What games interest me this E3

For me E3 has always been about what games are going to be coming out within the next year or two, yes there is the odd year or two were we see a new console but without the games a console would never be sold.

Before I get into what games I am looking forward to this year there is one thing that I just couldn’t quite understand and that was why Sony decided to show of Assassins Creed 4 in their main press conference when Ubisoft showed it off a few hours ago. I know that Microsoft did the same thing with Battlefield 4 but one of the biggest differences there was the fact that in the EA press conference they went into more detail about the game. I should also point out that I don’t play modern shooters

Enough about that lets get into what games I am looking forward to. I should mention that these games do not come in any order but these are games that have sparked my interested and will a one point picking them up.

First up we have Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, I have been a massive fan of the Plants Vs Zombies games ever since I discovered the original game in my local Apple store. From what I have seen from the EA’s press conferences about this game and the information that has been released since then has made me believe that this is going to comical game that is going to poke fun at modern day shooters plus it just looks different to everything else that has been released so far.

All thought not much information has been sent out about Quantum Break from what I have seen thus far and what from what I have read it sounds like something the Fringe writes created. For those that don’t know Fringe was a television show that was created by JJ Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. If this game turns out to be like Fringe then they could be the possibility that I may pick this game up.

For most of the Sony’s press conference there wasn’t anything that I really wanted to play until I saw the trailer for The Order: 1866. The main reason that this game caught my attention was the fact that it was going to be set in an alternate 1800 London and that it was going to be set in the Steampunk genre. Now I have only just gotten into Steampunk and from what I have seen from this genre so far I have really liked and if The Order: 1866 can live up to what I have seen thus far of Steampunk genre then this game alone could be the reason that I buy a PS4.

When it comes to talking about the next few games which come from Nintendo you might think that I am going to contradict what I said in last week’s blog but I still stand by the fact that Nintendo did play it way to save when it came to talking about games this year but that still doesn’t mean that they don’t have some good games coming out this year. The first game up is Mario Kart 8, to me the trailer that was on Nintendo Direct didn’t really show anything new apart from the anti-gravity sections of track which looks like it was borrow from the F-Zero franchise. I can only hope that with the news that F-Zero may not be coming to a Nintendo console for some time, Mario Kart 8 can bring some of the best parts from the F-Zero franchise over to Mario Kart.

The next game from Nintendo that I the look of is Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, in my last blog I talked about how much the game looks like the last Donkey Kong Country game that Retro Studios had created but after spending the rest of last week looking at the game more closely I can see that Retro Studios have done more than just release the same game. They have spoken about the return of Dixie Kong and the inclusion of one more character that has yet to be revealed. The big differences between this Donkey Kong Country games and the last one is the fact that they have done more with the camera so that let looks like you are going round a 3D world instead of just going left to right and it also now has water levels that were missing from the last Donkey Kong Country game.

The last game that spiked my interest was Project Spark for the Xbox One, the main reason for this is because it will allow you to do whatever you want when you want with your friends also helping you or hindering you. It’s like Scribblenauts but without the writing.

That brings me to the end of this week’s blog, if you were following E3 like myself let me know what games you are looking forward to.

Until Next Time.

E3 2013 Press events so far

As the title of this blog says I will be having a look at the press events that have been shown so far from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. As a side note, I am aware that Nintendo do have other events planned throughout the rest of this week but I am so far only talking about what has been show thus far as of Nintendo Direct 11/06/13 3pm.

If we look at Microsoft there was one thing that they did very well and that was showing us the exclusive and new IP’s titles that they have coming to their new console which is good because it shows that they are going to do something different, plus if you saw their reveal event you know that they had to do something to get those that play games interested in there console. Yes the biggest question that everyone came away with when the conference end was the price of the item which yes is a bit pricey but then again I have never been someone that buys a console at launch due to the lack of games at the start.

When it came to Sony’s press conference there was one question that I had by the end of the show and that was why was your conference make up with 90% of multi-platform games, yes you may have exclusive content for some of those game but where are your own games that I can only get on your console that will get me to by your console when it is released (yes that is also aimed at Microsoft but they didn’t have as many as Sony). If there was one thing that Sony did give everyone by the time you left was the fact that Sony was going to do everything you want it to without all the Microsoft ball shit, which is good because it brings back the whole console wars like the good old of Nintendo and Sega ads.

As for Nintendo they did everything that I believe was wrong with this year’s E3 and what I mean by this was the fact that they were playing it safe. This isn’t always a bad think but it seems to be the tread most years with each conference from each company having more of what we had the last time. There was once a time when Nintendo E3 Conference always had something new and interesting to look forward to but this year they gave us reincarnation of games that we have already played. Examples of what I mean are as followed Halo from Microsoft, Infamous from Sony and Mario Kart 8 from Nintendo.

At the end of this round of press conferences each one did everything that they were told to do by us, Microsoft showed us the games we wanted to see, Sony should us the box and what it is going to do differently to Microsoft and Nintendo showed us the games we want to see on Wii U and 3DS.

This comment may come across as something that a fan boy might say but when it comes to games Nintendo and Sony could have learned something from Microsoft conferences this year in showing us some new IP’s that could get us interest in their console. A great example that I would like to us is the fact that Retro Studios has been working on Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze for three years. Now this may come across as me having a little bit of a rant but three years on a game that looks almost like the last one with some miner chances has really pisses me off, I was hoping that within the three years they could have come up with a game that looks like this and something completely different but instead we get a rehash of a game that has already been released.

I know that the chance of Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony reading this blog is very slim but as a person that has been playing games from such an earlier age I have only got one request for this next generation of console and game to be released. Stop creating games that are the same as the last instalment with minor chances and create something new and better from what has already been created before.

Until Next Time.

Can’t believe it has changed so much

For those that have been following or reading my blog’s on a weekly basic I would like to apologise for the lack of blog’s that I created last month, I original had five blog’s planed for the month but in the end I was only able to create three of which one of them was crap in my opinion. So to start this week’s blog I am going to give you a bit of a history lesson which will lead up to my views on how this May’s London Comic Con went for me.

I have been going to the London Comic Con since all the way back in 2004 when I first discovered this exhibition with a friend of mine, back then exhibition was completely different to how it is today due to the fact that back then it mainly stuck to film, television and comic book and because of this the show didn’t really get any bigger. If anything the number of people that where attending the show was starting to decreasing up until 2005 when the show began to include parts of Japanese culture like Anime and Manga and each year since this inclusion the show has gotten bigger and better.

With the show getting bigger and better the number of people that were attending the show was also going up and by the last time that I went which was back in 2010 you could see that this show was something that people wanted to go to.

Now after being away from the exhibition for over three years I was surprised to see how much the exhibition had increased in size, a good example of this would be back in 2010 there was at least a handful of illustrators but this year there was some were in the region of about forty, which just goes to show how much bigger the exhibition has become over the past three years.

There were two things that caught me off guard while I was at this year’s exhibition and one of those was just how busy the show had gotten, a good example of this would be the fact that there were places in the show room on the Saturday were we were packed in like sardines. I am not saying this is a bad think at all it because if anything it just showed how many more people were interested in the show than the last time I was here.

The other part that caught me off guard was now much the Anime and Manga scene had changed over the last three years. When I look back at 2010 we had not long lost ADV films but we still had Beez Entertainment along with Revelations films and the two biggest Anime distributors in the UK, Manga entertainment and MVM. It wasn’t until I got the exhibition and had spend the best part of Saturday trying to find where Beez Entrainment and Revelations films had gone. When I couldn’t find them and after I had gone home that night I began to do a bit of research to find out what had happened to them. It wasn’t long until I discovered that both companies had ever gone under or had handed their licensers over to another company.

If this weekend had taught me anything, it was the fact how much a hobby like this can change so much when you haven’t been following it for some time.

If there was one question that needed to be answered after this year’s May’s MCM London Comic Con it would be did I enjoy myself at the exhibition? The answer to that question is yes I did and I look forward to what October’s Comic Con has in store for me along with what this year’s London Film and Comic Con is going to be like July.

Until Next Time.

An experiences like none other

Yesterday evening I had the chance of doing something that I believed I would never get the chance to in my life and that the only way that I would be able to experience this would be through listening to CD’s. If you haven’t guessed it from the picture that I have used today then I shall be spending a little bit of time today talking about the Legend of Zelda Symphony of the Goddesses.

Before I start talking about the show itself I would like to explain what I meant at the beginning of the post and that is why I believed that I wouldn’t be able to experiences this kind of show.

From as far back as I can remember there has always been one type of music that I have always enjoyed above anything else and that is music soundtracks from movies, television shows and all the way up to video games. The reason that I have enjoyed them more than any other music is because they can be very simple but powerful and to also have the ability to convey more emotion than any other form of music.

When it came to movies and television it has always been easy to get my hands on them because you could always find them in music shops but for video games it has almost been impossible to unless you lived in Japan (this was before you could download them). When the Internet finally arrived in our house I was then given the chance to download these gems so that I could listen to them whenever I wanted to but by doing so I also discovered something that I never knew of beforehand and that was some of the tracks that I had downloaded where also live orchestra pieces.

The only problem that I encountered with these tracks was the fact that I was enjoying them more than the originals and because of this I wanted to go and be able to listen to them live like the recording I had found but the only other problem I had was the fact that they were done for special events in Japan. Upon learning this I knew that it would be very difficult for me to be able to see them but when Nintendo announced to the world that they were going to be celebrating the twenty-five anniversary of the Legend of Zelda by doing a symphony I knew that I wanted to go but I never got the chance to and because of this I was gutted. Then when it was announced that they were going to be doing another show I knew that I wanted to go and that I would do almost anything to get tickets.

The way in which the show was done was by starting off by playing some of the most noticeable tunes from the history of Zelda while having a screen showing you the evolution of the series. After the opening they then introduced who they were and what they were playing for us for the night.

The experience was to some part almost impossible to put into words and as someone that has grown up with the series from an earlier age it bought back memories of me playing these games. All I can say is that if you are a fan of the series then this is something that you have to experience.

Until Next Time.

Need to get a move on it

At the beginning of the year I set myself a goal of trying to get my weight back down to 170 pounds by the end of the year, I started on a strong note and was able to get my weight down to 193 pounds but everything since then has gone to hell and because of this I have to admit that I have been going backwards instead of forwards. Since mid February I have had one illness after another and because of this I have not step inside a gym for almost two months.

I know the first thing that everyone will be saying is that I failed at my New Year’s Resolution to lose weight and to a point I would have to agree with you but then on the flip side I now have to look at what am I going to do now to get myself back on track and were I should be.

The first thing that I am going to have to do is to get back on to the whole calorie counting track, the reason that I am doing this first is because it was the last thing that I gave up on while I was ill. The last time that I filled in my calorie tracker was just over three weeks ago but even then I was neglecting to add some of the condiments that I would be having with my meals along with some of the drinks.

An example of this would be the fact that I would not be putting in any of the cups of tea that I would drink within a day and with a each cup of tea coming in at around 15 calorie and with me normal drinking from five to ten cups of tea a day that’s a lot of extra calories that I am missing out on.

The other part that I need to start doing is going back to the gym, it may seem like one of the easiest things to say but doing it can be the hardest, the reason that it has become so hard is the fact that I have not been for so long.

My plan of action will be make up of two steps, step one is to restart the calorie counting and start going back to the gym, when it comes to going to the gym I will start off slow and then work my way up. I will first start with twenty minutes on the excise bike for the first day and then follow it up on the second day by doing five minutes on the cross-trainer. For the next three days afterwards I will then add an extra five minutes each day on to the cross-trainer until I reach twenty minutes in total. Upon competing that I will then finish up by getting on the rowing machine and completing five minutes on the first day and then taking it up to a total of ten minutes.

Once I have completed step one I can then move onto step two. Step two is to try and not make the gym boring so that I won’t give up and the way in which I will go about this is by doing weight training every other day. I hope to us this as away to keep the gym fresh and to allow me to tone up, the last part of step two will be to start decreasing my meal size so that I am eating less while excising.

So that is going to be my plan going forward and hopefully the goal that I set myself at the beginning of the year of losing 30 pounds can be done, I know that it may not be the easier way to achieve my goal but when I look back at the pictures of me when I was a lighter it gives me the motivation to get back into shape.

Until Next Time.