Haruokay @ The Sony E3 2011 Press Conference

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E3: A Week later and then some.

Tim:

OK, so E3 has come and gone. Officially. Now us huddled masses can go from waiting from the announcement date, to waiting for more news on a release date so we'll know when we can stop waiting. And we fucking love it. E3 is a wonderful time if you're a gamer, regardless of whether or not you were in actual attendance. Thanks to the wonderdrug called the internet, me and my associate have been ingesting a steady diet of game media. We endured, we persevered, we bled from eyes, possibly saw Jesus, napped, and have returned (Kind of, but not in any way like Jesus) to give our impressions of what has been announced and what is to come. Why? Because... fuck you! Thats why.

Kevin:

Why must you tell the reader off? Its hard enough to write this shit without you shaking a gun at them!

First off Microsoft:

Kevin:

Microsoft seems to be gearing the Xbox more towards being seen as an entertainment center then just a game console. With the addition of Youtube and live TV, Microsoft is trying to appeal to everyone by offering more the just games to their system. Plus the addition of UFC to XBL, you can tell that they understand most of their core audience. Last year they announced EPSN to the line up of services that XBL has, yet I no longer see it on the marketplace (assuming it was ever implemented to begin with.) There is a bit more of a correlation between people who are gamers and people who are UFC fans which would make more sense. Yet I still feel like gaming as I remember it is something of the past.

Tim:
The best way to sum this one up would be that this year's press conference echoed the one that Microsoft had prepared last year. However, accurate as that may be, it makes for a boring article so let's put it another way: It was the exact same presentation. Kinect, new Fable, new Halo, new Gears of War, Kinect, exploitation of children, Kinect, and dancing. Always with the dancing.

Kevin:

Kinect is a fantastic device, I have had the time to play around with it and its fun. The types of games currently out for it however, all seem pretty much the same. Party games simular to what you’d find on Wii (a demographic of gamers MS is trying to appel to) and it works to a degree. Having a Sesame Street game done by Double-Fine and a virtual Disneyland sound interesting but if they are really going to focus on Kinect they should really try pushing the bounds of what it can do. Its pretty much the same as last years fare; with an update to their sports party game KINECT SPORTS SEASON 2, and Dance Central 2 its almost an echo of what they did at the previous E3.

We are the future!

Tim:

Still, there is something to be said about following through with what you started. Kinect didn't exactly thrill me upon it's initial announcement last year. It made me think of two things: 1) The obvious vie for Nintendo's (With Sony on the horizon's), motion-control market. Which brings me to 2) This shit has been attempted before. Recently. Does anybody not remember the Eye Toy? The PS2 peripheral that, like most PS2 peripherals, didn't work quite as great as advertised, and barely had any software support. (IE - Games) Microsoft have added enough titles to the Kinect's roster to make me want to believe there's a chance this thing could work well. The cynic in me isn't hearing any of that shit though. He's been burned before. Remember the first wave of Wii titles? Remember playing Red Steel for the first time and feeling dirty? I think it'll be a matter of time before we see how many of these titles feel like they weren't shoehorned in but a few titles seem to have promise. The Gunstringer in particular has kept my attention. The "puppet master" control scheme is something new and, mixed with humor and Lloyd Kaufman (Toxic Avenger yo), could be the first good game for Kinect that isn't a essentially tech demo.

Potential

Kevin:

While they also plan on adding Kinect support to some of the EA sports titles and Mass Effect 3, there are only three things that really interested me when discussing Kinect and E3. The Ghost Recon weapon customization demo, Fable The Journey, and Star Wars Kincet. While I am not a big FPS fan, the Kinect demo did demonstrate a more comfortable flow when dealing with menus arranging items and the like. Not to mention how he controlled it during the weapon test. When looking at Fable The Journey the aspect of moving our hands to conjure spells and attacks look very interesting during the conference, however I wonder if The Journey is going to be anything more then a medieval fantasy rail shooter. Lets hope I am wrong. Star Wars Kinect looked like a fun title, however again I feel that it was more of a suped up rail shooter, in most cases that is what it feels like when playing most of these motion control games. The core mechanics feel well but the execution when it comes to bring it more interactive and immersive come into play, you’re still just a silly retard flailing their arms about like a jackass. Not to mention it looks like a creep robot that studies you, constantly!

"I can see you masturbating."

Tim:

One Kinect feature starting to be utilized more (as seen with Mass Effect 3) is voice command. I am excited for this and incredibly wary about this feature for one reason: what happens if you're playing with another person in the room? Even if Kinect is able to single out your voice when recognizing commands, will you be a mute to everybody else in the room? The only real options are to be a dick and ignore everybody or talk and end up giving out accidental commands triggered by the wrong word. Maybe some games will have fail safes built in but smart money says there will be some rushed titles that won't.

Also, another interesting note on voice command. The new "Bing" service. You know, the one where you can navigate menu's via voice command? It seems pretty sophisticated but this is another one of those thing that better have selective voice recognition. Anybody remember "Lord of the Flies"? Well think of the XBox controller as a conch. Imagine an environment where control of the floor was no longer regulated to a single person. Anybody save for a deaf/mute will be able to interject on any choice a person in the room makes. Player 1 will cease to exist and what starts out as a fun family night with Netflix, mutates into a triple murder-suicide.

"Socks to your Ass-mar!"

Kevin:

On that note Halo CE is making a comeback, an anniversary edition which is a remastered 360 remake of the original Halo with the classic multiplayer maps and everything. Not to mention the end of the press conference which announced Halo 4 and the start of a new trilogy. I can’t really think of anything else they can do with Halo, the controls are pretty spot on and the game itself in most if not all of its forms is still playable online somewhere. Isn’t it time to give it a bit of a rest for a year or two (we haven’t made it to the Nintendo article yet and I ask for a series to take a break).

Tim:

Ok, a new Halo game. It's not bad news but it's not really the kind of surprise to leave your presentation on. It was a surprise when developer Bungie announced that Halo: Reach would be the company's last Halo game but I don't think there was any question of whether or not one of Microsoft's biggest cash cows was going to continue with Microsoft still owning the rights.

Also, you're adopted!

Kevin:

Last year they had a playable demo of Gears 3, this year its a new playable part of the campaign (and Ice-T. Did they not have a rapper last year too?) It got the same amount of screen time it did last year and really didn’t add anything new. I understand that it takes time to make a game and that big franchises sell consoles, but isn’t it time for a bit more variety? (Again, not at the nintendo article yet)

Tim:

But of course there's variety. You can play as a woman this time around. Diversity! Oh wait, they told us about that last year...

Kevin:

Overall I feel while there are some interesting keypoints that MS had to show us overall it felt much like (well pretty much the same) as last year. With Sony releasing a new handheld this year and Nintendo releasing a new console Microsoft had a lot to contend with. Perhaps they are holding out that many will just be happy with the Halo 4 teaser while they cobble together a new console that hopefully won’t die a bit after launch.

Up next Sony...

Prepare to be "moved".

E3 and The Summer Of Love!

Hey cats and kittens,

Its summer and everyone knows what that means, and by everyone I mean those of us who follow the gaming world. Its E3 time again! Lots of new games, new tech, and this year we get to take a gander at Nintendo's new console! Its an exciting time to say the least, somewhat of a "Gamer's Christmas!"

Over the next week or so we're going to be looking at what's coming up in the world of games as we take a peek at all of the wonderful news concerning E3 and give a bit of our own opinion on what may or may not suck once these games start hitting store shelves in the coming year!

Seeing as Microsoft and Sony have already aired their press conferences today and with Nintendo's in just a few hours look for a new article in the next day or so seeing as we're going to have a lot to talk about.

Plus there's is much more in store for us in the coming months! Its going to be quite the summer!

~Kevin "The Beer Of Summer!" Macneil

"Like buttons? From what I've seen so far, many think otherwise!"

Haruokay:Where Are We Going With This? (II)

Part 2: Tying Some Loose Ends

I am pretty sure most of you have watched cartoons as a child, or at the very least some point in your life. Hell you could be watching some right now while reading this, and if this is true congrats on being able to multitask. Took me awhile to just get over to the computer to type this motherfucker, and even then it was hard not to just get lost in the wonders that is watching random cartoon openings on YouTube.

(How many times can one watch the Thundercats theme? The answer, not enough!)

I however can remember a time when you'd wake up dirt early on a Saturday, fill your face with surgery cereal, then watch cartoons. Hours of entertainment, which soon would be followed with (unless you were one of those outdoor children) video games! If one thing was used to get us to watch and buy their crap it was cartoons, and much like action figures-cartoons would soon be used to get the attention of would be gamers.

One could even say there is a link between the two? Eh? Eh?!

Pac-Man The Cartoon!

PAC-MAN was one hell of a popular game, ported pretty much to anything that has a screen its one of the most well known video games ever known. During the era of Pac-Man fever ABC and Hanna-Barbera created a cartoon of everyone's favourite, whatever the hell Pac-Man is.

(I also don't know why some sort of Darth Vader like creature is commanding ghosts, just roll with it)

The overall plot to this show (seeing as the game was pretty much, eat till you win) was Pac-Man and his family of Pepper (Ms.Pac-Man one would assume) and Pac-Baby, would go on wacky adventures. Did I mention their cat and dog, Chomp-Chomp and Sour Puss? Did I also mention that they were voiced by Frank Welker and Peter Cullen?! That's right, Pac-Man's cat and dog were in fact Megatron and Optimus!

(One shall stand, one shall fall)

Now during these said adventures the Pac family have an ongoing battle with their only known enemies the Ghosts, who are lead by Mezmeron. Yes Mezmeron that was his name, the bastard son of Darth Vader and Gargamel. This guy's sole mission was to get his hands on and control the source of the “Power Pellets” you know those larger dots that allowed Pac-Man to royally fuck up the Ghosts' shit.

(I can't wait to eat these fucking ghosts)

Apparently the Power Pellets powered the city of Pac-Land, honestly they are just pulling a story out of their ass. Can you blame them? Its fucking Pac-Man! Its hard to make a story about eating everything in sight without adding an intervention at the end.

Saturday Supercade!

Seeing how ABC was doing so well with their Pac-Mac cartoon, CBS decided to create a video game show of their own known as Saturday Supercade. It ran for two seasons in 1983 and was a cartoon made of short segments featuring various video game characters from the golden age of video games. Featuring Donkey Kong, Frogger, Space Ace, and Q*Bert. Honestly all I know of this show is whatever I could find on Youtube, simply put its just characters from games getting into various misadventures. Oddly enough this show was created by Ruby-Spears Productions who also worked on the Megaman cartoon.

This kinda show is what is commonplace when it came to making adaptations of video games into cartoons. Most games really had a simple story, which translates well into making a really simple cartoon. Most of them however really just shoehorned whatever information on the game they could gather on a weekend into a “script” and somehow and ta-da! The best example of this would be the Captain N and Super Mario cartoons.

Speaking of which...

Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

When most of us think of video game cartoons, we look to Captain N The Game Master and the Super Mario cartoon that followed it. Not to mention the syndicated Super Mario Super Show, which had live action segments which featured Lou Albano as Mario.

The Super Mario Super Show always started and ended with sitcom like skits with Mario and Luigi living in Brooklyn and having various guest stars showing up. These segments were preformed with a live studio audience, and all of the dialogue was pretty much improvised which is pretty cool. Not to mention a good chunk of said guest starts were wrestlers like Lou Albano himself. Hell they even had Winston (using his actual name of Ernie Hudson) playing the role of a Slimebuster which is an obvious parody of Ghostbusters,

and Inspector Gadget played by Maurice LaMarche the voice of Gadget!

But you didn't watch it for that crap did you? No (well maybe you did, what the fuck do I know), you watched it for the Mario cartoon that was shown during the episode.

Each cartoon used characters, sounds, music cues and situations from Mario 1 and 2. Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Princess Toadstool would defend the Mushroom Kingdom from King Koopa through the means of various movie or pop-culture themed worlds. Koopa would always has some sort of odd alter ego to fit the world's theme and then Mario and company would stomp a mudhole in his ass. While Wart from Mario 2 never showed his face, his various minions would make various appearances in the show. It was as formulaic as you can get. Mario would introduce the episode in a Captain Kirk like way.

(Plumber's Log can only mean one thing!)

Now Monday through Thursday you dealt with Mario and his merry band of retards fighting Koopa. However when Friday came, it was time for Zelda! The Legend of Zelda follows Link and Zelda fighting the pig-wizard Ganon.

There were 13 episodes total of this "gem" which featured Link as a womanizing asshole being the hero while trying to get into Zelda's pants. The episode would be shown on Friday while previews a snippets would be shown during the week. Now if you lived in Canada like myself the Super Mario Bros Super Show normally fell like once or twice a week so when you saw an episode of Legend of Zelda it was a fucking event!

(This man was a douche, seriously)

Oddly in Canada Super Mario Super Show came later, it actually was aired first in the US market and as I mentioned before was shown Monday to Friday, where as I remember seeing it airing once or twice a week on YTV here in Canada. The show I remember more fondly, would be Captain N and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros.3. Next time we conclude with Captain N and talk some Sonic and Megaman as well.

~Kevin "The Bourne Trilogy" Macneil

"Did you notice how the title is like a pun?! I bet you did!"

You Get: Free Shit! - Back to the Future: Episode 1

Telltale has been teasing me with cool looking games I refuse to pay for for ages now. Seriously, look at this list of franchises that telltale has taken on: Sam & Max, Strong Bad, Monkey Island, a dabble in Penny Arcade and Team Fortress, Wallace and fucking Grommit, they've covered a lot. Deciding that cult was simply not enough, Telltale have moved onto to something iconic: An episodic Back to The Future title that acts as a direct follow-up to the original trilogy. Oh, and the first episode is now free for download. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

Without giving too much away, the game takes place about three months after the events of Back to the Future Part 3, with Doc Brown still missing and presumed dead by everyone in Hill Valley. That is except for Marty who soon rediscovers the Delorean and goes off to find out where in time Doc Brown has gone missing to. You'll point and click your way through roughly 4 hours of gameplay in environments that despite a more toon-ish art style, still manage to retain the feeling of Hill Valley circa 1986. All the trademarks are here: The Delorean, the Flux Capacitor, Doc's pet dog Einstein, The Tannens, and the music. The score for this game borrowed heavily from Alan Silvestri's original score. If you pay close attention early in the game you'll catch some Huey Lewis and the News thrown in there for good measure. Actually, hold on one second...

Huey Break!

My apologies. Speaking of sound, the voice acting for this game is spot on. Michael J. Fox didn't come back to reprise his role as Marty McFly, but his replacement A.J. LoCascio will make you believe that Telltale somehow kidnapped him anyway and forced him to read for his family's lives like it was 1986. Christopher "Suburban Commando" Lloyd even makes a return as the voice of Doc Brown. Some replacements fill in others like Biff Tannen and Marty's dad George, but they all sound as authentic as the real thing.

Biff Tannen: Still an asshole.

Being a point-and-click adventure game with a light inventory system, the gameplay isn't deep or complex, but all the same it takes a bit of thought to solve some of the challenges in the game. On the other side of that coin however, it's far from what you'd call "punishing." You can try running into traffic, saying the wrong things to start shit with an NPC and not progress, use Doc's journal in an attempt to hit that old lady and steal her newspaper, (After you play the game that will only sound half as insane as it does now) anything. You cannot fuck this up. There are infinite chances and I don't think they even designed a "game over" screen. You can point and click to your heart's content until you either beat the game or get carpel tunnel syndrome.

For only a 400MB download that cost zero dollars to obtain Back to the Future: Episode 1 was a no-brainer for me.Want to know where to find your free copy? Head over to Telltale's site here and download it straight from the source. The only catch is that you need to register on Telltale's website first. Fortunately, it's pretty quick and painless and totally worth it for 4+ hours of Delorean Time travelling Shenanigans. Beats the hell out of the idea of a remake of the original film too. It's all the fun of Back to the Future without the Libyan terrorists. Unless you really wanted Libyan terrorists. In which case our condolences. Here's a trailer for the game to ease the pain:

We couldn't find a video of the Libyans attacking Doc Brown. Again, our condolences.

By: Tim

You Get: Free Shit! - Capcom Arcade

(This is a new column dedicated to finding games online that are free and legal. Free shit gained by smash and grab, while pretty amusing, is not condoned by anybody at Haruokay.)

iPhones and iTouches are great for a lot of things. Mapping the best route to get where you're going, watching youtube videos about cats and fat people who can't dance, funding Skynet- er, I mean Apple, it's full of many wonderful uses. Unfortunately, gaming is seldom one of them. Most of the times actually, it's just an embarrassing mess and a waste of your hard-earned (probably) money. Fortunately, Capcom are meeting us halfway this time.

Capcom Arcade is a collection of classic Arcade titles from the titular publisher spanning the mid-80's to the early 90's that first appeared on the app store around the beginning of 2011. The app started with a list of only 4 games including 1942, Ghouls and Ghosts, Street Fighter 2 and Commando. Capcom has since been trying (and for the most part, succeeding) in adding a new arcade title every month. Most of those updates to this point have felt like a cop-out. The first update gave us Ghosts and Goblins which is essentially an older Ghouls and Ghosts. The second update was another version of a game already in the arcade but it was Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition so all was forgiven.

I can't stay mad at you.

To top it all off, this past weekend Capcom added not one, but two new additions to it's portable arcade: 1943 (Another sequel/new version of an old title) and... Final Fight which in any format, is still a classic worthy of your time. While it's true that you can find any of these games in just about any Capcom anthology collection out there, there's still an appeal to be able to carry those many games around with you at once for a few free playthroughs. Which brings me to the only catch-22 with this whole arrangement.

Free play tokens. Each day you get three free play tokens that the game will dispense to you as soon as you turn it on for the first time each day. (And sadly no, those tokens do not carry over if you don't use them that day.) Each game requires one token to play and one to continue. Capcom has set it up so you can purchase any arcade cabinet for only 99 cents for unlimited plays. For some people this may be worth it but mind you, these are iPhone controls. If playing Ghouls and Ghosts gave you bloodlust before, playing it on here will either make you break your iPhone/iTouch, or it will make you break the nearest person standing next to you.

Such situations bring out the best in Arthur, and the worst in you when you scream "Cocksucker!" next to that frightened child on the bus.

There are some extra bells and whistles thrown into this collection too, such as unlockable art (mostly unlocked through spending actual money) and in-game power-ups. (Also, at a price) They even threw in a few social networking options in as well if that's your thing. The controls are simple but some games translate better to iOS than others. Both Street Fighter titles play surprisingly well while games like Ghosts and Goblins are a lesson in masochism. Still, a little fanservice and some free tokens do a lot to increase the value of Capcom Arcade.

All in all, this little package is definitely worth checking out. The selection has already gotten to the point where it feels like there is enough variety and if Capcom keeps up with the monthly updates it's only going to get better. The prices never go higher than 99 cents for anything here and I would rate this as a decent choice for gaming on the go. Just think of it like when you were a kid and your parents would only give you a few quarters for the arcade, only with the added bonus of being able to play this while you're drunk.

By: Tim