The reason for this post is that I keep seeing terrible Wii U sales figures, and comments that are saying the Wii U is dead. I'm not ready to make such a prediction just yet. Nintendo is going through substantial decline as far as income goes, since their current devices are not close (at all) to having the success of their previous systems. The Wii U is obviously the bigger story here, since the 3DS is doing alright now that it actually has a number of great games (been playing my 3DS a lot lately) to play on it. I still wish Nintendo would stop being so protective of their 16 bit games and release Super Metroid, and you know, the piles of great SNES games that exist. Overall, it's becoming a great system. So is the Vita btw.

But I digress, the think that is important to remember is that the Wii U has only been out for 8 months. I think it's gonna keep going downhill for a while until it has a decent library of games, then start going uphill and through the same process that the PS3 did. I think a price reduction would help a lot, especially with these upcoming consoles being too pricey for your average person to consider for at least a couple of years, but I don't think it's crucial either. Now too soon anyways. As much as did for the 3DS, I don't think Nintendo is going to show weakness like that twice in a row; they have that Japanese pride after all.

What they need is games. Which, as of right now, is very rare, and most of the ones that are good are only good in a competent sort of way. Of course the new 2D Mario game is good, they've always been good, but it also feels like something created by an algorithm at this point. There's always an interesting new thing or 2, but it's not enough for me to look at and not go "This again, huh". But, I think Nintendo has the creative talent and the manpower to come up with some really interesting stuff, which they have proved several times, and that is what I'm waiting to see.

I still have not bought the Wii U because I'm waiting for that game that will make me have to buy one. Used to be Rayman Legends, but I kinda always knew that would come to everything at some point. A new 2D Metroid game would definitely do it for me, but Retro is working on Donkey Kong so... Those guys who did Fusion could do it. Pikmin 3 is having pretty good reviews. I'm playing Ocarina of Time 3D right now, and I've never played Wind Waker, so that HD version is looking pretty slick. There's also Bayonetta 2 in the works, and that just looks incredible. Point is, I think there's a lot of stuff that is coming to the Wii U that will entice people to buy it. Whether that is enough to compete with Sony and Microsoft, we'll see. I think Nintendo is going to continue to stay in that bubble, doing their own thing, trying its best not to get seen by the big boys.

Of course I could be dead wrong, but history has proven that it isn't wise to bet against Nintendo.

PS: I didn't proofread this shit, no red lines though...

Now that we have gotten a decent overview of what the next generation of consoles are gonna look like, I thought I might as well write something about it. The Xbox One and PS4 have both been revealed, but it's still early, so it's hard to say how things will turn out.

Hopefully, the Xbox One has some more interesting stuff in store than what they showed at the announcement event; I mean jesus christ, what a boring fucking conference. To be fair, though, they did make it clear that this was supposed to be the part of the E3 presser that nobody likes, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that E3 will be filled with awesome XONE (that's pronounced zone, thanks Jeff) games. They said something like 15 exclusives within the first year, 8 of which being new IP's, which sounds awesome, but I can't help but wondering what amount of that is going to be Kinect focused/exclusive. Speaking of Kinect, I hope this new iteration of it will actually prove adequately functional, because the current Kinect sucks... A lot... So I hope they have improved substantially on the technology, because otherwise they can go fuck themselves. I'm a bit worried that because they are including it in every box, they have to cut down on the functional quality of it to reduce costs (unless the price ends up being like $599, which I seriously doubt is going to happen.) On the other hand, they probably realize that this thing has to last for like 10 years, so they can't make it too primitive unless they want to sell new and imrproved versions of it later, which sounds stupid and unrealistic.

The PS4, on the other hand, has me way more excited. Not only because Sony seemed to have a much bigger emphasis on games, but also because it looks like they have learned from their mistakes with the PS3. There's a certain amount of humbleness coming from them that I really respect, and the way they have presented the system and its focus so far has me really optimistic about it. From a simple, easy to develop for, x86 processor, to an increased focus on making it convenient and easy for independent developers to make games for it, the PS4 looks to be a system that realizes that its existence is not something to be taken for granted, but instead tries to evolve with the industry to create a console that does what consoles have always supposed to have been about; convenience, for developers as well as consumers, and hopefully Sony will follow through on that.

This is becoming a very speculative post, as Sony has been very quiet on several aspects of their console (and Microsoft has been all over the place in terms of responses). Hopefully, this E3 will give us a more complete overview of what both of these consoles are, and as a person who will inevitably get both at some point, I really hope they differentiate themselves enough from each other to where it feels justified to own both.

Launch issues have been getting more and more prevalent this generation. It used to be mostly associated with MMOs, but now that more and more Single Player compatible games have started relying on servers being up and running, it's become an issue in a lot of games where it shouldn't have to be.

Sim City's launch has been nothing short of a disaster. Several of my friends have been screaming in frustration over not being able to play, losing hours of city development to synchronization issues, and other problems that have been caused by the always online aspect of Sim City (which have been pretty funny to observe from a distance, honestly). I hear that it's been getting better lately, but while that's great, it's far from acceptable to have a product, that is being sold on store shelves, effectively broken for almost 2 weeks.

The last time I remember hearing about this sort of thing was last year, with Diablo 3. The infamous Error 37 (and others) had me screaming in frustration over not being able to play a game I had waited on for more than 10 years, and worse yet, paid good money to obtain. And while that was far from as bad as Sim City's situation -- the game usually worked fine once you actually did bypass the login screen -- it represented the same concern that people have about not being able to play a game they have paid for because some server somewhere isn't functioning as intended.

What I am most worried about with this always online mentality that has started to gain prominence in the industry, is what it could mean 2, 5, 10 years from now. There's already rumors about the next Xbox requiring a constant internet connection to function, and I can't help but wonder if people are overestimating current technology. I'm sure Sim City sold well, and that Maxis underestimated the server load, but if a relatively niche game like Sim City are having server issues even with a publisher like EA behind it, I can't imagine how fucked a console requiring the same structure could potentially be.

But I digress, there's no point talking about the potential consequences of a rumor for a console that haven't even been announced yet. The point is, I think that in situations where games require players to trust that something won't blow up somewhere else for them to be able to play the game, there needs to be a failsafe of some sort. Personally I think all those kinds of games needs to also accommodate to people without an internet connection (or a really shitty one), but I'm probably not going to get my way on that one, but for the love of god, have a plan for these situations. Expect the worst, then plan for it! Would it be all that difficult implementing an offline-mode or something? I doubt it.

I would have bought Sim City close to launch had it not been for the launch problems, which, considering the direction and some of the design choices they've made, saved me buying a game that I would not have enjoyed.

-J

...

Ever since the new site rolled out, I've been feeling more compelled to take a part in the community aspect of it; posting in forums, commenting on videos, editing wikis (I have an astounding 6 wiki points now!) etc. Then I remembered that I have this blog that I used to update semi-regularly for a little while before forgetting about it completely, mostly due to the fact that my posts were mostly, if not only, mini reviews/impression of games I had been playing recently. Considering the amount of games I play, it started to feel more like unpaid work, so I stopped.

I've decided to try this again, but only write whenever I feel I have something to say about something, and the posts will probably be shorter. I may get back to writing impressions of games, but only when I feel strongly about it.

-J

Two games that share a very long time span since their previous iterations, Max Payne 3 and Diablo 3 have been taking up most of my time lately; even though I had been forbidden to play one of them.

Being a Battle.net user for many years (I startet with WoW back in '05) I am no stranger to being hacked, and while that has been mostly beneficial (my rogue got bumped from 70-84 by a hacker) in WoW, I made the mistake of reporting it when it happened in Diablo 3. I got suspended by Blizzard for alomost 78 hours, and my Demon Hunter went from lvl 20-17 because of the restoration process. Needless to say, it annoyed me. That whole ordeal and the fact that I've been experiencing quite a bit of lag (while downloading Game of Thrones illegally) while playing SINGLE PLAYER makes D3 a whole lot more annoying than it probably should have been. Now that I've finished it, though, I gotta say I'm quite annoyed with the shortness of it, especially since the game encourages multiple playthroughs. I'm about halfway through Nightmare difficulty and I'm getting kinda bored with the repetitiveness of the game, and even though I'm earning better loot, the novelty is kinda lost on me. After so many loot-driven games I've played in the past couple of years (Borderlands, anything Bethesda does etc.), I'm finding myself less engaged and interested to the point where I end up playing for twenty minutes, get bored and turn it off.

In the time period where I was unable to play Diablo 3 I turned to Max Payne 3, another game that had been in development for a very long time; and you know, it's Rockstar, and they only make terrific games. The combat feels quite similar to Red Dead, but is a lot more action oriented being a linear shooter and all, but the gunplay is really satisfying, and the core mechanics feels really good. The story is also very Rockstar, with great characterization and narration, but the story sometimes takes over too much, which isn't all bad and it makes the whole thing feel more directed, but the constant narration of Max as well as the gross amounts of weird effects and random text on the screen is a bit much.

Overall, I think the game is fun to play and definitely worth playing through, and what I played of the multiplayer seemed fun if a bit uninteresting (I'm not much of a competitive multiplayer guy). At the end of the day, I reccommend this game. It's got very satisfying combat, the story is well told, the graphics look absolutely beautiful, and the multiplayer is not bad at all. If you're getting bored with Diablo 3, check this game out.

PS: Get it on PC when it comes out if you can, the game is terrible for achievements...

Whenever there's a new Blizzard game it's considered a pretty big deal, which is fair considering they are one of the few developers these days who has no problem with waiting 10+ years for the next game in a series to come out. While I do admire their dedication to polish, I must say it's been pretty annoying hearing about a game for so long, witnessing countless delays before its eventual release. Diablo 2 was in many ways before my time as a gamer (god, I hate that term), so the hype did not really reach me until a few weeks ago when I decided to pre-order it.

A few friends persuaded me to join them at the midnight launch event at Gamestop, which I'm really glad I attended. When we first arrived I almost turned back because of the insanely long line, but I had come this far, right, so fuck it. When they opened the doors, the first thing they did was going through the line asking for the people who had switched their pre-orders from another location to be able to attend, and fortunately we had. They then let us skip through the entire line for reasons I do not fully understand. On top of that, I had only bought the normal edition of the game, but when they gave me a collector's edition with no additional charge I had to really contrain myself from grinning like a suspicious jackass. I left the store and halfway ran to my car hoping that they wouldn't notice the error that had occured, and they never did (or I was already long gone).

But I digress, it's not really relevant to the game itself, but I thought it was an interesting series of lucky events that I wanted to share. I just got out of a 6 hour long session with two other friends and have some thoughts on the game. First of all, it's fucking great. In an industry where most devs either can't afford to spend adequate amounts of time polishing their games, or are being pushed by publishers to get the game out the door as soon as they can get away with, it's nice to see a game that feels like it has reached its full potential. Sure, there's no PvP out the gate, but that in no way diminishes what is already there, and Blizzard has stated that they will include it once they've figured out a system that lived up to their standards. This post isn't supposed to be the mini review that some of my other posts have been, as I'm not nearly far enough into it to give it a fair shake, but in a few weeks time or so, I'll definitely write something about it.

Fighting games have never really been my thing. Sure, I enjoyed Tekken Tag Tournament as a kid and have had some jolly good times with Smash Bros., but the steep learning curve and inherent repetition generally fills me with an uninterested "Meh..." when asked if I'm gonna buy the latest in the genre. When MK (9 I guess) came out last year -- the addition of a full fledged story and other interesting modes, such as the Challenge Tower and the Krypt -- it was only Portal 2 and my limited budget that prevented me from picking it up. Then, when I heard that it was coming to Vita with all the DLC included it would have been stupid to not wait.

After dicking around with the different training modes, trying to get a grip on some of the characters and the general feel of the game, I dove into the game's story. The transition from cutscene to gameplay is silky smooth, which helps in giving the game a sense of flow lacking in most fighting games (and most games in general). The only downside with the Vita version is that it is very apparent when it goes from pre-rendered to in-engine graphics, and some of the textures look really flat. This is only really a problem when seeing characters up close, and almost unnoticable once the fight has begun. The entire premise of the story seems far-fetched as fuck, but it has a certain charm that prevents it from being unengaging, and the voice-acting is pretty solid overall.

The gameplay of MK isn't as hard to learn, nor as punishing as something like Street Fighter, and the moves list is pretty manageable. The accessability is a definite plus in my book, and almost a neccessity given that you only play as one fighter for three or four fights before moving on to a new one. During certain fights you have to fight against two opponents (a tag team if you will), which can be really hard, but you only have to win one round as opposed to two. I'm using the Vita's D-pad which can feel a bit iffy at times, but the analogue stick makes it incredibly hard to not jump accidentaly, but the pad works fine.

I may or may not write more about this, it all depends on how much time I spend with the game and if the content I've yet to play is interesting enough.

Back when this came out I felt I had played enough Assassin's Creed, especially because of all of the similarities between this and Brotherhood; and with all the other games coming out around that time, I decided to skip it. A few days ago I felt an itch for an open-world action game that Assassin's Creed would scratch nicely. I'll try to make this short as I am still only scratching the surface.

The game did not open well for me. After the initial cutscene, there's some tutorial stuff followed by a terrible section where you must hold on to a rope conveiently hanging from the back of a horse wagon (there's probably a better word for that). Then you get on the wagon and have to ram into another one Burnout style until reaching a fortress of sorts. Once you kill the main bloke, Ezio travels to Constantinople to find some keys Altair left there for some contrived reason to give this thing a plot.

I'm maybe 5 hours in, but the game still feels like it's walking me through the tutorial phase, introducing me to new mechanics almost every mission. My main complaint is that instead of taking the franchise in new directions and doing cool stuff to mix up the formula, they just add new game mechanics on the framework of AC2, and while there are certainly worse ways to treat a sequel, It's getting sort of ridiculous at this point. There's just too much, Ezio feels more like a mobile armory than an assassin, and enemies are more of an annoyance than a challenge.

When looking back on AC(one), one of the things I liked about it was having to figure out a strategy of killing my target. Altair was a lot more vulnerable and had only a hidden blade, throwing knife and a sword at his disposal, which meant I actually had to think before I acted. Running in gun..ehm..swords blazing didn't amount to much beyond getting killed or having to run to the nearest heystack, but in Revelations I can pretty much just shoot every guard with a crossbow (or whatever) from afar and not have to worry about it, which diminishes some of the joy.I still think the game is well made, and there's certainly a lot more room for exploration, but I hope AC3 will tone things down a bit and make the game more focused on the "being an assassin" part.

So much for brevity, I guess, but there is a lot to be said about this game, and once I've beaten it I'll probably write another one of these, but until then: Requiescat in pace...

I hit the metaphorical wall in Trials Evolution, and think the best, in regards to the well-being of my Xbox controller, will be to never play it again. I currently have something like 125 trophies (only 10 away from unlocking the really, really sadistic tracks), and after spending some time on the more difficult tracks I have some complaints mainly regarding the game's controls.

Stop making me climb what is basically vertical obstacles! The controls feels really shitty when going up steep hill and whatnot, so the fact that the later tracks often feature like 5 of them seems, to me, like a poor design decision. It's not just because it's hard, but because the physics for climbing feel incredibly unintuituve and unrealistic. It does not make sense that holding right on the analogue stick uphill should cause the rear tyre to leave the ground, and thus making me roll backwards. This is especially annoying whenever you have to land diagonally, as the bike will bounce few times, making it incredibly hard to control; and it's not like you have much time to let things settle because in 9 out of 10 cases, there will be instant death waiting for you at the bottom.

The "best" bike I have, is also the worst. It accelerates like a motherfucker, and is really difficult to control. I wish they had put the difficulty in the tracks themselves, but given me a real solid bike that I felt comfortable using. Instead I feel like a clumsy fuck on a bike I barely know how to control going through tracks that require precision well beyond my skilset. So basically, fuck you Trials Evolution!