The E3 Rundown

E3 was last week! And you know what that means: time for thenoblehero's recap of awesomeness! I was going to talk about everything E3, but then I realized how bored I was writing about it, so I'm just gonna skip through my favourite things. Just a warning, it'll be pretty much all Nintendo, 'cause Nintendo wins E3.

First thing: more new characters for Super Smash Bros. were announced! Mii Fighters in three customizable varieties are on their way, so finally you can enter the battle. They also added Palutena from Kid Icarus (cool I guess? I'm not really big on that series), and Pac-Man! Now they've got mascots from a bunch of the big video game companies, and they showed off a battle between Mario, Sonic, Mega Man, and Pac-Man to demonstrate.

Next up, Nintendo showed off its next Yoshi game: Yoshi's Woolly World. I've always liked Yoshi, but I've never actually bought a Yoshi game. This game is changing that. It just looks so adorable and very fun. Yoshi is a crochet doll version of himself! I'm really looking forward to this game.

Another new game I'm looking forward to is Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. This game spins directly out of Super Mario 3D World where there are little sidequest-like levels in which you take control of Captain Toad and go through an odd little 3D puzzle level. I'm not describing it well. This game takes that concept and dials it way up giving the titular character more abilities and more complicated levels to get through. It looks awesome.

There are two new Zelda games coming. Hyrule Warriors is a mashup of Zelda and Dynasty Warriors. It looks pretty fun, and you get to play as a bunch of different Zelda characters (including Zelda herself). It's a hack and slash action game that's sure to be a hit. The other is a new formal Legend of Zelda game (currently untitled) that is probably still quite a ways out, but the quick video they showed looks beautiful! I am very much looking forward to seeing more.

There was a little bit of news about Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby at and around E3, as well. There was a trailer showing off a little bit of gameplay, and four new Mega Evolutions, plus two Primal Evolutions were shown off. Mega Sceptile and Mega Swampert will round off the 3rd generation starters' mega forms. Mega Diancie and Mega Sableye made appearances, and the versions of the legendary pokémon on the box-art have been revealed to be Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre. Clearly I'm excited for these games.

Nintendo also showed off a new game called Splatoon, which could be a pretty big hit. I recommend looking it up 'cause I don't think I can describe it and give it justice. It's a team battle game where you play as little squid people who spray coloured ink everywhere to take over as much territory as possible. You can turn into a squid and swim through the ink rapidly, but get stuck when you hit the opposing team's ink. Like I said, it sounds odd, but looks great!

The last game I'm going to mention is a new game exclusive to Xbox One called Scalebound. It looks like you play as a dragon knight battling monsters and stuff. The trailer looks fantastic. Go find it!

Better yet, I'll post links below. If I can figure it out. Perhaps I'll post liks to all the trailers of games I'm excited for but don't feel like talking about, too! Yeah! I may later give my impression of the actual press conferences too, but at this point, probably not... Anyway! Links below!

Nintendo:

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS - October 3rd, 2014
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U - Holiday 2014
Yoshi's Woolly World - Holiday 2014
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - Holiday 2014
Hyrule Warriors - September 26th, 2014
The Legend of Zelda - TBA 2015
Pokémon Omega Ruby - November 21st, 2014
Pokémon Alpha Sapphire - November 21st, 2014
Splatoon - TBA 2015
Mario Maker - TBA 2015
Fantasy Life - October 2014
Mario Party 10 - TBA 2015
Mario vs. Donkey Kong - TBA 2015
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright - August 29th, 2014

Xbox One:
Scalebound - TBA 2015?
Assassin's Creed: Unity - October 28th, 2014
Dragon Age: Inquisition - October 7th, 2014
Sunset Overdrive - October 28th, 2014
Ori and the Blind Forest - Fall 2014

PS4:
inFAMOUS: First Light - August 2014
Ratchet & Clank - TBA 2015?
LittleBigPlanet 3 - November 2014

PC:
The Sims 4 - September 2nd, 2014

So Much Nerd Love!

Okay, so it's been an exciting week. My little nerd heart has grown three sizes with all of this tech love announced.

At Apple's WWDC event, they made a bunch of cool announcements. There's a new Mac Pro in the works. There's new functionality with iCloud coming, mainly the ability to use iWork on the web. Mac OS X Mavericks was announced with improvements to Calendars, Safari, and Notifications, and the addition of the Maps and iBooks apps to Mac. There's probably a lot more cool stuff that was announced, but I was really just interested in one thing.

iOS 7 was announced, and I'm very excited about it. As you can tell from the above picture, there's been a major visual update. All of the app icons are updated with a flatter, more simplified look. They've greatly improved the visuals of all of the apps. They've added Control Center, which gives you access to some the important phone settings with a quick up-swipe. There's improvements all over, but it would take me too long to go over it right now, so I'll leave it for a later post.

I really want to talk about some of the cool stuff announced at E3 as well. As usual, my favourite part of E3 was Nintendo, but they didn't even do a press conference this year. Instead, they did a special Nintendo Direct featuring a bunch of new games. And they did not disappoint.

Super Mario 3D World is a new sequel to last year's 3D Land. This time they are throwing back to the old Super Mario Bros. 2 with the inclusion of Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Peach as playable characters. They've introduced the new Cat Mario suit, giving the characters cat-like abilities. It's also multiplayer, so that's a really cool addition. I'm definitely getting this game.

They also brought news on Pikmin 3, Pokémon X and Y, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. They brought the MAJOR announcement of the new Super Smash Bros games for Wii U and 3DS, including the new characters added: Mega Man, and the Villager from Animal Crossing.Bayonetta 2, Sonic Lost World, Mario Party 8, The Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. So many awesome games. I'm really gonna have to get a Wii U.

Otherwise, I haven't really been keeping up with all of the E3 news. I watched the Xbox One press conference, but nothing really stood out for me. I skipped the Sony press conference, but I'll probably watch it eventually. There's really only two other games I've followed. One was the re-announcement of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, now called Final Fantasy XV. The previous announcement that it would be PS3 only is now out the window as it's been announced instead for the PS4 AND Xbox One. Also announced, and I'm REALLY excited for this one: Kingdom Hearts 3! It's still early in development, but I can't wait.

So yeah, it's been an exciting week. I've already calculated that I'm gonna be very broke with all of the new games coming out over the next year and a half. At least iOS updates are free. Anyway, it's time for work. Enjoy your Saturday!

Ready To Nerd Out

So, Andrea and I will be on our way to San Diego in a little over a month for our third annual nerdy adventure! 36 days from now we will be headed to Comic-Con once again, and I'm getting pretty excited about it!

We've done SDCC twice now, and you might think the novelty would've worn off by now, but I can't wait to get there again. Pretty soon the panel schedule will be released and we can start planning exactly who and what we wanna see, and figure out how many insane line-ups we'll be waiting in. I love all the exclusive clips and special announcements and the excitement of the crowds.

I've taken a step to improve communication while I'm there. I found a great company operating out of Vancouver called Roam Mobility. As the name of their company implies, they are a company that specializes in all of your cell phone roaming needs. Check them out! They have great plans for use while traveling in the USA. For about $28, I will have unlimited calling and texting in the US and back to Canada, plus 700 MB of data, for a week. It was a huge pain not having use of my phone last year, so I'm hoping this will be the solution I'm looking for!

Otherwise, I think we are pretty prepared for the trip. We just booked our flights. Hotel has been booked for a long time. We both managed to get our 4-day plus preview night badges. AND we bought our tickets to see the Nerdist Podcast again. I've got my USD savings account just sitting there full of money to spend. I just need to actually go!

In other news, today marks the beginning of WWDC AND E3, and I wish I was an Apple developer and/or in the gaming industry so I could be at one of them. I'm a very excited nerd right now. Anyway, this thing is already late enough and I should probably get to work, so have a wonderful week!

Generic Title

I have decided that I must post something today, but I really can't think of an interesting topic, so I'm just gonna wing it here.

Over the last couple of weeks there have been some pretty exciting things happening, what with E3 and WWDC going on down in California (all of the coolest things happen in California).

I'll start with E3. What is E3, you ask? Well, I'll tell you! It's the Electronics Entertainment Expo! Blank stare? Basically, it's a huge event where all of the electronics companies show off what they are doing. The key here being the big video game companies giving everyone a sneak peek at what coming down the line.

Honestly, this year was relatively boring. I didn't see a lot of stuff that I was particularly interested in. Not that there wasn't cool stuff, there was, but not really my style. It was mostly just Nintendo that did it for me.

There was finally more info about the Wii U this year, which looks fantastic. I can't really describe it here. It just looks pretty. Pikmin 3 is coming out on it, as well as a New Super Mario Bros. U game. Aaaand I can't remember any other games coming out for it yet. Oops. Oh! Nintendoland or something. That doesn't sound right... It's kind of a Mario Party-esque game but using various Nintendo properties for the minigames, like Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Animal Crossing. It looks pretty fun, showing off all of the new capabilities of the Wii U.

Nintendo also finally revealed some more info about a few 3DS games I've been waiting for. Paper Mario: Sticker Star is one I've been waiting for forever. I love the other Paper Mario games in the series, and this one looks pretty awesome. It doesn't look as good as the first two, but we'll see if they prove me wrong. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon also got a little bit of new info out. I really just wanna play it now. It looks fun. Luigi's running around basically being a ghostbuster? Who wouldn't love that?! The also announced New Super Mario Bros. 2, which looks decent. I'll probably buy it and never play it, 'cause I do that.

Otherwise, there wasn't a lot at E3 that I really wanna play. I was a little disappointed. There were games that look really cool, like Beyond, which has Ellen Page starring as the main character. The new Tomb Raider game also looks cool, but I think I'd suck at it. I think there was a new Halo game mentioned, but I am probably the only gamer ever to hate Halo.

The one game I was really excited about that wasn't Nintendo was Assassin's Creed 3. It looks so fantastic. I can't wait for it to come out, even though I have 4 Assassin's Creed games to play before I can play that one. Bad gamer.

Aaanyway, I talked a lot more than I thought I was gonna about E3, so I'll cut out WWDC for now. I'll be an Apple nerd next week. Sorry if this was boring. I should start linking to game trailers or something to make this more exciting... If you have any comments, let me know below!

More Evidence That I'm a Nerd

So, I had planned on typing up this great big E3 review blog (and I had actually typed most of it), but I decided that there was far too much useless stuff that I just didn't care about in it, so this is E3 blog attempt number 2! Every year I get super psyched for the Electronics Entertainment Expo (or E3, for short). It's where all of the big gaming companies get together with the press and show off all the new stuff they're working on. It's all very exciting for a nerd like me. This year I was actually a little bit disappointed with a lack of actual release dates for games, but I was pleased with what they showed off.

Now, the main events of E3 are the "Big Three" press conferences, those three being Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. There are a few other "big" press conferences, but I'm not gonna lie, I didn't watch them 'cause they seemed pretty darn boring. But even two of the "big three" were pretty boring to me.

Microsoft kicked off E3 with their press conference, showing off all that's new with the Xbox 360. Which really wasn't exciting to me at all. I actually quit watching partway through. What I did get out of it was that they are really trying to push the Kinect (which I don't want) and they have a lot of sequels and remakes of games I don't care about (war games, shooters, and more Halo...). Tomb Raider actually looks alright, but I don't think I'll play it. Fable: The Journey seems like a step backward for the series, I like free play, I don't want a game-on-rails. The new Xbox Experience (dashboard) looks pretty cool though, and TV through the Xbox would be cool (but Telus already does that here).

Sony held their press conference on everything Playstation later that evening and this one I got to watch live 'cause it was after work. Once again, I wasn't overly impressed. There was a lot of similar stuff to the way the Microsoft show went. Sequels of games I don't care about (war games, shooters) and a real push to get with the 3D gaming experience (I don't like 3D). They did release a cool 3D monitor bundle, and talked about the new feature that eliminates split screens using 3D glasses technology, but I'm still not buying it. They also talked about the NGP, now dubbed the Playstation Vita, or PSV as I'm gonna call it. Looks like a pretty nice piece of hardware, but it seems like they are just trying to cram as much into it as possible to make it seem cooler than the 3DS. I may buy it, especially since it's only gonna cost $250, but so far there aren't any games that interest me coming for it.

Nintendo was the star of E3 once again this year (as far as I'm concerned anyway). They opened up the show with a special look at the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda. They did some fun little musical stuff, and talked about the Zelda games they've got coming out this year. Link's Awakening being released on the 3DS Virtual Console that day, the N64 classic Ocarina of Time 3D coming to the 3DS on June 19th (which is this coming weekend! I pre-ordered mine, did you?), GBA classic Four Swords coming to the DSiWare shop for free this September, and Skyward Sword for the Wii on it's way this holiday season. There was some more stuff to do with that but it wasn't important enough to remember.

After that, they showed off a string of 3DS games on their way: Mario Kart (which appears to have a few new gameplay elements added to it, air and underwater racing sections), Star Fox (boooooring), Super Mario Bros. 3D (which looks AWESOME! Can't wait to get my hands on that. Tanooki suit!!), Kid Icarus: Uprising (looks cool, but is really old news since it's reveal last year and STILL no release date), and Luigi's Mansion 2 (So cool! I don't even know why! I had no interest at all in the first one but I want this one so bad!). They also talked about a few 3rd party games but they were all dumb so I won't mention them.

Afterwards, they announced the Nintendo Wii U! It looks pretty exciting, but as time goes on, I lose enthusiasm, so I really should have blogged about it sooner. It's basically an HD Wii, for the most part, even using the Wii controllers and such, BUT it's got one big difference. The main controller for the system is basically a tablet computer fused with a motion sensing controller, with buttons. Minus the CPU. It can be used as a second screen for all kinds of different things, plus some games even allow you to switch gameplay from the TV over to the controller so someone else can use the TV for something else. See how it doesn't sound all that exciting? But it IS! I SWEAR! Watch the videos! Maybe I'll make another post entirely devoted to the Wii U later. Good plan, I think.

Anyway, that was pretty much it for the Nintendo conference, the rest was them talking about the Wii U and different developers weighing in and pretty much from there it was just boring crap. Elsewhere at E3 Nintendo also announced a few other games. A new DS Kirby game that looks a little lame. A new Wii Kirby game that looks AWESOME. And... uh... I don't remember what else. There was nothing new about Paper Mario, which made me sad. There was a new trailer for it, but that was it. Square Enix was pretty weak on their presence at E3 with an absence of ALL of the games I'd been looking forward to see from them. They DID however have some good stuff on FFXIII-2 which looks like it will be good. Now just to finish the first one... Natsume brought their new Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games which look very nice (I like the farming games...). There was also some new stuff on X-Men: Destiny which I want very very badly, and a new Spider-Man game which looks like it will be good, but I doubt I'll play it.

And I think that is pretty much it. I really had to rush through all that 'cause there was a lot of stuff announced. I'll probably do future blog posts dedicated specifically to certain game/system announcements once I absorb more info, and you can expect a review of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D sometime in the near(?) future 'cause I went down and pre-ordered it today. I'll probably be there right when they open to pick it up on Sunday too. To be fair, they open at noon, and I'll just be leaving my weekly family coffee thing right about then, so it's not like I'm a rabid fan or anything. Anyway, until next time...