Just noticed the post about the cheaper Wii. Whoever posted that subtitle, NOT GETTING ONE AT THIS TIME GODDAMN.

Some nice Forgotten Sands Wii footage. I like this particular video, even though it's just the tutorial.

It's quite "busy" with crumbling stuff and sand in the atmosphere. That helps, well, not hide the low res textures, but take focus away, and make a nice whole. Hopefully many of the levels will be as neat. Other than that, I didn't like the cheap blue line effects preceeding climbing jumps (why have an effect at all?) and what not, and some animations didn't seem to flow great. I'm back to thinking it's promising I guess. My main fear is length and polish in the full game I guess. If Ubisoft gave enough time and funds to make it a worthy experience.

Then again I just finished Conviction on PC and it took like a couple of afternoons, but at least it had over the top production values, which this doesn't seem to have. Not that it made me feel any less miffed when it was over so quickly and without any grand set pieces. Who thought of having a game with no boss fights? Metal Gear is so ahead of Splinter Cell with actual (at times) challenging stealth gameplay (whenever I was discovered in Conviction I just shot everyone dead) and sweet bosses. There was just one helicopter section in Conviction but you were avoiding it while going somewhere as usual, so I guess it was a set piece, not a boss. Still, it was way too easy, as was Assassin's Creed 2 (which at least was longer, I quite enjoyed it), and yet people blame Nintendo for dumbing shit down when such big franchises like these are much more so, but they're shooty/bloody, so it's all good. ...

Also it keeps saying the Conviction server is not available so I can't try the multiplayer, even though I got some DLC from the in-game interface (a couple of new weapons, nothing enough to make me replay the single player). Hurray for Ubisoft's customer service, I totally find their DRM tolerable since they do such great work. Not.

Oh well, I guess these games I can speed through make a nice change of pace from Monster Hunter Tri, lol. I was trying to capture the damn Qurupeko and it called a Rathian for help which took like over half my health in a single hit, and I only had three dung bombs, I missed one, and the other two had no apparent effect instead of making it leave, so that was the first quest I failed. Well, not quite, I had 2 more tries after the first knock down, perhaps I would have managed if they separated, which they would, but I got frustrated and turned it off instead

Edit: ugh, I didn't watch this whole video, I don't wanna spoil the whole game, but...

...it's showing some combat at 2:35 and that looks pretty bad, less fluid and hard hitting than even Sands of Time. Hopefully it was more the player's doing but there were some questionable mechanics like the random close up slow mo and how he suddenly "stuck" to enemies after being in a completely different direction which made it look weird. Hopefully it doesn't have much of that and the boss fights work better and in more puzzle-platforming ways.

^Sucks.  Like New Super Mario Bros Wii.  I played it last night and it looks like garbage, plays like garbage.  That was my second attempt with that game, this time I tried co-op.  Never before have I felt like I wasted money on a Mario game, but this one was a mistake.

If it played like super mario I'd have no complaints.

Whats up motherfuckers?!

Edge, stick around, or come back in an hour. I'm uploading the new podcast, it's hilarious.

The MP3 version of the latest podcast is up. (ogg will be there in half an hour).  With the exception that Darth Homer Jamie was not on the cast, this is the best gaming podcast ever.  If you have not DL'd the cast before, now is the time to start.  Click on our podcast tab for more details.