Category: ramblings

a brief sojourn back into Hell

Well, first – thanks for everyone’s feedback yesterday.  I ended up buying my rental copy, and I also decided that I will check out the DLC – as long as it’s not, like, shitty.  That way, everyone wins.  Darksiders 2 is a game I can see myself playing more than once, which is something I’ve been known to do (i.e., a rather high percentage of my Steam library are games that I’ve already played on the 360).   Hell, right now, even though I’m finished with the 2nd “world”, I’ve gone back to the 1st world just to finish up all the side quests that I somehow missed – I somehow spent the first 15 hours of the game without finding the Lure Stone, which led me to believe that it was a thing that only unlocked with a new copy.  (I kept seeing all these bright, shiny gems sticking on every wall and was unable to do anything with them, and it was driving me up the wall.)

As to the topic at hand – I didn’t have access to the TV last night, so I decided to revisit Diablo 3 and see what the hubbub about 1.0.4 was about.  I’d put the game down rather abruptly a few weeks ago, once I saw that I was still getting utterly decimated by elites in Act 1 of Hell difficulty, despite spending hundreds of thousands of virtual gold in the auction house, and that started to get old very quickly.  1.0.4 seems to have made rather sweeping changes to almost every aspect of the game – Hell difficulty has been tweaked considerably, each player class has received numerous updates, and there’s a new XP system for people who’ve already maxed out at level 60.

I would’ve liked to have tried out Hell difficulty, but the thing is, I’d put the game down in a rather sorry state – almost all of my equipment was heavily damaged, and I only had 66 gold to work with.  So I decided to go back to Act 3 of Inferno and farm gold for a bit so that I could at least approach Hell with enough gold for the inevitable repairs I’d have to do, and maybe also see if I could notice any difference.

Can’t say I noticed much of a difference, actually, although it’s hard to say if that’s because of the patch, or because my character is just that powerful.  Back when I was still heavily addicted (and having trouble with Hell), I’d periodically go back to Inferno and farm for a while, and I never had too much trouble.  But last night I mowed through the Battlefield section of Act 3 like a goddamned tornado – I’m not sure my health ever dipped below 50%, actually.  Some of my critical hits were 5 digits long.  I may very well end up farming Inferno Act 4 once more before giving Hell another go – it’s pretty quick, after all, and I should be able to scrounge up enough gold for a few high-quality Auction House items and be able to cover repairs if Hell starts to go bad, again.

Then again, I’m still in deep with Darksiders 2, so maybe I don’t need to do this right away.

Plus, I don’t want to forget about Sleeping Dogs – that’s a game I’d like to finish.

And Borderlands 2 is going to suck up a lot of time, I’m almost positive of that.

Anyway.  If you’ve been away from Diablo 3 for a while, the 1.0.4 patch is substantial enough that you might want to give it another look, if (for some reason) you’re not playing anything else.

approaching austerity; fun with bullet points

It’s been busy times here at SFTC HQ, though not for any particularly good reason.   I spent the bulk of my free time last week working on a quasi-review of Quantum Conundrum, one of my (too) many pickups from the Steam Summer Sale, and the piece itself (as I worked on it) became intensely negative, which might’ve been a bit unfair since the game is not, in fact, a piece of shit, but in any event I didn’t want to suddenly appear here after a long silence  with 1000 words of bile.

Speaking of which, since I realize that it’s been almost 3 weeks since the last post, here’s my complete haul from the Steam Summer Sale:

  • Galactic Civilizations II (super pack) – [why did I even bother?  I saw “turn-based strategy in space” for under $8 and couldn’t help myself.  have I played it yet?  of course not!]
  • Bulletstorm – [#10 on my Best-of-2011 List.  looks AMAZING on my PC.  I’ve been playing this a lot over the last few weeks, actually, and I think I like it even better the second time.  A real shame the sequel got cancelled.]
  • Alan Wake (complete pack) – [I played and sort-of liked the first game on the 360.  I tried the first few minutes of American Nightmare on the PC; it’s a little ridiculous.]
  • Quantum Conundrum – [half of me is really appreciative that there are first-person puzzle games still being made; the other half of me hates first-person platforming.  this game could’ve used a bit more focus testing, a bit more polish on the narrative (and maybe a different voice actor entirely, or at least one who bothered to show up and not just phone it in), and maybe it didn’t even need to be 1st person.  I’m still glad I finished it – despite the many frustrating bits, there are some glorious “eureka” moments, too – though I won’t be playing it again.]
  • SOL: Exodus – [This space combat-ish game got a lot of talk earlier in the year on various podcasts, which is how I presume it wound up on my wishlist.  I tried the first 10 minutes or so; it’s promising.]
  • Legend of Grimrock – [I was sorta hoping to wait for the iPad version, but the sale price was too good to pass up.  I played the first few minutes; I need to spend some serious time with a tutorial to figure out just what the hell I’m doing.]
  • Saints Row the Third [which I’ve already finished on the 360 – but how could I pass it up for 75% off?  I’ve been playing this and Bulletstorm over the last few weeks; they’re both so good, though they’re a bit confusing to play side-by-side – I keep wanting to do Bulletstorm-type stuff in SR3, which usually ends up getting me killed.]
  • Indie Bundle 2 (Botanicula, EYE, Universe Sandbox, Oil Rush, Splice) – [bought this only for Botanicula, which I haven’t yet played.]
  • Anno 2770 – [as with GalCiv2 above, I have no idea why I bought this.  I opened it up and played the first 5 minutes and didn’t know how to do anything.]

This splurge is likely to be my last for the foreseeable future, for reasons I’m not quite yet prepared to get into.  (It’s a good reason, is all I’ll say at this time.)  It is nice to have all this stuff to play, though, considering just how shitty 2012 has been so far in the quality-new-release department.  (It’s true that next week sees the release of both Darksiders 2 and Sleeping Dogs, but I only have high-ish hopes for one of those games.)

Splurge aside, my iOS devices have been getting quite a workout lately, too – and for not a lot of money, either:

  • Agent Dash is a free-to-play endless runner (similar to Temple Run), which looks fucking incredible (and is also quite difficult – I’ve installed it on both my iPad 3 and my iPhone 4, and the iPad version is superior if only because you can see future obstacles a bit easier).
  • 10,000,000 is a simple, fun puzzle RPG thing – I’ve beaten it already on my iPhone and so now I’m playing it again on the iPad.  Hoping there’ll be future content updates; this could use some new objectives and such.
  • Wizorb is a Breakout clone done as if it were an SNES RPG that first surfaced in the Xbox Indie Game library; it’s a perfect iOS title (again – it plays better on the iPad, because you can actually see what you’re doing.)
  • Orc: Vengeance is a frankly gorgeous Diablo-ish adventure, which I haven’t spent nearly enough time with.
  • Nihilumbra is a gorgeous puzzle/adventure game – reminds me a little bit of Okami, in a vague way.
  • Finally, the classic game Another World was on sale for $0.99 (down from $5), and I figured I should give that a shot at that price.

Looking back at that last post, I see that I was just days away from playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD.  I ended up spending quite a bit of time with it, and I came away from it with mixed reactions.  It does indeed look great, though ironically it now feels really empty;  the level designs (while pleasingly familiar) seem a bit sparse, and the level selections themselves are hit-or-miss.  (Seriously – the shopping mall and the downhill jam are levels I never needed to see again.)  Ultimately, while I am not nearly as good at it as I thought I was, I am somewhat relieved to see that I’m not noticeably worse.

So, yeah.  I know this post is far from substantive, but it’s a hell of lot cheerier than the depressing QC review I ended up not posting.  (Though, if you really want my in-depth thoughts on that game, I suppose I can be persuaded to whip it into publishable shape.)

Murder, Mayhem and the Matching of Colored Spheres

Couple things to talk about today:

1.  I think I’m done with Diablo 3.  Haven’t touched it in over a week.  It’s basically come down to this choice:  I can either keep re-running Act 3/4 of Hell difficulty until I scrounge up enough gold to buy the equipment I’d need to survive Inferno, or I can just move on with my life.  Starting over with new characters is not really all that appealing to me, either; I’ve played every level so many goddamned times now, and being a wizard or a witch doctor instead of a monk won’t make left-clicking any more interesting.  Ultimately, I definitely got my money’s worth, even if I’m still unsure about how much I actually enjoyed the experience.

2.  My shift from the PC back to the couch meant that I got to play (and finish) Spec Ops: The Line over the weekend.  I wasn’t really planning on playing it;  I only rented after listening to a bunch of Giant Bombcasts.  It’s a hard game to recommend based purely on its gameplay – it’s a third-person action shooter in a military setting, and it’s not like that’s an empty genre that needs filling.  That being said, it takes some very bold moves with its storytelling, and it asks you to do some pretty unsavory things, the repercussions of which are somewhat hard to swallow.  It’s an ambitious game, even if it doesn’t really appear to be at first glance.  It’s also gruesomely, spectacularly violent, and if it makes you feel guilty about all the murdering you’re doing, it also makes sure you see it in slow-motion, where a well-placed head shot literally makes your target’s head explode.  Also, Nolan North says “fuck” a lot and gradually goes insane, which is in many ways the proper response after killing hundreds and hundreds of people (unlike, say, Nathan Drake, who manages to stay calm, cool and collected after killing hundreds and hundreds of people).   As usual, I highly recommend checking out Tom Bissell’s piece in Grantland for further, better-written insight.  (And I’ll probably do a more spoiler-heavy write-up later this week; while the game’s story is based on Heart of Darkness, and while it wears its Apocalypse Now influence proudly on its sleeves (perhaps too proudly – the 60’s soundtrack feels downright anachronistic), there’s another movie whose influence on the story – particularly the ending – is perhaps even more obvious, but to say it basically gives it away.)

3.  Speaking of incredibly dark videogames, I am now fully caught up with The Walking Dead.  I don’t watch the TV show, but my wife is a big fan, and so we’re playing the game together – I drive, she makes the decisions.  Both episodes thus far are quite good – great writing, great voice acting, great art direction.  Tough choices.  And I love the touch at the end, where the game shows you how your decisions compare with everyone else who’s played.   It seems that Episode 1 was pretty even-handed, with the general public mostly split around 50/50 – Episode 2’s results, on the other hand, seemed to be pretty one-sided.  Curious to see how that’ll affect Episode 3’s beats.

4.  All this grisly murder requires an occasional cleansing of the palate, and to that end I am profoundly grateful for last week’s XBLA release of Zuma’s Revenge.  Nothing feels so refreshing after slaughtering thousands of virtual people quite like the matching of brightly colored spheres.  Similarly, I am very much looking forward to this week’s release of Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD.

5.  I’m not the Achievement Whore that I used to be, but I guess it’s worth noting that at some point last week I crossed 80,000.

6.  Finally, I just want to give Valve’s Steam Summer Sale a hearty “fuck you.”  I’ve bought too much already, and we’re not even a week into this thing:

  • SOL: Exodus
  • Legend of Grimrock
  • Saints Row the Third (which I’ve already finished on the 360 – but how could I pass it up for 75% off?)
  • Indie Bundle 2 (Botanicula, EYE, Universe Sandbox, Oil Rush, Splice)
  • Anno 2770

 

 

 

 

inferno and beyond

Is it OK that I’m dwelling solely on Diablo 3 these days?  I don’t know whether it’s worse to be repetitive, or to simply not post at all.

I beat Hell last night and got about 10 minutes into Inferno before going to bed.  I’m tempted to replay Hell’s Act 4 again, though, because I’d inadvertently signed off literally one checkpoint before going into the final boss the previous night, and so when I killed Diablo the loot was, to put it kindly, underwhelming.  The quality of stuff you get when you’ve got 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor (heretofore “5NV”) can’t be denied, even if the vast majority of it remains unusable – but I’d also replay Act 4 with 5NV if only to scrounge up more gold, which can add up pretty goddamned quickly.

I’ve softened my stance on the Auction House.  I was previously angered that the AH was more or less a necessity in order to make any significant progress; instead, now I’m thinking of it as a different kind of in-game vendor.  Which is basically what it is.  I think my total playtime is around 64 hours  – I think the last time I picked up an in-game loot drop that was worth holding onto was about 30 hours ago.   The stuff I’ve found on the AH is profoundly more powerful, and can be very reasonably priced.  All I do now during runs is sell, sell, salvage, sell.  And I’ve more or less given up on making anything with the Blacksmith – he’s been far more miss than hit when it comes to making something with Monk-appropriate stats, and it’s too expensive to experiment.   (Likewise, I’d love to craft more of the super-high-end gems, but those require so much gold that it’s possibly more cost efficient to look for them on the AH.)

Once I finish Inferno, I’m not entirely sure I’ll keep playing.  Blizzard themselves have admitted that the end-game is, in its current state, a bit underwhelming:

We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they’re going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven’t already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren’t going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it’s not there right now.

We’re working toward 1.0.4, which we’re really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we’ll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we’re of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they’re not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it’s a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out.

(That’s as far as I read in the thread, by the way – the Diablo 3 forums are filled with perhaps the most horrible, vile people on Earth.)

 

idiocy in action

Let me explain.

I’ve said repeatedly that my normal approach to playing RPGs is to play as a Barbarian/Tank/melee fighter.  When I started Diablo 3, however, I decided to switch it up and try the Monk class – it seemed to be an interesting mix of melee combat with support magic.  And for a long time – probably right up to beating the game on Nightmare difficulty – everything was going fine.

Sort of.  Towards the beginning of the Nightmare run, I – for reasons yet unknown – switched from fist weapons to two-handed staffs and daibos.  I was hitting much harder, but also a bit slower, but I felt the trade-off was worth it.

And then I started playing Hell difficulty, and was getting the shit kicked out of me by elite mobs.  It got to the point where, like I said in the last post, I started up two new characters just to avoid having to go back and deal with what I clearly couldn’t deal with.  And then I bought a legendary two-handed weapon (and some better armor) in the auction house and decided to replay Act 1 of Hell, and things started to go a little better – not much, but I wasn’t dying all the time.

My 2nd run of Act 1 of Hell was a goddamned cakewalk compared to Act II, though – I was still getting crushed left and right, and I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong.

And then I suddenly remembered that I was playing my Monk like a Barbarian.

I quickly bought some insanely powerful one-handed weapons in the auction house, switched up my skills (more specifically, I got rid of Mystic Ally and put Seven-Sided Strike back in) and started ripping the shit out of everything.  I basically re-ran Act II and got through the first third of Act III dying only once, hitting Level 60 in the process.

Fuck and yes.

* * *

Now, here’s the thing.  I didn’t even open up the Auction House until I started Hell difficulty, but there was absolutely no way I could survive more than 10 minutes of Act 1 of Hell without going to the Auction House.  I’ve forgotten how many hours I’ve put into the game, but I’m sure it’s somewhere between 60-80 hours, and in that time, I’ve had to throw away (or salvage) about 98% of all the loot I’ve picked up.  I’ve taken the Forge guy and the Gem guy up to their maximum levels, but the Forge guy is wildly inconsistent with the stuff he makes for me – I almost always have to junk it because it’s got the wrong specs.  (The Gem guy, on the other hand, is absurdly cheap – until the last three levels of construction, where it costs 30K + Tomes of Secrets (which I’ve only found on the Auction House) just to make 1 gem.)

I kinda think that’s insane.  That in 60-80+ hours, I’ve only been able to use maybe 2% of the stuff I’ve picked up.   That the only possible way I could continue to succeed in the game is to use the Auction House, where I’m seeing stuff that is so absurdly better than the stuff I’d seen in-game that I wonder if I’m playing a different game entirely.  I mean, I don’t mind spending the gold – it would’ve gone to an in-game vendor (although the stuff they sell is pretty terrible, too), but it’s just a little bit nuts that the usable drop rates are so stingy.

(Of course, now that I’ve hit level 60 and had my first experience with the Nephalem Valor buff – and picked up some serious loot in the process – maybe now I’m seeing where all the stuff in the auction house comes from.  I still haven’t had a need for any of the loot I’ve picked up, but at least I can get some decent resale value for it – or, alternately, I can salvage it for my Forge guy.  I might just alternate runs going forward – I’ll fill up my inventory once to sell, and then fill it up again to salvage.  And if I find something useful, well, hooray for me.)

summertime blues (and yellows)

I haven’t felt much of an urge to write lately, and that’s mostly because I haven’t really been doing all that much, game-wise, beyond Diablo 3.  And what, ultimately, is there to say about Diablo 3, anyway?  I’ve gotten to the point where I’m playing it with the sound off and Spotify on, because the act of clicking mindlessly through levels you’ve already been in a dozen times requires a different sort of aural stimulation.

My monk just hit level 57 last night.  It was not an easy road.  After finishing the game on Nightmare with relative ease, I immediately restarted the game on Hell, and found myself dying repeatedly, constantly, by those elite molten mobs with jail/freeze abilities and those goddamned fucking arcane sentry laser beams, which are the bane of my goddamned existence.  I struggled mightily to finish Act 1, found that Act 2 was even harder, and decided to take a little break.

I started up 2 new characters – a Demon Hunter (who’s now at level 12 or so) and a Barbarian (level 5 or 6), just to see the differences.  I may have said this before – normally, when I play any sort of RPG, I tend to pick the Barbarian/Tank character, but for whatever reason I picked a Monk in D3, and after messing with those two other classes, I still feel that for the most part I made the right choice – the Monk is quick and agile, has useful healing abilities, and has some very effective magic spells.

Here’s my current Monk build (I think this is right):

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WeXijS!YcU!ccYYcY

Anyway, after getting bored with Normal difficulty, I decided to get back to the Monk.  I went to the Auction House and picked up a pretty amazing weapon, and restarted Act 1.  And whaddya know, suddenly I was kicking the shit out of everything and everyone.  I don’t know if it’s the new weapon, or that I restarted Act 1 at level 56 instead of level 54, but whatever it is, I’m plowing through it with great aplomb.  (I think I’ve only died once so far, actually, and that was due to a lost internet connection.)

——–

Beyond that, there’s not a tremendous amount to report…

  • I’m not nearly as addicted to Pocket Planes as I’d thought I’d be, although it’s still a suitable distraction on the subway…
  • The Xbox and PS3 have been collecting dust, for the most part – I did rent Dirt Showdown, which was sort-of fun (although in order to do multiplayer I would’ve need to buy an online pass, which I wasn’t really inclined to do), and I also rented last year’s Vanquish solely because the guys on the Giant Bombcast were gushing over it – it didn’t do that much for me, I’m afraid.
  • I downloaded Cthulhu Saves the World  last night for my iPad (though I haven’t yet had a chance to mess with it); and then I saw that Cthulhu: The Wasted Land was available for free – I’d heard some decent things about it.  So at least my iPad is full-up with Lovecraftian goodness.
  • Also downloaded Magic 2013 for the iPad, although I’ve never played Magic in my life.  My wife has, though, and she watched over my shoulder as I tried the tutorial.  It’s a beautiful-looking game, but it’s also very complicated, and I ended up bailing on the tutorial because our dinner had arrived, and I don’t know that I’ll get back to it.  (It was a free download, though, so I didn’t necessarily lose anything beyond some hard drive space.)

E3 2012: final thoughts

Before I get into E3, I suppose I should explain last week’s unexpected (and unintentional) silence here.  During the first half of the week, my office’s internet was totally screwed up, and it was impossible to post.  During the second half of the week, however, I was beset by a particularly vicious head cold, and the last goddamned thing I wanted to do was think about putting words together that described bright lights and loud noises.

Indeed, about the only thing I did get up to during my weekend of death was to plow through Diablo 3 on Nightmare difficulty, which I managed to finish Sunday evening, just in time for Mad Men.  My monk, Lolily, is now at level 51, and I’ve sunk just over 39 hours into the game.   I must confess that right before I started Act 4, I did buy an incredibly powerful weapon in the auction house – not with real money, though, just in-game currency, which I’d been hoarding for no particular reason.  (To this point, the only times I’ve spent any gold in-game is when I’ve either had to fix my equipment or when I’ve trained my blacksmith and my jeweler, both of whom were as high as they could be until I unlocked Hell difficulty, where Tomes of Crafting began to drop.)  This was done partly because (a) I wasn’t looting anything particularly good up to that point, which was frustrating, and (b) I was getting a little tired of the game and wanted to plow through to the end.  The weapon I bought had a buyout price of 50,000G, which was fine enough with me; it boosted both my Vitality and Damage stats over 1000 points over my current weapon, which is something that’s hard to say no to.   I thought that it might break the game a little for me, but the truth is that my internet connection is still wonky, and so there were a number of times where the game just straight-up froze (thus resulting in death by an unsween swarm), and still other times where the game’s stuttering performance meant that the teleporting enemies who could also freeze me in place pretty much had their way with me at all times.   This is all to say that while I have an incredibly powerful weapon now – a weapon that I’m not sure I’ll need to replace – I still have my regular, non-spiffy armor, which just barely gets the job done; I still die from time to time.

Anyway.

It’s hard for me to comment on this year’s E3, being that my means of intake were generally limited to Giant Bomb’s absurdly long 4-hour podcasts and 20-minute video recaps of each day’s activities.   Every press outlet more or less covered the same ground, and being that my head was swimming in mucous, I could pretty much only handle one source at a time.  (This is why I am still a part-time blogger and not a professional journalist.)   I’d scan my Google Reader every hour or so, see that there were 70 articles about the same thing, and then I’d sneeze a dozen times and then close my eyes.

Still, even with my limited information and access, the general theme of the press at large  all seemed to agree on some variation of the theme that this E3 was dumb, unnecessary, uninspiring, fundamentally broken, etc.  There are several pretty obvious reasons for this, though, and I suspect that 2013’s events are going to be much, much different.

  1. It’s been said for a while now – we’re at the end of this console cycle, and developers/publishers are very reluctant to show off new IP this late in the game.  The fact that we saw as much new IP as we did (The Last of Us, Watch Dogs, Beyond) was pretty amazing, especially since all three of those games look really, really promising.
  2.  E3 doesn’t quite mean the same thing that it did a few years ago.  Back in the day, it was THE ONLY event that mattered; the internet didn’t leak quite so quickly as it does now; video streaming was ugly and impractical; the discerning gamer basically just read lots of stories and looked at tons of screenshots.  Now, though, it’s simply one event of seemingly dozens – PAX and PAX EAST seem to be just as important, and then there’s CES and Tokyo and Germany and all the rest.  Meanwhile, the internet’s caught up and so now we have high-quality video streams and commercial-free live TV feeds of keynote speeches and there’s all this HYPE and POMP; it’s just caught up at the wrong time, is all.  I guarantee that when Microsoft and Sony announce their new consoles at next spring’s 2013, we’ll forget all about this little bump in the road.

I still haven’t seen Sony’s keynote, so I can’t comment on it (other than that I keep hearing that they said pretty much nothing about the Vita, which is a big, big mistake).  I saw bits and pieces of Microsoft’s keynote – it wasn’t the horrible embarrassment that some people called it, though it certainly was a bit underwhelming.  SmartGlass seems like a way to keep a step ahead of the WiiU – as someone who is fiercely addicted to his iPad, I certainly plan on putting it through its paces – but it’s not a game-changer.  The games they announced were, more or less, more of the same; I think it’s fair to say that Microsoft’s first-party lineup leaves a lot to be desired, at least when compared to Sony.  I did end up watching Nintendo’s keynote (since I was home, sick), and I’m not sure I know what I saw.  There seemed to be genuine animosity between Reggie and the poor bastard who had 5 minutes to talk about the 3DS, and that guy’s 3DS spiel spent more time talking about how little time he had to talk instead of actually talking about things that mattered.  I don’t know that it’s fair for me to talk about Nintendo, anyway; they clearly don’t care about me, and I stopped giving a shit about their first-party IP a long time ago.  (I gave my Wii to my mother-in-law with zero regrets; indeed, when she expressed interest in getting one for herself, I suddenly saw a golden opportunity to get rid of the thing.)  Still, though, I was ready to be wowed by the WiiU, especially given my vulnerable state, and I was completely and utterly underwhelmed.  Nintendoland?  Really?  A shittier version of Playstation Home?  Fantastic, well done.

Highlights of the show include:

  • South Park RPG
  • The Last of Us (Uncharted post-apocalypse)
  • Beyond (Heavy Rain 2.0)
  • Criterion:  Need For Speed Most Wanted reboot
  • Tomb Raider
  • Star Wars 1313 (everyone seems to say that this is a next-gen game)
  • Watch Dogs
  • Lego City: Undercover (if this is a WiiU exclusive, I will be bummed)

Other notable games that I have knee-jerk, ill-informed opinions of:

  • Halo 4 (at least they’re trying something new – and the graphics look great)
  • new Gears of War (developed by People Can Fly)
  • Forza Horizon (what is this?  some sort of DiRT clone?)
  • new God of War (meh)
  • Elder Scrolls Online (this seems to be the consensus winner for Most Disappointing of E3)
  • Far Cry 3 (didn’t see the trailer since it’s NSFW, but I don’t care)
  • Crysis 3 (didn’t see the trailer since I don’t care)
  • Assassin’s Creed 3 (hoping for the best)
  • Splinter Cell reboot (looks a lot like Assassin’s Creed: Future Soldier)

Did anyone see Borderlands 2?  That’s a big title for me for later this year, and I’m not sure I read anything about it, although that’s certainly something I could fix with a quick Google search, although I’m not going to.  Maybe they’re focusing on the final push to the finish and didn’t show at all?  (Bioshock Infinite wasn’t there at the show, either, as far as I know.)

Here’s what I was hoping to learn at this year’s E3:

  • a release date for GTA5  (none given)
  • some sort of acknowledgement that The Last Guardian isn’t dead. (sort-of acknowledged)
  • a solid holiday release schedule for the Vita (if there was one, I missed it)
  • a solid holiday release schedule for the 3DS (see above)

We’re clearly in for a much stronger 2013 than I was anticipating, so that’s something to get excited about.

In the meantime, I will continue to click the shit out of monsters in Diablo 3.  I think I may need a new mouse, actually…