E3 is going on in Los Angeles, and the world's video game makers are showing off some very cool stuff. I watched a few videos from E3, and some of the things that have been created are mind-blowing.

Microsoft has been promoting their Xbox 360. It is supposed to take online gaming to a new level, with integrated online storefront, content creation, video chat, voice chat, wireless, and more.

I think enabling people to sell content they've created will open up a huge portal to the creative efforts of a diverse collection of gamers. This sort of thing has been done on PCs for a while, and it's nice to see it happen on a console.

The Xbox 360 can play music and video streamed from your PC, wirelessly. That is breaking new ground for a console system.

The graphics I saw were incredible. I am very eager to play games with full dynamic lighting and physics. I even have dreams about being inside a game, and the kind of graphics my dreaming brain produces are starting to become able to be rendered by a machine in real time, albeit not at quite the same resolution (how many pixels can someone imagine anyway?)

MicroSoft has said they are aiming for a billion people to use their new online network. That is an insanely powerful idea, it's like an Internet inside the Internet, with more of a human touch. I hope they reach their goal, but it seems unrealistic.

The Playstation 3 was also very amazing. Sony has revealed that the PS3 Cell Processor has 8 cores, each running at 3.2ghz. That is a lot more power than most computers have, which are just starting to come in dual core flavors. Imagine that a game system about the size of a DVD player can do more computing than the full blown computer you are using now. That is a testament of the game industry's power to innovate.

I hope IBM/Sony make cell processors available to PC manufacturers, which would seriously upset the AMD/Intel battle. It would be a great advancement to mankind, bringing powerful tools of creation, communication, and entertainment into homes around the world.

Kameo: Elements of Power is an Xbox 360 RPG/adventure game. I've been able to play it because my brother let me borrow his Xbox 360 for a while, along with Kameo and Project Gotham Racing 3. Kameo stars a young Elf girl who is on a quest to save her family from her evil sister. Her family is the royal family that lives in the Enchanted Kingdom, which is under attack by a horde of trolls and it's king Thorn. Thorn is being used by Kameo's sister to usurp the power they hold.

The game begins in Thorn's castle. Kameo initially has the ability to transform herself into 3 elemental warriors. Each warrior has it's own unique abilities. Major Ruin is an armadillo type creature that can roll into a ball. Chilla is an ice monster that can throw ice and climb walls. Pummel weed is a plant that can sneak between cracks. In each level you must use the special abilities to pass obstacles and defeat your enemies.

Thorn's castle is a huge monstrosity filled with fire and trolls. It has many ramps which require Major Ruin's rolling ability. My initial impression of the graphics I saw at this point was that it was impressive, but not a huge step above the Xbox. Later I found other levels really contained scenes of beauty, and lots of attention to detail.

After completing Thorn's castle, Kameo ends up at the Mystic's training building in the Enchanted Kingdom. The mystic guides Kameo through the story. After completing her training, which consists of very simple tasks using the controller, Kameo aquires a book called the Wotnot. This book keeps track of Kameo's progress, and contains the game's configurations.

I particularly like the Mountain Falls town. The water has a really appealing quality to it, the way it shimmers and shines. When you go underwater the fish and plants look very lifelike. Every town has colorful characters, which you can see and hear them interacting with each other. The towns feel full of life. Every area changes between day and night, watching the transition is fascinating.

In between doing things in these different locales, Kameo must save the day in a large scale battle in the badlands, which connects the various areas. The battles appear to have hundreds of elves and trolls fighting, and have a magnificent sense of scale. It's fun being amongst all the action, but Kameo must perform some objective to save her kingdom.

As of this writing, I have progressed to the Snow Top Village. I eagerly await my next explorations. If you have an Xbox 360, I highly recommend Kameo:Elements of Power.

A few weeks ago I was reading some blog and I came across this thing called exer-station that really caught my interest. The exer-station is a device that you can plug into your xbox, playstation 2, or gamecube, and use it to play games. It has two handles, an LCD screen, and some buttons. The handles are connected to a bar which is connected to a platform you sit on. To steer in a game, you push on the handles in the direction you want to go. The handles don't actually move, because the device measures the force you exert on the handles. This is called isometric exercise. You can adjust the amount of force required to move. According to everything I've read, you can get quite a workout with the exer-station, and it's more expensive counterpart, the kilo-watt.

This concept fascinates me. I plan on getting an exer-station to work on increasing my upper-body strength. I'll write about it in my blog when I do. Click on this if you want to work out while playing your games.

http://www.powergridfitness.com

A while ago I stumbled upon a game called Grow, where you drag some strange objects onto a globe and watch them change. Grow is one of several games on a website called eyezmaze. Eyemaze is a site featuring the flash games of a Japanese guy who obviously has a vivid imagination.

http://www.eyezmaze.com

I showed this site to Dani, and she found a game on there called Tontie. Tontie is a whack-a-mole type game that becomes quite challenging. There are 9 squares in which different characters or objects pop up. You use the number pad on your keyboard to make the hammer whack the corresponding square. The basic enemy is a one-eyed character with a spike on it's head, which I'm assuming is called a Tontie. When you hit these guys, the platform it's standing on lowers. Sometimes you get coins or hearts when you hit them. If you miss a Tontie, you lose some life. To pass a level you must stay alive until the timer runs out and all the Tonties are gone.

Each level introduces a new thing to contend with, and the platforms come up faster. Sometimes a store pops up where you can buy stuff with your coins. You start with a red pikopiko hammer, which you can upgrade to a bronze, silver, or gold hammer.

On level 10 there is a boss character you must destroy to pass the level. At first Dani and I could not beat this guy, but now it seems easy. But Dani is the true Tontie master. She plays Tontie every day when she wakes up, and gets to level 20 every day. Level 20 is incredibly difficult. One day, when I was asleep, Dani beat level 20, which is the end. She woke me up and told me about it. The trick is to get to level 20 without using any continues, then the last boss starts with greatly reduced life.

I thought maybe Dani would stop playing Tontie if she beat it, but she is still playing. It's funny hearing the silly theme song and sound effects every day.

If you'd like to play a silly but challenging game, check out Tontie at the eyezmaze website.

http://www.eyezmaze.com

It was my 28th birthday a little over a week ago. My little brother Garett got me a Nintendo DS Lite and New Super Mario Bros. It was a nice surprise.

The DS Lite is a smaller version of the original DS with a brighter screen. It has 2 screens in a case that folds like a clamshell. The lower screen is a touch screen, which adds a whole new dimension to gaming. The DS has 2 speakers, with a surround mode that sounds pretty good. It has a built in microphone for voice commands, a headphone jack, and a AC adapter port. It has a rechargable battery that is supposed to last 15-18 hours on the dimmest screen brightness.

When I turned on my DS for the first time, it had me go through some setup screens, like setting the time and date, choosing a profile name and color, and choosing some other preferences. After that it shows a default screen when it is turned on. The top screen has a clock and calendar, the bottom screen has buttons with different functions.

There is a built in picto-chat program, which can be used to chat wirelessly with other DS's. I wish the DS came with more built in programs, such as a notepad, ebook reader, and a scheduler. It would also be nice to have some built in apps that use the Nintendo Wifi connection, like a web browser or instant messenger.

New Super Mario Bros is a side-scrolling game that has elements from the 2D Mario games of the past. It has 8 worlds to explore. The world map is drawn in 3D, and is simular to the map style in Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World.

The levels are drawn in classic 2D style, with updated backgrounds. Mario and some elements use polygonal models to enable some effects, such as the giant Mario. The graphics are drawn in typical Nintendo style, with bright colors and cute characters.

Every level has 3 coins you can collect, to open special paths with require spending 5 coins. If you miss some coins you can always replay a level to try to find them. There are red and green mushroom houses in many of the special paths. In the green houses you can get up to 10 extra lives by hitting a sequence
of blocks.

New Super Mario Bros. also has 18 minigames that are mostly played using the stylus. There are some creative uses of the stylus, such as using it to aim a slingshot, or draw trampolines. Dani has been playing these mini-games every day.

There is also a 2 player mode, which I haven't used because I don't know anyone with a DS.

Overall, my DS lite is a very fun toy. I look forward to getting some more games for it. I think I'll start with Mario Kart DS and Metroid Hunters. Brain Age also looks interesting. I hope Nintendo makes a full featured painting cartridge, and more educational games. I think the creative and educational potential of the DS has not been fully realized yet.

I have purchased a few new video games over the last month or so. Here is a little info on each of them.

I bought Bioshock for PC on it's release date, right after I got off work. Bioshock is set in 1960 in an underwater city called Rapture. Something has gone horribly wrong there, it appears to have something to do with the rampant genitic modifications performed there. The environment is really well done, it really seems to fit with the time peroid.

Bioshock plays like a first person shooter, but you can use powers from plasmids in addition to the standard weapons. You find plasmids enabling you to throw fire, ice, use telekinesis, electrocute, and many other things. There are endless ways to dispatch the mutant freaks known as slicers.

I may write more about Bioshock later, it is one of my favorite games at the moment.

I also bought Metroid Prime Corruption for the Nintendo Wii. The game makes very good use of the motion controls. I like the puzzles and the varied worlds of the the Metroid universe.

I picked up Brain Age 2 for the Nintendo DS along with Metroid. Brain Age is intended to be played daily, and it claims to train your brain. This idea seems to make sense. Each of the mini games makes you think in ways you normally don't. It tracks your progress in each game, and you can view a calendar of your results. Every day when you train your brain, you get a stamp for that day. Earning stamps unlocks more of the games. The creator of the game, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, gives you brain tips in between games. I hope my neurons are making more synaptic connections as a result of playing Brain Age 2.

Last Saturday I bought Castlevania, Portrait of Ruin for DS. It was on sale at Walmart for $25 so I just had to get it. I have played a few of the Castlevania games, including the original, Super Castlevania, and one on the PS2. It is a great series. Portrait of Ruin stars 18 year old Jonathan Morris and his 16 year companion Charlotte Aulin. They are on a mission to vanquish the vampire Brauner from Dracula's castle, where he is up to no good. I've played through a few worlds, which you enter from magical paintings. There is a large variety of enemies and weapons. You can upgrade your characters through earning experience points and collecting items. I enjoy this game, it has the feel of a classic platformer with lots of modern additions.

John Carmack demoed Id tech 5 at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. Id tech 5 is his latest game engine that features technology that allows artists to use unlimited textures. This sounds like a major development in computer graphics, which would simulate environments much more realistically. More and more the video game industry is contributing to the advancement of mankind by pushing the limits of real-time graphics and physics. The singularity is approaching.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvuTtrkVtns

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