Is The NX Nintendo's Last Chance For A Good Console?

     The NX is probably the biggest secret Nintendo is keeping right now. Since the past two years of what we've heard it being announced we know absolutely nothing about it. Also every bit of information from it has been rumors so far. Nothing legit or official. They have chosen not to reveal anything about it in the past E3 and more recently this Nintendo Direct happening today. You can kinda makes sense of Nintendo being reclusive. They're trying to do something extraordinary. And they kinda need it.
     What isn't a secret is the underperformance of the Wii U and the 3DS. Not that many people bought the Wii U. It is low even compared to the its console rivals the Xbox One and PS4. They did many attempts to try to boost up sales and it did somewhat work, but the company has still faced revenue lost for a few years. With this failure of the Wii U, and once upon a time the Gamecube, Nintendo is starting to repeat the previous failures of their former rivals Sega. In a recent interview with Alistdaily, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has said that one of the problems with the Wii U's failure was not successfully demonstrating the Wii U's software capabilities with consumers.
     If they don't think of it as their last console, then they ought to. Nintendo cannot afford another failure console. Fortunately they are aware of the issue they are facing. In the same interview Fils-Aime further stated:

"One of the things that we have to do better when we launch the NX—we have to do a better job communicating the positioning for the product. We have to do a better job helping people to understand its uniqueness and what that means for the game playing experience. And we have to do a better job from a software planning standpoint to have that continuous beat of great new games that are motivating more and more people to pick up the hardware and more and more people to pick up the software."

     It is apparent that a lot is riding on the NX's success so it is understanding that they are taking their time to officially announce things. They're making sure everything is perfect and the NX raises standards and expectations. Whether things come out perfect or people are willing to buy the NX will be determined when we Nintendo finally announce what the console can do.

Is Pokemon Go Over?

 

    Pokemon Go is the breakout game of the summer. Pokemon Go is an app developed by The Pokemon Company and Niantic where it uses your phone's GPS and allows you find and catch pokemon, find pokestop locations for items like pokeballs and lures to attract pokemon, and fight at gym locations. If you are unfamiliar with the franchise, I would like to know how was living on the moon. When the game was available for iOS and android in July, it was 90s Pokemania all over again. It has done extremely well. It caused Nintendo's stock to rise like a Ho-Oh form the flames. It had more users on it than Tinder and Twitter. Everything seems just perfect, except it's not.
     Over the past few days Pokemon go has been in a bit of controversy. The recent update was an attempt to fix some issues with the app like the 3-step glitch. The latest update removed it all together as well as the batter-saving option. Reasons for the removal were quoted

"We have removed the ‘3-step’ display in order to improve upon the underlying design," the company wrote. "The original feature, although enjoyed by many, was also confusing and did not meet our underlying product goals. We will keep you posted as we strive to improve this feature."

     This was enough to make some fans of the game outraged. The game is still facing problems with lag and crashing. It seems like everytime Niantic, the company responsible for Pokemon Go takes one step to fix an issue, they get knocked two steps back. The features are slated to be coming back. But is the damage already done? Is this and continuing problems with the app enough to give this game a short lifespan?
     First of all there seem to be a lot of issues with Niantic. We were basically handed a broken game when it had server issues in the beginning and even now. They weren't prepared. They are however acknowledging the problem and Niantic's CEO John Hanke says they are working tirelessly to making improvements. All problems can be fixed, with the right people fixing the problem.  So is the app officially dead? Not really. Luckily for them people are still using Pokemon Go. It is obvious that  there is some serious work done. Hopefully the problem is fixed soon, and especially before Gen 2 pokemon get here.

Ghostbusters: Did It Suck?

The original Ghostbusters is one of the classic comedy movies of all time. It harbored famous comedians Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd. It has won fans alike who still to this day quote lines from the movie. When the movie came out it was a hit. We've gotten a sequel, a cartoon, and let's not forget the Ecto Hi-C. There have been trouble getting a third Ghostbuster movie started ranging from script troubles to cast fighting. We wouldn't have anything Ghostbusters for years until now. Is the franchise back from the dead or is it time to put it to rest?
      Ghostbusters, just like the original movie its rebooting, is a comedy. It was a bit different than the original as it kinda went for less of the dry humor and went for a bit more slapstick and the stuff you'd usually find in Paul Feig, the director, movies. It is full of jokes. The beginning did start off slow with some witty writing, but as the movie progresses, things build and things do get outrageously funny. Despite it having some funny moments, I felt the jokes were kinda tame compared to Feig's previous movies. There were a lot of funnier moments and the movie could've gone out with certain moments. Feig brought the funny, but it wasn't necessarily his A game.
     The story was pretty much your standard Ghostbusters story. It's up to the Ghostbusters to save New York, and maybe the world but mainly New York, from a spiritual catastrophe. the only difference this time is that the antagonist is not some powerful ghost, but a human. Neil Casey plays the villain and like the Ghostbusters he is doing some ghost hunting as well for some really bad reasons.
    Watching Ghostbuster was almost like remix of the original in that it seems like a completely original movie and it had some moments that were inspired by the original movie. The first encounter in the mansion was the library scene. The rock concert was the hotel scene where they caught Slimer. And the subway scene was from Ghostbusters 2 even with one of the ghost brothers that was electrocuted. Also their are a ton of cameos. The movie is almost one big Ghostbuster reunion as it featured almost the whole cast in different roles except for Rick Moranis and Harold Ramis you know because he's dead. You even got one from the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man.
     As for the female Ghostbusters, everyone did their job well. Melissa McCarthy was classic Melissa McCarthy is almost every role she's mainly been whether you like that or not shame on you if you don't. Kristen Wiig is in full comedy prime quirky Erin Gilbert. They were the Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd of the reboot. Kate McKinnon was great playing the pretty much out there "Egon" of the group, Jillian Holtzmann  The highlight of the movie clearly was Chris Hemsworth. He played a ditzy male receptionist well. He has amazing comedic timing. It was shocking to see him able to have a comedic side and him doing it so well. Also cred to due to Lesie Jones. She was amazing and despite some claims that her character was too "stereotypical" (and like they even care?) it wasn't nor did she come across that way. She was a sassy and witty New Yorker who wasn't just sitting back on the side lines to say something witty compared to the other girls' characters. And to boot Jones' was funny as hell delivering her lines.
     Overall the movie was fantastic. Is it better than the original? No. Definitely not. But it's not trying to be. It was made to show love for the original Ghostbuster movies and bring it to a new generation, with a modern twist. It's a great popcorn movie. It was fun. The audience I was with had a good time dancing when the original Ghostbusters theme played as well as during the ending credits. The people who are spending all their time hating this movie and crying over their "tarnished childhoods" are seriously missing out. I'd give it 4 out of five stars.

Will Pokemon GO Be The Next Miitomo?

     Ladies and gentlemen Pokemon GO is finally out. It was released over a few days ago and everyone seems to be downloading it like crazy. Pokemon GO is a new app game brought to you by Pokemon Company and Niantic. It links to your phone's GPS posts spots where you can catch AR images of pokemon outside. It is as real as real life pokemon we're going to get, sadly. Pokemon GO is just the recent release in Nintendo's plan to make games for mobile phones with more titles coming out this year and next. Whether or not Pokemon GO ends up being successful, you could draw comparison to it and the previous app game Nintendo released, Miitomo.
     For those who haven't heard of Miitomo, it marked the Nintendo's debut in the mobile gaming market. In it you designed a Mii and communicated and make friends with other people's Miis, whether by the app itself, Twitter, and/or Facebook. Think of it as Miispace. You also could collect and buy clothes for you Mii and that was just about it. Since the end of April, over 10 million people downloaded Miitomo. in the long run the Miitomo  excitement over it was short and it got boring rather quick. The question is will Pokemon have more longevity than Miitomo did?
     For one thing that sets GO apart from Miitomo is that there are a ton of things to do other than catch Pokemon in parks and on the street. Unlike Miitomo Pokemon GO does have a lot of things to do. Of course you can catch pokemon and fight other people. You can also join teams and pretty much mark your territories by claiming gyms and being gym leaders. The game also does have a huge thing with exploration that Nintendo is really about recently. It encourages you to go out and visit certain spots in your neighborhood and even landmarks to catch them all. It does seem the the Pokemon Company does have plans to keep players interested in playing. So far we have only generation one pokemon available, but they can release other generations of pokemon in the near future. They can even have legendary pokemon sightings at certain landmarks a la pokemon giveaways for the handheld games. There is a lot they can do. Whether or not this will be too much we can't tell.

What are your thoughts?

E3 2016: What Didn't Suck

Anothe E3 came and went. This year's E3 has been basically about one thing basically: games, games, games. Noone really left me surprised as each press conference and Nintendo Treehouse was all about giving gamers a ton of games and content to keep you entertained for the next year. What didn't suck? Let's see.

Crash is Back

Nostalgist of 90s video games rejoice! After all of the internet wishing and maybe thousands of mail Sony has gotten from you, they have finally caved in and Crash is finally back! Not in a brand new game, but instead his first three games are going to be remastered for the PS4. I remember playing these games on my PlayStation so I'm just as excited to play these remastered games as well. It's going to be interesting to see how everything will look. Hopefully this would lead to a revival of new Crash Bandicoot games in the future and the remakes would be Sony testing the waters to see if how he will do in this new generation. Until the remasters come out, you can get your Crash fix

Sea of Thieves

Rare is back with this game which was announced last E3. This time around we got to see actual gameplay. You get to see characters interact in town, swim in the sea, and of course drive and fight in pirate ships. It's nice to see a glimpse of what the game is about and what you can do. Hopefully no bears ruin this game, birds too.

Final Fantasy XV

We've seen the battle system before. It is moreso like the the battle system of previous games but a bit more fluid as you a switch between combat and weapons. This time around the is based on how you make combos switching from different attacks. This time around we actually got to see a boss battle against Titan. To see it the party battle something as huge as the Titan boss is something impressive.  Bottom line it does look cleaner and gorgeous just like everything else in the game. That and over 100 hours of gameplay I'm completely stoked to play this when it comes out.

Resident Evil 7

Much to everyone's surprise we're getting another Resident Evil game. It looks very different from the other games, especially the recent ones, as it's not so much action-horror. It seems to be going back to its roots, which is a good thing. A really good thing. The game is covered in so much mystery with Capcom just giving you a demo of you wondering around in a spooky old house. Regardless with what we've been giving and not knowing how this will fit into the main series, it does look cool. It is giving the series a new breath of life, after choking on Resident Evil 6.

God of War 4

As you can guess this E3 was full of surprise announcements. One of these was a new God of War. So this time around Kratos is a new daddy. The gameplay was pretty much new. Everything has been reworked including the Spartan Rage-timed ability. You gain knowledge points on weapons as well as craft resources. This game seems to be as Kratos said in the demo a new beginning as not only is the battle mechanics are new, you are in a new environment. This time around you'll be battling Norse gods and monsters, you know because you killed all the Greek ones. This overall looks great. Can't wait to see more.

The New Spider-Man Game

The teaser trailer looks crazy. The game is a joint project with Marvel, Sony, and Insomiac games. All we got was a teaser, but it showed a lot. The game does have a lot of potential that we're excited to see how it turns out.

The Last Guardian

We got to see another trailer of The Last Guardian. We got to see a bit more this time around. The art looks more colorful. Aside from looking at gorgeous scenery your character will be encountering other birddogs, which may try to eat you. Overall it looks beautiful.

Pokemon Sun & Moon

Nintendo decided to show us some gameplay of the upcoming Pokemon Sun and Moon. They tweaked the battle gameplay a bit. If you battled a previous trainer or another pokemon in the wild, you have an indicator of what moves work were really effective against that pokemon. We also got a peak of how the pokedex will work and it seems to be more organizing even indicating the evolutionary family of the pokemon you caught. We were also treated to our "Pidgey", "Rattata", and "Caterpie", of the Alola region: Pikepek, Yungoose and Grubbin.

Death Stranding

We got a stunning trailer without any gameplay. Even though the trailer didn't show any gameplay you can get some ideas of what the game is about. It looks to be another game where you scavenge for thing like Far Cry Primal which isn't a bad thing. It does seem nice to see that a collaboration between Kojima and Norman Reedus work after all after the cancellation of Silent Hills and PT. It looks great and we can't wait to see actual gameplay footage. Afterall we know it will be amazing since Kojima is involved. We get treated to a naked Norman Reedus so that's also a big plus.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

We finally got to see the new Zelda and it holy crap does it look good. This time around the new Zelda seems to be more technology based as Link will be going around all over Hyrule with his Shiekpad Pro accessing towers and dungeons, called trials. As true to Aonuma's word everything you see you can have access to and climb. They also tweaked clothing around this time gaining some RPG-ish rules to it. Some clothes help you in some environments. Also Link will have to forage and hunt this time around so he can have maximum health. You do get items as well as finding and crafting items to help you on your quest. There is a stamina meter that when low or out it limits Link. Breath of the Wild is giving a new spin on the franchise with it being vastly different than the other Zelda, also with Link jumping for the first time. The demo Nintendo provided as grand as it was was barely one percent of the game. Can't wait to see more.

Was there aanything I miss? Leave your comments.

Who You Gonna Call When You Hate the New Ghostbusters?

     The Ghostbusters reboot just around the corner. We haven't had anything Ghostbusters related in a while with the last movie, a sequel, made in 1989, a couple of failed projects to get a third movie made, and a video game made almost 6 years ago in 2009. With the smell of nostalgia in the air, you can can feel the excitement or better yet the hate.
      The new Ghostbusters has been the subject of internet hate. Fanboys have taken to repeatedly  down vote trailers and have even gone as far as to harass director Paul Feig and cast members. It's has gone pretty much downhill ever since it was announced that who was directing it and that the reboot would feature a mostly female cast. The most recent of the negativity has come from YouTuber cinemasscre. Cinemasscre, real name James Rolfe, has pretty much made a 6 and a half "non review" discussing about how much he is not going to see and review the Ghostbusters movie. I could talk about how absurd, childish and the lack of professionalism that a supposed amateur movie reviewer on YouTube would go to make a 6 minute rant about how much they're not going to see a movie, but that's another day and another topic. This inspired me to finally talk about the movie and address the hate that the movie has brewed.
     Some opponents of the movie claim that the movie is just another cash grab for the studios to make money off a popular franchise. Hollywood has been the culprit of doing this for the past years and this could spark a debate on truly if Hollywood should should stop the trend of making remakes or reboots just to make quick cash instead of coming up with new innovative ideas and concepts and that is a actual problem. Whether that is the case for this particular movie or not is up to debate. One thing is for sure is that issue will not be resolved with giving the director and cast death threats and harassment.
      Bottom line it's just a movie. It's no need to get this worked up over a movie. No movie is worth this much hate. No movie is worth sending the cast and director harassment and death threats. For the people citing nostalgia and claiming that the movie will ruin the franchise, if one reboot is capable of doing that, then your childhood nostalgia and the franchise itself had nothing to stand on. If this is truly bad then I think the franchise is be just fine, it survived Ghostbusters 2. You can still watch the original Ghostbusters movie and enjoy that. You can even watch Ghostbusters 2 which wasn't as charming and funny as the first one. The new reboot doesn't take anything away from those movies. The new Ghostbusters reboot might be fine after all, then again you wouldn't know that if you're too busy downvoting trailers and making "non review" videos.

P.S. Harold Ramis probably wouldn't be upset over the new reboot. We tried contacting his ghost but reportedly its held in storage in a firehouse in downtown Los Angeles.

What are your thoughts on the negative wave of hate on the new Ghostbusters reboot. Is it justified?

Captain America: Civil War vs Batman vs Superman: Who Did It Better?

 
     Captain America: Civil War is out and you know what that means. No, not comic book nerds flexing their comic book knowledge and pages of feuds of Team Captain America or Team Iron Man all over forums and Twitter. Review time! Instead of doing a typical review like I always do I'll do a compare and contrast putting Civil War up against another superhero movie that was similar to it: Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. Civil War was suppose to be Marvel's answer to Batman vs Superman with the plot being almost identical: Superheroes fighting each other and the world being pissed at them. With both movies having the same story and theme, which one did it better?

     Both movies touched on a similar subject: Should the government keep superheroes in check? In both cases you had issues where superheroes while trying to save the day cause accidents where casualties are taken.

    Civil War only touched on the subject a couple of times. It was talked about a couple of times, but completely took a back seat to fill the movie with more action and Bucky's story.  The whole let's keep the Avengers in check felt more like a ploy or excuse to have everyone fight for the last leg of the movie. It wasn't very coherent as it went to can we trust the Avengers to handle thing properly to a basic story of revenge.
    BvS did a much better job dealing with this issue. It was more of the plot behind the movie. It was better handled as it was a common issue throughout the whole movie. The issue affected almost every character. You got a idea of how it affected Superman, Batman, and the people proposing the idea of if we can trust Superman and should we regulate him.
     Piggybacking off of the topic of story, Civil War's pretty fluid. Aside, again, from the issue of regulating superheroes and just trying to make that issue a catalyst for a revenge story, nothing felt out of place or weird. For the most part the plot was woven well compared to BvS where its director, Zack Snyder, was for the most part tried to fit concepts in that weren't executed as well. Especially using the movie as the introduction to a vast DC universe, where Civil War and Marvel did exactly right (no shock).      
     The introductions of new characters, Spider-Man and Black Panther and old ones like Ant-Man were done well, especially how the introduced Spider-Man without the long origin story, at least not yet. BvS didn't do that well as they just did a "five minute oh, here are the guys we're putting in the next Justice League movie at around the end of the movie, fun times lol?"
     So who did it better? Civil War was a cookie cutter superhero movie and there is nothing wrong with that as a lot of them are good and they know what the fans want. A lot of action, testosterone, and a little bit of comedy in the mix. I do respect BvS more as it was trying to be a bit different.  It didn't work out like Snyder hoped it did, but I can see what he tried to do. It probably was trying to be the Manturian Candidate of superhero films. I did like the fact that BvS had a theme of can we really trust these superheroes and it kept if throughout most of them movie, which Civil War didn't really do that much of and it got messy a bit.


What are your thoughts?