So The Game Awards were last night. If you missed it, then I’m glad you did something more productive with your time than I did. The Game Awards was little more than the same ad again and again for almost three hours.Many of the awards didn’t get any fanfare and it felt like any awards that did have the developers come up didn’t get to give much of a speech before we seemed to be onto another ad. It felt like more of a way to remind you Google Stadia was a thing and the Nintendo Switch has games more than a celebration of games from the year.

First the good. We finally saw our first next gen console along with its first exclusive Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. We’re getting a Bravely Default sequel(no Bravely Second wasn’t the sequel it didn’t have a 2 at the end of it) and we’re getting No More Heroes 3 next year and got a trailer. It was also revealed that The Wolf Among Us 2 is in development.

Other than this it felt like so much was thrown at us without enough knowledge it was hard to get excited about. Amazon is making a game that we don’t know how it plays yet, we got another Final Fantasy 7 trailer which helped build up more hype but I’m sure everyone’s already excited, a new looter shooter named Godfall, two new League of Legends games, a Gears of War tactics game, a new strategy game from the people who made Civilization, a shark rpg, a new game from the people who made Player Unknown Battergrounds, and then saw a medicore Fast and Furious game trailer.

I know it seems like I glossed over a lot but it feels like we got almost no real info on any of these. The majority of all of these were really pretty trailers that had no game play and then flash a release time of 2020 at us. Even if you were excited about anything that was shown we didn’t see enough to be excited.

I hope they see all the complaints from people this year. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but it felt like it was a waste of time tuning in(and not because we didn’t see a Smash character). This isn’t the celebration gaming deserves.

So The Game Awards was last night and in it we got our first glimpse of the first next-gen console: the Xbox Series X. We got a trailer that showed off what the console looks like, and many memes of it looking like a fridge among many other things. While we don’t know the specs we know it’s supposed to be twice as powerful as the Xbox One X which should lead to more realistic looking games and less slowdown when playing games next gen. Not much is known about the console yet, but with this trailer we officially know the first console of the next gen. Now we wait for Sony to show off their console and find out if those rumors of a Switch Pro is true.

After three months of putting snes games on switch Nintendo has finally added new games for both NES and SNES. And this time we got four SNES games and two NES games of which all seem like good games. First up, we got Star Fox 2 a game that we saw in its completion for the first time on the SNES classic, is now available portably on the Switch. Star Fox 2 improves on many of the previous games flaws and even adds a choose your own route type of gameplay. Next up we got the best game ever(no I’m not bias) Super Punch Out. This improves on the already amazing formula of Punch Out in every way and it’ll be an amazing game for pick up and play. Next we got Breath of Fire 2, the sequel to one of the first games available on the platform. This one is considered to be a vast upgrade on the original and should be a good rpg to sink your teeth into. Lastly is Kirby Super Star, an amazing Kirby game that deserves a replay if you’ve ever played it and a try if you never have. Finally, the two NES games we got was Journey to Silus and Crystalis. Journey to Silas is a run and gun game while Crystalis looks to be a Zelda like game. And they come out on the night of the Game Awards so expect Christmas to come early with the game announcements.

During the livestream for Terry, the fourth DLC character for Super Smash Bro’s Ultimate Sakurai took the time to teach us about SNK’s history and Terry as a fighter. He also revealed he put guest characters from SNK games into Terry’s stage. There are over a dozen of them but Sakurai was quick to explain why one was missing: Mai Shiranui. Sakurai’s explanation for this was “smash is for good boys and girls”. I guess this means Ivy isn’t getting in anytime soon.

Google just got done with their presentation for the Google Stadia, their streaming service you don’t need a game box to jump into. However it brought up a lot of questions, mainly where consoles and games as a whole are going. At this point, we see the industry going towards digital everything. GameStop has had some rough shake ups and isn’t doing to hot right now. And if GameStop goes places like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy are going to be the only place to buy physical games still, though it feels fair to say they might get rid of their selections to because if we aiming for digital and they don’t think enough people are buying the games, why dedicate a section to it? And while this part of the world of video games doesn’t know where it’s going yet it feels like some companies are trying to push past that and get to the next big issue: streaming. Now at some point in my opinion at least streaming will overtake both physical and digital hardware. I’m sure hardcore and casual gamers alike are tired of spending so much on their favorite hobbie. Right now, to start playing the best games with a console not including sales going on you’d spend $300 for the console (PS4 or Xbox One) if it didn’t come with a game $60 on that, $60 if you want another controller and another $60 if you want online. That’s a lot of money to put down and while I’m sure anyone who picks up a controller for even an hour a day can justify it the more casual people can’t We had an influx of people join the community when Fortnight got big and for those people who didn’t have a good enough computer or a console already I’m sure the $300 barrier to entry was hard to swallow. So I get it really I do but streaming is not the future yet. It’s been proven already that the U.S has the weakest wifi out of anywhere in the world. Despite this Twitter if filled with people staying it’s not available in their country bit guess where it is? The U.S. Now I think this is a double edged sword. Google, one of the biggest tech companies out there and has a estimated 80% of people (CHECK THIS) already in their pocket with their Android devices is one of the best companies to do this. No matter if you have a Mac or a PC, Stadia will work in Google Chrome a web browser you just have to download. And like with most Google apps that work on their phone they come to IOS either earlier or on the same day, so it’s a fair assumtion that it’ll come to IOS. Now, I just named three devices the majority of people in the U.S are guaranteed to have. Even if you only have one of these especially with the announcement of IOS supporting PS4 and Xbox One controllers eventually with Stadia you’ll be able to play anywhere on something you already have in your pocket or that you own. That’s not including the $50-100 Chromecast line you can get that’ll plug directly into your TV and make it not only a smart TV but also a streaming box right out of the box. But this also ignores the one most important thing, wifi. You can plus your Ethernet into the Chromecast and be done with it but most U.S wifi isn’t reliable enough to stream now, and Google is asking you to buy into a service that revolves around the streaming. Thats bound to cause issues in the future for many people, of which if the Pixel help line is anything to go by will be a tireless battle. I’m not saying this doesn’t seen cool. I’m an old person now. I remember the days of having to buy a disc and that being the only way of being able to play the game. And I’m glad we’re using technology to the fullest to improve. But I don’t think this is the time to go all in on streaming. We’re still focused on losing physical software pushing the next big thing down our throats this early feels rushed and if it is rushed it’ll only lead to a bad product.

(This is a reupload of a blog post written on wix

With Sony not going to E3 this year it was expected. Nintendo being the only other heavy hitter going to E3 and Microsoft well known at this point to be the one of the big three to have most of the third party games coming out in the near future to be announced at their conference it would of been a safe bet that it would be a great conference. Not everything was positive but I’d call the majority of what they showed great and got me excited.
Cyberpunk is shaping up to be an amazing game and with the announcement that Keanu Reeves is in it I’m sure many people have decided to pre-order. Other than that we didn’t see any game-play but did see what looked like cut scenes and that was just as impressive. The models for all the characters look lifelike even with the mods to the body. Cyberpunk will be coming out on April 4,2020
One of the biggest announcements was of Xbox Game Pass coming to PC and this has honestly convinced me to attempt to use my laptop more for games. With an old computer you’ll have issues running a lot of newer things but with something like Game pass if one game doesn’t work another almost definitely will especially with the vast majority of its starting 100 line up being hit indie games like Hotline Miami, Slay the Spire and Hollow Knight. Xbox Game pass is a dollar for a month right now and will be $4.99 every month after.
The Xbox conference was way to big to explain everything on its own but some of the biggest stuff they announced were 12 days, Gears 5, a new Xbox launching with Halo, a new Ori and the announcement that Microsoft owns Double Fine now.
Despite the amount of content Microsoft showed off many are eager to see what Nintendo will do in their direct and so am I especially after coming from the Bethesda conference that seemed to announce updates for a lot of the existing games or game we knew about and mobile games.
Stay tuned for more E3 coverage.