The Last of Us: Left Behind Opening Cinematic January 15, 2014

As promised, the latest video of the highly anticipated DLC expansion for 2013’s PS3 exclusive hit The Last of Us has been released.  Take a look for yourselves.

The Last of Us: Left Behind is a prequel story to the events of the original game where you will take control of Ellie, as she explores an unfamiliar area with an old friend of hers.  For those of you who have played the final version of the game all the way through, you may already know how this is going to end.

The Last of Us: Left Behind will be released exclusively through the Playstation Network and will require a full version of The Last of Us to play.  The Last of Us Season Pass holders will be able to download it free of charge, other players will need to pay $14.99 US.

The Last of Us: Left Behind releases February 14th, 2014.

Club Nintendo Finally Offers 3DS Game Travel Case January 15, 2014

Club Nintendo is Nintendo’s official rewards program.  By redeeming the multi-digit key codes included with their consoles, handhelds, first-party published games, or downloading titles through the Nintendo eShop, you can earn points that can later be redeemed for exclusive rewards, like T-shirts, posters, or a Pikmin Canvas Bag,

Let’s face it, the Nintendo 3DS is a handheld system, and you’re going to want to be able to take the system and all your DS and 3DS games with you on the go.  While the game carts may be small, I would never consider it a good idea to keep them loose in a travel bag, as there’s a concern they could get damaged by other items during travel.  They travel fine in their original game cases, but those were made for shelves, not bags, and can take up a lot of unnecessary space.  Club Nintendo actually does offer a solution in the form of an official travel case which can hold multiple game carts safely for travel.  However, while the Nintendo 3DS has been out since 2011, up until the last couple of weeks, Club Nintendo’s website only offered game travel cases that fit DS games, 3DS games were not compatible.  I believe that Nintendo actually did at one point offer a 3DS game travel case, but they were scooped up almost immediately and for some reason their stock was never replenished.  Well, earlier this week, that changed.

Club Nintendo is now offering a new travel case which can fit up to 18 3DS and DS game carts.  The 3DS game case is 400 coins and can be ordered in either a Legend of Zelda or Animal Crossing style.  In case you’re curious, a new console is usually worth about 160 coins in value, and new games can range from 40 coins for a 3DS game to 60 coins for a Wii U game.  So if you have a ton of 3DS games you plan on packing up for your next major trip you might want to give that a look.

The Last of Us: Left Behind Ashley Johnson Interview January 13, 2014

The Playstation Blog has a great interview with Ashley Johnson, the actress who portrayed Ellie in 2013’s PS3 hit, The Last of Us.  In this new interview, Ashley talks about the game’s upcoming single-player DLC expansion, Left Behind.  The expansion’s story looks like it takes place before the events of the main game, and Ellie, who was only briefly playable in the original game’s main story, will be the main playable character.

It’s great to hear her thoughts about working on the new game.  In fact, she does let a few tidbits about the DLC slip that I won’t reprint here in case you’re concerned about prerelease spoilers.  You can read the full interview here.

The Last of Us: Left Behind is coming in early 2014 exclusive to the Playstation 3.  The Last of Us will be required to play.  It will be available to purchase separately from the game’s other downloadable content, but anyone who purchased the game’s Season Pass will be able to freely download it upon release at no extra cost.  From what I’ve been told, a new trailer for this DLC expansion will be posted up soon, and you can expect it will be posted up here as soon as that happens.

Bravely Default Demo Released January 2, 2014

A lot of people have been looking at the upcoming Nintendo 3DS exclusive game Bravely Default as the shining beacon that could bring developer Square Enix back into a new era of beloved game releases.  Today, they just released the game’s demo to the Nintendo eShop and not only does it feature an entire portion of the game not included with the retail release, but also allows you to carry over the bonus items you have earned to the final version when it is released next month.

Bravley Default is coming February 9th, 2014 exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS.  You can download the demo for free right now through the Nintendo eShop.

Dr. Luigi Wii U Trailer January 1, 2014

I know that my family and I spent many long nights up playing the classic Dr. Mario on my original Nintendo Entertainment System.  Since then the game has been ported, updated and rereleased through many of Nintendo’s consoles including the Nintendo DS and Wii.

Now, a whole new game is on the way for a new generation console, and while it is true to the original gameplay made popular in the original Dr. Mario game, several all new modes of gameplay are coming as well.  To cap off Nintendo’s Year of Luigi, here’s a look at Dr. Luigi for the Wii U.

The Last of Us Music Video January 1, 2014

There was no game score more distinctive this year than the score for Sony’s PS3 exclusive Game of the Year contender The Last of Us.  To celebrate the end of the year and possibly to promote the game’s upcoming single player expansion that was teased during the Playstation 4 launch event, Sony released a music video featuring the game’s distinctive main theme.

Whether you played the game or haven’t, here’s a little jingle to ring in the new year.

The Last of Us is out now exclusive to the Playstation 3.

Sleeping Dogs Free Through Games With Gold January 1, 2014

Happy New Year from GameXcess.net.  To kick off the month of January, Microsoft and Eidos Interactive have partnered up to make two of their classic games free this month.  Starting today, Sleeping Dogs, a highly well received open world action game, will be free thanks to the Games With Gold Promotion.

All Xbox Live Gold Members who have valid gold accounts between now and the 15th of this month will be able to download Sleeping Dogs for free through the Xbox Live Marketplace.  You should be able to find it easily enough through the Xbox 360 Dashboard, but if not you can just do a search for it.  Eidos has also discounted some of the game’s DLC by as much as 50% while this promotion is going on, but some of the game’s DLC is free so be sure to check that after downloading the game.

As always with Games With Gold, all games downloaded through the service remain tied to your Xbox Live account forever, even if your Xbox Live Gold account expires.  If you happen to delete the game for whatever reason, you will also have no issue redownloading it through the Xbox 360’s download history.  Just check your Xbox Live account details for more information.

Sleeping Dogs will only be free with Gold until the 15th of this month.  Starting on the 16th of January, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (for Xbox Live Arcade) will be free with the Games With Gold Promotion until the end of the month.  You must have a valid Xbox Live Gold account during the duration of the promotion to participate.

Nintendo eShop Back Online December 29, 2013

After four days of being completely non functional, Nintendo has restored the Nintendo eShop on all of their supported platforms, including the Wii U and 3DS.  You should be able to access the eShop from your console to purchase and download digital games, or redeem download codes for any of the store’s content, or stream supported videos.

After doing my own experimentation with the restored shop I noticed it isn’t perfect.  It did take a bit longer than usual to log into the shop from my Wii U, and the first time I tried to patch my new copy of The Wonderful 101 failed, but succeeded on my second attempt.  However, as the day has gone on, performance in the shop has improved and I have been able to successfully browse the store’s content and stream several videos without issue.

Pokemon Bank Launch Delayed December 26, 2013

Due to the issues we are currently having with the Nintendo eShop for the past two days, Nintendo has officially announced they are delaying the launch of the highly anticipated Pokémon Bank service until their network issues have been rectified.  Pokémon Bank was expected to launch on December 27th, 2013, tomorrow.  Since Nintendo’s eShop is not currently functional, anyone who would want to download it if it launched tomorrow would not be able to.

When launched, Pokémon Bank will allow users to transfer and store Pokémon obtained from the fifth and sixth generation Pokémon games to Nintendo’s cloud servers so they can be used in later games for a yearly fee.  You can read all the details about the service here.

No word was given when we can expect the Pokémon Bank to launch or when Nintendo Network will be back up to full capacity.  Nintendo has made it clear they are still working on the issue and hope to have the service back up and running as soon as they are able to.  We will keep you posted as this story develops.

Nintendo eShop is Down December 26, 2013

Since yesterday, I have been unable to log into the Nintendo eShop from either my 3DS or Wii U, and I have been reading reports coming in from all over the internet from tons of users who are having the same issue.  No, your brand new Nintendo Wii U and 3DS systems are not broken, the Nintendo eShop has been completely down since Christmas Day.

Normally having a digital marketplace down for a short period of time would not be much of an issue, except the way Nintendo has designed their consoles around this digital marketplace has made the issue all the more problematic.  Nintendo chose to bundle some of the games they are including with new hardware as digital download codes instead of physical copies.  Because the eShop is not functional, these downloadable game codes cannot be redeemed or downloaded until this issue is resolved, meaning many users may have nothing to play on their new systems for the time being.  Also some Nintendo 3DS games (like Mario Kart 7) have patched their retail versions (like the recent 1.2 patch for Pokémon X and Y), and these patches can only be obtained by downloading it through the eShop, they’re not installed automatically upon booting their games.  This wouldn’t normally be much of an issue, but some of these patches are required downloads for online play.  Anyone who hasn’t downloaded these patches before the eShop went down may not be able to access multiplayer in a game that would otherwise support it until the eShop comes back online.

Nintendo has released a statement that they are investigating the issue and for the time being they are pulling the Pokémon Bank app from the Japanese eShop.   I have also heard reports that Nintendo Network has been unable to allow new account creation for the time being, but I have not been able to confirm this independently.  Other Nintendo Network features such as Miiverse seem to be working fine on either supported platform for anyone able to log in.

We will keep you up to date on this story as it develops.

UPDATE (12/29/13):  After four days, Nintendo has reactivated the Nintendo eShop.