While most of the talk for today's Apple keynote was about the new iPhone 5; the company finally updated what is arguably the most popular gaming system of all time, the iPod Touch.
“And this is ‘Our Korean’.” Team owner Simon Boudreault tells me as he finishes his introductions. The possessive throws me off for a second; it makes this tiny, modest Korean sound like hired muscle in a gangster film. I shake his surprisingly strong hand. He smiles nervously, “Young......or ‘NadaViking’”. He turns around and points to the name printed on the back of his team jersey. They get jerseys? Apparently so, and more over they look quite comfortable. What looks like a loose fitting Lycra number with the logos of computer Hardware companies sprinkled across the surface of it. “The Korean” smiles sheepishly at me before asking, ”Do you play?”
With the massive success of the first two Rock Band games and the brilliant execution and critical acclaim of The Beatles: Rock Band, Harmonix has seen some amazing highs. But the Rock Band series has seen better days. Thanks to the over flooded music genre market, both Rock Band and it's competitor Guitar Hero (which was also created by Harmonix) has really dragged the genre to the ground and chocked it with a microphone line. But that was years ago so maybe it's time to try out old ideas and make them fresh again.
There's more to the MLG Summer Championship than just the eSports. We also got to spend a ton of time with the Matt Charles, Producer of Borderlands 2, and if you can't tell he didn't want us taking pictures of the demo station. Thats fine with me as long as he lets me play the most recent Borderlands 2 demo again for the 5th time.
Thursday afternoon I get off from my day job, tired and stressed out. I work in retail, a girls junior clothing store to be exact and it's pretty soul sucking. By the end of the day, all I want to do is come home, take off my fancy clothes, and curl up with hours of Minecraft on the couch. But not this Thursday; this Thursday I quickly rushed home and threw clothes in a bag and set out for the hour and a half long trip to Raleigh, North Carolina with Bryan and Jairus, for the MLG (Major League Gaming) Summer Championship.
Gearbox is doing a lot of things right with the advertisements for Borderlands 2. Since they decided to included 96.5% more Wub Wub, I've been hooked on every...little...morsel of information about the game and nothing has disappointed. Now that they've released not one but three propaganda videos for the 870 gajillion guns they're going to pawn on to you. You'll need to pick your favorite gun manufacturer and Tediore, Vladof or Maliwan is here to help you choose.