It's been so long since I've been so excited for video games in general.

I remember a time when E3 rolled around, and it was pretty much the most exciting time of the year. For me, it was pretty much the Sega or Nintendo conferences, and then when Sega died out, the Nintendo conference exclusively. I dunno when, in general, the industry just didn't interest me. I mean, sure, I still love video games [obviously], but I wasn't so excited for so many things at once.

This year is different. And I'm going to talk about it all.

Let's start with Pokémon!

Pokémon Black and White

This morning, they revealed 7 new Pokémon, and confirmed Reshiram and Zekrom's types [these are the legendaries revealed almost a month ago], as well as a glimpse at the region, the professor, and some new features.

Reshiram, the box legendary for Pokémon Black Version [see what they did there?], I didn't really like his design all that much. To me, it seemed like it'd be a pretty obvious psychic type. But then with Zekrom's type being accidentally leaked early, people started to assume the theme of the games would be nature vs technology, or, ying and yang. Thanks to Reshirams classification [the White Yang Pokémon] and his typing, it looks like BOTH theories are completely possible. Because of his typing, I think I could really grow to like Reshiram. As he's the very first Dragon and Fire type Pokémon. Hell. Fucking. Yes. Yes, I did continue to delay saying his type. WHATEVER. I'm picking up Black version, hastily.

Zekrom is, alternatively, the box legendary for Pokémon White Version. He's classified as the Black Yin Pokémon and is Dragon/Electric type. So, he's badass. And I love his drill tail. I think I want to import White version because I'm an impatient asshole.

I dunno if I want to talk about each of the new reveals in detail, but I do want to talk about my favourite reveal first off, Gear!

Why do I love him so much? Because he's fantastically weird! He reminds me very strongly of Bronzor, and I liked HIM for being weird. I also like it because it's abilities, either Plus or Minus, basically give it a connection to a previous generation Pokémon [in this case, Plusle and Minun!] without making them an evolution or prevolution [and I can't remember the last time this has happened, beyond Miltank being introduced as the alternative to Tauros]. I definately plan on raising one, but since my in-game teams are never, "Geared," [haha] towards double battles, I'll probably just raise it in one of my, "Tower," boxes [my Tower boxes are basically the Pokémon I raise but don't go into teams. In my Heart Gold game, instead of having Towers, I have a Heart and a Soul box]. I hope it evolves into a towering thing with 2 faces. I dunno. I want this thing to be hella awesome.

The other one I like in particular is Meguroko. First off, I want to start with what bothers me; he's another Pokémon that could very well have been water type [and, don't get me wrong, I am not complaining that it's NOT water; we have enough of those jerks], but instead is a ground type. Specifically, Ground and Dark. It's typing doesn't bother me as much as it's taking the strange principal that made Hippowdon so weird/cool. On that note, he's awesome because... WELL LOOK AT HIM. HE'S AWESOME. He also has 2 great abilites; the first is a staple, intimidate, which lowers the opponents attack one stage [the more defensive option]. It's other ability is a new one called Earthquake Spiral, or some translate it I guess as Overconfident which makes more sense but sounds less epic, which raises it's attack one stage for every Pokémon he KOs. Which is so cool.

The other reveals include our standard bird, the pidgeon Mamepato, the chinchilla Chiramii, the uh... "Dream Eater," Munna [do not get me started on this one], the zebra Shimama, and finally the fire ape Hihidaruma, whom I kinda like due to it being fire type [this is standard] but I don't really like another fire monkey Pokémon.

The regions professor is named Professor Araragi; the first female professor in the series. I don't care too much for that, but I know some people like it, for different reasons, and I don't care all too much for her design. I think it's mostly her hair. But yeah, I guess it only makes sense; I can't imagine someone as badass as Professor Rowan giving you something as dopey looking as Mijumaru. My dislike for that stupid otter is beyond recognition. On that note, I love the pig! Crazy times.

The new features announced include something called, "Random match," which lets you battle against someone randomly on Nintendo WFC. Don't get me wrong, this is awesome, but it's been available on Pokémon Battle Revolution for 3 years now; it's about time it finally made its way to the main series game. And the GTS features that in Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold and Soul Silver have ALL had a building dedicated to them, are now all available in [what I understand] every Pokémon center. If it's unecessary, it's also really really nice. And from what it looks like in some snapshots, the Pokémon following you feature introduced in Heart Gold and Soul Silver will be returning; I hope they improve on it [as in, getting to choose which Pokémon in your party is out, rather than just the first one in the party, having the option to turn it on/off, etc].

That's what you missed, on Glee! ...I mean Pokémon.

Rock Band 3

Oh. Shit. Son.

So, first off, let's start with band size; increasing from 4 [Guitar, Bass, Vocals and Drums] to 7 [Guitar, Bass, 3-part Harmonies Vocal, Drum, and the new instrument, keyboard!]. Holy shit. Apparently the character creator is, "Better," but I hope it keeps the same almost-realistic-almost-cartoony style of the previous Rock Band titles, so I can recreate my band members of old [Gold on guitar, Alexis on bass, Monaco on drums and Silver on vocals]. If I get to create the other 3 band members, I'm definately creating Nevando on the keyboard, and a couple of girls to be Silver's harem as the other 2 parts of the vocal harmonies. That'd be ridiculously awesome. Character creation is serious business guys.

The keyboard charts look so awesome.

So basically, it looks like it's a 2-octave keyboard. I can play those! And newly included in the game is a, "Pro mode," which basically charts the songs into almost realistic musical things. This doesn't bother me on the keyboard so much, in fact, I imagine playing a lot of the keyboard in pro mode [believe me, I can't wait to play keyboard in this game!]. My problem is, I want to continue to play fake guitar. Not almost-real guitar. I play Rock Band to be a pretend musician! Not to pretend to be a musician. I'm not against having the game as a learning tool, after all, I believe Harmonix, unlike Activision with their Guitar Hero franchise, has a true passion for music [and not just their rhythm based music games], so honestly, great kudos for including the option, and the crazy 107 button guitar controller. If people learn to play guitar while playing Rock Band 3, that can only be a bonus. But I do not intend to join in on this. So it's great that pro mode is an option, and not a change in the game.

There's a new filtering system, this was brought in due to, by years end, they plan on having over 2000 songs in the current Rock Band library. This makes sense. What came as a surprise to me is some of the filtering options; like song length. And set list battles that can be posted on Twitter and Facebook. Mmm.

I don't like so much the drop-in drop-out feature that recent Guitar Hero titles have already included. I know it's made to be more party oriented, but... wait your turn. Seriously. I dunno. I guess I'm an asshole in this way.

The tracklist for Rock Band 3 is said to include about 83 songs, which is fantastic. Currently revealed setlist? I'm... not all too thrilled about. I like that there's Metric, the Power of Love will definately atleast get my brother to play that one song, and I do love me some Bohemian Rhapsody [and I mean, a lot], but a lot of these songs don't seem to be... aimed towards me. They feel more aimed towards musical assholes; the ones who, in high school, decided to learn about music and decide that they had superior taste in music so they would like things like Crazy Train. I don't care. But it's only half and I ALWAYS love what Harmonix comes up with in the end.

And since I haven't read or watched anything from anything else, here are some titles I am looking forward to hearing about at this years E3:

Zelda Wii
Metroid Other M
Golden Sun DS
Marvel vs Capcom 3 [Deadpool and Dante confirmed!]
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 [Yeah, the first game was surprisingly awesome for a franchised game]

Honestly, I think what I miss the most from past E3's is my Nintendo fanboyism. I love my 360; the PS3 is a fantastic console in itself. But they don't quite have the heart that Nintendo's franchise has in their games [or rather, has in the past]. Nintendo, please make me a fanboy again. A stupid, blinded-by-bad-judgement fanboy. Please?

So it's time for me to take a quick intermission/break to bring you this special announcement. About real life and such! [A break from what when was the last time I wrote anything whatever you can shove it up your facehole]

So, for those of you who are unaware [if you are coming from my Facebook, chances are you know, if you are coming from Xanga, you probably don't], I am currently unemployed, drowning in debt, and uneducated. Essentially, I've been in a state of, "I'm not going to do anything until I'm feeling better about doing anything," and it seems I've wasted enough time not doing anything and now I want to do something.

Did you get all that?

I'm going to start essentially on the education front as I've simply had no idea what I've wanted to do until now. Previously I was a psychology student at my university of choice, and you know, that was pretty fantastic for the very limited amount of time I was there. I was taking notes [something I had failed to do all of high school] and had just finished my first big test when the school went on strike for 3 months. Fffffff. On the flip side, thinking about it, I'm not entirely sure I'd be interested in a career in psychology; human psychology [especially in the sense of the relations between people] interests me greatly, but I never really thought I'd make a good, "Doctor." Could you imagine though? Doctor PJ. Sounds fairly regal/badass/silly.

I guess what I'm trying to get to is, although I've always had a huge interest in psychology, it's never been my passion. Interestingly enough, I also have a passion for music, unfortunately, not the talent. Is that ironic or just sad? I'm not really sure.

Lately in particular, my friends have been concerned for my sedentary life style, and have basically given me inspiration to try to move on with whatever it is that I'm doing. Whatever it is, it's nothing, it's awful, and I'm sick and tired of it. I have a high appreciation for my friends, and I always feel like I have such a hard time showing my appreciation.

You sense that you have a deeper understanding of PJ...

[It's a Persona reference! Bravo for me!]

Anyways, for a long time now, my friends have told me I should go into school for writing, and they keep thinking I'm shirking their opinions by doing nothing about it, but I'm only doing nothing about it because at the moment I can't do anything about it. Honestly, if I were to get a career in writing, I would be complete. As in, you know, happy on a lifesize scale. And if I did it freelance style? Can you imagine how cool that'd be? I imagine the life of a freelance writer would be pretty alright [unlike a career in freelance photography]. Originally I just kept saying that I wasn't good enough. And you know, maybe that's the truth. But it's not like anybody starts by being the fucking Vincent van Gogh of whatever their career of interest is. It all has to start from somewhere.

I guess the key thing I'm trying to get to you here is that what I am doing in this measly text box is what I truly enjoy doing. I enjoy throwing my opinions out there and I enjoy writing in my own very informal style. Is it professional? I highly doubt it. Enjoyable? That's quite subjective. Do I... wanna do it? I... think so!

I feel the need to take this moment to apologize to all of you reading this hoping for me to talk about the Sims. I'm not very big on the Sims and my titles can sometimes be misleading!

Now onto my quest of unemployment... I need a job! There's not much to this one. I'm 21 and spending most of my days either sitting on my ass playing games or hanging out with friends and playing games. I like being available 24/7, but not at the cost of ruining my life! I like retail jobs, because in those positions you get to talk to customers, as if you, yourself, may actually be a person. I don't like the warehouse, hiding-in-the-shadows type jobs, because 8 hours of no communication moving boxes 5 days a week is enough non-communication for me to know that that is not my ideal position. My resume is essentially a pile of shit, however, which is something I keep saying I'll work on. And I want to mean it.

For all of you looking for something that may not be real life related, I am planning on writing a potentially huge-esque post about the 2 games I've been spending my hours playing; obviously Pokémon Heart Gold and Persona 4. Normally I write something about a game after getting a gist of it's gameplay, but I've now played Heart Gold for about 60 hours, and Persona 4 for something like 40, and I think somewhere along the way I moved past, "Gist of the gameplay," to, "Nearing completion and have a need to spoil everything about them."

Sonic Adventure is coming to the XBox Live Arcade! Yes, this is fairly awesome.

Good news and bad news time, children.

The good news is clear: It's Sonic freakin' Adventure. Such a great game.

Bad news: It's the infinitely inferior Gamecube/PC "Director's Cut," port of the game. I could totally sound like I am coming off as the stereotypical, "All old things are vastly superior to new things because they are old," but believe me, I hate this mindset as well. The simple truth is, the DX version of the game is just overall slower. Incredibly slow. And it doesn't even remove speed in favour of less glitches; it's just as buggy as the original game. It just feels like an incredibly sloppy port.

Am I gonna not want to buy it because of this fact? No, I still want it; I just won't be in such a rush to purchase it after all. Way to be a slave to Sonic Team, PJ, jeeze.