Countdown to E3 Gaming Thread 5/11/2014

One month away from E3. Monday's line up is going to be Microsoft, EA and then Ubisoft which will be on Spike TV and Sony's at 6PM eastern which will be streamed online. And then Tuesday, Nintendo is doing what ever the hell they're doing.

• For expecting something akin to Quake Live for new Unreal Tournament, the idea of a community developed Unreal Tournament is quite interesting. I mean, it's to get more people to be able to use UE4 but it's an interesting marketing direction.

• Want some Hotline Miami 2 gameplay? Here you go

• This ToLove Ru gameplay trailer is just all sorts of wrong click here

• Now, if I had the money, I'd rather buy an Omega Neo Geo but the brushed aluminum NES really is pure sex.

• Da ghey stuff, it still bugs da Russia as they're giving The Sims 4 the equivalent of an Adults rating

• So apparently the CEO of Occulus wants to build a new Second Life

• With how good Child of Light is, I'm really looking forward to the upcoming Valiant Hearts: The Great War.

• So it took about 2 days for the pot to almost double for the upcoming DOTA 2 tourney, The International. Once again raising the bar for the biggest prize pool in eSports. DOTA 2 also hit a milestone of hitting the 750K concurrent players (it's was also close to hitting the 800K mark today at 796K players). Of course with all those players, it's still a shadow of the 4 or so million players (been awhile since I've looked at the number) you get playing League of Legends.

• Insomniac finally showing off the upcoming Sunset Overdrive

• Well, I think it's safe to say that the Age of Empires re-release did great as they're looking for someone to lead a group in building a new entry in a "well-loved" RTS series.

• Bungie showing off loot in Destiny

• Sony giving the lowdown on how the social aspects shakes out for the upcoming DriveClub.

• YOU GET A GAMEPLAY VID! YOU GET A GAMEPLAY VID! AND YOU GET A GAMEPLAY VID! EVERYONE GETS A GAMEPLAY VID!!! A teaser for the upcoming Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire remakes.

• In an interesting collaboration, an Eskimo tribe in Alaska has partnered up with a dev to create Upper One Games to create game focusing on Alaskan native games. The first release is called Never Alone. Looks like Limbo but hopefully not crap

• With the way last gen sales have completely cratered, WB adding a release of Dying Light for Xbox One and PS4 was very smart. Now it has a new release month, February 2015.

• Well, with the delay, Elder Scrolls Online might be F2P by the time the console releases are out as it's been pushed back 6 months out of it's June release. Considering they haven't shown off the console versions at all, this really isn't a shocker.

• When you don't really release anything, you have a bad year as Konami has found out with $60 million in net income.

• In shocking news, Nintendo is in the red again under Iwata (who still has his job) with just under $230 million in the red. He also gave a "Please Understand" that they expect to be in the red till 2016 when their QoL non-wearables are released. If they were smart, they would get back into the Love Motel business with the Quality of Life marketing. They're estimating that they're going to move 12 million 3DS handhelds (lol) and 3.6 million Wii U systems (lol) this year. The release schedule is pretty barren with it riding on X, Mario Kart 8, Smash Brothers, Pokemon remakes and their entry into Skylanders type stuff. They also bought a tech company for $100-150 million but no one has a clue on what it is and Iwata didn't say jack about it to the investors.

• On the wings of Monster Hunter 4, Capcom moved a billion in sales with a $34 million profit. Kinda surprised that Dead Rising 3 hit the 1.2 million copies sold mark that they set last year.

• Though the release schedule barren for physical releases for the upcoming year (outside of the standard sports games, you have UFC, Sims 4, Dragon Age, TBA aka new Battlefield and a new golf game that won't bear Tiger Woods' name) they did great last year with a $1.12 billion revenue and $367 million in profit. In their finacials they said they're going to invest again into the digital and mobile sectors. Other than quoting March's NPD number (925K copies), they didn't say much at all about Titanfall other than announcing that the Respawn & EA partnership will continue.

• In non-shocking news, Activision had a great year. Though WoW sub numbers is down to 7.6 million, the expansion pack for Diablo 3 helped right the ship on that side while they boasted that they had the top 2 games last year with Skylanders Swap Force and Call of Duty Ghosts. They also announced a $500 million marketing commitment to the Destiny franchise.

I Bought and beat Tesla Effect. The story was pretty good, the acting is perfectly bad outside of a few (Todd Bridges and Curley Green being the worst offenders). That being said, there are a few weak points. The puzzles are pretty easy, there really wasn't much that stumped me. And at the end, Day 9, will make you hate your life as they force you to constantly backtrack through this one building four or five times. And for the love of God, can Bink Video please die? Especially as a PC game where you don't need this compression? Sure, you can film in HD but Bink will still make it look like crap.

If you like the series, this is one of the stronger entries that does well with tying the old games together. For someone who hasn't played any of the Tex Murphy games, there is a lot of hand holding you through the story so you shouldn't feel lost (though you will obviously get more out of it if you have). I got bad ending because I didn't stay true to Taylor or Ariel (tried for a menage a trois). It took me 8 or so hours to run through it the first time without rushing and I only missed two of the collectables (I searched everywhere and didn't find them). There are 5 endings so there is some re-playability (or youtubing). Personally got enough enjoyment out of my $20 to make it worthwhile.

Another week where there really isn't anything being released
Borderlands 2 (Vita) - Well, this is actually being released. Why? I have no idea. They really had to cut back on the visuals on this and it may or may not chug.

DreadOut (PC) - I don't know much about this Indonesia horror game other than it reminds me quite a bit of the Fatal Frame series which I'm totally cool with people aping (wish more people would look at it for insperation)

posted by Gang of Gaming Morons! at 04:33 PM

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