Pokémon X and Pokémon Y Announced January 8, 2013

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of Nintendo, Mr. Iwata.

Welcome to Generation 6 guys.  An entire new land with entirely new Pokémon is coming, and we in North America will be getting it the exact same time that everyone in the entire world is.  We’ve never seen a Pokémon game look quite like this either.  Remember the days we had a flat 2D perspective?  These graphics look like they’re getting quite a boost with the move to the Nintendo 3DS.

Pokémon X and Pokémon Y coming worldwide October 2013 exclusively to the Nintendo 3DS.

Dead Space 3 Kinect Trailer January 7, 2013

Having trouble determining which version of Dead Space 3 you want to buy?  I don’t anymore.  The Xbox 360 version will include support for the Xbox 360 Kinect.  What will the Kinect get you?  Take a look.

Dead Space 3 is coming February 5th, 2013 to the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

The Art of Dead Space Hardcover Book Listed January 6, 2013

As I’m sure you guys know, I’m a huge fan of video game art books, and I’m a huge fan of the Dead Space game series.  In anticipation of the release of the original Dead Space game, a small book called Art of Dead Space was circulated among some of the gaming press and was later sold in very small quantities on the official Viceral Games Online Store.  I’ve seen screenshots of a lot of the artwork that went into making the original games and thought they looked completely amazing, and was disappointed that the only time the artwork would be in print would be for a collectible book with such a limited run.  I thought that was probably going to be the last time that EA or Viceral games would put the amazing Dead Space art in print.  Looks like I was wrong.

A full hardcover book has been listed on Amazon.com titled The Art of Dead Space.  It promises to include over three hundred pieces of artwork from four of the Dead Space video games spread over 192 pages.  The book lists the artwork included come from Dead Space, Dead Space 2, Dead Space Ignition and Dead Space Extraction.  Sadly, Dead Space 3 art is not listed.

Right now it looks like the book is being listed for preorder off Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble for a MSRP of $34.99 US, but the sites have the price discounted by a few dollars.  The release date is listed as February 5th, 2013, the same day Dead Space 3 is going to be released.

Pokémon Announcement Coming January 8th January 5, 2013

Nintendo and the official Pokémon Twitter have teased that a major announcement for the Pokémon franchise will be coming on January 8th, 2013 for both Japan and North America.   There are a few possibilities this announcement could involve. They could announce the first Generation 6 Pokémon games, a new Generation 5 sequel, or some other Pokémon spin-off. We just don’t know.

It is very unusual for a Pokémon announcement to go out to a worldwide audience, they will usually come out in Japan first and then be announced for North America later on.  Nintendo promises that you can read the news when it comes out over at Pokemon.com.

Bioshock Ultimate Rapture Edtion Announced January 5, 2013

For those of you who can’t wait until Bioshock Infinite comes out this spring, and haven’t played the original Bioshock games yet, have I got some great news for you.  The Bioshock Ultimate Rapture Edition is coming with both Bioshock and Bioshock 2 and will have a pretty fair price of $29.99 US.

The Ultimate Rapture Edition will include more than just copies of the first two Bioshock games, it will include all of the DLC released for both of the games.  Xbox 360 purchasers will be happy to find the Rapture Trials, previously only released for the Playstation 3 version of the original Bioshock will be included with the 360 version of the game for the first time.  It will also include content previously only released as paid downloadable content for Bioshock 2 including Minerva’s Den and a ton of multiplayer map packs.

You can read all the details about the Bioshock Ultimate Rapture Edition here.

Bioshock Ultimate Edition is coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360 on January 14th, 2013.

Remedy Teases 2013 Game Announcement January 2, 2013

Remedy has announced on their official Twitter feed that they will be announcing their new game in 2013.  Remedy, the creators of Max Payne and Alan Wake have kept quiet on their next project since the release of Alan Wake’s American Nightmare and Death Rally.

However, their official Jobs page does list that they are currently working on two unannounced projects.  One is an unannounced game for iOS which would get an expected release for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  Remedy is not green on Apple handheld devices, they have released Death Rally on iOS and it did quite well for them.

The other unannounced project includes their next triple-a retail title which they say is going to be released on the future-generation consoles.  Currently, the only next-gen console that has been announced is the recently released Nintendo Wii U.  Since there has been no official announcement that Sony or Microsoft is even working on a future generation console, this would explain why Remedy has not yet announced the project.

Could this be the highly anticipated Alan Wake 2?  Could this be an entirely new project for a new intellectual property?  Could we see its announcement combined with a new console announcement?  We’ll find out this year!

Mario Warfare Episode 2 January 2, 2013

Beatdown Boogie has done it again.  They have released the second episode of Mario Warfare over the holiday, finally giving us a close look at the two Mario Brothers that we all know and love so much.  While the first episode set up the stakes of just what kind of trouble the Mushroom Kingdom was in, this episode features the Mario Bros doing what they do best, and I don’t mean plumbing.

If you missed it, you can watch Mario Warfare Episode 1 here.

If you really liked the film, you can support Beatdown Boogie and help them release further episodes in the series.  You can check out all the details on that here.

Dead Space 3: The Story So Far January 2, 2013

Since its release in 2008, the story of Dead Space has branched out into many different mediums beyond the original video games.  There were novels, graphic novels, animated direct-to-video features, iPhone games, mini-games and more.  It’s quite an impressive feat for such a new game property, but EA had a lot of faith in what they were releasing.

Since the Dead Space story goes beyond the games, EA decided that in anticipation for the release of Dead Space 3 next month, they would release a video to bring players both new and old back up to speed with the latest information on the Dead Space story.  They did the same thing for Dead Space 2 when that game’s demo was released, and it looks like they’re doing it again.  Take a look and remember, there will be spoilers.

Dead Space 3 is coming February 2013 to PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Pokémon Day – Pokémon ‘Bridged January 1, 2013

We’re coming to the end of Pokémon Day on the site and I wanted to conclude it with the thing that restarted my interest in Pokémon after over ten years.  As I said before in my earlier articles I had an interest in Pokémon back when the original generation was released back in the late 90s for the Game Boy, but that was simply relegated to watching the anime and watching my friends play the game during lunch back in High School.

Then, at Quinni-Con 2012 back in April, I met two of the creators of the series Pokémon ‘Bridged, and my interest in the pocket monsters fired right back up.  Pokémon ‘Bridged is a YouTube series where the original Pokémon animated series is cut down and redubbed with entirely new dialog…a lot of which is highly inappropriate for young children to listen to.  It’s just hilarious in how completely out there it is.

I think what made the series stick with me coming out of that panel was when I met 1KidsEntertainment and Nowacking for the first time, two of the principal cast members for the series.  I could tell that the series was being made by true fans of the subject material.  Legally, they could not make any profit on the episodes they produced, so it must have been a great labor of love for them.  They also reference the original games several times.  It is clear that while they are using the original TV show as a framework for the animation, they reference being inside a video game several times, to hilariously anachronistic effect.

In this series, Ash is a total idiot, Brock is a total creep, Misty is out of her mind, and Pikachu is…well…you’ll have to see for yourselves.

Episodes of Pokémon ‘Bridged can be found on the YouTube Channel for 1KidsEntertainment, but here are some of my absolute favorite episodes.

The series creators recommend this episode for new viewers.  It is a re-release of the first episode they ever did.  Instead of just redoing the episode with improved technology, they wrote entirely new jokes that referenced episodes they hadn’t even released yet.  It’s a great first episode to watch as it tells the quick story of how Ash got started on his quest to be a Grand Pokémon Master.

In Episode 2 we meet Officer Jenny for the first time.  Yeah, not how I pictured her.

This is Episode 4.  They’re still in the Veridian forest.

Next up is Episode 6.  If you’ve ever been interested in knowing just how to meet someone special…DO NOT use this episode as a dating guide!

In Episode 7, Ash visits Cerulian City to battle Misty’s sisters…but Misty only had one sister.  There were problems with the machine.

In Episode 8, the gang finds a Charmander.  Misty loves it making her a disgrace to water trainers everywhere.  Ash thought if he put it in the rain it would get stronger.

In Episode 11 the gang meets Gym Leader Lt. Surge.  What a nice guy.

In Episode 14 we hear Professor Oak talk about his obsession with husks of corn.

For episode 15, they decided to take the animation for a later season of the show and use that as the framework for an episode.  There are some great call backs to earlier parts of the series, and a great moment with Team Rocket.  Just how many times do you think they have to do that introduction of theirs a day?

And finally here is Episode 16, the most recent episode.  Ash battles Sabrina, who can probably hear everything he thinks, and they visit super happy fun town which doesn’t look like anything I just described.

Well guys, that brings us to the end of Pokémon Day here on the site.  I want to thank you all for visiting the site and wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Pokémon Day – Johnny Vs Reviews January 1, 2013

During my research for “Do We All Live in a Pokémon World” I came across YouTube Reviewer SomeCallmeJohnny and his Johnny Vs game reviews.  This guy will usually set aside an entire month and devote it to an entire classic gaming series, like Metroid or Sonic the Hedgehog and review each of the games in the series.  The guy is extremely talented with good writing, high video and audio quality, and good paced editing.  His reviews can get as long as 40 minutes in length but I swear he’ll keep your attention so well the entire time you won’t even notice it.

He had previously said he would never devote a month to a Role Playing Game series, as he argued it would take far too long to complete a single RPG.  Multiplying that for each sequel would be too complex a process.  Well, as they say there are exceptions to every rule and that exception is Pokémon!

Johnny was a huge fan of the original Pokémon games growing up, and the spin offs that were released in the late 90s, so he devoted an entire month to these original Pokémon games from back when Pokémon fever started to take hold.

So where did Pokémon fever start?  Lets begin with his review of the Pokémon Generation 1 games.

However, when Pokémon fever started to go crazy in the states, some new Pokémon games ended up getting released here in the states on the Nintendo 64 to cash in on its popularity and hold gamers over for when Generation 2 came out.  One of those games was Pokémon Stadium.  For the first time in the States we would see what these little creatures we had previously only saw on a Game Boy would look like when battling in full 3D on the N64.  How was that game?  Lets find out.

However, as I’m sure as you all know, there was a lot more to Pokémon than just the video games, tv show, movies and comic books.  There were trading cards.  Pokémon Trading Cards saw an extremely successful run in the early 2000s, so much so that extremely rare cards would fetch unbearably high prices in the reseller market.  Personally I never had more than an original starter box (which I haven’t been able to find recently) of the cards and never played them, but then again even Johnny admitted the same.  They were great collectibles, and he takes a look at them from that perspective in his video review of the cards.

There was another Nintendo 64 spin-off game that got released, called Pokémon Snap.  It looked at Pokémon in a different way than we had before.  We weren’t battling them in this game, we were taking a look at them in their own natural habitat and photographing them as if they were being used in a nature documentary you would see on television.  How did it hold up?  Take a look.

Well, that was the last spin-off game we got at that time and now it was time for the first official sequel to the original Pokémon games which continued the story that started it all.  We now had two new games, an all new trainer with an entirely new story, and one hundred new Pokémon to catch!  Here’s his review of Pokémon Generation 2.

Hope you guys are enjoying Pokémon Day on the site!  More content will be coming all through New Year’s Day!  Stick around.