With all the E3 coverage, I thought this was posted already but I guess not. In addition to the new Smash amiibo for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, new amiibo for Splatoon 2 was revealed somewhere. The three-pack and will have Octoling Girl, Octoling Boy, Octoling Octopus.
Both Amazon and Best Buy already have pre-order pages up. The three-pack will cost you $34.99 MSRP but if you’re one of the lucky few to still have an active GCU membership, you can knock $7 off that price making it just $27.99 out the door.
There’s no release date yet. I’m hoping it will be sooner rather than later since the Octo Expansion paid DLC pack just came out.
Well, E3 is behind us, and we spent a whole lot of time watching livestreams of the conferences to see what is coming. We’ve been increasing a lot of our game coverage (and have posted our reasons why before), and E3 is basically “the event†when it comes to games. Suffice it to say, there was plenty there to get excited about.
Ace’s Picks
What a show. Admittedly, I did not see a lot of it. I’ll be falling back on YouTube to see the stuff I might have missed. I spent about 100% of my time at the Nintendo booth and I don’t regret it for a second. My back pains would argue otherwise but overall I had a blast.
I guess I have to pick five games I’m most looking forward to. Kind of difficult to do since there are really only three. Which is just fine because my backlog is already big enough that I don’t need more games to exacerbate the problem.
I spent most of my time at E3 playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It feels much faster than Smash 4 and tighter. There are a ton of tweaks throughout the game. The new characters are fun and I look forward to playing inkling more.
For non-Nintendo games there’s really only three I am hyped for. The Last of Us Part II looks incredible. And it looks like Insomniac is doing Spider-Man justice in their upcoming game. And if you’ve followed my previous games coverage it’s no secret I’m a Tomb Raider fan. So Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a day one purchase for me.
There are other games I’m interested in but haven’t yet fallen into the must-buy category. Daemon X Machina came out of nowhere and looks interesting. Octopath Traveler is coming out soon, July 13th, but nothing new was shown at E3 (and if there was I completely missed it).
Metroid Prime 4 was noticeably absent this year despite being announced at last year. I guess we’ll have to wait for next year’s E3 to find out anything on that game, that and the Pokémon main line game. That is just fine because, like I said earlier, my backlog can’t take much more.
Nick’s Picks
It’s far easier for me to pick losers than winners after watching all of the press conferences this year. SquareEnix basically did nothing, and EA continued to EA-up the joint. I know it sounds like I’m hating on EA a lot, and I am, but I do legitimately miss when they made good games. Some of my all-time favorite games came from that company, and it’s really sad to see how far they’ve fallen.
SquareEnix, on the other hand, was just weird. They have one of the single most anticipated titles coming in the Final Fantasy VII remake, and they did nothing at all for it. The stuff they did show was just a recap, and it makes me wonder what they’re up to.
Nintendo wasn’t bad, per se, and Smash Bros. For Switch looks amazing… but the rest of it was basically “okay, we know.†The only reveal was around some DLC, a game that was some robots and a title, and Super Mario Party. It didn’t wow me, and that’s a shame. Microsoft was something similar… no surprises but stuff looked good
The ones that did knock me over were Bethesda, Ubisoft, and Sony. Of them, I have to say Ubisoft is the one that put on the best show with the most stuff, and Sony is the one that showed off why they are the king of the consoles right now.
As for what I’m looking to the most, at least among the stuff that’s coming out sometime soon? There are a lot, but here’s probably a top ones for me that I will certainly purchase. Obviously, given a lot of the other stuff I posted, Fallout 76 is going to top my list. The info on it is all over the place (though it’s been confirmed that Mods and private servers will show up sometime after launch, and other discussions sound like PvP is opt-in, not just an open free-for-all). November is going to be an expensive month for me.
After that, I’m most excited about The Last of Us 2. I love pretty much everything that Naughty Dog does (bonus that you can get all of the Uncharted games and Last of Us on the PS4 so you don’t have to keep a bunch of systems around. Fun suggestion if you’re interested in reading about how the sausage gets made in video games, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Kotaku’s Jason Schreier. They cover Uncharted 4, specifically, but also touch on Last of Us. It’s a fantastic read.
I’m obviously also looking forward to Smash Bros. I never played the WiiU version, but I spent many, many, many hour playing the original N64 in college when i should have been studying, and later on the GameCube when I probably should have been sleeping before work. Spider-man, though is the game that I think I was most shocked to move up to my “day one purchase” list. I knew about it, but didn’t have high hopes.
The only “nebulous” release I have on here is Cyberpunk 2077. We don’t really have an idea when it will come out, though I’d guess 2019 to round out this generation, not a next-gen title like some have claimed unless it ends up PC only at launch. That would actually be kind of fitting, but a game has to go to consoles to be viable, and hopefully it doesn’t fall to 2020 and the next generation, but who knows.
There are some others that are certainly exciting, like Elder Scrolls VI, but that won’t be showing up for years at best. Others were just absent, like Red Dead Redemption 2, the Final Fantasy VII remake, and Metroid Prime 4. However, a lot fit in the realm of things that I may get, or may wait for a sale on… things like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Skull & Bones, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Gears 5, or Halo Infinite. I don’t feel like any of them are just overwhelming “have to have this” for me, though.
The official Smash blog posted some news that wasn’t shared at E3 and it’s a pair of new amiibo: Inkling girl and Ridley, the two newest fighters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. While you can use any version of a character’s amiibo, no doubt the Inkling girl will have the Smash logo on her base. This will appeal to Smash and Splatoon players alike. Ridley? Just looks awesome and I’ll have to get one in preparation of Metroid Prime 4.
No price or date of availibility yet but you can be sure I’ll post that as soon as they pop up.
If there’s an “official” Switch game here at FBTB, it’s got to be Splatoon 2. Well, it is with Ace and Ryan, anyway… I kind of suck at it and they only let me play when an event isn’t on the line (just kidding, they never let me play). So, it’s fair to say that excitement for the new DLC, Octo, is pretty high. At the very least, it will hold everyone over until Smash comes to dominate our lives on December 7th.
Nintendo decided that the anticipation was too much, and announced today that the expansion won’t be showing up later this summer, but actually tomorrow! It will run $19.99 on the Switch eShop, and is a single-player campaign. I’m looking forward to that, given that I spend a couple of hours a day on a train currently, usually playing on my Switch
Not just that, but they also announced two new amiibo coming soon. This is on top of the Pearl and Marina 2-pack that is supposed to show up as well. I guess amiibo isn’t dead yet… which makes my heart happy and my wallet sad.
With all the excitement about Smash Bros dominating E3, it would have been easy to forget the upcoming Pokémon games. Reggie gave them a bit of play in the middle of the Direct presentation, announcing that Mew would be exclusive to the Pokéball controller that’s coming out. Details have been pretty slight about them… only the UK has gotten pricing, but based on that, it’s likely to run about $45 to $50 USD.
That being said, I saw this on Best Buy earlier today: a Bundle with Let’s Go games and the Pokéball controller, coming in at $99. Doing the math, that’s $60 for the game, $20 for the controller. If you’re lucky enough to have a Gamers Club Unlimited membership that’s still active (RIP, GCU), the 20% discount applies, bringing it down to $80.
While I tend to bag on pre-orders, there are times when they tend to be a good call… specifically when you expect the item to be in short demand or have a limited production run (in other words, when it’s a non-digital product, like, say, a controller). Nintendo stuff can take forever to restock, so if you want this (and Mew), plan to get your pre-orders in sooner rather than later. Especially since this will likely be one of the hotter titles and systems leading up to Christmas this year…
I’ve actually never played Fortnite, but I do know that it’s basically the most popular game in existence right now. The release of the game was probably one of the worst kept secrets leading up to Nintendo’s E3 conference, and the rumor that it would come during the conference was also out there.
That title’s a mouthful but that’s basically what this video is. The video answered the one big question I had from the original video which was whether or not the guitars were an official Labo kit that just wasn’t released yet or a home-made contraption. Spoiler alert: it was home-made, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that it was a cardboard guitar using the Switch for the string-strumming and a joy-con to change the key.
It’s been rumored for awhile, but Nintendo just made it official: the Nintendo Switch is getting not one, but two* Pokémon games in November. Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu! and Let’s Go Eevee! will hit the hybrid system, marking the first time a full Pokémon RPG hits the mainline Nintendo system. While there have been some titles on the home systems before, the RPG has firmly been on the Gameboy and DS systems up until now.
The games look to be a modern remake of Pokemon Yellow, and if you’re new to Pokémon games, the two games are more or less the same one, with a few small differences between them. Yellow was a revision of the original, Red and Blue, which incorporated elements from the anime that was literally everywhere back in the 90s. Of course, if you’re crazy people, like, say, myself, Ace, or several people that hang out in our chat rooms… you’re going to end up buying both.
Even better, there are a bunch of new features that the Switch is going to support, like two-player support (which my daughter is certainly going to latch on to), sharing to Pokémon Go (if you still play that… thing), and even a new Pokéball inspired controller. Unfortunately, it also looks like Nintendo is targeting this version with capture mechanics that look quite a bit like Go’s swipe to capture (vs. more traditional battle when looking for wild pokemon).
On one hand, I hate seeing a core part of the classic game go, but if they’re trying to attract the Go crowd, it makes sense. The reality is, Pokemon Go has 65Â million players… which is actually about as many Pokemon Games have been sold over the past decade on Nintendo systems.
In short, I’m going to be picking this up, and probably will have to get that controller for her as well (get to pre-order Christmas stuff this year, yay). Unfortunately, this is likely the death knell for the 3DS, a great little system that simply loses its place with how the Switch works. I know I travel with my Switch and my 3DS rarely leaves my desk drawer.
A couple of weeks ago, Nintendo announced a new accessory called the “Adjustable Charging Stand” for the Switch. What makes this one worth getting over any other charging stand are the facts that A) it’s from Nintendo and B) it won’t brick your system like Nyko‘s. The other reason that makes it worth getting, for me anyway, is that I’ve been finding myself playing like this a lot lately:
Tabletop mode. When the kids or the wife want to watch TV, the Switch’s portability really comes in handy. But intense games are a battery drain, and that built-in kickstand is just pitiful. Plus, in tabletop mode there’s no way to charge it without a specialized stand. Putting the power port on the bottom of the unit is probably the worst place you can put it. The Adjustable Charging Stand addresses all of these issues handily. It provides a more stable footprint than the kickstand and moves the power port to the side, giving you the ability to charge while playing without some special contraption. The only feature that it’s missing is HDMI-out.
Adjustable Charging Stand retail package.
Nintendo’s Adjustable Charging Stand for the Switch comes out in July 13th with an MSRP of $19.99. You can pre-order it from Amazon or Best Buy right now.
I don’t know how I missed this but I am hyperventilating just thinking about it. One of the best GameCube games out there. It comes out on May 29th! That’s just four days! FIVE DAYS!
You can pre-purchase Ikaruga right now for a mere $14.99. An absolute steal for probably the best shooter ever made.
