Game Avalache 2015: Guide to the Fall Game Rush

In a few short weeks, we enter the craziest time of the year—the avalanche known as the fall game releases. The sheer amount of games releasing in the period of one month is unbelievable. Most of them of huge AAA titles, like Halo 5, Black Ops III, Fallout 4, and Star Wars Battlefront, that will easily make a big dent in your wallet. With all these great games permeating store shelves the world over, the temptation of buying them all is definitely there. Unless you have a whole lot of disposable money, you sadly can't afford buying every game outright. For those money conscientious people out there, I'm here with some tips and tricks to help you through this trying time.

Pick and Choose
With new games selling for 70 to 80 dollars a piece, it's just too expensive to be buying every major release nowadays. Add in the nearly 20 hour plus campaigns and/or extensive multiplayer suites of modern titles, there is no way one person can beat each game in time for the next big release. There is too much coming out and not enough time or money to play them all right now. With all that in mind, best to stick with one or two new titles this holiday season and get the most out of them rather than trying to cram them all in.

Use Alternative Funding
Money can be an issue, especially for students and those dealing with debt. While it is important to budget your money in order to afford the necessities of life, the urge to get the latest and greatest game can be hard to overcome. If you need to pick up a game at launch with limited funds, it might be best to look at your backlog and see if there are any games you are willing to part with. Since most retailers nowadays accept games and other pieces of media for trade-in credit, trading in older titles is a viable solution for funding new game purchases.

Forewarning: don't go in expecting to get more than five dollars a game. Video game prices are in constant flux, so a title's trade-in value can change weekly based on factors such as rarity, popularity, or age. Unless a game's rarity or popularity trumps its age, the older the title is, the lower its resell value will be. Also the resell price of yearly releases, especially sports games, plummets once the newest entry hits store shelves. So it's best to trade those titles in before the new game comes out. Plus, keep an eye out for trade promotions because they will get you more money for the games you're looking to trade.

Play the Waiting Game
Good things come for those who wait. This adage is especially true when it comes to video game shopping during the holiday season. If you don't feel like buying a game within the first week of release, it's better to just wait. Sales happen regularly over the course of the last two months of the year. You might just find the game you're thinking of buying for 10 to 20 dollars off (sometimes more on Black Friday or Boxing Day) or somebody may give it to you for Christmas. Holding off your money spending urges might lead to the best rewards during this expensive season.

First Byte: Fan Expo 2015 Gauntlet

Early September, I went to Fan Expo Canada for a day. Aside from exploring the massive show floor and buying a few cool items on sale, I spent the majority of my time playing upcoming games. Actually, it was more like standing in line to play said games. Much like last year. there were well over 30 games at Fan Expo for all to play from big AAA titles such as Assassin's Creed: Syndicate to smaller titles like Cuphead. I always go in dreaming to play every game on the show floor, but I can only get in a quarter at best. This year, I played 10 games in total.

This time around I'm changing up the structure of the Fan Expo Gauntlet. Instead of taking two parts to outline every game I played, I'm going to highlight three titles. These are the titles that I got more time to play and can dissect for your pleasure. With how poorly some demos were managed by volunteers, I just couldn't extract enough from them to fill a paragraph. For example, I played Transformers: Devastation for only enough time to say the combat is exactly the same as Bayonetta just with some third-person gunplay thrown in the mix.

Yo-Kai Watch
To my surprise, Nintendo had a lot more games at their booth than the three games advertised (Splatoon, Super Mario Maker and Yoshi's Wooly World). One of the titles available to play on 3DS was the newest sensation out of Japan, Yo-Kai Watch. The demo I played gave me a good impression on the game's combat system, which is pretty different from most JRPGs on the market.

There are no random encounters in Yo-Kai Watch, you literally chase down wild yo-kai by keeping your cursor over them. Once the yo-kai are caught, you engage in combat. Combat consists of spinning a wheel on the touch screen to alternate between the six yo-kai on your team and activating special touch screen specific activities in order to unleash special attacks. Outside of lining up the correct elements to maximize damage and special attacks, normal attacks automatically occur at regular intervals.

For the 15 to 20 minute demo, I found the combat really fun and engaging alternative to the traditional RPG combat systems, but I can see it getting tedious over the course of a 40 hour playthrough if this is all Yo-Kai Watch offers.

Star Wars Battlefront
Ever since EA and DICE released the first slew of information on the new Star Wars Battlefront at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, people have been tirelessly debating over the game's content or lack thereof and its similarities to Battlefield. The gameplay footage revealed at E3 did quite a bit to fan the flames, but there were still some doubters. I will say this: you will have no doubts when you get your hands on the game. My friends and I walked away from the demo at Fan Expo astounded at how amazing it was.

The only mode available to play was Survival. It is Battlefront's version of Horde mode as you and a teammate are tasked with battling through waves upon waves of Imperial forces on Tatooine. The first few waves consist of just Stormtroopers, but as the waves go on, the difficulty goes up at a gradual yet challenging pace by throwing AT-ATs and shocktroopers your way. For somebody who can't hold their own in contemporary shooters, Battlefront made me feel like an all-star. The controls felt perfectly tuned to deal with everything that was being thrown my way. There were a couple waves where I was the last man standing and the tight controls were the only thing that allowed me to pull through.

Although the demo consisted of only one mode, the superb controls and the game's ability to accurately emulate the world of Star Wars has me highly anticipating playing Battlefront later this year.

Star Fox Zero
Most games I played at Fan Expo left me feeling optimistic about their final release. Sadly, I can't say the same for Star Fox Zero. While I will still buy this game early next year, I have a bad feeling that the game is going to alienate a lot of people because of its unique control scheme, much like Kid Icarus: Uprising before it.

Star Fox Zero has you using the analog sticks to control the Arwing and the motion controls in the Wii U gamepad to aim your weapons. This control set-up works during the on-rail segments. but completely falls apart when you enter all-range mode. The reason for this occurrence comes from the all-range mode's reliance on pinpoint accuracy to dispatch enemies. If you played Splatoon, you would already know that this control scheme is no where near accurate and Star Fox's focus on it feels counter-productive. Transforming into the walker did alleviate some of the targeting problems with particular enemies, but the walker's controls felt rough around the edges as will.

After playing Star Fox Zero, I am happy that Nintendo delayed the game until early 2016 because it gives Nintendo more time to refine the controls for the game. While Star Fox Zero has the potential to breathe new life into this struggling franchise, a polarizing control scheme might just ground the Star Fox team for good.

E3 2015: Ubisoft Press Conference Impressions

2014 was a less than stellar year for Ubisoft's reputation as Watch Dogs fell far short of its hype and Assassin's Creed: Unity was shipped as a broken mess.  Despite Ubisoft's best efforts to fix the situation, many felt betrayed by Ubisoft's transgressions.  So the French publisher had something to prove coming into E3 2015.  The question was: could they deliver?

For how many games Ubisoft crammed into a 60 minutes, the conference moved at an incredible pace.  The hour flew by before you knew it as Ubisoft. much like Bethesda, let the games do the talking for them.  For every minute spent talking, three or more was spent showing live gameplay or pre-rendered trailers.  While I do prefer gameplay over trailers any day, the trailers that Ubisoft showed at their conference were short, sweet and incredibly produced.  My personal favourite was Trials Fusion Awesome Level Max's trailer, which saw a gun-toting cat riding a fire-breathing unicorn.  No, I'm not on crack!  It really happened!

The biggest plus from Ubisoft's conference was most certainly the live demos.  Seeing all those titles played live, including the newly announced For Honor, The Division, Rainbow Six: Siege and TrackMania Turbo, gave me a much better impression on all of them.  I'm actually excited to play all of them.  From a medieval melee combat to a tactical shooter to an arcade racer, there was incredible amount of diversity between the titles demoed and on the show as a whole.

Also, I have to praise Ubisoft for being the only publisher in the video game industry that can actually keep a secret.  There were no leaks or rumours about South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Ghost Recon Wildlands or a new IP in For Honor being set for Ubisoft's press conference.  Not having any prior knowledge on those games made all the surprises feel special, something that rarely happens nowadays.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows at Ubisoft's press conference.  There were some problems when it came to presentation.  It has become par for the course that Ubisoft brings in some celebrities to host, make appearances or even sing, but it never usually ends well.  The same can be said for this year's show.  Aisha Tyler tirelessly tried to inject some humour into the conference, but seemed to make things awkward ever single time.  Angela Bassett talking about her role as Six in Rainbow Six: Siege was completely worthless.  And to top it all off, Jason Derulo showed the world that he cannot sing—or he might of just hit puberty—in a moment that was so gloriously awful that it came off as being incredibly funny.  Like watching a train wreck, you couldn't turn your attention away from it.

Despite the problems with the conference's presentation, Ubisoft's press conference was a highly entertaining show.  It let the games stand as the sole focus and kept Aisha Tyler's on-stage shenanigans to a minimum.  You know it's going to be a good show from Ubisoft when the only reference to Tyler's girlwood is her necklace.

Grade:  A-

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.

Bit by Bit: E3 2014 Wrap-up

E3 has come and gone for yet another year.  While the event may be over, the analysis of the show and all the games shown off has just begun.  All over the net, you see all the podcasts, reviews and awards dedicated to every aspect of the show popping up in the next couple weeks.  Here at Silver Bit, the month of June usually is solely focused on E3 from the previews to the conference impressions to the wrap-up articles.  In fact, I am watching all the gameplay footage that I can get my hands on to put together the annual Top 10 Games of E3 article which will conclude the month of June.  Before we move onto bigger and better things, let us look back on the show that was E3 2014 in this special edition of Bit by Bit.

Winner of E3 2014
As a whole, E3 2014 was an entertaining and ultimately safe show.  Aside from a few unique experiences, not many gambles were taken to infuse some innovation into the industry.  Although there were a plethora of familiar games showcased, all of them looked incredible.  With the amount of detail and fidelity in the coming wave of next generation titles, I can understand the current lack of new properties as a trade-off to getting a handle on the new hardware.  There were still new properties shown at the event in Evolve, The Order 1886, No Man's Sky and Sunset Overdrive, but they have not been put on the same pedestal that Assassin's Creed, Gears of War and Uncharted were early in the previous console generation.  Apart from the focus on familiar franchises, E3 2014 did an excellent job in showcasing how great 2015 will be compared to the rest of 2014.  All of the games people eagerly desire except Destiny or Super Smash Bros. comes out next year and that fact is just a little upsetting considering there is still no killer app for this generation yet.  Guess it will come with everything else releasing in 2015.

Enough of my analysis of E3 2014, let us get down to which company won at this year's show.  Winning E3 really comes down to personal opinion and how the showcased games appeal to each individual.  This year, the three console manufacturers were neck-and-neck in their showings.  Everybody did a good job in providing gamers with the games they wanted to see and the information they wanted to hear.  As close as this arms race was, Sony impressed me the most at E3 2014.  While I am in the minority, Sony's winning performance last year only came because they did the exact opposite of Microsoft and built their hype for the PS4 around that plan.  On the software side, not much impressed last year.  However this year Sony delivered with the games and content to compliment their highly successful system.  I came out of the Sony Press Conference knowing that I need a PS4 to get the most out of this new generation.  Even though the press conference had that excruciatingly boring thirty minutes, I would take this year's great three quarters over last year's excellent one fourth any day.  Sony could have lost some ground at E3 2014 with a lacklustre showing, but they delivered and solidified their place as number one this console generation.

Surprise of E3 2014
In the last few years, E3 surprises have become few and far between.  With the internet now, the few surprises actually planned for E3 might not make it to the show itself as they are leaked in the months, weeks and even days in advance.  For a surprise to stay a surprise right up until the moment of its revealed makes the moment feel like an event especially on this stage.  There were a slightly more surprises this year in Phantom Dust, Rainbow Six: Siege, Splatoon and Codename S.T.E.A.M., but one stood tall over the rest.  That surprise came at the Sony Press Conference from Adam Boyes along with some help from a girl named Sally.  It would turn out that Sally was not a girl, but renowned adventure game designer Tim Schafer.  Sally's wish for a return to a classic Tim Schafer adventure game came true when Boyes announced the Grim Fandango HD remake exclusively for PS4 and PS Vita.  As niche as adventure games may be, this news got me very excited because I have never played the original and heard so many great things about the game.  Funny enough, I was actually wondering if Double Fine would re-release Grim Fandango on Steam or remake the game for this generation a few months back.  After thinking about it, to actually see Grim Fandango HD become reality was like Sony found a way to read my mind.  It was an incredible reveal that easily was the highlight of the Sony Press Conference and the entire show.

Trailer of E3 2014
The only thing more prevalent at E3 than the plethora of demos that line the show floor are the trailers.  Each game at the event has a trailer to get gamers excited and to permeate the hundreds of screens covering the E3 booths.  Ranging from multi-minute vignettes to short little teasers, the trailers at this year's event varied in quality.  Some tried to be incredibly dramatic while others went lighter in tone and heavy with the humour.  There were quite a few standouts such as The Witcher III's epic story trailer, Sunset Overdrive's hilarious parody of modern shooters and Super Smash Bros.'s Mii Fighter reveal which saw Reggie and Iwata duke it out in spectacular fashion.  Out of those great trailers, The Legend of Zelda for Wii U reveal trailer was the best.  While short in length, the trailer captured key details for this new adventure in the world of Hyrule.  The beautiful cel-shaded anime-inspired graphics and the grand vistas will be the first things to catch the eye, but there are much more to dig into with this trailer.  The confirmation of horse riding, more options to fight on horseback, the blend of modern technology and medieval fantasy and the dynamic open world were among the amazing features revealed through this trailer.  While early in development, The Legend of Zelda for Wii U looks absolutely incredible and this trailer is just the beginning of all the great media we will receive in the near future.

E3 2014: Ubisoft Press Conference Impressions

Ubisoft has never been overly consistent when they came to their press conferences.  Ubisoft tries to capture such a broad audience with their conferences that they are either very good or very bad.  Leading into this year's show, Ubisoft just launched their newest IP Watch Dogs to record setting sales.  Hopefully, the French publisher can use that momentum to put together an impressive E3 conference.

Like has been the case for three years now, Ubisoft knows how to end a press conference.  The gameplay footage and subsequent announcement of Rainbow Six: Siege was the highlight of Ubisoft's conference.  Seeing the game in action and all the players working together in unison was a sight to behold.  Personally, this writer is still a little sad that the greatness of the single-player focused Rainbow Six: Patriots is no more, but Siege looks fun nonetheless.  Aside from Aisha Tyler's flat jokes, nothing at the Ubisoft conference was absolutely horrible.  Even the more casual titles like Just Dance 2015 and Shape Up were at least entertaining to watch.  While entertaining to watch, the conference felt too safe.  Ubisoft is usually one of the few large publishers to try and push the envelope, but everything they showed off at their conference except the new Rainbow Six and Shape Up was already announced or just another entry in a yearly franchise.  The content of the conference was interesting yet this writer left the conference feeling underwhelmed.  Far Cry 4 started off the show in style as Ubisoft showed off the first five minutes which highlighted the craziness of the new villain.  The middle of the show lagged as Ubisoft showed more trailers than actual gameplay.  The Assassin's Creed Unity demo was interesting as the traversal system looks to be more fluid than other games in the series despite that many are getting fatigued over Assassin's Creed yearly release schedule.  The only other noteworthy game at Ubisoft's conference was Valiant Hearts, an adventure game where you play a dog as he interacts with four heroes during the events of World War I.  The trailer showed off the beautiful hand drawn graphics along with the incredibly touching story of the game.  With the great use of video and audio, Valiant Hearts' trailer can easily get the waterworks going.  Out of all the games Ubisoft showcased at their conference, Valiant Hearts, no matter its small scale, was the game that got this writer the most excited.

Ubisoft's 2014 Press Conference was a middling effort from the French publisher.  Much like the other conferences we have seen today, their press conference left this writer wanting more and not in a good way.  Giving us updates on titles already announced and announcing new entries in yearly franchise is not enough to get people excited anymore.  The video game industry has moved onto a brand new console generation and everybody expects a lot more from Ubisoft  this time around to justify the purchase of new hardware to play their future releases.

Grade:  C+

E3 2014: Microsoft Press Conference Impressions

Welcome to the very first day of E3 2014.  Instead of roaming the floors of the LA Convention Center, press conferences will be broadcast to the world from various venues across the city of Los Angeles.  Every bit of anticipation and hype has been building for these sixty to ninety presentations.  The next steps towards the future of the video game industry begins right here, right now.  Following each press conference, yours truly will be sharing his impressions right here on Silver Bit.  These impressions will analyze the good, the bad and the ugly of each conference then wrap it up with a final grade.  As always, Microsoft kicks off E3 with their press conference.

Right off the bat, this press conference was one of the best conferences Microsoft has ever put on.  Much like last year's show, this conference focused solely on games.  The only mention of Kinect came in the brief minute Harmonix had where they spoke about Disney Fantasia and Dance Central Spotlight.  Another similarity to last year's conference came in the form of Microsoft cramming their ninety minutes with games, games and more games.  There was little to no room for anybody to breathe between game demos and trailers unless you count the incredibly awkward developer vignettes.  It was not hard to see that Microsoft wanted to hammer home that they listen to the core gamers, but those vignettes felt forced and completely unnecessary.  Although the pacing is something Microsoft needs to work on, it is a step in the right which should be a good sign for future press conferences.  The conference's strength came from the games shown.  Microsoft made a much better effort in highlighting the games coming from first-party studios. While none of them really made this writer excited, games like Crackdown 3, Fable Legends, Phantom Dust, Scalebound, Sunset Overdrive and Halo: Master Chief Collection will get some people interested in buying an Xbox One.  Along with all the first-party titles, there were a good number of third-party games showcased at the show.  The Microsoft presser saw the reveal trailer for Rise of the Tomb Raider, an impressive demo of Witcher III: Wild Hunt, a fun multiplayer demo of Assassin's Creed Unity and gameplay from both The Division and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.  Along with all the love for larger games, Microsoft made a little effort to showcase the indie games coming to Xbox One which they focused a lot of time on revealing Playdead's Inside.  The strengths came from all the content of the show, but Microsoft failed in one regard.  Microsoft did set their holiday lineup for 2014, but sadly it is very lackluster in this writer's honest opinion.  There is no real killer app among Forza Horizon 2, Halo: Master Chief Collection and Sunset Overdrive to elicit people to pick up the Xbox One this Christmas.  Their message came clear that all the games people will care about will be coming out in 2015 or later except that you can join the beta for every major game this holiday season.  Honestly, relying on betas to sell a system is not an effective business plan.  Microsoft needs to deliver on the games and soon because people are not going to wait forever.

Overall, the Microsoft E3 2014 Press Conference was really well done.  This holiday season may be very barren in regards to Microsoft's offerings, but there are some interesting projects down the pipeline to be excited about.  Although Microsoft did make some strides in impressing this year, it did play things far too safe with their reveals and demos than truly showcasing why the Xbox One is greater than the PS4.

Grade:  B

E3 2014: The Big Questions

Well the most wonderful time to be gamer is here yet again.  The 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is only a day away and all the buzz and excitement around the event is its peak.  With all the extreme highs and lows of E3 2013, last year's event was a very exciting and entertaining to experience.  Expectations are set pretty high for this year's event as all the hype surrounding brand new hardware is now firmly in the past and the industry can focus on the product it so perfectly crafts-- video games.  Although hopes are in a much better place leading into E3 2014 than last year's event, there are some key questions that need to be addressed in the coming week.  Questions that will be pivotal in moving the industry forward for better or worse.

What is the 2014 holiday lineup?

The last few weeks leading up to E3 has seen some delays for games originally set to release later this year such as The Order 1886 and Batman: Arkham Knight.  The more delays announced, the more worried this writer has been getting.  Aside from the usual suspects (Assassin's Creed, Battlefield and Call of Duty), the lineup of games releasing this holiday season are much slimmer than years past.  With everything still up in the air, there is nothing that truly stands out among the deluge of similar experiences.   Destiny may be the exception as this writer sees this game generating a large of amount of sales due to Activision's aggressive marketing, but Destiny is just one game that releases at the very beginning of the holiday season.  All video game publishers especially the console manufacturers (Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) need to make their plans for the holidays clear with firm release dates and a mix between sequels and new properties.  The holiday season is the most crucial time for any business especially video games.  To come out of E3 2014 without a solid holiday lineup set will be bad news for console manufacturers that are looking to push hardware sales and game publishers hoping to sell large quantities of software.

What is Microsoft's and Nintendo's plan to fix their current woes?

Out of the three big console manufacturers, Sony is the only one currently on solid footing.  While the Vita and its games may not be selling much, Sony has written off the handheld as a peripheral for the PS4, a non-factor in their current business plan.  As much as eyes will be on Sony to see if they can keep their momentum, there are more eyes peering at Microsoft and Nintendo to see what they can do to fix their current situations.  

Although the Xbox One is selling, it is significantly lagging behind the PS4.  All of the Xbox One's woes come from Microsoft's debacle from a year ago.  Alienating their primary audience with no used games policy, always connected requirement and forcing Kinect on every Xbox One owner was not the best decision for Microsoft to make leading into the next console generation.  With the recent announcements about a cheaper Xbox One and more benefits for Xbox Live Silver, it seems Microsoft has finally learned from their mistakes and is looking to reconcile with those they alienated a year ago.  The effort may come too late to fix anything in the immediate future, but making these adjustments now will benefit Microsoft farther down the road.  Their E3 2014 press conference is the next step in the healing process and Microsoft better make the most of this opportunity because they will only get one shot.  A subpar to decent performance will not be tolerated, Microsoft needs to come out with games and experiences that gamers can only get by owning a Xbox One.  Microsoft was once a great first-party developer, but has significantly scaled back in the last decade.  It is fine time to flex that software making muscles again and show why Microsoft deserves to be making video games.

Nintendo's issues are on a whole different level.  To get an extensive break down of the problems this writer believes is plaguing Nintendo, check out the A Link to the Wrong post from a few months back.  What Nintendo needs to do at E3 is make steps in fixing the elephant in the room-- the Wii U's dismal sales.  Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. will definitely move a ton of units this year, but those two games can only push console sales so far.  Nintendo needs to show consumers why they have to own a Wii U and key part of convincing people to buy their console comes from showing how their games will take full advantage of the Wii U's tablet-like controller.  Nintendo has to hammer home the Gamepad's full potential with every game they show.  Every game does not need a fancy gimmick, they just need to make the Gamepad relevant for gamers.  Speaking of games, time for Nintendo to drop some information on new titles such as the next entries in The Legend of Zelda and Metroid franchises or Shigeru Miyamoto's super secret project along with release dates for already confirmed titles like Super Smash Bros., Bayonetta 2 and X.  Much like Microsoft, the stakes are high for Nintendo this year.  Anything short of amazing will be considered a failure by critics and gamers alike.  Positive buzz absolutely needs to be generated at E3 2014 around the Wii U and the Nintendo brand as a whole or things will continue to slip for the Big N this cycle.

Why should I buy a next generation console?

A year has passed and it seems like we have not made any progress whatsoever with this question from a year ago.  The next generation is here and there is nothing that truly differentiates it from the last.  All we got so far is a massive game drought, shinier graphics and a hike in video game prices.  To make matters worse, most of the quote-on-quote next gen experiences these major game companies brag about are also available on the previous console generation.  The graphic fidelity may not be as spotless and the frame rate may not be that smooth on the PS3 and Xbox 360, but there is little to no difference between these cross-generational games.  These issues give little to no incentive on consumers to drop close to six hundred dollars on a brand new console when there is barely anything that they cannot already get on the consoles they already own.  Every publisher and developer has a huge task this E3 in providing the games and experiences that can only be conceived with the power of these new consoles.  Time is not currently on anybody's side as consumers are already losing patience with these systems.  Moves need to be made this coming week on all fronts to keep consumers from getting too anxious and to ensure people their six hundred dollar investments were worth it.

Seeing as the industry is currently in the middle of a game drought, it is time to get people excited about what is coming in the weeks, months and even years ahead.  E3 is arguably the most pivotal event of year for video game companies.  As seen with the PS4 and Xbox One respectively, E3 can generate enormous amounts of buzz around a product or completely derail a product altogether.  More than ever before, this year's E3 has to deliver with the games announced, the surprises revealed and the excitement generated because it will be the event that launches the video game industry into the next stage of this eighth console generation.  Come June 9th, all eyes will be on Los Angeles, the LA Convention Center and the video game industry as a whole.  Time for the video game industry to put up or shut up.

Launch Station: Rayman Legends

The time has come.  After close to a year of waiting, Rayman Legends is finally on store shelves.  It has been a long and tumultuous road of delays, loss of exclusivity and many other crazy circumstances.  While this writer is baffled about how horrible Ubisoft handles one of their premier franchises, it is relieving to finally get our hands on a game that should have been out six months ago.  Rayman may not be a sales powerhouse like Assassin's Creed; this limbless hero is easily taking the platforming world by storm thanks to polished gameplay, excellent controls and beautiful hand-drawn graphics.

After sleeping for a century, Rayman and friends are awoken to world far less pleasant than they left it at the end of Rayman Origins.  The Bubble Dreamer's nightmares along with the dark teensies have grown in strength and kidnapped the princesses of the land and the peaceful teensie people.  It is up to Rayman and friends to stop the nightmares and dark teensies from corrupting the Glade of Dreams.  Rayman Legends improves on the platforming gameplay of Rayman Origins as running, jumping, collecting lums and saving teensies are the name of the game.  Just like its predecessor, Legends allows up to four players to participate in these levels.  Note that this co-operative multiplayer is only available locally.  Apart from the standard platforming fair, Legends offers brand new levels where you take control of Murfy the fairy.  As Murfy, players interact with the environment to assist Rayman and friends such as cutting ropes, activating switches or distracting enemies.  On the Vita and Wii U, players control Murfy with the touch controls on the Wii U's Gamepad or the Vita's touch screen.  While on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, Murfy is controlled by a button press.  Rayman Legends includes 80 brand new levels and 40 remastered levels from Rayman Origins along with remixed versions of each level available upon completion of the game.  While Rayman Legends offers a ton of content for its single-player component, it offers a robust online component as well.  The online Challenge mode offers challenges for players to complete in order to earn trophies and rise through the leaderboards.  There are new challenges offered everyday to keep gamers coming back each day to post their best times and distances.

Rayman Legends has been a high anticipated game for yours truly.  It was the game this writer bought a Wii U just to play.  While the delays and other obstacles Ubisoft threw at us were disheartening, those actions will not deter my enjoyment of Rayman Legends.  The men and women at Ubisoft's Montpellier studio put their hearts and souls into this game and for them this writer puts down his money in support.  While Diablo III and Grand Theft Auto V may suck up a ton of money this September, let us show Ubisoft that Rayman and Ubsioft Montpellier deserve a lot more respect than they give them.  The only way to make this change is to talk with your money and pick up Rayman Legends for your console or handheld of choice.

E3 2013: Sony Press Conference Impressions

After Microsoft's multiple slip ups with the Xbox One, it was Sony's E3 to win.  The question was if Sony would be smart enough to take advantage of this huge opportunity to bury their competition.  Would PS4 walk triumphantly with gamers to back them up or pathetically limp all alone into the next generation?  It was one long haul, but those questions were definitely answered.

Sony's Press Conference had the highest of highs, the lowest of lows and everything in between.  The conference lasted just about two hours and it took close to three quarters of the conference to get to the goods.  The last quarter of this conference will easily go down in video game history.  Starting with the showcase of eight indie games on stage (Don't Starve, Ray's the Dead, Secret Ponchos, Octodad, Oddworld: New 'N' Tasty, Galak-Z, Mercenary Kings and Outlast), Sony opened up the floodgates for the announcements PS4 desperately needed.  Leading up to this point, we were subjugated to Sony's classic strategy of boring the living hell out of every living thing watching.  There were a quite a few games showed off for PS4 before this moment, but they were everything Sony showed off before.  It did not hold our attention especially after suffering through Sony confirming on-stage that the Vita is dead in the water, focusing on PS3 games that did not need to be covered and even pushing their Sony Pictures division down our throats (funny considering they took a shot at Microsoft for doing the exact same thing).  Long story short, it was not a good way to spend nearly three quarters of a video game conference.  Once Sony showed off two bombshells from Square Enix known as Final Fantasy XV (the former Final Fantasy Versus XIII) and flipping Kingdom Hearts 3!  While switching Versus XIII to XV was expected, nobody saw Kingdom Hearts 3 coming and it made this conference special.  From there on, Sony went right into the Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV demos that should have been at the Ubisoft conference.  Nevertheless, Watch Dogs stole this writers heart with the best demo of the conference.  Assassin's Creed IV was nothing too special especially with the amount of technical difficulties the demo suffered from.  Sony also showed off Elder Scrolls Online, Mad Max and Destiny.  There was nothing special about Elder Scrolls Online and Mad Max as all they showed were trailers.  For Destiny, Sony brought the first live gameplay of Bungie's new shooter, which was very enjoyable.  The one moment that left just as much lasting effect on those watching than the Kingdom Hearts 3 reveal was Sony's direct shots at Microsoft.  Even though publishers are pushing for DRM on consoles, Sony is standing firmly behind the consumers as the PS4 will be able to play used games and will not require a constant internet connection or to be authenticated every 24 hours.  Sony took a knife and stabbed it directly into Microsoft's heart, but those shots were not the only thing.  Sony dug their knife even deeper into Microsoft's heart with the bold announcement that the PS4 will retail at 399 dollars.  399 dollars for a PS4 is nuts.  The PS3 was almost twice that price at launch.  What an incredible way to end a conference and single-handedly put the Xbox One on life support.

While the last quarter of the Sony Press Conference was near perfection, I cannot give the abysmal first three quarters of the conference a pass.  Personally, I am not going to forget the hour and a half that we wasted just to get to the good stuff.  The Sony Press Conference is the entire two hour show, not the final thirty minutes and I believe many are forgetting that fact.  Although I still have reservations about a few features such as the Gaikai streaming service, this conference did its job and sold the PS4 to the masses.  For that fact alone, this conference deserves kudos.

Grade:  B-

E3 2013: Ubisoft Press Conference Impressions

Aside from their consistent problems finding a suitable host for their conferences, Ubisoft has had some of the best showings at E3 the last two years.  With games like Rayman Legends, Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV in their corner, many were looking forward to what Ubisoft would show off this year at E3.

Well to sum things up, Ubisoft knows how to end a press conference.  Sadly, they do not know how to do much else because this conference was a definite step back from years past.  It was not good or bad, it just was right in the middle.  Only a few things Ubisoft showed really stuck.  The rest went in one ear and out the other.  Maybe these reactions were due to the lack of actual gameplay demos or the continued presence of Aisha Tyler, which was a black hole that sucked plenty of good out of this conference.  Also Ubisoft's conference was significantly hurt by the exclusion of Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV demos in favour of showing them at the Sony Press Conference.  There is no point in having your own conference if you are not going to showcase your own games especially the two biggest titles in your 2013 line-up.  As much as Ubisoft under delivered, it was not as bad as the EA conference.  There were a couple of good points.  The demo for Reflections newest driving game, The Crew was really good.  The inter connectivity of the world and the instantaneous multiplayer were impressive.  There are a few questions this writer has for The Crew, but personally I am intrigued.  The game that saved this conference was the newest Tom Clancy game known as The Division.  The Division had a similar set-up to Watch Dogs' set-up a year before.  Ubisoft had the audience at the conference and at home on the edge of their seat trying to decipher what it was.  The Division is an open-world third-person shooter with RPG elements.  It is set in a world that has spiraled into to complete and utter chaos after the collapse of the stock market and society as we know it.  Set with the task of surviving, the player teams up with others in this persistent massively multiplayer world scavenging items, collecting upgrades and gadgets and fighting off threats to your survival.  While I personally would have loved to see more about Rainbow Six: Patriots, The Division looks like a great new extension of the Tom Clancy universe and another great game in Ubisoft's huge library of games.

As much as The Crew and The Division captured our imaginations, those two games were not able to save Ubisoft's conference from mediocrity.  The absence of the Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV demos and the lack of demos for a slew of trailers beat Ubisoft into one of their most lackluster showings.  At least, this year's press conference was not even close to their infamous 2010 conference. 

Grade:  C-

The Rayman Legends Debacle

This past Thursday was not a fun day for Wii U owners including yours truly.  Just under three weeks before the release of easily the most anticipated third-party game for the Wii U, Ubisoft decided to announce two big changes to the latest instalment in the Rayman series.  Rayman Legends is now going to be multi-platform and has been delayed until September.  Ubisoft's reasoning for the delay was that it was for the fans.  One of the biggest loads of crap I have heard in a while.  It is just like Activision saying that the newest Call of Duty is not exactly the same as previous entries, it is a lie!  If Ubisoft remotely cared about their fans, they would not have waited until the eleventh hour to pull this bait-and-switch with Rayman Legends.  

Going multi-platform is best for business and personally I am totally fine with Rayman Legends going multi-platform because it allows more gamers to experience this masterful platforming game and it will help support Ubisoft Montpellier in creating new games such as Beyond Good & Evil 2.  While a multi-platform release is good for business, delaying Rayman Legends only 19 days before the game was set to release for the Wii U is definitely not good for business.  The delay alienates fans who have been promoting Rayman Legends through social media and other forums on the internet and supporting the game through pre-orders.  It serves as a slap to the face of every Wii U owner who Ubisoft promised would support their new system with quality games. Also a slap in the face to all the developers at Ubisoft Montipellier who have been in crunch since last summer in order to get Rayman Legends complete for its February release date only to have it delayed right when it goes gold.

Apart from all the people Ubisoft upset with this delay, nobody seems to notice how stupid delaying Legends until this September.  What HUGE game releases just got announced to release this coming September?  It is Rockstar's newest entry in their open-world behemoth known as Grand Theft Auto V.  Yes, there will be other games that will most likely release in September other than GTA V, but sales-wise most gamers will be buying GTA over any other game released in September.  Since this delay was most likely made to maximize profits on a simultaneous multi-platform release, releasing Legends in the same month as the biggest game of 2013 is just asking for history to repeat itself.  For those who do not know or remember, Ubisoft made a similar decision when they released Rayman Origins back in  2011.  They released Rayman Origins on the same day as Assassin's Creed Revelations and Saint's Row The Third.  Long story short, Origins got lost in the shuffle of the holiday season and the game did not come close to Ubisoft's sales expectations.  How is putting Rayman Legends in the same exact situation going to help sales especially since Ubisoft easily hurt sales by alienating their entire Wii U audience?  If Ubisoft wanted Rayman Legends to succeed, they would release the game in the summer when gamers are starving for new games instead of feeding it to the cannibalistic holiday season.  I love Rayman, but it cannot compete with the Grand Theft Autos, the Assassin's Creeds and the Call of Dutys.

As much as it hurts to have Ubisoft delay one of the games I bought my Wii U to play, there is nothing I can do alone to change this delay.  All I can do is talk about here, but it comes down to all of us Wii U owners to make our voices heard.  Do not stop at a measly exclusive demo, we want the entire game.  If we can convince Ubisoft to release Rayman Legends for Wii U before September, it will be amazing.  If not, at least we tried.  There are other ways of making our voices heard such as boycotting Ubisoft games or buying Rayman Legends used, but we should not unintentionally hurt the excellent developers at Ubisoft's many studios who sacrifice a lot to make the games we love including Rayman Legends because some idiot in a suit thought more about the money lining his pocket than the customers he ultimately serves.  No matter what happens, I will still buy Rayman Legends on the first day it releases.  Now I will definitely think twice before pre-ordering another Ubisoft game.  Sorry Ubisoft, us gamers do not like to be treated like trash.

For those interested in making your voice heard about this situation, please sign the petition I provide in this link, http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/ubisoft-entertainment-s-a-keep-to-the-original-rayman-legends-release-date-for-the-wii-u?utm_campaign=new_signature&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt#.  The more people sign this petition, the more Ubisoft will take notice and hopefully release Rayman Legends when it was originally scheduled to release.  Like Ubisoft says, they listen to their fans.

Off the Newsstand: Game Informer Issue 231

Been a little busy these last few weeks with summer game releases to get a chance to talk about the magazines that I have plowed through these last few weeks. Actually finished my latest issue of Nintendo Power and I do not have that much to read. Guess I will have to wait until my new issue of Game Informer comes in the mail. Speaking of Game Informer, today I am looking at the last issue of Game Informer I read, which actually was released the week of E3.

Issue 231 of Game Informer had all the inside scoops on some of the biggest games highlighted at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.  I know Game Informer does get a lot of inside looks very early, but this issue was sent to subscribers the week of E3, when some of the games/tech demos in this issue were first revealed to the public.  Therefore causing some leaks and killing some of the possible surprises at this year's event.  Personally, I do not believe it would have been that hard to send the issues out so subscribers and newsstands received the issue after E3 was over. While this gripe may not hurt the quality of the issue, I do think that when this issue was released did steal some of the grandeur away from this year's E3.  The cover story was all about the new Gears of War: Judgment (or what I like to call Gears of War: Reach) being co-developed by Epic and People Can Fly, the team that worked on Bulletstorm.  The cover story has an in-depth look at the story of the game that follows Baird and Cole Train on a mission that takes place 14 years before the original and the new multi-player modes such as OverRun, the combination of Horde and Beast modes.   The cover story was fine and enjoyable; I am not sold on the game at all.  It seems like Epic and Microsoft are trying to milk the series for all it is worth instead of providing possibly a new IP or a sequel to Bulletstorm with more refined mechanics.  Right now, Gears of War: Judgment is in my opinion the Gears sequel that nobody wanted.  Along with the Gears of War: Judgment, Issue 231 contained exclusive previews for the Skyrim DLC, Dawnguard, Tomb Raider, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Dead Space 3 and Assassin's Creed III: Liberation.  Each preview had in-depth descriptions of the E3 builds for each game.  I personally enjoyed the Tomb Raider preview that looked at a few scenarios that I did not see while watching the demos from E3.  Honestly the best stuff from this issue came from the Connect section.  An extremely extensive look at Unreal Engine 4, an article on how cross-platform gaming could possibly change the way we play, a very compelling interview with Robert Bowling, former creative strategist for the Call of Duty franchise, on his departure from Activision and his new game Human Element and a great interview with Jason West and Vince Zampella that sheds a different light on their dispute with Activision are all articles that are worth picking up this issue of Game Informer to read.  To round out the issue are the solid previews and reviews for all to enjoy.

While I do not agree with the release schedule of this issue and how it did take away from the lustre of E3, Issue 231 is a great issue of Game Informer that I cannot fault for things possibly out of the editors' control.  This issue has some of the most incredibly thought provoking and informative articles I have found in any magazine and a great set of exclusive previews to accompany another solid cover story.  It is the full package that is well worth the asking price.

E3 2012: Sony Press Conference Impressions

As the first day of E3 comes to a close, we saw Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft show their cards.  Some were more impressive than others, but ultimately today we saw what the future holds in gaming from the biggest publishers in the industry.  To close out day one is Sony to either end it with a bang or a whimper.  Surprisingly the result is somewhere in the middle.

The Sony Press Conference had a good starting and ending, but the middle dragged and bad.  The best thing about this year's press conference was that it was much better than last year's boring affair.  Sony gave a good amount of time to each demo, maybe too long for one in particular, and showcased some pretty solid games.  Much like Microsoft, Sony did jump from topic to topic with no sense of focus or direction and it ultimately hurt them and the conference in the end.  Some important topics such as meaningful additions to PlayStation Plus and pushing the PlayStation Vita as more than a port/sequel machine and game showings like The Last Guardian were no where to be found.  Sony's conference started out with the unveiling of Beyond: Two Souls, Quantic Dream's new IP.  It was a very interesting demo that showed off the game's very realistic graphics and gripping story, but like always I would have liked to see more gameplay.  As a first look of a game that will not come out until 2014, it was a good showing nonetheless.  That was followed by PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Sony's Super Smash Bros. clone, now for both PS3 and Vita.  It was a boring demo that really showed nothing new about the game.  They did reveal two new characters for the game in Nathan Drake and the Big Daddy, but who cares unless they make Kevin Butler one of the fighters.  After that Jack Tretton ran through a bunch of stuff no one really cared about before going into more demos of Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 3.  While they were new demos for each game, they did nothing to outshine the demos Ubisoft already showed off at their press conference.  Maybe manning a ship in Assassin's Creed III is neat, but the demo really did nothing to make it look that entertaining or interactive for a matter of fact and Far Cry 3's online co-op had some obvious problems with lag and loading textures.  Right in the middle of the show, Sony decided to shift gears and target the casual gamers with Wonderbook, a neat concept that Sony will never fully support in the long run.  They demoed the J.K. Rowling's Book of Spells for Wonderbook, which was absolutely terrible and soo long drawn out that I almost fell asleep due to boredom.  Also on top of that the PlayStation Move was so finicky and non-responsive that it made the demo even worse.  That was clearly the lowest this press conference could go as things got much better with a demo of God of War: Ascension, which is really more of the same God of War experience, but still good.  To end the conference, Sony went with The Last of Us.  While the demo was very impressive yet looked like it played a lot like Uncharted, I thought Sony would save at least one surprise for the very end.  After The Last of Us demo, which has got me a little more interested, the conference just seemed to end and it felt odd.

Overall, Sony's E3 2012 Press Conference was a decent event.  It had quite a few good moments, but nothing that surprised me and got me excited.  Beyond: Two Souls would have been a big surprise only if Sony kept their mouth shut and did not reveal that Quantic Dream was going to announce it at their conference.  The big dip in quality right in the middle along with the omissions of some big topics and The Last Guardian, which I now believe sadly will not see the light of day, hurt this conference more than Sony has actually realized.

Grade:  C+

E3 2012: Ubisoft Press Conference Impressions

E3 2012 is rolling, but other than a few announcements here and there nothing has truly stood out so far.  It is now Ubisoft's turn to impress the gaming public and put on a E3 Press Conference that does not elicit tons of jokes and disgraces like Mr. Caffeine.

Ubisoft has been notorious to have the most inconsistent press conferences in E3 history.  Going from super serious shooter like Ghost Recon right into the hilariously horrible laser tag ripoff or having James Cameron go on about Avatar for 40 minutes straight without any gameplay footage or screenshots to speak of.  It would usually end up being an incredible disaster or somehow luck out with the good far outweighing the oh so bad.  This year was different for Ubisoft.  Other than a few slip ups, which I will get to later, their conference was the best so far.  Most of the stuff that would weigh down past Ubisoft conferences were put in short montages or little clips on the big screen.  Ubisoft got to what gamers wanted, which was core games.  The first demo was Far Cry 3, which was fairly interesting and enjoyable.  It really showed off how Ubisoft was taking the definition of insanity, which was a huge focus of last year's E3 demo and making it into an entire plot point.  It was very interesting to say the least.  Next up was a trailer for Splinter Cell: Blacklist as the amazing gameplay demo was shown off at the Microsoft Press Conference.  While not as amazing as the actual gameplay demo, it was very good and kept things rolling at a good pace.  Then Ubisoft showed off a couple of their exclusives for the Wii U.  They showed a full-on gameplay demo of Rayman Legends, which I can proudly say is exclusive to Wii U.  It was the best demo of the conference as it showed off how Ubisoft is using the Wii U's unique controller to interact with the environment in real time.  My only question is how will somebody play Rayman Legends on their own?  During the stage demo had one person using the Wii U Gamepad and another using the Pro Controller.  While I do have some questions, the gameplay in that demo was just phenomenal.  Next up was the Assassin's Creed III demo, which surprisingly did not close out the show.  The demo really showcased how Ubisoft Montreal has really improved on every aspect of Assassin's Creed.  The combat flowed in a way it should have always been like, stealth and action seem to blend perfectly and the game overall looks to be much more fluid and fast-paced, which is a good thing.  To end the show, Ubisoft revealed a brand new game by the name of Watch Dogs.  You are a hacker in an endlessly interconnected city.  Everything is connected to a central computer and you are able to hack it to do whatever you want.  Search up information about anybody in the city, cause electronics to malfunction and eavesdropping on phone conversations is just a few examples of what you can do.  It looks like an incredibly interesting sci-fi world that I personally would love to explore in the near future.  Even with all the good, there was a few bad parts of the conference.  The Just Dance 4 opening concert with Flo Rida was completely unnecessary, the host was annoying beyond all reason and the ShootMania e-sport competition was soo bad that it almost derailed the entire press conference.

Overall, the Ubisoft E3 2012 Press Conference was the best press conference so far.  It had a few bad moments, but they made up for it with their great gameplay demos and reveals.  It was an entertaining one and a half hour conference that Sony and Nintendo have to strive to out do.

Grade:  B+

Off the Newsstand: Game Informer Issue 229

With this rather slow two months for video games, it has allowed me to keep up Off the Newsstand with my reading.  Averaging reading a whole magazine each week.  As long as my subscriptions come at a steady pace, I will be able to post Off the Newsstand every week or two.  Earlier this week, I finished the May issue of Game Informer.  Here are my thoughts.

Not much has been said about Halo 4 since Microsoft revealed the game at last year's E3.  There were a few tidbits of what the game was shaping up to be through various videos made by 343 Industries showing the behind the scenes on Halo 4, but nothing as substantial as this cover story.  Game Informer's cover story is split into two parts.  The first part takes a look at the opening few hours of the main campaign and has the developers at 343 discussing some of the plot points of Halo 4 such as Cortana slowly dying, exploring Master Chief as a character rather than an all-powerful superhero and the mystery of the Forerunners.  The second part takes a look at Halo 4's multi-player now called Infinity.  Infinity has a story of its own as you train a Spartan IV aboard the UNSC Infinity.  Spartan IVs train on the Infinity's combat deck, which like Star Trek's holodeck or the Danger Room in X-Men can replicate any known environment for the Spartans to train on, in red vs. blue matches.  There is a new co-op mode called Spartan Ops, which allows players to complete unique missions and challenges with other Spartan IVs.  Spartan Ops will be updated every week with new missions, new challenges and a new movie sequence to advance the co-ops' story.  The multi-player story even converges with the main campaign as Master Chief will run into the UNSC Infinity and its' crew at some point in his campaign.  At first I thought this story on Halo 4 would not interest me much like last issue's Assassin's Creed III cover story, after reading it I am genuinely excited for Halo 4 especially the Spartan Ops, which I think it an excellent way of keeping gamers engaged with Halo 4 for weeks, months even years after completing the game.  Also packed into this Issue 229 of Game Informer was an in-depth playthrough of Guild Wars 2, some articles on the Game Developer's Conference (GDC for short) like a look at Quantic Dream's new engine for the PS3, a look at the winners of this year's Independent Game Festival and Indie Game Challenge and an interview with Epic's Mike Capps, a look at the controversy surrounding Mass Effect 3's ending and much more. 

Issue 229 is the best issue of Game Informer since February's Issue 226.  The cover story delivers, there are insightful articles on GDC and current issues in the video game industry, previews of the biggest games of 2012 and reviews of the biggest games of the first quarter of 2012 like Mass Effect 3, Xenoblade Chronicles and The Witcher 2.  Issue 229 is definitely worth the 6 dollars to buy it at your local EB Games or Chapters.

Off the Newsstand: Game Informer Issue 228

Two editions of Off the Newsstand in one week, well that is a first.  Got both issues of EGM and Game Informer on the same day so immediately after I breezed through EGM, I breezed through Game Informer.  The bad part of that breezing through both magazines was that I had nothing to read until this past Tuesday when I got my newest issues of both Nintendo Power and Game Informer.  After an underwhelming March issue of Game Informer, let us see if Game Informer can bounce back with a good April issue.

In short, Game Informer Issue 228 is a better than Issue 227.  It is not the best issue out there, but a solid nonetheless.  With Ubisoft's announcement of Assassin's Creed III releasing this coming October, Game Informer has new protagonist, Connor gracing the two special covers.  While the Assassin's Creed III cover story is a much more informative and a better read than The Last of Us cover story from the last issue, it did nothing to get me excited for the fourth Assassin's Creed game in four years.  Honestly, I was more excited for Assassin's Creed: Revelations after reading Game Informer's cover story back last June than for the newest entry in Ubisoft's cash cow.  Maybe it is franchise fatigue or Assassin's Creed may not  be my cup of tea.  If you are a fan of Assassin's Creed, you will definitely eat up everything that is reveled in Game Informer's good cover story.  If you are not a fan of Assassin's Creed, this issue of Game Informer is packed with good articles.  Some of the articles you can find in this issue are an interview with Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson, the man responsible for a little indie game by the name of Minecraft, coverage of the D.I.C.E. summit in Las Vegas, a roundtable interview with Marvel Comics' top writers about video games, comics and Avengers vs. X-Men, a look at Zen Studios, makers of hit downloadable game Pinball FX 2 and a interview with the designer of the Flash game tribute to the 8-bit era, Abobo's Big Adventure, Roger Barr.  Those all come with another solid round-up of previews on upcoming games such as Hitman Absolution and Far Cry 3 and reviews on recently released games like SSX and Syndicate.  One article I could personally do without is Game Informer's annual April Fool's tradition, Game Infarcer, a fake magazine within Game Informer.  It will illicit a few laughs here and there, but there are much better ways to use those few pages on a stupid jokes about the gaming industry.  I will say it is funny watching somebody skim through Game Informer only to stumble upon the Game Infarcer article and believe everything on those few pages.

Overall, Issue 228 of Game Informer is a solid issue.  The cover story will only excite fans of the Assassin's Creed franchise, but it is still an enjoyable read.  If you do not enjoy the cover story, the other great articles will more than make up for it.  You will not be disappointed if you pick up Issue 228 of Game Informer at your local book store or library.

Launch Station: Soul Calibur V

Final Fantasy is not the only big new release that lands on store shelves today.  After four years, Namco hopes write another successful chapter in the tale of souls and swords.  With the fighting genre on the rise, Namco's newest weapon-based fighting game, Soul Calibur V could not come at a better time.

Soul Calibur V takes place 17 years after the events of Soul Calibur IV.  This jump in time has allowed Namco to create a new batch of fighters to fight alongside returning fighters such as Ivy, Voldo and Siegfried.  While half of the roster is made up of newcomers, these new characters are related to characters found in previous Soul Calibur games.  Carrying on tradition, Ezio Auditore da Firenze from the Assassin's Creed series is a guest fighter for this entry in the Soul Calibur series.  At least the assassin from Renaissance Italy fits more into the story and setting of the Soul Calibur series than the likes of Darth Vader, Yoda and Spawn (guest characters in past Soul Calibur games).  As with each new fighting game, developers effortlessly tweak features to make it the most balanced and satisfying fighting experience yet.  The same goes for Soul Calibur V as Namco has tweaked everything from super moves, now known as Brave and Critical Edge moves, to character creation to give both old and new players a reason to pick up this entry in the Soul Calibur franchise.

From what I have seen and read, Soul Calibur V seems like more of iteration than reboot in the Soul Calibur series even with the time jump.  New fighters seem more or less based off of fighters from previous entries in the series.  It could be another stellar entry in this great fighting series, but Namco really has not given fans like myself (who owns Soul Calibur II, III and IV) much incentive to pick up this new entry in the series when they can go back and play older entries in the series.