I've been trying to talk my wife out of living in Michigan for something like a gagillion years.  Not that Michigan is awful. It's not.  It has beautiful Spring and Falls and summers are quite pleasant.  And our part of Michigan (south eastern), is no more north than Northern California. 

On the other hand, Michigan has terrible roads.  Sure, there's no traffic compared to say New York or California but they're full of pot-holes.  The excuse is that trucks in Michigan are allowed to have far more weight on them than in other states.  But I don't buy that fully. I think other factors, including corruption, are significant issues as well.

According to Scientific America, much of Michigan just plain sucks when rated for weather, natural amenities, cultural activities, and other issues that poll high in the area of desirable elements to have when choosing a place to live.  But such models are typically incomplete too.  For while say Ohio and Indiana rate poorly, they rate California very high.  I've spent more time in California than most other states and while it is pretty and I love the weather, I wouldn't want to live there.  If we could just eliminate..the people (traffic jams, intense politics, etc.) it would surely be more attractive.

I was surprised that Texas didn't do better.  It's mostly rated as "yellow" (not bad, not good).  So much for my calls to move there.  Florida did very well but on the other hand, it has its own issues to deal with.

I guess as a wise woman once said, it's not loving what you want but loving what you've got.

For all the talk about how Dubya is ruining the environment, the reality is somewhat different.  When it comes to auto emissions, the US has the tightest auto emissions laws in the world.  For instance, starting this year, US autos are only allowed to put out 1/4th as much NO2 as their European counterparts.  But across the board, from cars to industry emissions, the US air quality laws are far stricter than other industrialized nations.  When it comes to clean air, the US - Republican or Democrat, is taken very seriously.

Though Society won't even go into beta until mid 2006 (final release target is Christmas 2007), IGN takes an initial look at what we have so far and gives their impressions. Check it out.

GameSpot has a pretty thorough preview of Society.  Check it out!

Stardock was showing off two games at this year's E3.  Galactic Civilizations II, of course, and a new game called Society.  Society won't go into beta until after Galactic Civilizations II ships.  But you can check out some details on it:

• Gamespy First Look
• Gamespot impressions
• IGN Preview

 

Gamespot has some screenshots of the upcoming Beta 2 of Galactic Civilizations II.  The interface has been significantly changed and many other tweaks.

Beta 2 will be available to those woh have pre-ordered the game in about two weeks.

Microsoft's next generation OS, Longhorn has a lot of features that make it compelling to computer users everywhere.  But element of it that is looking very exciting is the ability for developers to create software to customize it.  Longhorn comes with a new rendering engine called Avalon.  It's through Avalon that Longhorn will be able to deliver things like Aero Glass, a new user experience that includes title bars with semi-transparent borders.

The ability for software developers to integrate into Longhorn (without compromising security), at this stage anyway, looks very promising.  When combined with the impressive list of technologies in Longhorn, users and companies alike will be in a very good place.  A place in which they'll be able to customize the next generation version of Windows to suit their needs.

So many games, so little time.  We've been at E3, the world's largest trade show for video games of all kinds.  And this year is a big year for games as Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft announced their next-gen console plans.

Here are links to our TotalGaming.net coverage:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

 

Whoever is in charge of Xbox Live over at Microsoft should have a bronze sculpture made.  His left arm holding onto a Xbox 360 and his right arm grasping towards the sky.  I say that because while the Xbox 360 games we saw weren't impressive, the plans they have for Xbox Live on the 360 are amazing.  They're so brilliant that in hindsight it seems obvious -- let people buy smaller games via Xbox Live and download them right away.

They're starting their Xbox Live game purchasing out on a smaller scale with Xbox Live Arcade.  They handed me a Ms. Pac-Man DVD to play on my Xbox when I get home.  But people will be able to buy "smaller" games electronically via Xbox Live and have them to play.  Very cool.  It opens the door for all kinds of game development.  Just when you think the consoles are shutting the door on the sub-$10 million dollar game product, something wonderful like this happens. I could see Xbox Live's on-line game buying system being a significant purchasing factor for gamers.

And while I was all stoked up from that, I encountered a wonderful surprise in the form of Heroes of Might & Magic V.  Ubi Soft is really serious about revitilizing this series and it shows in what they have.  The new HOMM sports a state of the art 3D engine that is applied to the game in such an ideal way that it is as if they read our minds.  The battles are so cool now, reminded me of the heady days of the Amiga version of Archon.  And the world itself allows you to zoom in incredibly close to things (not worm coming out of apple close but pretty close) all the way out to seeing a good chunk of the map.

Not everything was warm and fuzzy though on the show floor.  Nokia is still pushing the n-Gage.  The n-Gage is a cellular phone that can play fairly impressive games.  This is the second iteration of the product.  The first iteration required you to remove the battery in order to change games.  I suspect any momentum they may have possibly have had died that day.  You have to give Nokia credit -- they're really trying.  But I think the ship has sailed on that one.  Their booth was usually pretty empty compared to others to the point that it often appeared more like a walk through area to get to booths near it.

I admit I'm not usually a fan of portable game consoles like Gameboy but I have to say that the Sony PSP is pretty damn cool.  If I was permitted to move away from my desk more often I would probably be tempted to play that.  But of course, that would take precious time away from World of Warcraft which I could stop playing any time I want.  I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM...

Peter Molyneux's "The Movies" does look very cool.  Like most of his designs, they are brilliant.  As long as he's able to make it reach its potential it could be one of the real stars (no pun intended) of the game market when it comes out.  On a sad note, one game I was really looking forward to learn more about, Will Wright's Spore, I was unable to get a glimpse at.  But it sure does sound cool.

Meanwhile, I was very pleased with how the stuff we were showing was received.  Society, our massively multiplayer strategy game that we're developing drew particular interest.

That's all for tonight.  Tomorrow I take the plane home and will go over my full notes, videos, pictures, incriminating booth babe evidence and start compiling things.  Stay tuned! 

E3 is such a mad house this year. And for good reason - three huge console announcements competing for our attention.  Microsoft has a bit of an advantage with their Xbox 360 being a little closer to reality than the Nintendo Revolution or Playstation 3.  On the other hand, there was a depressing lack of booth babes.  And what is E3 without booth babes?

XBOX 360 or 1.5?
Xbox 360 is going to be backward compatible with existing Xbox titles which may help make up for the relatively negative impressions that they gave off at the show.  Nearly everyone I talked to was pretty disappointed with the Xbox 360 games being shown.  The term "Xbox 1.5" was used quite often and it was hard not to notice the Mac boxes that were used to power the games.

You could say it's unfair to judge the Xbox 360 based on these demos because the machines used to power the demos are only 1/3rd as powerful as the eventual hardware.  But it's not like Sony used some Jedi mind trick on Microsoft to force them to show the Xbox games before they were ready for prime time.  The reality is, the Xbox 360 games were not impressive. They looked like year old PC games.  Turning on anti-aliasing might have at least helped matters a tad.  Microsoft would have been better off with canned demos I suspect.

Remember when they made games for computers
The good news from E3 is that apparently game developers still make PC games.  Not many PC games but still, there were some.  The PC vs. Console wars go on via Usenet and other Internet sources routinely. But the real status of the war can be felt each year at E3 as the PC games take up less physical space.  In the good old days, the South Hall was devoted mostly to PC games and the West hall to console games.  Now, the South Hall has a lot of console games too.

Mmm. Age of Empires III..
I did manage to find Age of Empires 3.  I had to go to a relatively small two-story booth to find it, but I did.  And at the risk of sounding like a mindless fanboy -- best RTS ever possibly.  But Age of Empires 3 will rock not just because of its graphics, which are impressive, but I think it's the physics engine that will make people drool.  I know I did which was embarrassing as I was wearing a white shirt. Canon balls ripping through a building is a sight to see. I'm so excited to get AOE 3 and it should be out by Christmas.

The funniest canned video was the Civilization IV demo.  It was a video that talks about being addicted to Civilization.  I know that it was playing the original Civilization that I was able to tell my mom back years ago that the birds start singing at exactly 4:45am.  I think there are a lot of people reading this who can relate to being addicted to Civ.  The demo was light on showing the chocolatey goodness of Civilization but from what I did see, it was incredibly cool.  I don't want to build it up too much but it looked better than ten superbowls..

I also got to check out Rise of Legends. That looked pretty cool too. Its graphics aren't quite Age of Empires III quality which may be problematic since it comes out afterwards. But no matter, if its game mechanics are anywhere near as good as Rise of Nations, it'll be heaven.

So even after the second day, I still haven't actually got to check out the Playstation 3 stuff or the Nintendo Revolution. That's mainly because I'm a loser who's not willing to wait in lines.

Below are a few random pictures.  Being on Eastern Time, it's something like 43 o'clock so I'm dead tired.  The problem with being a lazy schlumb like myself is that once the muscles atrophy, it's hard to get around all day.  And tomorrow is going to be even busier.  But stay tuned, lots of goodies then.