Thursday, November 20, 2008

GTA DLC; TRU bummer; Gadgets

1. GTA IV DLC revealed (sorta)

It's not quite enough for a Guessing At Future Games feature here on SFTC, but it is certainly something to look forward to during the post-holiday doldrums of 2009. Everyone was wondering what DLC for a GTA game would look like, and this is apparently what it will be - a new character in a new story, and featuring "a whole new side to Liberty City" (which presumably means that it will take place in areas of Liberty City that were not central to Niko Bellic's adventures). No word on length or price just yet; I'm going to guess 800 Points, although I think I'd be prepared to spend up to 1200.


2. Tomb Raider's disappointing reviews

My fondness for the Tomb Raider franchise starts with Legend. Having never owned a PS1 or PS2, I never played the original games and so I never really paid much attention to how terrible the series had gotten (although I do recall playing a demo for whatever TR title was released on the Dreamcast, and absolutely hating it). Legend, however, scratched a very specific itch for me - it had all the fun Prince-of-Persia environmental puzzle solving that I liked, it had decent-enough combat, and it looked and played fantastic. Anniversary was more of the same, which was just fine with me, and so I have rather high expectations for Underworld.

Unfortunately, the reviews are starting to come in, and for the most part everyone seems to be a little disappointed in this one. I obviously can't agree or disagree, since my rental copy still hasn't left Gamefly's offices, but I must admit I'm a little bummed out by this. I'm curious to see if my fanboy-ism will blind me to the game's obvious faults, or if my knowledge of the game's apparent crappiness will only make these things even worse than they actually are; if nothing else, I'm certainly self-aware enough to know how easily swayed I can be by external opinions... except in the case of Metal Gear Solid 4, because nobody will ever convince me that MGS4's storytelling is anything other than a normal-mapped turd.


3. I am in need of a new cellphone. I covet the iPhone, but there's two big things preventing me from pulling the trigger:
  • I'm a Verizon customer, and I'm not looking to switch service providers; and
  • There isn't nearly enough storage on the iPhone for me to use it as my primary music storage device.
So I was eagerly awaiting for the Blackberry Storm, Verizon's first big attempt at making an iPhone killer. And, unfortunately, it looks like it still needs some time to cook.
I suppose I can wait a few more months for them to fix the bugs (and, by doing so, avoiding the crush when it launches tomorrow), but still: damn.

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