I awoke without the help of an alarm, even though I'd set the alarm the night before. But my body woke me up at 10:15 a.m., a quarter-hour later than the theoretical alarm time. Groggy and venom-tongued, I stumbled from my comfy bed down to the streets, looking for a coffee shop. I arrived at the convention center quickly, as I now knew what route to take. I shuffled up the escalators to the in-building coffee shop, where I waited for probably forty minutes for a large hot chocolate (I hate coffee). It was made with an inferior product to what I'm used to! Unabated, I wandered toward the expo hall with demos in mind.

The Penny Arcade Expo '08 takes place in the (historic?) downtown convention center in Seattle. The convention center is enormous; aside from the four floors with multiple event theaters, there's a large outdoor area where people can eat and hang out. The building was at all times today packed to the brim with people. It's shoulder-to-shoulder in virtually every room. My plane didn't get in until 2 p.m., at which point I took the airport shuttle downtown and wandered around until I found my hotel. Then, it was off to the Expo!

Logically anyone who is invested enough in gaming to pick a side, is invested enough to care about gaming in general. So with that type of an investment why even bother exclusively picking a side? If you are open-minded and accepting, chances are you will find a greater amount of things to like across all platforms and genres.

By cutting a game, genre, or system out of your repertoire just for the sake of being on a side is cutting off your nose to spite your face. You can continue to have a preference for something (that is a normal human trait) while still enjoying things outside of your preference. That doesn't make you a traitor, it makes you logical.

My experience back then was rather poor – I only got to play one game in those two weeks because the total turnaround time was ten days. That means that it took ten days total from the time I mailed a game back to the time I got my next one. In a way, the long wait was forgivable back then. GameFly had only a single distribution center, way out in California, and I was living in semi-rural Alabama. I concluded that it was a cool service if you lived out West but wasn't worthwhile for me.

First, let's talk about the hardware. I don't have any issues with data storage. I don't have to bother with copying my VC games onto an SD card or debating which Nintendo Channels to keep. With 40 gigabytes of hard drive, I can download games like flOw and the Call of Duty 4 map expansion pack without a second thought. There are several bonus downloads in Metal Gear Solid 4, including extra camo, music for Snake's iPod, and podcasts, not to mention the sizable Metal Gear Solid database. And I don't have to buy a PS3 Points card to get any of this stuff, nor do I have to add virtual points to some virtual card. I pick flOw from the Playstation Store, pay by credit card, input the info, and BAM--it's on my hard drive.

NINTENDO DS

Bangai-O Spirits – It’s a Treasure shoot-‘em-up, and as a big fan of shmups I couldn’t be more pleased. This one’s overflowing with typical Treasure craziness, including the ability to change levels as you’re playing them, create and trade your own levels (using audio files, WTF), and an apparently brutal level of difficulty. It’s been a while since Treasure has put anything out, and I can’t wait for this next release from the old-school fast-action masters.