Microsoft E3 2015 Press Conference: The Good, The Bad, and the Rare Replays

Ladies and gentlemen E3 is upon us. Every year, video game lovers anticipate on what we will hopefully save up to play by starting our "ramen diets", cut back on stuff we don't need like certain bills paid. So this week I will be covering press conference shown at E3 and will judge and critique them, just like we all will to see what's good, what's bad, and what is meh. Let's start shall we with Microsoft...

Good

Halo 5: Guardians

Right off the back, we got to see Halo 5. Not only did we get to see a bit of the trailer setting the story behind the game, but we also got to see gameplay as well. The gameplay looks really smooth as you're maneuvering in the map, you have intense moments that happen like you almost falling through the floor and fighting the boss. What they made a big deal over was multiplayer, which is pretty much why we all play Halo in the first place. The map they shown briefly was Warzone and it actually was one allowing you to play with 24 different players, accompanied with helper AI. Overall Halo V looks like it will be crazy and fun.

Recore

This game was made by Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune and the makers of Metroid Prime. The trailer features a woman and her robotic dog in a desert. They get attacked by bad robots. During the attack the robot dog sacrifices itself by blowing itself up to save the girl, leaving an orb behind. The woman then puts it inside a robot she found earlier before the attack. The trailer gives details on what the gameplay will be. You will basically be assisted with different kinds of robots that you will attach that one orb to in order to navigate throughout the game. This will most likely be used in not only puzzles, but mostly in combat as well. This is something new and fresh. I can't wait to see more of this.

Fallout 4

We got a tease for the new Fallout game days before E3, so thankfully we got to see a bit more during Micrsoft's and Bethesda's conferences. Fallout 4 has a brand new crafting feature which makes the customization more, customizable.

Cuphead and Mugman

I love this game. I love the artstyle. It looks like the vintage Disney and Betty Boop cartoons that I used to watch when I was seven. That and it being a Run and Gun, a la Contra, this looks like it will be amazing to play.

Sea of Thieves

Rare is giving us a brand new game, well, not kinda as it is Project Dream a.k.a the game that would become Banjo-Kazooie. You will be sailing the seas as a pirate in the MMO fighting skeletons and finding adventure and treasure. Supposedly the characters that were suppose to be in Project Dream are suppose to be in the game like Captain Blackeye, who made a cameo in Banjo-Tooie. This looks cool and hopefully it will deliver that Rare awesomeness that Rare had in their glory days.

Microsoft Hololens

Earlier this weekend we learned that Oculus Rift was joining forces with Microsoft and all Oculus Rift devices would be coming with Xbox controllers. That wasn't all. Announced was the new Microsoft Hololens. Hololens would enbale games to see and manipulate holograms as they play games. Honestly the design of hololens does look a lot better than the Oculus head set and the

Bad

Forza 6

I know people like this stuff, but I'm not really excited about a racing game driving standard racing cars. If I had that interest, I would play Gran Turismo 7, when it comes out...

Rare Replay

I know, why did I put this on the bad list? It hurts me to do this but I had too. The collection does feature some amazing games like Perfect Dark, Conker, Battletoads, and Banjo-Kazooie, but I don't need a collection of old nostalgic games. I need rare to stop cashing in on my nostalgia. I would rather have new games from some of these old franchises. Get on it Rare.

Meh

Rise of the Tomb Raider

It looks amazing, but it looks and feels like you're playing Tomb Raider all over again.

Xbox Backwards Capability

I know people are genuinely excited about this and they should. But this should've been available from the start, especially during that PR scare they had before Xbox One's launch. Also, only Xbox 360 games and no Xbox games?

Xbox One Elite Controller

I admit this looks pretty cool. The controller features a ton of pieces that are suited to making your game experience better and making you feel like a pro gamer. Again it looks cool, but I would like to see just how elite it will actually be when it comes out.

Check out my post for Sony's E3 Press Conference here!
Check out my post for Nintendo's Digital Event here!

This Is A Pre-E3 Post

     Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time again. E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is here again. Every once in a year we prepare and look forward to hearing and seeing what the biggest gaming companies have to offer us this year and the years ahead. We see trailers and gameplay from upcoming games. We get excited and make plans on how we are going to save up on getting these games. So, enough chit chat, what do these companies have to offer us this year?

Microsoft

     First things first, let's start off with Microsoft. A standard Microsoft conference at E3 would be basically showing off the capabilities of the Xbox console and what games you would play on it would sit a bit of the back seat  Last year at E3 Microsoft decided to be more about games instead of how you can watch YouTube and Netflix the Xbox One. That was bit of a good thing after all that's what you bought the console for in the first place. Microsoft has promised that they will be more about first party games at this E3 and I cannot be more happier about that news.
     We know that their big exclusives Scalebound, Crackdown, and Quantum Break will not be there as they decided to show them off at Gamescon, so that is bit of a bummer. But don't fret we will be hearing about their other titles like Halo 5 and Rise of the Tomb Raider which I am excited about. Recently we had heard that Microsoft has made a deal with the Oculus Rift, so we can expect to hear more about that.

Nintendo

     Nintendo has been passing making live press conferences at E3 for awhile, instead deciding to make Nintendo Direct announcements. these directs have become a big thing as well as never failing to disappoint. The directs for last year, while still good, have been a bit underwhelming compared to the previous year. Nintendo gave us a bounty of amazing games to look forward to in 2013 with Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8, and Super Mario Land 3D.
     Last year we did have some great announcements like Splatoon and Yoshi's Wooly World, but again, it's wasn't as bountiful as the previous year. Hopefully they can deliver for us this year as they kinda still need it to help further sell the Wii. I'm sure we'll will hear more about Mario Maker, a platform creator which will hopefully put those Super Mario hacks to shame. It looks amazing and filled with Mario crap that will make the biggest Mario addict happy for years.
     Sadly Zelda Wii U will not be there which is sad as I, along with a ton of people are excited to see more of. There are rumors of Retro Studios and Platinum games have something cooking up and that could possibly be a new Metroid game. That would be amazing as we seriously need a new Metroid game on this system badly. Also what we need badly is an update of Star Fox Wii U so hopefully we will hear more about that.

Sony

     So last year, Sony took a page form Microsoft's old playbook and decided to make their conference about the functionality of the PS4. There's a good possibility that we'll still be in for that at this year's conference, but hopefully they won't. Honestly there isn't enough games on the PS4 that is sparking my interest which makes me sad because I love Sony and PlayStation. So hopefully this year Sony can deliver on that. Luckily for them it was just announced that Street Fighter V will be, so far, only on the PS4 and PC so that's a huge plus for them.
     One of the big news Sony has is that there will be a new Ratchet and Clank game that will be a PS4 exclusive which will go along the the new movie coming out in the near future. From the trailer it does look interesting. We will hopefully hear more about Fallout 4 which will be a good thing. Fallout 4's announcement has pretty much set the internet by storm so hearing more about it would be amazing, as well as seeing more of it in action.
     Another game everyone is looking out to hear is Doom. It's been awhile since we had a Doom game and I remember being in love of Doom back in the day so it feels great that there we're getting a new game in the series. The new Doom game is going to be a reboot other than a continuation of Doom 3. This is good as Doom 3 wasn't. It will be interesting to see where iD will take it. It will be more interesting if we see gameplay.

What are you looking forward to at E3?

Remakes and Reboots: Do They Really Suck?

     Like fashion, trends come back in again over time. The latest trend in movies to come back is remakes. That's right it is remake and reboot season again in Hollywood. It seems that this summer we have been receiving a ton of remakes happening and being announced.

     We have just gotten news that there will be a remake of the classic Big Trouble in Little China with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and not too long ago we just heard there's gonna be a remake of Stephen King's It. We also heard that there will be remakes of movies like Ghostbusters, The Craft, Gremlins, and many others. We just gotten movies not to long ago like Poltergeist and Mad Max. The remake reboot machine is fully running in Hollywood. But is that a good thing?

    Remakes and reboots get a flack from moviegoers and it seems rightly so. Most people write them off as lazily made with little to no originality in order to bank off of nostalgia and never could be better or is nowhere near as good as the original. And at times they are right. The Amityville Horror remake is a prime example. The original scared us while the remake was just an big overabundance of lame CGI that wasn't. The only good thing about the remake was all the good shirtless Ryan Reynolds scenes. But is it true that any remake or reboot that comes out is marked with the curse of it being bad? 

     It is true that a lot of these movies do end up being bad, but a some of them are not. Scream 4 is a good example. Scream 4, even though it is a sequel director Wes Craven set 4 to be a reboot with a completely new trilogy. 4 was almost as good as the other Scream movies as it was nearly in the same vein. Just as the original trilogy parodies horror movies, Scream 4 parodied the remakes and reboots of horror films. But Scream 4 is just one example.The truth is that remakes and reboots suck just as any other movie. Like any movie, you have to work with a certain, script, image, and direction.
     As for the demand of originality, some remakes do in a way try to be original when remaking a film. People who make these remakes were inspired, or at least they should, by the bar the original has set. Whether they set themselves near that bar varies. They can be very damn near it or miles below. Just like The Amityville Horror the director and the CGI probably tried to be original adding CGI effects to the movie and trying to make things and probably scare moments from the original scarier, but ultimately they failed.
     It seems that people don't really complain about remakes about them being unoriginal, but mainly because we want to see something new. We want to see something we've never seen before. We already know what happens in Poltergeist and Big Trouble in Little China, so seeing a remake of it does seems to be a burden unless to see what small changes have they made to the script, only to compare to the original and decide to complain about how it isn't like the original. What are your thoughts on remakes and reboots?

Too Many Spiritual Successors, Not Enough Predecessors

Once Upon a time, in the last post, I talked about Yooka-Laylee and how it was officially the spiritual successor to the popular Banjo-Kazooie series. I talked about how in the short time its Kickstarter was opened it met its goal in just under 40 minutes and continued to raise over 2 million dollars USD in the short time the Kickstarter page was created. Along with Yooka-Laylee, another spiritual successor has come out of the woodworks. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night the spiritual successor to Castlevania and created by the series' former producer Koji Igarashi has, just like Yooka-Laylee, reached its goal and then some. Just like Yooka-Laylee, it has also made over two million since its Kickstarter page was created in almost the same time period.
     2015 is starting to be the year of Spiritual successors. We have the work on Yooka-Laylee and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night starting off to extremely well starts and we even have another spiritual successor on the way. Mighty No. 9 was a game made by Mega-Man creator Keiji Inafune which is suppose to be the successor to the Mega-Man franchise. It has met the same fate as the two previous games mentioned earlier. While this is all great and exciting, the question is what about these games' predecessors? What will happen to them?
     As much as it is nice to see these games, Yooka-Laylee and Mighty No. 9, being made it's almost bittersweet that we haven't gotten anything new from their predecessors. People are still clamoring for another Mega-Man game and people are still waiting for a true Banjo-Threeie.With the demand from fans, why isn't studios and developers trying to make new games from these franchises?
    What's the problem as to why most if these games haven't had anything new is that the studios and development teams have moved on and don't want to take a chance on these old franchises. After what happened with Nuts & Bolts, Rare just seems like it wants nothing to do with another full-fledged Banjo-Kazooie game. Mega-Man hasn't fared well either. Capcom has tried to make some Mega-Man games in the past but were met with poor sales. Capcom has tried to take the series in new directions, but they have yet to figure out what direction to put the series in and has cancelled project after project.
     What could be done to get studios to try to revive these franchises and start making games for these franchises again? What do you think needs to be done in order to see new games again?

Yooka-Laylee: Why People Still Care About Banjo-Kazooie?

     Yooka-Laylee is a game being developed by Playtonic games, former developers of the video game company Rare. Yooka-Laylee is being hailed as an official spiritual successor to the popular Banjo-Kazooie series meaning it is being made in the same mechanics and feel. Yooka-Laylee looks and feels like playing Banjo-Kazooie in every way except for the lead characters. This is enough to get people interested and invested in the game. Just in 40 minutes of launching funding for the game on Kickstarter, it has met its goal of $270,000. In less than 4 hours it has reached over one million. The current funding is over one million pounds (over two million in USD). People are excited to play this game as well as relive some nostalgia playing Banjo-Kazooie years back.

     I wouldn't blame them. Banjo-Kazooie was a phenomenal game when it came out. During Nintendo and Rare's golden age with the Nintendo 64 it was a great year in gaming. Rare and Nintendo was a match made in Heaven. Banjo-Kazooie was a success and it seems that almost every game Rare came out followed its format. Banjo-Tooie seemed like it was a bigger success. Aside from a couple of hand held titles like Grunty's Revenge and Banjo-Pilot, the franchise went dark and left a hole in our hearts. That was until we got Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts which left us shocked, in a bad way. I'm going to defend Nuts & Bolts a bit by saying it was a good game, it was just a complete 180 from what we expected from a Banjo-Kazooie game. It wasn't what we were used too and what we wanted. It was like seeing your best after losing weight, you didn't recognize it. Rare tried to do something fresh and new and they failed. They failed at recognizing the main rule of game development, if it isn't broke, don't fix it!

    But why is it that we are so invested in this so called new spiritual successor? Why is it why we love Banjo-Kazooie so much? Banjo-Kazooie gave us what we wanted to as children. We wanted to explore and have adventure. We were exploring different worlds as well as exploring the evil lair of a witch to save the day. It was fun not only getting all the Jiggies and notes and exploring the secrets if Grunty's lair, but also fun discovering all the secrets in the game like Bottle's picture game and finding out about Stop and Swop (points if you actually figured out what Stop and Swap was). Banjo-Kazooie was almost better than Super Mario 64 almost giving you more adventure and fun. With Banjo-Tooie, we had that idea magnified times 100. Hopefully Yooka-Laylee and Playtonic can keep this in mind when making this game and understand why we loved the predecessor in the first place. And also learn from the mistakes of Nuts & Bolts.

Suicide Squad's Joker: A Sick Sad Joke or A Sick Looking Joker?

     On Friday we were treated, finally, to how Jared Leto will look as The Joker in the upcoming Suicide's Squad movie. We were teased a bit when we got a sneak peak of Leto would look as he uploaded an image with dyed green hair on his SnapChat a while ago. Now that we finally know how Leto will look, we can really start critiquing.

     Right off the bat, it's a very different Joker than what we usually see. Leto is sporting multiple tattoos and gold teeth. Of course if you didn't know, this Joker's appearance was inspired by The Killing Joke's Joker. Realistically, we see that the Suicide Squad's Joker is an inspiration of the hardcore tattooed white bad guy you see in gritty criminal films, and possibly inspired by rapper Riff Raff and James Franco's appearance in Spring Breakers. It's a complete contrast from the the different live-action Jokers from the past. We had Jack Nicholson's and Cesar Romero from the 1989 Batman film and the 60s TV series which looked almost as close to the comic book appearance of The Joker. The Dark Knight's Joker, played by Heath Ledger was a more realistic gritty twist to the villain. With cracked paint make-up and smile scars and the interest of telling his victims how he got them, this creepy disturbed Joker delivered just that: Creepiness and disruption.

     Back to Leto's Joker. I understand the concept of this Joker's appearance. Again it is using the cover of The Killing Joke as a catalysis to give us a new Joker that we've never seen. The problem is that it's probably a Joker we don't want to see. It's looks outrageously try hard and over the top in a bad way. This Juggalo-ker looks almost comical, but maybe that's the point. Maybe the absurdity of the tattoos and gold teeth is something to throw people off of what horrific shit the Suicide's Squad's Joker can do.
     This look can give us a hint to what we're in store for the Suicide Squad. This look can either help or hinder Jared's Leto performance. We need to see more. We need a trailer to see Leto in action as The Joker to really how everything works out. Hopefully we will get it and hopefully we won't be waiting too long to see it.

The Batman v Superman, Star Wars Episode VII, and Fantastic Four Trailers: Do They Suck?

 Movie nerds got a treat over the weekend. We got to see the new trailers for Star Wars Episode VII, Batman v Superman, and Fantastic Four. These movies have been highly anticipated and have been scavenged for any rumors, leaks, and any small scrape of information that could be found. So, this weekend getting new teasers and trailers has been a gift to the geek gods. Thanks to these trailers, we can get a glimpse of what we might be in store for the up coming summer movie season and holiday film season this year and next. But the question is do they suck?


Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

First things first we're going to start Star Wars. This is the second trailer for the film. This trailer we get to see more of the story in this first trailer. We got to see more of John Boyega's character, Finn which is a good thing. With the Luke Skywalker narration, we see that Episode VII is going to be Star Wars: The Next Generation. This is more evident with the buried Empire battleship and the melted Darth Vader helmet. We're going to be getting a lot of nostalgia moments in this film and possibly the other Star Wars films. That can be a big problem. Of you have to rely on nostalgia, it is usually a sign that the film doesn't have much to stand on on its own. Hopefully the whole thing isn't like that. It could be cool to see. Also, we didn't see any lens flairs so farso that's awesome.

Fantastic Four

Next up we have the Fantastic Four trailer. I must admit, I am actually impressed with what I'm seeing with this movie. All the news coming out about this movie, aside from having a black Human Torch, was absolute cringe worthy. It almost seemed that this movie would be as horrible as the Fantastic Four movies before it, I'm looking at you rise of the Silver Surfer. Anyway, this is the first time that you really get to see what The Thing looks like and I have to say that he looks pretty cool. Again, what impresses me is how everything is looking. The director, Josh Trank, has said that the film will not be using the source material from the comics. This concerned me and a lot of fans of the comic books. So far everything is looking like it's going to be fine as there are some liberties on the origins of the Fantastic Four so it's nice to see that we don't have to worry about it, or do we???

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Lastly we have the teaser trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It looks like we're going to see the dark gritty Superman idea work, maybe. There's not much to take from it, being a teaser but it seems that taking place after the events after Man of Steel Superman has become public enemy number 1. People are at odds at what Superman is and what his agenda is. Apparently, Batman is here to find out, by taking versus part of the movie's title literally. Some of the parts in the teaser, especially the Batman parts look a bit Nolan-esque. That figures since what Nolan did to Batman had changed the game on what Superhero Films can look like. It revolutionized Superhero movies. Not much of the plot has been revealed and that's bit of a bummer, but the teaser sets the tone that this film is going to be epic.


What are your thoughts on the trailers?