Sony had a pretty good show at E3 this year. Visually, the display looked nice, the sounds were loud and crisp, and there were plenty of different games to feast your eyes on. Sensory serendipity. Sony’s booth also had the least wait-time because they had packed in so many different play units by building many of their demo units up rather than out, putting a second story of gaming goodness at the top of the center. If you just wanted to skip the lines and check out some sweet games, Sony was the place to go. While the games are…
Author: Lord Maul
Lord Maul
Dustin Hall is a megalomaniac from the small town of Baldwin in Kansas, now wandering the deserts of Las Vegas in search of new victims. He was probably conceived at a Van Halen concert and raised on a diet of sci-fi and horror movies, fed to him from a disturbingly young age by his uncle. A gamer from a young age, Dustin's brain was shaped by the soft bleeps and bloops of the Atari 2600 and NES. He worked for 10 years as the manager of a game shop, and has owned and played nearly every system known to man. Somehow, this all led to careers in writing and solar engineering. He is also one of the owners of Troll Skull Games.
This year’s E3 had a ton of new announcements and exciting game titles to try out, but the longest lines and biggest questions were all about the new innovations for the system platforms. Microsoft had the Kinect, Sony had the Move and introduced 3-D games, and Nintendo had the 3DS. No doubt, the longest of those lines, and probably the most unexpected development, was that of the 3DS. After wading through hordes of people, we finally got our hands on one. Each of the Big 3’s new centerpieces will have their own close inspection, but for now, meet the…
Tuesday morning, E3 started off with a bang. It was a one-two punch of press conferences with Nintendo and Sony. It’s a toss-up depending on your taste as to which of the big developers ‘won’ E3. A very, very small camp is still behind Microsoft, some like Sony’s presentation, which was certainly not bad, and definitely the most energetic of the three… but for myself, I have to vote Nintendo. My opinion is based on one phrase, casually uttered by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, “Ultimately, gamers care most about games.” Now, maybe it was just the bad taste in my…
My gut reaction: E3 Preliminaries: We R Dissapoint Its Day 0 at the E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles. The demo floor isn’t open, so while a few booth display photos have leaked out (things like the upcoming Castlevania DLC for 360 Arcade), we really don’t know what we’re going to find out there. We all got a taste today, however, when Microsoft and developer Ubisoft held early press conferences to show off their new goods a day before the competition. But that taste so sweet in my imagination, ended up being that of bitter, bitter disappointment. I know now…
There are so many franchise games being put out there these days. So many. Hollywood and Video Game makers are similar in that regard; they are ever on the lookout for remakes and adaptations they can make because its cheaper to run off of an existing fan-base than to advertize a new idea. Sometimes it works (Batman: Arkham Asylum) and sometimes it fails horribly (Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game). And despite those failures, we keep buying in, time and time again, for the hope that this time we’ll see our heroes done right. After all, there’s nothing more fun…
Today, I’m here to talk with you about a member of our Game Show crew who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for all his hard work. First, a little set up. In many ways, BreakmanX is like the Beatles of video game podcasts. Break is our Paul McCartney (pixie-like and whimsical), Q is our Lennon (Brooding, and his wife will one day want her own segment on the show, and it will cause turmoil), Richie is George Harrison (because I need it to fit with this analogy), and I’m Ringo Star because I came in last as was a fill…
Monday was my day to post, but since Break posted his announcement, I decided to let my mind’s energies collect and post twice today. Now, that might seem to be a greedy land-grab for front-page real estate, but I have my reasons. We have a couple of topics to talk about today, and both of them need to be addressed before they became dated. First is the initial review of Mario Kart Wii, which preceded this article. Second, and you’ll have to excuse the blog-like nature of the beast, is this very write-up, which covers the LAN party, and all…
My most recent gaming adventures have taken me back down memory lane. After years of soul-tormenting nightmares, I sat down to confront my fears and take on the irrational challenge of Castlevania 2, Simon’s Quest. While I was playing this game, and discovering, after about 22 hours of mind-numbing questing, that I was making the game out to be much harder than it really was (it’d be very easy, had the translation for the villagers’ texts not been so poor) that I came across a series of ads for NES games from that same era. Ah, budding Nintendo. Its such a…
Where-in Maul recounts his holiday, makes a bold fashion statement, and has a day of it with his favorite physician. I only got one Wii game for Christmas, but it was Mario Galaxy, so I was happy enough with that. My family, typically rife with squabbles during the holidays, were all joined together to revel in Wii Sports multiplayer activities; later, my youngest cousin and I delved into the Mushroom kingdom to gather star bits. Beyond the game, though, I did get one other game-related piece of paraphernalia: Don’t worry, I was careful to make sure the mighty Mini-Maul was…
YO! It’s the mean machine — Gonna rock the town without bein’ seen Have you ever seen a Maul Get Down? — Slammin’ Jammin’ to the new swing sound Yeah, everybody let’s move — Vanilla is here with the new Jack Groove Gonna rock, and roll this place — With the power of the Game Show bass Iceman, ya know I’m not playin’ — Devistate the show while Darth Maul be sayin: Maul-ya, Maul-ya RAP! Maul-ya, Maul-ya RAP! Ten Games I play more often than is healthy: Chrono Trigger Castlevania Symphony of the Night Mega Man 2 Mike Tyson’s Punch…