New Leaf: Days 2 Through 8

I don't have a whole lot to say, I think. I've come to learn that a lot of the things in New Leaf need to be unlocked, which takes like weeks to fully complete, so most of my time is spent making bells. Also, I think that I need to migrate screenshots from the SD card to my computer, contrary to my belief that I could email the pictures from the 3DS. So yeah, no pictures for you guys yet.

I don't know for sure if I mentioned this or not, but like an idiot I checked out the HHA Showcase right when it opened and was actually surprised to find that there were no houses available even though it was clear to me that I hadn't StreetPassed with anyone yet.

Also, how the hell are Digby and Isabelle twins? I guess you could say they sort of look like the same breed.

On my second day, I was ready to start building everything in the game, so I went over to Isabelle to find that I need a permit to be the mayor, which I found funny considering just the day before the town seemed willing to take any bum off the train as their new mayor. I had trouble getting approved because I did all of the one-time methods of getting points, and after I watered all my flowers and pulled all my weeds, I realized I could only help villagers in order to gain approval rating. And in a fit of terrible luck, Elvis's birthday was today, so him and Elise were busy partying all day. I mean, I first saw then partying at noon, and then at one in the morning I checked up on them and they were still celebrating. What the hell?

So with two options out of the question, I had to rely on my three other villagers for help, and of course Dora was out shopping at eleven at night for some reason. So I was down to Puck and Tutu, and no matter how many times I spoke to them, I was never asked to do any favors. It was frustrating, especially when I looked to see if anyone else had this issue and everyone else was saying they did approval nonsense in one hour. Yeah, okay.

Eventually, the Summer Island opened up for me and I was able to go over there. I took on deep-sea diving, although most of the deep-sea creatures are honestly not all that interesting. I also did some solo tours. As the week progressed, I unlocked more solo tours to do, but regardless of difficulty, most of these were fairly easy. I'm trying to save the medals for a wetsuit, but I've yet to see a wetsuit in that place. I did find a Mermaid Floor, which I actually happened to like. Then I saw what the Mermaid Series is and so I decided to break male gender roles and commit a room of my house to being a mermaid room. But right now I only just bought a second floor, so that will probably wait a while. Expanding the house is getting costlier by the day (I bought a second floor expansion, which was 498,000 bells), but thankfully I have found quite an incredible method of making bells.

My goodness this sounds like a song about cancer.

This guy is so sad.

Ummmm.... Ooookaaaay. Somebody's getting too frisky on this boat.

It says that the palm tree beetles appear at five in the afternoon, but I don't really see them until seven at night. Also at that time, sharks like to swim around. All of these things appear in the Summer, but thankfully it's always Summer on the Island! So at seven I head down and walk in circles, catching rare beetles and sharks. This takes about an hour for me to fill up the dropbox in the lobby, but when I sell everything to Reese, I make about a hundred-fifty to two hundred thousand bells at once! So this will be my primary method of making money throughout this game.

When I was finally able to attend to mayoral duties, I set the town ordinance to Bell Bloom to further increase whatever money I make from Reese. Over the past few days, I built a couple of bridges, a camping site, and a yield sign as per Colton's request (which makes me wonder, nobody drives, so why do we need a yield sign?). I probably don't need to fulfill direct requests like that, but I have a feeling doing so will benefit me somehow in the long run. I found that I need to do a variety of things to get the museum upgraded, the most notable being that I needed to donate one item of each category, which for a while was a problem as I had no art to give. It's funny because I already had more than half of the fish and bugs donated to the museum, and about a quarter of the fossils as well, but with an empty art exhibit. Thankfully, Crazy Redd came over yesterday and actually had a piece of art that wasn't a counterfeit, which was the Valiant Statue. I love that you can spot the counterfeits now, and sometimes it is pretty amusing to see how certain pieces are counterfeits. Like for example, my Valiant Statue would have bat wings instead of angel wings if it was a fake. Colton also came by later and gave me a Jolly Painting out of nowhere (finally a villager gives me something good!), but when I looked at it I found the guy had a carrot for a nose, thus making it a counterfeit (I knew it was too good to be true, damn these useless villagers).

I find that I am, for the most part, walking around with an abundance of money even after spending a couple hundred thousand bells on public works projects or upgrades to my house, so I'm trying to get the Nookling's store and the Able Sisters shop upgraded, but this is going at a snail's pace. I especially need Nookling's to get upgraded to T&T's so that I can get a slingshot already, and possibly more fortune cookies. I'm tired of going there and seeing barely anything for sale. As for the Able Sisters, it seems that Sable as taken Isabelle's place in being the flirt, which was a bit unexpected for me seeing as how she starts off all like "..." when I started talking to her. I knew she gets more friendly and all, but I didn't know that Mable would start telling me about how Sable would talk endlessly about me and how she wanted more employees to help out so that she could spend time with me... So strange how all the female animals are all over me in this game. I guess that's the perk of being the mayor?

Nothing else has really went down yet. Oh wait, I also managed to StreetPass with a couple of people from my mom's apartment complex, both women. They have cool houses and stuff, and one of them happened to have a full Mermaid set somehow, so I got to see what that looked like. She also had the rainbow screen, which was strangely available for purchase, so now I have all of the downloadable "exclusives" so far. The other girl had something even more interesting: the Aurora Screen, which apparently was only available as a Japan-exclusive download.

Forgot to include pictures of the interior and the other house.

Also, one of the villagers that moved in was a female dog named Cherry, who I think is new in this game. She has the new "Uchi" personality, in which the character with this trait acts like an older sister to you. I wanted to see what this was like, although it kind of eluded me that I'd have to be better friends with Cherry after a while as opposed to being so right off the bat. Uchi is actually supposed to be a mix of peppy, normal, and snooty, and I hate snooty villagers because they tend to make things difficult to be friends with. So combine this with "peppy" and now I have a confusing mix of traits causing me to wonder if Cherry is actually cool with me or not. I have made her sing a few times in one day, though, so I'm sure things are just fine.

Oh yeah, and also a character named Daisy (another female dog) came by and pitched a tent at the campsite. I played several gambles with her, and I made a fair amount of money but man there was hardly any good furniture. I just got a couple of things that were okay: a lefty cat and a Tearoom Wall. The notable thing that happened was that she kept saying "it's so nice here," and so I kept suggesting her to move her, and then I found myself gambling for her to move to town. I didn't actually want her to move in because my town is nearly full and I still don't have a cat villager, but I was curious and before I knew it, I was betting my fishing rod. Nookling's is a pretty stupid store at this point, as I've rarely ever seen a fishing rod for sale, so I decided I wasn't going to just lose my rod over a space for someone else to move in. This game wasn't really a gamble as I had to "guess" the most price-fetching insect, and the golden stag was listed among a fly, a mosquito, and a flea, so there was absolutely no challenge to this at all. Even without knowing what bug makes the most bells, I could've figured this out just as easily by guessing from the stag's name. The answer was so obvious I was worried that I actually got it wrong for a moment.

I might have to drive someone out of my town, and I'm guessing it'll have to be either Kody or Puck. I haven't spoken to Kody at all, but he might be cool. Puck honestly annoys me sometimes, so right now he seems to be the most likely candidate. I initially thought of kicking Elise out, but that I realized that urge was due to some racism against monkeys.

Hopefully next time I'll have quite a ton of things to share. I've seen somebody with practically everything after having played this game for a couple and a half weeks. I want all that stuff already!

Update: Added some photos. Also, here are some photos I couldn't find a place for above.

That's smart: place your humongous stag next to your tea set.

Wow, Elvis is so posh! He has a harpsichord and not one, but TWO thrones!

Later he asked me to catch a Great White for him, and thus he displays it in his home.
That's a nice pet to have swimming around in your house.

Sahara came and criticized my original matching floor and wallpaper, so she went with what she thought would be better: an exquisite carpet that looks completely out of place against the shanty wall. Also, why would any interior designer recommend making my walls look like something out of a slum?

Blizzard's In-Game Store for World of Warcraft

I just watched a video from Nobbel, my trusted guide for soloing old content, that informed me that apparently players are getting harassed for having stuff from the Blizzard store. I couldn't believe what I was actually hearing, but it turns out that people with transmog helmets would get kicked from LFR/LFG just for having that stuff. And it's not just limited to the helmets, as people with pets and mounts have been harassed too. If you are one of these people harassing those with Blizzard store items, what the hell are you doing on the Internet? Do yourself the favor and get off the game before Blizzard employees make you.

I've been aware of the controversy over the Blizzard store for a while now, ever since a couple of months after I got back into the game again, but I don't think the complaints have ever been this vocal. I'm sure it has to do with all the advancements Blizzard has made with that store, having added several items and having plans for the store to appear in-game. People seem to fear that Blizzard is just trying to take more money on top of the monthly subscription, that having little items that people paid for is somehow ruining the actual in-game items everyone else plays the game for, and thus all of this is leading to the end of WoW. If that is your belief, I won't discriminate against you, but do know that I think you are an idiot. You can rest assured that I won't do anything to harass you over your belief, but if you're ever in a group with Blood Elf paladin, who is tanking with her little cinder kitten out, and if you bitch at her and if she just abandons your group, know that that tank was me.

Let me start with the idiots who think they know economics. This store cannot hurt the game's economy because all the items you buy from the Blizz store are bind on account, meaning you can't trade with other players. Therefore, it's not like the store is giving you free gold. So for god's sake, enough of that already. Now for the idiots who are treating this exclusive content as if it was something new: this has been around since the start of the WoW TCG. There have always been mounts and pets and other odds and ends that you could pay real-world money for and have in the game, and all of these have no method of obtaining in the game aside from spending ridiculous amounts of gold on the auction house. Maybe you could say that this hurts the market, but really, do you think there are enough people spending two hundred dollars or a hundred and fifty thousand gold on these items in order to ruin the game's economy? This has been going on for about eight years already, so how is this a problem all of a sudden with the Blizzard Store?

One of my questions is the same when applied to the Blizzard Store. People complain that Blizzard is just making killings and mountains of more money than they need because of the overpriced Blizzard Store items plus the monthly subscription, but do you really think there are that many people buying from the store to justify this nonsense? I'm pretty sure Blizzard doesn't think of their store as quite the cash cow and the probably never intended for it to initially be just that. Why else are we all paying a monthly subscription then? What I truly believe is going on is that Blizzard is considering making WoW free to play, so they are trying things out by experimenting with this store, seeing what people will and won't pay money for. I'm sure that as time goes on and as more items get added, the outrageous price of fifteen dollars for a stupid cosmetic helmet will drop. People seem to suddenly believe that everything Blizzard does is set in stone, when they're forgetting that Blizzard has actually made quite a huge number of changes to this game during Mists of Pandaria; so much in fact that they said themselves they felt like it was during this expansion that they've made the most changes to the game.

Maybe I'm just optimistic, but I really think this store will be the revenue Blizzard makes off this game in the future. Blizzard already has another MMORPG in the works, and I seriously doubt they are going to pull a Square Enix and charge subscriptions for two MMO's when all they need is revenue from one subscription. So that's what I think makes sense for WoW's distant future, but I'm sure there are bizarre, miserable people out there with stones for hearts and monkey feces for brains who believe that making WoW free to play will destroy the game somehow. To that, I really have no comment. I don't know about those people, but spending constant money on a game isn't exactly part of the gameplay for me.

So yeah, that was my pointless rant that tries in vain to shut up the blowhards and the babycries that seem to dominate the player base these days. Say what you want about what you miss from WoW's old days, but what I truly miss is how nobody whined so much about things a they do now.

Day 1 of Animal Crossing New Leaf!

That's right, Readers, I finally got Animal Crossing New Leaf all thanks to three gift cards that magically appeared in my wallet. The best part of all this is that I probably won't have another 3DS for another month, but at least I got my brother's for now. I'm kinda skeptical about using his since I'm not sure where my town data gets saved, but I'm sure it'll sort itself out when I get my own 3DS. Anyway, as much as I was looking forward to this game, and as much as I enjoyed what I played so far, I'm kind of disappointed with it for now. It's really only because there isn't much to do on your very first day, because even though you become the mayor of the town, the game decides to be a little extreme with how much time it gives you to adjust to all the new Animal Crossing features (which is pretty much the entire day). So when Isabelle ran out of things for me to do, I found myself wandering aimlessly catching bugs and making bells.

In past Animal Crossing games, I would often cheat and time travel, but I decided not to do that with this game. First of all, I'm tired of using Action Replays, and I don't even know if there is an AR for the 3DS, or if it is even reliable if it does exist. And I also value my town and such, so I don't want to ruin anything by time traveling. Unfortunately, that also means I'll have to wait until tomorrow to continue my endeavors, but whatever.

The game starts with the classic train sequence and Rover (is that his name?) coming up to you out of nowhere to talk to you, just like in the good old days of Animal Crossing for the GameCube. I named my town Alsatia, as per tradition, and named myself Axel. I tried to be silly with the options, but the first time I did it my guy looked cross-eyed so I immediately shut off my game. I realized I could've easily gotten any villager I wanted by resetting the game at the end of each train sequence, since Mr. Resetti isn't going to pop out of the train and complain to me like the whiny blowhard he is. Anyway, I kind of liked the new town layout option, but it turned out I picked a town with a section of the beach isolated from all means of getting there. It's no big deal since I can build a bridge later, but I found it weird and silly. Anyway, after getting off the train and being a little disappointed with my funny-looking animal citizens, I spoke to Isabelle and went off with her to start getting things done.

Moving on to my responsibilities as mayonnaise.

Now, I normally would never say this since I think of myself, or like to think of myself, as kind-of-a-feminist, but my god, Isabelle wants the D. I'm kidding, kind of. I mean, she's kind of flirty, which I find funny for a character in a secretarial role, but when I went to check out my... tent... she came right in out of nowhere. If the game had some kind of abrupt method of getting her in my tent, I would've freaked out. Later I go to speak to her, and she starts asking me to take her to the beach and collect sea shells together. It's kind of cute I guess, but since part of me is absolutely terrible, I cracked some stupid jokes about all this. I like building relationships, of whatever kind, with anyone (disclaimer, however: I'm only attracted to women in real world romantic relationships since I'm not a homosexual [which is also unfortunate because, fun fact, gay men have hit on/flirted with me before]), so I went ahead and got a sea she'll for Isabelle. Then, when I gave it to her, she kind of fawned over it and talked about how great it would be to decorate her house with it (sidetrack: where exactly does Isabelle live? Probably somewhere in the Dream Suite). I'm sure that sea shell will be somehow involved in her method of satisfying sexual gratification through self-pleasure, but that's as far as I go with that. Then she talks about decorating her whole house with sea shells and I'm like, dear god.

I'm being kind of wishy-washy with the exact order of how I did things, but whatever. Let's continue that by talking about when I got a house... I mean a tent. So the new thing now in New Leaf is A) Tom Nook is a realtor and not a shopkeeper anymore, B) which also means NO MORE PART TIME WORK, C) you can put a house anywhere you want basically, and D) you don't actually live in a house because Tom Nook is a scandalous money-grabber twirling his little raccoon mustache. I decided to put my house right smack in the middle of town, which I actually did unintentionally as I only wanted to be close to Isabelle... Erh, I mean, um, be closer to the town hall. It was actually the only reasonable spot between the town hall and the beach (for some reason I want to be close to the beach too), and as it turns out it'll be more convenient as I can build a bridge over a river that sections it off from the northern part of town. I already knew about Tom Nook giving you a sleazy little tent, but he then goes on to say that I'll have a real house once I pay him ten thousand bells. For some reason that sounded pretty reasonable to me, I guess I'm just numb to the evil that is charging penniless newcomers thousands of money to live somewhere. It also looks like Tom Nook has become smarter with his real-estate business, because before you could just live in the house and never pay him anything, which always baffled me until I said to myself, "Well, he's just a raccoon..."

Soon I'll actually find that making bells isn't really all that hard in this game. It actually didn't feel too different from when I recently played Wild World. In Wild World, I restarted the game and on my first day, I got a fishing rod and made my money selling fish, sea shells, and fruit. In New Leaf, I nearly did the same sort of thing, only instead of fish I was selling bugs since Nookling's only had a net and a shovel. I don't know what else it is I did different, but somehow I'm making a lot more bells than I did in Wild World, and I know it's not the bugs because fish sell better. So within an hour(?), I made the ten thousand and paid off my house. I could've probably finished it sooner if I wasn't so caught up with Isabelle... I mean *cough,* sorry, getting used to my town and the new game.

So with my house finished and with Isabelle out of ideas for me to do that don't involve forming a relationship with her, I set about on some odds and ends for the day. I don't know if it's just because it's my first day, but talking to villagers feels like a waste of time. Maybe it's because I don't particularly like any of the villagers I got, but they also barely have any quests for me. In Wild World, I was constantly delivering letters and gifts and being asked to catch something and so on. In this game, I only delivered one present and got a peach for it. Like, really? A peach? And mind you, this is my town's native fruit. Isabelle was awesome enough to give me cherries (oh god, more sexual innuendoes), allowing me to plant them and make more money without having to travel to my nonexistent friends' towns! Later I was asked to catch a catfish, in which I was S.O.L. because Nookling's didn't have a fishing rod. I guess this was evened out by a couple of times when I was asked about a bug I caught. And a couple of villagers did give me things, once because she had an extra, another because he wanted to know how he looked in a shirt (this was a bit funny to me). But mind you, this was across the span of about eight hours. In Wild World, I would've been sick of doing all these things already because they don't stop.

I guess that's where the easy money balances things out. I don't quite know what it is that makes this game more generous with bells each time I go and sell nonsense, but I guess it's because I sell everything at Re-Tail. That store is like Nookling's, but happens to be where you can buy items twenty percent cheaper than at that store (I think). I know for sure though that they pay you twenty percent more than what Nookling's pays you for items, and it seems to me that Re-Tail is now the place to sell stuff. In Wild World, you can strangely upgrade Tom Nook's store by selling things to him, further convincing me that Tom Nook is the video game industry's worst business man, but I don't know if that... weirdness works with Nookling's in this game. So anyway, I tried to find something to spend this excess money on, but the neither selection at Nookling's nor at Re-Tail was all that appealing, so I just dumped it into my bank account. I did but a fortune cookie at Nookling's, which actually costs two Play Coins instead of bells. It kind of sucks in my opinion, but the fantastic thing is that doing this will get you all sorts of really cool Nintendo items (forty five of them).

I bought a fortune cookie and managed to get the fire bar from the classic Bowser's lairs out of Super Mario Bros. I hope I can get a Metroid one of these days, and it makes me wonder if you can reset and still have the two Play Coins in case you didn't get what you wanted. My guess however would be that it wouldn't work since a change in Play Coins seems to be associated with a change in the system, in which case wouldn't be affected by what happens in the game. I guess this is to keep people from resetting. The other thing I did was redeem the palm tree lamp off the Internet from Nintendo. I missed the "Rainbow Screen," but it's not that big of a deal to me. I'm excited to be able to get these rare items that seem to have no other means of acquisition in the game, like the mushroom kingdom stuff Nintendo did with Wild World. All these rare things will probably be available to anyone with an AR, but I'm trying not to use one for this game, so I'm glad I got the game now and not years in the future when none of this stuff would be available by any other means.

So that's about it really. The rest of the day was spent catching bugs and selling them, along with other things. Then Re-Tail closed, so I donated stuff to the museum until they already had what I was catching. There didn't seem to be any special events going on that day either. I stumbled upon a tarantula, which is really rare and happened to be Re-Tail's item of the day, but I messed up and scared it off a cliff. I spent a good while trying to find another one, but that never happened. I learned I can now equip tools with the D-Pad, which is really handy for a situation like that. I tried going to the island, but that place hasn't been unlocked yet. Gah! So many places I need to unlock! I wanted to start upgrading Main Street but Isabelle kept kissing my ass to the point where it went from cute to the annoyance of realizing that the game isn't going to let me continue, which was the ultimate gripe I had with it all day. But don't let that confuse you Readers of what I thought of the game so far, I really like what I see and I believe this will be the best Animal Crossing yet. So I gave up on my effort to keep progressing through the game, and instead I saved up about fifty thousand bells, which I'm sure will be plenty for tomorrow.

One cool thing I want to point out is the game's secret QR Code scanner. I'm probably the last person on Earth to know about this, and I highly doubt the couple of people who come across this blog every now and then happen to be, out of all the people who play this game, uninformed of this cool thing, but I'll mention it anyway. So Sable, the quite hedgehog who's been too busy sewing away at something for the past several Animal Crossing games, will give you access to a "sewing machine" that "doubles" as a QR Scanner, which you can then use to scan online codes and download a pattern off the Internet! Finally, I don't have to break my back trying to copy down a design I saw on the Internet! This is pretty cool, and I've already seen some impressive designs on a few tumblrs, even though a majority of them are for female characters. Maybe I'll make one just to wear these designs, I don't know. I did see a still painting of He Man from the I Said Hey "music video," which cracked me up so much that I decided that will be the first thing I get. Unfortunately, this is also another thing you need to unlock, but I think the method is pretty cool at the same time. You have to talk to Sable at least once a day for ten days straight, and then she'll tell you about the secret "sewing machine." Possibly nobody knew about this until the guy who decided to talk to her for ten days found out about it, and I think it's cool that this game comes with its secrets.

This game is great news to me, as I now have a feature for this blog, and features are pretty much what keeps this blog alive, as sad as that sounds haha. I probably won't write every single day I play on Animal Crossing, but I'll be sure to write about the noteworthy. Also, I'll try to get screenshots in next time. As for my computer, still no word, but I'm sure I'll have to have it by at most the middle of next week.

Update: LOL I JUST READ THE ANIMAL CROSSING GOVERNMENT DEFUNDED MR. RESETTI AND RENDERED HIM OUT OF BUSINESS LOL FAREWELL YOU EVIL MOLE.

I could recommission his Surveillance Center, but really the only point of doing that would be to see if I can visit it. Perhaps I can recommission it and then demolish it all over again once I visited it, but why waste the bells?

Update 2: Added a picture.

Stuff About My Computer and Final Fantasy

I have some terrible news for... Well, really for myself. So lately, I've had some issues with my laptop because I accidentally spilled soda on it, and now it seems that it is done for. It's a strange case too: after a month of inactivity, due to a lot of procrastination on actually getting the computer fixed, I got my computer seemingly working again. For a few weeks everything was fine, until one day my computer kept blacking out on me. I left it alone a bit, and then returned to it and it ran like normal. Then, last weekend, I took it to my dad's to work on some blog posts and videos, and then it blacked out for good. According to a "genius" at Apple, the motherboard on the computer is done for. So now I have to take it to someone who isn't the Apple corporation who can repair it. So no PC gaming for a while - I just hope I don't miss the Steam summer sale (not that I think I can even afford ninety nine cent games anymore).

While I'm missing my computer, I decided to take on the task I set my mind to a couple of years ago, and that was to finish Final Fantasy III. I've had a troubled history with that game, as it started off with a huge interest in the game (and admittedly, it was mainly because of Refia for some reason I have no idea why) and then quickly diminished into a passing thought whenever I was bored. "Should I play Final Fantasy III? Maybe some other time."

Then the worst thing happened to me when my best friend Zoso brought me back to World of Warcraft. While I can say with pride that that game has not consumed my soul and, therefore, I can live my life away from that game, WoW has pretty much diverted my attention from other games. It's even diverted my attention from this blog (what I should be doing is writing posts about my experiences with WoW), but now I'm trying to make amends to that. Since my computer is inaccessible right now, I'm able to check out whatever other game I want. So I decided to finish Final Fantasy III.

I am happy to say that Final Fantasy III is quite a wonderful game even without the grand spectacle that is a Final Fantasy plot. The plot in this game is simple: a group of kids go out to travel the world and destroy darkness. Doesn't get any simpler than that I guess, not without feeling completely bland and boring. I guess you can hold it against me when I say that I refuse to play II or I just because they are "boring," but I don't care. Final Fantasy III is where I draw the line, and I like it that way since I believe Final Fantasy III for the DS is pretty much what FF and FFII were meant to be, before the developers decided that these games needed a story as well.

When I played FFIII, I realized that this game is essentially what Final Fantasy is, in general. Well, I would say that the truest Final Fantasy would be FFXII, but this game works there too. FFXII has it all: the vast and exciting world to see; the fantastical elements whether they be influenced via fairy tale or science fiction; the strong, dynamic, likable, and sometimes badass characters with a compelling arc (Balthier, Fran, Ashe, Basch, Gabranth); the flat, laughable (not in a good way), appealing-to-idiot-teenagers characters who annoy us along the journey (Vaan, Penelo); the usual "rise against an oppressive government" plot done somewhat well, even with some strange plot points that might not make any sense; the grand and wonderfully orchestrated soundtrack; Square-Enix's consumption with making graphics top notch; the list goes on and on. The only thing I could say is missing is the turn-based battle system, but if you're a FF fan who has played FFXII, you'll see how that game works better with the battle system it has. I felt Final Fantasy III had nearly all of those things as well, just in their core, basic form. It is also pretty much the game that first boasted chocobos, airships, Moogles, and several other common Final Fantasy elements all in one game, whereas the earlier two were just starting to get these things fleshed out. The only thing I really bitched about from this game was the MP system, but I don't think anything can be more ridiculous than how magic worked in FFVIII (you don't even need to use magic in that game to begin with). I'm sure many will probably tell me that FFXIII is the worst everything because the magic system removes the challenge and blah blah, but at least it lets you play the game (well, if you can make it past the tutorials).

This leads me pretty much to where I wanted to go with this post. I know this blog has a lot of mixed messages about how I felt about FFXIII, but I want to clear the air with what will probably be my permanent opinion of that game. Blue Highwind recently wrote a review of Final Fantasy XIII, which was pretty scathing. And it is agreeably so; I fully understand now why so many people hate that game. After playing III, VI, VII, half of X, and XII (and VIII is currently being shown to me through Blue and the FFWiki's let's play videos, which I found to be the best way to experience that game), I've got a good idea of the series's ups and downs, along with what has worked and what hasn't.

That being said, Blue made a point that I have retained since I first played this game. Somewhere beneath the linearity, the terrible characters and cutscenes, and the ridiculous story, there is (or in my belief, was) a potentially great game. You get a sense of it when the characters reach Gran Pulse, where even though there are no towns, you can see what FFXIII would've been like if there was an open world experience. There are other things that hint at what could have possibly been a better game, but Gran Pulse is probably the one that really stands out there. I'm not sure how I'd feel about FFXIII if I were to play it again, now that I've played several earlier titles, but I'm sure that this concept of what could have been a better game will be what will allow me to forgive the game for its misguidance. As it stands, even though I am aware that FFXIII is one of the worst games in the series, if not the worst itself, I still like the game. I think what allowed for me to like the game was that I pretty much grew up playing linear action-sequence games, so I thought of this as pretty much any other game I played. I've also only played FFXII before XIII, and even then I couldn't remember FFXII very well. In the end, FFXIII, as strange as it seems, is what bridged me to the series.

I've thought every now and then about what it would've been like if I was on the FFWiki. Just how much hate could I possibly receive for this guilty pleasure? I suppose this is why I write here and not on that website. I'm sure anyone with a conscience would understand where I'm coming from. At least I'm not actually arguing that FFXIII is actually a better Final Fantasy than others.

I'm actually afraid to play that game again, because I believe I will actually completely hate it now that I have played the other games in the series. So even though I'm sure it is terrible and that Lightning isn't really as good of a character as I claimed her to be in earlier posts, I want to be at least left with my memories of enjoying FFXIII when I first played it. At the time, I was getting fed up with console video games no thanks to Call of Duty (which ironically motivated FFXIII anyway) and other stuff, and I still credit FFXIII for finally getting me off of those horrible abominations. I don't want to ruin that, so hate me all you want, FF fans.

Nintendo Direct @ E3: Dropping the Bombs

This was my most anticipated "conference," although with Sony's incredible conference, Nintendo would need to follow up with a few surprises of their own. To my knowledge, this didn't really happen, and it seems Nintendo played it pretty safe by announcing new installments in hit franchises, which is still okay. The most important news from Nintendo is the reveal of Super Smash Bros. 4, but I'll get to that in a while. As I said last post, I am writing along with the Nintendo Direct so that I can be more thorough with this "conference." For this whole conference, Satoru Itawa speaks about the many new games Nintendo has up their sleeves, and what better spokesman for your company than its own president (especially if it's Itawa, that guy is like Santa Claus and Nintendo his North Pole). So even though this Direct may be a little too safe, it is still certainly comfortable with plenty of games to offer. As a matter of fact, not following the trends of the other conferences, Nintendo literally solely focuses on games, makes no mention of TV shows based on games or entertainment features on the Wii U. So Nintendo is already many steps ahead of Microsoft in this year's E3.

The Nintendo Direct begins with the latest trailer for Pokemon X and Y, which discusses the new region and some new Pokemon. They introduce "Fairy-type" Pokemon, which some pre-existing Pokemon will already be rebranded as. These Pokemon are strong against Dragon-type Pokemon. The trailer also shows off a new feature called Pokemon-Amie, which is like the interactivity with Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow, but with far more interactivity. You can play minigames with your Pokemon, pet them, feed them treats, and copy their expressions somehow. My brother thinks this Pokemon is entirely different from previous Pokemon games, but I think he was thinking of Pokemon Conquest. Pokemon X and Y will be released October 12th of this year.

Next on the slate is the latest 3D Mario game, Super Mario 3D World. When it starts, we see Mario acquire a new ability never seen before, which allows him to climb up walls. We also see a new multiplayer feature in 3D world, where four players can play as Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad. Each character will have abilities that throw back to Super Mario Bros. 2. Iwata discusses this multiplayer for a bit before revealing the new power up: Cat Mario. What was that? CATS??!! Awwww yeah! The Mario series officially has the greatest power up ever. Cat Mario, as I mentioned, allows the player to climb up walls. As with the frog and tanooki power ups, the cat power up will put Mario in a cat suit. Mario will also be able to scratch at enemies, which doesn't sound too extraordinary, but maybe it will be useful for particular enemies. Super Mario 3D World will be released sometime December of this year.

Nintendo has so far done their own thing from the other conferences, and they've been doing it right. The next game they show goes back into following the trends of the other press conference: showing off a racing game. However, you would have to be entirely devoid of a soul to consider Mario Kart to be just another racing game. Nintendo might not always make the latest installment in the Mario Kart series as good as the previous, but every now and then they do find ways to freshen the gameplay. Also, who doesn't enjoy a racing game featuring stages based on your favorite Mario games and characters? The latest Mario Kart game is Mario Kart 8, which will be for the Wii U. The music in this trailer sounds kind of like something from a Sonic game, I think, but so far there's nothing on whether this will be it's own game or a crossover with the Sonic Racing games, which could happen given Nintendo's partnership with Sega. Iwata explains the latest mechanic in the series, which will be an anti-gravity feature, allowing for more variety within the race tracks. Release is slated for Spring 2014.

Iwata discusses Wii Party U, which looks like a Mario Party game featuring Miiverse stuff. He takes this time to announce that release dates for Wii Party U and Wii Fit U will be postponed for launch. He then bows in apology for having postponed many release dates for Wii U games. He then discusses a bit about the latest Art Academy game, which some features will be released for Miiverse. Iwata then discusses some new titles from third party companies, showing off a montage of games such as Arkham Origins, Assassin's Creed 4, Disney Infinity, Rayman Legends, Splinter Cell: Black List, and Sonic Lost World. Sonic Lost World looks amazing and looks like it will finally return to the level-centric design that made the older titles so wonderful. Then there's a montage of many different indie games being released for the Wii U Eshop.

Following the discussion on third party games is the HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This game features a higher resolution and better shading than its original version. Most of this is stuff we already know, but there was one thing that roused questions: what will become of the Tingle Tuner? It will be replaced with a new thing called the "Tingle Bottle," which is essentially a message in the bottle to share things with other friends on Miiverse. This title will be released in November.

The next game, which I'm not too sure if it's a new Nintendo IP or a third-party one, is The Wonderful 101. In this game, you'll use the game pad to organize the one hundred and one heroes into many formations, from swords to cannons to shields and more. It looks to me like an action-based version of Pikmin. There will also be a multiplayer mode that allows multiple players to command different groups from the hundred of people. The Wonderful 101 will be released September 15th.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is shown next, which features an interesting dynamic scenes from the camera, allowing for a variety of angles and depth to the platforming. For example, you can enter a barrel and be launched into the background. Dixie Kong is also a character in this game, although I'm not too sure of what she does. In this game, Donkey Kong's homeland is apparently under attack by "vikings," a.k.a. penguins and walruses with viking hats and ships.

Nintendo then shows a little bit of Bayonetta 2, which shows Bayonetta with a new, shorter haircut... that's about it. They also show some gameplay, where Bayonetta seems to summon some kind of giant monster to her aid. Not too sure about what seems different because I've only played a small bit of the first game. They also show a new Xenoblade, which features the use of mecha suits to fight with.

This whole direct, I've been wondering: are they actually going to show Super Smash Bros.? I was afraid they wouldn't when Iwata said he had one last game to show, but then the trailer began with the Smash Bros. logo cutting into the screen... and a scene from Animal Crossing? We see a player character open his mail, which he reads and immediately runs off, tossing the envelope aside. And imprinted on that envelope is the Super Smash Bros. logo, telling us that the villager is, somehow, the next fighter in Super Smash Bros. We then get a montage of all the core veterans, and then the trailer starts by showing gameplay from the 3DS version of the game, in which the characters are outlined and somewhat cel-shaded. We see some stages, one based on The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, where the players fight on a train commandeered by "Toon Link." There's also a Nintendogs stage, where the players battle in front of a dog in a living room. The trailer then transitions to what the game will look like on the Wii U, and shows off the Villager as a fighter. Here, he is shown using his tools from the Animal Crossing games to attack the players, from digging them into the ground with the shovel to using an axe to knock a tree over onto the player. And then finally, they reveal somebody who many will be so happy for: Mega Man. I personally am not into Mega Man so much, but I know so many people who have wanted him as a playable character in the game for a long time now, so it's cool to see he's finally a fighter in the game. There are other details about the game, but that'll wait for later.

Iwata finishes the Direct with an inside look at the Nintendo booths at E3 to prove that Nintendo was going to be at E3... I don't really understand why this had to be shown to us when only press officials are allowed to attend E3. Showing this to millions of people around the world was kind of pointless, but I guess it was to prove that there will still be press coverage on hands-on experience with the demos they had available. I'm sure that they had a plethora of other demos there than they did share at Best Buy, but at least they brought some of that hands-on E3 experience to many people, although only in North America.

As I think about Nintendo's Direct, I seem to realize that I probably only really liked it because Super Smash Bros., but I'm sure it was appealing to many Nintendo fans and gamers. Still, I don't think anyone was prepared for the surprises Sony had at their conference, from revealing the PS4 (might have been expected, but nobody knew for sure), to announcing console debuts for many popular indie titles, to finally, and who could forget it, having the announcement for Kingdom Hearts 3. It was an unforgettable night for Sony, so it makes sense to feel a little less excited for Nintendo when they have to follow such an incredible conference. But I still like what Nintendo had to show, even if some of the games didn't interest me. You may say that Nintendo did the exact same thing as Microsoft and just announced a bunch of games, but here's the thing: that is what they were supposed to do. Nintendo needed to announce some new installments in their hit exclusives, along with a couple of new games and such, to get people excited for the Wii U. Super Smash Bros. 4 will be reason enough for my brother and I to get a Wii U now. Microsoft needed to give details on how the Xbox One is a gaming console at its core, and all they did was show off new games. New games are nice and all, but it's hard to get excited for them when you don't know a thing other than the negatives about the console you are playing it on.

What's hilarious about this is that Full-Retard Microsoft is already kicking back and saying, "We got this, our console has great value." We'll see what the sales charts say when all three consoles are out in the market, then. I already heard reports of the Wii U sales skyrocketing since the Xbox One reveal, but I think those numbers didn't turn out to be statistically significant. If they were, I wouldn't be surprised.

There's still more E3 to look at, concerning many specific titles, but I am going to give it a rest for a while. I will probably release a collective post getting into detail about several games that interested me next week. Hope you enjoyed E3 this year! Even with Microsoft's horrendous failure, which actually provided some entertainment to me, there are many things to look forward to and be excited about. What will we see next year? Hopefully, it'll be higher steps up from Nintendo and Sony, and, for Xbox fans, redemption for Microsoft's ill-conceived next-gen console.

Sony E3 Press Conference: Right in the Xbox

E3 is officially over, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forget about these posts. On Monday night, to close the day at E3, Sony came on and gave a spectacular conference. The notes I took during the conference are somewhat in depth, but unfortunately most of them give such little detail that it's as if I barely paid attention to the conference. The same applied for Nintendo, so what I've decided to do was rewatch the Sony conference and the Nintendo Direct at E3 to give a solid recap of what went down. Since I am writing this at 12 AM, E.T., and have to wake up very early in the morning tomorrow, I will only be able to cover this conference tonight and then the Nintendo conference tomorrow, hopefully in the morning.

Sony started off with quite an explosive, somewhat lengthy montage of the different games they may be showing off at E3, with music blaring for a good several minutes. And they truly earned all the glamour, as we will see with their anticipated reveals, the revealing of the PS4, and with some incredible surprises along the way.

To start their conference, Sony discusses what they are doing with the PS3 and the Vita. The Vita, while certainly not a console to be underestimated, is being blown out by the Nintendo 3DS. They share several of the future upcoming games for Vita, including a new Killzone game, Batman: Arkham Origins, Terraway, and some HD remakes of games including God of War, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy X-2. Why FFX-2 needed an HD remake is beyond me, but that is on Square's end. As with Microsoft, Sony announces that they will still support the PS3 with several titles. However, unlike Microsoft, Sony does it right by giving a lineup of new games, like The Last of Us (although I honestly only have a slight interest in it). They announced a game called The Puppeteer, which all I gathered from was a stylized platformer. Next was a game called rain, which seems to involve a storyline about ghostly children.

Of most interest to me from this fast montage of short, ambiguous trailers was one for Beyond: Two Souls, made by the makers of Heavy Rain and Kara, a tech demo but a beautiful one nonetheless. Ellen Page stars in this game apparently as a psychic military soldier... not too sure on other details

Next they show Gran Turismo 6: Another Racing Game. After Ubisoft's incredible showcase of The Crew, it's pretty hard to get excited for "a new physics engine" and better graphics. I guess hardcore racing fans like my uncle might get excited for this, but I just wish  that they can give us a twist when it comes to a new racing game. It's not that hard, either; just look at Nintendo. Thankfully they didn't make this game a highlight, unlike Microsoft and their ridiculous showcase of Forza 5.

Other conferences mentioned it, but Sony was the one who decided to show off the new Batman: Arkham Origins, with Bane and a whole crew of interesting titled villains. We see Batman use a Tony Stark-esque mapping system to recreate a crime scene. Of course, we also see the Joker, my favorite villain ever. The president mentions some details about exclusive DLC from Arkham (along with a crack at the old 1960's Batman television show), and announces some exclusive bundles from GTA V, like a set of apparently GTA themed Turtle Beaches.

So after Jack discusses the Vita and PS3, Andrew House, President and Group CEO of SCE comes up to talk about the PS4. He starts off by saying, "We know players can't wait to see the Playstation 4." This scares me because usually lines like these are followed with a "please wait a little longer," but he actually does show it off instead! It looks kinda like a bulkier, sleeker PS2 to me, but I'll let you Readers see for it yourselves.

Unfortunately, Sony slumps a little by bringing Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment to talk about how the PS4 will offer features on music, movies, and television shows. I feared how long this segment was going to be, but you have to give them some slack as it was the unveiling of many details for PS4. Still, E3 at its core as about gaming, and any time off from discussing games will strike against the company who has the floor. Just look back on Microsoft's hideous conference back in 2010, which their Xbox One reveal echoed. House comes back on to discuss that the PS4 will offer several entertainment features such as Netflix and Redbox Media, which was previously only known to be available on Xbox One.

Following House is Shu Yoshida, President of Sony Worldwide Studios. He discusses the several first-party developing studios for PS4 and shares some information on future titles for the PS4 titles. He says there are over thirty titles being developed for the PS4, twenty of which are exclusive, and twelve of such will be brand new IP's. The first they show is a game called The Order: 1886. Unfortunately, we only get a full trailer of cutscenes. We see some officers in London approach some intersection in a carriage, but with apparently advanced weapons for its time. The carriage approaches a stop, where some unseen monster snatches the driver off-camera. Then we see the officers fend off these monsters, climbing off walls and appearing only as silhouettes in the mists. It kind of looked like a type of BioShock to me, but I'm sure actual gameplay will stray far from it.

The next game shown is Killzone: Shadow Fall, which I can't say much of other than it looks really pretty. Then they show another racing game called Drive Club. Then they show inFamous: Second Son, which looks very story driven with still some interesting, action packed gameplay. What I especially noted about the graphics were the very detailed facial animations, which is surprisingly still a challenge to pull off correctly these days (read: Dead Island). Then there was another game called Knack, which honestly looked like some kind of Mega Block action-puzzle game, but I am probably way off.

Not only did Quantic Dream have a trailer for Beyond: Two Souls for us to see, but also another tech demo: The Dark Sorcerer. As with all tech demos, this was a very highly detailed tech demo showing off how powerful the PS4 graphics can run (note that in actual gameplay, as I've said time and time again, these kinds of graphics might not actually be achieved due to framerate). What I love about this tech demo was how they only showed a part of it and cut it off at some point, showing the scene as some kind of actual shot being made in a movie. I mean, the background graphics get cut out and reveal themselves to be "green screens," with the goblin and the sorcerer as actors. The scene is cut due to the sorcerer forgetting one of his lines. I appreciated this use of real humor in a video game, as opposed to that silly trailer for The Epic Quest. Sadly, this is just a tech demo, which means it'll never be a real game and is therefore ultimately a bunch of wasted effort. As the great Blue Highwind put it, it's like an author writing the first chapter of a book to show that he can write, and then scrapping it and writing an entirely different book.

Next on the floor was Adam Boyes, Vice President and head of Third Party Relations at SCEA, who shared information about games being made by developers outside of Sony, namely the indie developers but also some major ones as well. This was another strong point for Sony's conference, revealing several indie games for the PS4. The first they showed was a game called Transistor, developed by Supergiant Games who are known for making Bastion. I never had much interest in Bastion, but what they have shown in Transistor interested me. In a futuristic city, "influential voices" are disappearing one by one, and now red-headed, sword-wielding chick named Red is being hunted down. Not sure what is going on, but this trailer does show some gameplay. The game seems to be an action-based, stylized top-down and sidescrolling view of the game. I'll have more information about this game in a future post, as I believe there was a specific showcase for the game during the week. Boyes continues Sony's endless beatdown of Microsoft by announcing that Sony will continue to allow self-publishing from indie developers, taking no respite from killing the Xbox One before it launches.

The next several games they showed for release on the PS4 included Don't Starve, Octodad (hell yeah!), Oddworld Inhabitants and a new remake of the first Oddworld, and several other games as well. As many as nearly ten games were shown, and much more were promised. Boyes stated many of these indie games will make their exclusive console debut on the PS4.

Following news included a release of Diablo 3 for PS4, along with several PS4 exclusive items. However, the greatest part of this conference came when Boyes shared a video from Tetsuya Nomura from Square Enix, who in my opinion seems to be the most competent director currently available. I'm telling you now, this really needs its own paragraph, so let me get to that.

Nomura begins by once again saying he can't share many details about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, further perpetuating my notion that the game will never be made. However, they show what is probably the most in-depth trailer they've shown in years, integrating both story driven cutscenes (which are notably outstandingly  beautiful) and action-packed gameplay (which is also beautiful, but with some awkward framerate at certain moments). What I love about what I've seen so far from the gameplay is that they seem to have blurred the line between regular gameplay and cinematic action where players tend to lose control in the past, like the quicktime events in FFXIII-2. Noct is fighting on walls, jumping onto zeppelins, fighting behemoths, fightingg a Leviathan! It all looks really awesome. However, the main part of this reveal wasn't just that they were still working on the game. At the end, with FF Versus XIII's title onscreen, a small exchange of dialogue between characters explains that the world is changing and that a "fifteenth coming" is, well, coming. Then, the title changes to Final Fantasy XV! I knew this was coming, but it is still exciting nonetheless! This means that Square has to make this game now. I mean, of course they could either just scrap this game entirely and make a new one. Or they can stop making Final Fantasy altogether. However, as awful as Square has been lately, I doubt they would go so far as to end a game that appears to be nearing completion, much less end the franchise that pretty much grounds them and makes them who they are. And with Tetsuya Nomura at the helm of this game, I can bet it will be pretty damn awesome.

However, this isn't even the best part of Square's micro-conference. The next thing they show was such a huge surprise it had my brother and I nearly crying. The second it starts, you see the Disney logo, which instantly made me realize that this was a Kingdom Hearts title as opposed to what I dreaded to be Lightning Returns. The video starts off with a montage of scenes from all the different Kindgom Hearts games, which almost led me to believe the trailer was for the HD remake of Kingdom Hearts 1, Chain of Memories, and scenes from 358/2 Days. However, all the other games are in there as well, so this had to be something else, and at this point, what else could it have been? Actual scenes pertaining to the new title began with what seems to be a shot of the Destiny Islands shore in HD, with  vibrant colors and stronger detail to the models and environment. More importantly, pertaining to the story, we see Master Eraqus's keyblade washed on the shore of Destiny Islands, and none other than our at-first-seemingly-unlikely hero Sora picks it up and observes it. Then, it was the moment we were all holding our breaths for:

Kingdom Hearts 3!!!!!!!!!

This may sound ridiculous, but I literally shed a tear. It's like seeing the trailer for Harry Potter 7 and knowing a saga you grew up with is coming to a brilliant, beautiful close... Well, nothing is for sure about Kingdom Hearts 3 yet, but that still does not negate the fact that my brother, many other fans and I have been waiting for this since 2007. And many of us have literally grown up with this series; I played Kingdom Hearts 1 when I was in Elementary School, and then all the subsequent games (aside from Coded) as I progressed and graduated from grade school.

Getting back to the trailer, you'd guess they would end it with the title screen, but no! They even have the courtesy to show some gameplay, even if it's not much! We see Sora in Twilight Town as he takes on, surfs on, and clashes with a horde of what appear to be Neo Shadow heartless. I wanted to sob, it really felt like this day would never come... and then of course they quickly advertise the Kindgom Hearts remakes.

It would've been amazing to stick with these games a little longer, but the press conference quickly moved on to Assassin's Creed 4: Really Random Pirates. At least this time, they finally show some gameplay, which was great for Sony in this conference whereas every other conference only featured cutscenes... however, I wonder why it wasn't Ubisoft who showed off this demo? We see some expectedly beautiful jungle and island environments, and the beginning starts with the usual assassinations we've seen in every game. But then we see some explosive action and swashbuckling, with some "pirate music" thrown in, and I personally love pirate music, so that was a plus. Then there was cannon warfare, which also seemed exciting, and some sword fights with the use of the cutlass. However, the embarrassing thing about this demo was the humongous number of stalls and lag, and a really awkward, silent freeze near the end of the demo. It was pretty bad, and whether this was attributed to the game or to the system was a mystery.

The next game they discuss is Watch Dogs, where they once again show an actual gameplay demo as opposed to the other conferences. We start with the player having to stealthily drive past the police forces, pleasantly reminding me of the opening of the movie Drive. As he navigates, he uses his ingame cellphone to open some gateways and empty lots to hide from the police. He then uses the cellphone to hack several cameras successively to see a friendly NPC and help that NPC navigate away from some police officers, hacking other city devices while maintaining a view from the cameras. We see the player use a real world mobile device to hack and destroy some patrol vehicles. and then he pulls what was shown in a cutscene in the trailer: a hacked blackout of the city and a quick use of the advantage to dispatch the officers.

Next, they go EA Sports and show off the graphics of NBA 2014, using LeBron James of the Heat to advertise for the game. I liked the trailer, though, as they had a conversation between real-world LeBron James and Digital LeBron James, where James tells James who crazy it is that he looks so lifelike. This was charming, and was the only time Sony used a big-time star to advertise a product, whereas EA heavily relied on celebrities to sell their games. Sadly, the Heat will massively lose in the NBA game the following day, but that's a whole other topic completely.

Following NBA2K14 was The Elder Scrolls Online. This trailer showed off how wonderful the many different lands of Tamriel looks, and Sony announced "a new partnership" with Bethesda. From the bits of gameplay I've seen, this looks like it will play a lot like Skyrim, but what I really want to know is, will there be a monthly subscription? I hate the fact that I'm already paying nearly eighty bucks every half-year for World of Warcraft, and if I am demanded to pay another subscription I am going to ignore ESO  altogether. I think payment plans, if there are any, would have been announced by now, so I'll go take a look. I'm assuming this game is also for the Xbox, so maybe you won't have to pay monthly for it along with paying monthly for Xbox Live - however, Square does make you pay monthly for FFXI and FFXIV on Xbox, so who knows. I'll look it up in a bit.

The next game that they introduced to the market is a game of a franchise I never heard of called Mad Max. All I see is a man begging another man to kill him, and so, rather than wasting shotgun ammo, the man runs him over. No opinion whatsoever.

Tretton comes back to continue discussing the PS4, recapping many of the things that have been discussed. Then, he takes this opportunity to strike at Microsoft, stating that there will be no restrictions on lending games or trading them in. He then gets into the rights of ownership once you buy a game, and the crowd goes wild. He continues the punishment by stating that disc-based games do not require a constant Internet connection or authentication (although that is still at the hand of developers). With all this, Sony has taken the sword and rove it deep into Microsoft's competition with the Xbox One. An interview with one of the higher ups from Microsoft I read states that they aren't worried about their competition, which sounds ridiculously bizarre. It's like you offered a defective TV as opposed to a fancy HD TV and said you felt confident you would outsell the HD TV. At first I thought Microsoft didn't care about their consumers, and maybe they don't, but I think there's more to it than that. I think they've gone full retard, like the owner of Abercrombie and Fitch who knows his business techniques are terrible and yet he sticks with them. I think everyone at Microsoft, or at least those in charge of the Xbox, have grown senile, demented, and might possibly have a case of Alzheimer's or schizophrenia. How can you look at not only the thrashings Sony is dealing but also the reactions from consumers and not be phased in the slightest bit.

Moving on from this embarrassment, Tretton discusses some new features for PSN, which include background gaming while the game is downloading, cross-game voice chat (which they should've had from Day 1 of PSN), and "transitions to a 'real world' friends network," whatever that is. And a share button. He continues by discussing Playstation Plus and announced that existing memberships with PS Plus will carry over to PS4. I was a little confused about whether online multiplayer would remain free, but it is apparently now a PS Plus feature. Still, with the "under five dollar a month" subscription as opposed to Microsoft's approximate fifteen dollar a month subscription, this is still quite the better alternative.

It's getting really late now, and I still have a bit to cover, but I can rely on my memory and my notes from this point forward. Destiny, the new IP from Bungie and being published/produced by Activision (ugh, the other EA), was shown off, and it looks wonderful. Of course, the graphics are nice and all, but what really makes it look good is that it appears to be a roleplaying version of Halo, where you control different classes of advanced soldiers with futuristic weaponry. It is set on a post-catastrophic Earth, and in the demo, the players are shown exploring a dark and abandoned structure. There appears to be enemy aliens, further feeling reminiscent of Halo, who have seemed to dominate most, if not all, of Earth. There was a little drone who retains the same sense of humor Bungie has implemented in their other little robot characters, from 343 to Cortana. All in all, while it looked like a further improved Halo experience, there are still several things about the game that feel different enough to be excited for, as with the role selection.

At the end of the conference, Sony outwitted Microsoft again by listing their console at $399, as opposed to Microsoft's nearly-insane price of half a grand. It feels all too much like the reveals for the previous generation consoles, where the Xbox 360 had all the glamour and took advantage of the PS3's initially ridiculous price of around eight hundred dollars. The sad thing about this current case, however, is that the Xbox One is nearing its launch in the market, while the PS3 back in those days was still under some lengthy development until it was released with a considerably lower price (not that that helped it much).

While I've outgrown the console wars by focusing my gaming experience on the PC, I still relish in witnessing the technological advancements of my time in gaming, and when marketing failures as huge as the ones Microsoft has been making come up, I cannot help but to relish in them... Well then again, I'm a big Microsoft hater, so that's expected. Besides, nobody wants to see a company like Nintendo make those kinds of mistakes. Nobody wants any company to screw consumers over like Microsoft has done, which is why I still feel empathy for those who believed Microsoft would deliver something as even more promising as the Xbox 360.

Again, Sony has driven the sword straight through the competition with Microsoft. It's like they plunged a blade into a pregnant woman and massacred the fetus, it's ridiculous how much they have trumped on Microsoft's shortcomings.

Tomorrow will feature what will probably a substantially shorter post on Nintendo, given that their Direct in lieu of a press conference is only forty minutes long. Stay tuned.

Ubisoft E3 Press Conference: #girlwood

I was pleased with Ubisoft's main spokeswoman, who remained on the floor throughout the whole conference as opposed to the multiples of spokesmen we've received so far at E3... eh. I don't feel like writing this post, as I mentioned in my EA post, so I am going to be more concise. But I will say that I felt a big risk in having a spokeswoman was thankfully kept from transforming into an awkward disaster at the Ubisoft press conference, as the gaming environment has been known for pretty awful misogynistic portrayals and shameful levels of fanservicing at times.

Ubisoft began by showing off the next Rocksmith, which started with Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains performing a mini-concert on guitar. At first, I feared this was going to devolve into the all too familiar embarrassment of giving a game like Rock Band to someone from Black Sabbath and watching in sheer awkwardness as the band member fails at getting the controls right. Thankfully, the advantage to Rocksmith is that you use an actual guitar as a controller, allowing for Jerry Cantrell to avoid the trap of awkward controls. The real thing they were showing off here was that Jerry didn't actually pick a song, he chose a group of instruments and began playing on his own. From what he played, the game learned what he was playing and used the instruments to form a full band to play what he was playing. I liked this idea, although I really have no interest in these music games anymore.

The first real game they showed was Splinter Cell: Blacklist. From what I know about Splinter Cell, this game seems true to the stealth-action gameplay. There is an interesting plot of assassinations of different military officers across the world, but beyond that I hadn't much else to say for the game. The next game they showed off was Rayman Legends, which looked absolutely beautiful (due to art style, not just simple graphics alone). I also don't have much to say about Rayman, though. It will be a side-scroller, and to me it seemed like a heavily stylized, indie-game feel of Donkey Kong Country. They said "the different heroes will star in this game," which surprised me because I had no idea there were other protagonists in the Rayman series. I mean, I thought the viking girl and the weird alien things were side characters. Maybe they are and I'm overthinking it. The only Rayman I ever played was one for the Nintendo 64, though, so of course I have no idea what is going on. I liked how the viking woman was the one to save the Rayman in the trailer, though this is probably going to be overlooked as nothing in the long run of things.

The next game they (barely) showed was some game called The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot (I think). There was hardly any gameplay, but they did show a pretty weird trailer where one of the characters goes behind the scenes and talks about his castle and his experiences raiding other castles. All throughout this was some slapstick and somewhat juvenile humor, which only left me with camp in mind and barely a grasp at what the gameplay is like. And then immediately after, this game was overshadowed by the upcoming South Park RPG. Once again, gameplay was traded in for humor as all we really see is a scene where Randy shares with a pupil the martial art of the Nagasaki Fart. South Park may be stupid, but when you place the humor of South Park next to the humor of a game attempting humor, you've overshadowed that other game.

Following this was what appeared to be Ubisoft's following of the trend of showing off ANOTHER racing game. I was about to turn off the conference altogether, because I was sick of all the damn racing games, but Ubisoft actually managed to impress. Unlike every other racing game ever made, The Crew features something quite incredible: thanks to the power of next-gen consoles (people say as if computers lacked this capability), the entire United States mainland is an open world track for a racing game. That's right, from the Mojave Desert to the beaches of Miami to the Redwood Forest, the near-entirety of this country is accessible to your vehicle, presumably without any loading times. If this wasn't mind blowing alone, they have many other features not present in your typical racing game. Similar to Titanfall, which seems to incorporate story mode into multiplayer, The Crew will have this always online feature where you can simultaneously play the game on single player while your friends are out driving in other parts of the country. I think that, unlike the Xbox One (unless you play this on the Xbox One, for some reason), this game won't require you to always be online, so you can still play the single-player stuff.

But it gets better from there. Throughout the map are many different "skills" and challenges, essentially sidequests and other missions from the main missions in the game. These can be done to improve your vehicle's performance or get you some new and better equipment for you to build your car with. What they offer in this game which I have yet to see fully realized in any other racing game is the realism of having different cars for different situations. So let's say you are in a Lamborghini up against a Ford F150 FX2 Sport. Your Lamborghini, obviously, is not meant to be driven off road, but on a track (in this case, an actual road), your car will perform incredibly. Meanwhile, the Ford F150 is designed for off-road use, therefore the driver's optimal method of winning the race against you is not by road, but by driving off-road. This sets up for some really dynamic gameplay where the driver of the high-performance vehicle suddenly has his track crossed by the driver of the off-road vehicle, who emerges from a forest and zooms across the road and over a grassy hill on the other side.

Then there are missions where you can form a squad of different vehicles, each tailored to do their own thing and use their own skills to take down criminal vehicles, all while avoiding the police. That's right, this is a role-playing racing game! And then along with all this is the ability to customize your car on the go with a mobile device. I was so impressed by this fresh take on the standard racing game, and I really do look forward to seeing more of this game in the future.

The next game Ubisoft announces is Watch Dogs, which has an interesting concept. You play as a man who uses his smartphone to hack nearly everything in the city to track down criminals and bring them to justice. In the trailer, which was all cutscenes, we see this man nearly get arrested, only to secretly hack the whole city and cause a blackout before beating up the cops and getting away. There was no gameplay shown at the Ubisoft conference, but some will appear in the Sony conference.

I sort of dozed off afterward, however, because all of what they were showing was seriously uninteresting. Following the current trends, Ubisoft announced a TV show based off some video game, although they did add a little twist by also making it an interactive game. But it was still not all that interesting.

Next, Ubisoft discusses Pirates of the Caribbean Assassin's Creed 4. I've lost all interest in Assassin's Creed after they out of nowhere made Leonardo da Vinci a weapons dealer, but I still gave the newest installment a look. There really isn't much to say about the game at this point, because all they show are more trailers consisting only of cutscenes and little gameplay. We see epic pirate ship battles and swashbuckling action, but how much of that will players actually be able to play. Before they close the segment for Assassin's Creed, the developer on the game gave another video, calling it in-game gameplay. However, it was all just more cutscenes!

Next, they showcased the next two installments in Trials, which will be linked between the console and a mobile device. However, these games are entirely overshadowed by the last big game they had under their sleeves to close with, called The Division (which also falls under the Tom Clancy titles). This game is also a fully integrated online-story mode experience, something of a recurring theme of this E3. It is set in a post apocalyptic, modern USA where resources are low and people fight each other for them. This is all pretty much the insane visions of the New World Order that my uncle and many other extreme rightists envision, but the cause in this game isn't actually economic collapse at its core. It's all caused by a flu virus that spread from a single dollar bill. Within two days, many people across the country fall ill, and then the day afterward, the economy just collapses out of nowhere. So right away we have a world of nonsense which, if it gets shoved in my face enough times, will make me see the game as the stupidest thing ever made and not worth playing, but thankfully the gameplay trumps this awful storytelling. Thankfully, it doesn't seem that story-telling is that big of a deal here.

This game is an open world rpg, kind of reminiscent of Dead Island. In the demo, a few players used some kind of map like out of Tony Stark's garage in Iron Man 3 to find the source of a conflict where possible supplies such as food and medicine were located. So the two players headed, at a ridiculously slow pace, to the building, where they met up with some other player and a friend who was controlling a scouting robot through a mobile device. Together, they took out some enemy NPC's before entering a police station, which offered the players some weapons from the armory. Honestly, this is the kind of game you have to see to get the full picture, as I can describe everything these players were doing and sound like I'm describing a typical shooter. Also, throughout the whole demo, the players gave the most wooden voice chat I have ever heard. Nobody talks like how they did when they played the game. This happens all the time with people who get on to play these demos, leading me to think that they really don't play games at all or they don't play with any people.

To close, the director of the game, I think, gives a dramatic little speech about how our world is already collapsing, and ends it by dropping fake money from the ceiling. Obviously, he was just being dramatic and not making a real statement about current society, but his tone was so normal that it sounded like he was literally trying to get a message across, haha. If he was, I have no idea how anyone would've taken him seriously after that whole nonsense of the virus from the dollar bill.

Coming up, I have a post on the two other conferences that mattered: the Sony E3 press conference and the Nintendo Direct at E3. This is where the heart of E3 lies, and I am looking forward to fanwanking on this blog about it. Also, I'll have either multiple posts specialized to single or groups of games, or one big post about all the games that I am interested in this year. Stick around, it'll be a while before I get to them.