(News)

EA kicked off with footage of Plants VS Zombies: Garden Warfare. PvZ: GW will come to Xbox One first, and then will eventually be ported to Xbox 360. It will feature a 4-player cooperative play mode with fully 3D environments and graphics. New plants will be featured as well, such as the Sunflower and the Cactus. It will run on the Frostbite 3 engine.

"PEGGLE 2" he screams as he walks off-stage.

More information was given regarding Titanfall. It was announced that Titanfall wouldn't be an Xbox One exclusive, but would instead be coming to Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC.

EA and DICE announced a new Star Wars: Battlefront, shown by a very small trailer.

Need for Speed: Rivals was revealed through a quick cinematic trailer. A new feature called All-Drive was announced, which allows for singeplayer experiences to blend immediately into multiplayer races, making it feel like the player is a real street racer, jumping in and out of races instantaneously. Tablet support was teased for the game.

Dragon Age: Inquisition will launch in Fall 2014 and will run off of Frostbite 3. A cinematic trailer was shown to commemerate the announcement. Some characters from past Dragon Age games will make a return.

A collection of Xbox One and PS4 EA Sports games were showcased, specifically NBA Live '14. A new technique called bounceTec will allow for more realistic experiences in the game. Player stats will be updated within an hour that they happen. A short trailer for NBA Live '14 was then shown. Madden NFL 25 was shown with a whole bunch of sports terms that I don't understand in the slightest. A full gameplay trailer was shown for it as well, showing off how detailed the graphics can get. FIFA 14 was teased as well. The new IGNITE engine provides every game with more realistic AI, interactions, and fan responses. Another new technique called MMAi allows more realistic and authentic animations in another sports game, UFC, coming Spring 2014.

Battlefield 4 was once again brought up, and yet another new technique was mentioned, called Levelution. ...not quite sure what it does. A new mode called Commander Mode was introduced, and I'm not quite sure what that does, either. The BattleLog is a social network integrated into Battlefield 4, and can be accessed from all devices. A live demo including 64 different people playing was shown during this section. This demo showcased how Battlefield 4 will make the game feel like a full-on war zone. Destructible terrain was shown off as well, in that a player shot a C4 at a support beam and took down a level in a building. Tablet functionality was shown off as well.

One last game was shown before EA left the stage, in the form of a gameplay trailer. That game being Mirror's Edge 2, a first-person freerunning game. It's being designed with the Frostbite 3 engine, but was not given a release date or console lineup.

CLOSING COMMENTS: Some of these games actually got me really excited, and I'm glad to see some of these aren't Xbox One exclusive. I'm looking forward to seeing how these games turn out, especially Titanfall and Need for Speed: Rivals.

(News)

A new Kinect game made by Rare will come on launch for Xbox One called Kinect Sports Rivals. The theatrical trailer didn't show any actual gameplay, but showed that wake racing, tennis, soccer, rock climbing, and bowling will be among the playable sports.

According to the announced month for launch title Kinect Sports Rivals, the Xbox One will come out in November of 2013.

A new trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was shown. A logo for the "FOX Engine" was in the beginning. The cutscene the trailer opened with jumped straight into gameplay with the same graphics. Real-time weather, new stealth tactics, and the open-world nature of the game was announced. The trailer showed the new voice for Snake and a set of new characters.

A new Xbox 360 model was teased, and existing Gold members will recieve Assassin's Creed II and Halo 3 as free full downloads. "Hundreds" of games will be coming to Xbox 360, such as GTAV, Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns, and Batman Arkham Origins. A free-to-play World of Tanks port was teased for the Xbox 360 as well. A trailer for indie game by Press Start, Max: The Curse of the Brotherhood, was shown. Seems like a lighthearted version of Limbo. Will be launched on Xbox 360. Also for the 360 is Dark Souls II.

RYSE: Son of Rome was announced with a small trailer and gameplay. It is primarily in a third-person view and is very cinematic from what was shown. Focuses on combat with lots of quicktime events and combos for kills. Some elements make it seems like Microsoft's answer to God of War. Xbox One exclusive.

Fighting game Killer Instinct 3 was announced. Looks very nice from the trailer shown. Insomniac teased Sunset Overdrive: an always-changing open world game with a cartoony but gritty artsyle. Cars and guns and monsters. No gameplay actually shown, but a cinematic trailer was. Both are Xbox One exclusive.

More information on Forza Motorsport 5 was given along with a trailer and gameplay. The game is said to be the most realistic racer of all time, tracking and recognizing your own driving style and...driving for you? Apparently you'll get credits by your "driveatar" automatically racing people when you're not even playing through the Xbox One's always-on setup.

Yet another Minecraft port was announced for Xbox One, because the non-backwards-compatibility of the Xbox One will require you to rebuy it. Supposedly it will have more to it than previous Minecraft ports, but an incredibly minimal trailer was shown.

New info based on Quantum Break was shown. The hero is named Jack Choice, a guy who survived a failed science expirement that caused time to stutter and sometimes completely freeze. Another new game called D4 was teased with a very small trailer. It's an episodic game with a Walking Dead-esque art style by an indie developer, Swerty65.

Project Spark is a Smartglass-based terrain building sim in which you can set the time of your environment and create and morph environments with your tablet or smartphone. You can then control a character named Claud throughout your world and create villages and other areas. Adding enemies and upgrading objects to fight for you is another feature of the game. Spark seems to have some MMO elements as well. Project Spark will come to Xbox One and Windows 8.

Features of Smartglass were mentioned. It can essentially work as Miiverse for your Xbox One games, but communicates with games in real time.

The Game DVR was announced. Your game footage, no matter the game, is always recorded and is immediately available for editing and posting. A partnership with Twitch was also announced, rivaling Sony's previously-announced partnership with Ustream.

Upgrades to Xbox Live were mentioned. Microsoft Points are getting replaced with real money. Even though Xbox Live Gold is not getting dropped, your Gold service is shared with all accounts on your Xbox One. The friends list cap was also removed or heightened.

A trailer for Crimson Dragon was shown, but with sound issues. Dead Rising 3 was also announced with gameplay. Seems more gritty and serious compared to previous Dead Rising games. Everything you find can be a weapon. Weapon building allows you to add flashlights to handguns and stuff like that. Zombies are attracted to anything and everything you do. Distracting a horde with a massive flare gun was shown in the gameplay. Hijacking cars allows you to mow through zombies and travel to places faster. Artillery support can be called in with SmartGlass devices. Dead Rising 3 will come out this holiday for Xbox One.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was announced. It is multiplatform, but exclusive SmartGlass and Kinect-based voice controls are built into the Xbox One version of the game. A small cinematic trailer was shown; no direct gameplay was featured.

EA and DICE announced Battlefield 4: Second Assault with gameplay. The fact that it was in 60 fps was pointed out. More sound issues arose as the gameplay footage booted up. No commentary was given; just the gameplay was shown. Battlefield 4 will come to Xbox One before any other console.

Some game called Below was teasted. No information was given. Literally. None whatsoever besides the most vague trailer I have ever seen.

Microsoft announced they opened many new studios, and a lot of Halo-based news was given, such as a short trailer assumed to be Halo 5, and a Windows 8-based Halo game was mentioned.

A trailer for a new game by EA and Respawn Entertainment called Titanfall was shown as well; it seems to be a futuristic first-person shooter with mechs. You'll be able to parkour on walls and use a jetpack to travese through the missions. Titanfall will be on Xbox One in spring of 2014.

The Xbox One was confirmed to be releasing in November of 2013 at a base price of $499.

CLOSING COMMENTS: So Microsoft completely avoided the real problem: their DRM. They shoved a whole bunch of games in our faces to distract from the problem and the price for the Xbox One is waaaaay too steep. However, the games look nice and the graphics look really good. Makes the system somewhat more tempting, but the issues with the Xbox One are still much too glaring to even consider it.

(News)

A new free-to-play RPG will come out on PS Vita dubbed Destiny of Shadows. Not much was shown besides a trailer with some screenshots.

A theatrical trailer was shown at E3 for the new LEGO game, Marvel Super Heroes, depicting the playable characters and revealing that every cutscene will be fully-voiced, akin to LEGO City Undercover. The trailer showed that the whole Avengers cast will be present, as well as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Deadpool, and a few others.

Something Xbox 360-related was teased. It'll be announced during the conference. Summer of Arcade will include Charlier Murder, TMNT: Out of the Shadows, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and Flashback.

(Recommendation of the Week)

If you've been looking for something alongside the new game Animal Crossing: New Leaf to sink a massive amount of time into, look no further than Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS. A tactical RPG by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, FEA is loaded with a massive amount of colorful characters with rich dialogue, many branching options for character growth, and a wide range of free and paid DLC, all packaged together with beautiful graphics and sounds. This a game that should be played in 3D whenever you can, especially during cutscenes (which I really wish there were more of), and should definitely be played with headphones, because even the great speakers the 3DS has don't do the breathtaking soundtrack justice.

It would take nearly forever for me to cover everything in the game because there are so many little details and so many varying options, the most of which I still haven't tried myself, but don't let that discourage you if you're new to the Fire Emblem franchise. This is my first step into the world of Fire Emblem, and I found Awakening to be very easily accessible, so much so that I started speeding through menus and micromanaging in my head within the first few hours of play (although that could be because I play a lot of Tetris). The massive cast of characters allows you to play however you'd like; each character has their own classes and weapons they can use, suiting all kinds of strageties to be used on the battlefield. While some crucial things aren't explained (such as the fact that weapons can break, how weapon efficiency XP works, etc.), discovering every little detail packed into the game is part of the adventure, making finding out something new feel like an accomplishment. You can also pair up characters and make them stronger (similar to the Social Links in Persona), giving you full control over the side-stories presented through Support Dialogue and providing more depth to the characters you're controlling. You also start up the game after creating an Avatar to represent you, which implants you into the story more than you might think. FEA gives players the option to play in three different difficulties (Normal, Hard, and Expert) as well as two different game modes (Casual and Classic; Classic features permadeath for individual characters on the battlefield while Casual removes the feature), allowing the player to customize the flow of the game to however they like and giving more replay value to a game that already can eat up huge portions of your time. For reference, I played Super Mario 3D Land twice, 100%ing the game each time and getting up to 35 hours over the course of a few months. In FEA, however, I reached that exact amount in under a week, and I still don't consider myself to be done with the game; in fact, I'm nowhere close. Normal mode allowed me to play through the beautifully-written storyline, but I may just play the entire game all over again in Hard mode and choose different options along the way, just to explore.

A physical copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening is hard to find due to shortages, but the box art and game cart make it well worth the wait. If you'd rather have it in your hand ASAP, then FEA is also available as a full download on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Both physical and digital copies are $40.

(Review)

Before I get started, I'd like to point out that I still haven't played the first Paper Mario or Thousand-Year Door. However, I see this as more of a blessing than a curse, because I was able to play Super Paper Mario and enjoy it for what it was without having to compare it to the previous games, which is what a lot of people seemed to be doing and they ended up hating Super because of it. I still haven't gotten the chance to play Paper Mario 1 or 2, so I went into Sticker Star with the same mindset as I did with Super Paper Mario, and I found that Paper Mario: Sticker Star was not nearly as bad as people were making it out to be.

Now, Paper Mario: Sticker Star is by no means a perfect game. It has plenty of design choices throughout that make little to no sense and are actually quite irritating. For example, there are quite a number of "puzzles" in Sticker Star that have no clues given as to how to solve them, making it less of a puzzle and more of just the developers hiding required exits behind things no player would ever think to look. The majority of the puzzles in World 2 all revolve around stuff like this; in fact, all of World 2 is just a huge conglomerate mess of crappy puzzles and boring scenery, its only saving grace being the Sombrero Guy enemies. I nearly up and quit the game World 2 was structured so badly...but I'm actually quite glad I didn't.

The introduction to Sticker Star is easily the best intro to a game I've seen in a while, which got me up for great expectations. The dialogue was well-written, the characters were already likable, the few puzzles I had seen so far were looking pretty good, the scenery had some great design, and the music was already sounding very charming and unique. A few paticular lines in the intro were incredibly funny and I was really excited to delve into the game. Right off the bat, however, I could tell this wasn't going to be like any RPG I'd ever played. The map for the game looked very similar to Super Mario World in that every area was its own level in a set of worlds, and you're given three worlds to initially explore. As such, I decided to play them in order, starting with World 1, and I found the battles to be quite interesting. Here's the rundown: Sticker Star gets its namesake in that stickers are spread everywhere (and I mean everywhere) throughout the levels, and you use these stickers as attacks in battles. The stickers are consumable, so once you use one, it's gone. This makes for a very interesting battle system that, while some players found tiresome, I actually found to be refreshing and unique. I do have an issue, however, with the fact that this means that there's a lack of an EXP or a leveling system. This caused regular battles to actually be an annoyance and it made fighting enemies and using your stickers entirely pointless, some of which you probably bought by defeating said enemies. It makes for a constant loop of actions that have no effect whatsoever on the overall experience. This mechanic also causes the boss battles to be immensly tough and infuriating at times. The final battle, which was supposed to have a huge impact, blew up in my face because I ran out of effective stickers, making me restart the battle. Twice. Sure, every boss has a special Thing Sticker it's weak to (which is a real-life item you find in the paper world that you transform into a sticker for another use), but it's usually impossible to find out which one to use until the boss fight has already started. Despite all of that, battles are actually quite fun (if only becuase they test your reflexes with action commands) and the sticker system is a unique twist, and picking up every sticker and placing them in the Sticker Museum rewards you with a sound test feature, which is a great prize.

World 1 was somewhat plain, as to be expected of a first world, but come the mid-point of World 2...I was ready to give up. There was one section where you had to allow Mario to fall into a pit of quicksand (which is relatively unmarked) to get a plot-specific item. What should normally be an "Oh, I found a cool secret path!" moment turned into a "This was required?!" moment of confusion and rage. The boss battle wasn't too pleasing, either; it was quite disappointing in almost every aspect. The only good things about World 2 that kept me going were the aforementioned Sombrero Guys and the awesome moment when Kamek turns your stickers into flip-flops which you then use to slap him senseless. Although I can assume a die-hard Paper Mario fan would've stopped playing at this point, I'd urge them not to, because despite this massive dip in enjoyment, it gets much better very quickly.

World 3 and beyond each had their own unique premise and each level was interesting and fun to play. The environments became more varied and the music got even better as the game progressed and the characters and events shown from then on were laugh-out-loud funny. I won't spoil them, but if you stick around (get it?) past World 2, you'll see that Sticker Star ends up boosting so far up in the charm factor that you'll continue playing just to see what the game will throw at you next. Certain levels definitely provide interesting and unexpected twists and jokes that keep the game fresh and new. It almost feels like World 3 is a massive "We're sorry about World 2" postcard from the developers.

The cast of characters are all returning faces from mainseries Mario, meaning past Paper Mario regulars don't make an appearance. I wasn't affected by this at all; however, Paper Mario fans might be a little disappointed. Only one new character appears in Sticker Star: Kersti. This Royal Sticker follows Mario around to give him guidance (albiet in her own funny little smartass way) about where to go and what to do next. The dialogue coming from the Toads, side characters like Wiggler, and Kersti are enough to keep the game entertaining without having a large cast of characters, so I ask fans of previous Paper Mario games to not be too upset about their favorite characters not making a return or not seeing many new ones.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star is a game that's somewhat hard to form a well-structured opinion on. I'm torn between the game's great visuals, use of 3D, art style, lovable soundtrack & witty dialogue, and the aggravating puzzles, tough boss battles, & lack of replayability. I don't hate Sticker Star, but I feel like it's hard to fall in love with it, too, like I did in Super Paper Mario. It's not a bad game by any means, mind you; it's obviously got a lot of heart and talent put into it and you can tell the developers tried their best, but there just happen to be those few design choices that weigh the game down as a whole. If you want to try Paper Mario: Sticker Star for yourself, it's sold both as a retail game and digitally through the Nintendo 3DS eShop.

(News)

IGN has provided us with extensive gameplay of the demos for the Wii U and 3DS versions of Sonic Lost World, both of which will be shown and playable on the E3 show floor next week. The videos can be seen below.

What's shown is the return of the Cyan Laser and Yellow Drill Wisps from Sonic Colors (of which only the former is used), and a new purple Wisp is shown in the 3DS version that has a similar function to the Violet Void. The commentator in the Wii U version also describes the parkour system and how Sonic's controls have been reworked to allow the player to control his or her speed, allowing for precision platforming and running with the press or release of a shoulder button. The Spin Dash and Homing Attack make a return, and a new kick-based move is added to Sonic's arsenal. The Red Star Rings are back as well, five being in each Act. Acts will either be a mix of 3D and 2D (like Unleashed), solely 2D (like the classics), or will be all in 3D and feature Sonic permenantly going at top speed (like the mach speed sections of '06, but playable). The 3DS version will, for the first time in handheld Sonic history, feature full 3D levels. The Flame and Thunder Shields also reappear in the 3DS version.

References to past games such as Sonic CD and Sonic Riders are ridden throughout all three videos. Can you spot every reference?

(News)

Micrsoft has put up a site detailing everything about the Xbox One and every issue that was brought up during and after the press conference. Supposedly, playing a used game will not cost a fee, but you will be required to connect to the internet while playing your game on another console every hour, and every Xbox One console will be required to do a routine online check-up every 24 hours. You will not be able to play offline until one of these checks are done. The data Kinect listens for and uses is also customizable. Why Microsoft waited so long to announce this stuff is still confusing, but it's good to see they're finally addressing the issues. See the rest of the information for yourself here.

(News)

SEGA has accounced that they'll be localizing and publishing the Japanese rhythm game based on the Hatsune Miku trend over to the US and Europe. It'll be a PS3 exclusive and will feature a song editor as well as 38 default songs to play, and Hatsune Miku herself will be customizable with various outfits and accessories. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F will hit the western market in a matter of months; the game will launch on PS3 retail and PSN digital download in August of 2013. The US will get a demo on June 11th, while Europe will get the demo on the 12th.

(News)

In the same style of remake as Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (even swiping the "Anniversary" subtitle), the Xbox classic Fable is getting an HD remake, which will launch on Xbox 360 by the end of the year during the holiday season. The remake, Fable Anniversary, will feature leaderboards, Smartglass support, and improvements to the graphics, HUD, and save system, as well as decreased load times. The Lost Chapters expansion will also be built into the game and will be given the same facelift. 

(News)

The crossover fighting game Project X Zone recently had a demo up in Europe, leaving America in the dust. However, the demo for the game has now appeared in the American 3DS eShop completely out of nowhere. It is now available for download for around 950 blocks.