Dance Central: My Kinect Killer App?

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I am not a fan of motion controls. I’ve made it very clear on this very blog. In particular, I have a number of doubts surrounding Microsoft’s motion controlled solution. While I think the idea behind Kinect is cool, I have concerns about how the technology works, the price (rumored to be $149.99) and the types of experiences being made available for it. So far, Microsoft is marketing this squarely at the casual audience, providing no shortage of Wii-inspired and Wii-ripoff games, such as Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures and Kinectimals. As Darth Vader once said, “Do not want!”

After watching Microsoft’s e3 presentation, I was ready to avoid the Kinect completely. But if I told you I didn’t want to play anything the Kinect has to offer, I would be lying. I want to play Dance Central really bad.

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Fan Expo Day One: Among Nerds

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An hour after the the Fan Expo officially opened, I received a call from my brother. I was still at work and he had just entered the line, which he said was insanely long. Almost two hours later, he sent me a text saying he just got in.

I was fearing for the worst when my girlfriend and I finally got to the convention centre. There were two lineups facing each other: one for pre-purchased tickets and one for those who needed to buy tickets. Both lines were roughly two blocks long. We got in line, expecting a long, slow, painful trek into the convention centre. To our surprise, our early experience was nothing like my brother’s unfortunate two-hour wait.

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Social vs. Gaming: Why I Haven’t Jumped Into the Social Games Scene

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I love social media. I am a long-time blogger, active Facebook and Twitter user, and enjoy the technologies so much that I pursued a career in which I could work with these technologies on a regular basis. I currently work in the digital/interactive advertising business, where leveraging social technologies to improve our clients’ position in the marketplace is part of my everyday life.

Combined with my love of games, I should be all over social games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Foursquare. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. As of now, I have no personal interest in playing any social games. It’s not the social elements that turn me off to the scene; it’s the gaming part.
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Game Design Talk: How Conquist Takes iPhone Risk and Ruins it With a Terrible User Interface

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I really enjoyed the simplicity of the user interface Risk had on the iPhone. I had a lot to overcome, having not played Risk in 15 years, but I picked it up immediately and the user interface worked exactly how I wanted it to.

I picked up Conquist on the iPad because it looked like Risk with more features, iPad support, it had great user reviews and it was on sale for $1. In spite of its strengths, I hate this game. Terrible design choices make this an extremely annoying game for me to play.

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Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front HD Impressions

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For someone who is tired of WWII games, has never played a Brothers in Arms game before and already has too much to play on the iPad, I sure did scoop up Brothers in Arms 2 really quick when it hit $1. I picked it up because it was a brand name, the screen shots were pretty and it was $1.

I haven’t played too much of it, but so far, it’s made a good impression with me.

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Late to the Party: Tron

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Yes, I know. I’m late. 28 years late to be exact. To be fair, I wasn’t alive when the movie came out and by the time I was old enough to understand the world around me, Tron was old news. For as long as I can remember though, it’s been referred to in popular culture countless times and often mentioned as a film that helped bring computers, computer-generated graphics and video games to the mainstream.

I’ve always felt bad as a gamer and all-around nerd for not having seen Tron. Thankfully, my girlfriend and I recently watched it a few days ago and enjoyed it for the most part. I’m pretty tired right now, so I don’t have the mental capacity to write something fully thought out. However, I did want to share some assorted thoughts about the movie.

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Jett Vs. – Episode 1: Stay Classy, Ken Masters

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Welcome to a feature I’m testing out on In Third Person that I like to call “Jett Vs.” (no relation to that Shaq show). For now, I’ll probably use this as a place to post some of my Street Fighter match videos, talk about Street Fighter knowledge and what happened in a particular match. I guess with a name like “Jett Vs.”, I can use it for basically anything related to competitive gaming. Apologies in advance the poor video and audio quality; it’s the best I can do with the on-board camera on my laptop.

For episode 1, I chose a battle I recently had with a Ken player whose cocky play cost him the match. Click through to the rest of the post to see the video and read my match commentary.

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Portal Being Added to a College Curriculum is Not A Lie

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Students heading to school at Indiana’s Wabash College this semester will find something very cool added to their curriculum: Portal. The critically acclaimed game about mind-bending puzzles and a deranged AI that is trying to torture you to death will sit along side Hamlet and Aristotle as required material for students looking to earn a degree.

Education purists may scoff at the thought of a video game being used as a teaching tool, especially a video game that isn’t meant to be educational. But having read the context in which the game is used, I think this is an amazing idea.

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The Legend Begins

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I vaguely remember the first time I ever played the Legend of Zelda. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t old enough to go to school and I couldn’t read at the time. All I remember is getting the sword and running around the world, killing monsters. I was told that I was supposed to save a princess, but I had no idea how. I aimlessly wandered around the world and killed things, which at the time, was probably enough of a gameplay experience to satisfy my tastes.

It would take a few more years before I actually understood how to play a Zelda game, when I first got my hands on A Link to the Past. It would take a few years after that for me to finally “get it”, when Ocarina of Time left an impact on my gaming life that I still feel today.

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