Hello to all you crazy Travis followers! Fresh off the heels of E3 2007 out here in Los Angeles I find myself running down south to San Diego for the 38th Annual Comic-Con 2007! I'll be out here for the event covering booths, comics, video games, and of course the Hollywood influx of movies and television. I'm hosting Rebellion Multimedia's new webTV show so stay glued to your seats for all the pictures, interviews, reviews, and crazy crazy fans of Comic-Con 2007! Stay tuned!
PS3 Commercial
Short Film
Travis Jones Animation Reel
Hot Links
Recent Posts
July 2007
E3 2007...
Well boys and girls it's time for a new year and a brand new look! E3 is back... sort of. If you've ever been to the Electronic Entertainment Expo in the past few years you know what an enormous, crazy, sweaty, human herding event it has been as thousands upon thousands pile into the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown LA. Well this year brings the cut-back of the century as E3 almost completely evaporated with the mass exodus of the major video game companies after last year's installment. The re-vamp now holds itself in and around Santa Monica with Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo holding their press conferences all over LA from Santa Monica to Culver City. A bunch of the hotels around Santa Monica have also been taken over including the Viceroy, the Fairmont, and the Shutters. Don't forget that the Convention Center has also been replaced by the smaller, less majestic Barker Hangar at Santa Monica Airport. I'll tell you one thing though... there's a hell of a lot more breathing room at all the events this year... aahhh, personal space. Stay tuned for more info as it comes!
UNDER CONSTRUCTION...
Well it's been a hell of a long time boys and girls. I've been livin' it up and trying to make my way through this crazy world. I've got a lot to update you all on and I've got a lot to catch up with on my own. Basically I'm going to overhaul this site and hopefully make it better than ever! I'll start up a whole new avenue of Video Game news and reviews, Movie and TV info, and the new addition... shameless self promotion! So, stay tuned... your old Idiot Savant is back on the web and ready to start a'new! In the meantime please go ahead and check in on my MYSPACE PAGE or my VOICE OVER PAGE to keep up-to-date until this engine gets running again!
Your host in this little corner of the web,
Travis Jones
Madden NFL 07...
Well here we are. It's Maddenoliday as EA has so eloquently put it, and with that another installment of the 5 billion year running franchise of Madden football has hit our streets. After last year's absolute flaming pile of "you know what" hit our door steps, EA has some extremely large expectations to fill. You remember that one don't you? Madden Football 06 for the Xbox 360? The one with no franchise, no career, no superstar, no mini-camps, no create a player, no challenges, no season, no next-gen glamor, um... no game? So, we all know that they utterly failed with their first foray into the next-gen world... how does their Sophomore effort stack up? Well, I've only had the game for about 12 hours, since last night's midnight sale, and I've barely scratched the surface, but so far things are okay. I say that they are okay due to the fact that I've already run into some glitches that I'm not too happy to report about. Wow, not even a full day of gaming and it has problems? That's a bad one on EA. So here we go, Madden NFL 07 has hit my 360 and I think I like it. The missing pieces we all complained about last year have finally returned, the franchise mode is here, the superstar mode is here, the challenges are back, the create a player is back, they've even brought back the mini-camp in a way with the new evolution called Mini-Games.
SO, what's good? Let's start from the top and work our way down, the menu system to switch from game type to single player to online games, from starting franchises to going to the Live Marketplace to download new content; it's all extremely intuitive, smooth, and stylized, points for that one. The gameplay is still a small evolution from what we all know with the Madden franchise from 2005 to present. They have introduced the highlight stick, the lead blocker function, the run for daylight option, and a few other little tid bits to spice up what we already know from Madden. To give you all an idea about gameplay though. I haven't played Madden since the 2005 edition because the 2006 edition was so horrible (and I hate that Passer Sight thing they did). I picked up the game last night, plugged it in, played about 20 minutes of Practice Mode with the Raiders to get used to the new styles and playbook, then started a Play Now game against the Broncos. The game comes default on Pro setting... the Raiders are rated 74 overall and the Broncos are 92 overall, I won 45 - 9, not exactly the difficulty curve I was expecting. The mini-games are a cool idea. They replace the mini-camps that were missing in the 2006 edition. The new evolution now has you running a 40 and hitting the bench press before you go to your player specific drill (passing, running, or blocking). Only problem is, there is no place in the instruction manual that tells you how to control these mini-games, and the in game instruction that pop up before you play the challenge are somewhat vague at best. For the 40 yard dash, the game tells you to press down on either stick to put your player in the ready stance (well the game animation of your player getting ready doesn't give you a time to do this, and when you do press the sticks, nothing happens and no changes show whether your player has done anything to indicate you succeeded), then it tells you to pull back on either stick and release them (assuming in an alternating pattern, which they don't tell you) to make your player run, then at the end of the run you can hit the Right Trigger and your player will lean to cut milliseconds off your time, that's the only part that seems to work 100% and properly. The bench press is a little more straight forward and responds well as the pre-challenge instructions state. As for the drills? Well if you ever played any of the mini-camps back in 2005 then, there you go. The create a player, and superstar modes are fun for making your own player, but don't expect to be able to make yourself as you can in Top Spin 2 (probably one of the most detailed create a player modes ever). Instead you have a choice of 8 skin tones, and about 20 pre-rendered model heads to represent your player (I hope you look like a fat headed meatball or a sad rip off Leinart, otherwise you ain't gonna look like your self in the game), eh, EA skimped on this part, but it's forgivable if the game continues to show me new angles and avenues to impress me. You still need to shuffle your mom and dad about 50 times before you get a good DNA mix for your superstar to be successful at the beginning of the Superstar Mode, but it's a fun and interesting style for setting up a character (p.s. is it just me, or does every other time you shuffle the parents bio, one of them turns out to be a video game addict, developer, tester, or programmer??? Gosh, ya think that was a little shameless self promotion by the EA boys?) The Franchise Mode I haven't had much time to get into, but from what I see it's pretty much the same. Pick a team, coach them, make changes to personnel, work through the draft, catch league news. Since I haven't had the chance to jump into that part too much, I don't know if they brought back the pre-season training camp to improve player stats, or if you can upgrade or change up your stadium, or if you can do any of the old owner options of prices and sales. First looks indicate all of that is missing and you're more focused towards coaching, playing, and keeping players/player management.
So what's the problem? Here ya go... I started a Mini-Game session,
which is it's own game mode aside from being part of developing players, it can also be a game where you run your 40, hit the bench, and run as many drills as you want, while you do your part, the computer will do the same thing as another team, and you compete against each other to see who wins the set of Mini-Games... okay, that was fun and it'll make me better at the drills for when I need the skill in franchise and superstar modes. Here comes the crappy part... after I was finished with the Mini-Game I earned Gamer Level points, somewhere around 20,000 points. The Gamer Level (and again I don't know enough yet to give you all the inside points) is used to unlock different goodies throughout the game, the most accessible and the ones I got, are the Hall Of Fame Players. Wow, that's awesome, I just unlocked 4 superstar hall of fame god like invincible players for the game. Cool. You want to know what sucks? Those unlocked hall of famers are put straight into the Free Agent Pool in the game across all modes. So, now when I start up a new Franchise or a new Superstar, those damn perfect characters are in the Free Agent list for any team I'm playing against or even my team to pick up in Free Agency. Now, some people may think this is great, and those aren't the simulation junkies or the purists, they're the casual gamers that like to play with the best possible characters and that's fine. But for myself, and every friend I know who plays Madden, this is complete and utter bulls@*t. I like to take a team, as it truly exists in the real world, as it stands as they start the real NFL season in a couple weeks, and I like to try and mold that team into a Super Bowl Champion over a good amount of seasons. I like to play real people who exist in the NFL right now, who are actually playing for one of the real NFL teams right now. I don't want to get up to the line with Warren Sapp, get ready for the snap, and when I look across the line of scrimmage I see Barry Sanders, Mike Singletary, Art Shell, George Blanda, Frank Gifford... jesus christ, the list goes on and on. My point is, all those invincible hall of fame players are just integrated into a game I'm trying to keep somewhat true to life. Can you keep those players off of other team rosters? NO Can you go into the settings for the Madden and turn off the hall of famers? NO Can you erase the hall of famers? NO Is there any way of keeping "fake" players out of the game? NO This is one of the biggest issues I've come across SO FAR in the new Madden. I don't know how everyone else feels out there, but I'm opposed to letting Ronnie Lott join the Ravens as a rookie 25 year old 99 overall player in the 2009 season of my franchise, it seems stupid to me. If they wanted to put the players into the game as options, and you could activate the players if you wanted to, well, that would be one thing. But to have them automatically be a part of every game you could play in the Madden system, and have them be a function you can not turn off or circumvent... well that's just lame. The next problem I ran into is a major major glitch in my game, and I hope it is not a universal problem with the game shipment across the country. I started up a Franchise as the Oakland Raiders, I adjusted my coaches "Scheme" which sets the levels for how important each position is, how aggressive you are on each side of the ball, and how much you set up for the run vs. the pass, if you've played Madden before, then you know what I'm talking about. After I did all of this, and changed some of the players spots in the depth chart I exited back out of the franchise to check on some other options in the game. Keep in mind I never changed any player settings or player abilities (actually I don't think they allow you to edit player's stats at all in this version of Madden, which is also bogus, but I don't know everything yet, as I stated before). When I went slid the menus over to the Play Now game mode, I saw something disconcerting. As I stated before, the Raiders are rated at a 74 overall and the Broncos are rated at 92 overall. When I entered the Play Now mode the Raiders now had an overall rating of 85 and the Broncos an 87 overall. As I started flipping through more and more teams throughout the NFL, I noticed everyone's ratings were very skewed, somehow the computer messed up every team's ratings. I don't know every team's overall ratings, but I generally know some of them, like the Colts were in the high 90's when I originally started up the game, now they were an 88 overall, the 49ers were originally a 73 overall and were now an 83 overall. I don't know what glitch the game or my Xbox 360 hit, but it was a big one. I have yet to see if this was an isolated case or if this is a constant glitch, but as I continue to play I will keep you all updated on the progress of this issue. So, what started out as a simple light paragraph to give you guys a quick first look at the new Madden for the 360, has quickly turned into an all out review. As I delve further into the game, and discover new things, and as I uncover answers to some of my questions as well as some of my problems, I will add to this review of Madden NFL 07 for the Xbox 360. As for now I leave you with a hope that this is the Madden I've been waiting 2 years for, and an initial rating of 7 out of 10.
UPDATE: Well another day, and another problem. I took Madden 07 over to my friend's house yesterday and we were getting into the multiplayer functions of the game. Guess what? Madden takes another hit! There is no co-op or rather you can't play with a friend against the computer, nor can you play with a friend against others online... so what the hell happened? Where did the two players versus two players go to? Just a sad drop from the list of options on Madden NFL 07. More to come on this new version of Madden... stay tuned!
E3 IS DEAD...
Ladies and gentlemen... boys and girls... it is my sad duty, and with a heavy heart, that I pass along the news to you all. One of the most important gaming industry's yearly events, the E3 Expo is officially DEAD. The news has been circulating like wildfire this morning and it is official. In an announcement made by Douglas Lowenstein, president of the ESA (the company that puts E3 on), he stated that it was "no longer necessary or efficient" to have a single mega event for the industry. A sad attempt to save face due to the fact that vendors and developers have been jumping ship from the Expo ever since this year's E3. The straw that broke the camel's back had to be the pullout of EA. With such a big company leaving the event, it would be impossible to replace the almost football field sized booth they provided and the sheer amount of games and presence the company supplied to the event. What will become of E3 next is yet to be seen, in the press statements already released by ESA they assure us that E3 will continue, but in a much more "intimate and personalized" event. Translation, "it's way way smaller because no one's going to be there." They also say that it will "focus on small meetings" and it "will not feature the large trade show environment." So the mega-scale video game event that everyone has grown to know and love, whether it be from the trade show floor personally, or from the comfort of your couch is no more. Rather than seeing the enormity of the Los Angeles Convention Center filled with insanely huge displays, 100 foot video screens, football field sized booths, hundreds of playable demos due out a year later, dozens of booth babes, and attendees measuring in the tens of thousands... you will now get, a few companies, no video screens, no big booths, no little booths, no booth babes, no displays, no playable demos, and no attendees (try somewhere between 200 and 400 people). Goodbye E3, how I loved thee, you shall be missed.
Check out these news stories for more info:
CNet's E3 story
Next Generation's E3 story
IGN's E3 story
X3, X-Men 3 The Last Stand...
So it is 2:55 am on Friday the 26th of May, 2006. I have just walked in my front door, returning from the day-early midnight showing of X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Why am I telling you this? Why jump right on the computer to report? Because the biggest news I can bring you about the movie is exactly the opposite of what I thought I'd be telling you all! The news is this: BRETT RADNER DID NOT RUIN THE X-MEN FRANCHISE!!! I know, I'm as surprised as you are. Here I thought I'd be driving home tonight having groaned my way through the muddled sludge that Radner had left us X-Men fans, but instead I'm sitting at my computer with images of fantastic fights, unbelievable superhero wars, and a general sense of satisfaction. Now let's talk storyline for a moment shall we? What the hell were the writers on when they plotted this one down on paper?! If you are a devout X-Men fan and know the comics and stories and TV shows inside-out then you have to do one thing... throw it all the hell out the window. Yes, this movie does touch on some very familiar plots and some extremely important story-lines from the X-Men universe, but they have completely rewritten all of it to conform to their own little movie. In short, it has almost been an hour and fifteen minutes since the movie ended and I am still trying to come to terms with what they did in this movie. My brain is having trouble wrapping around the way they told the story they wrote, and just exactly how they came to the conclusion to have certain things occur. I don't really know if I will understand a lot of it, but it's pretty hard for me to swallow right now. As for the action, fighting, and special effects of the characters and their mutant powers, the home run they hit still hasn't landed. Each character's powers were wonderfully brought to life, and the Alcatraz scenes were awe inspiring. I don't know if I'll ever be able to come to terms with the story of X-Men 3 but I'll never call it a bad movie, nor will I be skeptical of Brett Radner (for the next few months at least), and I will always love the way they showed off the mutant powers so gracefully. Bottom line, I'll be seeing this movie at least a couple more times before its run is over at the box office.
E3 Wrap Up...
Well kids... it's all over. E3 2006 has come and past, and we're all left dreaming about the good, the bad, and the ugly. This E3 seemed to be a little lack luster compared to last year's. Whether it was the missing extra 5,000 people, or the emergence of a questionable price point on a certain new console, something was missing from the mystique that is E3. But, and this is a good but, we also had the opportunity to see some absolutely amazing things this year. The emergence of a show stopper where the thought of a weaker runt in the next-gen console war once existed, the sign that maybe coming out with the first next-gen doesn't necessarily mean you won't be able to compete with those coming up with systems after yours. And, yes, I know what you're all thinking... how the hell can you be wrapping up E3 when you haven't really covered it yet?! Well it's been a long three days folks, and I'm only one man covering the biggest video game event in the world. Don't worry, you've got a quick overview here for now, I'm constantly streaming new videos and pictures as we speak to my moblog of all I experienced, and over the next couple of days you'll be getting my in depth reviews of the three major players and a horde of video games for each new system. In the meantime, let me give you what I considered to be the blockbusters of this E3 experience.
# 1 WINNER!!!
Nintendo... Nintendo unveiled the questionable Nintendo Revolution, now officially named the 
Wii, to an onslaught of both excited and suspicious gamers this year at E3. The questions arose from the emergence (or no emergence) of any real information out of the Nintendo house, the knowledge that the console would definitely not compare in graphics quality to the other two next-gen consoles, and that Nintendo, until recently, only gave us the information that it would "wow" us. Well with the new news that Nintendo would have a motion sensitive controller which you would use in a whole new interactive way to control the games you play and that the price point for the console would definitely be somewhere between $250 and $300, things have become a little more interesting. Well apparently Nintendo has been burning the midnight oil on the Wii. This year at E3 the Nintendo Wii was easily the most innovative and most popular video game system in the convention center. Nintendo's booth was packed with a consistent 4 hour wait line each of the three days the floor was open to exhibit viewers, and with good reason. The Wii was definitely the show stopper Nintendo was hoping for as it made for new, inventive, and never before seen game-play. The wireless, motion sensor controller was more responsive and sensitive than anyone could have expected with people often making fools of themselves on the show floor flailing their arms around as if in some kind of convulsion. What turned out to be truth was that the controller took only a couple minutes of game play to get a grasp of the play control, and that each game
presented seemed to use some unique (and quite cool) features of the motion sensor. Whether it be a shake, a rattle, a jab, or a slash, all motions achieved precise execution and an extra feeling of immersion and interactivity, in short the controller blew everyone away with how well it really worked. What was even more surprising was the "inferior" graphics which everyone thought might be the undoing of the console. Yes, it is true, the graphics do not match up to the PS3's or the 360's, but not a single person in the convention hall cared one little bit, nor did I. The graphics are actually quite good... they may only be a slight step above that of the Gamecube, but they get the job done. And keep in mind that the games being displayed at E3 were still under development and have many more months of polishing and refining. As far as sweeping the crowd off their feet and surprising the entire audience, Nintendo cleaned house.
# 2 Winner! TIE!!!
Gears Of War... Cliffy B came out with a hands down winner on this one. And that's saying a lot 
due to the fact that I never did get a hands on experience with the game. I instead only got to see the beautiful demo and movie trailer they had over at the Microsoft uber-massive booth. Gears of War is being described as a "cover shooter" or as Cliffy B put it "stop and pop." This means you don't get to do the typical run and gun, or the oh so bland circle and shoot at your opponent, or the banish-able bunny hopping. This game will punish you for those kinds of moves. You have to pick your places carefully, you have to use cover to your advantage and you have to use that sick chainsaw mounted on the bottom of the barrel of your gun to carve up the face of your enemy... eww, gory and cool, that equals happiness. This game seems to be playing wonderfully, looks like nothing you've played before, and has one of the most beautiful renderings I've ever seen. In short, this game looks freaking sweet! Keep your eyes out for this one, as it's already got my best game vote for E3 2006.
Spore... Will Wright has walked into the LA Convention Center before, and he's controlled the house like it was one of his happy little Sim's dwellings. Well, Will strolled on in this year and he took over the place like only Mr. Wright can. Spore is being described by Mr. Wright as the very first
"Massively Single Player" game with the idea of "how one life can impact the universe" and in doing so, giving the player the opportunity to create the world, the planet, the plants, and species, and animals, and... whew... you pretty much design every single little aspect of the game to progress your planet from a microscopic one celled organism to the most advanced inter-galactic beings around. While you're creating all this crazy life on one or more planets in the universe, Mr. Wright and his cohorts will be "collecting all the creativity of each player on their servers and redistributing all of them back into the game therefore becoming a part of the overall universe" for each player to interact with and experience. Even though you may never interact with any other gamers like in a MMO, you will interact with their planets, and species, every planet and species that exists in the game will act and reflect exactly how the gamer who invented them has played them to that point. Will Wright has hit absolute gold with this game, and it gets my E3 2006 game of the year vote!
Other Winners!
Don't get me wrong I could go on for hours with you guys about how I could break down each and every game I had the privilege of playing this year, and how (or how not, eh) each game made my best of E3 list and how I can't wait for it to hit my greedy little hands. So without giving into the urge to review every single game for the next 72 hours straight, let me throw some titles at you that really caught my eye.
Xbox 360 Game Line-up... I'm throwing a hell of a lot of games into this little slot, but if you saw what I saw, you'd understand why. Let's talk, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Too Human, Lost Planet, Crackdown, Prey, Mass Effect, Huxley, ChromeHounds, Fable 2, you know what? honestly? this list could keep going for the next five pages and the reason is because developers and Microsoft have finally started unleashing the full potential of the 360's hardware. Oh, and one more thing... how about a guy name Master Chief??? Yeah, that's right, Halo 3.
Nintendo Wii Line-up... What did Nintendo bring to the table with their Wii? How about Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Brothers Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Red Steel, and in the most surprising and blind-siding announcement (behind closed doors) Super Smash Brothers Brawl including Snake of MGS and Samus of Metroid as playable characters?! Uh, I need a change of shorts now...
PS3 Line-up... There is only one title to really put here that out shined all the rest in the now floundering PS3 debacle (I only call it a debacle due to the utterly craptacular press conference they had on Tuesday). Heavenly Sword, sure it might be a female version of God of War, but god damn, that game looked beautiful, at 70% completion I might add. It's fluid, it's pretty, and it has finishing moves much like that of God, but they are really cool looking. Did I mention this game looks pretty? Resistance: Fall of Man was looking pretty amazing as the FPS coming out of the Insomniac camp, that same team whom have been churning out the Ratchet and Clank series. Assassin's Creed looked just as good as Heavenly Sword. It looks to be fairly unique, I've only seen the trailer, but good golly it had the entire audience captivated throughout. I can not wait to see where this one goes. Warhawk is the one game out there utilizing the 6 degrees of motion sensor now built into the PS3 controller (somewhat like another controller we've all heard about). Jokes about plagiarism aside, Warhawk is looking pretty cool with the available movement through the controller and we'll just have to wait to see how this one turns out. Also looking like it could turn into a great title for the PS3 is Metal Gear Solid 4, Snake's still looking like a mean s.o.b. and with Hideo working on that bad boy, you know it's going to be bad ass.
That's all I've got for now you greedy little bastards! Go online, check my moblog for videos and pictures, hit all the video game sites for more news, quench your thirst for E3 goodness, and stay tuned for the rest of my E3 breakdown coming over the next few days. Until then my faithful friends? Live, love, and enjoy... err... rather, kill, explode, and destroy... I guess it just depends on what kind of game you're playing... Game On.
New Update From E3...
I can not wait any longer for this game from the mind of Will Wright! Spore looks unbelievably amazing and I want it now please! Now that this new trailer has hit, it's just making me more anxious! Oh, by the way, Will Wright is a god! Visit the Spore website, and check out the new trailer!
It's May, It's L.A., It's E3...
Well, another May has come to our greedy little tech and gamer hands and it's time for another installment of E3! The pre-show conferences have already started, developers, designers, and CEO's have started touting how great they all are for the year of 2006 and beyond. Soon Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will bring the thousands of industry insiders and crazed fans alike to feast on the pixelated glamor. So let's begin the fun!
The PS3 pre-show started with a slight bang as the official pricing was released for the U.S. market, the new, err, old, umm, well the controller was presented and a look at a PS3 game in motion was unveiled to the crowd. The PS3 will be starting at $499 for the lower grade 20 gig version, which has many less bells and whistles than its $599 60 gig bigger brother. The official release date 
has been set at November 17th 2006. Now to start ripping on Sony. Poor Sony (not so much) had what most people are considering to be a lack-luster performance at best. They stuck the price of the PS3 higher than most gamers were wanting to spend, then when everyone got sight of the actual rundown of features for the two systems, the audience was let down when it was realized that the $499 20 gig version of the PS3 will not include slots for memory cards, will not include HDMI support, and will not have Wi-Fi capabilities. So... you're going to be getting what again? It seems the only rational choice for the PS3 will be the inflated $599 version (at least then you'll be getting everything you should be getting originally, regardless of price break).
If the two versions of the system weren't enough to leave your head shaking in disappointment, they then had to whip out the "new" PS3 controller. Which as you can see... ain't new at all!!! Let's see, oh! It looks as though Sony has come up with a totally new and previously completely unimagined motion sensor for their "new" controller! (expect Nintendo suit shortly) The only problem with the said motion control added to the controller? How about they had to remove all rumble (dual shock) features to the controller due to the fact that it interfered with the motion sensor. So, not
only does it seem they might have "borrowed" the idea of movement control but it doesn't really work well enough to evolve the video game experience, rather it's going to take away part of the advancements they had already made with the dual shock. Boo Sony, boo. The controller will be wireless and will have the ability to connect to the system via USB wire for play and recharging. Other than that, there's not much to report. The L2 and R2 buttons are bigger. There are four lights on the top of the controller between the shoulder buttons suggesting four controllers can be used at a time. And there was something that looked pretty damn close to a "guide" button in the center of the controller between the start and select buttons a la Xbox360 controller style. Overall, Sony gets a C- for their pre-show conference at this time. But they always have a humongous booth, if you can even call their football field sized monument a booth anymore, chock full of games and gadgets so they have chance to redeem themselves come show floor time in the next three days.
Well boys and girls, welcome to the first post on E3 this year, and stay tuned for more articles, blogs, photos, and what's this? is it possibly video? Stay tuned all as E3 hits the world for 2006.
