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.

The New Wii U Classic Pro Controller

 

 

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:

Blade of Thrones

Well, looks like schools over for me for the summer. I look forward to a good amount of things this summer as well. Got three movies on my watch list that I cannot wait to see. I also saw Avengers, I didn't get to talk about that a lot and you probably won't see me do that here. Ok, I lied; Avengers was fantastic. And that's it. I think we have heard enough of The Avengers already. I saw it twice, second time was ok. Unfortunately the IMAX 3D hurt my eyes for a while and gave me a migraine. Not fun. Not to say the movie wasn't though. Just never do converted 3D, even if it is for a movie like that.

• As a shout-out to a comrade, Happy two days belated Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones day! I don't exactly remember what I thought of the film when I first saw it. I remember I liked Jango Fett, start of the Clone Wars on Geonosis, Yoda doing his CGI thing (kinda), and a bunch of other foreshadowing moments. I don't know about the Anakin and Padme thing though. It probably always creeped me out. One thing I do remember was the rumors about the movie title. I speculated with my cousin on potential movie titles. All probably being more terrible than Attack of the Clones. The Clone Wars should have just been the definitive title. Instead we got a TV show doing everything awesome the movie didn't do. I think we also speculated on the First movie's title probably thinking of titles way better than The Phantom Menace. But with Revenge of the Sith it was a nice homage to Return of the Jedi, which was almost Revenge of the Jedi to you non-Star Wars geeks out there (A time before Lucas' mind lapsed). We didn't find anything wrong with that one.

•  Blade Runner has officially gotten a sequel. How I feel about this; well, no idea. Ridley Scott is back as well as the original writer. I guess there's nothing really to worry about then. Prometheus is looking pretty promising, even if I know most of the plot by now. You have to hate the internet sometimes. While we are on that note: Please avoid the international trailer. Even in those circumstances, I am really glad its gotten an R rating like it was fully intended. If this movie lives up to Ridley's Sci-fi legacy we have been waiting to see return on screen for years, then I'm sure the Blade Runner sequel will be an equally welcoming return. I just hope Ridley can make some new things after this. I'm sure Ridley was more movies on mind related that he has been wanting to try for years. Also on a related note: Bring back Vangelis.

•  I've recently gotten hold of the first season of  the Game of Thrones. Which are video files, but still in HD and completely legal this time. Well, mostly. Anyway, no idea where this will go. Haven't really seen a premium cable show since Dexter and only seen the first season. Which will be my only season. There's reasons. Back to Game of Thrones. I saw about maybe 10 minutes and it looked pretty good. I plan to see it all during summer along with a ton of other shows. 

• E3 is around the corner, while I didn't get my ticket I still plan to cover most of the important things that come out of the conferences. I think probably the thing I don't want to be announced are Next-gen consoles. We don't really need them. It was pretty expensive to get the consoles we have now. Although, Nintendo desperately needs a new console now. I really don't blame them. I barely touch mine and I am kinda embarrassed to admit so. I actually want to play games on a Nintendo console more than an Xbox or PlayStation. I miss the Nintendo experience. I also plan to get myself a 3DS soon as I miss playing portable Nintendo games as well. I never look forward to anything PlayStation has to offer anyways. I always watch each year in anticipation for a new Kingdom Hearts game, a sequel this time, or news on the next Team ICO game. I especially don't want to watch for that stupid Smash Bros. clone. It may be just Xbox and Nintendo this year. Here's hoping to some good surprises and just a good E3 overall.

Still Alive

Well, I certainly haven't kept up to my promises have I? That's about to change. Been staying off my blog for far too long. I will be coming back in full writing form very soon (I really mean it this time). There's some new very important stuff going on around the world, both good and bad, but hopefully mostly good. I won't get to the bad today, but for now I will post the very cool Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Gold Bundle which will be coming to us on November 20th. For twenty dollars more you get the game, a Gold Wii-mote, and the 25th Anniversary Symphony CD:

E3 2011: The Experience

Today I return to talk about E3. But this year was different. Usually I talk about the conferences and how different new games look awesome and how I probably won't even get to play them for a long time or at all. But, again I say, this year was different. This year I got to experience E3 hands-on. This year: I got in. (See what I did there kids?)

E3 is truly the magical place as it looks on TV. Watching it on TV or from the internet is definitely not the same as experiencing it in person as most would guess. I think one of the biggest things to see at E3 are the booths. Oh the glourious booths. With most games set up as if each booth was a giant arcade; you can tell this was E3. No where else would you see something like this even if they are just 5 minute demos or a quick preview of the game. You know full well that most of these games will not be out until next year or later this year (or sometimes cancelled altogether), which makes you feel even more privileged to be here.

But I can tell you one thing, if you are a dedicated Gamer and happen to go to E3 (which every gamer should experience) one thing you have to know about E3 is that it is both an equally amazing and brutal place to be.

If you are a dedicated gamer, like me, you will have to stand in the biggest lines you have ever waited in just to try the biggest and best games at E3. At E3 I spent most at my time at the Nintendo and EA booth and hardly touched any other big company game maker. Don't get me wrong, from both game company and studio, their games were a blast to play. I just wish I went to more big studio or company booths to play their games. From Nintendo I got to experience the Wii U, Nintendo's newest gaming innovation system. The line wasn't so bad either since I got to meet some new acquaintances here (The 3 hours was a breeze). The new controller is comfy even with the ambitious touch screen built into it. The new games displaying in their new HD glory was also quite a treat to witness and get my hands-on. Their was also a series of tech demos which included one for Legend of Zelda which was awe-inspiring. Link has never looked so good in full 1080p resolution. And a giant spider...hate those guys.

From the list of games I got to play was something called "Chase Mii" and New Super Mario Bros Mii. The New Super Mario Bros. Mii game is just really an update to the older (it actually isn't really that old) Wii title and updated with HD graphics and you can now play with you Mii character. Now with Chase Mii, this was quite an interesting party game. 4 people take 4 Wii controllers and play as 4 different colored Toads while they look around for the 5th person using the new Wii U controller and his Mii character is dressed as Mario. The 5th player uses the Wii U controller and its screen and hides in the game while the other four players try and catch him and can only see (honor system, although the Nintendo observers who pointed out my location was kinda was annoying) on the TV screen. This was one of the few games which demonstrated the potential the system has.

Other stations included a shooter which has people dressed as Samus as their Mii characters and one character taking control of Samus' spaceship called Battle Mii; another fun game to play, but didn't really push the hardware either.

Here's some gameplay that IGN recorded:

The other 2 games included were Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online and Shield Pose. Shield pose was another nice mini-game and probably one of the cutest games of all. Here's why:

After that it was the 3DS games. The new games looked really great, unfortunately as I played with more of those games I got to see how unnecessary and how 3D really needs some work on the 3DS. Hopefully Nintendo can fix this with a 3DS lite in the future (I honestly don't want to see the 3D to become more or too gimmicky on this thing I want it improved). There was one really great game that was a joy to play on 3D and that was the free Excitebike game 3DS players can download now for free. This is how 3D should be seen on the 3DS; with the other games it looks unfinished and broken honestly. It was also how I thought 3D was going to be seen. Excitebike probably is the best (and possibly, only good) looking 3D game on the 3DS right now.

Other games to look forward to on the 3DS are titles such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, StarFox 64 3D, Luigi's Mansion 2, Mario Kart, and Kid Icarus. I didn't get to play with the last 2 titles on that list, but the other games were a joy to play. Super Mario was a game that really took me back to my roots as well. They combined elements from both Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64 making a completely refreshing new Mario game. It feels new in a sense that, well, even if the levels are shorter, you can sometimes forget how the levels for Super Mario Bros. 3 were short as well. And that's ok really. This is new for a 3D like Mario game, but it also isn't 3D since it also is a side-scrolling Mario game. Its like the new

Sonic game, taking out modern Sonic, but not really either. To clear up my stupid explanation, here's some gameplay:

And that's all I really tried on a day at E3. You could spend hours or literally the whole day trying everything out at Nintendo. Nintendo is just that fun. The other 3DS games were really fun to play with especially Luigi's Mansion 2, which I was unfortunate enough to miss out on the first outing for the Gamecube and been wanting to try it out for a long time. Hopefully I can get my 2nd chance on the 3DS. The demo really piqued my interest.

Now I wanted to try out at least one more game before E3 ended and unfortunately for a dedicated gamer, this means on missing out on a lot of other good stuff at E3, which was the sad truth for me. But even for that fact I wanted to at least try out one of my most anticipated games that was at E3. Unfortunately both Bethesda and 2K games didn't really have their games open to everybody so I stuck with a video game and movie franchise that I had loved for many years and didn't want to miss my chance on playing their latest game. Here I am talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic. Now I had to sacrifice a whole lot to play this game. I wanted to check out other booths, but I knew if I wanted to play one of the most popular games that's not even released yet, I would have to wait at one of the longest lines for E3 located at the EA booth (which I also like to add was the best booth that I saw at E3)...

...so, about 5 and a half hours and 2 free posters later, I got inside to begin playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. First we were treated to a 7 minute video explaining the different types of attacks each of the character types we could play. I couldn't really pay attention to the video at this point due to my full bladder and just wanted to play the damn thing. I don't want to say I was furious or even a little mad, because I wasn't. I half expected it to be quite long and I made the decision that I was going to play this game no matter what. And I did. I didn't care I took the weakest character (Jedi Padawan) with the slowest mission imaginable; I got to play SWTOR (As an added note: Gameplay was great and so were the mechanics). How many people can say that in the world? Not many (Besides the other people in line with me). I am proud to say that at this years E3 I played one of the most anticipated games that probably won't be out till next year (And been waiting for a little over 2 years since it was announced) and got free stuff out of it. Oh, yeah.

There is a tad more to be said at E3, but I can say: This has been one incredible experience and no gamer should miss it for the world. I leave happy and tell myself to never do this ever again for any other E3 I visit in the future. Well, it was a fun E3 and thank my good friend (and new friends) for getting me there and hope they had fun as they put up with me while I stood in that line...and they didn't. So here's to another great E3...

...did I mention I got to hug and take a picture with Felicia Day?

8-Bit Madness

Today I release a banner that I have had an idea for since the middle of summer. I started the idea in September and kinda abandoned it for a while when school started. I then regenerated the inspiration when TeeFury released a T-Shirt of two things I very much have love for. Star Wars and classic Mario games. When I missed out on buying the T-Shirt now having to pay a price of $24.94 someplace else I thought I could borrow the T-Shirt design and use it for my banner. I then abandoned it when I slowly began to think it may be stealing and I don’t want to go through the trouble of emailing the creator of such a masterpiece to place on a blog no one really visits. In the midst of all this I knew it was Mario’s 25th anniversary and didn’t really have an idea of creating something of my own to continue celebrating a beloved franchise. I don’t really remember how and why I thought about doing this all of a sudden, but I remember a similar flash game in which you can play in Mario’s original world while playing other 8-bit characters from other Nintendo games. So I just merely borrowed elements from a certain flash game that will remain nameless to avoid comparisons. Well, I hope people can enjoy what I’ve done with the banner and if things go well, perhaps I can create more similar banners. Well, enjoy!

If This Won’t Make You Buy A 3DS, Nothing Will

Video Games | Nintendo 3DS | Japanese Software Lineup Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Update: Studio Ghibli Makes Video Games Too

And are equally amazing to the movies they make! Good lord, look how good this game is looking!:

Its like its straight from a Ghibli animated movie! Man how amazing!:

And now some Gameplay with HUD (The one above looks like it could be gameplay too…):

Something about it being in 3D and on the PS3:

And not sure exactly what these mean, but both look exactly alike:

Wowsers. Looks like this blog saw an extra surprise this week. Damn it Playstation 3, don’t tempt me…I sure wish and hope they somehow port it to the Xbox 360. They probably won’t do that. Its coming to the Nintendo DS and Playstation 3 next year in Japan. Apparently it features sound direction by Joe Hisaishi, his music sounds beautiful if you look it up. This may be the reason I should get a PS3 sometime soon…

And now a trailer:

Update: E3 2010 Day 2: Nintendo Pwns and Sony Sucks Again

There’s nothing I can say that can really explain how epic and awesome Nintendo’s conference was. At the top of the list the two most awesome things announced and shown where these two:

Its here and works beautifully (not seamlessly though, I’ll explain further).

Yay! New Zelda Wii game!

See two things to get excited about already. Nintendo was full of surprises. You can say Nintendo won E3 overall. Just about every single thing they announced needed some kind of cheer and applause. The 3DS presentation was one for the ages. Nintendo always comes up with clever stuff, no matter how silly it is. The same can be said for the 3DS trailers that were shown. The 3D was simulated since 3D can’t be shown again when recorded. Its like one of those things you can only see in person. You can view more pics here. Details as follows:

· 3D Switch Button (in case nausea may and probably will kick in)

· 3 Cameras, 2 up front, for 3D pictures, and one at the front for the regular 2D pictures. I assure you it won’t be used as much.

· Analog Stick, also used as a Slide Pad (As shown in this Metal Gear Solid 3DS trailer, yep getting a Metal Gear game too)

· A touch screen they kept utilized in the system

· And possible touch Home, Start, and Select buttons

· And of course the 3D [wide] screen using some kind of black magic

I seriously wish I could see the 3D. There’s no image or video that can show what those people are seeing exactly. It’s some sort of new unique 3D system that’s being used there. Some awesome witchcraft there.

The first game to be announced for the 3DS was this:

Kid Icarus finally returns. Guess there was good reason to wait so long for a new game to appear. And for the new 3DS system which is nice. An appropriate greeting as well. And dude, that’s 3DS gameplay? That is high quality stuff there.

Before this was the Zelda Wii announcement. I thought 3DS was bigger in a way. But Zelda was also awesome.

Mr. Miyamoto-san explains the game (by video and somehow being dubbed much like a Japanese movie), but instead hands it off to a presenter, who sucks:

And then Mr. Miyamoto makes an appearance! Epic stuff here.

Now for more announcements. Tons of Nintendo games were announced. I aint kidding, take a look:

Another Wii party game, with a literal name this time. And somehow this American Family understands Kanji.

Goldeneye was also officially announced. You can see the leaked yet HQ trailer in the previous post. Now time for some Epic Mickey footage. Man, I can’t get enough of Epic Mickey either:

And some gameplay:

Awesome, just awesome. In the gameplay you will notice the cutscenes are different from the gameplay. Its quite beautifully drawn and is meant to be the way it is. Its a nice touch to a great looking Disney game. This will be on my buy list for sure.

Now here come some surprises. A really great secret Nintendo has kept is the next Kirby game. The trailer, also epic, explains all:

A painfully cute game. What's this?! Another surprise!?:

I totally didn’t see this coming. Jesus, things like this really take the wind out of you when you see so much epicness in one sitting. A slew of 3DS games were announced to make an appearance, although they may not be launch titles. The most important include: Resident Evil: Revelations, Kingdom Hearts 3D, Street Fighter IV, and Metal Gear Solid Franchise. More epic stuff. A Nintendogs for the 3DS was announced, and +Cats. Because they just go well together don’t they? You could also watch Hollywood movies on the 3DS, in 3D! Clever. Before the show was over a surprise has arisen. A ton of girls appeared with 3DS’ were attached to themselves and were going to about each person in the room so that they can preview the 3DS for themselves. Oh, lucky people….

That was it for the Nintendo Conference. Sony was, well, only about a couple of things were worth mentioning. Sony may soon abandon the PSP as the only title announced was Patapon 3. Very disappointing. What was surprising was this:

Why Valve, why? Can’t you see how much Microsoft (kinda) and Nintendo is kicking so much Sony ass right now? I mean, its cool, but why can’t the Xbox 360 get some Portal cube hearts….

Playstation Plus was also somewhat of a surprise. It was rumored Playstation would get a kind of Xbox Live service, and they did and its worse than Xbox Live. Oh, how low can one system sink? Its only going to get worse. The service for a year is $49.99, and 3 months is $17.99 (Xbox live is cheaper). Apparently you get tons of free content and discounts on stuff, but if people pay, more things will be PSPlus exclusive. It will get worse I can guarantee that. And I also heard that the DLC you buy with Plus is only available as long as you have the subscription. Come again? Even Xbox Live doesn’t pull that crap. Yep, online will soon be no longer free. What a sad day for Sony. Its probably because of all the money they lost on PSP Go’s and PS3s. Well, new Xbox 360 it is.

Oh, and this was announced:

Killzone 3 was also shown in 3D. And there’s not much else worth mentioning. Sorcery did look a bit promising, not enough to entice the Playstation Move on me though. Kevin Butler, Playstation’s Human Mascot, made an appearance which was the only epic thing seen in the whole show. His speech was impressive. Take a look if you wish. I understand if you hate him though. You can either like him or hate him:

I especially like the zingers he makes towards Microsoft. They had it coming.

That’s it for Sony. Like I said, disappointing and just a bit horrible. Nintendo recently made some new announcements which include new 3DS games. And they are remakes of old Nintendo 64 games! More awesome stuff.

Starfox re-returns! Also take note, this is a demo. Yes this is being played at E3 as we speak. Not sure if that’s all the touch screen will be used for, I certainly hope not, but still a remake is still awesome. More screens here.

This is more of a rumor than an announcement, but holy crap! Its Zelda: Ocarina of Time remade for the 3DS! Kotaku explains it was found when rummaging around Nintendo’s E3 site.

And here are the rest. First pic is Paper Mario 3DS, Mario Kart 3DS, and Pilot Wings for the 3DS. Finally, since Wii never got it, I might as well settle for the 3DS to get Pilot Wings.Pikmin is till making its way for the Wii, but apparently wasn’t E3 ready. Well, thank you Nintendo, for giving us the future. Sony…I can’t even look at you anymore. For shame.

Time for a shiny new Marvel vs. Capcom 3: FTW trailer:

Retro Japan

While I'm trying to sort out a few kinks on the blog; here's a new feature:

During a time in the 80's Japan was super crazy about robots. While they always have been, they were obsessed with transforming robots at the time. While your probably thinking about Transformers, there was another transforming toy Japan was going all out with, which were the Gobots. You've probably don't remember these or even heard of them because Transformers was busy filling in that spotlight here in America. During this craze in Japan, Nintendo decided to release these Famicom transforming cartridges.

Toy compared to the actual cartridge.

These were released by the Gobot company at the time and were called "Kasseto Sentai" or Cartridge Corps. These toys came in small boxes and resembles a Famicom cartridge. Or a Nintendo cartridge. Most Nintendo fans should know by now that the Famicom cartridges were made bigger in Japan when first introduced. And was made smaller in America.

Well back to the cartridges. The cartridges were made to transform into the character the game represented. The toys also came with a bonus item. Nothing too fancy, it just came with an item that was featured in the game. In example with the Mario toy it came with a mushroom. Below will be more pictures, including an instruction guide and even a game you can play with the toys, which looks like a Battle Bots game. More transforming cartridges are shown below, which include Bowser, Dig Dug, and Ghosts ‘N Goblins.

E3 2009: Part 2 - Nintendo Conference

Earlier on I posted live coverage of Steve Wiebe attempt the Donkey Kong World record live at E3. Unfortunately Wiebe came up short with 989,000 points, but did come to the fabled kill screen. The record now is 1,050,200 by Billy Mitchell. Wiebe may not have set a world record, but put on a good show for everyone else. I bet he will attempt this again sometime in the future and everyone will be rooting for him just like today.

Now on to the Nintendo Conference. Today many games were announced including a new device and a more in depth look at the Wii Motion Plus. The first bit of big news was the return of the Super Mario Bros. franchise. It will make its return on the Wii titled: New Super Mario Bros. Wii. As you may have guessed; it will certainly be quite similar to the DS game: New Super Mario DS. Not only will this game feature two player co-op, but it will feature 4 player co-op and versus. Here's a preview:

As you can see, their will be 2 new suits., the one previewed at the conference was a propeller suit as seen here, and a newer one, which looks like a penguin freezing type suit. Also the return of Yoshi is a really good touch, which I missed in the DS game. This game should release during Winter 2009.

After that it seems Nintendo has been working on something called Wii Fit Plus, which is basically just a sequel to the other Wii Fit. Next up was the beginning to Wii Sports Resort, showing more how the Wii MotionPlus works as your player skydives to the island. Here's a video:

Very cool stuff to say the least. Now onto RPGs. I forgot the name of one game which features many crystals apparently, and a brief trailer for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for the DS which can be watched here:

Can't wait for that. The unfortunate part was that their was no official announcement of a sequel to the Kingdom Hearts series as of yet. Hopefully next years E3 will have something and for possible multiple platforms or something different.

If your a fan of Mario and Luigi RPG series, a new game is on its way back to the DS. The game is called Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story. The famous plumbers somehow shrink and become trapped within Bowsers belly. Sounds interesting.

If your a fan of the once popular RPG series Golden Sun, it will make its return to the DS in 2010. It will be in 3D and little else is known, so something to look forward to for the fans. Other new DS titles include Women's Murder Club: Games of Passion, COP: The Recruit, a new Mario vs. Donkey Kong game subtitled Minis March Again! as a DSi download, and a new Wario Ware game titled WarioWare Myself which you can now make your own WarioWare minigames. Sounds like good stuff here.

More announcements include some Facebook functionality with the DSi for facebook fans. Another new Wii attachment was annouced called the Wii Vitality Sensor, which to me so far I have no idea what it is and sounds really useless so far. Very little was said and no big examples were shown. Maybe next E3.

Now on to the bigger titles. For fans of Super Mario Galaxy a sequel was annouced including the return of riding Yoshi in the game. Here's a trailer:

If that doesn't get you pumped up, The Conduit is introduced, a Resident Evil sequel to Umbrella Chronicles video is shown and a new Metroid game. Watch the videos below and enjoy.

E3 2009: Part 1 – Microsoft Coverage

Its that time of year again, where video game developers come together to announce awesome new things coming to the video game market. Today was not so different. Microsoft’s conference is long and gone, but did you missed what they announced? Oh boy, what a mix of good things to come for the Xbox 360’s now evolving system. Here is something big you may not have seen called; Project Natal:

Not much at first, until you see the demonstration:

More Gear Videos at IGN.com

And a small clip of that game I mentioned called “Milo” I believe:

Just seeing the live presentation makes me want to get this even more. This is nothing compared to the Wii nor Playstation’s EyeToy. Especially just watching Natal’s demo, it looks like its come a long way from this, almost perfecting this type of technology. Take a look at the Live Conference Demo:

Looks a little silly yes, like most of Wii’s commercials, but looks like it can be very fun once experienced. Although this confuses me as to why Xbox will have such peripherals such as the GameTrak Freedom and Tony Hawk Ride’s skateboard like controller.

Other big announcements included Modern Warfare’s 2 demo, another Splinter Cell; although it looks awesome too, Left for Dead 2, Forza Motorsport 3, Crackdown 2, The Beatles: Rock Band and---wait for it----not one, but 2 new Halo Games incoming.

The first, which already announced Halo 3: ODST with a new gameplay trailer:

Its an interesting new take on Halo, I’ll give it that. We will just have to wait when it comes out later this year. The other Halo game is called Halo: Reach. So far, nothing has yet to be revealed about this, what looks like, small addition to the Halo franchise. It looks like it can be quite big for it to have a Multiplayer demo. Ah, Bungie with its Multiplayer demo’s and it in general. When will it end? Not a bad thing necessarily, but that’s a lot of Multiplayer Halo’s now. Watch the Reach trailer teaser:

What’s It about? A prequel? I don’t know really. Its Halo!

The biggest news of the day? Not only will a new Metal Gear Solid Starring Raiden appear on the Xbox 360 called “Metal Gear Rising'’, but the whole Metal Gear Solid franchise is moving exclusively to the Xbox 360(!) A pun yes. Another triumph for 360 has come. Does it mean a substance like game of Metal Gear Solid 4 to be coming to the Xbox 360? It is more likely. Most people expected a game starring Raiden would be coming, but the whole franchise? Now that’s big. The Metal Gear series has been since only been exclusively for the Playstation. Well we did get a few Metal Gear games with extra stuff for the Xbox, but now having it exclusively is certainly a win for the Xbox.

Is E3 over? Of course not. Tomorrow will be both Nintendo and Sony’s conference. Watch both live on G4TV or look for updates on www.ign.com or www.gamespot.com starting at 9am with Nintendo’s Conference and Sony’s at 11am. What will Nintendo reveal? A new Zelda game? A new Mario game? Watch tomorrow for the results. Can’t wait on either one. Sony, don’t disappoint us, like you have already and in the past.

Also be sure to catch history in the making as Steve Wiebe of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters fame, try to reclaim his title as be tries to break the Donkey Kong world record live again tomorrow. He should be given full support and if you haven’t seen the King of Kong documentary you got to soon. Anyways, good luck Wiebe!

Extra E3:

This is cool:

Holy Crap!: Part 3

Wow, whoever made this probably would start wanting to have a Nintendo again, since take a look:

Some French guy named Kotomi modded a Super Mario Bros. cartridge to work as an actual real working Nintendo system. The modder calls it a Fami-Card. Although, hopefully he has another Super Mario Bros. lying around. Expect to find these at your nearest small cart stores you find at the Mall in the coming months.