E3 Roundup

If you don't already know, I'm on a blog called The Catholic Geeks.

As opposed to my radio show called the Catholic Geek, singular.

Anyway, I did a whole bunch of blogs on E3 this week, that make for a nice collection of upcoming games.

Enjoy.

Microsoft Opens strong at E3
Halo 5: Guardians
Recore   New IP
New controllers
Dark Souls III: Die Hardest.
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
Tom Clancy’s The Division

Rise of the Tomb Raider Gameplay at E3
Dedicated to one game. Only.

Fallout 4 at E3
Yup. Fallout is back.

E3 Is Doomed.
YAWN.  Doom is back

Dishonored ... Again

Super Smash Bros.

Playstation Event Fights Back with Exclusives

The Last Guardian -- new IP .... first announced 8 years ago.
Horizon: Zero Dawn -- new IP
Hitman
Street Fighter V
No Man’s Sky -- new IP
Dreams -- new IP
Firewatch -- new IP
Destiny: The Taken King.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate .... sigh.  AGAIN
Final Fantasy 7. The Remake.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Star Wars: Battlefront
Uncharted 4

Ubisoft wages war For Honor

War For Honor -- a new IP

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

EA Brings back Mass Effect and Mirror’s Edge

...And Star Was: BattleFront

Square Enix Blows Up E3

Hitman

Just Cause 3

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Kingdom Hearts

Deus Ex

Nintendo isn't dead yet, With

Xenoblade Chronicles

Star Fox Zero

Super Mario Maker

Video Games: the Next Generation?

I try not to make this a blog for solely my own personal opinions, I have another blog for that, but I read an article last week that kinda annoyed me. I deeply appreciate the artwork, the graphics, and even the storytelling of some games. The graphics of the upcoming Lara Croft game, or the storytelling of the Mass Effect trilogy, could go toe to toe with movies, and could certainly replace some actors.  I mean, seriously, look at the video below.
  

  

How long did it take you to see that this was NOT live action?

But for all that, there’s been an ongoing debate in the video game community that goes something like this – the last round of major video game consoles came out in 2005 (the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3), and the technology has advanced soooo much since then, surely it is time to move on.

You might smell a bit of burning rubber at this point. That’s my brain hitting the brakes hard and going “huh?”

When the Xbox 360 came out, game companies needed to increase their hired programmers tenfold as games transitioned to HD. The PS3 came out at the same time, and it came out in Blu-ray, which was even higher definition, and made the costs of making games so prohibitive that it took years before the PS3 had a solid roster of games.

But now the game companies themselves insist that the next generations of consoles must come out, so they can use the latest and greatest technologies. Their logic is that they’re losing money because their games are not as shiny as they could be.

Really, everybody? First, I quite literally don’t know what I’m missing. So I can’t see how I can be biased against your games because there’s something better out there – because, as the companies themselves have noted, there isn’t anything better than the current generation. Is there really a problem with getting the most out of the technology we have?

Let’s take a look. To the right, this is the original Xbox game Halo: Combat Evolved. Dinky by today’s standards, but I remember when I saw it and said, “Awesome.” It’s still a nice looking game.

Fast forward ten years. There was a rerelease of the original game with Xbox 360 technology, and it was called, to no one’s great surprise, Halo: Combat Evolved. Anniversary.  

You can see the difference. The position of the body isn’t as stiff, the graphics are more detailed, the colors are richer. It is visibly better.

And now, finally, we look at Halo 4, using the exact same Xbox 360 graphics. It already looks like they’ve gone through another generation already.




Here’s a side by side or two, just to make it even clearer.

I’m hard pressed to imagine how anyone could think that we’ve hit the limit of the current generation of gaming technology, since Halo 3 and Halo 4 are the same generation. Will the next round look even better? Of course. My question is – is there a rush?

Second, could there be another reason why companies are losing money? Let’s think about this a moment. Their video games are $60, or $70, brand new. They’re not cutting costs on the games, and with gaming seasons that have over a dozen new, top-shelf games coming out at the same time, do they seriously expect people to drop over $700 on their products? Does anyone have $700 just lying around anymore?

I think I would rather pay $14, or even $30, on a used game – games that the distributors like Gamestop make money on, but the original publishers don’t. There have been so many games played that way, there has been talk of making video games non-sellable my giving out a one-time code that make the game unusable to anyone else.  If you want to trash the video game industry, make it impossible to play used games.)

So, what is the problem with the current generation of consoles? Well, let's see -- coding has filtered down to street level. Anyone who knows what they're doing with a computer can probably start putting together their own game -- and anyone with a Kickstarter account can finance it. Low-rent competition is good for the soul.

Maybe I'm just a backwards Catholic, who acknowledges that progress is cumulative. You can't get to point Z while simultaneously jettisoning point A-Y -- Catholics throw out nothing. Don't believe me? Look at the Vatican archives sometime. But most atheists, so-called "progressives" (of all sides of the spectrum), and now the video games, try throwing out everything from the past, and hope really hard that no one else will remember it either -- be it how many atheist regimes disintegrate, or how truly dark the "Dark Ages" could have gotten without the Catholic church.

I prefer to get the most out of what's there than try to move on and pretend that last console (or, on the larger scale, the last few hundred years) didn't happen.

The week in review: Casting, Video Games, Romance, and Music.

This is the second week of the "new" blog for A Pius Man.  While the new posting schedule is not even a whole two weeks old, the blog has already had over six hundred views thus far.

Which means that these two weeks have seen more blog views than all but two months of the blog's entire 13-month run.

So, something's going right.

Check out Dies Irae. Seriously

The first blog entry was a suggestion that, given the technology and the writing of video games nowadays, maybe I should try pitching A Pius Man as one. Okay, maybe not.  In music that day, there was the heavy electric guitar of Dragonforce, with the game soundtrack for Halo, followed by.... Mozart?

Yes, Mozart.

Did I mention that my music posts were going to be a little schizophrenic? No? Sorry about that.

Tuesday's primary blog was a list of my cast, and who should probably play them if the book was ever a) published and b) ever made into a movie.

I was especially interested the more I examined the prospect of Summer Glau as Maureen McGrail.  Dang, that woman can move. Why she hasn't been allowed to really dance since Serenity is beyond me.

That music blog was an introduction to the world of filk with Tom Smith, some more Halo, a bit more Dragonforce, and a heavily violin piece in Cruxshadow's Dragonfly.

And then I discussed more books I read .... Romance? Really? Yes.

But, since this is me, the romance novels I read involve automatic weapons, murder mysteries .... they boil down into novels that have romantic elements, but have been doomed into the romance sections because of lousy, flowery artwork and editors with an inability to give the novels halfway decent names.

Though I am reluctant to argue with a book title like No Mercy.

Wednesday's music blog was a little easier: Two Steps from Hell, a song about the world's first hyper beer, some more Halo and a touch more Dragonforce.

Thursday was almost a recap, musicwise. Tom Smith's Operation: Desert Storm, a new version of an old song, the theme from Doctor Who, and a movie someone made to a Two Steps from Hell piece.

All in all, it was a fun week.  I'll see what I can do about keeping it alive a little longer. The pace isn't too strenuous just yet.

However, I should mention a few things.

At Examiner.com, I did a "how to" article on escaping an arm grab, using attitude as self defense, and an article on my favorite fighting style.

A Pius Man: The Video Game?

I'm starting to think that if I ever wanted A Pius Man to come to a screen, it might be a computer screen.

A while back, I did a blog post on who might play who within a movie for A Pius Man ... a year later, the post needs updating. But that'll be tomorrow.

But, in the long run, it does become a matter of ... well ... why bother? Seriously, even if the novel were picked up tomorrow, and made into a bestselling novel,

Why? Well, I believe that Hollywood is in trouble.

Click the video for a few seconds. About a minute.



This is a video game.