E3 2011 Impressions: Nintendo

Tuesday morning was quite a treat for audiences everywhere, as Nintendo's 2011 E3 conference kicked off with an orchestrated montage celebrating The Legend of Zelda and its 25th anniversary. With a bold and cheerful smile, Shigeru Miyamoto set foot on the stage, expressing how wonderful it was to share over 25 years of these memories with the entire world. With the assistance of his translator, he then discussed the significance and impact of music in the Zelda franchise, followed by claims that Skyward Sword -- Link's latest appearance on the Wii -- would be available during the holidays.

This was an exceptionally strong way for Nintendo to lead off, but how solid was their overall conference? Did the big N offer us everything we expected them to this year, or did they unfortunately fall short?

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E3 2011 Impressions: Sony

 

Going into this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony had everything to lose. With the recent Playstation Network outage still very fresh in many people’s minds, as well as a lack of information and excitement for their next handheld device, Jack Tretton took the stage to excite the audience for the next wave of Playstation exclusives and products. From my point of view, I believe they did just that and even more.

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Bullet Heaven HD, Episode 31 - Darius Twin

The Super NES, as it was, didn't have a tremendous amount of shooters for it compared to the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16. For the most part though, the shooters that did appear were polished and fun to play. Well, usually. As the first ever console exclusive game in the series, Darius Twin offered solid, 1 or 2 Player Co-Op play in 1991, albeit with few bells and whistles. How does it hold up?

Did you like what you saw here today? Questions, Comments and Suggestions are not only welcome, but encouraged!

PPR Games Club: Little Nemo: The Dream Master

We welcome you to our forth installment of the Press Pause Radio Games Club. On this episode we will discuss the fanciful childhood adventure Little Nemo: The Dream Master for the Nintendo Entertainment System. And when you're talking about imaginative and sometimes arduous games from the past, there's only one person to call; Ray Barnholt. The Gamepro writer and founder of Scroll Magazine joins us once again to discuss fiendish dandelions and candy-induced comas in great detail. We also take time at the beginning of the show to catch up with our Select Feedback segment where you, the listeners have an active part in the shows discussion. Come and join us as we adventure through Slumberland, with our gnarly beards and shoeless co-hosts.

PPR Games Club: Little Nemo

PPR Two Year Anniversary Special

This is the moment you've all been waiting for; The Press Pause Radio Two Year Anniversary Extrazaganza™! (Not really trademarked, sorry).  For this episode, we pull out all the stops for you, our faithful listeners. We have a full room of PPR contributors along with Ignition Entertainment's Shane Bettenhausen to discuss the importance and evolution of video game podcasts. Having Shane on the show was a great experience for all of us, since he pioneered the  video game podcast during his time with 1up and we greatly appreciate him taking time out of his busy El Shaddai schedule to be on the show. 

Stay tuned after our normal show for a retrospective on all of our best moments during our two years in existence. Listeners past and present will really enjoy this trip down memory lane full of singing, cursing and Hadoukens! Thanks for two great years and we hope for many more in the future. The amazing artwork for this episode is courtesy of Wil Brendel, who is an amazing artist you should be checking out. Enjoy!

PPR 2 Year Anniversary

Download Purgatory

During the E3 2006 press conference, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata talked about the WiiConnect24 feature, saying that "The Wii console can be constantly connected to the internet. For you hardcore gamers, this means developers can push a new weapon or vehicle or level to you even while you sleep.”

Later on, during an interview with Nikkei Business Publications, Iwata floats the idea again with the statement that “This would allow Nintendo to send monthly promotional demos for the DS, during the night, to the Wii consoles in each household.”

However, only fifteen disc based titles and six WiiWare games have taken advantage of WiiConnect24. The last game to use the service was Metroid Prime Trilogy released back in August of 2009; that’s not to account for the message board and a few channels that still employ WiiConnect24 for the up to the minute data. As a game content delivery service, it has been forgotten.

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Portal 2 Incident: Video Games and Public Outrage

A YouTube video with the news broadcast mentioning Portal 2, and the controversy involved with a questionable quote from the game has officially gone viral, with over 200,000 views following its upload to the site on May 18. The conflict in question originated from North Carolina, where Neil Staple and his 10-year-old adopted daughter were simply playing the game, as they came across a savagely hilarious taunt ("Fatty... fatty fatty, no parents") from a robot antagonist in the game. Staple viewed this as a direct insult to adopted children and adoptive parents everywhere, claiming how this kind of dialogue was completely uncalled for, even though he and his daughter had enjoyed the rest of the game.

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Bullet Heaven HD, Episode 30 - Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury

This episode of Bullet Heaven is so intense, it's called Missile Heaven. Forget Bullet Hell, this is MISSILE hell! Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury for the XBLA will punish you in unimaginable ways in both the best and worse ways... and you'll keep coming back for more. Just how does this ultra-sadomasochistic game hold up? Watch to find out!

Did you like what you saw here today? Comments, Questions and Suggestions are not only welcome but encouraged!