E3 2014: New & Improved 2014 Edition!

Not to be all self deprecating, but if you're looking for up-to-date information about the 2014 Electronics & Entertainment Expo, you're probably in the wrong place.  Dr. Potts and I, while very avid fans of video games and other geek/nerdy/fun related activities, I would be hard pressed to say that either of us have our finger on the pulse of the video game and related industry.

Presently, if you want to find out about all things E3, you could head over to the official homepage or to Gamespot's, I'm assuming, up to date listings of things going on.  Even the Humble Bundle people are getting in on the action and for the three days that the convention graces the southern region of California.

Wait a damn minute!  E3 doesn't start until tomorrow (Tuesday June 10th), "officially," yet EA Games is doing a "special" conference right now.  Microsoft, Ubisoft, Sony and EA are hosting conferences throughout the rest of the convention (Thursday June 12th) while Nintendo will not be present, but instead have a live digital presentation, similar to their presentation last year.

The Wikipedia page for E3 has a current list of games that will be presented, but on E3's page for live video feeds starting tomorrow, there are, presently, three "Unannounced Game," so there "might?" be additional games added to this list later on in the week.  So, similar to what I did with last years article post-E3, these are the games that, on first glance, I am pseudo-excited to find out (more?) about from this years convention.

• Alien: Isolation (PC) - The Creative Assembly
• Assassin's Creed: Unity (PC) - Ubisoft Montreal
• Batman: Arkham Knight (PC) - Rocksteady Studios
• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (PC/ 3DS?) - Nicalis
• The Evil Within (PC) - Tango Gameworks
• Game of Thrones (PC) - Tell Tale Games
• Lords of the Fallen (PC) - Deck13 Interactive / CI Games
• Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) - Monolith Productions
• Mirror's Edge 2 (PC) - EA Digital
• The Order: 1886 (PS4) - Ready At Dawn / SCE Santa Monica Studio
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS) - Square Enix

Yes, an iteration of  Super Smash Bros. is going to be presented by Nintendo, but the couple of times that I've played SSB, I wasn't impressed and I didn't have a lot of fun, so I will join the very small minority of Nintendo fans and not be interested with this game.

There are probably more games that I will have an interest in, but this was only after a cursory glance and run through.

That's really all I have for you all today.  I might do a pseudo-half-assed recap on Friday, or I might so something else completely expected.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

The Xbox One Reveal & Demo Time

The video game blogosphere was all a-buzz last week with Microsoft's announcement of the Xbox One and all that it can and is designed to do.  When I first saw the pictures of the system and controller, I liked it.  I thought it was a classy looking approach to a video game console that didn't shout out, "I play video games!"  I thought it looked a lot like a DVD player or cable box.  And I'll be honest, in that brief moment, I actually considered the purchase of the One.  That was before I watched the video on Kotaku (via Darkbeatdk) telling me all I needed to know about Xbox One.

Then, I remembered that I really/probably/most likely don't want one, what with all the "everything needs to be on" thing, and the Xbox Live pay accounts.  One last (amusing) thing about the Xbox One reveal, was the mention of the "newly redesigned D-pad." Wait, what?  Directional pads like that have been around since the mid 80s, and I personally, haven't liked the tinkering that was done for almost every non-Nintendo D-pad (Dreamcast aside).

That's all I'm going to say about this since I'm very much out of my league when it comes to most/all things related to the Xbox; I can honestly say that I've played/used an Xbox less than ten times.  Ever.

A couple of months ago, I did an article about the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate demo with the header of "Demo Time."  I would really like to turn this into a "thing."  While some games may not warrant an entire article, there will be times when I combine a couple of games that have similar themes or feel like two games are one-in-the-same, just with a different pair of underwear on the outside.

There will be some games that are obvious as to why I would play them, while others I won't fit within a single target area of a game's demographic.  The point is, there have been some games that I've been surprised by and others that I thought I might like and turned out to be a boring slice of dried cheese.  I will state thought that I may or may not play every available demo.

I currently do not have any plans to release Demo Time posts on any day in particular, but they will appear here and there.  Possibly when I don't have anything else on my plate or if there is a particularly engaging demo that I feel the need to share.


Lastly, I don't feel that it's any surprise that my goto for what a video game blog/article should be is Penny Arcade.  For a long time, I thought the phrase at the end of Jerry/Tycho's posts were little cryptic sayings that had to do with the article, even when they were labeled "instrumental;" in my head there'd be a dramatic movie music cue ready to go.  That all changed (last year?) when Jerry started actually hyperlinking the end phrase to a song, which is what the phrases were related to.  

Yes, I'm copying on some level, although I did something very similar with in-office emails when I worked for the State (of California).  I would have little taglines, something like "The marmots are really just framing the ferns until someone notices."  Nonsensical things with the intention of making people scratch their heads.  It's not as funny when you don't work with "professionals."  Although, back during the Myspace era, whenever I wrote a note/blog post, I would use a mozilla extension (FoxyTunes I think it was) to paste information on whatever song I was last listening to when I finished the posting.  For a while here I've been doing something very similar, although I would usually alter the song title or some of the lyrics to better "fit" at the end of a posting.  I will continue this practice and now, I too will hyperlink.

I've used too many words and should probably stop tippa-tapping now.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
He, The Aethyr