E3 2009 Preview (Part 1)... What could Nintendo bring to the table this year?

So next week is E3, aka Disneyland for the video game industry aka where megaton announcements are amazing as well. Of course, there are so many rumors and speculation regarding what the big three will bring and which big game will make the biggest impression among the gaming press, the gamers themselves, and the industry in general. The press conferences are always the big deal of the show of which company will please their fans the most as well as opening the doors somewhat to the public again in hopes of recapturing what E3 used to be earlier this decade being a spectacle rather than just another event. This could be an interesting E3 since normally we would be at the end of another console generation and perhaps Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo will maybe startup the next generation. Then again, we are still in a recession and that will play a role whether or not these companies are willing to give up on this current generation in order to be ahead of the game. Despite that, this generation I think still has another good year or two left before technology passes by for gaming to be pushed to new levels and we have to spend money on new expensive consoles again.

I'll start with Nintendo for this post as Microsoft and Sony will be later in the week.

Nintendo has been continuing to display their dominance of the industry currently with the Wii, which continues to sell like crazy every month, and the DS, in which the latest iteration, the DSi, is already a success for the land of Mario. While some critics may believe that Nintendo may lose their dominance in the coming months, its not stopping them from releasing great games for both casual and hardcore audiences. This could be arguably the best year of the Wii so far with awesome game after awesome game from MadWorld, ExciteBots, Punch-Out!!, EA Sports Active, and Boom Blox Bash Party compared to previous years even though Nintendo has pretty much released something from their major franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Metroid (They recently announced the Metroid Prime Trilogy bundle with all three Prime games in one package for 50 bucks for an August release, pictured above). Even all the success Nintendo has, hardcore fans seem never pleased with their new casual direction and not caring about the hardcore, but lately there has a good balance between that with the games I listed above. This E3 for them will be interesting how they handle the divide between casual and hardcore gaming such as whether or not someone like Reggie or Iwata will continue to brag about their success as their console is still a mainstream attraction here in America or they will actually bring the heat announcing new games that both audiences will care about.

On the Wii side... This is what I expect to see from Nintendo and hope it will happen.

• Miyamoto's new game - The last two years saw Miyamoto, aka the man who made Mario and Zelda, reveal Wii Fit and Wii Music respectively. While Wii Fit still sells like crazy (We'll see how EA Sports Active, the Wii Fit killer, will fare against that), Wii Music turned out to be a disappointment, and indeed it was as it wasn't that good of a game. Will Miyamoto reveal another new game in the casual Wii... franchise or maybe go back to the faithful announcing a new Zelda game... which seems to be the major rumor among the world of Nintendo heading towards E3.
• MotionPlus demonstration - The Wii MotionPlus peripheral is coming out next month and I expect it to make a big showing as some titles will show off the advantage of having the N64 Expansion Pak-like boost for more accurate motion. Wii Sports Resort will obviously be shown and hopefully new mini-games will be shown that weren't revealed last year. Also, Red Steel 2 will make its debut with Motion Plus support even though the first game was very terrible. Hopefully, more unannounced games by either Nintendo or third parties will be shown to take advantage of MotionPlus (This thing is 20 bucks when it comes out next month or July, but will be bundled with Wii Sports Resort).
• What's next for WiiWare and Virtual Console? - Nintendo's downloadable services will continue to be behind Sony and Microsoft's offerings, but Nintendo themselves need to step up with WiiWare. Almost every week is nothing but shovelware that no one does not want to buy as Nintendo needs big games to make WiiWare compete with Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. What I mean by big games is Nintendo putting out more first-party games to the service and games that involve their endless catalog of franchises. How sick would it be to see New Super Mario Bros. 2 or a new 2D Metroid on something like WiiWare along with a DS version of these titles? Of course, I don't see Nintendo giving a damn about WiiWare, but if WiiWare wants to hang with the other two, big and reputable games better start to show up (Mega Man 9, the upcoming Contra Rebirth and Final Fantasy IV: After Years are good starts). As for Virtual Console, it seems nearly all of Nintendo's games from the past are out on Virtual Console, but there's still some left like Yoshi's Island. I am hopeful that more third parties will release more of their games on VC like Square-Enix, which they are with the Final Fantasy franchise, and others from Western third parties like EA. I'm also curious how Virtual Console Arcade will turn out if more games are coming out being arcade incarnations of those games.
• Wii HD? - Will Nintendo re-release the Wii with actual 720p support? I don't see this happening, but if it does, hopefully the Wii that is out now gets a price drop while this new Wii stays at 250 bucks. This will of course divide the audience tenfold, but there are people out there that are willing to upgrade. Speaking of new Wiis, where are the new colors?
• More Nintendo franchises getting the Wii treatment? - We already saw the big guns on the Wii already with Twlight Princess, Metroid Prime 3 Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Kart. What's left for them to put out? There's actually plenty and if Punch-Out!! can get the awesome remake/reimagining treatment, why not some other Nintendo games like Star Fox, Pilotwings, Kirby, F-Zero, and so on.

Other games that might make an appearance...

• The Conduit (aka the FPS that will be the "Halo" for the Wii and also out next month)
• Sin & Punishment 2
• More New Play Control games (Metroid Prime Trilogy for example)
• The usual third-party offerings by EA, Activision, Ubisoft, and more
• More Square-Enix goodness like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronciles stuff (Kingdom Hearts on the Wii? - Still a perfect fit for that system, maybe a compilation of KH1 Final Mix, Re: Chain of Memories, and KH2 Final Mix).

As for the DS...

• DSi only games finally shown? - There will be likely some games announced by Nintendo and maybe other companies that will be DSi only.
• Zelda: Spirit Tracks keeping the Zelda name alive? - With the GDC reveal, the new Zelda DS game, Spirit Tracks got a mixed reception among fans, so hopefully new footage will be revealed along with the game being playable at the show floor.
• Pokemon Heart Gold & Soul Silver confirmed for US release - With the continuing success of Diamond, Pearl, and now Platinum, Nintendo has no choice but confirm the Gold & Silver remakes for release here in the States. Hopefully it would be day and date with the Japanese versions, but I don't see it happening.
• DSiWare suffering the same fate as WiiWare? - I could totally see this happening as Nintendo has been ignoring WiiWare for others to release shovelware and the same thing could be said for DSiWare as well. I hope it doesn't happen as there's more potential for this than WiiWare with the stylus and touch controls to good games to come out.
• The Game Boy Virtual Console actually happening? - This seems inevitable at this point with the DSi out as a Game Boy Virtual Console should happen for old Game Boy games (and even GBA games since the DSi doesn't have the GBA slot) like Super Mario Land, Link's Awakening, Metroid II: The Return of Samus, and Pokemon Red & Blue.

Hopefully these games are there...

• New Super Mario Bros. 2 - (Please?)
• New 2D Metroid or Super Metroid DS (Pretty please?)
• New Kirby DS
• The Layton sequels getting US releases
• New Elite Beat Agents game
• New Ace Attorney game (There's already one, I forgot what it is called)
• Final Fantasy V DS (Eventually I guess since III and IV are already out on DS)
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days getting an official US release date (out in Japan next week)

Okay, that's it for Nintendo for this preview of E3 2008. Expect the same thing like this for Microsoft and Sony later this week as the show quickly approaches.

Might as well talk about A.I. SF4 Ranbat 2.3...

I should of blogged about this like on Monday (oh well), but last Sunday was another Street Fighter IV Ranbat tournament at Arcade Infinity. Unfortunately, I didn't enter this one due to other plans, but that didn't stop me from showing up at least and hanging out with the usual AI suspects. Despite not entering, it was still an enjoyable time chatting it up with SoCal's best players like Gootecks, aka still the SoCal SF4 ambassador, Mike Ross, who still claims that he stopped Marvel, but I don't know about that, and others like Shoo about Tatsunoko vs. Capcom getting a second chance even though that will last a week or two, Luka because he still gets HYPE even for a different fighting game that I never seen that had a side tournament, so on. I swear they always move stuff around like SF4 and King of Fighters XII every time I come there. Despite the stacked competition of SoCal's best, it was AI regular Jack aka ComboJack aka Jack the Ripper winning the whole Ranbat with his Sagat beating Edma's Akuma. It is Jack's first AI Ranbat win I think and u can tell from the whole tournament that he was hungry to win it all (Well, Mike Ross told me Jack is determined to win it just based on momentum and it is his time to be among SoCal's elite class of SF4 players).

Anyway, enjoy the other videos below of Edma's sick Akuma in action, Gootecks getting hype (his pre-game Lebron-like ritual is not shown of him clapping his hands loudly and then mashing the buttons Marvel style), Fuson's Guile still being the best Guile in SoCal I think, and more. Also, don't mind the commentary from Sanchez and some chick that I think will be in the upcoming Ladies of SF4 tournament at AI next month (Other than someone's Filipino card being questioned in one of the clips).

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Wii confirmed for US release? Seems so...

Even though Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is a solid versus fighting game from those that got it at Japan or imported it here at the States, it didn't really grab their attention for too long here at arcades and on console. According to a scan from Nintendo Power and a thread on NeoGAF, looks like TvC is coming stateside after all soon. Who knows if this will be the same game that is in arcades and at Japan considering the licensing issues, but I think Capcom actually made some deals happen to get this game out in America despite if people know the Tatsunoko characters at all. In case u don't know what Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is, its a versus fighting game like Marvel vs. Capcom, but only with four buttons instead of six as three of them are light, medium, and heavy attacks, while the fourth one is a partner button for assists and switches. There's a video above that shows off advanced level gameplay with some characters. I played this game several times at Super Arcade, but I couldn't grasp the controls right away as I'm a straight up Marvel player and I prefer the MvC2 controls at this point now. It may take some time to get adjusted to the four button setup TvC has if you're so used to Marvel-like controls. Other than that, its a fun fighting game that lives up the versus series and at least its cool that its coming to the U.S. soon. This is one the Wii games to watch for the rest of the year.

Latest Developments and Whatever...

So thanks to my cousin, I now have a FaceBook page... As if I hated these type of web sites, now I join them that started with Twitter and now FaceBook... Just great.

Been listening to the new Eminem album too... He's back alright as stated on Twitter.

Other than that... Coming soon on the reviews front.

• Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (Wii) - I'm on the B Kingdoms, so I'm almost done with the game meaning expect my review on this later this week or the weekend.
• Punch-Out (Wii)
• UFC 2009 Undisputed (PS3)
• Pikeljunk Eden/Encore (PSN) - I need to go back to this game again, but now it is pretty much in my summer backlog.
• Infamous (PS3) - So looking forward to this.

Speaking of Punch-Out on the Wii, here's the awesome commercial (Has Nintendo really stepped up their commercial game?)

The Long Day that was A.I. Ranbat 2.2

Yesterday was another ranking battle tournament at Arcade Infinity for Street Fighter IV and I had a new plan in mind, which is to go with my second main character E. Honda. Turns out my Honda is not tourney ready and I went 2 & out running into bad matchups for the sumo man. The first loss was against a Sagat player in which I had a chance of winning, but I did some stupid things and that was that going to Losers' Bracket right away. My last loss and SF4 playtime was against Sanchez by the luck of the draw as that went poorly getting raped by his Bison (Couldn't get anything going as his Bison started the rushdown right away). While my tourney chances didn't go so smoothly, other things happened that day in AI.

Apparently there was some drama regarding a money match between shglbmx and DSO as shglbmx's Blanka straight up owned DSO's Bison. I'm not really into the drama scene in regards to the SoCal SF4 community as u check the results thread on SRK for more on that. Some heavy hitters weren't there like Gootecks and Mike Ross, who were at East Coast Throwdown repping the West Coast as they finished 4th and 7th respectively. For other heavy hitters, some of them had their bad days like Keno, John Rog, Sanchez, and Bebop, who is starting to use Dhalsim while the AI regulars like Tatsu, Moval, Fuson, and Jack stepped up their game by going to the top. In the end it was Edma, aka the #1 Ken in the U.S., winning the whole thing with his second main Akuma and Kai took 2nd with his El Fuerte (at times Chun-Li when down by one). Vicious's Rufus took 3rd as he leveled up like crazy and randomly was referring to that New Boyz song, "You're A Jerk" to people. I also appreciate some of the heavy hitters like Keno and Edma brought their hot girlfriends along to witness something like this that is so male driven, so props to the ladies for enduring the event and supporting their men.

Other than the SF4 tournament, I played more BlazBlue and King of Fighters XII trying to get somewhat better at those games learning them slowly. But first, DJ Vest and Bebop were playing Action Deka, aka the secret best light-gun type game ever, and that was comedic gold especially Bebop being his usual self getting hype punching fools left and right. I still haven't played it myself yet, but it feels like the Wii at an arcade with the motion controlled gloves. I'm now getting slowly better at KOF XII learning some more characters as I'm sticking with the team of Ash, Shen, and Terry for now, but I still need to learn some of the advanced stuff especially the critical counter system since its so crucial to the gameplay. It was good times playing this game especially with the likes of Rickstah and Sanchez as they were getting crazy when playing characters like Daimon (puts hands in the air after he does his super), Shen, and Raiden.

Even though there was no direct feed video or commentary at yesterday's SF4 tournament, I still had a good time regardless of getting owned in SF4. In case you're not aware of the SoCal SF4 scene yet and even how Arcade Infinity is awesome, check these videos below from the SF4 3 on 3 tournament a couple weeks ago.

The Arcade Experience for 5/1/09

Today I went arcade hopping as stated on Twitter playing the newest fighting games at various SoCal arcades. First off was Super Arcade trying to shake off any rust of Tekken 6 BR and Street Fighter IV (Getting ready for Sunday's A.I. Ranbat 2.2 tournament). Then it was some Pho for lunch and then Arcade Infinity for some BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger and King of Fighters XII, both of these just came out at AI in the past week or two. But first...

I'll mention the PSN Demo for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 that came out yesterday showing off what the game looks like in widescreen. The demo features six characters which are Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, Ryu, Chun-Li, and Strider-Hiryu and its local multiplayer only with no online at all, which pissed lots of people off considering they only have one controller. Basically, its Marvel in 16:9, but there's options to play in 4:3. In addition, there are filtering options with classic, smooth, and crisp modes, but these filters pretty much look the same. Other than that, it plays like Marvel and looks like Marvel with the signature cheesy music in tow if you love blasting "I wanna take you for a ride" all day long. Unlike all the complaints that I mentioned earlier, I'm trying to use the demo as a practice mode to learn the characters more especially Iron Man since I want to learn the infinite for some odd reason. Just make sure you have someone along playing local versus with you for this demo if you want to get some mileage out of it.

Arcade Infinity's hottest new game, King of Fighters XII, is drawing some crowds because it is a SNK game and it does look that good with that HD 2D art style. Currently, it is 50 cents to play since it is a new game and as expected, the competition is already stiff. I, myself, am a newbie at this game only knowing certain characters like Andy, Iori, Joe, and Terry, but I'm willing to learn it and play it on consoles (which is out in July). I only played two or three matches at AI today and I just flat out don't know what I'm doing in terms trying to learn the new stuff KOF XII provides like parries, criticial counters, and more. Like usual SNK fighting games, it is a four button setup of light punches and kicks / strong punches and kicks while combining them allows to excute throws, evades, and the new stuff I already mentioned. It might be crazy at first playing this game because the screen seems zoomed in with characters looking a little big, but eventually you'll get used to it as you play more. I at least still know special moves by Andy, Joe, and Terry, but I know I need to do more than that to be considered decent at the game.

I had a much easier time playing BlazBlue than KOF XII since no one is really playing it at the time I was playing it and plus it is truly Guilty Gear with a new set of characters. Most of these characters seem like ripoffs of Guilty Gear characters like Ragna (my main) having somewhat a Sol Badguy vibe and Jin playing like Ky-iske. I mostly played single player as Ragna, which is 9 stages with rival battles halfway and the second to last fight. Basically, if you know Guilty Gear, you will feel right at home with BlazBlue. Personally, I'm not that good at the Guilty Gear games as I play them casually and I will feel the same way about BlazBlue in the end even though I'm still buying it on console in June 30 (50 bucks standard and 60 bucks for limited edition). Just like KOF XII, I'm willing to learn BlazBlue, but who knows if I have the time to be somewhat effective other than doing some basic stuff. My Ragna is currently a rushdown type style being aggressive towards the opponent. I'm not really worried about all the meters in the display since I don't know what's their purpose and my health meter is usually saying danger even when its high (probably because I use quick recovery too much). BlazBlue is a solid fighter by ArcSystemWorks continuing what has worked in the Guilty Gear franchise for those who appreciate that type of hardcore fighting.

The fighting game genre is still going strong for the rest of the year with the games above satisfying both the casual and hardcore audience. While games like Street Fighter IV satisfy both which is why its the early contender for fighting game of the year, BlazBlue and KOF XII do provide enough depth for the hardcore crowd and hopefully casual people can jump in to these as well than just SF4, Tekken 6 BR, and MvC2. Basically, its awesome to love fighting games again.

Before I forget...

Arcade Infinity also has some random new beat-em-up called Action Deka, which is crazy. I didn't play it myself, but from what I heard from AI regulars, the game is truly a workout with your arms. This game is basically controlled by gloves and you have to literally punch to take out the opposition. The reason this game is so random is the enemies you face which might be too offensive for some people. Here's the game in action below (I think this game costs a buck to play and 50 cents to continue):

That's it for the arcade experience for now... I'll be back at Arcade Infinity for the SF4 Ranbat 2.2 tournament on Sunday and hopefully I can do better than 1-2. The AI regulars like Kryojenix, Moval, Tatsu, and Paul (somuchdamage) were there today practicing up at casual play and usually the line to play arcade SF4 still to this day is hella long.

Philippines Photo Blog Part #1

I might as well start this thing up rolling in the photos from my time at the PI.

I'm on a boat!

Walking the Boracay beach - Wish you're there?

Boracay from a distance at its highest view.

Next part will showcase more of the scenery instead of me.