If I haven’t plugged it enough, please go out and buy The Body of Raiyne! It is my first novel and is only a dollar, hell, it may end up being even less later down the line and for brief periods. In addition to that, I have started work on my next novel, which will sadly probably not come out until the year’s end, possibly even later if I go through my idea for the short story, Psycho_Shatter. Psycho_Shatter is a terrible idea as it features a main character with major mental problems that I will not research and will probably include a person being burnt alive in an oven. But I still want to do it in order to have a massive wanker of a protagonist be placed in situations where he just rants about everything while being the most fragile little shit I have ever conceived. But onto the video games!
Where else to begin other than, boom, Smash Brothers direct! There’s 3DS version in the summer, Wii U in winter for reasons I cannot fathom, 60 fps regardless of 3D, an actually good looking online mode that binarily has for fun and for glory (idiot) modes. Fully customizable friend matches with minor character tweaks that will go ultimately unnoticed in the long run as they are only for fun, and a final destination for every non-competitive stage in the game. All of which sounds like the best scenario aside from the Wii U version’s undoubtful lack of interest due to the delay and likely quality of the 3DS version, but onto the characters.
Midna, Elec Man, Knuckle Joe, and Dark Samus are all going to be assist trophies along with pong… so that sounds amazing. As for the proper character announcements, you’ve heard by now and I was so surprised by the number. Zero Suit Samus is now separated and looks pretty radical aside from her heels and alleged bust boost and height hike, all of which sound bad, but at least the heels are hover based and look semi-practical. Sheik is back and Sheik is cool despite never doing much aside from play her harp, while Yoshi returns as one expected, and is one of the many, meaning all, characters to receive significant tweaks. Normally that would be fine as an information dump, but then they announced a really fun sounding mode called Smash Run, which is basically Kirby Air Ride’s City Trial (which I adore) X Subspace Emissary, and brought in another two characters. Charizard is back and solo, while Greninja is representing the modern Pocket Monsters, leaving the grass hole likely to be filled by Sceptile even though I think he looks dumb. The Direct does everything a lot more justice, and I can safely say I am properly pumped. Now to wait until August and see the final seven characters be revealed… except for Captain Falcon, Ness, Jigglypuff, Game & Watch and Wario being shoo-ins for various reasons. Or potentially A Super Smash Brothers 6… yeah, I don’t get it either.
Well, that was fun, now for some bad, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. The lack of creativity with the title and sheer absence of any form of game relative subtitle automatically strike me as amazingly lazy, but then I remember it is a Borderlands game, and Borderlands is pretty much the sole franchise I want to be given concrete shoes and thrown into a ditch. It’s a slow, grindy, repetition filled slog through wall papered hallways that has as much care placed into the game from what would be expected of the company that created Aliens Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem. I bashed the series before I knew any better, earlier this year, and I am nothing but upset to see something that I could potentially like, but know will just despise if I ever actually played. Also, it is a Gen7 exclusive , even though porting the PC version to XBO and PS4 should be pretty easy, but the game is multiplayer focused so a low install base means jack.
Speaking of this crappy cross gen thing this industry is doing, Microsoft is looking into 360 emulation… five months after the system’s release and after people have pretty much given up on their older systems. And after they claimed the feature was of little use, even though people would probably like to buy and play XBLA titles on the XBO. Although, that would still prevent them from playing the recently picked up Citizens of Earth, a comedy RPG inspired by Earthbound that failed pretty hard with its Kickstarter, but now has Atlus money behind it as it plans to hit PC, PS4/V, and Nintendos. Personally I still find the art style to be, well, not appealing in the slightest, but Next Level Games has proven themselves even if I never liked any of their games.
personally, I am more keen on the idea of Yo-kai Watch, or Ghost/Spirit/Spectre Watch as it will probably be called in the US. But if the game is going to come over, the sequel probably will too, what with its dual versions, a concept that I always found to be a bit underhanded, but the series is getting up to Pokemon popularity, so I guess that it is fine. Much like how Behemoth have an XBO title in the works, which is only surprising in how long it has taken for them to get their bums moving. I mean, it took about 4 years for Battleblock Theater to be released. In the meantime, people will have things like Tomodachi Life, that wacky 3DS game that did killer in Japan, and looks to be a more zany and less… satanic than Animal Crossing as it does not appear to consume lives and fill them with false joy and fool’s love.
Although I would have considered Penny Arcade to be far more villianish if their rumored PAX Central was a thing coming to Chicago, which I live in a suburb of. Instead the next PAX convention was revealed as PAX South, which takes place in Texas, despite how conventions tend to be very hot, so placing it in Texas strikes me as odd. But meanwhile at PAX East, which is going on as I am publishing and writing this post, Civilization: Beyond Earth was announced and looks like something I am 67% not into. Leaving Pixel Noir as the stylish noir JRPG I may have always wanted without knowing that it made my flower bloom… I actually really do like that phrase and will use it for many years, much like sure as sugar and the word Goldarn.
I’m not sure how to end this from here, so I’ll explain why I am glad that PAX Central is not a thing. Plain and simply, I was the kid who waited in the special ed office during pep assemblies because he did not feel comfortable with crowds and fingered his ears when noises got too loud. I would love to go to a smaller one with a fist full of twenties, but I would feel very awkward by myself and lack anybody to go with. And PAX Central would be the equivalent to a delicious cake when trying to diet after a lifetime of obesity. Not that I would know, as I’ve never been more than 135 pounds.