I am an old school Tony Hawk fan.  Activision could release Project 8 every year with different achievements and levels and I would probably buy it every year and log at least 70 hours. 

I remember playing the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater on the original Playstation in my dorm in college.  I couldn’t put down the controller then, and I still can’t now.  Back then Tony Hawk did not have the arcade feel that it has today.  You couldn’t manual, revert, wallride, or footplant.  You had ‘lines’ and that was it.  There was no way to pull a combo off across the whole stage.  You were doing good to get a nice 200k combo over the halfpipe in the Warehouse.

Over the years the TH series has ‘improved’ itself by adding these different features that allowed the player to stretch their combos to the max.  Finally, the news has finally broken that there is nowhere else the series can go.  Neversoft has given up.

This is no doubt due to a new competitor in the skateboarding genre, Skate.  This franchise, developed and published by EA, promises a ‘realistic’ skating experience.  The game is ok.  But, I can’t get into it.

I feel like skate will follow closely in Tony Hawk’s shoes.  EA has already produced a sequel to Skate a little over a year after release.  Sequels, as we all know, have to add features to make them buzzworthy.  The second iteration of Skate added walking, and skitching.  In my opinion, the game also got a little campier.  After a few more iterations, the game is surely to become Tony Hawkish.

The most annoying thing about Skate is the fanbase.  These emo losers scour the internet jumping on anything Tony Hawk and say how it sucks and Skate is so much better.  Just take a look at one of my Tony Hawk videos on youtube.

Maybe I am getting old and crabby, but this really gets on my nerves.  I feel like my father defending the Beatles against Rage Against the Machine.  “Back in my day, we didn’t have fancy analog sticks and voice actors.”

I have still not figured out why people think flicking analog sticks is so much more realistic than pushing a button.  Some people, it seems, think skate will actually make you a better skater.  It doesn’t, no more than Guitar Hero helps you on guitar.  I admit the physics are more realistic, but, is that a good thing in this genre?

Here’s hoping someone picks up the Tony Hawk franchise and does something with it.  Until then, I guess I will be playing American Wasteland, Project 8, or Proving Grounds.

So it’s that time of the year when the nights are long and gaming is short.  There is a gigantic void in the gaming industry in the  middle of the summer, that is only made palatable by the anticipation of exciting news coming out of E3.  Except, E3 is no longer what it used to be.  Gone are the days of waiting patiently for your magazine subscription to hear the latest news from the show, and gone are the days of millions of people sitting and refreshing their browsers on their favorite video game website, in hopes of being one of the first non-attendees to hear breaking news.  This year (and future years) we are stuck feeding on the table scraps of the few companies who are still participating in this affair.  Nonetheless, here are my predictions for this year:

1. Bungie will indeed announce a cross-platform game.
2. Song lists released for the next Guitar Hero and Rock Band. UPDATE: Rock Band Track List
3. Nintendo will announce the much anticipated, Kid Icarus and provide very little details.
4. Microsoft will drop the price on all the Xbox 360’s by $50, worst kept secret ever.  UPDATE: Worse yet, the $50 price drop is only until the 20 GB model runs out and gives way to the new 60 GB one
5. and, Sony will talk some more about the ill fated Home (or be suspiciously silent, maybe everyone will forget), which one is worse?

Now that seems drab.  Hopefully, there will be at least one exciting announcement.  What I would like to hear:

1. Activision and EA are cancelling the next iterations of Rock Band and Guitar Hero due to the fact that they are just fancy karaoke games and will soon be relegated to drunken, old, fat men playing in seedy bars on Sunday nights.
2. Nintendo is going to drop the D’s from 3 to 2 in their next Zelda game, since the last time the series had a decent game was in two dimensions.  Oh yea, and they will announce that it will be out by Christmas.
3. Friend codes will be removed from all Nintendo products, gamers will be treated like adults, and the Big N is implementing some kind of original ‘achievement’ type system.
4. Sony is going to redesign their PS3 console so it doesn’t look like something out of a flash forward in a low budget science fiction flick from the 80’s, and lighten it so it doesn’t weigh as much as my couch (is there a brick in there?).
5. Microsoft is going to add Blu Ray support to the 360, in the form of an external drive or Xbox Blue Edition, seems like a no brainer to me.

Needless to say, I am not holding my breath…

One thing that really ticks me off, especially during the gift giving season is the people who hoard all of the new toys and then slap them on eBay to turn a profit. This does not apply only to the gift giving season, for example, the release of the PS3 or Wii. Now, on release day, the stores do a good job about limiting purchases to 1 per person; however, people bring their friends and they snatch up all of the consoles not for themselves or to give as a gift, but to turn a profit on. I’m not going to pretend that I have never considered doing this, but the point that some people take it to is ridiculous. So I have decided to create “The Dos and Don’ts of eBay Auctions”, in particular I will be focusing on console auctions, but this list can apply to most auctions.

Don’ts

1. The first don’t is one that really gets me. So you stalked Wal-Mart for 5 hours waiting for the new shipment of Wiis to hit the shelf, or you have a man on the inside that notifies you ahead of time. You promptly purchase all seven of the new consoles and stroll out of the store with a buggy full of Wiis. One would only hope that they could think, “How nice, he is probably going to give those to the less fortunate”. Yeah right, we know what’s going on. So now you arrive at home and it’s time to put the product on eBay. Everyone knows that auctions with pictures on eBay do better than those without, so you better take a picture. Now, at this point you should give careful consideration to your picture. First of all, you are already going to look like somewhat of a douchebag by trying to sell a console at a 50% markup. Using a picture as illustrated here will only make you look like a bigger douche container, a douchebox. Even though you are selling multiple consoles, put them each in their own auction and use a picture of only one box. When I see this I’m not going to consider bidding, and although I know someone will pay you, I hope that, by some miracle, you lose money on the deal. So, my first don’t is, “Don’t post a picture of a console pyramid or stack, douchebox.”
2. My second don’t is definitely universal to all eBay auctions. It is one of the cheapest attempts to scam eBay buyers out there. So here I am, the buyer, shopping for Call of Duty 4. I sort my results so that the auctions ending first appear at the top. Wow, how come no one has bid on this brand new copy at $25? Because shipping is $30! It does not cost $30 to ship a DVD package, douchetrough. If you want your item to fetch a certain amount, start the bidding at that price or use a reserve. I like to think that no one falls for this, but I’m sure they do. Especially when the auction is about to end and they want to hurry to get their $25 bid in. This is also a violation of eBay’s policy. My second don’t, “Don’t charge excessive shipping to make up for a low item cost”, douchetrough.
3. This next don’t is real common among Wii auctions. We all know that the Wii console comes with Wii Sports and a Wiimote. Every new Wii comes with these things. Don’t try to make your auction sound special by putting these included items in your auction’s title. “Brand new unopened Wii” says it all, “… plus 5 games and a controller” is assumed. In fact, since Wii Sports and the Wiimote are a part of the unopened Wii package, one could interpret the “plus” to mean in addition to the unopened package. Of course, it is cleared up in the description that the five games and controller are those that are included anyway. This does not make the auction worth $100 more. Don’t number three is, “Don’t try to make included components appear to be separate items”, douchesilo.

Dos

1. I have seen many items sell for more than they are worth because of my first do. This first do could get your auction a lot of publicity, from the “weird eBay auction” websites to big time news websites like CNN. Depending on your integrity, this may or may not be an option for you. Now, some of these tales may be true, but I’m skeptical. If you can come with a good story as to why you are selling your item, you are sure to earn a few more dollars for your creativity. Some stories (true or not), that have worked are “I caught my kid smoking weed so now I am selling his Christmas present” and “I caught my spouse cheating, now I am selling all of his/her crap”. The reason this works, in these previous examples, is that it connects with a group of people such as parents or married people. In addition to connecting to someone, it just fun to read sometimes and there are people out there with money to blow that will pay extra just because you took the time to be creative, or because of the events surrounding the item’s selling. Anything you can do to make your auction unique from the hundreds of others will help. Do numero uno is, “Do make your auction unique, by telling a story for example”.
2. My second do was going to be buy stuff to get your rating up, but with eBay’s new policy that prohibits sellers from rating buyers I have to come up with a new number two. So my new number two is, “Do check your grammar and spelling”. One of the biggest mistakes sellers make on eBay is misspelling important words in their auctions. A lot of people have caught on to this and there are applications available that allow users to key in words and have the application transpose letters and search for common misspellings. For example: palystation, canon (Cannon), and labtop. Also consider how you group things together for example xbox360 and xbox 360. Although I may try to take advantage of a typo in a listing’s title, I am more likely to buy something from a person that seems competent and literate. So, review your listing or have someone else review it for you. Another idea is to type it up in a word processor first and run a spelling and grammar check on it.
3. My last do may not apply to everyone, but if you sell multiple items simultaneously, you should allow combined shipping. If you are selling off your ex-box games add a note in your auctions stating that you have multiple auctions running and would be happy to combine multiple items and ship them together to save the buyer money. It’s the right thing to do. My final do is, “For multiple auctions, offer combined shipping”.

Please do not be a greedy eBay prick. Be creative with your auctions, review your listings and try to help out potential buyers. These things will benefit you, the seller. Yes, I ripped off Dane Cook with the douche jokes.