Before we were even conscious of it, that continuity which stalks all good men placed its dark mark on today's submission. Can't be helped, I guess. It certainly wasn't our intention on Monday to do a series where Gabriel sits on a deck chair for three days.
In a startling deviation from form I laid down preorders on those Playstation Portable games I most craved, because I'm honestly worried about a Cabbage Patch-esque trampling come Friday. The game elements are obviously important to me - you might have heard about this website I run - but I've really started to focus my fantasy life on the portable video elements. As I say every time I have the opportunity, I have a plus to save versus gadgets. But if I'm buying a game machine and the gadgets come along with, well, I can hardly be blamed for it.
I've seen Archos products, and felt a stirring I quickly suppress. But I don't need forty or eighty or however many gigs of portable shows, crunched down for that screen I only need maybe one gig, or less. SanDisk has been making memory stick products cheaper than Sony's own for a while at this point, and I haven't read any complaints, but in anticipation of the PSP they're launching a line of garishly colored memory sticks with gamers in mind - in Lavender Void, Napalm, Apple Lozenge and Lemon Chiffon Suicide.
Historically, internal Sony politics have managed to cripple each media player the company makes, either by restricting the types of files played or requiring that the files be encased in their own encryption. Consumers appear to have come out on top this round, and it's essentially turnkey to get your shit on there. PSP Video 9 is a completely free program that will handle all your conversion and copying needs, I heard about that last week somewhere on 1up I think. It gets hotter - check this out, I saw it on Gizmodo. There's a program called Videora - written by the same guy as the other program - that acts as a kind of RSS aggregator for Bit Torrents. Taken together, these programs can automate pretty much the entire Goddamn (or, in the case of video, "Gundam") procedure.
My body has literally been vibrating all week with anticipation, the PSP is the primary motivator, but virtually every facet of this hobby is sparkling at the moment. Rebuilt the machine this weekend with ill-advised Fry's booty. Timesplitters and God of War this week - truly, the Q1 Christmas is in full swing. On God of War, I was really glad to hear that the game I saw at last year's E3 wasn't just a stylish, elaborate demo. I couldn't wait for Demon Stone after a non-playable reel one year, and it didn't exactly land on both feet. There are lots of fast-paced 3D brawlers that adhere to the form "X May Cry" and dish out their predictable mutants and combos. What I've seen distinguishes itself largely through fluid, custom animations and what amounts to "interactive cinemas" that let unbelievably cool shit happen without wresting control from the player.
E3 has a gaming art exhibit called Into the Pixel that is looking for submissions, if any "industry cats" would like in on it - information is available here. We saw it last year, and it was a nice change of pace from the rest of the skullcrushing media onslaught - but I think they should expand this section a bit. There's more interest than they realize.
(CW)TB out.
i don't know but i've been told
