--super mario bros 2 tune--

  How the hell would they get such addictive music out of crappy 8bit sound chip?

  So last night i had a game dev dream. this actually doesn't happen very much (well, unless it's welding vertices, or being fired). I was playing God of War mixed with Tony Hawk and Mototrax. I am not sure if they were always the same game.. anyway it wet from alternately awesome to completely unfinished and terrible. I'd be vrooming around in a sloppy dirtbike or jeep and there would be lowpoly cabins without backsides ad flipped normals. everything was blurry, unlit,
and crappy looking.. lots of bright reds and yellows. then another level would load up and just be fun. Then my dream ceased to be about videogames, and I was just able to get up a good deal of speed running on my own two feet and take enormous, superhero-sized leaps into the sky. I would jump around inside Hangers and slap the ceiling every time, amazed that I would plummet back to earth everytime and NEVER hurt my feet. It was weird. Felt very cool though.

  So I am thinking about PS3 Home lately. I read a little update on the thing in a recent EGM rag and it got my brain turning on it some more. It was due this fall (which is NOW) and got postponed till sometime in 08, Spring I guess? Anyway.. man. Dullsville. Since I had first lain eyes on the thing, it's not impressed me. I can appreciate what they are doing, and competing with things like Second Life, WOW, and the Mii's all rolled into one.. never mind Xbox Live. But this looks kind of pathetic by comparison. I can completely understand what thy are going for here and why they are doing this, in this fashion, but it's just pointed totally down the wrong path. Take it from a guy who's not actually really laid eyes on Xbox Live himself (and so not qualified to speak on the matter, but "I get the gist...") If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Sometimes a direct interface without an avatar is honestly a better way to approach things. in the matter of setting up live games online, an all of that, it does' "need" this kind of virtual representation. Much less for playing online minigames and crap like that. I mean, so long as they support a more traditional "browser formula" as well and make this stuff optional, then it can't hurt, I suppose. Honestly, there are things they could do to make a prospect like home very cool, but they don't seem like they have their S together enough to do this (well, at least the politics-that-be would prevent it from getting there). You can sort of tell what kind of people are in charge of this project just by looking at the media presented thus far. They want it to be al classy, IKEA, Metrosexual.. Sims. Man. Boring. I guess I am the same kind of guy who would poo-poo the idea of Sims in the first place (though at the time when it was fresh, i appreciated it's relative "originality"). Seriously the biggest problem with Home is this: what is the point, what do you DO? It's not a game, it's just... hanging out. Eh, I guess the no-lifer's will dig on it. If they get some kind of ingame achievements going, goals and tasks ad crap, then it could work. Make it a little wackier and Animal Crossing-y instead of Glorious Ugly Realism Boringness, it might get something. Half-assed pool and bowling don't seem too exiting. get some Poker and Mahjong and stuff in there. Hell, make a Magic the Gathering ripoff... things like Uno wet over well, get a whole card-playing community going, make it free, and make it a little atmospheric (dark and dank and sketchy, "underground feeling." Make old-fashioned 80s arcades with relevant emulated games instead of "insta copter" or whatever. Make people feel like they have to earn this stuff, discover it, instead of laying it all out there.

  Whatever. I have tons of ideas, I am sure many do. Ultimately it wall be another gaffe that they throw tons of money at to result in another overbudget half-assed project that makes them look kind of clueless and lame. It will possibly get refined into something cooler in some time. Hey if they could make 8bit skins for everything, that would be sweet. Tron skins.. even WOW sins for those who like that sort of thing. Overall I just prefer my real life as my REAL life and hanging out online to be something that remains a novelty, not the point of my life. Ohhh I should watch my tone. Anyway like everyone else, I watch this with interest to see what shape it takes. Gross or not, it's still pretty important and weighty.