This is The Last Game. It's a 5:28 animated short that is many things. It's a commercial for Nike. More importantly, it's a "World Cup" commercial for Nike when it's not actually allowed to make official World Cup commercials (since that's Adidas' job). But I don't care about any of those things. I just love it as a cartoon.
The idea that all these characters could be in the same video game would have been inconceivable in the 90s, and yet here we are. Pac-Man, Mega Man, Mario and Sonic are all in the same game.
The cloud. Microsoft would have you think it's the real power behind the Xbox One. Google would have you think it's a magical place where everything is kept. Pity, then, that it's not quite as magical as that, even if the truth is interesting in its own way.
Although Mega Man sadly isn't representing much at E3 outside of his appearance in Smash Bros., First 4 Figures brought their Mega Man statues to the showfloor. Doing what it does best (sharing news of companies other than Capcom that have honored Mega Man), it snapped a quick photo of the three figures on display -- two Mega Man statues and one Proto Man.
There's still no word on pricing or a release date, but these look pretty great already.
Mega Man [Twitter]
Although it's the Wii U version of Super Smash Bros. we want most, the 3DS version is coming first on October 3, 2014. The Wii U game isn't dropping until later this holiday season. Why's that?
During a roundtable at E3 2014, director Masahiro Sakurai explained that the biggest reason for the lack of a simultaneous release is the debug process. For such big games, a large number of staff members are needed -- several hundred working on that aspect of development alone.
He also noted that both versions of Smash Bros. have a different architecture, meaning each requires complete attention during the debug process. Hence the staggered release schedule. The reasoning is about what you'd expect, but it doesn't make me feel any better. Oh well. Got to face reality sometime. (And I'm totally going to buy both, I just know it.)
Even more details out of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. roundtable this evening. When you use one of the new amiibo toys for the game, the character will appear as a figure player (FP) that's controlled by the AI -- you won't actually directly control it.
Instead, you'll fight against FPs to level them up, potentially far beyond the strength of a level 9 computer player (CP). In Smash, figure players can rank up all the way to level 50. Items can be used to alter the powers of FPs and level them up. Director Masahiro Sakurai considers them to be like partners for you, and says making a killer FP will be a new goal for players.
Lastly, he said a lot of Smash Bros. characters will get the amiibo treatment -- that it'll be difficult to collect them all, so we should focus on the ones we like best. But, Sakurai also added that he's going to get every single last one. Of course he is!
E3 isn't all about multiplatform AAA console titles. There is space for PC games, and also space for awesome PC game trailers.
Nintendo just had their first ever Super Smash Bros Invitational tournament, and it was a nail biter all the way to the last match. We won't spoil the ending, so take a look here!
