As you may have already notice, this blog is full of grammar mistakes. I must say that I decided to write this blog in English to try improving myself and progress. And it's not that easy, especially because I’m a lazy French dude, and probably too, because I’m not a very good writer in my birth languages anyway. My wonderful girlfriend who is reading sometime this little blog has the courage to send me some notes and corrections to improve my horrible English writing, and I thank her for that. (Unfortunately for you, it's usually way after articles are already online and seen by most 3 readers, so you won't notice that I’m sometimes correcting some mistakes on old articles :).

Anyway…
This week, the new Wii channel is available and I must say, it's pretty cool to be able to try DS games by downloading demos via your Wii. Just too bad games are not staying long time (Ninja Gaiden is no more already, replaced by the Apollo Justice for example.)

And the new Wiiware games now available (I bought POP, really nice simple game) are (even if the problems of 512 megs will be at one point annoying for me) a really nice add-on to the “services” and Virtual games and channels already there. It really makes my Wii, when connected to internet, a really cool hardware piece that I’m using for a lot of things in my living room (yes, I like checking the news from there, playing games on it, ect…). If it was a DVD player too, I guess I would even not turn on my noisy 360 anymore.

On some other news, this week, Microsoft presented some new games from RARE. They are technically really pretty (this company was always on the edge of technical push more than gameplay imo). I am anyway curious to check both of thoses titles. Viva piñata was fun, and the second one will be better just because of mistakes they learned from the first one.
It’s funny to think that this winter, VIVA PINATA 2 is gonna compete against Nintendo's expected new Animal Crossing (MMO?) for Wii... and that BANJO KAJOOI is gonna compete against LittleBigPlanet for Ps3.
Big battle their, and hudge challenge for M$ on both of them. (I'm sure the Gear of Wars 2 game is way more what 360's owners are expecting this winter... against Resistance 2 for ps3…it will be interesting to check all this.)

To finish with a guess:
Seeing the Two Rare Game, It makes obvious for me that the "360-mote" Newton controller is in the work (both game are just waiting for this type of control), it's just gonna be announced next E3, and guess what, compatible with thoses two games...

Just a guess, time will tell...

Awesome...

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Last week, while everybody was playing or speaking about THE GAME you obviously want to put in your post to attract reader on your website, I personally just jumped into the just released MarioKart Wii, few weeks after Japanese and European players already did, and Portal, because it’s never too late to discover one of THE game of last year.

I’m not a hater or a rebel, and the reason I’m not playing GTA right now is mainly because I never play any of it’s predecessor before, except to be honest trying half an hour the very first one on Amiga back then. Since, I was never really attracted by the experience; I kinda just ignore this IP that millions of people seem to enjoy. Anyway, I might try this fourth edition later thought, graphics seems good and the hero have my name… yeah, I might give it a try to the solo experience if I found someone to borrow it from later.
So instead, I’m totally on Mariokart Wii and it’s once again a lesson from Nintendo of fun gameplay for everyone, I have as much blast than the DS one, probably because of the Internet add-on, definitely a plus, it add so much fun to play against 12 other peoples.
I bought the game “just to check” without expecting much from it (American reviews and critics were average, I was not really exited neither) but once again, the game is awesome, and I spend already waaaaay to much time (2h a day minimum) enjoying it.
What I’m amaze about is the fact that you’re playing totally for free.
You don’t pay anything to play online (Microsoft is probably to poor to have a free service), you have NO ads anywhere (Microsoft and Sony are probably too poor again to make you pay AND adding some ads on you menus, when not in the tracks of your races.)
What people forget, is that nothing is free in this world, and so that really mean that Nintendo is paying for what you don’t pay (bandwidth and structures).
Make me think that a service for free is a big plus and I’m surprise to see that no journalist when comparing the two version of GTA never put that on the expensive bill of the 360.

And to finish, let’s speak about Portal. Well, I must say the game is really cool (I played and finished the 360 version this week-end).
Short and funny, new and refreshing, really, a blast specially because not to long. One of the game of 2007 for sure with it's original concept, humor and gameplay, even if not my favorite, mainly because I still have a hard time loving any game with a FP view and it took me some time to appreciate the universe because I was expecting a lot from it after all the critics and jokes friends at the office were making (hard not to be too much spoiled when playing a "classic" 6 month after).
Let’s say I "liked", not "loved" it.

You probably heard about the Okami's end credits story everywhere. Once again, The issue of crediting in the games industry is a stupid and still huge deal, even if some standards start to appear.
Well, even if it's not, in a gameplay point of view, changing the quality of the game, I must say that I'm totally disappointed that ex-Clover studio guys are not part of the credits in this wiimake of their own masterpiece...
I would be pissed-of by it if I was them, what a shame :(.

While the two followers are still trying to shout that they have a bigger one than the other. The PC, after Epic, is loosing Crytek for sad reasons:

(..)PC gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more," (..) "It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won’t have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.” (..)

who's next to leave the boat?

Nintendo financial results for 2007 and Analyses of the wii market in particular.



...interesting, way more than "Journalists" last week trying to make a big news every time a president of a 3d graphic engine seller company is speaking about the Wii. It's almost like asking the engineer of the engine of a Ferrari what he think about the new Think (that you should definitly check btw).

Taking an already existing IP and let some other artists, authors and companies tweak and play with it, is not something yet visible a lot in Video-game. Usually, when it come to giving an IP to another company, it's often to ask to copy and stay in the already existing universe as close as possible.



But when I see this kind of project, I cannot help myself thinking about how cool it must be to be able to redo from "your" point of view an existing universe with enough liberty of course to please both teams (original people owning the IP and the team in charge of renewing it).


(Jak by Carlo)
And at the same time, I understand how frustrating this peharps might be to work three years for something you don't really own at the end because it's not yours anyway... After all, if you have good ideas, why not just creating your own IP that you will control (and be rewarded for) a little bit more.

US March Software sales from NPD:
GOD OF WAR: CHAINS OF OLYMPUS: 340.500
Not that bad... I hope that it will not drop down too fast and become a long seller like Daxter did, and that Europe and Japan will perform as well too :).

What better review can you have than this one ?!


second part here

"Booooom, this game is Crazy!"
should be a stiker on the box.
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