I’ll admit this up front: I am a total sucker for the slow-paced, “slice of life”-style simulation games. So when Animal Crossing: New Leaf finally came out (after TWO YEARS of waiting, thanks Nintendo), of course I had to pick it up. And I have to say – this is absolutely the best title in the series yet.

They’ve managed to make a ton of small but very noticeable changes in this game compared to past entries. For starters, you’re not just a regular villager anymore – you’re the mayor. Being the only human in town – for reasons that are still not given after four games and a movie – obviously means you get to lord over them as their ruler. You arrive in your town, which you name and choose the basic layout for on the train ride in the opening cut scene, and are greeted by your secretary, a Shih Tzu named Isabelle. Nintendo decided to use her as the game tutorial rather than Tom Nook, which is fine, since Nook has moved on to bigger and better things (namely, becoming the town’s real estate agent). I have found Isabelle to be the absolute most adorable character I’ve encountered so far, but I have a weakness for small dogs, so that might have something to do with it. She’s always there to point you in the right direction if you can’t figure out what to do next, and she’s always the first animal you see when you load up your game – plus, if something major is going on (like the bug-catching competition or a new villager moving in), she’ll let you know before your game is fully loaded.

After running a few errands and deciding where you want to build your house, you plant a tree to symbolize your moving to town and becoming the mayor, and then you’re pretty much on your own. You’ve got free reign to do whatever you want, though a lot of things – particularly mayorly duties – have to wait until the next day. As usual, the game takes place in real time, so if it’s June 1st in real life, it’s June 1st in the game. You can get around this by going into the settings of your 3DS and manually changing the date to “time travel” in the game, but I wouldn’t recommend it. As much as it might seem tempting to jump around to advance the game quicker (and re-set what’s in the shops that day), it kind of defeats the purpose of the game. But there’s an in-game mechanic that helps play to your schedule as well.

If you find yourself only being able to play early in the day or late at night because of real-life things like work or school, no worries – you’re the mayor, and you can literally force the residents and shops to be up and open super early or super late. Part of the perks of being mayor include being able to enact ordinances. There are four – Early Bird (everyone gets up early and shops are open earlier), Night Owl (everyone stays up late and shops stay open later), Wealthy Town (buying and selling prices go up by 20%), and Beautiful Town. That last one is my favorite – it has your residents watering flowers and planting them as well, plus cockroaches don’t appear and weeds rarely show up. One of my biggest gripes about past games was since the game takes place in real time, if I stopped playing for a week or so and then came back, the town would be a disaster area covered in weeds and cockroaches would show up inside my house. Now that doesn’t happen.

The other big part about being mayor includes public works projects. You can build anything that your villagers ask for, from small things like benches, additional bridges, and town clocks, to bigger things like campsites, cafe’s, and expansions on existing buildings. This gives you a pretty good reign on customizing your town, though when new villagers move in, they’ll put their house pretty much wherever the hell they feel like it, so don’t spend too much time planning out your town or else you’re going to be disappointed.

Taking a nod from City Folk, New Leaf has all of the shops (save for one) in a separate area away from the town, simply called Main Street. Here is where you have your general store, clothing and accessory shop, post office, and museum. There are some empty spaces and unoccupied storefronts when you first move in – these will be turned into things like the Gardening Store, Kicks (shoe store), Club LOL, and more, once you’ve fulfilled the necessary requirements. These requirements usually involve spending a lot of money at a related store – for example, Kicks won’t be built until you’ve spent enough bells with the Able sisters.

Speaking of those porcupines, if you’re into designing your own clothing and accessories, that mechanic got a whole heck of a lot better. Pro designs are awesome and easy to do with the 3DS’s touch screen, compared to in City Folk where it was first introduced. Pro designs allow you to design every aspect individually; so if you’re making a shirt, you would make the front, back, and each sleeve individually, rather than just apply one pattern to all four sides like in the early games. They’ve also added a QR Code machine, where you can snap a photo of a QR code and produce someone else’s design in-game that way. Pretty cool.

Also on Main Street is Nook’s Homes, where you can find that greedy old tanuki, Tom Nook. Once your house is built, you can actually customize a lot of aspects of it, including what style door, roof, pavement, and fence you have. Once you pay off your loan you can also go to him to expand your home even further. Nook’s kids (nephews? No one knows for sure, really), Timmy and Tommy run the general store now, which otherwise functions exactly as it used to. A couple of tools and a few pieces of furniture are available at the start, but they expand their wares once their store itself expands. T&T now offer fortune cookies, which you can purchase with your 3DS Play Coins to get exclusive items that are often related to other Nintendo properties, like the mushrooms from Mario or the titular item from Majora’s Mask.

I’ve been playing pretty constantly for about a week now, and I have to say that the absolute best feature is the multiplayer. If you’ve exchanged 3DS Friend Codes with someone else who also has the game, you can play together very easily by opening your town’s gates and having them visit you, or vice versa. This is an easy way to get “foreign” fruit to plant in your own (which is a fast way to make a lot of bells), or to see what other town’s stores have to offer. It’s also just more fun to fish, catch bugs, etc. when there’s more people with you.

Ultimately, I’d say this is easily the best entry in the series yet. I don’t feel like the game is going to turn into a chore like past entries, since my power as mayor allows me to have the villagers take care of their own goddamn selves for once. New locations and new villagers are interesting. Small changes make a huge difference (for example, Blathers, the museum owl, can accept multiple donations at once, rather than one at a time – totally hastens that process). The enduring charm of the series is still there, and the game itself looks great on the 3DS. If you have a 3DS, seriously, go pick this up ASAP. Life in Animal Crossing is so much more relaxing than day-to-day nonsense, anyway.

Nintendo is subliminally becoming the single most progressive company in the gaming industry. Their E3 Nintendo Direct presentation, which was chock full of trailers of their big upcoming titles, is direct proof of that.

Let’s begin with Super Mario 3D World. (What better place to start with Nintendo than Mario, anyway?) First of all, they’re making Princess Peach a playable character in a main series (i.e. platforming) Mario title again, for really the first time since Super Mario Bros. 2. Yeah, she’s in Mario Party and the Mario sports titles along with everyone else and she had her own game on the DS a few years back, but this is the first time in a long time where she’s up there with Mario and Luigi, getting power ups and kicking Bowser’s ass with those guys rather than being kidnapped for the 25th time. They’re treating her like an equal in strength to the Mario Brothers rather than the victim, and that’s awesome.

Plus, they’ve literally got her in a cat suit and they decided not to use that as an opportunity to sexualize her. Look at that image up there. They easily could have made her cat-power outfit a skin-tight cat suit, like Catwoman’s, but no. They decided to have her wear silly pajamas like everyone else. Nintendo is treating Princess Peach like a strong, reliable character who’s on even footing with the rest of the cast.

The big Nintendo title everyone’s talking about, however, is Super Smash Bros for WiiU and 3DS (to the surprise of absolutely nobody). They announced three main characters – Mega Man, the Animal Crossing Villager, and the Wii Fit Trainer. I know people are scratching their heads at the last one there, but let me assure you, it’s awesome. Adding another female character to the cast will likely draw more women to play the game, but it also showcases the fact that human women can be strong and they can kick your ass. Because that is what the Wii Fit Trainer is about. Getting strong, getting in shape, and kicking ass. She doesn’t have magical powers, like Princess Zelda. She doesn’t have the advantage of an armored suit or guns, like Samus. She’s a girl in a tank top and yoga pants and she’s going to throw you off the stage like anyone else. Awesome.

The Animal Crossing Villager was another slightly effeminate choice – not because of the character itself, who is male (though it wouldn’t surprise me if a female villager was an alternate outfit), but because of the series itself. Animal Crossing is WAY more popular with girls than with guys, and this inclusion may be another ploy to get women interested in Smash Bros. So out of the three new Smash characters, two of them are from games that are almost specifically geared towards women.

And speaking of Animal Crossing, which I have been absolutely addicted to since picking it up last week, that’s another game that literally does not give a shit about society’s gender roles. All of the villagers are genderqueer. They don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl, they will be so totally hype to go on a date with you and certain dialogue options allow you tell them that you love them, regardless of what gender you or they are. And they will be hype for that too. Male main characters are allowed to cross dress (they can wear dresses and skirts), too. And girls can wear long pants instead of a skirt and be a cowboy or astronaut or whatever. Nintendo is literally saying “hey, you know what? Fuck traditional gender roles – do what you want” in Animal Crossing.

We also got a peek at Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Guess who’s playable again? Dixie Kong! The last main Donkey Kong game she even made an appearance in was in 1996! (She’s been playable in racers and other side games since then, though.) What’s funny about Dixie Kong is that even back then, I recall Cranky Kong saying that she had no business being involved because women should be damsels in distress… but, Cranky is portrayed as being a stupid, senile old man. So what does he know? Pikmin’s also got a new female hero, and Bayonetta 2 is going to be a WiiU exclusive. So basically every big Nintendo title that’s coming out in the next couple of years is going to have a female as a playable main character, and that’s awesome for gamers like me, who happen to be, uh, female.

Meanwhile, during an obviously-scripted demonstration at Microsoft’s press conference, they put a rape joke in there. A man saying to the woman he was beating at the game, “just wait, it’ll all be over soon.” The uncomfortable laughter and groaning that followed that line shows you how the audience felt about that. And when they started to get shit for it, their reaction was basically “what? It was a joke!” Of Microsoft’s big in-house franchises, I honestly cannot name a single main playable character who’s female. Not one.

Sony is a little bit better about women in gaming, but not much – Remember Me was originally going to be an exclusive for them, until “creative differences” drove the developer and the publisher apart. These so-called “creative differences” allegedly stemmed from the fact that the main character was a woman, and Sony didn’t think it would sell. The developers didn’t budge, so the exclusivity went out the window. At least Sony is putting out Beyond: Two Souls later this year, featuring a female lead who apparently goes into the military and is a total badass, so that’s awesome. The Last Of Us is also out this weekend, and while you do have to escort Ellie, it appears she can hold her own.

And before you gentlemen reading this say “well, women don’t play games – they would have more representation if more of them played,” guess what – THEY DO! WOW! The Entertainment Software Association released a report earlier this week with stats that show that 45% of the entire game-playing population is comprised of women. You can read the USA Today article with all of the nitty-gritty details here. But the fact stands – almost half of the people playing games today are women. So there shouldn’t be any argument anymore for strong women in games.

Nintendo appears to be the only company out of the Big Three that’s truly on the “gender-equality in gaming” train. Sony’s starting to catch up, which is nice. But Microsoft needs to pull its head out of its ass if it doesn’t want to risk losing almost half of its audience.

Last Friday, I decided to drive through some pretty nasty weather to visit some friends and attend an anime convention in Somerset, NJ, called AnimeNEXT. I had been to this convention before – it’s relatively small compared to my other usual conventions (namely, Otakon, which is the biggest convention of its kind on the East Coast) – and had never had any issues with the other attendees before. Generally speaking I stick with my friends and I don’t run into that many creepers or socially awkward mom’s basement-dwellers. But the law of averages decided to play itself out.

For reference, here’s the costume I wore to the event: Utena Tenjou from Revolutionary Girl Utena. I wouldn’t exactly say this is a “revealing” or “sexy” costume, but I understand that booty shorts and a lot of leg exposure can do it for some people.

As a cosplayer of about 10 years, I’ve dealt with my fair share of awkward situations and I know how to handle them, usually because I have someone with me. But as I was walking through the rain, desperately trying to keep my new wig dry as I neared the convention center, I heard a couple of loud clicks and giggles from behind me. I turned around to see an older, well-dressed gentleman, hand out the window of his car, taking photos of my backside with his phone. (Is it possible he wanted a photo of the back of my Utena jacket? I’m going to go with probably not; safe to say he was likely taking photos of my ass.) Needless to say, I was pissed.

I approached his car – he was stuck in a line to drop off/pick up attendees at the convention center entrance – and he quickly rolled up the window. I told him to erase the photos he obviously just took of me. He told me that I was in public space and that he was allowed to take photos because of that. I told him again to erase them and he said that he “did nothing illegal” by taking the photos. He eventually got out of the line and drove off, my ass apparently forever stored in his camera.

Now, let me address his point – he’s right; it’s not illegal to take a photo of someone in a public space, particularly if they’re attending a convention where the terms of your badge include a statute that basically says “if you’re in the convention space, your photo can be taken and we can use it for future promotional purposes.” So yes, because I was on convention center grounds, what he did was technically not illegal. But that doesn’t make it okay.

Just because cosplayers like myself put ourselves out there doesn’t mean that is an invitation for you to come and harass us. I don’t wear Utena or any of my other costumes because I’m interested in pleasing some sleazy old man I’ve never met before – I made the costume because I love the character. The most gratifying thing about wearing Utena that day was when these two girls came up to me in the Artist Alley and just spilled feelings for the character and the show at me, and I threw them right back. They were excited to see someone who loved the show as much as they did, and I was glad that I could share in that feeling with them. I’ve never made an outfit for the sake of getting some guy’s rocks off – and I’ve never met a single person in his hobby who has in my decade of experience  – but sometimes that guy thinks we do. And that guy needs to pull his head out of his ass.

I wish that the “Cosplay is Not Consent” movement wasn’t as big as it was these days. But it has to be. From small incidents like mine to bigger ones – PAX East comes to mind, where a media member asked harassing and uncomfortable questions to some ladies dressed as Lara Croft at the Square-Enix booth – this is unfortunately a problem across the entire convention scene. The biggest defense that the harassers and their white-knights tend to come up with is “Oh, well you’re dressed like this, you should expect this behavior!”

Uh, no. Sorry. Is it fair to say “expect some awkward stares?” Yeah, that’s fair – I wore a bunnysuit to a convention once, and I got a LOT of stares. If I didn’t expect that, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place. No one’s saying “don’t look at me,” because the sake of wearing a costume at a convention is to get looked at. No one’s denying that. But it’s not fair to tell the women – and men, who definitely get it too – to endure sexually harassing behavior.

If it’s not okay outside of a convention, it’s not okay inside of a convention. Can you walk up to someone you’ve never met at the mall and play grab-ass? No, you can’t. So you can’t do it at your favorite comic book or video game or anime convention, either. It doesn’t matter what that person is wearing – if they don’t know you, don’t touch them. It’s not a difficult concept.

And really, if you want a picture of my ass that badly, can you at least take it under better lighting?

Comic book movies have had such a successful run over the last number of years. The sub genre has become mainstream and is beginning to feel like a genre all its own. In 1978, Richard Donner’s Superman was unprecedented, but since then we have seen three direct sequels and a fourth unsuccessful pseudo followup in 2006. Superman is by far the most well known comic book character around the world. Even people who have never read a comic know his basic origin story. Being such a known character has made his onscreen adaptations difficult to tackle. Director Zack Snyder attempts such a task with this year’s Man of Steel.

The challenge in adapting Superman to film is making him relevant in modern times. The character was created in 1938, and has a dated look, morality code, and worldview. In an age of violent villains and brooding heroes, can the flying boy scout still impress us?Director Zack Snyder worked with producer Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy) and writer David Goyer (The Dark Knight Trilogy) to create a movie that works to bring the “granddaddy of superheroes” back to the world of the living. To say that Snyder and his team delivered is a vast understatement. Man of Steel gives us a heartfelt take on a story we thought we already knew, outrageous characters, and action that rivals some of the biggest and best Hollywood has to offer.

The aforementioned origin story is relatively the same as we’ve seen in past films. We are treated to the added bonus message about free choice in a society. I am not sure if this was a metaphor for some modern day political issue or not, but to me it had some weight. Superman’s father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is the early focus of the movie and plays to adding a serious level of gravitas to this classic character who was originally played by Marlon Brando. Jor-El works early on to warn of the impending danger to his homeworld of Krypton. Opposite Jor-El’s ease and heroism is brutal and myopic General Zod (Michael Shannon). Zod’s soul purpose is to protect Krypton at all cost. Like any automaton, Zod goes too far when his “programming” conflicts with what’s happening around him. He decides to make a go at taking over Krypton.

Flash forward to Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill) as an adult on Earth and we see his interactions with Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, respectively). Intercut with moments of Clark as a child, the movie does a great job of not just rehashing the story everyone knows. The relationship between Clark and the Kents is very well explored and gives you a real sense of where Superman gets his moral center. For the first time in any Superman movie real exposition is given for Clark Kent/Superman’s struggle to adapt to living with his powers. The struggle to just be normal is a thread throughout his childhood. There is even time taken to give the audience a look at how Superman literally sees the world around him. A perspective not touched on ever in previous big screen outings.

Throughout his time in secret Clark is being pursued by the famous journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams) who is tracking his good deeds around the world. Lane has some interactions with him and she becomes obsessed with the very idea of an alien being. Eventually Superman in all his glory debuts himself to the world and Snyder does a great job of asking the question of “how would humans react to seeing a god show up on Earth?” This is yet another thing not explored in previous films. Once the world is put in danger Superman begins to make a myriad of sacrifices for the common good. From this point on a struggle ensues and we are treated to ~40 minutes of pure action. The sequences were heavy CGI-ed, but looked clean. The fight pace was insanely quick as you’d imagine. Jumping from one end of the screen to another and back again was common. Fighting through buildings and other urban landscapes was pretty par for the course after a while; this is not a complaint. The scope of the fights felt massive and lead to the the understanding of how powerful these characters were. Even smaller roles like Faora (Antje Traue), General Zod’s right hand woman was given a time to shine. I found myself grinning from ear to ear when she was onscreen battling. I cheered, smiled, and even chuckled as this was the Superman movie I’ve been waiting for for many years.

Henry Cavill’s Superman is a the classic good looking farm boy from Kansas that we all know and love. Cavill brings a nice guy innocence to the roll, but nothing really Earth shatteringly new. He is competent in the character and does no harm. His interactions with Lois Lane were on the weaker side, and was a rather decent hindrance to the overall flow of the movie. I wanted more from the two of them. Lois is fairly underwritten here, even as a damsel in distress character. A stronger definition for who she is would have helped greatly. The chemistry just wasn’t there this go round. When it came to Cavill taking on the big shoes and challenging Shannon face to face he delivers and you can’t help but root for him. Cavill is my generation’s Superman, and I think we will be happy to have him. Michael Shannon shines as General Zod. Taking up about the massive mantel that Terrence Stamp left behind Shannon works his best just under the surface crazy personality style to the max. From calm General to foaming at the mouth psycho, Shannon runs the gamut.

All and all, Man of Steel is the movie I’ve been waiting for and I think modern movie goers will love it just the same. Warner Bros/DC have had some great moments with The Dark Knight Trilogy, but also had some false starts like Green Lantern. With Man of Steel it appears that they might just have got their footing back and are ready to start running full speed. Taking the route of a grounded world in which these fantastic characters live is the proper move for Warner Bros/DC and they seem to be taking it. What’s next for them is hard to say, but if they keep this up there is no end to the possibilities. The tagline for the 1978 Superman film was “You’ll believe a man can fly.” In 2013, you can believe again!

Review of Man of Steel
Jay's Rating
Overall Review

This week is E3 special and we do the same mega run down of everything we saw and heard just like last year. Take a listen to this episode chock full of great details of upcoming games and systems.

I’ll just come out and say this right away – This Is The End is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. And if you’re afraid the trailers revealed too much, don’t worry – there is so much more to come.

Attending an advance screening is always a mixed bag. This one, for instance, featured the very first metal-detection and pat-down I’ve ever experienced at a movie theater (yay Baltimore!) The crowd was also different than what I was expecting, being made up of about ⅓ press nerds and ⅔ members of the Maryland Film Festival. This fine organization gives its members the chance to attend advance screenings like this throughout the year, and let me tell you, they were excited to be there. Usually that means the movie being screened will get very positive reactions from the audience, as the audience is made up mostly of fans. This film didn’t need cheap laughs from the crowd to help sell it.

This Is The End features all the good ol’ boys from the last ten years of Hollywood stoner comedy playing themselves during the apocalypse. I’ll stay quiet on exactly what kind of apocalypse they’re surviving, but it adds to the hilarity. Jay Baruchel flies to L.A. to visit his buddy Seth Rogen, and they’re quickly off to a party at James Franco’s house. The first twenty minutes are hysterical, with a bunch of celebs making cameos and then rapidly dying. Also; you will never look at Michael Cera the same way again.

After the initial mass casualties we’re left with Jay, Seth, Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride doing their best to survive with, well, no skills whatsoever to draw from. If you’ve ever wanted to see a sequel to Pineapple Express, wait no more. Hilarity ensues and after a little moralizing and a lot of cum jokes, everyone realizes what’s really going on. I mean, there’s maybe a little bit of message with some of it, but I think that’s a fallacy. This is just an excuse for all those guys to smoke a bunch of weed and say hilarious shit to each other and get paid for it.

The movie drags a little bit in the third act, but there’s some excellent creature design on hand and one last excellent cameo to look out for. And the finale is, well, it’s something else. I left the theater making a lot of comparisons to Kevin Smith movies, and I think it’s apt. The whole thing feels like a hilarious mash-up of Seth Rogen’s films and Kevin Smith’s films, and that’s damn near perfect comedy for me.

Bottom line, if you already like these guys go see the movie, you’ll love it. If you’re on the fence about it, have no fear, this is money well spent. I haven’t laughed this hard in the theater since 21 Jumpstreet, and there’s plenty of laughs left for you.

Fuck science!

Review of This is the End
Jack's Rating
Overall Review

This week on The Nerdpocalypse Podcast the guys discuss nerd designed wet bars, Apple’s answer to Pandora, Xbox One announcements at E3, a machine that has a simple purpose, The Amazing Spider-Man comics, Krispy Kreme concoctions, Steven Spielberg’s next film projects, Star Wars Ep. VII, Vertigo’s Fables, the creation of the Sinister Six in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and much more.

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Show Notes

SCIENCE & TECH NEWS

High Tech Computer Workstation http://laughingsquid.com/emperor-1510-lx-a-21500-high-tech-computer-workstation/

ATAT Wet Bar http://laughingsquid.com/the-emperors-cabinet-a-large-wooden-star-wars-at-at-wet-bar/

Apple announces streaming music service http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57588505-37/meet-itunes-radio-apples-long-awaited-streaming-music-service/

STUPID TECH

Penis Machine http://laughingsquid.com/the-penis-machine-a-robot-that-draws-penises-at-the-push-of-a-button/

Just hit the fucking treadmill http://is.gd/51PEb9

COMIC NEWS

Denver Comic Con get massive attendance http://geek-news.mtv.com/2013/06/10/exclusive-denver-comic-con-tops-out-at-a-record-breaking-61000-attendees/

WTF?

Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joe’s http://laughingsquid.com/krispy-kreme-sloppy-joes-to-debut-at-the-san-diego-county-fair/

Criminologists suggest movie Dystopian futures are very probable http://io9.com/criminologists-explain-why-robocop-dredd-and-running-m-511951668

Fucking politically correct bastards http://is.gd/wzBYzz

MOVIE/TV NEWS

DiCaprio to play Rasputin http://www.slashfilm.com/leonardo-dicaprio-attached-to-play-rasputin/

Star Wars Episode VII shooting time frame http://io9.com/j-j-abrams-confirms-likely-star-wars-episode-vii-film-512243474

Spielberg eyeing PTSD film next with Daniel Day-Lewis http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Steven-Spielberg-Developing-PTSD-Drama-Thank-You-Your-Service-36351.html

Vertigo’s Fables gets the green light http://www.thenerdpocalypse.com/2013/06/vertigos-fables-gets-the-green-light-for-the-big-screen/

Aaron Taylor-Johnson up for Quicksilver in The Avengers 2 http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/kick-ass-star-aaron-johnson-frontrunner-play-quicksilver-avengers-2-exclusive-96096

The Amazing Spider-man 2 huge possibilities http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/notyetamovie/news/?a=81197

After Microsoft brought the games to E3 earlier today, Sony had a tall order ahead of them during their press event. And though it took them a while to get going…get going they did, as the last half hour of their two-hour event might have stolen the show.

It can’t be understated how slow the first hour of this event was, and how crap the stream was on uStream. I wish Spike TV had gone all in on E3 and just aired all four pressers. But I digress. Sony began with what was essentially a glossing over of what was coming for the Vita and PS3 this year. Vita will apparently see 85+ new games before year’s end including the new Walking Dead title from Telltale Games. PS3 got trailers for its big games this year including The Last of Us, Puppeteer, Rain, Beyond: Two Souls (which probably had the most surprising gameplay showing the action sequences off in the game), and Gran Turismo 6, which really looks pedestrian compared to Forza at this point.  We saw a new gameplay trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins and exclusive PS3 content was announced for it. Grand Theft Auto V will also be bundled with a PS3 this fall for $299 which will include a GTA-branded Pulse headset (a pretty solid value, actually).

After that, it was time for the main event. Finally the PlayStation 4 console itself was revealed and, like the reveal of the Xbox One, it was…underwhelming. The PS4 actually looks quite similar to the Xbox One with the exception that the front and rear were angled back instead of being a rectangle. It even had the two-toned top that we teased the One about on the show.

Time for games!..wait, first here’s Sony Pictures Studios to tell us they will be creating exclusive content for PS4. Also, Redbox Instant and pay-per-view events will be available on PS4 as well. This was the most frustrating part of the show for me. One thing Microsoft did well was get this crap out-of-the-way at their reveal event and saved the time at E3 for games. Sony would have done well to do the same if only to speed up the proceedings today.

Now games. First was a trailer for a new exclusive title from Santa Monica Studios developed by Ready at Dawn called The Order. It looked a Steampunk-ish themed action title that didn’t really show much. Next, we saw new trailers for the games shown off this past February: Killzone: Shadow Fall, inFamous: Second Son, Drive Club, and Knack. None of the demos really got my blood pumping (inFamous came close), and didn’t do too much to build excitement for those titles. All but inFamous were confirmed to be PS4 launch titles with Second Son dropping in 2014.

Sony then chose to show another tech demo from Quantic Dream called The Dark Sorcerer to demonstrate the graphical power of the PS4. Again, they did this in February I thought specifically so they wouldn’t need to here at E3. It was around this time I was starting to get a little bored and fatigued, but then, as WWE announcer Jim Ross would say, business started to pick up…

One thing on PS3 I have really loved is their support of indie developers. Some of the best games on the console are PSN games from small studios, and conversely, Microsoft has made things more difficult over the years for indies. PS4 then appears to be a haven for independent developers, as Sony announced they will allow small studios to publish games themselves directly to PSN. They then showed of several exclusive PS4 indie games including a new futuristic action game from Bastion developer Supergiant Games called Transistor, horror game Outlast, and a Oddworld remake. Interesting stuff to be sure, and nice to see PS4 will continue carrying the indie torch.

Quick mention was made of exclusive content for the PS3/4 for Diablo III. Square then showed up to show a new Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer…before unveiling it to be Final Fantasy XV. It sure looked pretty, as usual, but when will it actually come out? Then, a bomb drop no one was really expecting: Kingdom Hearts III is in development. And they showed gameplay footage. I’m not a fan of the series personally, but I know a lot of people were really excited for this, though you have to wonder if both of these games now have unreasonably high expectations pegged on them due to their insanely long development time.

Ubisoft was next bringing Assassin’s Creed IV and Watch Dogs to the stage. In Assassin’s Creed, they showed gameplay not seen in the earlier Ubisoft presser showing off the game’s naval battle mechanic. I remain completely underwhelmed by the game, and still deem it unnecessary. Watch Dogs, as expected, looked great; the new demo showing a section where you help a friends escape his apartment and stealth through a courtyard by hacking into electronics in the area to provide cover and distract enemies. Then, in you escaping the area to complete the mission, Watch Dogs enables you to reach out to the online community for assistance. Another person demoing the game on a tablet raised barriers to slow police pursuit as Aiden used other tools at his disposal to evade the police. It would appear there will be a companion app for this game where you can be an eye in the sky for other players and help them when needed? That’s cool, and something I can’t wait for them to shed more light on.

NBA 2K14 was quickly shown off. Then came a surprising announcement that The Elder Scrolls Online will be coming to PS4. No word if that will be the only console the game will appear on besides PC; if so it would be quite a coup for Sony. A new Mad Max game (huh?) was revealed as well. After this though…Sony laid the smack down in a way I never thought you would see.

Much was made about Microsoft’s announcements about DRM for the Xbox One last week. The Xbox One will have incredibly restrictive DRM policies, much more aggressive than any console has had before. They received a lot of scrutiny for this, and I think deservedly so, especially as they still haven’t clarified some of those policies to date. Well, Sony used this as an opportunity to unleash a salvo directly at Microsoft, and as a confessed Sony fan, I loved every. single. second.

PlayStation CEO Jack Tretton could barely contain his glee as he announced that the PlayStation 4 would carry NO used game restrictions. You can trade your games in. You can sell them. You can loan them to friends. Basically you can do anything you should be able to do with something you OWN. PS4 also won’t require an online connection to play your games. If you do have online though, you will now need PlayStation Plus, something no one seemed to notice when they announced it. That’s fine by me though, because they made PS Plus an even better value than it already is. Not only will the Instant Game Collection continue on PS3 and Vita, but PS4 owners will get a free PS4 game every month for the first year the console is out, Drive Club being available at launch. And while Plus will be required for online play, it won’t be required to use the console’s media services, unlike on the Xbox where you need Gold membership to even use YouTube or Netflix. The crowd of game journalists roared with every bullet point rattled of by Tretton; never have I seen a more direct and obvious dismantling of a competitor. I’ll be curious to see Microsoft’s reaction.

One last game, as Bungie’s Destiny saw gameplay for the first time. Amazingly, it underwhelmed, as the game looks like a carbon copy of the Borderlands series, except without the humor and unique style Borderlands provides. It’s too early to pass final judgement, but I was surprised to not walk away impressed with this game.

Cloud gaming was addressed briefly, as it was announced game streaming of PS3 games will arrive in 2014. Does this mean de facto backwards compatibility for PS4? That’s yet to be seen. Sony was about done, but they had one last announcement, and it’s an announcement that has many across the internet proclaiming the Xbox One will be dead on arrival.

The price.

Or to say it another way, $100 less than the Xbox One.

To say the crowd reaction was raucous was an understatement. It was the exact opposite reaction to when Sony announced the PS3 price at E3 2006. As Dense Pixels member Jack eloquently put it: Sony just threw it down, dropped the mic, and walked offstage.”

And there you have it. I think it’s fair to say no one was expecting what transpired during the last half hour of that press conference, and Sony might have just propelled themselves into the forefront of the upcoming console race. There is still months to go before November, and lots of new info to be revealed. Plus, Microsoft will still have to respond to today’s events, and who know what they will do as a retort. Either way, what I thought would be a console co-existence may have suddenly morphed into a war, and it’ll be interesting to see how this one ends up.

Don’t forget to tune into the Dense Pixels podcast tomorrow for a full breakdown on what we saw at E3 (www.densepixels.com).

I just got done watching Microsoft’s E3 Press Event. After revealing the console a few weeks back but showing no games, Microsoft promised that E3 would be all about showing the games for their new console, including a slew of exclusive titles. They certainly delivered.

They opened the show with gameplay of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This was a surprise to see on the Microsoft stage, as MGS has traditionally been looked at as a de facto Sony franchise. The game adds open-world gameplay to MGS for the first time, and looks great. Series creator Hideo Kojima joined Don Mattrick on stage to announce the game would appear on Xbox One.

Microsoft said a few weeks back they wanted to still sell 25 million more Xbox 360s, and today they unveiled a redesigned Xbox 360 that is available to purchase today. The redesign apes the look of the Xbox One, though it still includes an archaic disc tray that will probably still lead to games getting scratched by the console. No price drop was announced, but Microsoft did announce some added value (finally) to Xbox Live Gold membership: 2 free games available to download every month starting with Halo 3 and Assassin’s Creed II. A nice start, but they’ll have to step their game up even more to match the value of Sony’s PlayStation Plus service, which has 18 games available to download free at all times. Microsoft also showed off World of Tanks, a popular free-to-play PC franchise that will be available on 360.

Crytek (of Crysis fame) was up next, and they showed off Ryse: Son of Rome, the first exclusive Xbox One title we would see today. The game looks like an over-the-shoulder God of War of sorts with lots of bloody combat and action. Ryse certainly looks impressive, but also like GoW, relies heavily on on-screen button press prompts during gameplay, which is honestly disappointing. Quick-time events were a novel gameplay mechanic back when they were introduced, but they seem archaic now, especially when held next to terrific combat systems like those found in the Batman: Arkham series.

KILLER INSTINCT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is all.

Insomniac took to the stage next to show off another exclusive title: Sunset Overdrive. It was also surprising to see them there, as Insomniac is best known for the Sony-exclusive Ratchet & Clank series. Sunset Overdrive is a very colorful open-world game with all sorts of chaos and inventive weapons (definitely a R&C influence seen there). It reminded me at first glance of the cult classic Crackdown series from 360.

Forza Motorsport 5 was up next. The big feature discussed besides all of the pretty cars was a new feature called “Driveatar.” It is a new game system that learns your personal racing tendencies and puts them in an AI that is always available to race against your friends even when you aren’t. Pretty cool, and I remain impressed Microsoft is able to pump out quality titles every other year while Polyphony takes forever developing new Gran Turismo titles. I feel the racing torch has officially been passed, if it wasn’t already.

A couple of quicker reveals next. First the announcement that Minecraft will be available to all Xbox One owners. Next a quick trailer from the new Remedy title Quantum Break which shows some new time-bending mechanics. Then we saw Project Spark, a Little Big Planet-esque game creator that uses SmartGlass to help construct the world you play in. Given the wide success LBP saw on PS3, I’m not surprised to see this. The game looked very polished though, and will hopefully be a great success to encourage the development of other out-of-the-box titles like this.

Microsoft then announced some great new features for their new console. First, much like the PS4, you’ll be able to quickly clip footage from your games and share them with your friends. Unlike PS4 though (at least yet), you can also stream your gaming live on Twitch TV, a very cool feature. Microsoft is also (thank God) doing away with Microsoft points for XBL purchases, and family members on the same console will be able to game online with your membership, a welcome change from households needing to purchase separate memberships for every account in the house.

Capcom brought out Dead Rising 3 next, and it too will be exclusive to the Xbox One. It is going to be an open-world zombie slasher, and if you have ever played Dead Rising, you know what to expect. At the very end, a feature shown off is that you can use SmartGlass to call in airstrikes to clear massive droves of zombies, but while cool, I still remain slightly skeptical of second-screen interaction for core games. It’s very jarring on the Wii U, and I would expect it to be the same here. Plus, it’s Capcom, so you have to figure they will screw up DR3 somehow.

A brief Witcher 3: Wild Hunt trailer was seen next. EA then took the stage to show off a new gameplay trailer for Battlefield 4. As usual, Battlefield looks and sounds great, though how many copies will they sell when BF diehards will buy on 360 first (probably still a ton). It was announced that the first Battlefield 4 map pack will be available on Xbox One first, though they didn’t mention how long that exclusivity would last. If I had to guess, probably a week as they did for BF3 on PS3 with one of the map packs; it still makes for a nice press conference bullet point for Microsoft.

After showing teasers for a few smaller studios for new Xbox One games, a trailer with a mysterious shrouded figure and a giant flipping mech in a barren desert was shown. I really didn’t know what this would be until wind blew the hood back of our mystery man to reveal…MASTER CHIEF. A new Halo, presumably Halo 5, will be dropping in 2014 for Xbox One.

Finally, we got to the news everyone was waiting for: a confirmed November release for $499. No specific date still, but I have a feeling Sony and Microsoft are trying to see who will blink first to try to beat the other to market. We’ll see if Sony locks down a hard date for PS4 later tonight.

Lastly, the infamous one…more…thing: Respawn Entertainment’s much anticipated Titanfall was shown off and will be an Xbox One exclusive. It’s a futuristic shooter with giant mechs, or in other words, a game Activision would have never let them produce in a million years. It looks intriguing, and quite honestly was the thing that saw my Facebook feed light up the most when shown off.

So there you go. It was a great press conference, and lived up to the billing in my book, and this is coming from a noted Sony apologist. I was excited to see a wide-range of different exclusives announced, and if you didn’t notice, there was no Kinect crapware to be seen. It’s obvious Microsoft has been listening to their audience. I was a little disappointed to not see them address some of the controversy generated this week with their new DRM policies, but that wasn’t a surprise as today is supposed to be a celebration. We will have to see what else Xbox One has in store, as we are still far from its November launch, and there is still much to be shared I’m sure.

Keep your eyes on our Dense Pixels twitter feed all day as we will be tweeting our unique perspective on all of the big news from the press events today, and come back to The Nerdpocalypse later to see my summation on the Sony press event tonight! Also don’t forget to tune into the Dense Pixels podcast tomorrow for a full breakdown on what we saw at E3 (www.densepixels.com).

The James DeMonaco directed action thriller The Purge takes an interesting look at morality, human nature, and classism. For a movie that is just ripped for violence and over the top deaths The Purge has a lot of things to say. Merging the notions of morality with societal divisions is great in concept however, The Purge fails to deliver on all these wonderful promises.

Set in the not so distant future of 2022, The Purge opens with closed circuit television footage of the violence from a previous lawless evening known as the purge; a once a year 12 hour ritual of government sanctioned mayhem. The scenes were brutal and worked to really bring you into the sadistic world that you were going to explore. Immediately following we are dropped into present time with the happy go lucky view of the world through the lens of James Sandin (Ethan Hawke). We hear as James gets news of becoming the top salesmen at his job, which is selling high priced security systems to the very wealthy. James and his family live in an extravagant house due to his work. With his wife Mary (Lena Headey), son Charlie (Max Burkholder), and daughter (Adelaide Kane) the Sandins are a perfect little family on the surface. As the 4 of them ready themselves for this year’s purge we get glimpses of Charlie’s concern with morality and specifically whether killing is OK even if its legal. Television interviews with psychologists stating that violence is human nature and that the purge in needed for this American society to not only survive but thrive plays eloquently in the background.

Countdown ends and the purge begins. Everything is fine until a man starts traversing the neighborhood asking for help. He is homeless and is being pursued by some people wishing to kill him. Charlie decided to drop the security measures of the house temporarily and let the man in. Later on through a series of events a group of young people come looking for the homeless man (Edwin Hodge). They threaten to kill all of the Sadins if the man isn’t relinquished to them. They are lead by a clearly sadistic aristocrat (Rhys Wakefield) type who communicates all of the group’s plans on getting into the house.

At this point in the movie we all know what happens for the most part. The bad guys get in and the family and the homeless man have to fight them off. That’s the most visually stunning part of the movie, as the build up to them getting in the house and the actual moment when they do is rather dull. What is much more interesting is the messages that are addressed in this movie. Firstly, as I said before we are presented with morality questions. Is it OK to kill if your government says so? For me the notion of murder is something that I choose not to do not because of a law, but rather a personal self determined code of ethics. The Purge seems to challenge the viewer to live in the gray area; I actually liked that. Making the audience actually think about something is rare in these types of movies. However, this morality grayness is completely undercut by the movie’s ending. The question of right and wrong are subject to conditions and mitigating circumstances in this twisted future United States, but in the end we are given the same white hat versus black hat battle.

The second major theme in this movie is societal divide. The fact that the homeless man is black was not by chance. Signifying the struggle of minorities in the U.S. even in 2022. The rich and privileged prey on the poor and seemingly weak for fun. Cleansing the economy of these poor people (read: not job creators) is a conversation that happens only in the background, but never by the main characters. Its just touched on to seemingly just check a box. I think there was a truly missed opportunity to delve into something more complex and sinister about the system that had been created by the often mentioned “new founding fathers.” Instead we were subjected to shotgun blasts and knife wounds. In their own right those two bits of violence are fine, but to touch on and promise a more interesting plot was just foolish. Its like going to a restaurant and reading a wonderful menu only to be brought garbage as the meal. In parts The Purge gets some cheers. I still enjoy a well placed kill and the creepiness of Rhys Wakefield’s character was enjoyable. However, the rest of the cast was largely forgettable. In the hands of a better writer this movie could have gone from a throwaway to something that makes people question the societal divides in which they participate in. The Purge creates the questions but never takes the time to explore them.

Review of The Purge
Jay's Rating
Overall Review