Concerned-ish

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.

OK then, I figured I should update everyone on where we are. with the site.

Dominant Miscourse

Currently, this is offline. There was a bug with something we put up, and we’re working on getting it fixed as soon as possible.

Podcasts

Due to parts of the site being broken, as well as some other issues with other hosts, podcasts are temporarily on hold until such a time when I’m not going “dontbreakdontbreakdontbreak” in my head whenever I upload something.

Evil Takeover Sponsorship Plans

I know for a fact there are some great sites out there, with great stuff on them, but using free webhosts which put people off and may not necesarily be visited. As part of our expansion plans, we intend to offer people not only hosting, but, should we deem them special and trustworthy enough, domain names, ad revenue sharing, etc. If anyone might be interested in this, e-mail ben@concerned-ish.com and we’ll discuss it.

And now, our new stuff that is already here, or is very close:

Uberchan

Because everyone loves funny pictures. Uberchan

URDSR

*Information Classified*

Game Servers

Now this is something that nay or may not go ahead. I’ve been exploring the possibility of hosting game servers, notbly Bad Company 2 and Team Fortress 2. However, at the moment, I don’t eel the site would benefit, because there isnt enough readers and most likely people have other servers they play on anyway. If there is enough demand for it, I’ll be more than happy to shell out for a VPS to host these servers on, as long as I know they’ll be used. Leave a comment if you want to vote support or request a game.

Writers

Not entirely sure how many people are interested, but public writing for the blog is still open. To write for us, all you have to do is register an account. Then, when you login, you’ll see a “posts” menu with “New Post” under it. Click this, write your post, tag it, and then Submit. Within a few days, I’ll read over it and approve it and it’ll be on the site for all to read!

That’s basically it for the site. Actual content coming later. Have fun.

Hey everyone. It’s Aaron here. Just to let you know that I will be pulling the plug on my own site soon and old content will appear over on this site soon. Until new material comes, here is arguably the most popular article that I wrote back in January. Enjoy!

Why is it that the media is finally starting to take podcasting seriously? I mean, since three fat blokes and another bloke with an awesome beard sat in a crowded room in Stourbridge and recorded what is considered to be the very first podcast nearly six years ago now, everyone seems to finally now be taking notice and have start making their own. Stephen Fry has one, Ricky Gervais has one, and even Aleksandr Orlov (the founder of CompareTheMeerkat.com) has one. Seriously. This is slightly perplexing but is understandable considering the connotations. Making a podcast a few years ago is basically a giant sign hanging over your head saying “I am a nerd with absolutely no social life or people skills”. I should know. I was one of those nerds! You understand what I’m saying though. Whenever I told someone I was a podcaster a couple of years ago, they usually “see their friend across the room” or “have to go because they forgot they were moving to Brazil today”. People hated nerds. Luckily I’m not really much of a nerd now and I turned out alright and I seemed to have gained a sense of maturity about myself that my friend Mr. Podcast also gained at around the same time. So now the podcast is all cool and “down with the kids”, right? Unfortunately, something went wrong.

Why is it that morons have to ruin it for everyone else? We have something good that makes us well known (at least in our small communities, and in basements all across Stereotype-land) and then you have to come along and spoil it! Yes! I’m looking at you again, iTunes! Podcasts before iTunes were a sort-of underground style of thing. Podcast communities only existed in real life after the secret handshake was given (such as the mentioning of an in-joke). iTunes was the single thing that killed it by the introduction of a single library of podcasts that was powered by the very people that made this original content. Some of you may turn to me and think “I do believe that this man is a hypocrite! Where are the Simpleton Police Department?”. Just listen a second before you section me under the Mental Health Act of 1983. I do not have the problem with iTunes. I’ve already riffed on iTunes enough in my Spotify review and have gotten shouted at enough for it. Also I don’t think it is necessary to say what has already been said about it. The problem I see is that now there is a central database for every podcast on Earth. This means that we are more likely to find some good podcasts on there such as Control Point and Australian Gamer. This is a core part in reaching a wider audience and to help build a stronger community. I believe that this could constitute to an entirely new article altogether so I think the community article idea can sit in my “Magical Hat of Terrible Ideas” which I keep next to my self-esteem and my trust of Simon Cowell to make an entertaining television programme. I’m not here to talk about the essentials to building a community in here. I’m here to get you all to hate me to your very cores from the second paragraph, and then for you all to see my point in the final paragraph. But I seriously digress here. The problem I have with a central database that anyone can add to is its own premise (i.e.: it’s a central database that anyone can add to).

It is a fact of life. Anyone who is a jerk has it written in their nature that they will be jerks. If they see a child with a rubber ball, they will burst it. If they see someone driving slightly slower than them, they will cut them up. If they see someone beaten within an inch of their life on the street, they will get out their camera phones and upload it to Youtube. Why are we in an age where this is normal? This is actually quite perplexing. Now when I walk the streets, I am seen as “that guy”. You know who I mean. “That guy” who drives down the street in a crapped-out white Fiesta with terrible blue tints and horrible neon lights at two in the morning waking people up with his shit music blasting at approximately thirty-thousand decibels. “That guy” who goes to the pub and gets wasted with his “mates” on a Saturday night, comes home completely destroyed, puts on cheap porn and jerks off until five in the morning before getting up at two in the afternoon on Monday to go and collect the dole money. These are the very people who go around making life hard for everyone else, which makes the good and decent eighteen year olds look like trash. Now I know why my best friend doesn’t trust me and why I’ve never had a relationship with anyone. Sorry. Lost my train of thought. You understand what I am trying to say though. There will always be jerks that make it crap for everyone else. The same applies for the uninteresting. Now I am talking about the people who have podcasts about custard and about twentieth-century telegraph poles (yes. Thank you Red Dwarf fans for getting that reference. Good to see both of you still read this). With no type of filter to keep control over what stays and what doesn’t we get a database of podcasts where ninety percent of your time is spent trying to find the interesting ones. We will always have pure “uninterestingness” that will plague the system until the end of time.

I don’t have a problem, however, with having crap in the database. That really isn’t a problem. People are interested in different things and that is good. The problem I have is that they all think that their podcast is the most important podcast that exists. They think that because everyone is on the same database, everyone is equal. This has never been the case (with the exception of X Factor where anyone who has the whitest teeth and wears pretty dresses can be as successful as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones). This is the problem I have with celebrity podcasts. Celebrities seem to create these podcasts that flood iTunes, and their entire appeal is based upon their brand: their name. If you went onto iTunes and saw “The Aaron Fowkes Podcast” and “The Ricky Gervais Podcast”, which one would you go for? It doesn’t matter about the type of content that is being given to the actual listeners every week. It is purely based on the appearance of a celebrity’s name on a page that makes anyone zap to it. My podcast could be the funniest podcast in human history (it wouldn’t, but shut up. I’m trying to make a point here!) and Ricky’s podcast could be a bland piece of mediocrity (it probably isn’t. I don’t subscribe) but the person who would get more subscribers would always be Ricky Gervais. The problem with creating a system where everyone is equal and it is down to the content of the actual show is that Apple are assuming that everyone is unbiased and will give everything a fair try. They also trust them to be impartial. They also want magical fairies to appear from the sky and give them free blowjobs and beer. You can’t have everything, because Apple certainly don’t. They seem to think that because they designed a system for fairness that people will be fair. That is as valid as saying that if cut a hole in my neck then I will breathe better because the air gets in quicker. The idea was nice, but it was executed poorly. Good job Apple. +1 for messing something else up.

Twitter has the same problem. Despite only having updated Twitter 188 times, Ashton Kutcher is the most popular person on the site. In between not acting his own age and uploading pictures of his wife’s ass, he is apparently commanding a Tweet-Army of over 4.3 million followers. The man hardly talks but seems to still get away with being more popular than a bottle of Budweiser at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. This is what the problem is with iTunes and podcasts on iTunes. The celebrities can be thrown onto the front page to attract attention and to make themselves look unbelievably smug when they are talking to their friends at garden parties. Whilst this is going on, the Average Joes and the hard-workers stay at the bottom of the ladder hoping that one day they may be as smug as the celebrities on the front page.

I’ve already talked about the power of the media being slowly taken away by the power of Twitter and blogs, and how the dominant discourse are clawing back ground in the world of social media but podcasts seemed to be different. Emphasis on seemed. Podcasts were another way of which Mr. A. Joe could create a piece of interesting content using his own intelligence that could appeal to a mass audience, possibly leading to an uprising against the dominant discourse from the lower classes (i.e.: those people who value their object of desire to be an iPod). Any medium where dominant ideology control the masses will have some way of the lower classes trying to exploit this to stand up against them. Flipping something around and using it against them is something that is not only clever, but also the trademark of any good villain (read: The Joker). Rather than restrict the geeks and their access over this market, they have decided to declare that podcasts are now “cool” and not just for geeks, and have decided pump the directories full of their own podcasts from their own “people” (celebrities) and to have these podcasts being the most popular by force (and the power of the name). The people who wanted the power in the Web 2.0 world are back in their place. Again, a medium that gives people some kind of control over what happens in popular culture is fundamentally destroyed by the original concept: anyone can make anything.

I know I’ve overrun but I haven’t written an article since last decade so I feel I have the right to an extra few hundred words. Ready? Sit right there and let’s go.

The podcast was originally coined as the name “Internet Radio Show” because that is fundamentally what it was. It was a pre-recorded radio programme with general banter that often vaguely points toward one subject. With LUGRadio, it was Linux. With Control Point, it was Team Fortress 2. With the Best of Chris Moyles, it is the Chris Moyles show. With The Best of Youtube, it is about a twenty year old man with a voice changer being more rich than you. Before this, we had the traditional media of the FM radio. They also tended to have precisely the same type of conversations (but without excessive swearing or irrelevant in-jokes to clog up the time between records). One of these mediums is controlled by dominant ideology. The other is in the hands of the people to make their own relevant entertainment. Which one is policed? Which one isn’t? Which one is becoming more popular? Which one isn’t as much? Radio is slowly starting to die on its feet. The solution to this was to “rain on the parades” of those people who feel that having free speech is a privilege and not a right, and here come the Radio Podcasts from the BBC. This gives you the ability to clog up your iPods with stuff that you could have listened to for free with a 25p radio and an AA battery. These make it onto the front page of iTunes. The dominant discourse control the radio, so they control the radio podcasts, so they further push the independent podcasts into obscurity and have their “controlled podcasts” for all to see. Seeing the word “Free” next to your favourite podcast sounds quite oxymoronic now, doesn’t it? Mind soup fed through our eardrums and into our celebrity-obsessed minds. Think of that next time you listen to Chris Evans.

Aaron Fowkes is a freelance writer that writes for Concerned-ish, This is Not A Music Show, Public Domain Theatre and Digimon: Abridged. He also does some voice acting and general acting, but that isn’t really relevant here. His Twitter account is @aaronfowkes

Don’t worry about this part. This for Digg:  38e026f901f74cdab927d424f8815129

Sorry about the no updates over the last week. Due to me becoming an almost-adult, I have had to go to college over the last two days so I can see what it’s like. Naturally, this has left me tired, so I couldn’t write. On the bright side, we’re not blocked there.

Today’s topic is food. As anyone who’s spoken to me around the time I eat or go to get a coffee knows, I rather like bacon and other fattening foods, and quite enjoy sweet coffee. By sweet, I mean the equivalent of 4 spoons of it…. ish. Naturally, this isn’t all that healthy. What gets to me is the fact that I’ve been eating like this for years now – and it’s only now starting to make me visibly fat and hugely increase my blood pressure (it was high anyway, but now bending my wrist causes huge veins).  Of course, this means I have a problem. Either I eat healthier and less and run away from rabid dogs every morning, or I have a heart attack at some point in a Physics lesson next year.

The problem here is, obviously – I prefer the company of my computers. Now sure, there is, as with everyone, a special lady in my life (kind of, anyway), but before anyone goes “chicks liek muscles lol”, I’d just like to point out that not every girl is that vain, and I’d like to think that she isn’t. So – this leaves me with the issue of motivation. Other than the whole dying thing, why should I take time out from college work, and my tech support work (forgot to mention – in the process of starting to work for myself doing local computer repairs, more on that in another post) to excercise? I hate exercise anyway, so… I do quite a bit of walking, it should be enough, right?

I suppose, when it comes down to it, I have some work to do, whether I like it or not. Damn bacon. So now, a challenge – you people are, I presume, slightly healthier than me. If you can suggest foods which are tasty (did I mention I’m a fussy eater?) AND healthy, and I actually LIKE them, you win a prize (no really). COMMENCE.

Summer’s here. That season where it gets unbearably hot, insects start swarming around, ants bite your feet while you’re having a barbecue, and your shirt turns yellow from sweat. But more annoying is when you spend money to buy games, and then find out that your computer that was working perfectly yesterday can no longer handle them due to the heat.

Even as I type this, I see patches of sweat evaporating from the keys I just hit – that should give you an indication of how hot it is. But that’s nothing compared to my PC right now. My processor is running at an average of 60-ish degrees Celcius. My GPU at 75. Now the GPU is fine, they can apprantly go up to 140C before it goes “ohnoes” and shuts itself down. CPUs… not so much. The recommended average for these things is 40C. Meaning I’m going far too high.

Now, I’ve not even overclocked this thing, it’s at stock speeds. The cooler is the stock one, granted, but I do have 2 extra fans in there to suck cool air in / blow hot air out. Now, a friend of mine, known only as “Kireas” (I forgot his actual name… oops) has told me to a) Get a new cooler and b) Undervolt/Underclock the CPU. And here lies the problem.

Last time I had an overheating CPU, I did buy a new cooler. But the damage was done – the CPU still crapped out whenever I started doing important stuff anyway. So, I bought the one I have now. If I buy a new cooler – how do I know it’s still not going to happen? I need a new CPU. Which brings us to ANOTHER problem. I’m using an old chipset on my motherboard, 975X. Intel, Socket 775. Now… this chipset only supports up to 1066MHz FSBs. Which they don’t make anymore. Meaning I need a new motherboard and processor. And, most likely, new RAM. Coming to a minimum of £400, for a rig I deem “acceptable”. Motherboard about £70… CPU £150… RAM £60. … OK, that’s £270, but still – I am a 16 year old who has no job (nowhere seems to want you unless you have 3 years of experience in the line of work, which obviously, is impossible if you can’t actually get a job in that line of work. That, and the garden centre is too far). As you can no doubt see, this means I have an issue. Furthermore, we need another £30 or so on there to compensate for the obviously inadequate cooling I currently have.

So in a nutshell – FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

So here I am, scrawling away on my iPod with my head filled with nothing but Miss R and the sounds of The Beatles completely and utterly scared of what tomorrow will bring. OK. Some are scared of the economy, some of the year 2012 and some of their second home allowances going south of the border down Mexico way. Whilst my complaints are somewhat less important than an oil spill in the Gulf, these are legitimate fears. These are further shown by the fact that this is being typed on an iPod with the world’s smallest Bluetooth keyboard at 2am in the dark. The first worry is simple, and you are involved. I signed up to work on Obscure Studios on short notice and I quickly became one of the core parts of keeping the site going. I’m officially listed as the community manager but I do too many things to count. I”m head admin, director of video content and the VP of jelly baby dispersal to name a few. I am pretty involved in the company and a lot of what happens is on my ass at the end of the day.

This leads to the first concern of mine; is the site the best it can possibly be? I don’t mean from a graphics and design point of view or anything. I mean things such as “is this entertaining?” and “is this funny?”. I get stressed about the site so often that over two years, I have probably lost 5 off my life expectancy. We’ve been fucked around by so many third parties that it is ridiculous to even continue talking about them here. They don’t deserve the space here in this rant of mine. I normally like name-dropping on here and I’m not afraid to rant at an organisation, but the people I talk about now are barbaric pieces of shit that don’t deserve my time. Back on track, the problem is waking up one day and realising that you have wasted two years of your life on something that has flopped. This was the biggest problem with previous podcasts that we did as a group. I hated pretty much every episode. I despise the sound of my own voice, some of the jokes are really forced and the subject matter was as about as interesting as wallpaper paste at times. We were new, but we were so goddamn awful that it was a horrible experience for me. Unsurprisingly, no one listened to the podcast and we didn’t give a shit either. It made me feel so enraged and upset that it was a horrible experience for me to feel. We can regulate as much as we want with what is covered and what shows are allowed on the site, but in the end, I am still regulating stuff that I don’t like. I hate myself for it and shut myself away from the outside world and then you just start to question “is this all worth it?”. I’m not paid or anything, so what is the incentive? The fact is that the whole system now relies on me knowing the passwords to the system. So many things have failed on this site that I can’t name them all. The only reason I’m still here is that I know the passwords to everything. Resignation is always an option, but it still isn’t enough to push me away from here. I need pull factors as well as push. So I go to bed at night thinking “what have I accomplished?”. I then reply “nothing”.

This is a real worry I have constantly in my head about things in my life. Am I doing all I can here? Is something like this going to pay off? As director of video content, for example, I control shows that make it on here. But there are some shows in which we have no idea if they will work or not. Everyone wants success, but not everyone deserves it. Do we deserve success? Is this going to be successful? There is only one way to find out… I have many other niggles and things that make my throat close up in pure fear, but I may get onto those another time when I have more actual need to. Plus, it’s late. And I have a big day of sport ahead of me.

In other words, ladies and gents – Enigmatic Beavers is back. On our brand spanking, shiny new podcast site!

For the record, EB isn’t the only podcast that will be up there – favorites such as Alpha Version, among others, will be up there too. In the meantime, go go go!

OK, so – I honestly didn’t realise that it’s been over a year since Swine Flu was declared a pandemic. Time flies, huh? So, thinking “Oh, we’ll be fine” I go to check the WHO (that’s World Health Organisation, for those who don’t know) and find… we’re still at threat level six. Which is the highest pandemic alert there is.

One year on, and swine flu is still rampant. Wow. This must be some virus. And it’s only now they’re saying the worst may have passed… emphasis on the “may”. Am I really the only person who hasn’t come down with Swine Flu at all?

Because otherwise, what the hell shut up already it’s over.

Just a heads up – I’ve upgraded the blog to the latest version of WordPress. As often happens when you upgrade from version 2 to 3 of something, SOMEWHERE something has broken.

So if anyone finds any bugs, I’d appreciate if you could leave a comment here so I can fix the problem.

Thanks guys!

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.