1. how dynamic the levels are (only an OH MY FUCKING GOD can describe this). The level of interactivity with living and breathing levels (moving train, falling building) is unprecedented and this game will be seen as the game that changed EVERYTHING when it came to environments.
2. There is absolutely nothing in the game that takes you out of the game experience. Texturing, Modeling, animation, lipsyncing: all is perfect and shows nothing that would tell you that this is a game.
3. The story and character development is perfect: you feel growth in the characters, you fear with Drake as he almost (doesn’t) make a jump. And the pacing of the action and story kept the adrenaline up, the heart racing, and you were waiting to see what would happen next.

But one thing Naughty Dog: if your Boss Fight is going to be as annoying and difficult as what ended up in the game, then don’t fucking punish me for wanting to see what happens in the end and putting it on Very Easy just to get the pain over with. What punishment? That would be the Trophy I received for completing it on VERY EASY. I spent 11 of the 12 hours on Normal. And that, my friends, is what we call a Weeny Move.

If I gave a shit about PS3′s Xbox Achievements, I’d be more pissed off.

• News
• last.fm
• Instant On Zune marketplace Zune Marketplace Video Marketplace Beta
  In place of America’s interactive, instant-viewing library of 1080ps movies features, Canadians will relish in their sole feature of  a reskinning and a library that continues the tradition of such new releases as ‘Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey’ and ‘Analyze This’. Finally! We can see what the hype is about!
  In addition to this is the new category of TV, allowing you to ‘download’ your favorite new hits like Beavis and Butthead.
• Twitter:
  I was expecting an automated way of tweeting what I’m playing, but instead what I got was a slower, more awkward version than what’s on my phone (I use twidget for Android).
• Facebook:
  Xbox’s version allows you to continue the tradition of finding smut photos of people you know but this time, on a larger TV while your wife watches.
• List of Shit Americans get that you won’t be getting
  This feature is loud and proud under the Preview menu.

Shut Up and Play This? You really don’t have a choice: the update will be mandatory soon. And while the list of new features on the American’s featurelist looks exciting, Canadians once again won’t be getting any of them, making this update near pointless. While the featuring of the lastest social networking sites is trendy and cool, its a feature that detracts the Xbox from what it’s intended to be: an entertainment device. You don’t sit down with your friends to twitter. You don’t show photos of your best friend dressed in drag in highschool to your new girlfriend. Xbox is used primarily as a movie watching and game device, and these features actually detract from that.

…and now a rant….
I’m proud to be a Canadian. While not from birth, I naturalized here and for many reasons that are outside of the scope of this gaming site, I couldn’t ask for a more diverse and greater country to live in. But we are constantly, as Canadians, on the short-end of the stick when it comes to technology and media. I’ve been doing research as to why and been saving that up for a larger, more journalistic article as to why this keeps happening. There are many things that stem this issue, from government intervention to corporate greed, but let me put up a challenge to any Canadian owned company. Instead of complaining that there isn’t enough support for Canadian content or Canadian businesses and asking the government for handouts, or simply being forced to shut your doors or be bought out by American Interests, why not find out where the opportunities are and start it yourself? Bind together with other businesses of like? There is a HUGE opportunity for not only featuring old and current Canadian content on Xbox Live Video Marketplace here but also for creating new content for a perfect demographic that is trapped to do nothing but WATCH your content. And Xbox Canada, isn’t it your duty to help Microsoft mold their features and services to the needs of a Canadian clientelle? Shouldn’t you already know and be figuring out ways to get help to set this in motion?
I’m tired of being treated like the 3rd world of technology up here and seeing, for no other reason than greed and the over protectiveness of our government, the lack of choice given to Canadians. Choice breeds ingenuity, initiative and a more competitive marketplace and it’s about goddamned time we were given some. And it’s about goddamned time someone in Xbox Canada, in one of the controlling corporations, or in many of the small-time production companies realized the potential to promote, provide and showcase some of the Canadian talent we have up here.

I’m here at this loathsome store to pick up party gifts for my daughter’s 3rd birthday. But the real story begins when I arrive, to browse, in the games section. That locale inhabited by pimply, uneducated employees watching from afar the locked glass that stands between you and your purchases.
I’m looking at the DS games, to see if there’s anything for my kids, when I overhear, as I always do in these stores, an employee giving misinformation — or more appropriately information that he’s been told to say. The conversation was between a father, in his 40s, and an employee, in his 20s and it went something like this:

Father: Do you have that new PS3?
Walmart: No. That comes in next week.
Father (moving to the locked glass): What’s this then?
Walmart: That’s the one that came in last week.
Father: Oh…is this not that new one? The one in the news?
Walmart: No this is different. This doesn’t have all the features.
Father: Does it have a remote?
Walmart: Yes. No.
Father: It doesn’t? It does? Is it wireless? Or have that string?
Walmart: Er….no it’s not wireless
Father: Does it play that, what do you call it, Blu Ray?
Walmart: (Silence)

Frustrated I speak up, as I always regrettably do in these situations and informed the Father and corrected the employee. And then it began: the father asked me what he should get. We talked a bit: I told him I had a 360, that it had many games on it and you could download more. He told me that he didn’t get a lot of time to play games because of his wife and kids, but PlayStation 3 had The Blu Ray right? He wasn’t going to buy any BRDVDs. He was going to rent them.  So I told him he could ‘rent’ HD movies on the 360. And he informed me that he didn’t realize that and his face contorted with indecision.

For Father of Four the inital attraction of the Playstation came down to the name: Playstation has been around for over a decade and people know it and the Sony brand.  The deciding factor came down to a count of features, and even if Father of Four doesn’t understand what BluRay is, or what the future of the technology is, it is the latest buzzphrase because there’s a whole section devoted to it at the local Walmart. And if the PS3 has this Brand New Thing then Father of Four must have the console with the Brand New Thing.

It was an interesting conversation and not the first one I’ve had about this topic since the price drop announcements: my neighbour, Guy Who Likes Sports Games, decided on the PS3 for the very same reason that Father of Four did.  It used to be that everyone, including hardcore gamers such as myself, wouldn’t dish out the steep pricetag of a Playstation 3: there were more games on the Xbox 360  and you can get an Xbox 360 that plays games for $199. Who’s going to pay $599 for a PS3?  Sony and subsequently Microsoft’s announcement of a price drop put these two consoles on even ground: price is similar, the library is eerily similar, and the features at root the same, but on the surface only are they unbalanced by BluRay.

In the past Exclusives were the way Sony and Microsoft waged the war and right now the war is being waged the same way. But I don’t think this has the power it once did, at least not for Father of Four or Guy Who Likes Sports Games. God of War III, Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2, while potentially stellar games with a lot of media surrounding it, will only interest people like me: people who are even aware that these games exist. I guarantee that Joe Consumer will buy a 360 expecting God Of War to be available, only to find it’s not. No if Sony and Microsoft think that Exclusives will help get the install base, then they should be looking at the Maddens, the Sims and the NHL games: the games that Joe Consumer plays, and plays for an entire year until the next one is out.

What about these so-called Casual Gamer Features like Natal and Playstation 3′s Motion Controller. Will they be the exclusives that these companies are looking for? While each are neat, and Natal moderately compelling in what new it brings to the industry,  I don’t think they are the selling features that will change minds. After all, the people they’ll be marketing to are casual gamers, and these casual gamers already have a Wii ‘And doesn’t that do the same thing? Why would I want two?’

So if not Exclusives, then what? Well I think Sony nailed it when they released the PS3: BluRay. But to adopt BluRay wouldn’t make sense for Microsoft: that move would just match them in features to the PS3 and wouldn’t make the 360 stand out.  And no company in their right mind would limit some of the best selling games in the industry to only one console.

So what is it that Microsoft should do to compete with the growing behemoth of Sony? In the next part I’ll list out some ideas that Microsoft can do to compete.