Birthday presents aren’t so much a reward for surviving another year as they are a way of thanking people for being in our lives.

Greetings programs! E3 was last week, so I thought I’d share my opinions and anticipations here with you all. Here we go! (I’m not going to post links to trailers/gameplay, you can find them all with quick searches on YouTube.)

Consoles

Sony won E3, clearly. I won’t get into the details of that, but there is a good article on it here. I was already leaning towards PS4, but now I’ll definitely be getting one, probably sometime next year. For a soon-to-be college student, the price point, both of the console itself and online service, is a plus. And for someone who plans to maintain my gaming habits both at home and school, the simpler sharing policies mean I’ll be able to take discs back and forth without worries.

Games (in no particular order)

Kingdom Hearts III:

This is my new most anticipated game right now. I love the KH series, it’s been a big part of my childhood, and I’ve made some great friends through a shared love of those games (you guys know who you are). My one regret right now is that I wasn’t able to see the announcement trailer live. But, I was still very very very excited to see it when I got home from work. There were a few jaw-drops and about half the trailer was spent not breathing. This game has been like Half-Life 3 to me and the KH fandom; we all knew it was coming, but no idea when. At least now we know it’s real and it’s in development, and that’s huge. The trailer was really cool. It built anticipation with showing previous games, then BANG! Next-gen graphics. Sora picks up Eraqus’ keyblade. Wait, why is it there? Why doesn’t Aqua have it? Then that swarm; never before have Shadows been so intimidating. Cool camera work, hope they don’t go overboard with that. KH doesn’t need set-piece events or fancy camera events. My hope for the gameplay: don’t make it too complicated. Birth by Sleep and Re:Coded had too many features in my opinion, so many that it was difficult to use all of them. Simplify things, Square Enix. Just take the gameplay of KH2 and add in some of the really good stuff from other games (special moves like in BBS and a little bit of the mobility of 3D). Two things I really want are the old-school command menu, and Sora in his KH2 outfit. He’s worn the red, black and white for most of the series now, let him look awesome already!

Star Wars Battlefront:

This one also was like Half Life 3: everyone wanted it, but there was no sign of it. Then EA acquires the right to publish Star Wars games, and … I’ll be honest, still not sure whether that’s predominantly good or bad. Then they announced that DICE was working on something Star Wars, and everyone knew/hoped it would be Battlefront. It’s Battlefront. Awesome. This is another series I played A LOT back in my PS2 days. It had incredible replay value, good maps, and that elite assault rifle. If you’ve played the game, and I mean really gotten into it, you know what I’m talking about. I’m excited for this, I think DICE is a great fit for Battlefront considering the studio’s history (Battlefield). The teaser was cool, pun intended.

WATCH_DOGS:

Oh man, I’m excited for this game. I was blown away by it’s reveal at last year’s E3, and this year was just as awesome. We got a cool new trailer and some new gameplay. In the gameplay we got to see an escort mission and the console-mobile multiplayer was revealed a little. This was not your average escort mission though. The guy you’re escorting was very easy to command, and the gameplay was very fluid. As for the multiplayer, it’s awesome. Console players have the ability to request help. That help comes from a mobile player. The demo showed the mobile player knocking out a helicopter and raising barricades to stop some police cruisers, allowing the console player to escape the area. Lastly, the mobile player was able to put a message on an electronic billboard in-game for the console player to see. Now obviously the mobile players can hinder as well as help, so that could make for some very interesting gameplay. The integration of mobile and console looks very awesome. The standard console-console multiplayer was also discussed, though not shown. It boils down to a cross of Dark Souls and Assassin’s Creed, with a hacking spin. While in the open-world, you will be able to interact with other players’ single-player worlds. This hasn’t been fully explained yet, so I’m going off of what I’ve read. You’ll be able to simply observe or interact, but the primary action is hacking. The multiplayer is based on planting viruses in the (in-game) phones of other players. The victim will see a percentage bar appear on their screen, triggering a mission to hunt down and/or kill the hacker. The hacker’s job is to remain incognito, much like the AC multiplayer, while the hack proceeds. Ubisoft hasn’t yet said what exactly a successful hack will get you, but they did mention notoriety. Both players, hacker and victim, will appear as protagonist Aiden Pierce on their own screen, with the other appears as a generic NPC. This is what earlier footage was hinting at I think, with that PixxelFD thing. Sounds like it’ll be interesting and fun. You do have the option to turn it off, but I’m definitely going to leave it on. It does automatically turn off while you’re in missions, both main and side, so you don’t have to worry about someone messing you up in a mission, only in the open world. This is my second most-anticipated game, and I’ve already pre-ordered it for PS3. Given various interviews in which devs say the PS4 version pushes everything farther, more detailed, I’m probably going to play this game twice. And from what I’ve seen of it, I’m fine with playing it twice.

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag:

I’m not sure why they felt the need for Black Flag in the title, there aren’t any other Assassin’s Creed IVs out. Three trailers came out, and some gameplay. Honestly, they look good but not much new. AC3 was a good game, but there wasn’t a whole lot revolutionary about it. I think the best new thing in that game was the naval gameplay, that was a lot of fun. So I’m glad we’ll be seeing more of that. I’ll probably get the game, but just the basic version, no collector’s edition. The one new bit of information from E3 that I am excited about is on the multiplayer side. They announced a new feature called Game Lab, which is kind of like custom gametypes in Halo. It lets you start with one of the pre-existing game modes, and then you can modify everything: you can restrict it to only a few abilities, remove abilities entirely, change scoring, and more. Hopefully there will be some way of sharing these new modes with other players. Ubisoft will probably make some too.

Batman Arkham Origins:

Let me start by saying that I loved Arkham City and would have no qualms about playing it again. It’s one of the best games I have ever played. From the demo, Origins is keeping the combat of City, which is good. There’s a new gadget, a remote batclaw you fire at an enemy which will then turn and grab another and pull them into each other. It’s a little hard to explain without visual aid, so feel free to look that up. The experience point system has been improved, you’ll now have a clearer look at how many points you get after a fight. Exp earned will be based on threat level (# of enemies, weapons, armor, etc.) and your performance (total hits, max combo, variation). Then you’re given a grade. This is too help players understand how the exp works so they can get more of it. So the better you perform and the tougher the enemies, the more experience you get. Detective mode has also been changed. Rather than simply scanning a few bits of evidence around the crime scene, scanning one piece of evidence begins a reconstruction of the crime/event (courtesy of the Batcomputer), which you can rewind and fast-forward through at will. In the demo, a helicopter is shot and crashes. You begin by scanning the body of the pilot, and rewind to see him thrown from the helicopter’s explosion. Rewinding further shows the helicopter spiraling upwards. Ascending to a roof and watching again, you see that the tail hit a light on the roof and broke off. Then you scan the tail, which had reached the other side of the rooftop, and further reconstruct the event. You’re able to see the shot’s point of impact and trajectory and begin tracing it to its source. Batman isn’t able to find the shooter before he escapes, but my money’s on Deadshot. After this, he enters a hotel and a predator segment starts. He uses the new remote claw a lot, using it to make a tightrope, send a thug up to dangle from a gargoyle, and to send an explosive canister into a thug. After that, a cutscene is shown with Bane and Joker. Bane doesn’t have Venom yet, but he’s still a big strong guy. Meanwhile, Joker blows up a building, and we get to hear Batman’s voice a little. It’s easy to see that this Batman is rough around the edges, a little more gruff than the one in Asylum and City. I’m looking forward to this game. Initially I was worried that WB Montreal wouldn’t do as good a job as Rocksteady, but so far it’s looking good.

Lego Marvel Superheroes:

At this point it should be obvious that I’m only talking about games I’m looking forward to, so it should go without saying. I’ve always like the Lego games. I’ve played all the Star Wars, the first Indy, I tried the first HP but didn’t like it, and fall last year I got LotR which I’ve enjoyed. I’m a Marvel fan, so I’m looking forward to playing as my favorite characters in Lego form, particularly Iron Man and Deadpool. Though I’m sure I’ll still enjoy the other characters. They had a new trailer and a bit of gameplay, and it looks good.

Well that about does it for me. There’s all the things I was interested in at this year’s E3. This year’s E3 was awesome, the best I’ve seen. Granted KH3 and Battlefront were a big part of that, but still. Anyway, expect a science post next week.

End of Line, and Game On!

Edit: Added more Batman and Watch Dogs info.

Hmm, interesting question program. While I have no definitive answer, I can certainly offer a hypothesis. Firstly, Flynn built the Tron system because he wanted to learn more about the world inside computers, and to do that, he needed a more controlled environment. A system that would only be altered by himself, and more importantly, one separated from any sort of network. He wanted the Grid to develop on its own, without outside input or restraints. He wanted it to evolve. One landmark of the Grid was/is the Sea of Simulation. While its nature is never fully explained, it is possible that the Sea was simply a massive volume of functionless code. Therefore, the ISOs simply evolved from a proper combination. Like Flynn said, “The conditions were right and they came into being.” Not unlike Earth life, if you think about. All life on Earth emerged from the proper combination of a mass of elements. Perhaps that similarity is why ISO code is a triple helix, a digital DNA: because they evolved same as we did. I hope that answered your question sufficiently.

To my other readers: Please, feel free to ask me questions, be it about real or fictional technology. If you’re going to ask about fictional technology, please be aware that I am a fan of Tron, Iron Man/Avengers, Fringe, Assassin’s Creed, Portal, and Star Wars. Those are things I’m pretty familiar with, so questions on those should get pretty good answers. Though I’ll still take a shot at any and all questions I get.

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and I am very much enjoying it. Star Wars Battlefront 3 got announced, a game I thought I would never see. Kingdom Hearts 3 got announced, a game I didn’t think I’d see for 10+ years. Those two series are kind of a big deal to me. I’m restraining myself right now, FYI. Inside, there’s a lot of yelling, a lot of not-breathing in anticipation and amazement, and a couple insults thrown at Half-Life 3 (sorry Valve, still love ya!). Those games are going to continue my childhood just a little bit longer, as well as pulling me into the next generation of consoles. DICE, please make a game worthy of the Star Wars franchise. Square Enix, just make it before the PS5 gets announced. This is the best E3 ever. Of all time.

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P.S. So that plan to make a backlog didn’t happen. I think I’ll just write weekly. Starting this week. Which means my first science post will be next week.

voxeljello:

*whispers* only 100 more! *whispers*

Me: Tron lives.
Paige: What?
Pavel: What?
Sentires: What?

Happy birthday to Julius Richard Petri, namesake of the petri dish! Without you, we wouldn’t know how disgusting the world really is. I apologize in advance if anyone read this while eating.

Greetings programs! I know it’s been far too long, but I’m back. Well, kind of. The author of this blog is no longer a high school student. Now he is a graduate of the class of 2013! That’s right, I’ve graduated, and that means my schedule is much more open and the Great Hiatus has ended. (This blog’s hiatuses have been like Tron Uprising’s)
Anyway, my plan is to spend the next couple of weeks building a backlog of posts, which I will then post weekly. Look forward to a summer of science, brought to you by Flynn.
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Thanks George, for creating one of my favorite series and for getting me interested in science. May the Force be with you!

voxeljello:

50% at last~

Tron Uprising - Smgo.tv

Save the Grid!

Greetings programs. I just saw Iron Man 3 today. I very highly recommend it. Seriously, go see it. ASAP. Why are you still reading this? You should be buying Iron Man 3 tickets!
Anyway, I’m thinking I might do a post about some of the (fictional) tech in the movie, but I’m going to wait a while because I don’t want to spoil things for anybody. So expect that in like a month or so.
One more thing: shout-out to House Party Protocol. To quote Stark in IM2: “I want one.”
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