VideogameVagabond.com

OK, so it’s not exactly a videogame, and the announcement didn’t come with a big giveaway of promotional umbrellas or anything like that, but Amazon.com today announced the third generation of the six-inch Kindle, and all I can say is, “Wow.”

For the budget conscious, I see they are offering a “WiFi-only” model for $139… that’s $50 less than any previous Kindle device, and with twice the memory of the K2… 4GB instead of only 2GB. With better screen contrast, longer battery life, a smaller, lighter form and faster performance, it’s everything I’ve wanted to see in a Kindle before deciding to buy one.

I thought I’d have to somehow find a way to save up for a Kindle DX to get all these features, but now the Kindle 3 has everything the DX has, except for a bigger screen. And with the WiFi access, it has one feature even the DX doesn’t have so far.

I’ve been vacillating between a Kindle, a Kindle DX and a Nook for a long time now; but I’ve finally decided that K3 is what I’m looking for, at the price I’m willing to pay. (Plus, I’ll probably re-activate my Audible account to get $100 knocked off my Kindle 3.)

Do I love gadgets almost as much as videogames? Sure… but I love reading even more!

Are you having trouble getting into my site?

It seems VideogameVagabond.com and a couple other of my blogs have been targeted by a punk company called Score Card Research; they’ve somehow attached something to my site and it’s making calling my site up quite difficult for most people.

As far as I know, they did this uninvited by me; I have my hosting provider on the case and we’re working to get their crap removed so people can actually read my site again.

I hate companies like this to begin with, they are the phentermine of the Web; but they will be gone soon if I have anything to say about it! And I suspect I do… These are, after all, my sites, not theirs, and they are an uninvited guest.

I finally forced myself to finish the original Mass Effect. The main reason? Finally owning Mass Effect 2! You need a completed mission file in order to bring your Mass Effect character over into Mass Effect 2. My Captain Shepherd is a female named Torah Shepherd, but as I soon found out, a lot more than just her name, appearance, stats and character level survived the import.

You see, BioWare had promised that your decisions and the way you played Mass Effect would deeply affect how the story plays out in later games. So far, I’m seeing that to be a case of truth-telling, not just hype. For example, my character took the Paragon path and chose to save the Council at the end of the game; my Mass Effect 2 game started with those events taken into account.

Had I let the council perish, my Mass Effect 2 experience would have been immediately different. And while I haven’t searched through the game enough yet to know where all the electric fireplaces are, I can say that BioWare is rather unique in actually delivering a notably different experience based on how you play. In a few years, we might look back on this story-branching approach to game design as simple, rudimentary, even a bit dated… but whatever we’re playing by then, the branching storytelling with genuine differences in play revolution started here.

Mark it down in the chronicles.

Several months ago, developer Shaun Sullivan moved his PureSim Baseball franchise to a new publisher, Wolverine Studios. Now, for the first time since the move, Sullivan and Wolverine have admitted that work on PureSim Baseball 3 has begun; the announcement was made by Sullivan, through the act of establishing a PureSim Baseball 3 Beta topic in the Wolverine Studios forum.

PureSim 2 is available for $19.95 from Wolverine’s Web store and currently is in Official Release version 2.59. Virtually no other information is known nor has any been made available at this time. However, I’m not sure I’d trade a Sony VAIO for any guarantee on a release date; the overhaul is expected to be significant, which means a fair amount of development time, I’d guess.

I’m a huge college hoops fan and while the Gophers are always my team, I have long-noticed and followed the fate of Gonzaga University. I love that small school from a small conference underdog aspect of them whenever March Madness rolls around, though I rarely play them in Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2 or anything.

But now I’ve learned that Gonzaga isn’t just with it on the court, but in the classroom, too. They now have an online master degree program that rivals University of Phoenix and other online schools, because Gonzaga has a sterling academic reputation.

While my path is more religious in nature, I’m intrigued by their communication and leadership master’s degree program, although they also offer nursing degrees, servant leadership degrees, and degrees in organization leadership. They’re a Jesuit university, so it’s not quite my particular brand of religious training, but there are plenty of folks for whom they’d be an ideal fit. Too bad I already have a master’s degree in English, or I’d be at least looking into it more.

But wow, what a revelation! I thought Gonzaga was just about basketball, and here they turn out to be a whole lot more. The third-ranked university in the west, ranked one of the country’s best universities by Princeton Review and Forbes Magazine, and one of the few top universities to venture into online education and distance learning. Look out, UoP!

I got an email coupon from a local videogame store, Play-N-Trade, today; it offers 50-percent off any used game in their store. That’s awesome, because there are plenty of games I missed when they were new and spendy that I’d love to pick up now. I’m talking games that are not junk, that are almost as interesting as Fort Walton Beach hotels.

At the top of my list? The PS3 adventure game, Uncharted. Sure, the second installment’s out now and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves looks great; but I’d have to pay way more for that, and why play the sequel if I haven’t touched the original yet.

Hopefully, they’ll have a copy available.

In the next three months, I intend to buy a new videogame, even though I have plenty to play. Mostly, I’ll do this because I’m hungry for something fresh and a lack of funds or slow trickle of free reviewables are not always great appetite suppressants.

The real question will be, which game should I get? If I restrict myself to games out before the end of the year, there are several real contenders.

I could easily get into Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for the PS3. I also would enjoy Assassin’s Creed II with its gorgeous visuals. I wish Final Fantasy XIII were among my choices.

But in the end, one game stands out among all the rest; Dragon Age: Origins is my top choice for games coming out on either PS3 or the 360. That’s my most-wanted game for the rest of 2009.

Could Bret Hart return to the WWE, even after pledging never to work on-air for Vince McMahon again as recently as seven months ago? It’s a deal that seems to be in the negotiation process. Word has it Hart is interested in returning to WWE as an on-air authority figure – perhaps as the new general manager of SmackDown, replacing Teddy Long.

While his appearance would certainly be memorable and unexpected, the kind of shock that could make this Friday’s ten-year anniversary of WWE SmackDown memorable, it would also be largely disappointing to people who sympathized with Hart over the infamous “Montreal Screw-Job,” as well as the death of his brother Owen and his years since his retirement griping about the McMahon family.

To reverse course at this late date to return as SmackDown GM would, for Hart, largely betray the fans who believed in and sympathized with him for the last dozen years or so. Given that Hart is also incapable of resuming an in-ring career, his return would also be a bit hallow at this point.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time a Hart return has been teased by WWE, and while it might still take some long distance moving companies and a lot of money to get Bret to sign, only time will tell if this is actually going to happen or not.

Still, imagine being able to play as Hart in a WWE videogame again after all this time; if he does return, his image could once again be used in SmackDown vs. Raw.

Now that, for the first time in about a decade, I am no longer getting loads of reviewable games for free, I’ve found I’ve become a much more frugal and reluctant game purchaser. Simply because a game has a fascinating murder scene in a series of walk in tubs is no longer enough to pique my interest.

Overall excellence is what does it for me now, and even that, sparingly.

Of course, it’s not that I intended to fall out of touch with how spendy a habit videogames can be; it just happened because I was, by and large, not paying for many games. Even among those I received, I would often use many of them as trade-in credit towards games I really wanted.

I suppose it’s a good thing to get back in touch with how seldom most people can afford to invest in a new videogame. Still, I do miss my frequent freebies!

I thought for sure when I got my PS3, then recently acquired a 1080p Sony Bravia, that I’d finally enjoy some PS3 games in full 1080p. Not so fast, though.

Turns out, a lot of early PS3 games were made in 720p only. That’s sad enough, but when I finally popped in Prince of Persia, I was expecting 1080p greatness until it read “720p.” I was confused and then read the fine print on Prince of Persia’s cover.

Turns out, 1080p on Prince of Persia is only possible with an HDMI cable and a TV whose HDMI outputs support something called HDCP. What? Ripoff! My PS3 is a Sony product; my TV is a Sony product; and still no 1080p? Total ripoff. I’ve come away far more satisfied from experiences with online storage.

(Not that 720p isn’t pretty… but it’s not 1080p pretty.)

Considering how widespread the sim market is, I’m surprised no one’s made Acne Tycoon just yet. I mean, it can’t be any worse than the 500 other ideas that focus on weird industries. I mean, I’ve even seen a graveyard simulator, so why not one that focuses on researching, testing and marketing acne treatments?

Sure, it’s kinda gross. Sure, it seems trivial. But you never know. I never thought I was going to like Lemonade Tycoon until I tried it!

After nearly a decade of being a professional videogame reviewer and/or Web site editor, beginning with SonyWeb.com (now defunct) and extending to Dignews.com, I am now a bit of a free agent in the videogame journalism field. My tenure at Dignews.com ended earlier this month.

What that means is this: my blog, VideogameVagabond.com, is now the best and only place to locate my journalistic ramblings on the videogame world. I’ll get to review only what I want to review, and perhaps I can refuel my passion for videogames due to this new focus.

Now, the parting of the ways was professional if not exactly a dance through a fantasy wonderland, but contrary to fictional reports, it had nothing to do with drug rehab on anyone’s part; I’ve always lived a straight-edged life. In fact, as a newspaper journalist, I’ve covered several anti-meth presentations. The strongest thing I’ve ever imbibed is a glass of champagne… and that, only a handful of times in my entire life.

No, the truth is, after over 800 reviews over the past 9-10 years, I was just burned out by the pace I had to keep up with. Dignews is in great hands, even without my involvement. And hopefully I’ll recapture that early enthusiasm by restricting my effort to my personal blog, here.