Concerned-ish

My name is Aaron Fowkes and I’m producer and director of Fortressbusters. It is my understanding that there was a promised pilot for the show that was to be released several months ago. This didn’t happen and I can only apologise. The original idea of Fortressbusters was to incorporate live action segments with in-game footage and I should clarify more on how this will work.

Fortressbusters will be exhibiting a similar format to the show by Australian producers”Beyond” known as “Mythbusters” incorporating segments filmed to camera explaining the myths and, eventually, talking about the results. Other sections in the Fortressbusters show that is proposed is having a similar format by plowing through Steam forums and common server folklore in order to find acceptable myths for use in the show. During this, the myth will be explained, we’ll have a brief outline shown in the Source Engine game “Garry’s Mod” and will mix in-game footage with live action footage by way of behind-the-scenes work and bluescreen. There are various technical issues related to this that I would like to explain.

The show was never going to be easy to make. This was originally going to just be an internal community show that was made for fun for the Control Point community at deadworkers.com/tf2 and we would at least get a link. During this time, we haven’t had adequate equipment in order to facilitate the technical ideas we want to put on film. This is only made harder by the complicated nature of having a cross-Atlantic project with a host/director/producer in Birmingham, a title maker on the Isle of Wright, a narrator in Oregon, U.S. etc. We have hardware breakages, hardware that isn’t sufficient to our needs, game updates that break demos (which has now been somewhat alleviated by a recent update from the creators of the game, thankfully) and many other problems. We also have to contend with hosts that are never in the same room together. However, we have managed ways to get around this problem and are willing to work with the problems in order to deliver an entertainment product that is sufficient to the wants of the public. We don’t want to produce a piece of entertainment that is substandard for the reason that we rushed it. However we can say that we are confident that, as soon as we get the right equipment, work can start on the project in full time.

In terms of technical information, we are looking to produce 15 to 20 minute episodes to be released weekly in series. Each series will have approximately 20 episodes before the show takes a small break for the production of further series. We are more than willing to consider other related games if the need arises (such as “Counter-Strike” or “Half Life”) but we will attempt to stay faithful to “Team Fortress 2″ as much as we can. The show will be released first on blip.tv on the Fortressbusters channel (most likely release will be on Fridays or Saturdays) and will be then released on Dominant Miscourse; the video site for Concerned-ish, linked on Twitter and also mentioned on the Dead Workers Party forums. We would like to take this moment to say that we aren’t affiliated with the Dead Workers Party in any way, but they are old friends of ours and we think that this would interest their community of Team Fortress 2 players (especially as the community members often assist in Fortressbusters-related works such as assisting). We will regularly need test subjects to help test bigger myths and this will be promoted on Twitter (@fortressbusters) and on the Dead Workers Party forums at deadworkers.com/community. As for the problems delaying us right now, we are waiting on problems with equipment. We are looking to releasing episodes soon. Keep looking at the Twitter feed for more information.

As a followup to Ben, let me just talk about what is going on.

Dominant Miscourse

Yes. It’s broken due to a conflict with other software. This means I have to repost everything again which has left me annoyed. We also are in the process of making new videos. Unfortunately this takes time. I’m looking into publishing three over the next week from myself and maybe one or two from additional content creators. We need more content creators for Dominant Miscourse. If you have an idea for a show, make a video and leave a link in the comments. We are also looking for people who can make themes for WordPress for a massive redesign of all areas of the site. Any contributors welcome.

Podcasts

We are taking EB in our stride and continuing. This is a free service but it would be great if you could throw in a dollar or two for new equipment. You don’t have to or anything, but it would really help. At the moment, we are using baked bean tins attached with string to record and we really need to by some tin openers because bean juice keeps coming out of the hole at the bottom. There is a donate link on the podcast website.

And that’s all I have to say. New content coming soon.

3D: 20 3D games will be out on the PS3 by March 2011.

Crysis 2, Ghost Recon, Killzone 3, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Gran Turismo 5, Mortal Kombat, Shaun White Skateboarding, The Sly Collection, TRON Evolution and are all in 3D.

3D Move Games: DRINK! The Fight – Lights Out, Eye Pet, Tumble, MLB The Show.

Killzone 3: It’s in 3D and looks — very generic and very boring. Compatible with Playstation Move. February 2011 release date. I won’t be rushing out to buy it.

Next we have a showcase of some 3D footage of some 3D games and not a lot else. A little preview of Motorstorm that looks really good. Then we have some more footage of games that take advantage of the 3D tech like MLB The Show. Some more footage of Gran Turismo 5. Looks exactly the same as 4, but with 3D. There is an applause, but they obviously got the 3D effect. We didn’t on the stream.

Some nods to PS2 are given in this next section, plus talking about sales figures. You know? Generic “people use their PS3s for this” crap. We get more mention of the Move. More salesman talk before the introduction of Peter Dille (SVP of Marketing). In the last five minutes, we get more info from the back of our bag of Jelly Babies than from Sony, as we are getting more on how the Playstation Eye works with Move. We know this Sony. Show us something new now. Now we get testimonials from developers about why Move is revolutionary. We finally have some new games being shown.

Sorcery: 3rd Person action adventure game with Move. It is about a Sorcerer’s apprentice saving the world from evil. Generic generic generic. The demo begins with the rep from The Workshop doing stretches. Nice message there Sony! The demo is basically Everquest with good graphics with some annoying thing in the cage at the top right. The wand on screen is extremely accurate from the movement of the Playstation Move. He shuts the thing up in the cage. The demo suddenly has improved ten fold. So far, the gimmick of using the Move is nice, but the gameplay looks like Rascal’s Castle Past level mixed with Narbacular Drop. He walks into a room, picks up a potion, drinks from the Playstation Move and turns into a rat. Very slick gameplay mechanic. Now he’s a rat and crawls into a tunnel. Next he summons Hurricane Katrina and throws some goblins off a cliff. Then he makes a firewall, uses his Cyclone Trap plasmid (!) and throws it at the enemies on screen with an awesome firestorm. He goes all Gumbi, fixes a bridge and walkins into a room where James Earl Jones tells him about the Dark Side or something. That was a really good demo. That changed its tune quickly. Coming Spring 2011.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2K11: Uses Move as your club. The club moves with the Move and it looks promising. A good addition to the series. Actually, this could turn out to be good. I might actually get this. The game comes out before Move, but Move functionality will be added as a free PSN download from the PS-Store.

Heroes on the Move: Ratchet, Jak, Sly, Bentley, Clank and Daxter come together for a giant crossover game using the Playstation Move.

Playstation and Coca Cola team up for an ad campaign with the ability to win PS goodies.

Kevin Butler strolls out on stage. The crowd suddenly goes absolutely bananas. He has a poke at Microsoft and Cirque De Soleil. He then says that gaming should be about games. He taps into the gamer philosophy (having a giant TV in tiny apartment etc). He even says “hi” to the people watching online pretending to work. This guy is fucking awesome. He then makes an inspirational speech to the masses about how we all serve “gaming”. This is why the PS ad campaigns are so popular.

Move launch details:

Europe: Sept 15th

North America: Sept 19th

Japan: Oct 21st

The Move will cost $49.99, the Navigation Controller will cost $29.99, a bundle of the Eye, Move and copy of Sports Champion $99.99. Finally, an Eye, Move, Sports Champions and PS3 will cost $399.99. Move games will cost around $39.99. There are 15-20 launch titles and 40 by the holidays. There are updates to existing games too. Here is a list of confirmed Move games (including existing games that add functionality with updates).

Brunswick Bowling, Dead Space Extraction, EchoChrome 2, Eyepet, Killzone 3, Heavy Rain, Heroes on the Move, NBA 2k11, Resident Evil 5, RUZE, Singstar Dance, The Shoot, Start the Party (Eyetoy Play-esque party game), SOCOM 4, Tiger Woods, Time Crisis, Toy Story 3, TV Superstars, Tron Evolution and Sorcery.

A new ad campaign for the PSP gets premiered with Kevin and that kid who played Stanley in That’s So Raven. Marcus is the now the Department of Gameplay Security and is the “Kevin Butler” of PSP.

Invizimals: Augmented reality Eyepet-esque game on crack for the PSP. Not much really talked about too much. Has a Pokemon-style battle system too.

God Of War – Ghost Of Sparta: It’s a GoW game. What do you expect?

Kingdom Hearts, Toy Story 3, The Third Birthday, Ace Combat, UFC Unleashed are also coming out for the PSP soon. There are over 70 new titles for the PSP by December.

The Tester Series 2 is commissioned, Canada gets the PSN Video Store and the virtual E3 booth in Home is talked about too for people who couldn’t make it to the live show.Alex Evans from Media Molecule comes out to talk about LBP2. Finally!

LittleBig Planet 2: DRINK! A showcase of some mods that Media Molecule and playtesters have made. We see RTSs, fighting games, and little Crash Bash-style minigames. This looks quite an impressive game.

Playstation Plus (PSN Premium Subscription): Everything from PSN plus new features and content such as exclusive digital content, DLC, early access to demos, betas,  full PSN games, discounts, avatars, themes and automatic downloads. 1 year costs $49.99 or $17.99 for 3 months free. Available at the end of the month. This seems like it could be OK. This seems like something I can really get into. Also, DRINK!

An EA executive strolls out onto the stage with two new titles with exclusive PS3 content. Greg Goodridge of EA (with the world’s biggest beard) now steps out.

Medal of Honour: Set in the modern war in Afghanistan and NOT World War 2. We follow Deuce, a Tier 1 operator. Game is released on October 12th 2010 with June 28th bringing videos with real life interviews with real life operators on the Medal of Honour website. He then makes a joke about how you can have unlockable beards in the game, and how he unlocked his twenty minutes before coming out on-stage. A multiplayer demo is shown, showing another game where whiny eight year olds can hang out and be douchenozzles. Woo! Also, a remastered version of Medal of Honour Frontline will come with the special edition.

Dead Space 2: Steve Papoutsis of EA introduces Dead Space 2. It follows on from the original. We have the main character nearly being sucked into space witha *Press X To Not Die* quicktime event pulling him down into the bowels of the ship. Next he meets a giant enemy crab and tries to attack its weakpoint for massive damage, all the time being flung around like a ragdoll. Graphics are nice, but it looks slightly nauseating with too much happening at once to be comfortable. Limited edition comes with Dead Space Extraction with Move support.

EA leave the stage and we go back to Sony again to intr– DEPLOYING SURPRISE IN 5, 4, 3…

GLaDoS takes over the stage and introduces Gabe Newell (who gets an engulfing applause) to the stage who makes a joke about his PS3 comments from the past. He then makes a Kevin Butler joke (being introduced to Newell as “The VP of Sharpening Things”). He talks about the social connecting experience and makes a bold claim saying that the PS3 version will be better than the XBOX version of an upcoming game…

Portal 2: Newell announces Portal 2. A Portal 2 demo plays. GLaDoS is in a forest on the floor in pieces. The enrichment centre is ruined. GLaDoS rebuilds it and we see some Portal work. This really looks amazing. Comes out in 2011 (this is the reason for the delay, methinks).

Steam: Steam is coming to the Playstation with cross-platform chat, automatic game patches, Steam Cloud etc. This was unexpected and is amazing news.

Final Fantasy XIV Online: Final Fantasy XIV shows a prerendered sequence, and the characters looks ridiculous.

Mafia 2 will have extra PS3 content.

Assassins Creed Brotherhood will have exclusive PS3 content. Multiplayer beta is only on the Playstation Network. A multiplayer trailer is shown with the Joker getting his throat cut. Nice… November 16th 2010 flashes on the screen. It seems good. Balance may be a little tricky but it looks good.

Infamous 2: Don’t really care too much about this, but it is set for a 2011 release.

Gran Turismo 5: November 2nd 2010 release with a 3D tech demo.

They promise a final surprise… and…

The theatre goes dark. Satan’s ice cream truck comes out, along with a psycho clown and the co-founders of Eat, Sleep, Play.

Twisted Metal: A new Twisted Metal game comes to PS3 in 2011, not forgetting their roots on the PS1 either. They demo an online team deathmatch mode and – God – wow. No way… This looks – wow. This is going to be a good game… Watch out for the piloted gurney. It’s lethal! Factions will be revealed throughout the year. “Nuk”e is a new mode consisting of giant statues (one for each team). It is basically a “Capture the Flag” mode. Steal the faction leader, dump them in a zone, charge up a missile launcher, sacrifice the leader, fire the missile, hit the statue three times whilst dodging helicopter fire etc. to win the match. Simple. No release date yet.

Jack Tretton finishes up and Sony shuts down.

Wow. WOW! THAT is how you do an E3 talk. Well done Playstation. You have done extremely well with all of this. Nintendo was hard to top, and I would say that you guys at least tied. Anyway, that’s it for E3 Coverage from us. We aren’t covering the Kinect event because we have already talked about it. Expect normal service to resume soon on Concerned-ish soon.

Zelda Skyward Sword: This is a new Zelda game with some genuinely good graphics. Miyamoto comes out on the stage and talks about the Wii MotionPlus with a demonstration. Unfortunately, interference causes some bad glitches. Seems good.

Mario Volleyball: DRINK!

Wii Party: It’s Mario Party without Mario. What else do you expect? It’s nothing new.

Just Dance 2: Did anyone play the first one? I didn’t. So I really don’t care about this at all. Harmonix are going to beat it out.

Golden Sun Dark Dawn: It’s a little DS adventure game with some Final Fantasy-eque characters and battle system. I like the look of this. I may actually give this a go. The graphics are good for a DS game and the two screens are used quite well in the battle. Out at the end of the year.

Goldeneye: You saw this earlier on today on the blog. It has officially been announced by Nintendo and I’m loving it. Out in the holiday season.

Epic Mickey: This is no secret. Epic Mickey finally gets a first gameplay walkthrough. I love the graphics and the film noir FMVs are smooth. Apparently, we get theme park locations thrown into the surroundings and nods to different aspects of Disney. They also stole Penny Crayon’s magic art equipment so you can erase and paint new surroundings. Going through old cartoons allow you to teleport around the “Wasteland” (not to be confused with the Fallout Wasteland. Though that would be awesome. Using VATS to see Mickey stab a ghoul in the throat with a paintbrush). e3.nintendo.com has an interview with one of the developers.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn: “Never been spun before”. DRINK! My favourite Nintendo character gets a new game. The whole world is made out of yarn and you can manipulate the world with rope and zips and all sorts of different things. You can pull sections of the level together to skip sections, grab things with yarn etc. Out this Autumn/Fall.

Dragon Quest: “Phenomenon”. “Epic adventure”. “Deepest and richest experiences”. TRIPLE DRINK!

Metroid: Other M: Samus is back again and – I really don’t see much unique. Graphics are nice though. More like “Meh”troid. “Hallmarks of the franchise”. DRINK! August 31st release.

Donkey Kong Country: Another Donkey Kong game. FINALLY! Again, significant graphical improvements to other Wii titles. 2.5D (like New Super Mario Brothers). Coming this Autumn/Fall.

“Super Mario 64″. DRINK!

Nintendo 3DS with 3D: No glasses needed, according to Nintendo. Looks like a pretty slick looking DS. 3.5in for the top screen which is bigger than the bottom. We also see an analog stick called a “Slide Pad”. Full 3D with no glasses gets dropped again. There is a 3D slider to change the degree of 3D. New buttons on the touchscreen. None intrusive by the looks of things. Touchscreen is only on the bottom. The top screen is just 3D. The graphics capabilities have been greatly improved. Giro and motion sensors are also built in. It has a top camera inside and two cameras outside for FULL 3D PICTURE TAKING. 3D movies also available too. Plans for this coming soon. Disney, Warner Brothers and Dreamworks have movies on the floor with 3D (Tangled, Legend of the Guardians and How To Train Your Dragon). Wi-Fi is built into the 3DS with idle ad-hoc and access point network connectivity and cross-game Wi-Fi. This allows ghosts, leaderboards and DLC to be downloaded without the user having to search for it (automatic downloads, even when idle). No monthly fee for this service.

Project Sora: Turns out to be Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS. Graphics are on-par with Gamecube for the 3DS. 3D demo on the show floor of Kid Icarus.

Nintendogs: Nintendogs and Cats! In 3D.

Upcoming 3rd Party 3D Games: DJ Hero, Kingdom Hearts, Saints Row, Professor Layton, Resident Evil, Batman, Assassins Creed, Ridge Racer, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid.

A 3DS trailer plays. Iwata gets a moustache slapped on him by 3D Mario and gets pulled in. Miyamoto appears. A dog pops out and pulls him in. Other Nintendo icons pop out, including Starfox and Link’s shield. Reggie picks it up and sees Iwata and Miyamoto being chased by Bowser. He laughs, Bowser pops out and sets him on fire. He comes out on stage with a ruined jacket. It’s awesome. OK?

Over 9000 booth babes come out with 3DSs so everyone can have a go with it. 8 gameplay stations come out of the floor with Zelda loaded on for people to play.

Nintendo close by saying that they have raised the bar. They sure have! MUSE plays the GameTrailers footage out as everyone rushes to the consoles. Zelda seems to be working fine for everyone now.

By far, this is the strongest force to reckon with. Microsoft was weak this year. Sony have some REAL catching up to do here. Nintendo did amazing. Good job Nintendo. Next talk is Sony tonight at 10pm GMT. Join me over at http://gametrailers.com/e3/livefeed/sony to come and watch live.

I was secretly hoping that the rumours of the remake of the Nintendo 64 game “Goldeneye” were true, as it is still one of my favourite games to date. Well, this leak proves it true. Goldeneye is coming to Wii in November with online multiplayer, new game modes and Daniel Craig as Bond.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world’s biggest expedition of bullshit. This is the world of E3, where dreams that die originally get nurtured and raised to hurt gamers. One thing hit me whilst I was watching a very dodgy GameTrailers feed (that did the job quite well. Thanks GT). I realised that I’ve heard all this before. Not the announcements (obviously). I mean what they are saying. Everything is “something that has never been seen before” or something utterly ridiculous. So, obviously, I decided to take a little from Top Gear and make The Concerned-ish E3 Drinking Game!

Rules: Whenever someone talks about something being “state-of-the-art” or “nothing you have ever seen before” or something that is fast becoming a trend, you take a drink. Simple.

So here is a summary of the Microsoft Talk.

CoD Black Ops: Whilst resisting the urge to go all “Brokeback Mountain” on Niko from GTA’s brother, you crawl through a narrow tunnel and go into a room full of bad guys. Then we cut to the storming of a camp. That’s it. We learn nothing about how this game is different from any others. Plus, who really cares about CoD anymore? I lost faith in the brand with Infinity-Gate recently and it won’t be the same game without Infinity Ward developing it proper so, why? Just, why? CoD4 was excellent. MW2 was acceptable. Black Ops will fail.

Metal Gear Solid Rising: We see a Super Starman from Earthbound getting his ass-kicked by Raiden, who still looks like the wuss he was in MGS2. He also gets his spine ripped out. No reason why. It just does. Play God of War much? DRINK! It was also described as ”Unlike anything you’ve seen before”. DRINK!

Gears of War 3: Now we get Smuggy McSmugg-Smugg “CliffyB” *shudders* talking about Gears of War 3 and how it will be you playing the same gorilla-faced twat stomping around accomplishing nothing. It also looks like he velcroes to the wall when he takes cover. Nice one Cliffy. There is also a co-op mode, which most games have now anyway but many people see it as a ground-breaking addition. Dear God, shoot me now. So, Gears of War 3 told us absolutely nothing except they know how to use more than one controller. Do they want a cookie? All of the other GoW games did this. What are you trying to show us?

Fable 3: Next we have Peter Molyneux from Lionhead, still wiping Steve Balmer’s arse sweat from his face. We get told again about how moral choice systems are back in Fable 3 and how they are more effec-blah blah blah. Didn’t you say this with Fable 2? In the words of Yahtzee, “you didn’t change a bloody thing [from Fable 1]!” that time and I doubt it will now. “It’s a revolution”. DRINK!

Codename Kingdoms: Rumoured to be the Crytek MMO that no one will play, seeming all the trailer showed were three Spartan warriors going through a wasteland. That’s it. I have nothing more to add because that’s it. That was the whole trailer.

Halo Reach: It’s Halo. IN SPACE! Space battles. That is the only thing new from the last thirty-thousand Halo games. Didn’t Colony Wars do this thirteen years ago?

Kinect: It’s two Eyetoys taped together with a microphone. Except this actually seems to work. Sifting though awful scripted sequences, Kinect users can chat with those on Windows Live Messenger. That sounds OK. Ron and Laura (who don’t have last names for the purposes of Microsoft not giving a shit to put them on screen) talk us through basic functions, Zune and Messaging on the XBOX using Kinect. A little of Alice in Wonderland and Justin Bieber get played. It seems to work extremely well though and I think they might pull it off.

ESPN: Hulu is not what XBOX owners get this time around but ESPN (because when I get a games console, I want to watch sports). ESPN seems good, however, with on-demand services, live games, trivia questions during games, overlayed scoreboards and news being shown on the XBOX. Overall, I like it.

Kinect (again): Obviously we get shovelware with new hardware. Kinect isn’t an exception. The guy with the baseball caps from 30 Rock comes out and talks about it whilst a little Chinese girl plays jump-rope with a virtual tiger on screen. I’ll let you read that a moment and let it sink in… The clipping is bad, the tiger is creepy, and, didn’t Sony do this already with the Eyepet? Next is Wii Sports Resort – I mean – Kinect Sports. Nothing really new here. Next is Kinect Joy Ride, which looks like a very generic kart racer where you race the taxi from Crazy Taxi with no controller. I’ll stick with Mario Kart and Modnation Racers, thanks. Kinect Adventures looks like a home version of Takeshi’s Castle, without being the least bit as funny. It seems FUN, but it looks like it’ll run out of steam and appeal quickly. Also, you can post photos from you acting like an idiot to Facebook. Great! I can show how much of a twat I am in my own home to my friends too! Thanks Microsoft!

3rd Party Kinect Titles: Ubisoft show “Your Shape”, a Wii Fit ripoff with no balance board. Interesting features though. A: It scans your body using the cameras to work out your mass. Good idea. It also detects when you take your clothes off. Thanks for that Ubisoft. I just hope there isn’t multiplayer… (“Like you’ve never seen before”. DRINK!) Harmonix (makers of Rock Band) show off a rather good dance game called “Dance Central”. The songs look good and it detects your movement to emulate the moves on screen. Overall, it could turn out to be good. It turns out that there are 15 launch titles for Kinect. Not bad with Eyetoy only having the one. Next we see Lucas Arts on stage, and I’ll give you three guesses as to what they are showing off today. Actually, I’m not going to talk about. I’m sick of Lucas Arts making Star Wars game after Star Wars game. Come up with some fucking original ideas please, rather than remake the same game over and over and over and over and over and over and over… Where was I? Forza will work with Kinect also. That’s nice to know. Notice all of this will come out before Gran Turismo 5. Yeah. How’s that working out for you, Sony? “A new era”. DRINK!

New XBOX: This was leaked a few days back, but it looks like an XBOX spraypainted black and hit with a sledgehammer to make it more compact. It will cost the same as a normal XBOX now and provides its own power to power Kinect (older XBOXes won’t provide this power so Kinect will need a separate power adaptor on older XBOXes). 250gb HDD and Wifi 802.11n. Ships today, and out in the next few days in the US. Kinect is out November 4th in the US. Then, Microsoft do an “Oprah” and a Google and give everyone in the hall a free XBOX Slim. And the people in the press pit get jack all. Well done Microsoft. The people reporting this to the world get fuck all. Well, I guess they had to sit through CliffyB and PeterM babble on about a “revolution” coming to XBOX…

Tune in tomorrow for Sony and Nintendo showcasing what they have. For tomorrow, here is the Sony and Nintendo Drinking game:

Drink for any of these and cross them off the list.

Sony

Premium PSN
LittleBigPlanet2
PS2 Games Coming To PSN
Name-dropping Bungie at least once (one shot for each mention)
3D
Uncharted 3
Playstation Move Showcase

Nintendo

Mario
Mario
Mario
Mario
Mario
Mario

I am happy to announce the opening of the Concerned-ish forums (powered by our friends over at Breach54).

Go over there and discuss anything you see on site, anything that you think would be relevant to the site, or venture out of the safety Concerned-ish and into the (even safer) realms of other forums too. This site is all about discussion and discussion is what this will hopefully provoke.

It costs nothing to sign up and takes less than 30 seconds. Then you will have access to all areas of the site (including the B54 podcast forums, Disgruntled forums, Whiney Hoes forums and the General Discussion forums. Plus some extra stuff as and when it is added).

So, go, enjoy, and pretend to be at least a little Concerned-ish.

- Jazz