Video Game Tuesday: Thoughts on 2020 E3’s Cancellation

Hey all I’m back with an answer to a question I was asked a couple times. It’s my Thoughts on 2020 E3’s Cancellation!

It was cancelled?!?: In case you’ve been living under a rock and/or stuck without an Internet connection for the past month and a half you should know that this years E3 was cancelled due to the Coronavirus, COVID-19.

So thoughts?: I’m not surprised at all, hell I had a personal trip to visit family in California planned for about a week and a half ago that got cancelled because all three West Coast states have had Stay in Place Orders statewide since March 23rd. So many people are taking this very seriously and are trying to slow the spread of the virus. E3 being cancelled is not at all surprising, I mean even the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been postponed till next year, although they’ll still be called the 2020 Olympics. So again I’m not surprised, I won’t be surprised if most of the United States is under a Stay in Place order by the time this column is posted.

What about all those announcements?: I’m almost positive we’ll be seeing a lot of Nintendo Direct style broadcasts from various publishers and developers this year. It’s still got the ability to hype up the holiday season lineup while being able to prevent the virus from spreading by hosting a huge event for a few thousand people to be near one another with very little distance.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

Video Game Tuesday: E3 2019 Predictions

Hey all I’m back with my guesses for this year’s upcoming Electronics Entertainment Expo! It’s my E3 2019 Predictions!

No Next Gen Consoles: I fully don’t expect to hear anything about the next generation of consoles at this year’s E3, especially given that Sony is not even attending at all. We may hear about these later this year at stuff like Tokyo Game Show, or other events, but not at E3.

Slimmer Versions of Current Gen Consoles: This is a fairly safe bet, but it’s not a 100% certainty, though with the rumors of a portable mode only Switch abounding recently I won’t be too surprised to hear about at least that.

Price Cuts to Current Gen Consoles: This is also a fairly safe bet, though with Sony forgoing attendance who knows what will be announced in regards to the Sony side of the console market.

EA SPORTS: I mean come on, given the crap we get yearly from EA I’m going to be more surprised to hear they closed down the EA Sports studios rather than them announcing this years crop of crappy sports games.

Bethesda, BioWare and Ubisoft Kowtowing for forgiveness: I hope to see them fess up to their complete failures over the last year from the poorly done Assassin’s Creed Oddysey DLC, Fallout 76 being completely terrible and the Collector’s Edition Bags being utter garbage and finally BioWare’s utter screw up of Anthem, which is even more of a disappointment than Destiny ever has been.

More Smash Bros DLC Announced: This is a really safe bet, especially since we don’t have a clue on who is coming next to Smash Bros. Personally I’m rooting for Velvet Crowe from the Tales of series, Jenna from Golden Sun (because Smash Bros, and life in general, could always use more kick ass girls) and finally someone from the Fate series, preferably not a Saber class Servant but if it does happen it’d probably be Artoria, just to add to the utter craziness. Will they happen? Who knows, but those would be my preferred entries into the game!

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday!

Video Game Tuesday: E3 2018 Reactions

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with my thoughts on this year’s Christmas in June for gamers. It’s my E3 2018 Reactions!

EA: Well I was expecting pretty much everything that was shown, except for hearing about Jedi: Fallen Order, a game that truly slipped my mind in my predictions post. We knew that it was in development previously, but I had forgotten about it. It’s being developed by Respawn Entertainment, of Titanfall fame, and will release in Late 2019.

Microsoft: We had quite a few surprises, including the news that 4 independent studios have been bought by Microsoft, including Ninja Theory of Heavenly Sword fame, and DmC reboot infamy. My favorite thing was learning about Tales of Vesperia coming to the current set of consoles remastered and featuring everything from the JP only PlayStation 3 version. Considering that it’s one of my top 5 Tales of games, I’m really stoked for this.

Bethesda: We knew about Fallout 76 prior to E3, and rumors were confirmed that it was going to be an Online Multiplayer game. How that works out I’m not too sure, given the turn based nature of previous Fallout games that I’ve played (I haven’t touched 4). Not shocking anyone we learned that Elder Scrolls VI is in development, probably for the next generation of consoles. Maybe they’ll fix the nature of console mods so they don’t screw over mod creators by the time it releases and PlayStation owners won’t be screwed more than the Xbox players already are because they insulted mod makers. I have little hope of that, given the unruly nature of mods.

Square Enix: A really disappointing show, while in the Microsoft conference we learned about Kingdom Hearts III’s release date, we didn’t get much more info from the Square Enix press event. That being said it’ll feature both Frozen and Pirates of the Carribean, so that will be interesting to say the least. No other news of note really came from their event except that Monster Hunter World and Final Fantasy XIV would be getting a collaboration event.

Ubisoft: In probably the most shocking news. and yet not at the same time, from this year’s E3 is the fact that Ubisoft is releasing Just Dance for the Wii. Yes you read that right, for the Wii, not the WiiU or the Switch, the Wii. In less shocking news we saw a bunch of the next Assassin’s Creed game which takes us to Greece as a child of Leonidas of Sparta. Frankly I’m not too excited for that, Unity really ruined the series for me, and despite only hearing good things about Origins, I’ve no desire to get back into that series quite yet. In more disappointing news, Beyond Good & Evil 2 still hasn’t really started development, I mean come on really Ubisoft? Just make the freaking game already.

Sony: In one of the oddest Press Conferences ever, with showgoers being shuffled to multiple locations instead of it being just in a single spot, Sony showed off a bunch of new things including the Spiderman game that I’m personally hoping is amazing. Whether it is once remains to be seen on Launch this September. We also got some more looks at Destiny’s latest “Expansion” Forsaken, which Bungie says will fix all our big issues. I have my doubts, but that’s a post for another day.

Nintendo: In what might just be the biggest news of E3, Nintendo formally announced Super Smash Bros Ultimate, which will feature EVERY character, from EVERY entry in the entire series. Newcomers confirmed thus far are Splatoon’s Squid Kids, and Ridley from Metroid. I was hoping to hear about someone like Isaac from Golden Sun, but Ridley will do for now.

There are lots more stuff that I haven’t covered, but this post is large enough already. I may, or may not, make a Part 2 of this in the near future.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

 

Video Game Tuesday: E3 2018 Predictions

Hey all I’m back with a look at some of the possibilities from this year’s game development version of Christmas! It’s my E3 2018 Predictions!

NO Next-Gen Console Announcements: I’m not expecting to hear about the next generation of consoles this year. If they announce anything other than slim versions of the XBOX and PS4 Pro I’ll be honestly shocked. Regarding the Switch, I’m expecting to hear nothing new, except maybe a more streamlined version equivalent to a slim version if anything at all.  Next Gen consoles are the announcements I’m expecting to hear about next year at E3, but not this year.

Pride Reductions: I’m expecting to hear that the PS4 Pro and XBOX will get some price cuts, and probably the switch as well.

EA to announce more annual sports games: This is less of a prediction than a certainty to me at least, but I’m fully expecting to hear about the next Madden game and other sports game equivalents. Color me unimpressed and uninterested once more.

Super Smash Front and Center for Nintendo: If they don’t really beat the marketing drums to death on this one I’ll be just as surprised as if Sony and Microsoft announce the next gen consoles. Nintendo has no reason not to keep up the momentum that last year’s launch of the Switch and Breath of the Wild brought to the company. Smash Bros is a surefire way to do that.

Pokemon Switch: I’m also expecting to hear about a mainline Pokemon game for the Switch. The system is just begging for a brand new Pokemon game given it’s dual nature as a portable and a console.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday and my predictions for E3 thus far. I may do a what’s been leaked so far post closer to E3 happening, but we’ll see. Do you expect to see anything that I didn’t mention happen at this year’s E3? Leave a comment below!

Video Game Tuesday: E3 2017 Reactions

 

Hey all I’m back with my thoughts on this years Electronic Entertainment Expo! It’s my E3 2017 Reactions!

Nintendo: Holy crap they announced a new Metroid Prime and a remake of Metroid II! Not only that, but they announced a couple of DLCs for Zelda: Breath of the Wild and gave us a release date for Super Mario Odyssey. Honestly I’m just happy at the fact that new Metroid games are coming out, but everyone should take this with a grain of salt. The last Metroid game to be released was Other M and we all know how terrible of a game that was.

Sony: Nothing really major, but they are definitely doubling down on the PlayStation VR. They also told us that God of War’s next game is set to release in Early 2018. Not only that, but they showed off what might become the best Spider-Man game ever released. I’m actually excited to play that, and we’ve had official confirmation that we won’t be chasing balloons!

Microsoft: They formally announced Project Scorpio’s details, and gave it’s final name, Xbox One X. Frankly they should have just kept Xbox Scorpio, it’s not as ridiculous a name. You’d think they’d have learnt from Nintendo’s mistake with the WiiU.  Crackdown 3 is finally getting released though, so there’s that to look forward to.

Ubisoft: Showed off the now officially confirmed Assassin’s Creed: Origins that takes place in Egypt. I got burned badly by Unity so I’ll probably skip Origins unless I get a review copy. They also showed more of Far Cry 5, and announced Skulls and Bones, which takes AC4: Black Flag’s ship combat system and makes it a standalone game. As I actually enjoyed the ship battles in Black Flag, I might be interested in playing, but I also enjoyed going over and taking down the enemy crew after ramming them.

EA: More sports games of course, Star Wars Battlefront II (DICE) and a new IP from the people behind Mass Effect, Anthem that is pretty much Destiny. If you’ve read my past columns on Destiny you might be able to guess at how thrilled I am by the prospect of another “Destiny”. /run EndSarcasm.exe

Bethesda: Skyrim for the Switch, boring. Wolfenstein II is a real game and is releasing on October 27th though, so maybe Bethesda didn’t just go for obvious cash grabs for the year.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.