Tales from Comic-Con 2011: Day 0

I have returned from Comic-Con fellow bloggers! I knew for a fact that I wouldn't be able to blog during the trip because I'm out all day and then I sleep and repeat the process. So what I'm going to do instead is tell you everything about my trip over the next few days. Today I'm going to tackle Wednesday, the day we flew out. I also played a few new video games that I will make some separate posts about. This will simply be about the events that took place during Comic-Con, and the panels that I saw.

Day 0: Wednesday


Wednesday morning I woke up at 4 AM. Our flight was at 7 AM and my dad wanted to be at the airport at least an hour and a half before the flight. I should probably explain now that I went to Comic-Con with my sister and my dad. Now after waking up and getting ready to go, we made our to the airport. We didn't have to wait very long before we were able to board and get going.

A few details to mention here before I continue. The first is that a normal flight from Virginia to San Diego is a little bit over five hours. This time around we had a connection to San Fransisco, so the flight was about four hours. The second detail is that I hate traveling, especially flying. I hate long drives, I hate trains, but most of all, I hate flying. It's extremely boring and cramped. I also get super motion sick while traveling. So I can't read books, I can't write, and I can't watch movies or play games. I'm literally confined to my iPod and whatever I've brought on that audio-wise.

Thankfully our flights to San Diego weren't all that bad. We had a bumpy landing at San Diego, but after that all was well. After we gathered our bags we took a cab to the hotel. The hotel we stayed at the last two Comic-Con was the Manchester Grand. It was a fine hotel, but last year we heard that most of the stars attending the show were staying at the Hard Rock Hotel. Naturally, we had to stay there this time and as you'll see later on, it was worth it. On Wednesday we did spy two stars as they arrived at the hotel. We saw Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who played Jamie Lannister, as well as True Blood's Deborah Ann Woll who plays Jessica Hamby. 

Wednesday was all about three things: 1. Flying 2. Badge Pick-Up and 3. Dinner. We'd already accomplished the flying aspect of the day, so next on the list was picking up our four-day badges. Every year Comic-Con allows people who have bought four-day badges (and Thursday badges) to pick them up the day before. The only annoying fact is that the badge pick up is at the Town and Country Hotel, which is a bit of way's out. So in order to save on time my dad decided to get a cab. It seemed like a good idea at first, but as we found out pretty soon, everyone was on the road headed to the Town and Country Hotel. So what should have been a fifteen minute ride at most turned into a half hour ride in traffic.

Finally at the Town and Country, we strolled right in and got in line. After a two hour wait, we had made it all the way through the line and got our swag bags and badges. As we left we noticed a very large line curled around the hotel. The farther we went, the longer the line got. We started to realize that this was the line we were supposed to have gotten on in the first place, and had in fact cut in line originally. Here's the thing though: when we walked in the door there was a hotel staff member standing there, watching the line. He saw us walk in and didn't say a word, he just kept ferrying people in. Whatever the reason though, I'm not particularly sorry about it because a two hour wait could have easily turned into a much longer wait and we were already cutting our dinner reservations close.

Speaking of dinner, that's where we went next! After taking a long train ride back to the convention center, we dropped off our bags and got changed. The restaurant we had reservations at was Ruth Chris Steakhouse. For those that don't know, Ruth Chris Steakhouse is a very expensive, but well worth it restaurant that serves - well - steak. They have the most tender meat I have ever tasted. Attending Ruth Chris Steakhouse is actually a convention tradition of ours, so I've been there a number of times over the past few years. It never gets old.

After that we went back to the hotel. We had never stayed in the Hard Rock before so my dad and I were a bit curious about what was in the rest of the building. They had a few clubs that weren't very active and the second floor is mostly made of conference rooms, so nothing spectacular yet. Once we were done we went up to our rooms. We were wiped from the flights and ready for some rest, especially since we had to wake up early the next day to get into the convention center.

Tomorrow I will blog about our first official day at Comic-Con and how I met a ton of celebrities!

Google+ and the Cosmic Panda

I'm one of these people who loves new tech. From the new iPhone to the redesign of Facebook, I'm all for trying out new features on a phone or new ways to improve social networking. So you'd imagine my excitement when I heard about Google Plus, as well as YouTube's Cosmic Panda.

Google Plus is essentially Google's attempt to do Facebook but better. Cosmic Panda is YouTube's new interface for watching videos and view channels.

While I wasn't able to get into the initial beta of Google Plus, I got in once they opened it to all people who had a Google account. I've had one for years now so that made things pretty easy. When inside I dove right into figuring everything out. I know a lot of people were having trouble in the beginning, but I'd read a lot of initial impressions on Google Plus so I wasn't completely blind.

The main page view of Google Plus.

The most interesting thing about Google Plus so far is the circles feature. The feature is designed so you can separate who sees what whenever you post. For example, I have a circle that separates my friends where I live from my friends on IGN. Maybe I want to post about something that only the IGN folk will understand and vice-versa. There's also the option to just post into the open space of the internet if I wanted to.

Adding people to your Circles is simple.

It's really nice to have this option because I don't have to worry about saying something that may not be understood properly or may not have anything to do with certain people. I now know exactly who is going to see it, so makes creating conversations a lot easier.

Other circles, such as "following" are more like twitter. They help you follow celebrities in the same way that twitter or a fan page on Facebook does. All in all it's a handy feature that's nice to have.

The other two big features of Google Plus are the Sparks and Hangouts. The Sparks page acts exactly like fan pages on Facebook, but for much broader topics. They have things like "movies" and "recipes" on there. It's neat, but I see about as much use for it as I did on Facebook: none. The other problem is that the Sparks is a separate stream all together. While this is nice because it stops the main stream from getting cluttered, I'm not going to actively search out what's new under "movies".

Sparks, while easy to find, are too broad to be interesting.

The last feature, Hangouts, is something I've been unable to try just yet. From the impressions I've read though, it's a worthwhile feature and works much better than Facebook's attempt at Skype integration.

Of course since this is beta, so things don't work exactly as they should just yet. Sometimes when you make changes to your profile, the changes won't stick at first. The same applies to when you add new people to circles. Sometimes the system won't recognize that you've added them and you have to relogin before they appear.

Overall I've been really enjoying my time on Google Plus so far. I currently have less than fifty people between all of my circles, but the small number doesn't bother me. Right now Google Plus is clean and easy to sort through. There's also the lack of a lot of people I wish I hadn't added on Facebook.
Now it's the Cosmic Panda's turn. This is YouTube's new way to view videos and channels. If you look on the main page of YouTube, practically nothing looks different. That's about the only thing that looks the same though. Once you open up a new video screen, everything's changed.

YouTube's new way to view videos.

As you can see from the pic, the view area is more centered now. Everything is a lot less cluttered around the video itself. The only annoying thing is the ad on the side of the video, but going to the third screen size pushes it away. You'll notice the sidebar has the playlists and similar videos list like it did last time, but formatted much neater than before. You get a larger preview of the video instead of a small thumbnail that's impossible to see.

The channels themselves have been cleared up as well. There are now three different templates you can choose from that have separate formatting options depending on what videos you make. There's also a fourth that combines the three. The one you see below is the "Creator" template.

The "creator" template is one of three new ways to have people view your YouTube channel.

You'll notice that the videos are easily displayed, with the playlists below. The right side now has all the bio information and the tabs up top clear up all the subscribers and comments you don't really care to see.

While I'm enjoying the new format so far, I still think the ads right next to the video is obnoxious since most videos have an ad before them already. There's also an annoying side effect where if you click the "like" button while the video is in a larger view format, it goes back to the smaller. It's a bit frustrating, but hopefully that will be corrected when the full update rolls out.

So what about you guys? Have you enjoyed Google Plus? Are you enjoying it? What about YouTube's Cosmic Panda? Do you think this update is better for all of YouTube? Let me know in the comments!

Also, if you've got Google Plus, find me on there! Peter Freeman is where you can find me.

A Trailer Worth Watching: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"

I don't know too much about this movie, other than it takes place during the Cold War and involves a cat and mouse game. The cast itself is worth the price of admission. Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, the list goes on and on.

I'll be keeping an eye on this one. You guys should too.

Release Date: 9/16/11

Uncharted 3 Beta Thoughts

A lot of people have been writing about what they think about the Uncharted 3 Beta so I thought I'd throw mine into the mix as well.

 

So far I'm really impressed by it. I like the new menus, everything is pretty easy to find. Customizing your characters is fun, though so far it looks be rather difficult to unlock new options. Setting up your loadouts is easy, my only gripe is that there are no boosters already unlocked for new players to use. You have buy all of them.

Speaking of boosters, many of them don't seem to be that useful. I've found myself sticking to the very first two you can buy. I think there are one or two much later down the road that may prove useful, but the ones in between have been lacking. This could of course change over time, we've still got quite awhile until the game comes out.

The way the weapons feel is nice, I've been using the burst fire gun (the name escapes me) and it's been working out pretty well so far. The one issue I have is with the shotgun. Its recoil is so hard that you barely have time to fire a second shot before your opponent is completely out of range. So it either needs to be easier to fire, or have a slightly longer range.

The problems with melee have already been explained by Greg Miller's article on IGN and I echo those sentiments. Many times I'll miss my melee attack because I wasn't placed exactly where I needed to be. The same goes for climbing. Even when standing in front of a ladder, I'd bounce off of it once or twice before finally latching on and climbing up.

Another small point is the partner spawning. While awesome in general, occasionally my partner would be against a wall or in cover and when I would spawn I would get stuck in wall. Not fun, lol. Aside from that though the partner spawning is an awesome idea. It makes finding where the action is a lot easier and helps keep you alive instead of getting caught off guard by a group of three enemies.
The two maps are pretty fun. Airfield of obviously the more fun, especially with the opening. The problem is that opening is completely unbalanced. I played both sides of that map and the heroes - who are placed in the plane as it goes to take off - have the clear advantage. On the truck it is terribly hard to aim while the heroes on the plane have a very steady area to fire from. Each time I played that opening my team (or the heroes) were eight to ten points ahead of the other team by the time we took off.

Granted, I know this is a beta and issues are to be expected. Overall though I've been having a very enjoyable experience with the beta. My goal is to hit the level cap (whatever it really is) and get that extra cash for when the game is released. This is definitely something I'm going to be playing a lot of when the full game comes out.

What are your thoughts on the beta? Are you enjoying it so far? What issues have you had with it? Explain away in the comments!

Why I "Hate Nintendo"

I'm going to start this one off by saying that I don't hate, nor love Nintendo. I don't hate/love any of the console makers. Sure I own a PS3 and play the majority of my games on it, but Sony has screwed up just as many times as the other companies. The only big company I take a disliking to is Microsoft because I think they have shady business practices. That's neither here nor there though right now.

I'm not really shocked that people may have this perception that I hate Nintendo right now. I'm pretty down on the OoT re-release because I think it's pretty sad that the only interesting game on the 3DS (aside from SSFIV perhaps) that's worth playing is a game that came out over ten years ago. Slight gameplay changes and "updated" graphics aside, the game is nothing but a glorified collection on a handheld. Don't get me wrong, I understand the significance of OoT and I know it's fantastic game. I simply think the 3DS version is overhyped and overrated. Mind you I would be saying this about any collection/re-release, not just the OoT one.

I also thought their Wii-U unveiling was underwhelming and confusing (and according to Iwata, I'm not the only one). That said, I do not hate the company in any way. They've never cheated me out of my money, advertised falsely (to my knowledge) or anything like that. I knew what I was getting into with the Wii and I don't regret my purchase. I knew I was only going to buy about ten games for the system and I was okay with that. They were ten games I wanted and ten games I enjoyed thoroughly.

In fact, I'm a huge fan of certain aspects of Nintendo. For example, I'm a massive Pokemon fan. I've loved the series ever since I was a kid and if I owned a DS I'd be playing the crap out of Black/White. I'm also a big Super Smash Bros fan. I've spent countless hours playing that game with my friends. I've held tournaments, faced rivals, and so on. The game has been a part of my gaming history since its original release on the N64.

Lately I've also been having a slight change of heart about the Wii-U. I took a second look at the sizzle reel that Nintendo played during their conference. Now while I'll never buy Arkham City for the system, the rest of the games look like they could actually be launch games for the system. Should they carry with them some fantastic use of the controller, I could see myself buying the system and some of those games for that system. Hearing Valve say that they're interested in the system really helped as well. They're one of my favorite developers and I know they would use the controller to its fullest potential.

An Experiment in Reviewing: Portal 2

I'll be honest, I have no idea if this is going to make any sense. I just thought I would give it a try. Let me know what you think!

Portal 2, if the title didn’t tell you, is the sequel to the groundbreaking and highly regarded puzzle game, Portal. Portal was originally released as a part of the Orange Box and has since become a hit across in the industry for its wonderful sense of humor and gameplay mechanics. When Valve announced Portal 2 many wondered if Valve would be able to recreate the magic that made Portal so special.

Portal 2’s gameplay is very much the same as its predecessor. You still use two portals to traverse the game. The difference lies in how you get there. Portal 2 introduces a myriad of new “gameplay mechanics” in forms of light bridges, paint gels, lasers, and jump pads. All of which are fine and dandy, adding a great amount of originality to what I feared may have been a one trick pony.

The bread and butter of Portal 2 though is the story. While Portal had a decent story, it was short and not expanded upon much. Portal 2 gives you everything you could have wanted and more. The game immediately begins with wonderful humor in form of Wheatley, the resident personality sphere voiced by Stephen Merchant. His character is without a doubt one of the funniest in gaming I’ve ever come across.

Add to that the hilarity of J. K. Simmons as Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science and the continued fun of Ellen McLain as GLaDOS and you’ve got yourself a start studded cast that shines from beginning to end. Even the ending, which you can see from a mile away, is fantastic.

When you play Portal 2, you’ll feel like a genius and an idiot within minutes of each other. One puzzle may seem incredibly easy while the other will have you frustrated for hours. The answer is always right in front you though, and you’ll yell at yourself when you realize how obvious the solution was.

The big difference between Portal 2 and other games is how it makes you feel. Sure, other games can draw emotion from you, but it’s rarely a lasting experience. Consider Uncharted 2 for instance, one of my favorite games. By the end of the game I’d felt accomplished and may or may not have had some relief by finally beating the final boss. When it was over though, it was over. I moved on.

Portal 2 was different. It was a game that had made me feel something special. The story it tells makes you feel beyond what normal games have strived for. You will laugh; you will feel sorrow, amazement, and wonder. The end is the culmination of all those feelings. As you rise, you’re serenaded by a batch of crazy turrets, and somehow that encompasses all you’ve done throughout the game. It makes you feel both happy and sad at the same time. Joy for our accomplishments, and sadness that it’s over.

Portal 2 is a game that will make you feel something. It isn’t particularly hard to play, but its fun and is something special. It’s worth experiencing.
And that’s all we want, right?

The Case for Nintendo Buying Ubisoft

The Wednesday of E3 there was a Nintendo developer roundtable, in fact it was the second the company had held during E3. The first was about the Wii, and 3DS. The second roundtable focused on "third parties". In reality it only focused on one third party company: Ubisoft. Now originally I groaned at this, thinking it was going to be about more Raving Rabbids and so on kind of titles (and it was, don't get me wrong). But when the roundtable began, Iwata took the stage and said "I bet you're all wondering why I'm here right now, introducing Ubisoft." and I went nuts. I thought - for a moment - that Nintendo was going to announce that they had bought Ubisoft and that all their titles would be exclusive to Nintendo systems only.

Could you imagine what a coup that would be for Nintendo? Sure, most Nintendo based Ubisoft titles are awful, quick cash ins. But with this new system's hardware and capabilities, Nintendo would be able to support the hardcore games such as Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, etc etc. Yes, the games will probably be coming to the Wii U anyway, but as third party games. Imagine if they came to the Wii U as first-party games. Suddenly the amount of games that Nintendo has to its system alone skyrockets.

Not only that, Nintendo would finally have a way to draw people in beyond their own staple franchises. This is assuming of course that Nintendo has something resembling an online service, but for argument's sake we'll say the Wii U does. Of course if they owned Ubisoft, maybe they would do the online thing. Either way, such a move would certainly change the landscape of the industry.

Now whether such a move is possible, I have no idea. Ubisoft is publicly traded and all that, so I'm not entirely sure how that would work out. Plus since neither company is American, certain trade laws don't apply. Again, I know nothing of international trade laws and stuff. But we can all dream can't we?

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Nintendo needs to take a step like this? Or are they perfectly fine how they are?