My vote is still for Terry Crews as the Bone's official representative. I've been loving him on Brooklyn 99.
I don't have an avatar but I am totally on the train too...probably in the bar car.
It's been a weird coupla months. Back in August, I got a next-gen console-sized bonus and then, thanks to the new corporate overlords, got laid off at the end of the month. My next gen plans sorta swirled down the drain pretty quickly afterwards. I canceled my Best Buy PS4 preorder and used my $100 Xbox deposit at GameStop to pick up some new releases that were released during the past few months. I still had my Xbox One preorder at Amazon but figured I would probably wind up having to cancel it at the last minute.
A few weeks ago I remembered that, due to a life-changing event i.e. unemployment, I could access the meager funds I had socked away in my 401K. This would allow me to get one and only one next-gen gaming system and then sit on the rest of the pay-out to tide me over until I found another job. I was torn between the PS4, the Bone or upgrading my PC, all of which would cost roughly the same amount of money.
After following every development in the next-gen roll out, reading technical articles that were pretty over my head, comparing screen shots and streaming feeds and reading anecdotal information from experts and forum posters alike, I woke up this morning feeling like I had made a huge mistake. The PS4 is looking like it's objectively the most robust gaming system and would allow me to play BF4 and Ghosts in their highest-res versions while I wait for more fully featured next-gen games to come out. And maybe I could sample a few other first-party games and be surprised at their quality. Killzone looks kinda cool. Maybe Knack is really fun? I have pretty broad tastes so it could happen.
Then I started reading the feedback from all of the launch parties and the unembargoed reviews and realized that I made the right call. The PS4 is a great system that I will totally buy when I get my financial ship righted but, at this point, like the PS3 and the Vita before it, it's gonna take a while before the killer app hits the market.
I'm a fan of competitive FPS man-shoots, specifically on consoles. I really like using using a controller, I like Xbox Live and I love the communities that grow around these games on the Xbox platform. Halo, COD, Battlefield and, dear God, Titanfall are all experiences that I can get on the "underpowered" system so I've decided to go with what I love. The fact that the system has a lot of really compelling multimedia features that I don't even fully understand but find intriguing and a Kinect that seems scary functional is all just gravy to me.
During the E3 conference I was just as put off by the DRM as most everyone else but I still remember thinking that the first-party line-up seemed packed with games that I didn't want to miss. I checked the status of my Amazon order today and noticed the day I placed it. June 20th 2013. The day after the 180, the day that signaled to me that I was all clear to go Xbox first for the third generation in a row.
I'm in with a Day One console for COD Ghosts, BF 4, Forza 5 Ltd Ed and maybe even Ryse. Despite all of the bad buzz, that game looks fantastic and I have enjoyed the hell out of all of the other Crytek games. Oh and I'll probably pick up a bunch of other downloadable titles when and if I hear how great they are.
