Mario Warfare Part 4 August 29, 2013

Beatdown Boogie has released the fourth part of their exceptionally well produced series Mario Warfare.  Welcome to Smash Club.

Nintendo 2DS Announced August 28, 2013

No, that headline is not a typo. Nintendo has just announced the newest member of the Nintendo 3DS handheld family, the Nintendo 2DS.

The Nintendo 2DS looks to be a cheaper alternative to a Nintendo 3DS.  It lacks Nintendo’s glasses-free 3D screen, but is able to play any Nintendo DS or Nintendo 3DS game in 2D, as well as content downloadable from Nintendo’s eShop.

For anyone who may already have a 3DS or 3DS XL, I would not consider this an upgrade.  The device doesn’t look like it can fold in half, making the device less portable than previous version DS systems.  This was probably intended to be released for more budget minded customers who were not interested in playing their 3D content in 3D.  This seems to be unneeded as the 3DS’s 3D screen can be completely disabled, and will not work on non-3DS native content like with DS or downloadable Virtual Console games.

The Nintendo 2DS is coming October 12th, 2013.

inFAMOUS Second Son Behind the Scenes: Taking Control August 23, 2013

A new behind the scenes video for the highly-anticipated PS4 exclusive inFAMOUS: Second Son has been released.  In this video, we take a closer look at the PS4’s Dual Shock 4 Controller.  Now, from far away the DS4 may look identical to the three Dual Shock controllers which had come before it, but upon a closer look you can see that Sony did a lot to change the Dual Shock’s form factor both to cater to gamer’s needs and to improve the product in a way that takes full advantage of the improved power of the PS4.

So how does this controller handle a game like inFAMOUS: Second Son?  Let’s find out.

inFAMOUS: Second Son is coming February 2014 exclusive to the Playstation 4.

rain Developer Diary Part 2: The Music of rain August 23, 2013

I think that a huge part of the charm that rain’s trailers have had has been from the game’s music.  To me, the game’s music complements the visuals perfectly, and in the second Developer Diary for rain the game’s developers chose to focus on what went into the game’s musical production.

This video shows more than just musicians recording, it shows many of the decisions that the audio director had to make.  They chose to keep the famous song “Clair de Lune” as the game’s main theme (which is the song playing during the game’s trailers) but made the decision to add a female vocal track to the song.

Personally my favorite part of the video is a bit where you can also see some of the game’s early artwork rendered as a beautiful watercolor animatic.  That animatic was instrumental in assisting in setting the musical tone.  Take a look for yourselves!

rain is coming in October 2013 exclusive to the Playstation 3.

Xbox gamescom 2013 Showcase Briefing August 22, 2013

Microsoft has posted up an abridged video of their Xbox gamescom 2013 Showcase Briefing, and you can take a look at it here.

I know It isn’t as long as the Sony gamescom Press Conference, but Microsoft chose to put many things front and center during this event that they did not cover during the E3 Media Briefing.  In particular, they chose to showcase Indie Games immediately, to counter the belief many players felt that the Xbox One was going to be unfair to independent developers.

Watch Dogs gamescom 2013 Trailer August 20, 2013

The latest trailer for the highly anticipated multiplatform game Watch Dogs from Ubisoft has been released at Sony’s gamescom 2013 Press Conference, and along with this trailer came a few huge announcements.  Sony has promised that there will be an exclusive skin, a hacking boost, and four exclusive missions totaling 60 additional minutes of gameplay on the Playstation versions of the game.  If you were like me and hadn’t known yet which version of the game to pick up, the PS4 version will likely be your best bet.

Sony has promised that anyone who picks up the PS3 version of Watch Dogs will be able to upgrade to the PS4 version of the game through Sony’s Digital PS4 Marketplace at a heavily discounted rate for a limited time.

Watch Dogs is coming multiplatform November, 2013 and will launch on the Xbox One and PS4.

Dead Rising 3 gamescom 2013 Cinematic Trailer August 20, 2013

Those damn wasps have spread to Southern California.  Take a look at this short CGI-rendered Cinematic Trailer to see how two survivors of the latest outbreak can survive driving on the 101 Freeway.

Dead Rising 3 is coming November 2013 as a launch title exclusive to the Xbox One.

inFAMOUS: Second Son gamescom 2013 Trailer August 20, 2013

inFAMOUS: Second Son, the third entry in the Playstation exclusive series, is coming next year and Sucker Punch previewed the latest trailer for the game at the Sony gamescom 2013 Press Conference.  From the looks of it, the game’s new hero will have more than just the power to control smoke, as a new character may be able to provide him with a power we are already quite familiar with.

inFAMOUS: Second Son will be coming out exclusive to the PS4 in Q1 2014.

Playstation gamescom 2013 Press Conference August 20, 2013

For those of you who may have missed it, Sony has uploaded the entire gamescom 2013 Press Conference up on their YouTube Channel.  In this press event, Sony announces the PS4’s release date, shows off some PS4 titles, and makes a huge announcement about the price of the Playstation Vita.  Check it out below.

If you want to fast forward past the static screen, the event begins at 19 minutes 18 seconds into the video.

Playstation Vita Price Drop August 20, 2013

The sales that have been taking place in many retailers this week will be permanent.  Over two years after I originally previewed the system at E3 2011, Sony has officially announced at Gamescom 2013 that they are slashing the price of the Playstation Vita in North America to $199US.  That slash includes all model Vita systems currently at retail, 3G or WiFi-only, and systems that may be bundled with games like The Walking Dead which released not too long ago.

Not content to do just that, Sony has also slashed the price of the Vita’s proprietary memory cards.  Many people did not like the fact that the Vita used a proprietary memory card to save data instead of a more common memory type like SD or SDHC, and complained that these cards were extremely overpriced in comparison to those more common formats.  Now, while the Vita will still be using the same proprietary memory, that memory will be a lot more affordable.  While memory on the lower end will only be cut by a few dollars, the price of higher capacity Vita memory cards will be cut by as much as $20 US.

You can read all the details about the price drop, and the new memory prices here.