Games

I've regularly attended comic and sci-fi conventions, or whatever you want to call them these days, since the '80s.  Let me tell you, the experience has changed quite a bit in those decades.  In the past, cons were mostly a place to shop for merchandise, dress in costume, meet like-minded people, or schmooze comic creators.  Today, it's more about celebrity signings, video games, or movie and television panels.  Geeks have seemingly overwhelmed the Earth and every niche wants in on the con action.  Including more than comics and sci-fi means larger attendance for the shows, which is great in many ways.  Unfortunately, it also caused overcrowded convention floors, admission costs have skyrocketed, and worst of all, it's increasingly difficult to get tickets for huge shows like San Diego Comic Con or New York Comic Con.

"With great power, must also come great responsibility." - Ben Parker

Avengers vs X-Men
Uncanny X-Men
Yu-Gi-OH!
Dungeons & Dragons
Justice League
Age of Ultron
War of Light...
and now Amazing Spider-Man will be added to the growing number of sets that WizKids has released for it's popular game Dice Masters!

That will make 8 sets in under 2 years. One has to ask, is WizKids getting carried away with the success of it's game?

You’ve heard your friends talk about it. The sound of dice clacking together, as they're rolled with fervor, echoes within the walls of your local game shop. The collective groan, and/or sigh of relief, when the dice reveal the player's fate, sends a chill down your spine. "What's happening?" You ask yourself. "What is this mystical game that mixes superheroes with dice?" As you approach the tables, in awe, you discover...that you have absolutely no freaking clue what's going on!

Well, it’s time for you to get involved and be a part of the hype!

Pokémon, Niantic and Nintendo are teaming up to create the ultimate FREE gaming experience.

Pokémon GO will use your phone's GPS to hunt down Pokémon as you walk around parks, neighborhoods and hiking trails. And, if you haven’t lost touch with your friends while searching for that elusive Gengar, you’ll be able to trade and battle!

But don’t worry, if you have no friends left, you can always battle the nearest opponent in range.

For those familiar with the ‘big three’ collectible games such as Magic: The Gathering (Wizards of the Coast), Pokemon (Pokemon USA), and Yu-Gi-Oh! (Konami Digital Entertainment), it's no surprise that their popularity has continued to thrive over the course of the last 20+ years. Collectible games draw popularity from a concept that started with Baseball cards: the ability to trade with others to complete your set. Packs of randomly inserted cards tease us with the hope that we’ll find the one that we’re looking for with the next purchase. Levels of rarity increase the difficulty and encourage the desire to trade.

I try to not write columns or reviews with any real agenda beyond “Hey, this is really good, people should hear about it.”  Or “Wow, this is terrible, people should stay far, far away from this.”  But this article is going to be a little different.  I am actively looking to shame a company for their mediocre product and horrifying customer service policies.  

The first teaser trailer for HALO WARS 2 has been released and it certainly does tease!

Fans of the HALO franchise will be happy to hear that there's plenty of Spartan goodness in the follow-up to HALO WARS, released in 2009. A real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios, HALO WARS sold one million units worldwide the year it was released, making it the best-selling RTS of its time.

Critics of the original game felt that it lacked certain strategic options during gameplay, making it feel shallow, and didn't satisfy the more experienced gamers. Under the guidance of 343 Industries and Creative Assembly, there's hope that HALO WARS 2 will be vastly superior. Creative Assembly is the developer behind TOTAL WAR, which currently exists as one of the few remaining, quality, RTS games in the genre.

Despite the monetary success of HALO WARS, it's highly regarded as the franchise's only misstep.

For the last week or so, Blizzard has been hyping the announcement of the newest expanion to WORLD OF WARCRAFT.  The timing was pretty vital to the company.   Just a few days ago, Blizzard was forced to announce that WORLD OF WARCRAFT'S subscribers numbers are the lowest they've been since 2005.  In fact, since December of 2014, they have dropped from 10 million subscribers all the way down to 5.6 million. 

Granted this is still far more than any other MMORPG, but it still has to be the cause for some concern from Blizzard.  They made the announcement at Gamescom today for WORLD OF WARCRAFT - INVASION:

Here's the trailer for the next expansion:

For Dice Masters, a collectible card game by WizKids, having that one card that can be a 'game changer' is important for every player. The super-rare card, meaning there is typically only 1 found in a gravity feed of 90 packs is the most elusive.

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” - Cersei Lannister

Game of Thrones is the name given to the popular HBO series based after George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, for which the first book is titled. Ripe with political intrigue and set in a fictional, medieval time which resembles the ‘dark ages’ more than it does a pleasant Renaissance, Game of Thrones has become ingrained in today’s pop culture.

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

LOS ANGELES – On the day of her appearance on ABC’s CELEBRITY WIFE SWAP, Charo (of LAUGH-IN and LOVE BOAT fame) is revealing that the show, in a roundabout way, saved the life of her beloved calf Manolito. The longtime vegetarian and animal advocate rescued the orphaned calf shortly before filming started with the intent of educating viewers about compassion for farm animals and the cruelty of bullfighting. Little did she know, for liability reasons, ABC has a strict "no pets" policy for celebrities who appear on the show.

For the most part, I haven't had a lot of interest in upgrading my video game systems to the current generation.  The only games I really play at the moment are Lego and Disney Infinity with my kids, and various games on my 3DS.  So I haven't been paying a lot of attention to E3 this year...but then I saw BioWare finally announced a trailer for the next MASS EFFECT game. I have nothing but love for the MASS EFFECT series, and this game might actually be enough to get me to buy an X-Box One...

Today at E3 (the year's biggest video game conference), Microsoft made a bevy of announcements in hopes of moving ahead of the competition and scoring a victory in the ongoing console wars.

Devoted Xbox 360 owners were reluctant to part with the aging console when Microsoft introduced the Xbox One back in 2013. It was a hard sell; convincing gamers to throw away 8 years of games for a new console. Old, trade-in games would be banished to the bargain bin, only to be scooped up by those who refused to conform.

The Xbox One (along with other next-gen consoles) was not backwards compatible. Today, in what could be the biggest announcement from Microsoft, changes all of that.

The Xbox One is now backwads compatible!

Today on the official YouTube blog, Google announced that this summer they will launch a gaming channel called: YouTube Gaming.

While it won't exactly be ESPN for video games, it will bring you a 24 hour gaming network right to your phone, tablet or computer. With channels dedicated to your favorite games, your digital desires will be always be at your fingertips. For years now, people have been live streaming the latest sporting events when forced to attend social functions. Now, you'll be able to do the same with the latest video games!

The difference is you don't have to pay a premium to do it.

From the blog post:

With all of the hype surrounding the recent release of the trailer for FALLOUT 4, I decided it was time to start getting myself back into the mindset of an open-world, first person RPG. I had recently been on a racing game kick, and with my anticipation for FO4 being kicked into overdrive, I grabbed my copy of FO3 and went to work.

Typically, after grinding a game for a few hours, I like to grab a FAQ and see everything I've missed. You can call me a cheater if you must, but I still get loads of enjoyment by playing with a handy-to-reference guide.

From Comic Book Resources:

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment trumpeted its “toy-to-life” console game LEGO Dimensions last month, it promised “a lot more” properties would join the likes of DC Comics, The Lord of the Rings and Back to the Future at launch. Thanks to a leak, we now know at least some of them — including Doctor Who, Portal 2, Jurassic World and The Simpsons.

Similar in approach to the popular Skylanders and Disney Infinity, LEGO Dimensions will enable players to purchase LEGO sets that they’ll build into characters, vehicles and devices that can be introduced into the game with the Toy Pad. They’ll be able to mix and match characters and objects from a range of properties, changing and expanding gameplay.

Disney has finally started to release some information on their forthcoming Disney Infinity 3.0.   What we know so far is that the game will be very Star Wars heavy.  The new starter pack will come with Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano.   I am actually surprised they didn't got a little heavier on Rebels or The Force Awakens...but the variety of figures here is pretty cool. 

We also got a pretty cool trailer, which features a lot of vehicle action and lightsaber duels, which makes sense for Star Wars.  Hopefully they will have decent controls for the flying:
 

On the Marvel side, the only new character they have shown is Hulkbuster Ironman.

Very interesting news posted by Gamespot this morning:

Today during a special event in San Francisco, Telltale Games and Marvel Games announced a partnership for a new game due out in 2017.

The event is ongoing; we'll have more details on the new game as they become available.

Telltale has also published a blog post about this announcement, though it doesn't offer much in the way of specifics.

"Announced this evening in San Francisco, we're excited to reveal an all-new partnership with the incredible team at Marvel Entertainment. We'll be teaming up on the development of an upcoming Telltale game series project set to premiere in 2017!"

Source: Gamespot

From Mashable:

WB Games just put Skylanders and Disney Infinity on notice with the reveal of a new toys-to-life Lego game called Lego Dimensions.

The $99 starter pack (per Toys R Us listings) includes the game, a Lego Toy Pad (think Skylanders' portal), Lego Gateway building bricks, three Lego minifigures (The Lego Movie's Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle), and a Lego Batmobile. The game is in development at TT Games, the UK-based studio behind WB's Lego franchise.

There's no word on whether Dimensions affects release plans for Lego Jurassic World and Lego Marvel's Avengers, both of which are pegged for a 2015 release.