIZ, the ABC affiliate out of Columbia, MO., made the national gaming news blogs with their coverage of the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, specifically with their interview of Andy Anderson, who said: “There is no reason an adult should have [Animal Crossing: City Folk]” for the Wii. The whole thing makes Missouri look pretty dumb, as nearly all of the posts say either “Missouri Police” or “a Missouri Task Force”…

In the original report from KMIZ, they write “If your kids play interactive video games, like the Nintendo Wii, be on the lookout. The Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force is warning of predators using games like, ‘Animal Crossing- City Folk,’ to target kids.” This statement is only a little bit sensationalist, but more importantly is quite mis-leading…

The game is kinda like Sim City or The Sims, but a bit more complicated (you can run a shop, go fishing, do some gardening, etc.) with interactions that you have with other people over the internet (using an included peripheral microphone that sits above your TV). The thing that the Wii does, however, is use “Friend Codes,” which is a 12-digit randomized number that an individual must input into their system in order to contact someone else (i.e. I have to have your Friend Code plugged in, and you have to have my Friend Code plugged in), soooooooo…I’m very curious how any pedophiles could even contact someone through the game, as it’s impossible without a Friend Code exchange. The only way it could work is if a child exchanged their Friend Code with a stranger through the interwebs, or in person…which is the parent’s fault, not the Wii’s.

The idea that this game shouldn’t be played by adults is also rather absurd, as it’s a pretty popular series and has been bought by millions of adults, not just kids. It certainly isn’t a game I’m interested in, but to say that only pedophiles play it, or that only kids should be allowed to play it, is absurd.

The key here, as always, comes down to one thing: the parents are responsible for keeping an eye on their kids. Parents should know what games their kids are playing, the books they’re reading, the television they watch, the movies they watch, the kids they interact with at school, etc…especially when they’re at a young age (obviously, the ability to monitor them by middle school/high school gets reduced…). If parents are going to allow their kids to play games on the internet with a PC, or use a console system like a Wii, the parents should know about the capabilities of the system (such as Parental Controls) and the kinds of games that are available.

For more information on all that, though, check out What They Play, which is the “parent’s guide to video games”…great site for all kinds of information, not just for parents…

People should stop blaming things on the medium and learn to take some responsibility…

Trip down to Hot Springs

That’s a picture from I-55 in northern Arkansas. Terrible place. Seriously. Their Department of Transportation has got to be the most inept in the nation. See the clear skies?! It snowed the DAY BEFORE and there was ice all over the place. It took us over an hour to go 15-20 miles toward Memphis.

There are more pics…feel free to check those out, of course

Either way, that was on the way down to Hot Springs, AR. Brooke decided she wanted to go on a little trip, just to get away for a little bit. It’s a relatively easy drive (minus the aforementioned DOT from Arkansas), and a place neither of us had ever been to.

Anyway, it was a pretty good trip! Brooke made reservations at Hilltop Manor, a bed-and-breakfast right by the national park. The weather was pretty awesome, for the most part, so we spent Monday walking around the town, went up to the top of the mountain and went up in the observation tower, then walked along Bath House Row (and toured an old bath house maintained by the National Park Service), and otherwise chilled for the rest of the day in front of a fire place, reading and gaming (on the DS, of course :-)).

The trip back was less eventful than the one down, so that was a big plus. In any event, I’m glad to be back and catch up on all the TV shows we didn’t get to last week. And, maybe even get some science done tomorrow…

Stupid Blue Shells…

(Courtesy of Friday’s Penny Arcade cartoon, of course…)

So, I’m very much looking forward to Mario Kart Wii, which should be arriving on Tuesday. There aren’t all that many video games that Brooke will consistently play with me, but this is one series that she’s always enjoyed…or at least seemed to… 😛

We also grabbed a Nintendo DS this past week, just to complete my collection of modern Nintendo products… More seriously, we got Mario Kart DS and Brain Age 2 to help entertain us for the likely long car rides that are coming up this summer, whether it be spent down to southern Florida with Brooke’s family, or whether we make a trip down to Houston (Brooke seems to want to visit Liz…I figure I could tag along and visit Brett/Andy/Nierling, as well). Either way, 19+ hour car rides warrant a video game system, especially when I get headaches when I try and read in a car. That, and I saw how useful a DS is when you’re waiting at the airport to catch a flight…or while actually flying, for that matter. Anyway, if you’ve got Mario Kart DS, lemme know…I suck at it…but I’m trying 😛