When I realized (Travis Edition)

I used to be an outside kid. Years 1-5 (From what I remember and what my parents told me) I was a tricycle kid. Dad push me down hills on my tric, ride to trees and attempt to climb them. Whatever corny bullshit you can imagine, that was me and my Tricycle.
Then my dad bought a nintendo at a garage sale. It was for him. Well little did he know what I could become with a little help. We had the basics, Mario, Duck Hunt, Track and Field, Castlevania, Kirby and more. But I was not hooked yet. I would be lying if i told you that this got me hooked. What sad kid gets hooked to video games at the tender age of 5? One with down syndrome, thats who. I played and enjoyed, mainly with my father because it was his. And eventually, being the ADD kid that i was, i stopped playing so much mario (for a good reason too, piece of shit game) and went back outside.
This happened in 1994-1995 maybe a little into 1996.
"well Travis, where is your Super Nintendo or Sega?"
well viewer, I'm getting to that you greedy son of a bitch.
So I am a late bloomer.
Before christmas of 1996... I played nintendo again. woopedy doo. same old shit. Go to cousins house..... Lion King? WTF!!?!?!!?!??!?!?!!?!?!
I had to have it.
Christmas of 1996 I had my Sega genesis. It was god like to say the least. Santa brought it to me himself. everyone wanted to do family shit..... I said fuck that. I am going to play Sonic and Garfield. Which i did. I played so long and hard that the black paint of the controller rubbed off onto my hands. I loved that system to death. I got road rage, the other sonics, streets of rage. all the classic. It was an orgasm every day. I knew what i was becoming and i loved it. But this still isnt my climax.... that has yet to come. Gaming was pretty bad ass. But i was not hooked forever. I still liked climbing trees. swimming. talking believe it or not. watching tv. This might be because i didnt own a tv of my own so i could play on my time. or because it wasn't impressive enough for me. whatever the reason, i always got off once i got tired... i wish that was the case nowadays.
fifth grade... something crazy happened....
Pokemon reached us. Everyone was talking about it. One kid chose charmander over squirtle. Someone had caught them all. Somone just caught an Onyx.
I had no idea what they were talking about. I was made fun of. people asked me which pokemon i chose at first... i lied. and they made fun of me calling me a stupid kid with poor parents.
i was outraged. i NEEDED TO FIT IN!!!!!
Begging initiated. Christmas 1999. Grandmother. Christmas eve. Chose one present to open. FUcking gameboy Pocket. the see through kind.
AWESOME
what game? casper the fucking ghost.
I am not going to lie, i almost cried. But i pushed on. i thanked my grandmother and played that shitty ass game all night because i knew this was the big one for me. I went to bed unsatisfied. But ready to begin my quest anew the next day.
Luckily... I didn't have to. LO AND BEHOLD!!! i open my first present and there she was. Pokemon Blue in the motherfucking Flesh. I had never come before this experience. I had to change my god damn diaper.

Best christmas of my life. THis game made me stay up till 4 in the morning. And with that shitty first screen? that was hard to do secretly. I played during classes, on the bus. Started talking to people about games. Started yelling at my game when my pokemon died. All the signs of an addict started showing. And i was loving it. every single second. Pokemon Made me what i am today and i don't look back.


after pokemon it went like this
N64- Mario PS1- Legend of the dragoon Xbox-Halo PC-STarcraft Xbox360-Oblivion

important games in travis history

Nick's Live E3 Reactions

I am currently keeping my eyes on the blogs, gaming websites and live E3 coverage on G4. So what caught my eye? What has me excited on the first day of E3? Lets see...

Resident Evil 5 will launch on March 13th, 2009. I bet this game will be reservable in the next few days. Game will feature online Co-Op! Check out this walkthrough from Gametrailers.com!


Square Enix - Microsoft Media Announcement
- Inifinite Undiscovery will be available September 2, 2008 on Xbox 360. (hmm I may or may not pick this up)
- Star Ocean (spring 2009) (No set date as of right now) - I think I will probably pass on this one.
- Last Remnant on Xbox 360 first. 11-20-2008. I will definitely be picking this game up day one... for the PS3! It looks like I will have to wait a little bit longer.

FUCK SQUARE ENIX!! Final Fantasy XIII will be released on PS3 and Xbox360! I will of course be picking up the PS3 version... I hate you right now Square!

Check back later for more.

-Nick

Brad's E3 live blogging reactions

-Nintendo Wii mote improvement! This might actually get me to buy a Wii if it works really well.

-Fallout 3 looks AWESOME! SHOOTING A MINI NUKE LAUNCHER TO YANKEE DOODLE HOLY BALLZ YES!

-Resident Evil 5 online co-op! This is all I wanted. But 2009 :(

-I just played the Too Human demo. :(

-Fable 2 has 100% pure co-op through the story! Sounds really really nice. Holy crap 2008!

-Gears of War 2 looks like Gear of War. Yay... A 5 player co-op "mode" isn't story co-op. November release.

-New Dashboard looks better. An answer to PS3 i suppose. Are they going to refund the money i spent on my Castlevania and Mass Effect themes???

-Rock Band set list confirmed and it's fucking amazing. Link

-OMFG UNO RUUUUUSH!!!

-Geometry Wars 2! With co-op holy shit!

-Galaga Legions next month. By guys who did Pac-Man Championship Edition.

-Portal Expansion!!!! Nice

-XNA = yawn

-Movie and Tv = yawn

-Netflix rumor was true! I'm officially subscribing.

-Banjo Kazooie looks pretty awesome.

-As does Viva Pinata 2

-It just got boring... I want to kill myself.

-Guitar Hero news. Still killing mahself.

-Lips. Lips. ....lips. I can't sing along to most of my favorite indie songs.

-I have to go to work soon. Who the fuck is this singing. I hate you Microsoft.

-OMG Square Enix president on stage at Microsoft conference!
Oh wait, it's just their B-Tier games.

-Last Remnant in November... I'm interested.

-Holy Shit FF13 for Xbox360!!! No lie! Still no release and old trailer shown.


All in all pretty interesting. FF13 is big but I'm still worried. They announced no new exclusives worthy of mention. I mean FF13 is great but it will be on the PS3. As the lead platform too no doubt. Everything else worth mention we knew about. I'm excited about the new dashboard though. And RE Co-op is great.

Expect more from me later tonight, I'm off to work.


Brad

When I Realized...

Like Brad said, we've always had games somehow entrenched in our lives. When I was growing up, I never really played games, but I was always watching someone play. I was always fascinated by the story and skill behind playing them. I watched my cousin play dozens of games on his old NES. My brother and I would wake up early in the morning and just wait around until he woke up so we could watch him playing something. But we never touched the system ourselves.

Later on in my life games made it into my house, we had a NES, SNES and N64, we were always big Nintendo owners. My brother eventually got a Dreamcast which was the biggest deal because I had always disliked Sega from their advertisements during the SNES and Genesis console wars. As I went off to college I bought a GameCube day one, that was my first launch day purchase but still not the moment when I realized that games would play such a big part in my life. A year later I broke down and bought an Xbox, the live service had just been launched and I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about.

So what was the next purchase I made....

I never owned a Game Boy. As a kid, my parents never let me have one, at first there was no color, and then it had color but was still difficult as hell to see. Finally came the Game Boy Advance SP or "Special." It's hard to think that the SP was only release in 2003 five years ago but when I bought it on launch day I got Metroid Fusion along with it. There I was just turned 21 years old, able to drink and go out to clubs, and I am in line at Circuit City buying a Game Boy which was mostly owned by little kids playing Pokemon. This was when I fully embraced my love for games. Consoles were always fun on the big screen but plenty of people owned them. But when it came to the point where I needed a portable so that I could take the games with me and have them on me at all times. I knew I was hooked and had taken it to a level beyond just normalcy. About this time is also when I realized what I wanted to do with my life. I figured I liked games and it'd be kick ass to do something involving games as a job. And that's when I realized games would forever be a part of my life.


Thank you GBA SP,
David

Why You Should Care - Prince of Persia

I'll admit, Prince of Persia is a franchise I am finally catching onto. I am currently playing through Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for the PS2 and am enjoying it very much. The original trilogy is considered to be a classic by many due to its smooth gameplay, memorable characters, and whimsical (yet sometime violent) storytelling. However, sometimes franchises need a fresh start and that is where Ubisoft's latest PoP comes into play. Scheduled to hit stores this holiday season, Prince of Persia for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC is likely to give fans of the original trilogy a new story and a new twist on the already well polished gameplay of old.
First of all, let me say that seeing the concept for this new PoP is what inspired me to play through the Sands of Time trilogy. I have developed a lot of respect for the work of Ubisoft in the past year, especially their Montreal studio which produced Assassins Creed. The first thing that anyone will notice is the new art style of the game which is a stylish blend between the realism of Assassin's Creed and the cel shaded art of games such as Okami or Wind Waker. In the past, studios that take this more artistic approach have had much better luck when it comes to creating hit titles that eventually go on to become classics. In this case, the game really comes across as a moving water color painting. Just take a look at this video which illustrates an artist rendering of one of the games new foes, the "Hunter".
The story has also changed fairly drastically. This time around, players will play as a new character who accidentally releases an evil set of twin demons from their prison. You will team up with a beautiful new ally, named Elika and traverse a much more open world than previous titles in the series. Ubisoft is aiming to give the player many more choices in regards to how to accomplish objectives and solve puzzles. The feature that has me the most excited however is the focus on cooperating with Elika. If you watch the trailer at the bottom of this post you will see some of the possibilities in regards to combat. Ubisoft seems dedicated to ensuring players that Elika will never feel like a burden and will always be an asset both on and off the battlefield. This time around however, combat it a bit different. Rather than focusing on battles amongst many different foes, the focus will always be on one on one confrontations with agile, deadly foes. I am really hoping that this creates some dramatic and sometimes, epic fight sequences. All in all, the game looks like a much needed and much welcome reinvention of a classic franchise.


-Nick

Nick's "Never Going Back" Moment

So Brad posted a clip related to the moment he realized that gaming was going to be a big part of his life so here is mine. Some of my earliest memories in gaming are actually playing through Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil 2 for the PS1 but before all that, there was one game that set the groundwork for where I stand today. This is the first game I ever became obsessed with. The first game that I took the time to get really good at. The first game that drained hours from the day. One game to rule them all...


It's too bad the controller is impossible to use now... How I miss the...

-Nick

The TV Spot

So at what point in your video gaming history did you realize you were never going back? Sure you played video games as a kid. But when did things serious for you?

Here is mine:


After I saw the first TV ad for Final Fantasy VII I knew I would be a video game geek for life.

Post your own turning point!


Brad

4PP Returns from VGL 2008

So we just returned home from Video Games Live 2008 which was held at the new Austin Longcenter. I won't go into much detail now because we are planning on discussing it on this weeks podcast but I will say that the night turned out to be a pretty big night for us. The show was worth the money and definitely something I would recommend to anyone who appreciates Video Games as an art form and has the oppurtunity to see it. This post features some of the better pictures I was able to take at the show and at the bottom, you will find a short video I shot of the Austin Symphony performing music from the Legend of Zelda. Tune in for this weeks podcast to hear the full story.



Tune in for the next podcast!

-Nick

Rock Man 9 Video & Impressions

I was so excited about the Rock (Mega) Man 9 announcement. There was even a new trailer posted. After watching the trailer, I can kind of understand a little about what Brad was talking about. The visuals are quite a bit lacking. It's nice to see the classic look but having repeating backgrounds and patterned tiles is a little too 1990's. The music is great to have back in the retro style. And it's fine that it has the 8-bit feel to it, but I'm a little worried that there just aren't enough ideas to go around. The Mega Man games always had a problem with trying to keep things fresh while using the same beat the bosses formula. They added in things like the slide, sidekicks like Rush and Beat, and story characters like Protoman and Dr. Cossack. Seeing Mega Man using bubbles to get to high places is a little worrisome as the same technique was used in Mega Man 5 on Wave Man's stage. Overall though, it's nice to have a simple story where Dr. Wily is the villain, I'm most curious to see what will happen to the slow down that the old Mega Man games used to suffer from. Will it be a thing of the past because of the new technology or will it cause more problems if it is fixed?

David

HL2: Episode 3 Finally Makes an Appearance

Its been several years since the release of Half Life 2 and its subsequent episode expansions. All of these games have proved to be some of the most impressive immersive story telling ever presented in a game. If you have played all the way through the end of Episode 2 then you know that the final chapter in the trilogy is a must have. I have been patient with Valve... almost too patient. Going more than a year without any news has been killing me but the first Episode 3 artwork has finally arrived. While the art doesn't reveal a whole lot, it certainly sets the tone for the final chapter and it should be epic.

Of couse, whether or not HL2: Episode 3 will make an appearance at E3 this year is still unknown. Valve denies the rumors but of course, we all know that developers try hard to keep big announcements under wraps. Check back for updates as they are made available. [Thanks to Shacknews.com for the scoop]