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I guess the NA splatfest still hasn't happened? Unless it happened/is happening and nobody told me.

Metroid 2 also introduces crouching! I love Metroid 2 a whole lot, and some of it might have to do with the fact that it was my first Metroid, the one i played as a young kid, but it's a game i've gone back to and replayed a number of times and i always enjoy it a lot. It's often kind of treated as the black sheep of the original trilogy, and it's understandable, the game gates progression in a very different way and plays out quite differently because of it. Instead of using abilities to gate progress, instead of puzzling through all the areas you've been to see how to apply your new abilities, you simply have to find and kill all of the Metroids in a given area in order to progress to the next. That will almost immediately make it sounds like an inferior game, but I think this does some neat things. It means each self-contained area is almost totally open-ended in a way that feels huge, gated from within by usually only one or two items to find. These open-ended spaces also mean the game takes on kind of a really tense, moody atmosphere where a huge boss fight could be around any corner. The game knows what it's doing too, and instead of the largely upbeat tunes of the previous Metroid, Metroid 2 has this utterly odd and ambient score that is supremely creepy and tense. It's easy to get lost though, the series didn't have an automap until Super, so if you're not good at building a mental map while playing games like this, you might find some frustration. It's not Metroid at its best, it's definitely not comparable to Super or Zero Mission, but it's nowhere near the worst Metroid's been. I would even argue that it holds up better than the original Metroid, it seems like a more self-aware and purposeful design where the original Metroid feels primordial and almost accidental.

I feel as though Bethesda has kind of been in a slight holding pattern with their open-world formula since Oblivion, arguably since Morrowind. The same underlying design approach can be seen in every modern Bethesda game, and even in Skyrim the primary innovations were fairly incremental, small and subtle, or largely behind the scenes. Things like vehicles and dynamic settlements are, though predictable, big dramatic changes that people have definitely wanted out of Bethesda for a long time. There's also a lot of things implied in the trailer that are potentially quite impressive, such as the promise of NPC cities much larger than we've ever before seen out of Bethesda and the massively diverse terrain seen the preview materials. (I also can't even begin to imagine how much VO they'll have to record to give the protagonist a voice, multiple voices even. Doing that in a game with the scope of a Bethesda RPG seems absolutely wild.) The way it's building out from FO3 for its setting and story is also kind of fun, questions that were teased may now be provided some answers. I'm way more of a Elder Scrolls fan than a Fallout fan, but that press conference got me pretty excited. It's definitely looking less like a revolution and more like an evolutionary shift, but it feels like a big step for Bethesda. Also, even just apart from any other considerations, that game just looks incredible. What were the actual big exclusives for Sony though? Last Guardian, Uncharted 4, and Horizon. (I was prepared to buy a PS3 for Last Guardian at one time, but i don't think i can be excited for it anymore. Horizon looks incredible though.) It seems to me like the games people were actually really excited about are all coming to PC or other platforms. (Shenmue 3 is coming to PC, Street Fighter 5 is coming to PC, etc. FF7's remake isn't even exclusive.) I have no bone in this fight, i don't own either of those next-gen systems, but it seems super weird to me that people keep letting Sony get away with the "We're going to announce all these games and make you think they're ours" thing while simultaneously bemoaning the XBO's purported lack of exclusives.

I didn't say they were, i'm just trying to put forth a few reasons why a fairly average showing out of Nintendo is being responded to so negatively. Even though the audience isn't quite right, i personally think it probably would have served them well to put more of a spotlight on their upcoming slate of JRPG's, there's some exciting games on the way.

My impressions of the show in summary: Bethesda earned that presser, i think. Fallout 4 is probably the most impressive thing at E3, and Doom looks... Alright? I guess? Didn't they say it was going to be a throwback to the original Doom though? That game is totally just Doom 3 if it traded the flashlight for executions. Hey, and i'm one of the few who loves Doom 3, so i'm kinda cool with that. So Sony did that thing again where they announce a bunch of games and make everybody think they're exclusives when they're totally not exclusives. Frankly, i didn't see a whole lot of reason to be excited about the PS4 as a platform. Also, Morpheus was glossed over in a super weird way. Backwards compatibility on XBO is kind of a huge deal, i think. Halo 5 looks good, but the Gears 4 demo did nothing for me. (Speaking as a pretty huge fan of Epic's 3 Gears games.) Super happy to see Rare making a "real" game again. That Ubi show was so fucking awkward, holy shit. For Honor needed some explanatory voice over during its demo, but it looks neat. Rainbow Six: Siege looks incredible, i feel like i've been waiting years for a game like that. Ghost Recon being resurrected as another goddamned game in the Ubisoft open-world mold is heartbreaking. That demo was indistinguishable from Far Cry. EA = Meh. (Also, i'm not sure how i feel about Mirror's Edge being an open-world thing instead of tightly designed linear stages.) Square - I feel like there was a lot that happened during that presser that seemed interesting at the time i was watching it, but i remember nothing other than the Deus Ex trailer as of now. Oh, oh. Hitman as an episodic thing is weird. Nintendo's World Championship thing was something i was expecting to be a disaster and ended up thinking was a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Unfortunately, their actual E3 direct, hilarious puppet interludes aside, was rather deflating.

I mean, a few things were really working against them: They actually had a really strong showing last year with Splatoon being a surprise show favorite, so expectations were high this year. Their mediocre E3 direct coming after a surprisingly fun Nintendo World Championship kind of had a deflating effect on Nintendo. They're not helped by the game they hung their hat on the most, Star Fox Zero, having had some super negative hands-on buzz from the show. I don't understand the hate for the Metroid game though, Next Level has been a good team for Nintendo and there is literally no way it will be more of an affront to that series than Other M was.

A Four Swords game whose titular innovation is one fewer player is definitely not exciting, that was probably biggest dull thud of everything Nintendo announced, but the Metroid 3DS game seems kind of rad to me.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the NA splatfest, except now it's not. I guess it's being delayed so Nintendo can address a matchmaking issue. So that's lame. Two new maps were supposed to be unlocked for the splatfest, i don't know if those are going to be delayed too. Seemingly to rub salt in the wound, my splatfest shirt rolled two damage ups and a defense up. I am unhappy about this. Also, that triple shot burst weapon that just got recently unlocked is a nightmare to deal with, that thing is scary.

At the very, very end of the solo progression, a few solo g-rank missions will show up without any outward indication of them being such, but other than that, solo tops out at high-rank and g-rank missions are exclusive to the multiplayer progression.

Pick gear for main skills that look useful to you, main skills are worth much more than their subskill equivalents. Probably avoid the attack skill because of the harsh limitations the game puts on it, and avoid skills that won't be useful for weapons you want to use. (Don't use grenade distance if you're set up with the homing grenade, and don't use special duration up if you're using inkstrike.) Also, don't worry about matching pieces to stack randomly rolled subskills until you have three star clothing to work with. (Which is something you should pursue as soon as possible, but if you can only get two star pieces instead, those will be a serviceable intermediate step.) There a lot of nuances in the specifics of how main skills and subskills all stack with eachother, being able to reroll subskills on clothing, how clothing brands weight subskill rolls to different abilities, and even actually being able to upgrade one and two star pieces with as many slots as three star gear to better exploit the aforementioned details in the pursuit of your perfect build. This stuff though, this second paragraph, don't worry about any of this until you hit level twenty. The stuff in that first paragraph is what you want to focus on. In general though, don't worry about it too much. The ceiling on the gear progression is pretty low and you can end up with a "powerful" build quite early on, most of the late-game stuff is just optimization. Frankly, if they insist on having these kinds of progression mechanics, this is the way it should be done. I've been trying to level up all my gear, so i've been playing a lot of matches with awful setups and i don't feel especially affected by it, i'm still doing quite well most of the time. I miss having ink resistance a whole lot, but it's not like i feel as though the deck has been unfairly stacked against me. This even sort of extends to the weapons, the late-game loadouts tend to be way more specialized and technical than how versatile and powerful the early weapons are. Just make sure you play the solo game so you can unlock the weapons that come from the boss scrolls, they're some of the better weapon loadouts in the game.

That was one of the few fights in the game i felt like i had any real trouble with, it's definitely a big, apparently intentional, progress gate.

So it looks like Ryu is joining the Smash 4 roster.

So i ran some experiments with stat stacking in Splatoon since i have enough gear to try a ton of different permutations and look for differences. As far as i can tell, there's no overall cap on anything, and a "main" skill counts for three sub skills, where applicable. You just see diminished returns as you stack things up on each other more and more. For example, it took three "special duration up" sub skills to get 7 shots out of the inkzooka, but only one "special duration up" main skill to achieve the same. (Three "special duration up" main skills got me eight shots.) I was seeing similar effects on other skills, but even with three "ink saver(sub)" main skills, i wasn't able to get grenade costs down far enough to throw two timed grenades without at least a tiny recharge between the two. The very noticeable exception is the attack buff, which seems to to cap very hard and seemingly after different amounts on different weapons. (Generally preventing you from turning 5 shot kills into 4 shot kills and such, though you can get so close that the damage from the ink they're standing in will probably push it over for you.) The general impression i have is that "damage up" probably does actually stack normally, but is meant to counter defense buffs to push things back to a median and never beyond. Since nobody uses defense buffs, there is virtually no reason to use "damage up". Also, "run speed up" gives you a massive movement speed boost. It seems like with most other things you're looking at around 10-20 percent gains, but with run speed buffs it feels like you can easily achieve double your running speed or greater. That skill is ridic. (The swim speed buff is much more restrained.)

I like the new map quite a lot, there's so much surface area for tricky flanking, and the player interactions between the lower level and the upper walkways are really interesting. It's such an enormous map though, it's almost too big for 4v4. You're being a good teammate, but there's more you can do: While you're on the respawn timer, you can pre-emptively tap somebody's name or location to give them early notice that you're going to spawn on them before actually being able to do so, so use this feature. If your super jump partner isn't terrible, he'll take the few seconds of advance notice to try and give you a safe landing spot. Likewise, be aware of this advance notice and what it means when it comes from team members trying to spawn on you. Also, pay attention to the fight tracker at the top of the screen, if you're the only person in the game, pull back a bit. It absolutely drives me crazy when my team is trying to hold or take an area and the last guy alive just dives into the middle of the fight and gives nobody on the team a safe spot to super jump to. You know, and in the rare circumstance somebody asks for help, super jump over and help them out, don't forget that you can super jump at any time and from any location. If 3 enemies are bulling towards your base, it may feel like you need to be there, but if it's already a fight you're losing, it would be way more damaging to the other team to go help your ally claim territory. Long and protracted fights against teams with momentum will lose games. I'm usually up against snipers that will insta-kill me the second i show up anywhere near the hill, i can't even get out of my team's flanking passage most times. What i normally try to do, as a shooter, is what you suggest, and it kind of doesn't ever work out. The thing is, i think i can probably get to their hill incline faster than i can get to and climb up to the enemy's flanking passage. I think i'm probably going to have to try to storm down that incline while dodging fire and position myself on the right side of that lower area to make myself hard to hit for the sniper, and... I don't know... Something, something. I can probably make that work though, i'm going to try that out. Also, after a few games where my team got ruined by a good blaster (master?), i started playing around with blasters more, and those things are actually ridiculous. I had a string of easy 9/0 games, but my paint coverage was miserable and i kept getting stuck on teams where... There would be a roller and an aerospray and neither would paint the base. Anybody have any paint coverage tips for the blasters? I also managed to get that 3 star "ink saver (main)" hat to roll three "ink recovery up" subskills. It just happened on the first try, i didn't even reroll it.

Don't dismiss those flanking lanes in Port Mackerel, it's enough to get out of your base if the other team is trying to shut you out of the map, and it's super frustrating when playing with people who don't really recognize this. Dealing with good chargers in the map center can be tricky, but totally manageable if you make good use of the climbable forklifts to leap across the crate tops, or simply juke in and out of the crates on ground level. It takes time for a charger to line up a shot, and when so many paths and pieces of cover are available to you, you have the advantage. Definitely though, you don't see a lot of ranked fights end in knockout on that map, it's always a slog. I find i just instantly get worked over the second i get lazy. It's not really a map i enjoy all that much, i'd say it's one of the clunkier maps in the game. Really? That's probably my best map. The sniping position on the side is easy to harass and climb at if you skirt around the right side of your approach from the base, and the rest of the map center has tons of flat ground to allow for tricky maneuvers, it's easy to get behind somebody. Most people don't realize that you can squid jump across the gap in the middle, that usually catches a lot of people off guard. Also, the main base entrance can be easily harassed with grenades. Keep people out of the map center if it's ranked, and if it's a turf war, once you're in and past their fence, it can be really hard for them to push you back out. I feel like i probably haven't actually lost very many games on that map. For me, my worst map is Arowana Mall. I constantly eat shit on that map, i hate that map and i have zero intuitive sense for what i'm supposed to do there. It is extremely difficult to wrestle the map center away from an entrenched team, and I feel like the only time i win there is when i've somehow been matched against a team with even less sense of what to do than me.

So here's a teaser trailer for the first splatfest, i guess. These upcoming splatfests seem like they're going to be staggered a week apart from eachother depending on region. Japan gets it first, then the 20th for NA, and apparently the 27th for Europe. (It's set up like a fairly typical faction metagame, you contribute to your side by winning games, and there may or may not be unique rewards to earn.) The teaser seems to imply that at least one more map will be unlocked, and i think i spy a few new weapons in there too. Also, i guess there's night variants for all the maps and the main hub will have an alternate concert-themed configuration.

My desk is slowly being over run by Amiibos.

Just so i'm not creating a false image of my own playing ability, my average game is closer to 7/4. Still stuck in B minus though! This is why, in the same breath that i am cursing the game for not allowing voice chat, i can recognize that it was absolutely the right choice for Nintendo to not allow voice chat. Yup, never assume a meta is set in stone this early into a game's life. People don't even understand the underlying stats well enough to begin making claims about what's the best to build for. The game is still definitely in flux in a lot of ways, i've even finally started seeing snipes show up commonly in both playlists and be quite dominant. Hell, ink strikes could even fall completely out of favor by early next week. Who knows? (Oh my god, there are so many ink strikes happening right now. I just had a match where at least 5 were traded back and forth in the first 30 seconds of the game.) Has anybody tried organizing any group games around here yet?

Here's a thread for people to organize Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate groups in. (Keep in mind that multiplayer lobbies cap at four people.) Generally, you're going to want to exchange 3DS friend codes or post gathering hall information, suggest and set times to play, and probably decide upon a way to facilitate team communication in a way that is superior to the kludgy text chat inside of the game. Newbies: Some basic multiplayer etiquette: 1 - Watch your attack arcs, don't mindlessly dog pile on the monster and knock friendly players out of their careful positioning. 2 - Don't try to be a hero. If you need to leave the area to have a few seconds to get your shit in order, do it. Don't be the one that fails the mission with the third death when the monster is already crippled and nearly dead. 3 - If somebody mounts the monster, stop attacking it until they either succeed in toppling it, or are knocked off. If you attack while the monster is mounted, it automatically fails the mini-game for whoever is riding. Instead, use that time to get your stuff in order so you can make your move when the monster is toppled. 4 - Be prepared for the missions, as depending on the supply box is bad form. Don't wander into extreme cliamtes without the appropriate drinks, and if you're not familiar with the monsters, at the very least check the in-game monster guides for clues about what additional supplies you should bring, such as nulberries/antidotes/deordorants/etc. 5 - Prancing is encouraged. High rank and G rank players: If you're playing with lower ranks, don't be a dick. Go to the weapon/armor shop and throw on some low rank gear so other people can still have thrilling, challenging fights. Everybody: Be forthcoming with information. It's a big and stupidly complex game, so help each other learn the ropes. You might also want to consider trading guild cards so you can gain occasional bonuses from playing with each other, in addition to having more people available for your offline gathering halls. You can also trade guild quests you've earned from expeditions and provide each other with opportunities to farm rare monsters. (Lastly, you can also trade palicoes and help each other out that way too.) Here's a link back to the main discussion thread.

Arrrgh.

So you haven't actually played any multiplayer, correct? I've personally found that my hold on the tablet tended to be a lot steadier in the multiplayer, using the analog stick for painting and navigating, and only using the tablet for the quick and short bursts of fighting that would come about intermittently. The single-player tended to, surprisingly, be "on" much more of the time. So perhaps that's something to be aware of. I've done four hour stretches of Splatoon's multiplayer without feeling like feeling like i'm exhausting any tolerance for twisting that thing around, especially with such small movements being translated and magnified as much broader turns on screen. Moreover, as opposed to big dramatic turns to respond to enemies that just spawned in at your side like in the solo game, it's much more about small adjustments to right your aim on a target you can see approaching from far away. Even if you don't know their location, if you keep on with the "look with your reticle" mentality, the adjustments you have to make to steady aim on a suddenly appearing target should always be very small. (Hey, that's good advice i just gave, don't ignore that.) Be comfortably seated in an upright position with somewhere to plant your elbows and i don't feel like there should be any issue. I mean, but i also don't find the tablet uncomfortable just in general, so whatever.

So nobody's going to mention that the PC release was noted as "negotiable"? That's slightly worrisome, and quite odd since Dark Souls 2 actually sold better on PC than either the 360 or PS3, as far as i'm aware.

I had put together a match-making thread here that sort of ended up not really getting used ever, but it still has some decent advice for getting games organized and not making each other miserable.

I feel bad for you european gents missing out on the dubstep jokes that NoA saw fit to pepper throughout that final boss fight in the NA localization. So i thought about this, what this game would be like with some of the pointing schemes Nintendo's done with the wii-mote, and i don't think it would work. The way the motion control works, translating about a 45 degree twist of the pad into a full 180 degree turn, lets you pretty much follow the full arc of a fight before needing to readjust, while i think you would constantly be fighting with screen push in a pointer scheme. The only real issue with the game's motion control is an issue the pointer has too, it's the noticeable latency in all of Nintendo's motion schemes. That's where the analog would still be slightly superior. You can definitely feel the control lag when playing against good opponents who know how to juke to mislead shots on their approach, it's a struggle to hit them with precise shots. (The benefit of the accuracy far outweighs any issues caused by that latency though. Don't play dual analog.) Physically ill though? How did the motion control in this make you feel physically ill? That's quite odd. I feel like i might be that guy. I've been having a pretty breezy and easy time in C ranks, it's not challenging at all for me, definitely some 18/0-ish games. Then i get into B- and i feel like i'm instantly hit with a mixture of bad teams, legitimate shutdowns, and lagged disconnects that keep pushing be back into C+. It's the disconnects that really kill me, if at least those weren't happening, i would still be climbing. For real though, the bad teams thing, i try to avoid pushing blame onto my team, but holy shit... When i see everybody on my team hurling themselves back into a fight on the near hill with no ounce of strategy, super jumping repeatedly into areas that are already enemy controlled and surely prepared for their landing, i want to throw my controller. I can loop around the fight, take the rear hill closer to the enemy base, and my team will still have attempted no change in strategy and will leave me trying to salvage the match by myself. They're like goddamned lemmings sometimes. Just disengage from failed fights and regroup! That kind of shit is why the game needs some voice communication. (So i can yell at them and tell them they're bad and that they should feel bad.) It feels like the matchmaking thinks i'm good enough to carry a bad team, but i'm honestly kind of not. SUB WEAPONS. Which sub weapons are you guys preferring? Generally, i'm looking for either the homing grenade or the sprinkler, and failing those, the sticky bomb or the timed grenade. I don't understand how people ever die to the homing grenade, it's so incredibly easy to either swim left or right of, or actually just jump over. In all the hours i've been playing, and despite how frequently it's used, i've probably been killed by it fewer than a dozen times. It seems so easy to dodge that there have been so many times where i've thrown that thing out, seen somebody run away, assume it was going to miss, and still have a kill pop up a couple seconds later. I don't understand what people are doing that makes it so easy to land kills with, but there you have it. It's also a fun way to create a path for quickly rushing a hostile area, just toss one out and dive in after it. (Note: You can also choose your target by holding the grenade button before releasing.) The sprinkler is just great for so many things, but especially for building meter on weapons with weak coverage and holding hills in ranked. It's also a great distraction, and great for denying a path. Try to place it in obnoxiously difficult to reach spots. (The big screen tv's hanging over the map center in urchin underpass is a good example of what to look for.) The sticky bomb and the timed grenade are really just great for the main reasons you use grenades in any mostly any other shooter. Flushing people out of cover or harassing choke points from safety. I've seen most of the rest all be put to good use as well. (People get pretty tricky with those mines, some real assholes out there.) Though i really, really struggle to see any value in the contact grenades. It takes two direct hits to get a kill with them, when many of the guns can kill in 4 hits and less time and often with longer range. The instant damage also prevents you from really using them to set up other attacks. I could see the value as a short-range defense when they're bundled with snipes, you can actually throw out four on one full charge of ink, but i don't really think they're useful anywhere else.

Probably a solid third of what you do in MH4U will be on the triggers, so finicky triggers is definitely an issue. However, I have used a circle pad pro with the game and can tell you that it gives you several options for remapping the add-on's triggers, but by default it just doubles up on the 3DS's own trigger functions. (Which would neatly solve your problem.) I mean, and you also get a second stick for analog camera control, so that's great. If you're playing on an original 3DS, it's probably the best way to play the game. ALTHOUGH. It's probably not an issue, but MH4U is a game that makes my 3DS run noticeably hot after a while, and it became alarmingly so when nested in the circle pad pro cradle. Searching around on the internet, I found a few stories of random other games crashing the 3DS because it seemingly couldn't dissipate heat in the circle pad pro cradle, but none specifically pertaining to MH4U. It's probably not an issue, but you may want to be wary of extended play sessions when using that thing. Maybe just don't exacerbate the issue by using it out under the sun on a hot day or something. Fair warning, is all. Also: