UNSCleric.com

The new theme is at a point I would call “beta”.  The behind-the-scenes stuff is all finished (sorry it took so long; we switched the theme completely at one point, and I had to rewrite most of what came with the new one).

Now it’s up to everyone who visits UNSCleric.com to decide on the visual style.  Head on over to http://www.quasiplad.com/lordgradient/ and let us know what you all like or dislike!  Once we’re done, we’ll have a theme that — hopefully — everyone will like.

-LG

Everything will be returning to normal shortly … this is not the permanent look to the site.

UPDATE 7/28:

Everything that is going to work, is working now.  Once all the initial problems were figured out, everything went smoothly.  LG, my friend and former savior of UNSCleric.com, spent his Sunday today (and many hours each night the past few nights) working on this site and the site for The Halography.  He has done an amazing job, and everything is exactly as I had hoped.  The only negative in this whole transition is that it seems all comments from March 2007 to today, have been lost.  LG is still trying to figure it out, but it may be impossible to recover them and make them visible on the site.  There is also the glitch problem that LG talked about above, but that is minor.  Basically, today is the day I have waited years for…I have been stuck using outdated and very time-consuming methods for basically every area of the site.  Uploading images, making posts, updating The Halography especially, were all done using very ancient software and techniques, and to top it off, were all done on a bad (and slow) host.

All that has changed now.  For example, UNSCleric.com and TheHalography.com are now on a brand new server and are each on a fully upgraded Wordpress.  I was previously using 2.0.2 Beta … I am now using 2.6.  Due to that change, and other additions, maintaining and working on this site and The Halography have now become much more organized and fun.  This site will no longer be held back by the limitations of the software and all of the problems associated with it.

Previous Updates:
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Finally, we know why countless games have been delayed or cancelled for the PS3.  The President for Sony’s Worldwide Studios knows the secret:

“They (the third-party developers) massively underestimated the effort that was needed to re-architect the game to properly take advantage of the PS3’s multi-core architecture.”

Yes, it’s now the developers fault that the PS3 was built so horribly for them to make games on.  I wonder what Gabe Newell (the director of Valve) would have to say about this? 

I think the PS3 is a waste of everybody’s time.  Investing in the Cell, investing in the SPE gives you no long-term benefits. There’s nothing there that you’re going to apply to anything else. You’re not going to gain anything except a hatred of the architecture they’ve created…I don’t think they’re going to make money off their box. I don’t think it’s a good solution. - October 2007

It seems Gabe is not the only one who thinks the PS3 is not worth his time.

Valve has also gone on to say that the PS3 will not be getting a version of Valve’s blockbuster Left 4 Dead, at least not a version developed from Valve.

Back in May 2005, when the Xbox 360 was revealed, all we heard from Sony and their followers was, “Wait till the PS3 comes out next spring”.  Then, when the PS3 was delayed until the fall in March of 2006, all we heard was, “Wait till the fall, then you’ll see the power of the PS3″.  Then it launched…and had one of the worst launch line-ups in history and every single multi-platform game was rated lower than Xbox 360’s version, with many of them having critical flaws.

Then all throughout 2007, we were told, “Wait till MGS4, Home, and LittleBigPlanet come out”, and then all of those things were delayed, and now it’s mid-2008, nearly two years since the PS3 launched, and we’re still getting the, “Just wait and see” line from Sony. 

Here’s the latest:

Next year will be the ‘year of differentiation,’ claims Yoshida - PS3Fanboy.com

Shuhei Yoshida isn’t wasting any time getting his PR machine in prime condition. As the new head of Sony Worldwide Studios (he took over for Phil Harrison recently), he’s got a lot of responsibility under his belt, but also a lot of knowledge. He admits the first year of the PS3 was riddled with growing pains because developers built their games on the 360’s architecture. This was the developers error, since releasing the game on the PS3 involved more effort than thought to take advantage of the multi-core processor — leading to delays or sub-par ports.

This was also Sony’s fault, he says, but now that good tools exist to assist developers and many have gotten their hands into the PS3, the trend may change soon. “Moving forward I’m totally confident that developers will start to use more from the PlayStation 3 platform. This year is the year of parity, next year is the year of differentiation in favor of the PS3 platform,” he said. With the clear difference in power between PS3-based games like Uncharted and Metal Gear Solid 4, we hope more devs take his advice and start their projects on the PS3 in the coming years. It will prove easier in the long run, since moving PS3 titles to the 360 is supposed to be much simpler.

Related: Development will favor PS3 in 2009, says Yoshida

All I have to say is, keep it up buddy.  In another two years, when Sony is desperately telling everyone just to wait till next year, it’ll be even funnier than it is now, three years since they started this desperate attempt to stay on top.  Instead, they’re in last place, and will be staying there for quite a while.

Make sure to check out my archive with Phil Harrison while you wait for 2009 (and PS3’s utter dominance) to come.  Mr. Harrison was the genius who said things like rumble was “last-gen and no longer needed.”

Tomorrow marks the three year anniversary of UNSCleric.com (formerly known as xanga.com/xbox360 for the first few months).  In celebration of this, I have finally made archive posts for this site, so that the right hand side’s archive actually lists all of the months that this site has actually been in operation.  Epic, the developers of Gears of War, have also decided to celebrate my three year anniversary by releasing the first-ever gameplay footage of this fall’s Gears of War 2 on late Friday night.  Epic announced this a couple weeks ago, but some of you may have missed it, here’s the story.

Gears 2 Gameplay Footage Hits May 9th - Kotaku.com

Gametrailers TV just secured themselves the first in-game footage from the game. The bad news? It won’t be airing until May 9 at 1 a.m. The good news? The footage, which features Marcus Fenix, includes a special introduction by bunny-loving Epic game designer Cliff Bleszinski.

There’s also reports now that 1up.com will have the footage as well, but later on in the day, even though they say they are the first to have it.

Gears of War 2 gameplay video. This Friday. 10:30 p.m. PST. - 1UP.com

That’s all you need to know, really. 1UP’s GameVideos will be the very first place online you’ll be able to see the footage, and we’ll be posting it in all of its HD glory. And trust us when we say you’re going to be blown away. So this Friday, go to dinner, go to the movies, or go play some GTA IV — but whatever you do, make sure you check back here at 10:30 p.m. PST for the exclusive first Gears of War 2 video.

There’s only three or four movies a year that get me going enough to post about on this site, and this is one of them.  Before you click the video below though, you can watch in full high-definition and surround sound right on your Xbox 360 via the Xbox Live Marketplace. 

I’m not sure when it went up, since there’s no source online that tells you when anything and everything goes up on the Marketplace, but I just went looking to see if there were any new movie previews online (which there rarely is for some reason) and all of a sudden there it was, a preview for one of my most anticipated movies of the year, even though I knew nothing about it except for M. Night Shyamalan had written and directed it, and it starred Mark Wahlberg.

As a huge fan of Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, & The Lady in the Water, this preview does not disappoint.  Shyamalan has kept his trademark visual style, and his way of writing still has that goosebump-inducing mystical epicness to it, I love it.  As usual, the movie seems to be beautifully symbolic of something as well.

While the SAW videogame might not be out until Halloween 2009, the SAW franchise will continue later this year when SAW V hits theatres on October 24th.  It has already been announced that SAW VI will release alongside the game in 2009.

SAW V began filming last Monday, March 17th, in Toronto, and is being directed by the franchise’s former Production Designer, David Hackl.  According to Hackl, one trap can potentially kill the actor meant to be placed in it, so paramedics will be standing by while filming.

Not much is known about the movie, and I’m not one to search out spoilers, but from the bits of info I have read so far, fans of SAW IV can look forward to seeing the return the mysterious “Glass Box Trap” that viewers were given a glimpse of in IV.

2007 has been one of the best years ever for gaming, but 2008 doesn’t look like it’s going to have any shortage of games either.  In the coming days I will be doing an entry looking at this year’s game, much like I did a year ago for 2007, for right now I want to take a quick look back on 2007.

In January 2007, the big game that stood out was Lost Planet, and it’s one of my favorite games of the year.  It had everything, including an addictive multiplayer I put many, many, hours into.  Capcom spent tens of millions advertising this game, and it paid off, because I think this game would have been overlooked even more than it already was.  In my opinion, Lost Planet deserved all the hype Gears of War received back in 2006.

The following month Crackdown was released, and was another sleeper hit in my opinion.  A very unique title that took a lot of my time in early 2007.  The game also had some great extra content a few months later that kept the game alive for those still playing.  The game was very well-known for being many gamer’s ticket to the Halo 3 Beta, which became playable in mid-May 2007.

 The following months saw games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Guitar Hero 2.  Then as summer began to show up, so did Forza 2, which is my racing game of the year.  In June, Shadowrun came out, which was a great multiplayer game, but also very overlooked.

In late June/early July, my 5th favorite game of the year, The Darkness was released.  This game ca be found cheap these days, so pick it up if you haven’t already, you won’t be disappointed.

Then in August, the first of the big games started to hit.  BioShock was released and was a huge hit from the start.  With a little bit of work on the melee system (like a way to block) and a more satisfying, fleshed-out ending, the sequel/prequel to BioShock (which is supposedly a trilogy now) could be a future year’s Game of the Year.  BioShock had one of the best stories and concepts of any game, but in this year of games, there are better overall titles.  BioShock is a game you must experience though.

In September, the Halo trilogy came to an end when Halo 3 was released.  Halo 3 seems to have so much in it that many people are taking it for granted when choosing Game of the Year.  It has a nice, tight campaign mode that finishes off the Halo story in almost the exact way I have imagined it for the past couple years.  There are many ways they could have done the game and the story, but it the way it all happened was very fitting.

With other things like the most played multiplayer in the world, up to 4-player co-op over Xbox Live, Saved Films, and Forge, and a very dedicated developer in Bungie that will give many, many new multiplayer levels for years to come.  In my opinion, all that alone makes Halo 3 the Game of the Year, not to mention it’s the finale of the game series I have been a huge fan of since 2001.

In October, The Orange Box was released, which was Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2, along with a multiplayer component, and Portal.  Since this is my second favorite game of the year, it’s obvious that I loved it.  I never got into the multiplayer, but Portal was unforgettable, and the two Episodes that continued the already genius Half-Life 2 story was incredible.  The HL story is now right up there with Halo as one of my favorite videogame stories now, and I can’t wait for Episode 3.  Even more-so than Halo 3, The Orange Box is an amazing value (and is only $40 this week at Best Buy!).

In November, Mass Effect, was released, and I came into the game with a very unique background.  I have never actually played an RPG before.  I’ve only played about an hour of a Final Fantasy game, and the same goes for Oblivion.  I never played Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, nothing, I just never got into those kind of games for some reason.

I also had not read a single thing about Mass Effect or watched any videos for it or looked at more than one screenshot for it, so when I started playing, I really had no idea what to expect, but I figured I would like it.  I ended up loving it though, and it’s my third favorite game of the year.  As most of you know, Mass Effect is a trilogy, so we have much more to look forward to.

There were a couple other games that came out near the end of the year, like Rock Band, Guitar Hero 3, and Call of Duty 4, which are favorite to some.  I was a fan of both Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3, but Call of Duty 4 was quite disappointing to me.  It felt almost exactly like Call of Duty 4, mixed with the realism of a Time Crisis game. 

I beat the campaign in one sitting, and then started back through it on Veteran and the way the game’s AI operates is just annoying.  That’s the only way to describe the completely unrealistic behavior of the enemy in this game.  It was an ok game, but nothing stood out for me.  The multiplayer is decent though, I enjoyed my time in the beta.

Overall though, the games that I will remember 2007 for are:

1. Halo 3
2. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box
3. Mass Effect
4. Lost Planet
5. The Darkness

Keep a look out for my Games of 2008 entry in the coming days.

No…I’m not announcing it, I’m starting the vote for it.  I personally can’t decide what my game of the year is, so later on this month I will be doing a “Games of the Year” post where I will talk about the few games I think are the “Game of the Year”.  It’ll be a nice follow-up to the Games of 2007 entry from back in January.

To vote for the 2007 Game of the Year, either send an e-mail to UNSCleric@yahoo.com or send a message to UNSCleric on Xbox Live.

Former Games of the Year (2005 & 2006)

Also, it was announced today that Halo 3 has sold five million (as well as winning Time Magazine’s Game of the Year award) and Mass Effect has already sold one million copies.  Congratulations to both games.

(Voting ends when 2008 begins and comments for this post have been disabled.)

Tonight at midnight the wait will be over.  For several years now, the SAW series has gone hand-in-hand with Halloween, and has been one of my favorite events of the year.  If you haven’t seen any of the previous SAWs or want to see them again just before SAW IV on the big screen, there are many theatres doing Midnight Movie Marathons again this year, where they will be showing all three previous SAWs leading up to the midnight premiere of SAW IV.  Go to SAW4.com and click the link near the bottom of the page for the list of theatres having events.  Most theatres will be having standard midnight premieres however.

(Scroll to bottom for the update that occurred at 1am)

Here we go, there’s not much else to say other than tonight’s the night.  We’ve all talked about, thought about it, dreamed about it, waited about it, for years, and tonight/tomorrow is what it was all for.  With Halo 3’s release, the anticipation and pre-launch hype for Halo 3 will end, but the constant flow of fun and excitement due to Saved Films and the in-depth stats system Bungie has built into the game will guarantee that Halo 3 will not be getting old any time soon.  There’s also the fact that Halo 3 will be getting downloadable content more regularly than Halo 2 ever did, and I would expect some by the end of the year most definitely.

In other Halo 3 news, it has been announced that starting tonight at midnight, there will be exclusive Halo 3 content on Xbox Live Marketplace for Xbox Live Gold members over the coming days.  The content tonight will be a special Gamerpic and Theme according to Unscripted360.com.  More details can be found over there, where Deacon is also doing some Live coverage of the Halo 3 launch down in Dallas. 

Marketplace Update(s): There is now a new Theme based on the Halo: Uprising comic available.

Additional Updates:

• Also keep an eye on the UNSCleric.com Flickr page.
• Twisted Plastic has provided a slightly altered version of his Halo 3 banner to reflect launch night/day!
• Check back later tonight for footage from within GameStop as I get my copy.
• UNSCast #4, which went up earlier today, as been tweaked a bit to fix some audio timing errors.  Click here to download.
• Halo 3 shipping 4.2 million copies this week!

———————————–

HALO 3 HAS BEEN PURCHASED!

Since the files are going to take some time to upload, I won’t be able to embed the videos right now since I’m about to Fight The Fight, but here’s a link to my Flickr page, and here’s a link to my YouTube videos page.  I have about ten pics and three videos from the launch, which went incredibly perfect.  As I got there, I sat that I was going to be about 300th in line, and ended up being a group of three guys, who were absolutely hysterical.  There was no talk of spoilers anywhere in the line that I heard of, and a little Red Bull car actually pulled up right next to where I was standing, and GameStop also had tons of Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Game Fuel for everybody.  I got there at 11:17pm exactly, and at midnight, the line began to fly, everyone had been pre-ringed, and I was back in my car within 12 minutes at 12:12am.

The helmet is very impressive and my serial number on the helmet is somewhere in the 300,000’s (you can check out the pic of it on my Flickr page). 

Alright, that’s it from me for now, I’ll be back once I Finish the Fight, which will probably be sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do it without sleeping in-between or not at this point.

FINISH THE FIGHT!