It's E3 Preview Time for The Bender, with half our staff attending this year (James Walker and the artist formerly known as Intern Perry Piekarski, we give the inside scoop as well as some predictions. News blips from the week are spread out throughout (including Mike and Perry gushing over how awesome Red Faction is), other than that, it's what we know and predictions for the upcoming event, enjoy!
Show Notes | Topics
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E3 Preview:
Microsoft Discussion - Zune HD, New Crackdown, Perfect Dark XBLA, Killer Instinct, Alan Wake, Halo ODST, Microsoft Motion Control, Grand Theft Auto IV Ballad of Gay Tony
Nintendo Discussion - Gameboy Virtual Console, Pikmin 3, Mother 3, Kid Icarus, New Mario, Gamecube motion control remakes, New Metroid, New F-Zero, Tatsunoko vs Capcom (for USA), Wii's Player Choice
Sony Discussion - PSP Go!, Team ICO, MAG, Heavy Rain, PS3 Price cut or game bundle, Playstation Home (not Beta), God of War 3, Pixeljunk Shooter, More PS1 Classics, PS2 Emulation or in PSN stores, Gran Turismo 5, Katamari Forever, Blockbuster parternership, New Persona, Free Realms PS3
Capcom - New "Retro" Games
, Lost Planet 2, New version of Ghosts 'n Goblins or Dino Crisis or Maximo or Final Fight or Little Nemo.
EA - Mass Effect 2, Brutal Legend, The Beatles Rock Band, Fight Night 4, Dante's Inferno, Dragon Age Origins
Activision - Blur, Tony Hawk: RIDE, Modern Warfare 2, Prototype, DJ Hero
SEGA - Aliens vs. Predator, The Conduit, Bayonetta, Planet 51, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
UBISOFT - Assassins Creed 2 , I am Alive, Shanghai, Joel McHale, Ravin Rabbits
Bethesda - Obvlivion Party Wii or Fallout Party Wii, Wet, Rogue Warrior
Vavle - Portal 2, Half Life Episode 3
Our Final Way Off Predictions- Steve Weibe reclaims Donkey Kong crown, Ken Kutaragi is back on top of Sony, Miyamoto shows up at press conference dressed as something, Something Kojima exclusive 360 game (not Metal Gear Solid 5), Sega saves Sonic, somebody takes over Duke Nukem Forever project.. SOMEBODY!
News Blips:
Free Realms tops 2 Million Users
Ubisoft to product No More Heroes 2
Bioshock 2 Vitachambers are gone!
Call of Duty 4 is the best selling First Person Shooter
Mafia 2 Delayed
SNK makes Star Radish
FFVIII = 2010
Left 4 Dead Sequel?
Castlevania movie no more!
Discover 10 timeless video games from the past that remain absolutely playable today. From Chrono Trigger to DOOM, these classics have aged like fine wine!
Hot damn that's a good list. The only one i never played is AOE2 and i never finshed Chrono Trigger but it was damn good.
Speaking of what's old but holds up amazingly well and plays like a dream.. i played Symphony of the Night for the first time in 2019.. yep that's right. It became one of my favourite games of all time that i replay almost every year. I couldn't believe how good it was. That is almost impossible for me with newer games let alone older ones. Truly a special gem.
The only one I’d disagree with is doom. It shows its age badly I think. After 5 minutes of play these days you put it down.
LLC: "I love games, that bit is probably obvious. But I’m getting on a bit, and was thinking about some the games that need to come back."
IGN - Assassin's Creed's focus on character-driven storytelling has been buried by its RPG sandbox features, and the series is weaker for it.
A rare W opinion piece from IGN.
IMO, Ubisoft needs to setup two primary AC dev teams. 1 would focus on and release character-driven OG-style AC games for OG fans and the other would continue the current RPG-ified AC style for current fans.
Release by them Bi-annually and alternatively. There'd less fatigue and a boost to quality.
I definitely appreciate 3 more after playing it again in recent years along with the Liberation game. Back when 3 was new I was still riding high on AC2 and Brotherhood so when I played 3 I felt a bit let down. Even the ship battles grew on me.
AC2 - Yes
AC3 - Urm...I don't know
I feel they kind of dropped the ball with AC3 and with the way the story went it just didn't make sense to me at all. I felt it would have made more sense lore wise if they had it so the Red Coats were mostly Assassins and the Templars were mostly the Colonists who wanted this "new world" as a fresh start for their operations, to build a country up they'd have full control of from the start so they manufacture the war as something else while really it's just a front for the Templars vs Assassins.
It just meant that since the Red coats lose the war it explains how the Templars have gained full control of future America and how the Assassins have slowly died out by then. This entire event would have been the turning point of how things went to s**t for the Assassins and how there's not many of them left in the present.
Haythem was a lot more interesting than Connor and he should have been the main Assassin of AC3.
I thought AC2 was the greatest of the series and it is but replaying it recently, I stared to see more flaws in the game. Basically every single mission is an assassination besides a few tailing missions lol. Still, the implementation of all the new mechanics were great. The smoke bombs, disarming guards, story, hidden tombs, swimming, flying machine, multiple locations, etc. it definitely felt a bit more special to me at the time of release though
Dunno about 3, the 1st act was cool, then i couldn't tell you what happens after that. But 2 was so good! The entire acts 1-3 were al memorable, whereas i really couldn't even tell you what happens in any other AC game
