Lawrence.com

In the past two weeks my 360 has slowly been descending into the tell tale signs of hardware failure. It keeps sneaking off to climb under the porch and die alone, but I snatch it back. I caught it eating grass in the backyard the other day as I was mowing, but I gave the aged, bloated tramp a swat before it got sick. So, it's working, but it ain't looking good.

Simultaneously E3 (biggest Video Game trade show) was happening. There's always a nice load of headlines to come out of it, but frankly anything worth noting has already been mentioned in a thousand other places. I'll save you the energy now, there is going to be more of God of War, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Legend of Zelda, Ratchet of Clank, Metal Gear of Solid, Super Mario of Bros., and Poke of Mon. So no worries there. But there were a few announcements that still caught me off guard, and riddled me with antici... pation.

There's a reason why I make that little mention of my 360 dying. Mainly, because none of them have to do with what Microsoft is doing. Their biggest announcement was Project Natal, as in "A Natal child is little more than a blind and thoughtless lump of flesh rushing towards the disappointment of life in the age of marketing", a disgusting name which doesn't really make me want to take part in your control scheme. No matter how much Los Campisenos you threw in your ad.

I'll say this up front; that technology is the boss's tits. For real, watch a few other less produced videos, and the potential is pretty amazing for casual home computing. I mean, Google Johnny Lee (for real, it's amazing) and see the sorcery he conjured with a Wiimote; Microsoft snatched him up and put him to work. They did what Nintendon't (feel free to groan). But as for how this project is shown to the public, it doesn't make sense to me, a customer who bought a console I hate for the library and the online base. For real, I hate the fucking thing; it's caused so much more grief than anything else in this house.

A few years ago wasn't Microsoft bragging about how they were the "hardcore" console, that they didn't need to sell to children? Did Nintendo's shocking market share finally talk them into trying to out-Wii the Wii? This is a problem for people like me, long time players with cash in hand who haven't turned on their Wii's in almost a year for lack of games. I don't want to get together with the family and waggle my limbs retardedly, and I say this as a Wii owner and a Rock Band fan. But here's a thought, neither do family's. I know this from the time I experienced puberty. I had a fine family life, but the thought of pantomiming skateboarding, or race carring, or fashion shopping, with Mom is horrifying to me.

I game so I can struggle to survive in a wrecked future, or a war torn past, or a more artistically realized present. I game so my free time isn't spent shopping, or hanging out. I play to recognize how nice things are out here in the real life. I play to connect to you and you, not hide away with Adamwolf and ExileonMassSt and Action Jeans.

Any way, here were the announcements that reached out from the noise and slapped my face.

First Scribblenauts looks amazing. You can read about it on lawrence.com's game blog for more detail. In short, word nerds and fans of Drawn To Life and Yoshi's Island rejoice.

Second Team Ninja is making the next major Metroid game. Team Ninja made the current Ninja Gaiden games, but you may have heard of them one being asked for by it's true name, "Can I Get A New Controller Because I Broke This One Trying to Behead A Demon With 18 Flaming Vaginas in Mid-Air?". Metroid is one of my oldest loves, and I was seriously disappointed with the brevity of experience in the last installment. Super Metroid is one of the only games to literally make my jaw drop. To see this installment return to EXACTLY that moment (and you'll catch it in the ad if you've played the SNES classic), pumps gasoline into my veins. Here's the trailer.

Third The pictures that have been scattered through this have been from the trailer for The Last Guardian. It's the next in line from Team Ico, the people that made Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus . To say that SotC affected me is a grave understatement. I played through that game with my girlfriend at the time, trading the controller off and talking our way through it, realizing the details and debating the main character's motivations. As it unfolded, there were moments that in all sincerity hit us as hard as hearing of a friend's death. I don't say that as some super fan hyperbole, it's a genuine statement of how that thing made us feel. It crawled up my spine and skittered across my scalp; our eyes watered to try and blind us.

Watching ourselves make such a perilous trade at such a steep price, and having it sink in so deep, to the point where at a certain moment in the game we both yelled, "NO!!!" and reached to comfort a pixelated character on a standard definition screen is a rare experience. I feel bad for nearly quoting Jerry Holkins in so many game related moments, but the man has similar tastes. Please forgive the me-too-edness.

Please do yourself a favor and watch this.

The fact that there is still a debate over whether or not games are a verifiable art form or method of story telling is laughable when staring into something this beautiful. To continue the Tycho quoting, "If games are not art, then art is poorer for it."

I am also terrified for the ending of The Last Guardians story.