Playstation Home – Sony’s virtual world akin to ‘Second Life‘ – has received ridicule from core gamers and media for being, well, not very interesting. So it may come as a surprise that a large number of people visit Playstation Home on a daily basis; buying virtual clothing/items for their apartment, playing the various mini-games around the world, visiting the many rooms created by sponsors, and of course…dancing. Home is just simply not designed for the core audience, so while that ridicule from the core may be justified it simply doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. If it sounds like I’m throwing water on the fire before the flames that’s because I am, as I am now a part of a small group that contributes content to the Playstation Home audience.

Never thought I'd see the day...

A part of that Playstation Home world is ‘Community Theater’, comprised of various video shows hand-picked by Sony to entertain the community – SOCAST Live being the newest member. SOCAST Live is an extension of TheRealSOCOM.com. For some short back-story, I created TheRealSOCOM.com a few years ago designed as a simple blog to give a voice to the SOCOM community that was carrying over from the Playstation 2. I could discuss the troubled past of SOCOM ad nauseam but essentially it boils down to a lack of developer/community relations from SOCOM 1 over the course of 7 different games. Basically, I saw a need and attempted to fill it.

Now a few years later, SOCAST is the podcast produced and edited by the relatively small 4-man team at TheRealSOCOM.com. Our video version, SOCAST Live, is what has now began airing on Playstation Home with a new episode every other week. I see it as an opportunity to reach out to a new segment of the market that otherwise is unaware of our community-driven website dedicated to one of their favourite franchises. I’ll continue to admit that I simply “don’t get” Playstation Home, it’s not for me, but that doesn’t mean we should be blind to the fact that it attracts large numbers of people.

My first interview for CultureGET.com was just posted online. It’s an interview with Matthew MacFadzean of ‘InSecurity’, a new series on CBC that is sort of a riff on the whole spy action genre. If you haven’t seen it yet I suggest checking it out, it’s very funny and also very rooted in Canada, being set in Ottawa and filmed in Regina.

At the beginning of January Chris Roper and Jeremy Dunham, community managers at Zipper Interactive (Sony-owned game developer on the SOCOM franchise & MAG), gave me a call. Quick back-story, Chris and Jeremy used to work at IGN.com, a website I grew up reading on a daily basis and in a way influenced the way I write today, so I was well-aware of who these two were. And ironically enough after leaving IGN.com they both got jobs working at the developer who had created one of my favourite franchises from the PS2, SOCOM. Anyways to get back to the story, they laid the bombshell on me – I was being invited (1 of 18 people) to Zipper Interactive to check out the still in-developement, SOCOM 4, and oh ya, Sony/Zipper was paying for the entire trip.

Being as I was invited to this as a ‘fan’ and not apart of the media, I don’t think it’s unprofessional to say that I flipped my shit. I had always wanted to visit the west coast, and not only was I doing that free of charge but also checking out a new entry into one of my all-time favourite videogame franchises. For my thoughts on the game I’ll have an article going up at GreatCanadianGamer.com sometime today, but for this particular blog entry I really want to focus on the trip.

For those unaware, Redmond (where Zipper is) and Bellevue (where my hotel was), Washington are both a suburb of Seattle. I arrived into the Seattle-Tacoma Airport on Wednesday evening, was picked up by a few friends (one of which who works at Zipper) and we made our way to Red Robin for dinner. After enjoying an incredible ‘Burnin Love Burger’ and a glass of Blue Moon which only came to $14 after tax (tax only being $1.17 which was insane to me) I headed to my hotel room where my jaw subsequently dropped. The kitchen alone is larger than the one in my apartment – lots of counter space, full fridge, dishwasher, stove built-into the counter – and also a King-size bed, two windows, 32inch HDTV, a desk, a separate table with two chairs, a couch, I could go on and on but just take a look at the picture.

But of course I didn’t come all the way to Washington state to just stay in my hotel room. After the community event at Zipper on Thursday, Friday was spent around downtown Seattle with a few of my friends. We walked around downtown and on our way to the famous Pike Place Market – home of many indoor shops and the very first Starbucks – we found this wall of chewed gum:

After passing this wall we managed to make it to Pike Place Market where, among other things, we visited the very first Starbucks. In front of Starbucks is where we captured this video below of a little girl dancing with some street music performs as her mom watched by. The music was great by the way:

After that we visited the Space Needle, which I like to call CN Tower junior (even though it’s older than the CN Tower, which surprised me). It looks really nice at night and gives a great view of the surrounding area. But I wish the day was a little clearer as the overcast skys prevented us from seeing the surrounding mountains.

I came back with some great memories, I love traveling and I hope to visit the west coast again. I also decided that if I ever move out of Ontario it would probably be to the west coast.

Disney Epic Mickey, which before release had more hype and promise than any licensed game I can think of this year, just suffered the fate of my review. Absolutely one of the most frustrating games I have played – not because its all bad but because the elements of a good game are there but some major design flaws, monotonous quests, and simplistic level design keep this game from being anything special. You can check out my full written review below at GreatCanadianGamer.com.

If you own a Wii and are looking for a good platforming game from this year, either for yourself or for a loved one, I suggest Super Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. Though Epic Mickey has some bright spots it’s not worth the frustration to find them.

Every now and then a game grabs a hold of me and won’t let go. Lately that game has been Pac-Man Championship Edition DX – quite a mouth full of a title and an even bigger game. For the past 5 years Japanese-developed games just haven’t been as prominent in the market as they used to be. I’ve also considered myself more of a western gamer, but when the Japanese hit with something they really hit. Super Mario Galaxy 2 at the beginning of this year and now the new Pac-Man game have managed to be a couple of the most well thought out, incredibly designed feats in videogame development, and they are both rooted in Japan.

You can read my full review of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX at GreatCanadianGamer.com.

So, like all good ideas, this one came to me while I was in the shower. For some time now I have planned to pick up the EA Sports Active 2.0 bundle — coming out next week on PS3, Wii, and 360. Since the purpose of the game is to become more “active” I came up with the brilliant/moronic idea to track my progress online and in video form at GreatCanadianGamer.com. Even though EA Sports Active 2.0 already has a built-in online progress tracker, I think if I have an audience of people watching what I do I’ll be that much more successful at sticking to the plan.

I don’t think I’m incredibly out of shape (I’m below 200 lbs and I’m 6’0 ft), but I definitely don’t feel as good as I did a couple years ago when I was actually exercising regularly. I still haven’t quite figured out my goal, but what I do want to prove is if it’s possible to get into shape by solely using a videogame. I think it’s going to be an interesting experiment and at the very least it’ll make me more active than I have been recently. Bookmark GreatCanadianGamer.com and starting next week check out my weekly videolog on “Can a video game get you into shape?”.

Once upon a time there was a little website I started called TheRealSOCOM.com. While I was definitely a big fan of the popular Playstation franchise, the real reason I created it was because I saw a need. At the time, there was a new SOCOM game on the horizon and the very vocal but often ignored SOCOM community felt like they didn’t have a voice, so I helped out. Being an advocate for the franchise was fun, but as I was making no money and still a full-time student in college, I wasn’t able to dedicate as much time to it as I would have liked.

Well now I’m out of college and have more time to pursue some ventures. So currently TheRealSOCOM.com is under construction and I’m serious when I say that we have some really cool surprises coming just around the corner. I’ll post more about it when we’re closer to launch.

Hot off the heals of my first IGN.com article (yes, I’m still milking that), I have launched a new gaming blog called GreatCanadianGamer.com. Here I’ll be dishing out all my thoughts on various video game news, industry events, and reviews. It’ll undoubtedly be updated on a constant basis seeing as I have a lot to say when it comes to the videogame industry.

Hey folks!

Today I had my first written article published to IGN.com, you can check it out here. I discuss the new Netflix application for Playstation 3, which is currently only available in Canada.

My first IGN article

I’ve been reading IGN since it was “gamesages.com” and “N64.com” before IGN.com actually came to be. So this is a pretty big deal for me, definitely a wish fulfillment.

Picked up Requiem for a Dream and Mememto on blu-ray today in a two for $20 deal at HMV on Yonge street. So awesome!