John Zeitler

In less than twenty-four hours, the secrets to the next year of gaming will be laid bare.

Three companies– and dozens more waiting in the wings– are all betting the next twelve months on the spectacle and glamour of the next five days’ travails in Los Angeles.

Fanboys will bicker. Promises will be made, kept– and broken. And in the end, the only way to win is to play the games.

So, gamers, I ask you one simple question.

Are you in? Or are you out?

Step One: Set up your favorite RSS reader to download headlines only from your various game news resources. I prefer Google Reader on a main computer, with Byline being the best option I’ve found on the iPhone (it has bi-directional sync with GReader, too, so I don’t have to reread anything).

Step Two: Set up page-blocking software on your browser– again, I use LeechBlock on Firefox, you might want to use something else– to prevent yourself from reading the news directly on those sites you have set up in the RSS reader.

Step Three: Sit back and enjoy the important parts of the news without having to suffer through the complaining of the four-year-olds bragging that their console is the best, or the mentally challenged people who would disparage anyone who doesn’t fit their sickeningly narrow description of what a “gamer” is.

Step Four (optional): two weeks after E3 ends, undo the page-blocking and reread the articles, disregarding the comments entirely as they will be without merit and will be stale anyway.

That’s my plan, anyway.

I’m a little frustrated that there’s still no official word on when Cave Story Wii is coming out; I’ve been trying to keep track of the release dates as soon as possible, and there would certainly have been a storm of tweets on the subject once I did discover its presence. The root of the problem is that, with only a few exceptions, the week’s WiiWare releases are known only once the store updates at noon on Monday. There’s little chance to plan ahead; even if Nintendo would just go ahead and mention them at closing time the Friday before, it would make life a lot simpler.

The good news is that for this coming week, we know what the WiiWare game is going to be well in advance. The not-entirely-bad news is that it’s Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. All things considered, let’s call that an even break.

Argh. Long day made longer by random stupidity. I’ll try to be more coherent tomorrow.

I certainly don’t mind having to do investigative work at my job when something goes wrong. To tell the truth, I kind of like it. But when I’m told to waste three days answering a question that other people already answered, which also matched my answer last week when you asked me the first time, I think I’m perfectly justified in wearing my sunglasses for the remainder of the day, and cranking The Who on the way home. After all that frustration, who wouldn’t want to… *switch glasses* raise some Caine?

YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH~

…there’s a story behind that title that I don’t care to explain right now.

Don’t know if anyone read my little spiel about E3 yesterday, but bear in mind that I wrote my complaints about Konami around 7p. Here, twenty-four hours later or so, Bemanistyle breaks some fascinating news that Pop’n Music was registered with the US Patent Office.

I’m warning you, Konami. You’re on your last strike (not supporting Beatmania US properly was Strike One, and the junk-slap that was Beat’n Groovy was Strike Two). F$%# this up and we’re through. I mean it.

It seems sort of funny to think that E3 is almost upon us. Three years ago I was barely able to handle the anticipation as I approached the West Coast for the first (and so far only) time; then, for two years, E3 was an anticlimax, a non-starter. No truly massive news came out of those conferences, partly because of the scaling-back, but mostly because the two new platforms– the Wii and the PS3– were still in their feeling-out phases. Only Microsoft was able to deliver with bombshell news, and even then it was only last year at their pre-E3 conference.

As it turns out, most of the big news for E3 doesn’t come at the actual show itself, but from ( the press briefings the big three show immediately prior to Day One… » )

Yeah, so much for consistency. On the bright side, unlocking weapons in Team Fortress 2 is both easier and more irritating.

But now I have the Sandvich. So everything is all right.

Yesterday and today were rough, and I have been getting less and less sleep (though that should change now that I’m out of the worst of the weirdness with my work schedule). Please forgive the missed post, and I’ll try to be more consistent over the long weekend, both with my gaming, writing, and sleeping. Later.

No, I’m not. I know what that title would lead you to believe, but no carnivorization for me.

Instead I learned an important lesson today about cooking. Udon does not get made in a crock pot over fourteen hours for a very good reason.