You've got to love Jack Tretton. Well, you don't have to. There's no actual law. Still, though. He's always pulsing with dangerous energy, and doesn't shy from broad declarative statements, which is like the scent of roasting meat to a satirist. It's almost as though commentators were his target demographic!
Righteous fire has been the order of the day ever since Move was announced, first with that Kevin Butler salvo, and now Tretton's suggestion that the technology behind Natal is indistinguishable from that leveraged on the Eye Toy circa 2002. The most recent demos, presented by Stephen Totoro from Kutaco, are some of the best yet from a raw tech perspective. Every other day delivers Microsoft a new kick in the teeth, savage strikes they accept wholly without comment. They've chosen a singularly weird time to develop message discipline.
With God of War firmly in the bag, I have no "home" - no reliable vessel for my leisure hours. Since I left my Battlefield crew for greener pastures, pastures which had the appearance of lush vitality but on examination revealed serrations and other qualities undesirable in ground cover, I have wandered the wide earth in search of stimuli.
3D Dot Game Heroes has been good in this regard.
It's been good in many regards, actually. It's just good. This is probably mean, because it doesn't come out until April, but God Damn. Games offer a broad spectrum of experiences, but it's rare (at least for me) for a game to produce raw delight, pure brain sugar. This must be how my son feels, powerless to avert his eyes from the taffy puller. Dot Game Heroes secretes globules of honeydew at regular intervals, and my proboscis is always at the ready.
It's candy, in essence: candy optimized by engineers for our distinct palette. 3D Dot Game Heroes also knows it's candy, and is constantly winking at the proceedings. The intro is a thing which is all smut and carnal machinery for devotees of the Adventure RPG form. An immaculate cataloguing of a world which has progressed through every ancient generation of gaming, it reveals a culture where 2D is the traditional way of life - one which converts to 3D by royal decree. I'd say that more or less captures the spirit of the affair. "Inside Baseball" doesn't begin to describe the fractal, perpetually unfolding nature of its appeal to the enthusiast gamer. It bookends the medium beautifully - it captures it, and does it honor.
(CW)TB out.
