Tumblr Revival and E3 Reactions

I'd like to start off by saying that, as to promote my stuff on multiple platforms, I'll probably repost these on the old blog (astukagaming.blogspot.com) as well as some other community blogs for websites I frequent. Besides that, my main blog will always be at landofeternallife.blogspot.com.

I probably shouldn't be writing this, as I'm down enough that I haven't written a lot of fiction recently. Writing this will probably just make things worse, but fuck it. 

Anyway, as a start to this new series of tumblr posts (or blogspot posts, or...) I guess I should start on something topical. That topic is E3.

This years E3 was pretty bland, but that's how things normally are. If you just started with last years behemoth of an E3, you're going to be mighty disappointed -- every year it's about this interesting. Still, there's a wonder that draws us all to E3. A lot of people say its the same feeling you get when Christmas arrives, and I suppose it is. Except it's likely you probably won't actually buy most of the games that interest you in E3 and instead just forget about them.

Enough about that though, onto the conferences. Microsoft had a much more solid performance than their blunder of a conference last year. Phil Spencer seems to be doing a pretty good job saving the Xbox One's reputation, but it's still a long road coming. Honestly, most of the games in the Microsoft conference we either already knew about, expected, or was just a CG trailer. That gives it an average C rating from me.

Next was the Ubisoft and EA conferences. Since these are the smaller ones, I won't go into as much detail into these. Ubisoft really didn't have much at theirs besides what we were all expecting: the series of yearly releases followed by a bullshotted trailer of their new game. EA as well seemed to be trying to save their skins, using “Conceptual Prototypes” as a way of guilting us into thinking “We don't rush teams guys, we promise!”. In the end the conference was simply just a plethora of sports, hotheads, and people walking in hallways. Both publishers get a F+.

At the end of day zero we had Sony. Honestly, as a Playstation fan I felt pretty disappointed by it. They could've used the conference to further expand their lead against Xbox, but instead decided to rest on their laurels and spend 2/3rds of the conference talking about TV and metrics. Again. Except for more information on Uncharted 4, there wasn't really much in the game department either. Overall, I'd give it a D.

Now I really wasn't expecting much from the Nintendo Direct. I was expecting to go home (figuratively, still waiting on that press invite heh) disappointed at there being no real new games. Oh boy, was I wrong.

Now, Nintendo won it for me at the Reggie Iwata battle, but they didn't just stop there. Three unique looking platformers (Captain Toad, Wooly World, Rainbow Curse) were announced, as well as the first look at Zelda Skyrim (it looks AMAZING), Bayonetta+Bayonetta 2, and, drumroll please, several new IPs. Nintendo really stepped up their game with this one, and best of all, they focused on the Wii-U! Nintendo gets a A- from me.

My game of E3 was probably Splatoon. I'm pretty sure no one expected Nintendo ever to go into the online shooter industry, but they did and their spicing it up. In case you didn't know, Splatoon is a shooter where you use ink to cover up the map. It's basically paintball with supersoakers, and since you don't get much points for killing people, the game is primarily about winning via map painting. That means its more of a game of strategy than anything. Definitely a buy for me.

People have also brought up No Man's Sky as well, but honestly I think it looks bullshotted to all hell. I HIGHLY doubt the game will be as polished as the trailer, EXPECIALLY since the people making it are a small indie team. Though if, by some miracle, they do pull it off; I'll be buying it.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll be posting pretty infrequently, only when there's something to talk about on my mind. I'll be working a lot more on writing fiction (I'm a lot better at that, haha) and maybe starting some projects that might actually get somewhere.

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