Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Top Seven Games of E3 2014 and Worst Disappointments

Last night I moved into my usual recording position.  Got my water out, opened Audacity on my computer, then reached over to my table of junk where I usually keep my USB microphone and grasped... nothing.  Dust.  Unfortunately I had returned to California with bags thick with crappy T-shirts labeled with game companies I do not particularly care for (no malice intended, but I could live a full life before becoming a walking billboard for Bethesda) but light on several pieces of important objects, such as my Nintendo DS charger, my USB microphone, and my Sony headphones.  Hopefully some lucky maid found them in my hotel room and is putting them to good use.  Maybe there is some LA teenaged boy is learning how to record himself right now.  Or more likely, they're in the trash.  But despite my attempts to feel magnanimous about my accidental charity, I am quite badly screwed.  So no Freelancin' this week, no Freelancin' next week.  Text posts only for awhile.

This post was intended to be the first Freelancin' upon my return from E3.  Instead I have to equate my voice rhythms using inexact prose, where unfortunately I become much less spontaneous and apparently more long-winded if this sentence is any measure.  After a truly fantastic week of fun, surprisingly little sun, and hype about the huge new video games on the rise, I'm not very used to disappointment, I suspect.  Actually it was one of the better weeks of my life, filled with long days of hard work playing games like a little kid, hanging out with Wikia colleagues, having a purpose beyond just everyday life.  It was hard to leave, my entire flight back was filled with a crushing feeling of sadness in my stomach.  Hopefully it was more fatigue than anything else, I actually wept in an LAX bathroom when I finally had to fly home.  But now I'm back, and I've already spent a weekend doing my day job, it is time to return to my blog and write things up again.

So this post will be the seven best games of E3 2014, the ones that looked the best for whatever reason, even if I personally did not get to play them.  I've picked seven for no particular reason, just because it is a mentally pleasing number.  Also, at the end, I'll throw in three of the worst disappoints - here's a hint, one of them involves a game that rhymes with "Blinal Blantasy Blifteen".

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Returned from E3!!

Hi!  I'm back!!  Had a great time!  I collected a lot of exclamation marks in California, so I gotta use them now or else they rot.

Anyway, right now I really don't have any posts to share other than to link over to my E3 Reports I wrote for Wikia.  I would have shared them earlier, but I figured they should remain on some level exclusive, at least for a little while.  They never said I couldn't repost them, but, you know, they've given so much, me writing a few E3 reactions is basically the only thing I can give back.  Tonight I'll be recording a new Freelancin', which will give some more E3 thoughts, which is for you all only.

Anyway, those links:
Also there are two interviews which I took part in, I'll throw links over to them too.  I'm only in the second two, I had to miss the first to see the Smash Bros Tournament:
As for catching up after E3, I got a lot of movies to watch this week.  And of course, as soon as I landed, I have like three eight hour shifts at work right after each other.  I'll try to see as many of the films I missed over the course of the week as I can.

Anyway, sorry about that sabbatical, Planet Blue is now back online.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Freelancin': E3 2014 Hopes

New Freelancin', this one about my journey to E3 next week and the games I'm hoping to see there.

WILD ANNOUNCEMENT: BH IS GOING TO E3!!!

So this is probably the biggest news I've ever shared on this blog so far.  Wikia, the lovely company that runs wikis all across the Internet, has decided to send me over to E3, thanks to being a huge gaming nerd and specially a lifelong Nintendo fan.  They had a Golden Ticket contest open for any Wiki Editor who fit those bills and could work as a great communicator, and thanks to this blog and my work on this wiki, Wikia's Gaming Supervisors chose me.  Yes, people actually do win contests, and it turns out I'm one of them.  So I'm getting flown out to Los Angeles this Sunday - all expenses paid - to attend this year's E3 as a Wikia community representative, to attend VIP events and report back to the general community at large.

So in terms of blogging, immediately this means that anything I've got planned for next week is on hiatus.  I'm going to record a really quick Freelancin' podcast tonight to give some of my E3 hopes, I was going to make the anyway, but now the tone is going to be a lot different.  Beyond that it means I really won't be able to review the movies coming out this weekend for awhile.  (Which is a shame since "The Fault in Our Stars" and "Edge of Tomorrow" actually got great reviews.)   I'll still be posting directly and communicating with the Internet, but it will just be as a Wikia representative and most likely post some things or even videos on the Nintendo Wiki.  Right now I don't know what the exact details of the trip are going to be, I just know I'll be closer to the action of the biggest moment on the gaming calendar than ever before in my life.  It's always been on my Bucket List to attend E3 just once, and now that little dream is coming true, in spectacular fashion.

Anyway, as for what kind of content I'll be posting, I don't exactly know.  Whatever it is, I'm going to keep you blog readers in on the action with links and other details.  There's even talk of some kind of video interview with some of the other Editors who being sent to E3, so this might be the first time I'm ever broadcast on camera, which is a wild deal in of itself.  (Don't get your hopes up if you've imagined me as a supreme handsome hunk of a man, I look like I'm fifteen.)  Altogether this is truly one of the coolest things to ever happen to me, and I cannot wait to use this position to share information to a larger audience than ever, actually in person with major events - almost like a real journalist.  It's wild.

Thanks, Wikia, you're really cool.  I have no words, really.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

June 2014 Look-Ahead

June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.  June.

Let's look ahead at the upcoming movies and video games for June 2014:

Edge of Tomorrow (June 6th) - Well, I don't envy Warner Bros. right now, because "Edge of Tomorrow" is pretty much bound to flop.  The trailers promise some kind of SciFi war epic involving time travel, the exact substance of which makes very little sense to me or anybody else.  Tom Cruise gets to go inside a suit of power armor and thanks to remaining a bankable star gets to go inside Emily Blunt, an actress decades younger than himself.  For some reason he gets to repeat every day in order to properly defeat a race of evil aliens or something.  It looks like "Killzone: the Movie", only with humans instead of human-like trolls as the main characters.  Personally my highest hope is that this film turns out more original and interesting than last year's SciFi action movie starring Tom Cruise, "Elysium".  Or maybe that was "Oblivion".  Who cares?  They were both equally forgettable.
--Chances to be Good:  40%.  Director Doug Liman is exactly the kind of jobber who would willingly jump into making a completely unimpressive SciFi action movie.  I have no hopes.

The Fault in Our Stars (June 6th) - Here is a romantic teen comedy starring two kids dying of cancer.  For movies built directly with adolescents in mind, it is easily more high-minded and intelligent than most of the shit Hollywood sends that age demographic's way.  Hey, even if it is just "Twilight" with terminal diseases replacing sex vampires, we're already moving in a good direction.  This is definitely not my kind of movie for a number of reasons, but it actually looks well-meaning and heartfelt.  Unlike Twilight, the main couple seems to actually like each other.  It looks charming.
--Chances to be Good:  70%.  There is always a possibility that diving deeply into misery and agony can be pandering too.  I just hope it isn't.