PRE-3

Hot Damn Applesauce, how did THIS happen? It's excatly one week to go 'till the Electronic Games Expo once again descends upon our horrible, innocuous town..

It's a shock really, I've known it was coming for some time now (waiting for it with baited breath) as it's quite a symbol for many things in my life. A deadline, certainly - but also a true milestone, in each of the years since I have moved out here (nearly 10, now!) E3 was effectively put on ice for the last couple of years, reduced to less than a pathetic shadow of it's former grandeur, as it were - I am quite surprised to see that it's supposedly going to be a huge mosh pit of videogaming madness once again, I have to admit.

I am actually - NOT really looking forward to it, as opposed to my usual attitude. Right now is not really a god time for me to be participating in such insanity, I am really really busy and also really really broke. In fact, I am feeling quite antisocial as well - if it were up to me, I wouldn't mind if they could somehow postpone it for another month or two (that'd make so many things SO much easier). But, of course, the world seldom works that way, so too bad right?

Anyway E3 is usually a celebratory time for me, when I get to go out feeling like "Mr Cool Guy" and getting recklessly drunk in public and making all sorts of scene. This time it will be different, I am sure I will knock back a few at the bar, but really what I want to do is scour the landscape, document as much as I can, I am much more business-minded these days then I was several years ago. With games, the proof is in the pudding, and there will be a whole lot of pudding on display in a few days. It's overwhelming and exhausting to think about, in advance. All I can hope is that some good comes of it, for me..

Things have been tremendously busy for me in the past months. I have been working on several plans with a few different groups of people. Much of it has been back-and-forth-nebulous, but enough of it has powered me to keep going forward. I'll spit some of it out into the world shortly, to whatever consequence.. I am very looking forward to that point, when you cut something loose and truly "get the ball rolling." It's so hard to build up to that initial point, it sounds quite doable on paper but the reality is often that there's so much middling BS to mind as well that things tend to get a little messed up here and there. At this point in my life, in ANY project, I really come to expect it. Still, without speaking too whispy, I will say that I have been exercising my creative muscles quite a lot lately and it's making me feel quite competent. Now, so long as my nerves can hold out in the meantime..

The game world is - well, it's there. This has been a rather quiet spring, leading up to a customarily quiet summer. There's no huge tentpoles sticking out for the other ass-end of the year, 2009 is such a wash compared to an oversaturated 2008 (itself an orgasmic followup to an also hectic 2007). Hell year-on-year it's been this gargantuan, unstoppable, quite ridiculous really. And now here we are at the plateau - gears is behind us, resistance, rock bands and guitar heroes, halo this and that, whatever else it is that sony makes - wii is following up with decent titles these days but their luster has finally worn (no mario kart or zelda these days!) What do we get this year? GTA DLC, Bioshock 2 and.. um. I guess Modern Warfare 2 will clean up at the end of the year. No slouch, but something punchy is missing. A LOT is missing.

I have taken my usually-keen gaze away from the console arena a bit and I've been watching the downloads, the mobile stuff.. not that it's all wacky, but it's at least a little noteworthy. iPhone is the big catchphrase these days, it's no surprise, it is still trying to find it's way as a unique platform (more than enough support is there, it has it's own crazy market, the tech is quite formidable) but the "gamer" market is not quite absolutely embracing it just yet, it's still sort of a glorified Gameboy. I am waiting for someone to come and clean up shop and take over, they are really sitting on a goldmine (and I wonder how long they'll be able to fly in the face of the competitors, specifically Microsoft with it's endless deep pockets and eyes set squarely on "taking over the world of ANY KIND OF OS and INTERFACE DEVICE")

Man, I am so tired. So much thinking, there's a lot of things on my mind these days. I can no longer just sit back ad let some higher-up make the decisions, and hope that they don't trickle down and ruin my life (again). I am trying to be much more proactive, it's a necessity. I will always feel like such an outsider in this spiteful industry, I guess there's something to that then.. Anyway, back to work.