The End

I like writing but I'd like to practise my skills to the point where they can become valuable, so I'm going to do this privately in my own time. Making daily updates to Irish Nintendo Fan has been a good exercise and it's certainly something I can transfer to a future project.

When I began this blog there was no Nintendo Direct and there was no Miiverse. These two forms of direct communication, as well as the Treehouse features at E3, make me feel that doing something like a blog is obsolete. I think it's time to embrace this.

Thank you for reading!

-Lucas

E3 2014: Watch Dogs

Yawn.

E3 2014: Bayonetta 2

We've been waiting for this one for a while. No one really cares about Bayonetta except for those attracted to her but as someone who's played God Hand, Okami and Wonderful 101 before, I can see gameplay bits in there among the noise that look interesting. Hopefully it's more like God Hand and W101 because Okami was really boring.

Final Fantasy Explorers, a game that wasn't shown at E3 2014

Meanwhile, in Japan, this appered in a games magazine. It might be fun, but there is some stupid looking bloom lighting in the screenshots.

There's also Fantasy Life, which also has multi-player action and was shown during the Treehouse sessions.

E3 2014: Miyamoto's workshop projects

Project Giant Robot and Project Guard are cute tech demos/mini-games but they don't seem particularly interesting.

There's also a new Star Fox game being officially declared as existing. I have no idea who'd be interested in Star Fox though.

E3 2014 — Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.

A new IP and it's about strategy and shit. Not really into strategy games so I'm not gonna be able to do this one justice due to lack of interest.

E3 2014: Xenoblade Chronicles X

God what a fucking stupid name. As if the word "Chronicles" wasn't bad enough. Anyway it's a good thing the Treehouse featured some lovely footage of the characters running across massive open plains because the trailer shown during the digital event was really horrible and didn't feature anything like that. Loved the running in the previous game and looking forward to more in this new one and checking out all the vantage points.

E3 2014: Kirby and the Rainbow Curse

Nice little surprise this was. Power Paintbrush was quite fun so it's nice to have something to carry on that legacy.

E3 2014: Yoshi's Wooly World

Very nice looking game and even better looking than it's spiritual predecessor Kirby's Epic Yarn. It's also looking like it'll be much better than the recently released Yoshi's New Island.

E3 2014: Captain Toad Treasure Tracker

Very nice to see this. Loved these segments in Mario 3D World and this will be perfect for those long Winter months. It's getting a packaged retail release too which is cool.

It'll definitely be better than the average 2D indie puzzle platformer, with which game download services are inundated. No, this is more about exploring 3D mazes.

E3 2014: Metal Gear Shaky-Cam 5

I had a look at this non-Nintendo trailer as well and it was full of horrible shaky-cam cinematography. I wish Hideo Kojima wouldn't allow this. So many look up to him re: game cinematics so I feel he should be a better influence.

Unfortunately, he in turn looks up to those in the movie industry who use obnoxious shaky cam. I wish he wouldn't! Those movies suck and this technique is hostile to the audience. Quantum of Solace for example was regarded as one of the worst Bond films ever and everyone who was unfortunate enough to watch Cloverfield got sick. Fans of The Dark Knight fast forward to the bits with Heath Ledger's Joker and don't bother with the rest.

Shaky cam isn't used for realism, it's used to make up for a weak movie budget. This doesn't apply to games though and so, putting shaky cam in there just to make it look like a bad movie is missing the point entirely.

GAMES ARE BETTER THAN MOVIES. The act of making them cinematically comparable to bad movies is DEGRADING.

E3 2014: Devil's Third

Like Splatoon, this game will feature a multiplayer third person mode which is a nice thing they have in common.

It's one of those violent action games that may very well have interesting stuff in them but for now we can only more or less see that which tries to make it look cool. It's hard to see anything past the tattoos but I'm curious as to what lurks in the depths.

E3 2014: Splatoon

Nintendo's big new IP and it's a third person multiplayer online shooter. This is according to all the information we know about it anyway. I have to say I'm not interested in this at all. Treehouse featured this several times on one bloody level and I was just bored to tears. I do like that big jump across the arena quite a lot though.

E3 2014: Hyrule Warriors looks great!

Now THIS is more like it! The graphics in this game look clean and sharp and colourful and the character designs have a genuinely cool bad-ass look. Princess Zelda herself has never looked this good and she gets to kick serious butt! All the characters look like they have been sculpted to perfection.

Contrast this with the new Zelda reveal where we can barely see anything with the blurriness.

E3 2014: New Zelda reveal from Aonuma looks really bad

Oh dear. I absolutely hate the way this looks. It appears that this is continuing the blurry, bloomy, blindingly bright look that made everyone hate Skyward Sword. Wind Waker HD suffered from this too and made the in-game text almost impossible to read in both games.

Compare this to how good Hyrule Warriors looks! If I was working for the "Zelda Team" I would be very nervous!

E3 2014: Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS

Quite an event this was, between the tournament and, more interestingly, the reveal of Pac-Man as an addition to the roster.

I got bored of Smash Bros a long long time ago unfortunately so the tournament wasn't exciting to me at all. I doubt I'll be continuing a Smash Bros career when the new games come out for Wii U and 3DS.

I feel the exact same way about Mario Kart. Got bored of that too.

Posts will stop on 30/6/2014

Just a heads up! At the end of this month I'm going to stop publishing posts on this blog. On the run up to the end I'll talk about games that were shown at E3 2014 during Nintendo's Treehouse events.

Dr Kawashima invites himself onto my Wii U

Since I have the new speedier menu update installed I get this guy's game automatically downloading itself onto my console. Nice to get something for free I suppose.

E3 2014: Day 3 of Nintendo Treehouse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGsXGy9ZvIs

Don't bother reading blogs today, just join the festivities with this livestream!

The Pac-Man reveal video from yesterday was quite nice :)

More Nintendo Treehouse stuff today at E3 2014

More fun streaming from Nintendo today so don't miss it!

Nintendo Digital Event E3 2014 today

I watched this on YouTube where the stream was decent enough. I would've used the Twitter feed but Twitter doesn't show the latest tweets first any more.

Lots of nice stuff were announced! New Zelda looks crap compared to Hyrule Warriors it must be said.

Shantae and the pirate's curse is coming to Wii U as well as 3DS

Wow some news of this game! It'll be out sometime this Summer they're saying and there's a nice new trailer and well... I hope it won't be ridiculously expensive.

I'd love to watch a Nintendo Direct in a cinema!

I've been hearing Nintendo World Store in New York is having a ticketed performance of the live digital event thingy that's gonna be shown as part of this year's E3.

I'd love to watch such a thing in a local cinema! It would be like the old newsreels of the early 20th century.

Tim Rogers streams Super Mario Bros. 3 for his birthday

Happy Birthday Tim!

Today he's streaming Mario 3 for his annual playthrough. Have a look at it here: http://www.twitch.tv/actionbutton

Luigi contest in MKTV

Nintendo of Europe just tweeted about their weekly MKTV contest and this week they're asking players to show off their Luigi video highlights. Great opportunity for Luigi death glare videos right? Way to strike while the iron's hot!

The Luigi Death Stare from Mario Kart 8 is wonderful!

This is so funny I love it! Several video clips are taken from Mario Kart 8 of Luigi one-upping someone and then giving them a death glare as he overtakes. It's then set to swear filled ghetto rap music. Have a look for it on YouTube!

New quick menu thing on Wii U is pretty nice

It's always nice to have measures to alleviate loading times or bypass loading screens altogether. Though of course, we didn't have to put up with sluggish firmware in the old days. *sigh*

"Do sales always equal quality?" email response from Seán Malstrom: Something to add

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/email-do-sales-always-equal-quality/

Something I'd like to add to the discussion linked above:

What if the number 1 game in the sales chart was shit? It's certainly possible, but what would it mean? Well, I guess it would mean every other game below would be even worse. Comparative quality of sales performance.

Wario Land 4 coming to Wii U VC in Ireland this week

Hey if you haven't played this already look forward to it! It's an excellent game, not quite as good as Wario Land 2 (my favourite and which is available on 3DS VC). A freakin' book has been written about this game!

I always found it to be an amazing aural experience so make sure you have good stereo speakers with which to listen while you play.

Sticks the Jungle Badger

New Sonic character announced for the Sonic Boom universe! She's a cute little thing and she reminds me of Marine the Raccoon from Sonic Rush Adventure, the not-so-good follow up to the better Sonic Rush.

There was a little preview in the form of a session featuring her voice actor and she has some zany funny lines! It's almost reminiscent of Lola Bunny from the Loony Tunes sitcom show though that could be premature of me to say. Looking forward to seeing more about Sonic Boom soon.