Wednesday, June 6, 2012

E3 Day 2–Nintendo

Well, that was…another shallow one. Which is surprising. I mean, new console and you would think they would announce a lot of good games and show us what the Wii U can do. This would be the place to do that. Sadly, we got almost nothing. We did get 6 new game announcements which is still scarce. Well, not including ZombiU which was announced at Ubisoft earlier. We didn’t get a whole bunch of gameplay which would show us how it would push the system. Isn’t this the conference were you show that? They had one more conference to show us this as well, but they decided to show off more of their NintendoLand they seem really obsessed about. Unfortunately to witness the hardware and capabilities of the system, one will have to try it in person. This conference could have gone way better, but it became a huge disappoint overall.

Let’s just get to the best announcement overall:

 

Its been 8 years too long, but we are finally getting a new Pikmin game. Holy crap was this awesome to hear. We are starting this conference right. This was the first announcement of the morning and it had everyone excited. Right after Reggie comes out to say they had 23 new games to show us today. It felt like we would be going for a fun ride….well that feeling didn’t last. They did announce the New Super Mario Bros. U but its more of the same thing. Only with a couple of new things. Seems like a relatively safe Wii U title:

 

Squirrel suit is new and so are more yoshis. Well, its not really challenging the hardware though. Well lets see what else is coming…oh right the Batman Arkham City game with the extra subtitle: Armored Edition

 

Interesting introduction by Harley, but it went on a little too long. So Batman and Catwoman get new armored suits (ruins Catwoman's previous costume in my opinion). What I don’t understand so far, if its still the same game. I mean it seems like it from the footage, but we also get new stuff. They seem to have managed to make the game more confusing than it originally was. I probably won’t get it. I don’t know. Huge opportunity for Aliens: Colonial Marines to show what its all about on Wii U, but opportunity lost.

Eh, lets go to Scribblenauts Unlimited:

 

Never played Scribblenauts on DS and totally planned to, but never got to it. I heard the first was better than the second so I have to try it one day. This seems interesting I guess. Not all of us have huge imaginations as they seem to think we do though.

Next up was ZombiU. Ubisoft chose to not show any bit of gameplay at their conference, but here at Nintendo’s conference they did show us something. And honestly; it was impressive:

 

Very nice. But this is a trailer, I’m sure you want to see it played real time. Well, here you go:

 

Now that looks quite amazing. Even if it may be a launch title, the graphics look stunning. Very unique gameplay for the Wii U as well. Too bad they didn’t show off this game more than Batman. Reggie had fun with a unique feature onstage:

 

Now lets take a look at a Lego game, which I won’t bother explaining because its better with a visual:

 

See. Well its good at least. Next was a montage of other Third Party games we won’t really care about. Although Mass Effect 3 is an interesting one to point out. Haven’t bought it myself, but I think this means they will be getting some EA support. Which is good news of course. Also coming is Darksiders II, Ninja Gaiden 3, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 was also announced for the 3DS and not much else. Tomorrow will be more on the 3DS stuff hopefully and perhaps better announcements. Although Super Paper Mario was given a new subtitle Sticker Star. Luigi’s Mansion (getting some high praise, I’m so happy for this game and the fans its gotten throughout the years) also got one; Dark Moon.

 

Mario has gotten some weird love for coins in this sequel. Its strange. He is turned into Wario in a twisted way. Hm, seems the 3DS part may have had the best announcements of all. Besides the announcement of Pikmin 3 of course. Well that may be it for Nintendo. And tomorrow we well get….ah crap almost forgot about NintendoLand.

I don’t want to hate this. I mean it actually sounds really fun. But Nintendo seemed to want to constantly talk about this game. Its really just a place where you can play a bunch of mini-games. They do look very cool really, when Nintendo stops talking about it. What games we got to play with last year, will be integrated into this Nintendo Themed video game. If you remember Chase Mii, it is now part of this area.

 

Yeah, I’m sorry the presentation was incredibly long, but at least it details the games. Looks like the 3DS won’t be the only one getting some Luigi’s Mansion love, even if it doesn’t include Luigi really. There’s more games to be played here. Here’s Donkey Kong Crash Course sampled by an interesting person:

 

I’d show more, but the trailers are mostly embarrassing and there isn’t much from the show floor yet. But hey there’s an F-Zero mini-game!

 

I noticed from forums chanting a need for a Zelda game. If I remember correctly we got one not many months ago and its same one I got for Christmas. Yeah too soon gaming world.

Oh, some small quips I forgot to mention: The Wii U will be able to use two gamepad tablets, with the unfortunate side effect of each cutting the framerate by half. The regular framerate is 60fps which is actually great. 30fps isn’t nothing to cry about honestly. It will look great either way. And I doubt another one will be needed anyway. And plus that’s a whole lot of power from the system already if you think about it. Bringing an extended experience to another screen is punishment enough for a system.

Another bit of news not announced during the conferences was that the Gamepad will only have about a 3-5 hour battery life. Ouch. Hopefully they can find a fix for that soon since gaming in actuality takes a lot longer than 3-5 hours. Trust me I’ve done a whole day of gaming before.

And now I present the games that weren’t shown at the Nintendo conferences at all, but probably should have:

 

This looks a hell of a lot more fun than NintendoLand. I mean seriously. This is what a Nintendo game should look like. Was it because it was a Platinum Game title Nintendo was afraid to present it? That was really fun, that would have gotten a lot fans back at a conference.

 

Oh ho ho! I remember this! This is an arcade game! I had lots of fun playing this. And it looks just as fun as a Wii title. Again why wasn’t it shown at the presentation? You confuse me Nintendo. This looks tons of fun. You could have at least shown it in your line up. What gives? Why did it seem like Nintendo was afraid to show these at all?

There is even a Wario Ware like game that exists at the Nintendo booth, I mean come on how can anyone not like this? Yeah they are more mini-games, but they can be 10 times more fun for their ridiculousness.

(Here’s also a Raving Rabbids trailer for good measure. They can always make people smile)

Well Nintendo, hopefully you have a better 3DS lineup for tomorrow, than the presentation you gave us today. I mean I made a better conference and all I did was post a ton of videos showcasing your games.

To end on a better note Nintendo did say there was a way to transfer our Wii Virtual Console games from the Wii to the Wii U and we will be able to play classic games on the Gamepad tablet screen. Well, I’m sold.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

E3 Day 1–Part 3: Sony's Emptiness

Thank god its over. It started strong, strained badly in the middle, but ended very strong once again. Sony debuted exactly two good games that I will look forward to. My god what happened? That felt emptier than any conference I’ve ever seen of Sony’s. Only two new games were announced were the only ones I cared for after the 4 somewhat announced. God of War: Ascension gameplay was shown, but it was already announced a while back and I’ve never been a fan of the series. To kick off the highlights, lets go into the new game announced:

 

Yep, stars Ellen Page and is created by the team behind Heavy Rain. Looks promising, even if the story seems like its done before. Looks beautiful anyway. Next was Playstation All-Stars. I look to boycott this thing, its an obvious Smash Bros. rip-off right down to the Vita cross-play. Nintendo announced and plan to do this last year asking for a developers help. Instead of helping, Sony stole the idea and making it their own first. I find it interesting that Nintendo is coming up with the better ideas than what Microsoft and Sony were doing. I mean they have all along but all Microsoft and Sony want to do is take the idea and create their own. Nintendo’s are always solid and I’m glad they are finally making the system the Wii was always supposed to be with the Wii U. But I digress, the Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale demo:

All the show I was waiting for Kingdom Hearts 3 or for a Last Guardian announcement. Instead for 10 whole minutes we sat through more apps that didn’t need announcing for the PS Vita. We did get previews for Assassins Creed: Liberation and a Call of Duty Vita game, but not enough to get me to buy one. Now onto probably the most aggravating announcements was Wonderbook. A sort of collaboration with JK Rowling and Pottermore. I’m not sure why it needed 20 minutes to show off the thing. It wasn’t really all that impressive. Its good for kids I guess. Here’s a trailer since I doubt anyone would like to sit through the long presentation again:

 

Unfortunately the Sony presentation was only an hour this year so it would feel a bit shallow naturally, but I didn’t expect it to be this much. The show picked up some speed after they showed a bit of gameplay for God of War: Ascension. I haven’t played a whole lot of God of War. This looked ok though. Nothing really new:

 

No Last Guardian or Kingdom Hearts 3 this year sadly. We were treated to another look at The Last of Us. I’m really looking forward to this game since it was announced last year. I was kinda hoping for Last Guardian a little more since it was announced years ago. Where the hell is this thing? They must be having more problems than we realized. Then again, its quite a tough game to tackle. Well back to The Last of Us:

 

Not many titles, but it did have a solid start and finish at least. Later on today will be Nintendo’s conference so we should expect many things from them. And on a final note here is some gameplay footage from the new Star Wars 1313 game. And yes, that is real actual footage from the game. Similar to Beyond and The Last of Us above. Well enjoy it:

E3 Day 1 – Part 2: EA and Ubisoft

Now on to the developer conferences. Lets start with EA. Time to start strong with one of EA’s highly underpraised franchise: Dead Space. Just having beat the second game and beat the first a while ago I have to say; keep the horror a strong element in the game. Do not stray far from it like Resident Evil has. The second game was amazing having both horror and a little more action than the last, but keep the horror. Let’s watch what they have for us this time in the 3rd entry in the series:

 

 

It looks…different. And because of that I don’t know how to feel about it. The co-op is fine but the drill bit area was strange. And the necromorphs look very different too. I think I need to see more to give an opinion. Even the character designs seem radically different. I don’t know about that one….

What was next…well EA kinda had mostly sequels in their line up and nothing really new to show us. Sports games were again showing up, some updates for Star Wars:TOR and Battlefield 3 DLC. What I did like was how SimCity was shaping up:

 

Another awesome PC game. And also SimCity Social was announced which not many will play. The next Medal of Honor game was shown off as well which was also nothing new. Last game of the conference was Crysis 3 which looked quite beautiful.

 

Now on to Ubisoft’s conference. Now there was something special going on here. Usually we get weird, but well actually there's plenty of that too. Not enough to ruin the conference at least. Well, actually we did start with a dancing routine and another concert which is never a good idea to start a conference. It was obviously for another dancing game. Well, now that’s over we get…oh wow something very different:

 

Soft-core porn! *ahem* A trailer for FarCry 3. Isn’t there like kids watching this? No idea how they got away with that. But never been a fan of the FarCry series. Just thought you would take a look at the strange transitions Ubisoft conferences can have. Now next I believe we got to see some actual footage of a major game for the Wii U. This was quite a treat:

 

Our first look into a Wii U game and it looks great! Looks very fun too. Very creative use of the tablet and the new Wii U controller. A taste of things to come from Nintendo’s presentation for tomorrow and Wednesday. Now on to a bigger title Assassins Creed 3:

 

The cinematic, yeah its…improbable? They could have done something else with it. Oh well. At least the gameplay was pretty cool":

 

Very cool. Its like Red Dead Redemption mixed with Assassins Creed. Avengers: Battle for Earth was announced, but was disappointed when the motion controls only quip came up. My interest was up and was gone by the end of the trailer. An exclusive Zombie game was announced for the Wii U which looks kinda good:

 

Not bad. The trailer made it look interesting. And now for the game that stole the show. This isn’t a sequel or a reboot either. Its something new? Unheard of! But alas Ubisoft has brought of one of the best games of all. I give you: Watch Dogs

Monday, June 4, 2012

E3 Day 1 - Part 1: Microsoft Bombs

Well, in a surprising turn of events, looks like Ubisoft has the most interesting line up of games, compared to both Microsoft and EA. It was literally the worst conference I have ever seen of Microsoft which focuses more on small dashboard updates, Kinect games, few confusing Arcade games, and Sports. I think Microsoft is very lost right now. The only promising things we got from the conference was Halo 4, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Tomb Raider and surprisingly a South Park game. I don't watch South Park a lot, but watching Matt Stone and Trey Parker come out and telling it like it is was the biggest highlight of the whole show. I mean listen to this amazing line:




This was seriously the conference in a nutshell. Plus dancing and Usher for some reason. Well to avoid the rest of the hell the made conference boring and hard to watch, here's the trailer and Gameplay for Halo 4:




Great beginning. I'm so sorry the rest of the show wasn't like this. At least you get to skip to the good parts here. Now for gameplay:




Not bad. Interesting looking villains. Looks like a true sequel. Will launch later this year and I look forward to it as a Halo fan. You can look at Splinter Cell: Blacklist footage here. Its not a bad game. It just doesn't seem important. Kinect stuff can be cool at times though. I'm sure it will be good. Now after a bunch of other stuff that wasn't entirely important like tablet configuration and other apps no one will really care about; its unto Tomb Raider:




I thought this looked really cool. Even if it was compared to Uncharted constantly. Which I'm tired of. Its not exactly, but people like to throw the "clone" thing around if it looks too much like another game they seem to love. I think Tomb Raider looks fantastic either way. They are really taking it to Lara Croft this time too.

Now lets look at some Resident Evil 6 footage shall we?:




Oh, boy. This game. I really thought Capcom had returned to better ways with Resident Evil: Revelations. But there's more action in this game than the last game, just by this trailer alone. Yes we have zombies again, but they really make it a cliche with this game. It was very underwhelming, unless you think otherwise. This was only a small piece though, hopefully we see better things in future footage.

Now that the conference was over Game Trailers was able to show us some really nice Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance footage. This might be my favorite game at the show now:






Eh, why not. Here's the South Park: The Stick of Truth:




Part 2 of the highlights of EA and Ubisoft will come a little later. As well as Part 3 of Sony's conference.

The New Wii U Classic Pro Controller

 

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Brace Yourselves; E3 is Coming

Hey, I'm already making Game of Thrones references and I haven't even started watching it yet. Welcome to the week (Well, couple of days now) before E3. There's been interesting rumors going on and even some announcements already. Sometimes either the industry can't wait, have something bigger things up their sleeve or they really have nothing else to present at the conferences next week. Lets just hope for bigger things. Nintendo has been quiet this year. In the past things have either been leaked, but this time they have been air tight. Well, almost. All we know so far is that they may be announcing a new Mario game and their new console will debut later this year. Let's also hope for a new 3DS design.

  • One of the more interesting rumors which is now officially an announcement, was a proposed new Star Wars game. Everyone was hoping for a new Battlefront. I know I was. Instead we got something a little different. Well, way different. What was announced recently was a new Mature Star Wars game. Which could be interesting? I mean I know I've come up in a conversation before were what if Star Wars had more mature themes? We kinda got our answer in form of a book in which Stormtroopers are tortured, which came with mixed results. The game sounds interesting though, which I think stars Boba Fett. Hopefully it will be better than what Force Unleashed was supposed to be.


  • Not really interested in this next game. I mean it looks nice. What this game is essentially is Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe without Mortal Kombat. Well I mean it could be good, but when you see Batman punch Solomon Grundy through a roof, I think something may be off. I mean I just played a game playing as Batman trying to fight Solomon Grundy. And I had few problems just trying to get near him. Unless they explain Batman has super powers somehow, this game probably shouldn't be taken seriously. Also some of the costume designs are strange.



  •  Dead Space 3 seems to have been officially announced. And apparently with co-op. Issac Clarke looks to be in it. I think. Because of his everyman face, it could be anyone. It's most likely him though, just with some new facial hair. Looks like Ellie is out of the picture too giving us a new male protagonist. They probably want to make it less similar to Resident Evil 5 anyway. Lets just hope the co-op is better than Resident Evil 5. I expect it to be more interesting and creepy on Xbox Live. Now the concept going on in my head sounds awesome. Oh, yeah and this one will take place on an ice planet. Similar to Hoth. And environments similar to The Thing. here are a few pictures of the co-op play: http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2012/05/dead-space-3.html



  •  Another assassin is making its way to the 360 and PS3. Its been a while, but another Hitman game is coming. While it looks beautiful the story is, well, weird. Like if its straight out of a Kill Bill movie. Has it always been like this? No, idea. It's looking really good though. And supposedly we will be getting huge crowds of people to hide in the game. More than any other game. I find it funny that the trailer takes a jab at Assassins Creed.



  • It may not be the game we wanted, but if anyone loved Bayonetta, you will love this:



    • Lets see, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron will be on PC, a new Gears of War was announced, and PS Vita will get a female assassin for the Assassins Creed series, just to get that news out of the way. Now onto Blu-ray news.  Looks like we will be getting a better ET cover. With a steelbook for some reason. Not sure what warrants a steelbook these days (Jaws is getting one too, for which I like the artwork more honestly): 

    •  Not only has the Avengers Blu-ray been announced, but a huge Ultimate set is coming as well. It comes with Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and finally The Avengers. The packaging will most likely be revealed at Comic-Con or a little before then. It looks like it will be packaged in the Tesseract briefcase though. Note the announcement picture: