Be afraid

BOREDOM! No more babes! They all went out to get some more energy drinks, I'm beyond unstoppable, baby.

So I guess we could talk about games, yeah? No? Screw you. Games it is, then. Allow me to give my impression on the three new consoles that are or will soon be available for purchase.

First up is the Xbox 360. It's been available for quite some time now, should be blowing out its first birthday candle soon. Just before launch, I played some games on the machine and I was pretty impressed by the likes of Kameo. An with 'by the likes of' I actually mean 'just'. Unfortunately, the 360 has no interesting games for me. OMG DUDE CHECK TEH LINE UP YOU MOTHER[Now now, no swearing around here! Take yer business elsewhere!]ER! Yeah, pretty solid line-up. Some shooters like Gears of War, some RPGs like, well, whatever their names are, some more shooters, some soccer games, a few action games involving a lotta shooting and Viva Piñata. A game that doesn't seem to make any sense at all, so obviously I like that one. The rest of the games make my balls cry with dissapointment. Now there, there. The girls will be back soon, don't worry.

[high-pitched voice] HOORAY!

... Did my balls just shout at me?... Anyway, I have no interest whatsoever in the 360. I bought the Xbox back in the day when Ninja Gaiden came out and I have pretty much regretted that decision every day since. Should have bought a PS2, I would have been playing Guitar Hero right now! PS2 still has a solid line-up going, even well into 2007. A little too much RPGs for my taste, but hey, it's got Guitar Hero. It's hard to complain about a console that has Guitar Hero. So in the near future, I will stop complaining about the 360. But not yet, I don't like the damn thing. Now, on to TEH COMPETITION!!!!

Sony's PS3 - Expensive machine with loads of features I don't intend to use anytime soon. HD-support obviously, with the legendary 1080p resolution which will apparently rock our underpants straight from our balls and make us feel like Angelina Jolie is eating anything between your legs if you play games on one of their € this-number-is-so-high-I-won't-even-bother! telly sets. And Blu-Ray obviously, the next-gen disc format. Just like the Minidisc and Betamax? Let's hope not. Couldn't care less which format makes it, although it seems HD-DVD is getting a pretty nice headstart these days. Anyway, I won't throw away my dvd collection and I, with my 'OLOLOL, NO HD - THAT IS TEH LAST GENZ0R!!!!!- standard television, have no need of a new disc just yet.

But anyway, the PS3 as a gaming machine. Some cool games. Assassin's Creed, the Naughty Dog Project, Afrika, maybe Lair and Metal Gear Solid 4. Not quite enough to get me excited enough to spend €600 on the bloody thing, so I won't expect to get one until after a few price drops. The PS3 may be cheap compared to stand-alone Blu-Ray players, which cost up to €1000 (that's a lotta ho'z!), but as a gaming device is is way too expensive for my taste. To be honest, I would advise everyone who is willing to pay €600 for a bloody gaming console to rethink your f[Haaaaaaaaaaaay Dee Hay Doooo Hay Da!]ing lifestyle! It's not bloody healthy. Spend it on stuff to buy for your friends and family, go hang out with 'em or something. GIVE IT TO ME FFS! Don't. Spend. All. That. Precious. Money. On. Video. Games. At least spend it on beer, so you look cool. Jesus. Anyway. Might consider a PS3 after it's reached a reasonable price (don't give me this '600 is a reasonable price' crap, you're out of your goddamn minds), 'cause my bet is it will have the best line-up amongst the three new consoles. Next-gen Kingdom Hearts and Guitar Hero for the win!

So, on to Wii then. I used to be very excited about the whole new controller thing, but lately my enthusiasm hasn't been going anywhere but downhill. The E3 conference was pretty good, but I couldn't help thinking: is this it? Especially the graphics were rather dissapointing. Which one might find ironic, since I don't fancy the whole HD next-gen graphics from PS3 and 360 very much. But that's probably 'cause I don't have one of those fancy televisions. Anyway, wandering off. Yeah, the graphics of all the Wii games were way worse than I had expected. 'But Wii isn't about graphics, it's about TEH GAMEPLAY!' So far I haven't really seen much proof for that statement. The legendary Red Steel controls like a pile of dung it we can believe some hands-on impressions, 'next-gen FPS controls ftw!' indeed. However, it seems that Metroid Prime: Corruption, which sadly hardly looks better than the GameCube games visually, has gotten a new control method which is ace and feels very intuitive. There is hope still, but don't expect the first really decent FPS until way down in 2007, perhaps even 2008 considering how Nintendo loves to sting our balls with release delays.

Of course there are some fun games on the Wii. Wario Ware beats all when it comes to complete and utter craziness and pointlesness, so I adore that game already. Rayman Raving Rabbits seems to involve shootin rabbits and doing other dangerous stuff with them, so that might be fun. But honestly, where are the real games? It's fine with me if you want to go all 'fun for everyone, easy accesible' Nintendo, but at least give the old crowd something they like. On launch we have very little decent, let's call them full, games like the ones we've been playing this generation. In fact, the only one I can think of is The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Which is, let's not argue about it, a GameCube game with new controls. Most of the launch line-up consists of stuff like Wii Sports or those dodgy Spongebob games. Nothing that will keep you hooked to your screen for hours at a time. Guess we'll have to wait until 2007 for those kind of games. Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Super Smash Bros Brawl. And... that's pretty much it. An trust me, you can expect at least two of those to be late 2007 releases. Come on, it's Nintendo, we know it's going to happen.

Perhaps I'm being pessimistic. I mean, there is a huge hype for the Wii. Newspapers and magazines such as TIME are reporting about the innovative stuff the new Nintendo console will bring and a lot of people seem to be prepared to join the fun. Let's hope all of them stick to their word, because if they don't, we'll have the GameCube all over again. A pretty mediocre launch, some months of almost no new game releases, and people giving up hope because Nintendo only releases four or five big titles a year. A dead console within a year of existence. Let's hope that does not happen, I want to play Guitar Hero on my Wii and I want the console to blow my babes' bikinis right off. Now wouldn't that be nice.

There is hope. Hmm, I said that somewhere before. If Nintendo does the same thing they did with the DS, their chances of getting back in the game are huge. Let me make myself clear. The DS didn't have a very good launch, the best game being a N64 port and all of that. But in the next half year, we got masterpieces such as Meteos, Sonic Rush, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Advance Wars: Dual Strike etc. Now let's look at this year's Q4 line-up for the DS:

Megaman ZX, Contact, Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, Children Of Mana, Elite Beat Agents, Yoshi's Island 2, Final Fantasy III, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Kirby: Squeek Squad, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, Lunar Knights, ...

That's the best end-of-the-year line-up for any of the gaming platforms out there, hands down. The DS is my favourite gaming platform ever, I love it to bits. If Nintendo can make the Wii anything like the DS, I will be happy again. But they'll have to get RedOctane to bring Guitar Hero to their console, so I have no more reason for doubt. If they release the controller that is, the world would implode if it turned out they decided to play the Wii version on the bloody remote. It's not even possible, so let's keep them fingers crossed. Come on RedOctane, I'll buy whoever composes those tracklists a beer if you bring Guitar Hero to Wii! Make me happy, or suffer the consequences.

[Enter Stewie Griffin]

Yeah, be afraid, bitch.

[Exit Stewie Griffin]

I didn't quite make the point I was trying to make when starting this post but hey, at least I started writing for a reason this time. Be happy, you tits.

Aah girls, come in!