June 2019 – Page 5

E3 2019 Rundown – Part 3

June 13, 2019 by Belghast

At this point we are out of the big shows that are associated with the lead up to E3. Now we are left with whatever happens to leak out of the show floor or through the various extended meet and greet streams that so many of the “networks” happen to be running. At this point I have talked about Stadia, EA Play, Microsoft, Bethesda, PC Gaming, UbiSoft and Square Enix. That simply leaves the lone standout from Tuesday… Nintendo and their latest Nintendo Direct.

Nintendo Direct E3 Show

There are a lot of folks that feel like Nintendo “won” E3 and I will admit it was a packed show. However along the lines of EA Play it was packed with a bunch of stuff that I didn’t necessarily care about. Two of the big reveals were related to Smash Bros, which is not really a game that excites me. Other than that we got some dates for games that had been in the pipeline, but it failed miserably because the one game I wanted more information on and or a release date… was completely absent. I am all about Metroid which is still more or less missing in action.

The Legend of Zelda – Link’s Awakening Remake

One of the highlights of the show is that we saw more footage of the Link’s Awakening remake and with it got a firm release date of September 20th 2019. There isn’t a lot to say here other than I am looking forward to playing it. I never played the original on the Gameboy as I had moved on to other things at the time. I would love to see more games get the remake treatment that look as gorgeous as this one does.

This was definitely a shocker title, because it appears to be a remake of the Sega Saturn Panzer Dragoon title. I mean these were fun back in the day because it was a 3D shooter while on back of a Dragon. It does make me wonder if we are also going to get a remake of Nights into Dreams on the Switch given that it ran on I think the same engine? I can’t tell if this is a remake or a remaster to be be honest. Regardless it is really cool to see this showing up.

I’ve never played a proper Animal Crossing title, but I did enjoy Pocket Camp quite a bit until I wandered away from it like I do most mobile games. I have been looking forward to this being my first title in the series to play so I am hoping it is excellent. Graphics wise everything looks awesome so far. I am not as pumped as some people might be for the title given again… I’ve never really played a mainline game in the series.

I am mostly including this one because… first off I was shocked to see a Contra game at the show. Secondly it looks like absolute shit and I am wondering if this is something that had been in the works for the 3DS and then was later re-purposed to be a Switch game. The textures are blurry and muddy, and the color palette is complete nonsense. This just does not inspire much confidence. Coming back to this… after looking at the PS4 trailer it looks like this is just a shitty port to the switch because the Sony version looks way better.

Trials of Mana – Seiken Densetsu 3 Remake

Just like I was excited to see Romancing SaGa 3 get a proper localization I am very happy to see this game get a localization and a remake. This has been on the list of games I wanted to play for ages since the Super Nintendo era when I found out it existed but only in Japanese. Not a lot to say, it looks good and it also looks like the cast of characters have been represented from what I can remember as faithfully. The positive about a lot of these 16 bit era Japanese games is there was an awful lot of artwork that existed to be used as a reference.

Now we really shouldn’t be shocked at this announcement, but at the very end of the Nintendo direct they showed off that they were working on a Breath of the Wild Sequel. Now the internet or maybe just my twitter feed… seems to be losing their shit over short haired Zelda. Then again it is mostly just Ryuhkin generating most of those retweets. There had been rumors that they were planning on building a new story in the same engine and get it to market quickly, but now we have confirmation of that. Something definitely to look forward to but past that not an awful lot to go on yet.

General Thoughts on E3 2019

So at this point I sorta want to sit back and talk about E3 2019 as a whole, which I realize the show itself won’t be over until the weekend. However for the gamers at home the “show” is effectively all of the presentations leading up to the actual events. There were really two takeaways that I had, the first being that the absence of Sony was noticeable and felt really weird to have a vacuum from team blue. The second big take away is that in general it was a down year with what it feels like everyone preparing for the next console generation which by all looks seems to be targeting Holiday 2020. I would have to go back and check my notes from the various E3 presentations of the past, but it definitely feels like this might be the first year when nothing really surprised me. What I mean by that is always in the past it seemed like there was a game that had come from out of left field and gave a demo or a slick marketing video that made me extremely giddy inside. That just didn’t happen this go around, and it could be the sign of a bunch of things. Maybe the industry has moved away from whatever games really made me tick, or maybe like I said before this is just an in-between year. Regardless the end result is a very let down feeling after exiting E3 season. That is not to say there won’t be a lot of awesome things coming out during 2019, but we already knew about them ahead of time. I guess indicates that companies are retracting around the importance of E3 as a construct. Activision/Blizzard was a complete no show during the proceedings and so many of the games that I didn’t necessarily talk about… had been announced and were already deeply ingrained in the zeitgeist before the show happened. For an industry that used to revolve around E3 and CES… it seems like neither holds any importance at all these days which is bizarre as a gamer. Early on I gave the analogy of the Christmas Catalog or the Toys R Us Big Book… and I guess it continues to be apt. Those are both things that faded over time as they lost significance and importance to the consumers. Similarly it seems that the E3 show is fading as they are no longer the primary vehicle of delivering information to the customers for the coming year. Nintendo Direct and shows like it seems to be the way we are heading. On one level I like getting little bits of information throughout the year within months of the release of a product. It feels good to know that the thing you just saw is going to be in your hands within a few weeks time. However there is a part of me that misses the pomp and circumstance of having this big show meaning so much. That said of all of the shows I have to give credit to Microsoft probably being my favorite. They showed a lot of great games and gave a vision of being able to play those games on whatever platform you wanted to with XCloud. They also announced what the future was going to be with the Scarlett product, and because of all of that the E3 format still seems to be working well for them. As far as a second place I would probably place Square Enix and Nintendo in a tie because they also delivered really great presentations. The worst is EA Play which is not shocking because I often time place EA at the bottom. However I was shocked to see just how bad the UbiSoft presentation was this year, given that is usually firmly in the middle of the pack. Bethesda did a fine job of displaying the titles that they had to show off, but it most definitely felt like an in-between year for them. I guess the ultimate question is… when is Sony going to do their own console reveal? Additionally after the sluggishness of E3 2019 and the financial troubles reported surrounding the convention… will there be an E3 2020? So after seeing all of the shows at this point, which was your favorite? What were your general thoughts about E3 as a whole? Leave me a comment below.

Screenshotting E3

June 12, 2019 by Belghast

This morning we are going to take a brief break from my daily recap posts in part because I was not home last night, nor have I watched the last of the shows put on by Nintendo. I know a handful of the titles that were announced, and I also know that I am a sad panda because nothing was said about Metroid Prime 4. Until I have time to digest what was announced and more importantly capture screenshots from it… we are going to have to delay the final post in that series. However the topic of screenshots has come up a few times in regards to my posts so it inspired today’s more informational post.

Every screenshot that you have seen to date from the E3 coverage posts for better or worse is something I have captured myself. There was at time when I would attempt to rely on shots being spread around as part of press kits. The problem there however is that they were often times all completely different sizes which made my eye twitch. Instead I went down a path of madness to try and figure out how to easily capture video stills without loading all of the videos into an editor like premiere.

The result of this search lead me to a tool I was already using… VLC or VideoLAN Client which like a good number of open source projects is a fairly utilitarian name for what it is. Ultimately its beginning roots are that of a simple video player that has morphed into a Swiss army knife of video related tools. Need to apply subtitles to a video and render the final product out as a flattened MKV file… VLC can do that. Need to resize video or swap between formats… VLC can do that too. However for our purposes we are going to focus on the fact that VLC can play network streams and allow you to capture easy screenshots.

First off you are going to need a copy of the software and for that you can head over to VideoLAN.org. There are official releases for Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, a ton of Linux distributions and a slew of other random platforms. Hell you can get a version of VLC that runs happily on OS/2… which if you are using OS/2 still you maybe have more problems than taking screenshots of E3 presentations. Regardless grab your copy, install it… and we are wanting specifically to talk about the “Open Network Stream” functionality that can be accessed with Ctrl+N in windows platforms.

From there you are going to enter some manner of network stream bit it a YouTube URL as shown above. Of note it seems to respect the various arguments that you can pass into the end of a YouTube URL so you can start your replay at a specific time or fiddle with the resolution. So if you tag on a “vq=hd1080” for example you get a 1080p stream being captured. Now the really fun thing about this is that it works with various streaming services like Twitch and as such I live captured screenshots while watching the Bethesda event the other night. Something of additional note is that I have found there are some streams that just will not work and or crash VLC… so you may have to shop around for some unofficial locations for trailers if you are doing this after the fact. The Xbox Channel for example seems to be doing something that VLC does not like, and maybe it is the disable embedding flag that you can do through YouTube or something like that.

VLC defaults to using the shortcut of Shift+S for taking a Video Snapshot as they call it. I have ultimately been too lazy to change this to anything else in part because I couldn’t think of a better combination for my purposes. The end result is that I find myself watching streams with the shift key held down permanently and then I tap S anytime I want to take a shot. The default path for saving them is going to be in the Windows User profile Pictures directory. I have modified this and you can do this while you are in the preferences menu as well under the video tab by changing the Video Snapshots directory. You can also change the prefix and the format it will save in. Now you should be ready to easily pull stills from video feeds.

While on the topic of VLC player there is one other somewhat hidden feature that I use the hell out of. We have a number of Chromecasts spread throughout the house and you can use VLC to broadcast a stream to I believe pretty much any of the stream capable devices. These devices only show up in my case when the television is turned on as I am using the USB ports on device to power the chromecasts. However this morning my wife is still in the bedroom and the television is tuned to the news, and as such the Bedroom TV shows up as a possible target under “Renderer”. With this you can use VLC to cast pretty much any media file to a target device giving me one more reason to love this tool. Tonight I hope to make my way through the Nintendo presentation and tomorrow to write my thoughts about it. I will also likely wrap up anything else that has come out in the pre-E3 buzz and give some of my general thoughts about this year as a whole. In the meantime however I hope this helps you out.

Screenshotting E3

June 12, 2019 by Belghast

E3 2019 Rundown – Part 2

June 11, 2019 by Belghast

Yesterday we had three shows of note, namely the PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft and SquareSoft. This morning I am going to do my best to cover all of the topics of importance to me personally. Like I said yesterday this is my rundown of the show and I am certain I missed something that you really dug. However these are the things that I consider to be worth watching on a personal level.

PC Gaming Show

The PC Gaming Show is such a weird crapshoot as far as whether or not it is going to show something that I ultimately care about. As a whole it has come a really long way in production quality because that very first year seemed like it was legitimately happening in a High School Auditorium. Now it at least rivals the production of the big shows and I think Day 9 does a really great job with his reoccurring role as master of ceremonies. As far as substance goes… there really was not a whole lot that interested me, and definitely not much that I had not already seen before.

In the category of games I find interesting but will almost certainly not like playing once it releases… we have Last Oasis. The game appears to be based on gathering resources in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone has weird land-strider ships There is one that is clearly a pirate of sorts since it is flying banners with skulls on it. Late in the trailer a giant strider that looms over both of the other two shows up proving there is always a bigger fish in the sea… or in this case strider on the land? This describes itself as a nomadic survival MMO… which probably means having to deal with a lot of horrible people to get resources to be able to keep playing the game. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I am intrigued by the machinery.

This is the point where I admit that I never played the original Vampire Bloodlines. I am not sure what I was doing at the time, but the time I did attempt to play it I had all manner of technical difficulties. I hear from lots of friends however that it was an amazing experience, and as such I am really looking forward to playing a modern version of that franchise. This is definitely something we knew about going into the show, and I still think it looks great.

I like the Age of Wonders series and I loved Alpha Centauri. So I am most definitely interested in a game that appears to blend these two things together. It also has Dinosaurs with Lasers… who doesn’t love Dinosaurs with Lasers? Again another title that I definitely knew about but am still interested in.

This appears to be a blend of a game like FTL and something along the lines of Rimworld. You are building a colony of folks that have been in cryo pods and are responsible for their survival in a world that has other groups of individuals trying to do the same. My biggest turn off with Rimworld is the complete shit graphics and the seeming lack of support for adding new graphic packs that make them less shit. So when I saw this I was definitely interested given the large amount of customization that the trailer shows. I will be watching this one.

I’ve never really played Brawlhalla even though it has been at literally every Pax South event. I don’t have the deep nostalgia towards Smash Bros that the generation younger than me seems to. However I do love Adventure Time so if they keep adding character packs like this it starts to make me more and more interested in the game as a whole. Going to give this an honorable mention.

Ubisoft Show

UbiSoft traditionally is a pretty good show, but this year… things were just not in a good place. For starters can I just talk about how much I miss Aisha Tyler as the host? UbiSoft used to be this super fun show filled with weird dancing numbers that brought forth the joy of videos games… and this time around that dancing number just felt weird and forced. The highlight of the show without a doubt was getting to see Jon Bernthal’s dog… at which point my twitter feed erupted into a slew of comments about that good boy. There was a subscription plan for Uplay announced for $16 a month… which seems extremely high once you factor in that the PC Only basic Microsoft Game Pass is only going to be $5 a month. They announced that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is getting a Story Creator addon that will allow users to make their own content… which I guess will allow them to stretch one more year out of this AC title. I am somewhat excited about the Division getting a Netflix movie staring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain, so we will have to see how that ultimately turns out. As far as game releases however it felt really hollow.

I’ve never played a Watchdogs game, but Legions so far looks amazing. It isn’t so much the gameplay but instead what it is promising. According to the demo this is a game where you can legitimately recruit and play as every character you can encounter. If that is true that is just a level of nonsense I have never seen in a video game. They show off footage of playing as an adorable little old British lady that happens to be a renowned hacker who is responsible for stealing files from Scotland Yard. I’ve learned recently that I actually do like the Ubisoft formula for games, so I need to go back and play through the first two Watchdogs to get a feel for how this one will ultimately play out.

The only other game really worth noting at the UbiSoft show was a title that we saw next to nothing about called Gods and Monsters which appears to be a sort of Breath of the Wild set in Greek Mythology type of game. That premise seems like something I would be interested in and the visuals are gorgeous… even though this is a high production trailer that is likely not going to represent anything even vaguely close to what the final game looks like. I am grasping at straws folks… it was a really weak show other than Watchdogs.

SquareSoft

Square was definitely the strongest of the publisher shows, and probably comes in a close second behind Microsoft as far as the total quality of the show experience. That is not saying a lot because the absence of Sony was most definitely felt this year. Square however showed off a ton of stuff, but a good number of the announcements were platform reveals of games that have already been around for ages in other forms. There were a few big ones that I will go over.

This is the most anticipated title that we were expecting from the show and I am not entirely certain what sort of game it really is going to be? There was a lot of switching of perspectives during the trailer but it appears to be a game along the lines of the most recent Spiderman offering where you are placed in control of one of the avengers as you move your way through missions. They stated that it would be a 4 player co-op experience and that they would be adding new characters as they went… with a late trailer Hank Pym tease. So we can mostly assume this is going to be a live service game but they stated that all new champions would be free and that there would be no loot boxes… they did not however say anything about cosmetics so I could in theory see a bunch of alternate costumes for your heroes. They have Thor and they have Cap so I am going to be good.

We also saw a lot of battle footage for Final Fantasy VII Remake as well as character reveals for Tifa and Sephiroth. The combat system seems to be a blend of something along the lines of Final Fantasy XV that is purely action combat with the ability to pause and queue up specific attacks in a menu structure very familiar to Final Fantasy VII. I am largely on board with everything I have seen to date and look forward to replaying this game in what seems to be a greatly expanded version. They said the game itself would be two blu-ray discs worth of content. I guess we have reached the point of disc swapping in this generation as well?

I loved playing the first Dragon Quest Builders and was amped when I saw the second one announce. However it has been out in Japan for quite some time now and I was curious when we would actually get it on this side of the pond. The answer apparently is really soon, because they flashed a July release date. This unfortunately will get delayed behind Shadowbringers for me, but I am definitely looking forward to it.

Romancing SaGa 3 – SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions

This is largely exciting only because it is more official localization from Square. I attempted to play a fan translation back in the day of Romancing SaGa 3 which was a Super Nintendo Era title, and I didn’t get terribly far due to the incompleteness. I am looking forward to playing through it at some point, but god I have no clue when I am going to squeeze in all of the gaming that I already have in backlog.

This one came from out of left field and is not something at all that I would expect from a Square show. This appears to be a co-op scifi shooter and since I like those… I will be watching it. The trailers were at least compelling, but sadly there isn’t an awful lot more available even on the website. You fight giant monsters and apparently open big doors… so yeah… hopefully we get more information during E3 about this.

Going to mention this one largely because it is a style of game that you really don’t see much. They are planning on delivering a top down racing experience ala Micromachines or R.C. Pro-am with high fidelity controls. The art style is adorable, so I want to check this out whenever it is available. This is more my speed than the ultra realism style racing games that we are more used to.

Not much was announced regarding Shadowbringers in part because we are just about to get the game legitimately within two or three weeks. However they did drop the final release trailer, which includes all sorts of nonsense that I don’t even know what to make of. It sets up some individuals that are in theory going to be our enemies in the new expansion. It also seems to show us cooperating at least in part with an Ascian. The mic drop moment however is when it comes out and says that Hydaelyn and Zodiark are primals. Nonsense is incoming and I am on board with this!

Slowing Down

There is only one show left and that is the Nintendo Direct happening at some point today. I am not exactly sure what to expect but I am ultimately hoping we get more information and a release date about the Metroid Prime project. I feel like I am going to need to write about my general thoughts at some point regarding this E3, because across the board it has been a bit of a disappointment. I get the distinct impression that all of these publishers are holding things back and will be announcing the next batch of franchise titles on the Xbox Scarlett (if that name sticks) and the PS5 whenever we actually see it. What were your favorite games of the day? Anything in particular that you liked that I did not talk about? Let me know in the comments.