nwest

The other thing they forgot:

A fanboy will never be a true gamer. A true gamer owns all major consoles and plays all the great games.

I've seen this ad about 10 times in the last few months so whenever I see it anymore, I just turn the page. It's kind of annoying now. Precious space in my beloved game magazines is taken up by the same ad every time! Also the ad is kind of boring. Nice visuals, though.

That trailer looks awesome! I can't believe how true it is to the first game. The only thing I see that's really different is that the main character is a woman, whereas in Silent Hill (for the PS1) it was about a dad looking for his missing daughter in the town. They even have the creepy alternate elementary school. And the music! They pulled it straight from the game! That music still sends chills up my spine when I hear it.

The most memorable bosses I've ever played were in what little I was able to play of Shadow of the Colossus. Such an awesome game! As for the most difficult boss, I'd have to say the giant troll in the lava arena of Ratchet and Clank. But Shadow of the Colossus still takes the cake. I hope I win!

In response to Todd, Sony denied last month that there would be DRM protection on PS3 disks. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out I would be able to buy and sell used PS3 games. Here's the link:
http://www.playfuls.com/news_3827.html

The last I heard, the PSP and DS were pretty much neck and neck, at least in the US. What does that tell you, if the PSP costs nearly twice as much as the DS? I think the PSP will overtake the DS in the US as soon as they get a good killer app (maybe GTA:LCS will do it), and they lower the price.

On the console front, I honestly don't think the 360 will do all that well in the long run. Sure, you have Halo 3 and Xbox Live, but in just about every other aspect, the PS3 is the better machine. It doesn't help that Microsoft shot themselves in the foot by trying so hard to be first to launch. They were trying to get the holiday sales rush, but that doesn't do any good if there are no consoles to buy. I also think that not supporting a next-gen DVD format is really going to kill them in the long run. Imagine playing the next GTA, and when you want to go to another section of the city, you have to pop out disc 2 and stick in disc 4. That'd be really annoying. GTA: San Andreas already fills up a DVD-9, the highest capacity current-gen DVD format. It's obvious Microsoft didn't want to have to choose between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, because they didn't want to be wrong about which one would win the format war. (And of course, they couldn't choose Sony's Blu-Ray format...that would just help the competition). So instead, they decided to just use current DVDs which are already filled to capacity. Developers do not like that at all.

Another thing that's going to kill Microsoft is the choice to not include a hard-drive with the core system. If you want any backwards compatibility at all, you'll have to either buy the premium package, or get yourself a hard drive. But even then, backwards compatibility is not all it's cut out to be. Only Halo and Halo 2 will be playable without any special driver downloads. What's worse, a lot of the best Xbox games won't even be playable on your 360. If you take a look at the backwards compatibility list (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm) you'll notice the absence of the following games:

Full Spectrum Warrior, Splinter Cell 1-3, Burnout 1-3, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Soul Calibur 2, Psychonauts, Panzer Dragoon Orta, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, TimeSplitters 2, Beyond Good & Evil, Doom 3, SSX Tricky, The Warriors, King Kong, SSX On Tour, Project Gotham Racing 1-2 (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/666/666404p1.html).

There are games on the backwards compatibility list I've never even heard of, or would ever play in my life, but they leave out great games like the Burnout series, Splinter Cell and Doom 3??? They really need to get their priorities straight.

As for Nintendo, I would not count them out. Sure, the hardware won't be as good as the 360 or PS3, but is that really what gaming is about? Is it not a good game if it doesn't have really cool shader effects, and HD output? Nintendo is a gaming company, and what they know best is how to make games. I, personally, am looking forward to the Revolution, simply because it'll be a new and different way to play games. Imagine being able to have a swordfight, and the controller is the sword! Or swinging the controller like a baseball bat to hit a ball on screen. The Revolution controller, at least for me, is the first controller to allow you to get into the game as if you were actually there. I'm sure many others will disagree with that statement, but that's my opinion. With regard to the console war, legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto himself said, "We don't really look at it as a competition between ourselves and the other manufacturers" (Game Informer, issue 152). It may not beat the other systems, but it'll sure be fun to have in addition to your PS3 or Xbox 360.