This time last year, Sarcastic Gamer proclaimed media ass kissers as 2007’s Best of E3 for their ridiculous fawning over Reggie Fils-Aime and Nintendo’s E3 press conference. This year, Sarcastic Gamer has taken a step back, looked at everything that’s offered, from Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Fable 2, and all of the other number 2 games out there, watched all of the press conferences, and viewed all of the trailers to come up with:

Sarcastic Gamer’s Best of E3 2008.

After the jump.

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Yesterday, Sony held their E3 conference and it was a pretty interesting affair. It was boring at the start, pretty boring at the end. (save for the MAG announcement, which looks to be a pre-rendered Killzone 2-style affair all over again.) In the middle there was intruguing announcements coming one after the other. Resistance on PSP, emphasis on the PlayStation Network and the surprise announcement of the movie store being launched imminently.

For a PS3 owner Stateside, all of the news at E3 was pretty exciting, right? What about elsewhere in the world?

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Here’s another community blog post from SGC member Peace Bunny, who comes forth with some nature notes on that bizarre, fascinating creature known as the fanboy. (The bloke in the image above is David Attenborough, a British nature expert.) Remember, getting your moment on the front page is as easy as joining the forums and writing in your own personal blog. If your post’s good enough (funny, well-written, intelligent) it could end up right here. Good work again, Peace Bunny.

The fanboy (scientific name Xboticus Fanbodium) is a bizarre creature. Typically male, he ponders the lands of both the real world and the virtual, seeking innocents and their opinions. Each fanboy will have his own set of strong and bias opinions, typically based beyond the concepts of reason or logic. As soon as a contrasting opinion is discovered the real devilish nature of the fanboy is revealed.

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If you’ve been awake at any time in the past hour or so, you may well be aware that Microsoft’s just had their big E3 press conference in Los Angeles. You might be aware that there’s been some pretty big announcements: Gears 2’s got its release date, Avatars and the new-style dashboard have been unveiled and Microsoft have made a bigger shift into the casual gaming market with a brand new Scene It, karaoke game LIPS and You’re In The Movies. Oh, and Final Fantasy XIII was announced as coming to the Xbox 360.

See that last one? That’s huge. That’s the mother of all E3 announcements, and the conference has barely begun. Why so? Hit the jump to find out.

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Oh man, I’ve reached that terminal stage with Metal Gear Online where I realize there’s something disappointing coming up. It’s happened before with other games: Burnout Paradise had far too many Freeburn Challenges to bother slogging through, Resistance was lame once you’d figured out how to use Hedgehog grenades and if you were in a Warhawk team with no headsets, you were scuppered.

Alas, Metal Gear Online’s disappointment comes in a different way, namely its DLC. Hit the jump for some expressed disappointment in Konami’s business model, or in layman’s terms, why Metal Gear Online is about to suck.

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President Bush appealed to fellow world leaders at the G8 summit in Japan earlier this week for assistance with a mysterious “ghost city” in eastern California, whose people appear not to exist. The appeal comes three weeks after the President paid a visit to the metropolis in question, known as Paradise City. The city has recently been the subject of an update known only as ‘Cagney’, which brought it to the President’s attention.

Read more about Bush’s visit to Paradise City and about his appeal for aid after the jump.

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Burnout Paradise’s latest update patch Cagney has just hit PS3 copies of the game, with the Xbox 360 version planned for release in a few days due to a couple of difficulties with development. “Codename: Cagney” features new online modes, timed challenges, extra vehicles, 1080i support and custom soundtracks along with a heap of extra other stuff.

I’ve sat down with the update for a couple of hours and there’s still things I’ve not gotten a proper look at yet. Read my impressions after the jump!

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This is an idea I’ve had for those who still play Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. If there are people out there considering buying it or maybe a little bit stuck as to what to buy in the game, these sorts of guides can helptoo. Then again, if you’re going to buy Gran Turismo 5 when it comes out in 2009, Sarcastic Gamer will have helped you choose a car a year in advance! If this guide doesn’t prove too popular, I wont try the idea again. But it’s worth a shot.

My first roadtest (perhaps my only one) covers one of Gran Turismo’s favourite types of car, and one of my own favourites too: the 4WD Japanese sports car. I’m talking about Lancer Evolutions, Imprezas and Nissan Skylines. They’ve all got similarly-sized engines, they all have four wheel drive, and they all weigh around one and a half tonnes. Why not have a roadtest and see which is the fastest?

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Let’s face it, guys: product placement is everywhere in video games these days. We’ve seen Snake using an iPod to chill out in Metal Gear Solid 4 and we might as well admit that racing games such as Forza and Gran Turismo are just big fat adverts for each of the car manufacturers who appear in each game.

The thing is, there’s clever product placement and there’s downright shameless product placement; but which is the worst? My top 5 worst, after the jump.

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Here’s another post fresh from the Sarcastic Gamer Community Blogs, this time from KJScott. If you fancy getting onto the front page of Sarcastic Gamer, head on over to the forums, sign up for an account and get writing in your own personal blog. If it’s funny, written well enough, or just plain awesome, it might end up right here. Good job, KJScott!

My plans to write about Dead Rising went the way of the honest politicians, the worlds oil reserves and the Dodos. I’ve spent waaay to much time having to learn flash programming to actually play Dead Rising (though I have played a bit of Morrowind recently) but after reading this months Bi-monthly theme for SG, I just had to write something that’s been sitting in my head for a long while. For those of us who enjoy playing computer RPGs we’ve all asked ourselves this same question ‘if I could, I would’ do. Though my idea is simple, before I start talking about what I would do I want to let you, the reader, know a little bit about my own experiences and thoughts of RPGs in general to help you where I’m coming from and how I came to my answer. (more…)

Due to my internet being down I spent most of the weekend trekking around my neighbourhood with a laptop trying to find an unsecured wireless signal. However, when I wasn’t standing on a street corner looking very suspicious, I also had a chance to have a break from Xbox Live and sink some time into my one week old Wii.

What can I say? After getting some extended time with the little, box, this Nintendo fanboy learned one thing:

Nintendo made some stupid design choices.

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Here’s another post fresh from the Sarcastic Gamer Community blogs, this time coming from Danish SGC member Trigger95, who’s been having a little ponder about gay characters in video games. Remember, getting onto the front page is as easy as signing up for an account on the forums and getting to work in your own personal community blog. We’ll be keeping an eye out for any articles that really stand out and putting them up here. Good work, Trigger95.

I just heard the special GTA IV podcast and it really got me thinking. Lono’s reaction to the Bernie character especially seemed to hit home. Lono was slightly upset that Bernie was too much of a stereotype, a token feminine gay man, and indeed he is. His character is incredibly stereotyped, even Elton John would struggle to attain Bernie’s level of gayness, but is this really a problem?

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Here’s another post fresh from the Sarcastic Gamer Community Blogs and two day in a row front page blogger, Toshi!. If you fancy getting onto the front page of Sarcastic Gamer, head on over to the forums, sign up for an account and get writing in your own personal blog. If it’s funny, written well enough or just plain awesome, it might end up right here. Another good job, Toshi!

I know that every method of gaming has its die hard fans that worship the ground their chosen platform walks on. While I’ve heard of the fanaticism of PS3 fanboys, I haven’t heard much about the PC fanatics. My first gaming experiences were on the NES, Genesis and SNES, but around that time I got my first PC. To some extent, I still am a PC gamer, even though the majority of my gaming is done on my 360. What I have a hard time doing, is understanding the finality with which PC gamers decree that their way of gaming is the alpha and omega of gaming. I’m open to hear people debate the reasons they think their gaming platform of choice is the best, but I’ve been rather let down by the oversimplified arguments of my co-worker, who is a die-hard PC gamer.

Let me touch on these arguments, after the jump.

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