First Byte: Fan Expo 2014 Gauntlet Part 1

A few weeks back, yours truly made the long trek to Toronto for Fan Expo Canada.  My main reason for going to Fan Expo this year was the plethora of upcoming games available to play at the event.  In total, Fan Expo had well over 30 games to play including Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor, Halo: Master Chief Collection, Assassin's Creed Unity and Destiny.  While I was hoping to play every game on the show floor, that ambitious goal did not come close to happening.  In fact, I only got to play ten games.  Although that number might not seem like a lot, I got to play the games I was most interested in trying, and those with the shortest lines.  Considering I did not get a whole lot of time to fully experience each demo, I will be doing brief impressions on the games I played instead of doing separate first impression previews for each one. As I cannot fit all ten games in one article, there will be two parts to this Fan Expo Gauntlet.  The first part focuses on the demos I got less than ten minutes with while the second part previews the games that I got much more hands-on time playing.

First things first, I learned a valuable lesson at Fan Expo: I am horrible at racing sims and that's a fact.  I played three different racing sims on the show floor in Driveclub (exclusively for PS4), Forza Horizon 2 (exclusively for Xbox 360 and Xbox One) and The Crew (available on all platforms), and each game had a unique take on simulation racing.  Driveclub was solely focused on providing an experience that expertly replicates the nuances of driving.  With crisp graphics and precise controls, Driveclub seems to be tailored for a gaming steering wheel and throttle.  While Driveclub focused on a pure simulation of driving in a pristine environment, Forza Horizon 2 took the similar precise controls and crisp graphics and threw it in an open world.  The race I played in Forza was very interesting as the race dynamically moved from tarmac to dirt to grass causing me to think on the fly about how to control my car through the constantly changing terrain.  Even the great grip of the tarmac can be easily erased by a downpour, all thanks to Horizon 2's dynamic weather.  Although I ended up last in both Driveclub and Forza Horizon 2, I enjoyed my time with each game.  The same cannot be said about The Crew.  Ubisoft's unique street racing sim with a focus on team-play did little to impress due to the incredibly loose control of the cars and the complete lack of direction.  It may be nice to have an open world to drive around and explore, but when the only person able to initiate anything in the demo is the Ubisoft rep, there's a big problem.

Coming out of E3, The Order: 1886 looked like a promising new IP from Sony, but I still had some reservations due to the lack of demos on the game.  Once I saw that the game was going to be at Fan Expo, I was ecstatic to play it.  In fact, it was the first game I played on the show floor.  My ecstasy for The Order subsided when the demo ended after a mere three minutes.  You are dropped in the middle of Chapter 3 of the game with the objective to escape the alleyway.  Using the termite gun, you fire off a few rounds, try the special bullet time-esque pistol move, jump from multiple points of cover, activate a quick-time event and the demo is over.  Three minutes is nowhere close to enough time to form an opinion on the game other than hoping there is much more in the final product.  With only six months left until release, I hope Ready at Dawn has a lot more up their sleeve than this three minute disappointment.

Much like The Order: 1886, Far Cry 4 had a really good showing at E3 so again I was excited to get my hands on the game.  Very similar to my time with The Order, Far Cry 4 left a lot to be desired.  While The Order's problems stemmed from showing barely anything, Far Cry 4's problems stemmed from ridiculously long load times and severe pop-in.  You can give the benefit of the doubt to Ubisoft, but to show a game to the public in such a poor state does not help push pre-orders.  It will cause exactly the opposite to happen.  Despite those issues, Far Cry 4 gave you three scenarios in which to siege an enemy fortress: sneak, ride and fly.  I chose the ride option which allowed me to ride an elephant to siege the fortress.  While the destruction the elephant caused was a sight to behold, I found attacking the fortress to be ill fit for one person as I was easily swarmed and overwhelmed by the enemy AI on multiple occasions.  In my opinion, the demo would have greatly benefit from having two people cooperatively siege the fortress.  Due to the poor quality of this demo, my expectations for Far Cry 4 have lowered quite a bit.

In light of the small amount of time I got to play Mortal Kombat X (a mere three minutes, in fact), I am going to keep this short and sweet.  Mortal Kombat X was a lot of fun.  The controls felt responsive, it was a lot more approachable than past entries as I put together some unique combos with ease, the interactable elements were well integrated and the game has more than enough blood, gore and violence to keep any Mortal Kombat fan happy.  Although my time was short, I came away impressed with how Mortal Kombat X is progressing.  Finishing foes with fatalities cannot come soon enough.

Silver Bit @ Fan Expo 2014

On Friday, August 29th, yours truly made the trek down to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in the heart of Canada's largest city for this year's Fan Expo Canada.  Fan Expo Canada is a multi-day event annually held at the very August.  Originally the convention was made to bring together fans of multiple genres, mainly comic books, science fiction, fantasy and film, Fan Expo has gone on to include a vast range of popular media such as video games, anime, manga and horror.  Over the years, the convention has grown to fill four whole days with panels, workshops, special screenings, tournaments, meet and greets, after parties, signings and photo ops among a plethora of other attractions.  Fan Expo Canada is easily the largest convention in all of Canada as it fills both buildings of the Toronto Convention Centre to capacity.

It has been four long years since I last went to Fan Expo Canada and a whole lot has changed since then.  I was astounded on how the convention has grown in size especially video game portion of the convention.  Back in 2010, the entire convention was held in the North Building of the Toronto Convention Centre with less than five percent of that space being dedicated to video games.  This year, the video game portion of the convention took up a whole quarter of the South Building and a large area of the North Building.  The video game industry was more than well represented at Fan Expo 2014 and a lot of the thanks has to go to EB Games Canada and their Gamer Zone.  EB Games Canada brought in the likes of Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft, Bethesda, Disney, WB Games and 2K Games to demo some of the most anticipated games coming out in the next year.  There were well over 30 games on the show floor to demo including Evolve, Destiny, Far Cry 4, Sunset Overdrive, The Evil Within, Mortal Kombat X and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.  Personally, I spent the majority of my time in this section playing all the upcoming games I could get my hands on.  Considering I went for the one day, I only got to play about a third of the games available, but it was well worth all the kilometres traveled and the time spent waiting in lines.  I look forward to sharing my impressions on the demos I played in the coming weeks.  So stay tuned.

I did not spend my entire Friday in the video game section of Fan Expo.  There were tons of vendors selling video games, comics, art books, t-shirts, framed artwork, action figures, plush toys and anything you can think of.  Out of thousands of items available to buy, I picked up two Official Nintendo Legend of Zelda shirts for 40 dollars.  A lot of time outside of the games section was spent taking pictures of all the incredible statues set up on the floor such as giant Lego statues of the Shedder and Lord Business, and life-sized models of Prowl from Transfromers G1 and the Batmobile from Batman: Arkham Knight.  I also got to watch the very first episode of Star Wars: Rebels, the new Star Wars animated TV show set between Episodes III and IV, in the John Bassett Theatre with tons of excited fans both young and old.  It was a completely different experience watching a show with hundreds of other people as you got to hear live reactions from everybody in the audience, not just yourself.  While Rebels is geared towards a young audience, I found it to be very enjoyable for Star Wars fans of all ages.  It will definitely worth a viewing when it premieres on Disney XD this October.

Last but not least, I got to meet the cast of Reviews on the Run and Electric Playground along with famous video game composer and founder of Video Games Live, Tommy Tallarico.  Even though I met most of these gaming celebrities before, I was incredibly starstruck in front of all of them.  Some people idolize athletes, film stars or musicians, I idolize people in the video games industry including the developers, journalists and game analysts.  While I may have awkwardly stumbled over my words while talking to them, they all made me feel welcomed and appreciated.  I would like to thank Victor Lucas, Ben Silverman, Jose Sanchez, Marissa Roberto, Steve Tilley, Raju Mudhar and Tommy Tallarico for making a great Fan Expo even more special for me.  It was an excellent day and I cannot wait to go again next year.

First Byte: New Nintendo 3DS

Just over a year ago, Nintendo surprised everyone with the reveal of the 2DS, a value-priced model of the 3DS without the system's signature glasses-less 3D feature.  While the opinions on the 2DS were polarizing upon its initial announcement, the system has by no means been the flop like many suggested.  In fact, the 2DS has sold well over two million units since its launch back in October of last year.  Seeing the success of the 2DS must of inspired the decision makers at Nintendo announce yet another model of the 3DS before the end of August because the Big N is at it again.

In the wee hours of the morning last Friday, Nintendo announced the New Nintendo 3DS during a Japan-only Nintendo Direct.  The New Nintendo 3DS is very similar in design to past models, but there a significant amount of additions to the hardware that justify the title of "New".  The most noticeable features of the New 3DS are the additions of a small analog nub referred to as the C-Stick, the ZL and ZR shoulder buttons, coloured face buttons and a volume slider located on the top screen.  The other features of the New 3DS include built-in NFC functionality in the touch screen for use with Amiibo, facial tracking via the inner camera to improve the line of sight for the glasses-less 3D effect, the use of Micro SD cards instead of SD cards for storage and more processing power to improve download speeds and graphics capability.  With the additional processing power, Nintendo has confirmed there will be exclusive games, such as an enhanced port of Xenoblade Chronicles, coming to the New 3DS.  Sadly, these games will not be compatible with previous versions of the system.  The New 3DS is currently set to release in both standard and XL versions on October 10th in Japan with no official announcement on worldwide release at this time.

The announcement of a brand new system, be it console or handheld, is suppose to bring excitement and joy for the next advancements in video game software and technology.  When I saw the announcement for the New 3DS, I was stunned and not in a good way.  In all honesty, I love Nintendo and the 3DS XL is one of the best designed handheld systems on the market today, but I do not understand Nintendo's incessant need to annualize the release of 3DS hardware especially when it alienates owners of previous versions.  Video game handhelds are in a completely different beast than smartphones and tablets because people look for a dedicated system to take the quality gaming experiences on the go rather than a multipurpose machine where gaming is not much of a focus.  Due to these opposing mindsets, there is no need to adapt the practice of updating hardware (no matter how minor) annually that is so prevalent in the smartphone and tablet market into Nintendo's handheld strategy.

Although I do fear Nintendo is looking at smartphones and tablets as influence more than they should, my main problem with the New 3DS stems from the exclusive games for the device.  In no way has Nintendo officially confirmed if the New 3DS is their next generation handheld, which leaves the system feeling like it is caught between the current handheld generation and whatever Nintendo creates next.  Considering the New 3DS sits amidst two handheld generations, it begs the question: why should someone buy a New 3DS when the next generation of handhelds is maybe two to three years away?  The exclusive games seems like Nintendo's way to elicit people to ignore that question, yet the install-base of the New 3DS will never reach a point where it is more viable sales-wise to release large portable franchises like Pokemon exclusively on it.  With that thought in mind, I do not see the New 3DS's exclusive games being more than Nintendo-published ports like Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story, and experimental titles such as WarioWare.  In my opinion, the whole exclusive games conundrum will cause more division between the 3DS consumer base than unity because there will be two groups of gamers with systems that are compatible in some ways and incompatible in others.  Much like Nintendo's missteps with DSiWare during the DS era, it is a short-sighted move by Nintendo to coerce people into buying a New 3DS with exclusive games.

While the New Nintendo 3DS adds some highly requested features like a second analog stick and improved stereoscopic 3D, it is not needed at this point in time.  The 3DS is the most successful console on the market today.  There is no need to change up the formula or make significant changes to this system to ensure success other than continuing to release compelling software for the 3DS on a regular basis.  Gamers would rather see a remake for Majora's Mask or a new 2D Metroid over a brand new 3DS with the processing power of the Wii.  I may sound like a broken record, but Nintendo needs to focus on improving the sales of the Wii U over anything else.  The poor sales of the Wii U is the main cause of Nintendo's current financial woes, so it is better to right that ship than meddle with the one that is raking in all the money.  The final verdict on the New 3DS will have to wait until it reaches North American shores sometime in 2015.  Right now, I am no where near convinced that the New 3DS is worth my hard-earned cash especially after buying a 3DS XL earlier in this year.