• Nintendo decided to go their own way this year. Rather than subject themselves to the circus that is the E3 press conference, they've released a new Nintendo Direct video. But that's not going to stop us from rating their announcements.

• The Legend Of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds - Not even a part of the show, but worthy of mention anyway. How can you not love a classic Zelda game? Oh, and I already own a 3DS? Sounds good to me!

• Bayonetta 2 - It's old news, but you have to give Nintendo credit for getting behind Bayonetta. I only played the first game a little bit, but it has a style you just don't normally get on their platforms.

• Super Mario 3D World - I'm stretching at this point, but a new 3D Mario game is a good thing, right? And playable Princess Peach? Anyone with me?

• Xenoblade Chronicles sequel - Oh, here's a good one. If Santa were to gift me a WiiU, this is exacly the kind of game I would seek out.

• Um.... Etrian Odyssey: Millennium Girl? - Again, not part of Nintendo Direct, but still good news. I'm really enjoying Etrian Odyssey IV, but I need to buckle down if I'm going to finish before this comes out.

• I'm giving Nintendo four points for their announcements. That looks like more than Microsoft's three, but it really breaks down to two for the Wii U and two for the 3DS. I'm glad Nintendo is getting some third party support, but their systems still look anemic.

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

• I’m running late because of Giant Bomb’s equipment theft, but here are the five announcements that caught my attention at Sony’s press conference Monday.

• The Order: 1886 - It isn't much, but the trailer caught my attention. I hope there is more to see on the show floor.

• The Dark Sorcerer - I've never played a Quantic Dream game, but I do know they make some pretty cool tech demos. I know this will come to nothing, and David Cage will poop out some overwrought story next time. But from time to time we can enjoy something strange like this.

• Transistor and the Indie Community - If you asked me when I knew I would be buying a PS4, it would be when Greg Kasavin walked on stage and announced that Transistor would lead on Sony’s console. Seeing the other indie games announced just cemented my resolve. Even if Sony had gone in lock step with Microsoft’s high price and draconian limitations, this was enough to win me over. Thankfully, mercifully, there was more.

• Own Your Own Games - Having Jack Tretton take such deliberate shots at Microsoft was a thing to behold. He took their platform apart point by point. When it was done, there was no doubt the PS4 was the Gamer’s console. I was skeptical, but I have been won over.

• $400! - Then to cap it all off, the price. Four hundred dollars is still a lot of money, but it’s just expensive. Not the Xbox One’s crazy expensive. When I heard this, I turned to my wife and said, “I guess we’re getting a PlayStation 4.”

• There is no other way to say it: Sony has won this console generation before it even started. I have to give them five points for their audacity. We will see how Nintendo stacks up next. What do you think? Have you made up your mind about next gen consoles?

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

• Just because you don't have a console to sell doesn't mean that you can't have a press conference. Here are the top five moments from the rest of the pack.

• Battlefield 4's 64 Player On-Stage Demo - I don't care how staged that was, I am one hundred percent behind that massive kind of spectacle. Whether or not the game is worth it, I have no idea.

• Peter Moore Calls Out Kotaku - Just hilarious.

• Watch_Dogs - It wasn't even a big focus of the press conference, and it's still the most exciting thing that Ubisoft showed. It's so good that I let them have their underscore. And it's now an unusually timely game as well. This is probably the AAA game I'm looking forward to most this generation.

• Mirror's Edge - Never played the first game. I guess was scared off because of all of the flak it took. But just look at that trailer! I'd like to see what a new iteration plays like.

• Finally, a release date for The Stick Of Truth - Holiday 2013. My wish list is getting longer.

• Evidently, I'm a jaded old man now that I'm forty. Maybe Sony will be a little more interesting? Maybe a surprise on the show floor? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

• The press conference is over, and it turns out that Microsoft wasn't lying about the number of games they would show. Here are the top five announcements that caught my attention.

• World Of Tanks - I'm sure WoT is a fine game. I haven't played it before, but I see the appeal. What catches my attention is what this reveals means for free-to-play on the console. It sounds like Microsoft really is getting behind that pay model and Wargaming is the right company to lead the charge.

• Project Spark - Out of every game announced, this one is the most intriguing. Not that I expect them to actually deliver. I mean, it has "Project" in the title, so there is no way this thing is ready to go. But I do love big pie-in-the-sky announcements like this. And if they do deliver? Oh man, it could be sweet. The fact that it's also coming to PC means that it's not an XB1 seller, though.

• Twitch Integration - We've been expecting this, but it's good to hear that Microsoft made it official. Console streaming is the next big frontier. I'm excited to try it no matter which system ends up in my living room.

• Below - Oh hell yeah. The one gamey game that caught my attention through the whole thing. Can't wait to see what the Capy team has up its collective sleeve.

• The Price - Five hundred effing dollars. I've been saving up money for half a year so that I wouldn't have to go to my wife, hat in hand, and beg her for permission to buy a console. All because I knew the price was going to be crazy and I was right. If Sony beats this price at all, I might buy my first Sony console at launch.

• All in all, I give Microsoft three points for their press conference. Let's see how Sony stacks up. So, what did you think? What has you excited or skeptical?

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

• Sometimes there is just too much news to talk about. Sometimes I don't have a full blog post worth of thoughts about the news. Today is one of those days. So here are the most interesting news items I've read today.

• Zynga reportedly closes Draw Something developer OMGPOP - I didn't catch this when the big layoffs hit yesterday. They actually closed OMGPOP? I really don't want to gloat because a lot (a lot!!!) of people lost their jobs. But there is an astounding about of schadenfreude to be had.

• Wargaming axes pay-to-win model in favor of free-to-win - This may be the coolest story of the day. It sounds like Wargaming is finally coming to the same conclusion that we bloggers arrived at months (years?) ago: pay-to-win is a poisonous funding model.

• Double Fine's Massive Chalice hits Kickstarter target - I haven't back Massive Chalice yet, but it's only a matter of time. Brad Muir is such a character that letting him develop a game (a tactical turn-based strategy game at that!) out in the open sounds like a great time. Based on my experience with the Double Fine Adventure and Amnesia Fortnight, watching their development will be well worth the price of admission.

• Harmonix makes players musical magicians in Fantasia: Music Evolved - I don't own a Kinect. I'm not sure I'm ever going to buy a Kinect. But if I do, it will be because of developers like Harmonix. I can see how some might be cynical about the trailer, but I'm looking forward to E3

• Lots of news today. What has you excited?

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

• Honestly, I'm surprised that I held out this long. Between Giant Bomb and Idle Thumbs, I've been bombarded with Dota 2 almost constantly. I thought watching Brad Shoemaker's Daily Dota would be enough. Then, the Thumbs crew launched a new Dota Today podcast. It was too much. I had finally gone over the edge.

• Last night, I tweeted this: @bradshoemaker Damn you!

• To be honest, this isn't the first time I tried Dota 2. Back during the test, I downloaded the client, loaded up a bot match (to be fair to any other players), played for five minutes, turned it off, and clicked "Delete Local Content." Honestly, my Steam account said that I had five minutes played when I reinstalled it last night. I had been so used to League of Legends and so in the dark about Dota that I just bounced off of it.

• So with a little more knowledge this time, I tried again. I played another bot match set on Easy because I didn't want to weigh down anyone else. I played as Lina, having seen Brad play her. I knew enough from the streams to pick a build and buy my starter items. I went to the top lane to try and support my bot buddy. Then I died several times before the bots finally carried us to victory. I got in a few kills and explored the map a bit, but I've got a long way to go. Here are a few questions that I have about the game:

• • How do I deny? I tried various button combinations, but I counted attack my own creeps to save my life.

• • Why the hell are there recipes? Really, from a design standpoint, what purpose do they serve?

• • I really need to figure out how to use the stash and courier. Any advice?

• • If I'm going to rebind the item hotkeys, where is the suggested place to move them?

• • Any other advice for a newbie?

• I know that I'm going to try again. I enjoyed LoL for a time, and I'm enjoying myself in Dota. I just hope that I don't descend into the madness into which so many others have fallen. Wish me luck.

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

• Okay, I actually played this nearly two months ago, so "Lately" is not the right word. Just bear with me, please, because this is still important.

• When our family came to the town to celebrate my daughter's second birthday, my brother brought along a copy of the latest Tomb Raider game. The two of us tend to stay up late and catch up on gaming since we rarely see one another. So we decided to pop in the disc and see how far I could get before I passed out.

• As would be expected, Tomb Raider looks amazing. The environments are detailed and beautiful. Climbing around, leaping and grabbing, and shooting dudes is all satisfying visually. And, of course, Lara herself looks great. The well-documented makeover really brings her to life in a way that has been lacking in prior games. (My proclivity is to mention that her breasts are much less pneumatic, but this recent article by Jenn Frank has me second guessing whether I should care so much.)

• The gameplay is surprisingly similar to the earlier games, though I'm not sure why I assumed otherwise. There is all of the exploration, puzzle solving, and combat that you would expect. You can tell the Crystal Dynamics has been at this a while as it is quite polished. They've just updated everything to match modern sensibilities. I had quite a lot of fun for those first several hours. Some of it was nostalgia, but it would not have worked if it wasn't a really good game. Except for one thing.

• I do not, and I never will, understand why this game needs Quick Time Events. It really doesn't, but they can't help but put in several "Press X to not die" sections. It is so boring. And I am so very bad at them. It's just one button, but it invariably takes me three tries to get them right. And god help me if they string multiple prompts together because I have to learn each in triplicate. So in one case, I say Lara die several times because I can't react to the prompts. I have to memorize them. Slowly. It throws the pace of the game completely off and kills whatever tension they were hoping to build. I'd rather just watch a movie than be forced to endure so many pointless failures before I can get on with the game.

• This is the reason I've been holding onto this post, even though the actual play took place in early March. This faux gameplay is a travesty. It's a design tool that needs to be put back in the drawer and locked up. I will probably play Tomb Raider again because there is so much that I do like. But it's sad that this one part can spoil so much of it.

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved. (Originally posted May 1, 2013)

• I hope those of you who are long time readers got the impression that I really like Borderlands. I mean, I did buy it for both for the PC and the Xbox 360. I even gave it a spot in my Top Five Video Games list for 2010. So when Gearbox announced that there would be a sequel, I was primed to play the new game. At least, I thought that I was.

• I suppose there was no way for it to live up to the hype. Nonetheless, I find myself disappointed that Borderlands 2 doesn't have the same pull for me that the original did. The shooting feels familiar, the quests are just the same (though they do feel really spread out), the vehicles are just as fun. I'm not sure I understand why I like the first game so much more than the second.

• Okay, there is one way that Borderlands is undeniably better than its sequel: Lilith's hearty laughter when she kills enemies or blows their heads off. It was infectiously joyous.

• But then, even though I'm not enjoying myself, I keep coming back to the game. Not because I have a hankering to hunt skags. It's the keys. Golden Keys. It's like I can't get enough of them. If I don't redeem the codes, they can go away and I'm out a key. Or several keys. I can't just ignore them. So from time to time, I start the game, enter a few codes. And while I'm there, I might as well knock out a quest or two. That's how they get you! That's why they keep giving out keys!

• So I'm still playing Borderlands 2. At least, whenever I have to redeem some keys.

© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved. (Originally posted May 21, 2013)