Michael Bay 2: Revenge of the Explosions

I have nothing particularly negative to say about "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" that the film's most outspoken critics haven't already done a good job of vomiting onto everyone within earshot. While you victims of this heinous crime wash your clothes of their stench, I'll tell you why I enjoyed the movie.

Transformers 2 is porn. It indulges the senses and primal desires of human beings, and, like porn, doesn't need many reasons to do so. To give away part of the plot(because people see Transformers for the plot), Sam, played by Shia Labeouf, finds a piece of the All Spark, a powerful artifact of the Transformers' race(thought to be destroyed at the end of the first movie) with the uncanny ability to turn any machine near it into a potential explosion. This All Spark shard, which, unbenounced to Sam, nests in his beaten up jacket, decides to activate and burns through the second story floor of Sam's house only to stop on the kitchen table, apparently made of impervious mahogany. The Spark then proceeds to activate all the little kitchen appliances which then become mini transformers. The microwave-bot nukes a pack of popcorn, the toaster-bot toasts some bread, and the vacuum cleaner-bot, well, you get the idea. In the midst of mini explosions, Bumblebee comes out and shoots them with his arm cannons, leaving the yard and second floor of Sam's house ruined and on fire. If you replace the robots with people and the explosions with sex, it would be just as ridiculous. The only difference is that the porn's general audience expects that sort of thing to happen, and anyone who saw the first Transformers or the trailers for this one should've expected it, too.

Transformers 2 is a collection of explosions and giant robot fights loosely pieced together with a plot that, quite honestly, exceeded my expectations. It won't win any Academy Awards, but I have a feeling that it isn't trying to. If anything, it takes itself less seriously than the first Transformers, where Optimus Prime reveals the plot in a dramatic, futuristic powerpoint presentation, adorned with explosions and dying robots. In Transformers 2, an ancient decepticon turned rogue begins an anecdotal tale only to be interrupted by another comic relief character telling him to cut it down to facts.

I'll stop myself before this gets too long by saying that I definitely enjoyed the movie. I wanted a ridiculous montage of explosions, and I got it. Anyone who watches this movie for a plot either critiques films professionally or just doesn't remember the original concept of the Transformers franchise(twenty-two minute toy commercials). If the critics got what they wanted, Transformers wouldn't be Transformers at all. It would be something worse - something much, much, much worse.

E3 2009: Sony Press Conference

Sony kicked things off showing in game footage of their upcoming massive shooter, MAG which is short for Massive Action Game. MAG can supposedly support 256 players in one game. The game is broken down like the Battlefield series, each team is broken down into squads led by squad leaders which answer to the battlefield commander who sets objectives and way points. Players will get extra experience fore listening to the orders handed down such as defending or capturing a point. MAG will be released fourth quarter of this year.

Sony went on to show off their previously leaked PSP Go. Which will be retailing at $249.99 and hitting the States on October 1^st. The PSP Go is quite a marvel of engineering, it features a slide up screen, with the control buttons hidden underneath. With this new design they removed the dreaded UMD drive, which was the cause of the first PSP's horrible battery life and replaced it with a 16 gigs of flash memory. Sony has promised that all games from this point forward will also be distributed digitally. This will hopefully give the PSP more umph in the battery department. Along with the new PSP comes a new Metal Gear Solid game, MGS: Peacewalker which takes place 10 years after MGS3 in Costa Rico. This is not a side story or spin off, it is a true sequel to MGS3 and will be written by Kojima. Sony also announced they will be releasing a Gran Turismo which will supposedly be running at 60 fps. Playstation Home was mentioned like it has been for the past two years, Sony continues to promise what was promised back when it was first announced. Unfortunately we have yet to see anything other than a buggy and laggy multi-player version of the sims.

Sony then went on to show some in game footage of Assassins Creed 2 which for some reason wasn't shown at the Ubi press conference. The PS3 will also be reciprocating six exclusive weapons, take that Xbox and your exclusive map pack for COD Modern Warfare 2. pulled a fast one, they started off by showing off a new trailer for Final Fantasy XIII showing some new footage with both FMV, cut scenes rendered by the in-game engine and some in battle footage. FFXIII is coming out Spring 2010. After this orgy of visuals we were given a trailer for wait for it.... Final Fantasy XIV, yes not only have they already started on XIV but its coming out in 2010. The down side? Its a new MMO but it is a PS3 exclusive.

With such an impressive act put on by Microsoft and Natal Sony introduced their own new Motion Controller. But Chris Sony already has the six-axis don't they? The six-axis barely holds a candle to their new system. It is based around wands and the Eyetoy (Cue Nintendo fanboys) with orbs on the ends that work as reference points for the camera. Now this is just speculation but the controllers probably work via a mix of accelerometers and motion capture via the orbs and camera. Whats nice about this system is that unlike the Wiimote, Sony's system actually knows where the wand is located in a 3d space. They then showed what has to be one the most polished tech demos I've seen. It started off with some proof of concepts, swords, bats, rackets, stop signs all the typical motion sensing items but then they produced a gun. With the gun he was able to go into first person mode and duck and dodge around the screen like a more involved Time Crisis. They then showed writing with the Motion Controller which according to Sony is accurate within millimeters. The writing was quite amazing, I mean hell its hard enough to write with a mouse but being able to do that with an interactive controller is impressive. We were then taken to a Colosseum with a humanoid model with a sword and shield facing off against skeletons while using two remotes one for the sword and the other for the shield. He then swapped the sword and shield for throwing stars and with flicks of his wrist he threw them into the skeletons. ModNation was then announced, a mix between Little Big Planet and Mario Kart, all the character and cars are customizable and there is real time physics. The Drivers look like those Mighty Mugs they have in-stores, they are made out of vinyl and look so damn cute. What is also neat is how you can make your own racetrack. Basically you drive around an empty canvas which lays down the road and from there you can add scenery and what not to your hearts content ModNation is coming out in 2010. Announced next was Last Guardian a sequel to Ico and seems like a mix between Ico and Shadow of the Colossus and its keeping with the same art style.

Sony's final event was real time game play of God of War III. GOW III has improved on II with more brutal kills and more impressive visuals, at one point Kratos disembowels a creature and it just lays on screen with its guts pouring out. Kratos still has his signature swords but now it will be much easier to change weapons, you can now use the d-pad rather than going into the menu and swapping out weapons mid fight.

E3 2009: Nintendo Press Conference

Nintendo began their press conference with the unveiling of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. NSMBW, as I'll refer to it(can't see why a name like that wouldn't catch on) features classic Mario side scrolling game play with one twist. It allows your friends to pick up a wii-mote and help progress. Nintendo reps mentioned the multi player game's potential to be both competitive and cooperative, as the game tallies each player's score at the end of each level. Those wishing for a more cooperative experience will just have to find glory in the fact that they complete a level. Nintendo plans to launch NSMBW for Winter 2009.

After the exciting opening, Nintendo made their way to the fitness arc of their conference, describing the unbelievable success of fitness games and speaking shortly about Wii Fit Plus, then moved right along to the Wii Motion Plus, an attachment to the standard wii-mote, promised to increase motion sensing technology to precision previously unseen(see: original Wii E3 unveiling). They demonstrate this in Wii Sports Resort with the intro skydiving sequence, archery, and basketball.

While they're still on the subject of Motion Plus, they briefly mention Red Steel 2 and how it will specifically use the new technology, though they do not go into as much detail as Ubisoft the previous night.

Nintendo began their RPG section by starting with a trailer of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers followed by a trailer of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days(September 29th release date), and then showed a trailer that made me smile. Get ready for this. Mario and Luigi go Magic School Bus. Yes, you read correctly. The Mario brothers find themselves in Bowser's digestive system, though whether that's because Mario and Luigi shrink or because Bowser grows to epic proportions is somewhat unclear. I want to say that Bowser grows, mainly because I see him punching a castle. To anyone else, this would be enough evidence, but I am a cautious investigator, you see.

If all the games leading up to this didn't delight me enough, Nintendo made a quick statement about an RPG franchise that hasn't seen light in many years and followed up with a trailer of Golden Sun DS. The only word on release made in the trailer was 2010, which, as a huge Golden Sun fan, was enough for me.

Nintendo transitioned quite smoothly into the DS, as the last few games shown were all DS titles. They began by describing the DS's success(100 million units sold) and moved into Women's Murder Club, a murder mystery game in which the player plays between three characters(detective, doctor, and something else), to ultimately solve the mystery and save the day. Nintendo also mentioned a game called Cop: The Recruit while they were in that category.

Since everybody feels the need to appease the ginormously large "tween" fan base, Nintendo showed a trailer of Style Savvy, a game where you, the humble tween player, may own your own fashion boutique and compete for fashion supremacy on and off the runway. And no, you did not sense any sarcasm in this paragraph.

This paved the way for user generated content, with such titles as Moving Memo(called Flip note Studio in North America), which gives users the ability to turn flip book-like animations to life on the DSi; Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again, featuring a level construction set for players to have their minis march through; and Warioware: DIY, a game that allows players to create their own microgames. It's also worth mentioning that the DSi will be able to upload its pictures directly onto Facebook.

They also mentioned that a demo of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks would be playable on the show floor.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Surely Nintendo can't possibly present any more fresh material. Well, maybe so. They continued by introducing Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo, who, after presenting a few statistics, concluded that, for every two people that play video games actively, there's one more thinking about doing it. I'm not quite sure what this has to do with his next point, the Wii Vitality Sensor, but the lengthy introduction sounded important enough. The Wii Vitality Sensor is a peripheral that attaches to your fingertip, much like one of those devices diabetics use, only [hopefully] without the skin puncturing and blood sampling. The device actually monitors heartrate, which could be useful in fitness games, though the object itself seems a bit intrusive and, I assume, takes up the wii-mote's slot reserved for the nunchuck.

After that, Nintendo presented a stunning trailer of Super Mario Galaxy 2, featuring, much to my surprise, Yoshi. For a good portion of the video, Yoshi helped Mario platform with various abilities probably obtained by eating some sort of enemy or object. The emphasis on rideable Yoshi brought me back to Super Mario World. Hopefully, Galaxy 2 will live up to my expectations in its 2010 release.

Nintendo began their last arc of the press conference, exclusive, third party games with a teaser trailer of The Conduit, which appeared to be some kind of "save the post-apocalyptic world from aliens/mutants" and followed up with Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. Nintendo showed a trailer for Dead Space: Extraction before bringing out the big guns: a new Metroid game made in collaboration with Team Ninja in a trailer showcasing both cinematics and game play. Nintendo promises the new game will delve deeper into the Metroid universe and explain Samus' story.