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Been a busy week IRL for us....

...so we both haven't been blogging so much lately. Here's what's been keeping me occupied:

- Two major work-related projects involving Visual C# / Java programming : Made some major breakthroughs with both of them for the past few days. Maybe in the future I'll share what they are....

- Virtua Fighter 5 practice (both online/offline). We recently picked up the Hori Fighting Stick so I've been spending a lot of time getting used to the new controls.

I've been following the gaming news and it seems the biggest, recent news is the announcement of Diablo III. The good news is that Diablo III actually does exist. I thought that there wouldn't be a third game in the series, and I speculated the next game would have been yet another MMORPG like World of Warcraft. The bad news is...well, from what I've read on NEOGAF, the release date for Diablo III is well into 2010. This was posted by an insider who had earlier proven his credibility by being the first person [on NEOGAF, at least] to post about the new Witch Doctor character class. The insider also said that Starcraft 2 is going to come out by the end of 2009.

Ouch, on both counts. That's an incredible wait for both games. For a minute there I was pondering on getting a video card for our PC that can actually run Starcraft 2/Diablo 3, but upon hearing the news on the release dates, looks like our PC here will still primarily be a coding/multimedia machine and not be for games. I don't think it's a good idea to buy PC parts right now [I've read some gamers started to consider upgrading right after they read about the news on Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3]. That's because you know how those system requirements can change over time...It's generally not a good idea to upgrade based on system specs given today for a game that isn't even due for more than a year.

On the Xbox front, the other interesting item I've read about is Denis Dyack's bet with NEOGAF. I have to admire the guy's guts. For a minute there, at least...the very-negative thread on NEOGAF for Too Human sank from the front page of the forum, thanks to Denis' bold move. The only problem with what he did is he essentially raised everyone's expectations, particularly the impossible-to-please gaming press. Considering that "Too Human" isn't an established brand name like Metal Gear Solid, Mario, or Halo, I think it may get harshly/unfairly criticized. The only other way to offset this is with a good marketing campaign....if Microsoft sells the game right in avenues outside of gaming websites/press, the game can still do well.

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