Do or die for the Ps3

I don't care what anybody says... The Wii lost the console war. Nintendo got a leg cramp 100 yards from the finish and bailed. Besides I value actual real games from developers other than Nintendo and that isn't Nintendo's style.

But, since Microsoft wanted the 360 to leapfrog the Ps3, Sony should really figure out a concrete solution to make the 360 look obsolete enough that they can pick up enough numbers to help them reach a 10 year cycle.  Sony had success for a little bit against the 360 but the universe corrected itself and the 360 continues to have good sales. 

The problem is that the 360 still looks appealing to the average consumer. I'm stunned to find out they believe the 360 is a more powerful piece of hardware. I don't know if that's Sony or a developer fault. Kinect looks more futuristic than Playstation Move until you realize "Hey. Maybe I need some damn buttons to play this shooter after all!"

Free online should have been a slamdunk for Sony. A lot of analysts thought Microsoft would have to have a free online model, but nope Microsoft stood by it. I still think it's a rip that I'm paying for not only the internet but twitter and facebook also. But playing online on Xbl is honestly . . terrible most of the time. But with friends is a blast. And you don't even have to be playing the same game.

The Ps3 has all that disc storage but I'm installing most games. The 360 doesn't have that issue. In fact my Ps3's fan kicks in a lot faster and more often than it used to.

Look. I love my ps3. I just feel like it isn't getting the right attention. It's such an awesome system but somebody keeps dropping the ball with it. It's become a system that watches what Microsoft does with the 360 and then copies it.

I must say that dollar for dollar PsN plus is a much better value than Xbox live Gold. Sony just needs to figure out how to show that off more.  The amount of cash I saved and free games I got was great.

2012 is the last year ps3 can pull a power move else the 360 is going to crush it into tiny meat chunks and serve it raw to the Next gen

Street Prophet aka The Jaded Gamer.

Twitter: @IamFN2K

Silent Hill's last chance

I wouldn't say I'm an expert on horror games or even explain survival horror to you. For myself a survival horror title didn't really take full form I until Silent Hill. Resident Evil 1 to 3 was less a survival horror title to me. Good games but they never resonated the same way.

Silent Hill 1 and 2 are landmark survival horror games. But then Fatal Frame came along and broke me. Nothing is scary to me anymore. Fatal Frame hit every note correctly. The plot made my skin crawl. The ghosts were more than apparitions of evil. They hunted and stalked you or haunted your dreams when the twin sticks weren't in your flop sweat soaked palms. Every single quality was top notch. The voice acting did however ruin some of the mood.  Everything else was so good it just didn't occur how bad the voice acting was in rare spots.

Ever since the fateful night I completed Fatal Frame 2 I just can't get it up for any other horror game since. I enjoy most of them but I don't consider them scary.

So anybody who wants to convince me that Dead Space or it's sequel is scary.. Just stop. I think they are both awesome but seldom if ever did I experience one emotion needed; fear.  If you must know I felt it was creepy at best. I was not afraid at any point in the first because they made it possible to complete the first gun with the equivalent of a pistol. As for the second one. I only wish I had the footage of me "calling out the scares".  However.. The raptor-like monster from the sequel was one of the best and most intuitive enemies I had the pleasure of encountering. But I was not afraid to advance or face anything.

That goes for Silent Hill 4 up to Homecoming.  4 is by far my least favorite game in the series and I have never beaten it again since.  The PSP games were alright. Homecoming was ok. Don't get me started on Saw. I enjoyed the Saw games and wish a real grown up triple A developer would take what was created and run with it. I will go on the record as saying the Saw games aren't terrible. You don't have to like them because their flaws are not hard to spot.

With every iteration of Silent Hill it feels more and more distant from the feeling and emotion of the first two.  The imagery has always been excellent but poorly managed since 3. 

In truth I think half the problem is me. From the moment they announce a new Survival Horror game, I follow it daily. By the time it gets to my hands I already know what will happen within the first 10 minutes of gameplay.

So with Silent Hill Downpour I stayed in the dark. I know nothing about this game. What I do know is that it better be the next standard of horror or I will thrust myself off the highest building and land in acid because I don't want to live in a world where Dead Space is the standard by which everything is judged. Ew.

Street Prophet aka The Jaded Gamer

Twitter @IamFN2K

Way too many games you guys

Hey game developers! Could you please just stop and take a breath for one minute and listen to me?

This fall release schedule is insane. Do any of you realize how many sales you are missing out on because you insist on cramming a million releases into three months? There are countless triple A titles I'm forced to skip purely because I'm not spending hundreds of dollars just to pick up every new release.

Some of you publishers seriously are head wounded. Especially Sony coming out with a bunch of ill timed HD remakes. Yes I want Silent Hill, God of War, Team Ico and Metal Gear HD updates. But do you really think I'm going to get them brand new? I'm going for the triple A titles first. Then I'm going to pick up all those HD titles used because their print runs will have expired.

Rage or Silent Hill? Batman or Call of Duty? Assassin's Creed or Skyrim? Resistance or Dead Island? Battlefield 3 or Gears of War? And 10,000 other choices.  The industry is cranking out way too much awesome this season and gamers don't want to be rushed. One week isn't enough time to enjoy one game before the next major release.

I don't want to see any game fail but you publishers obviously think gamers are rich so I hope half of these releases tank hard so you learn to stagger these titles.

In particular I hope Assassin's Creed bites it into oblivion! Ubisoft admits to beating a dying horse recently. I can't remember the exact terms three spokesperson said but it was pretty much they didn't expect 2 to be so popular and they decided to milk the idea for a bit before giving gamers the resolution they want.

I hope Rage becomes a sleeper hit for Id soft. They haven't had a new IP in years and this one looks like Id is showing why they rule.

Ugh. Ok I hope every game does well. I'm just a hater. I guess I'll get these games at some point but I just don't like how packed this release schedule is. It's just way too many games you guys.

Street Prophet aka The Jaded Gamer.

Twitter: @IamFN2K

I'm so lame, dude

Wow. I don't know where to start.  I got a lot to get off my chest so maybe you'd want to skip to the end to see my point.

First off thank you to everybody for your comments and kind words of encouragement. I may not be very popular (yet) but the support has kept me from fading away.

I'm not gonna lie and say life has been hard but it has not been very easy. Juggling life, gaming, the show and a podcast is overwhelming especially because a lot of the responsibility for putting the content out is mine. So if I forget or don't have the time then everything falls apart.

The worst part about this process is that I'm supposed to have a staff of people behind me and I don't. I took on all this responsibility because I did have a team behind me. You may have seen me reference them. We're called FN2K. There are two divisions of it. The one I run sucks. They don't have the ambition, heart, drive or stamina I do to triumph. All but one have copped out, betrayed my trust or made an endless amount of excuses of which I no longer have time for.  This is not a jab at any of them. It's just the fact of life. My crew routinely lets me down or doesn't listen. Anything coming out of FN2K now more than ever is all if not mostly my doing.

The Jaded Gamer's show WAS NOT supposed to be just my floating head babbling. It was supposed to be me and FN2K causing a ruckus in gaming. Silly me thought that after my first two episodes were received with appreciation from the gaming community that these other members would love to be a part of it. Nope. We don't even play games together and that is what FN2K is supposed to be about.

So . . Here I am repping a crew of gamers WHO DON'T PLAY GAMES. I'm so lame dude. Ever since episode 2 I've been scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas purely to keep my crew on the map. And for what? They don't watch my show, hear my podcast. In fact the people who promote my show (shout out to Rondell Exclusive) regularly, don't have a stake in FN2K.

Anyways, I digress. I'm just mad.  Mad because my passion takes time. Time I can't have to myself. I clear days off my schedule to get things done but every single fucking time I do, my girlfriend hijacks a huge chunk of it.  I booked a week off in the summer purely to work on projects and every day I was interrupted. I'm not picking on her just illustrating how difficult it's been to do anything recently. All the while I put everything else first which I admit I shouldn't have done.  So when I'm not dealing with slackers or complaints or people who constantly want attention and gold stars for doing their job, all I've been doing is turning off the world and playing video games.

Normally it is not an escape for me. But vegging out in the living room playing Dead Island or isolating myself in the back playing Minecraft is me taking time away from everything that has been getting under my skin. In a sense I'm taking back time that has been taken from me.

But my work and life has been suffering because I've been feeling sorry for myself recently. It took me far too long to get out of this funk but seeing as nobody wants to help me up, it's up to me yet again to pull myself to my feet. Now it's different. In the coming days I'm going to attempt to hitch my wagon to a locomotive that is gaining stream instead of losing it.  I don't want to jynx it or leak details yet but this power move might be the smartest decision I made recently. So wish me luck.

Street Prophet aka The Jaded Gamer

Follow me on twitter @IamFN2K

Gamers and relationships

If there is something I know well it's being in a relationship with non-gamer girls. 

In an upcoming episode of The Jaded Gamer's show I talk about co-existing in a functional relationship and keeping the woman in your life off your back. I recommend any gamer in a relationship check it out.

Make no mistake though. I deliberately undersold the amount of work and effort needed to make it work. I have to because if gamers knew the truth they might pass up the right person when they come along.

Let me put it like this. I own almost 200 current gen games between Ps3, 360 and PsP. I invest between 20 and 40 hours a week on games. I only sleep between 3 to 5 hours a night which inevitably leads to exhaustion. The last fit of exhaustion damn near crippled me. My legs would go numb at random. I couldn't think, didn't eat and didn't care about anything or anyone not even myself except for my next gaming session.

I don't have to live this way, I choose to. It keeps me happy and my girlfriend too so I'm happy to do it. But it is not easy. It's more give than take and I need other gamers in relationships to back me up. Nobody other than gamers take games seriously. If a stock broker tells you they are busy, you let them work. But when a gamer tells their partner the same they just don't listen. I'm interrupted all the time.

Let me explain without malice what I endure.

I've politely requested that my field of vision NOT be obscured when I'm playing a game. This is a small rule but is always broken. No matter the reason, if she wants to invade my personal space nothing stops her in spite of the worst time to do it is when the twin sticks are in my hand.  I have explained how much I hate it and now I put on a screwface and lean away annoyed but she still does it.

I used to play games with headphones on which I explained was a huge signal to leave me alone. I don't do that anymore. Here's why. She just walks up and starts talking to me oblivious to the fact I can't even hear her. And then I started hearing "I already told you blah blah blah..." It took me a minute to figure out she would tell me this stuff while my headphones were on. So now I play games without them for her... Problem solved.

Or is it? Just the other week my girlfriend who is an actual real actor in the biz, was running lines next to me. By running lines I mean reading them obnoxiously too loud thinking she's cute when all she is accomplishing is pissing me off. So I try to politely interject to tell her to tone it down I can't concentrate or hear what's going on. She doesn't even listen. She does what she always does and.tunes me right out and starts talking LOUDER! So now she can't even hear how aggravated she is making me because she WON'T SHUT UP long enough to hear what I'm saying. She was keen to not only ignore but talk over somebody communicating distress.

And this is minor petty stuff because I don't want to get too deep into it.  I have rational ethical issues with some of the choices she makes but I shut up and let her do her thing because well . . Do unto others.

After hearing similar (and worse) stories I decided I had to say to my gaming friends and fans who are in relationships; You are not alone!

I don't know how my relationship works. I don't know how her and I exist when she drives me nuts sometimes. The bastion of hope I cling to is simply she does not understand the conviction and dedication I have towards not just gaming but to the community too.  There is nothing I would rather do than entertain/enlighten you readers and viewers. I don't care who's birthday I have to miss to reach a deadline. I don't care how much time I have to put into editing or filming because I live to entertain. This is my passion in life and I'm lucky enough to be able to fuse entertaining and video games.

But let me flip it because here is my point. Chances are you are not like me. You don't game as often or even have the time to. You aren't trying to entertain anybody through games. At worst your partner interferes with a gaming session which let's be honest is remedied by a pause button. Imagine if it was your passion or career. Imagine how irate you would be. My point; if I can make this headache work and be happy at the same time then you as a simple gamer just aren't working hard enough. So shut this webpage and tell your partner you love them and spend time with him/her. 

Street Prophet aka The Jaded Gamer

@IamFN2K on Twitter