E3 Wishes and Predictions 2018 - Sony

I'll be honest, I almost fell asleep watching Sony's E3 show last year. It had some cool games, but it really didn't have anything to pull me in or even keep my attention for great periods of time. There didn't seem to be a big variety of different genres. Everything was an open-world game with realistic graphics and good cinematics. Hopefully it's different this year.

Last year, Microsoft surprised people at E3. It wasn't with Minecraft, and it wasn't with the car, and I don't mean with OG Xbox compatibility. I'm talking about Super Lucky's Tale. Microsoft has made more mature games for years now. The last kid-friendly game Microsoft not counting Kinect or karaoke games is possibly Viva Pinata Trouble In Paradise back in 2008. And now they had a 3D platformer coming out. Sony should have a new 3D platformer coming out. They've made mostly mature games over at Sony for a while now as well. We have God of War and Detroit and Uncharted, but we haven't gotten a really good kid-friendly game for a while. When did the last Ratchet and Clank come out?

Sony needs to give a 2 hour presentation of that new Tetris game by the Rez guys. I love Tetris.

Extra Rez content was released for the Dreamcast in 2007 to promote the 360 port coming later that year. Crazy.

— Josh (@Icystorm9) June 4, 2018

Sony needs to announce new Vita games. That is the law. They broke the law last year. The Vita is awesome. At least acknowledge that the Vita exists.

A gorgeous blue PS Vita

I think Sony could easily make PS1 discs work on the PS4. The PS3 can do it. The PS2 can do it. The Dreamcast can do it with a boot disc. I think you can mod your Wii to do it. Why they haven't at this point is beyond me, other than the fact that Sony wants you to rebuy all their PS1 games digitally. Joke's on you, Shawn. I might have bought your console if you would let me run my PS1 and PS2 games.

I'll get to the point now. Sony, make PS1 games and PS2 games compatible with PS4. Or, at the very least, the PS4 Pro.

Finally, the PS4 and Vita need a Twisted Metal game. Twisted Metal only had 2 games last-gen, one of which was on the PSP. There hasn't been a Twisted Metal game this generation. I would love to play a Twisted Metal game for the Vita.

I expect Sony to have a trailer of some sort for their limited Days of Play console and then a bunch of trailers for new games that aren't out for a long time. They'll probably have some PS VR games to show off. I expect more of Spiderman, since the release is coming closer and they've shown it at E3 for a while now. I don't expect Sony to even mention the Vita, since they've effectively disowned the thing; it's a shame. Naughty Dog will have at least one game to show off. Capcom will have a game to show off. Hideo Kojima might show off his weird new game, but I can't say for sure.

Nintendo has a 45 minute show this year. Oh boy.

E3 Wishes and Expectations 2018 - Bethesda Softworks

Eyyy, Bethesda. They're a cool company. They've worked hard in the past year to put all the coolest games on Switch and PSVR. No Vita, but we'll forgive them. What are they going to show at E3 this year?

Well, I know they'll be showing off Fallout 6 (Fallout 76 is a dumb name), but what are they going to show off? I'm thinking they'll show off a short trailer, but not gameplay footage. If my guesstimate is correct that this game is coming out in spring, then we'll get some gameplay footage further down the line. But hopefully we can get gameplay footage sooner, like, sometime during E3 would be great. It could really boost Sony or Nintendo's conference; preferably Sony's because their conference last year was much less interesting than Nintendo's.

I'm gonna guess right now that Fallout 76 is coming to Switch, but a few months after it comes to PS4.

— Josh (@Icystorm9) June 1, 2018

But Fallout 6 can't be the only game they're showing off. That would be lame! So they've got to announce something else.

Elder Scrolls 3! Bethesda seems to love rereleasing Elder Scrolls 5. There are 7 releases of it as far as I know, maybe 8. But Elder Scrolls 3 is only on 2 platforms- Xbox and PC. The Xbox version doesn't even run that well without an Xbox One X. So here's an idea for Bethesda - rerelease Elder Scrolls 3 on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and Vita.

"Vita? Why the Vita, Josh?" Hear me out.

Bethesda likes to port stuff. It could port Elder Scrolls 3 to the Vita to make a bit more money. Even if it's a straight port of the original with no enhancements other than framerate and draw distance, they should be good. The Vita users would definitely pick it up, since the Vita's AAA release schedule in the coming months is pretty much nonexistent. Besides, the Vita is portable. You don't know how many people would buy either a Switch or a Vita just to play Elder Scrolls 3 portably. And since the Vita is the cheaper of the two, there will likely be a decent amount of Vita sales. Bethesda gets the sales from Vita fans, and Sony gets the sales from Elder Scrolls fans. Good?

I didn't bother fixing half the Bethesda logo here. Sorry.

I really hope the ES3 port has that thing that the Master Chief Collection has on Xbox One, where you can switch between the high-definition remaster and the original graphics just by pressing the Select button or something. If it runs at a consistent 30fps and has both graphics modes, then we're gucci. Also include the expansions please Bethesda. I don't see them charging full price for a remake of this game, since Dark Souls is 40 bucks on current platforms, but I can't say for sure.

But I don't expect them to do that at all. Here's what I think they'll actually do.

They WILL talk about Fallout 6. I think they'll announce platforms, just like in that tweet above, and they won't show gameplay, but they'll have a really short trailer. Less than a minute, no doubt. They'll probably have an eSports thing, just like they did last year with Quake III or whatever game it was that they played. They'll announce that, like, Dishonored 2 or something is coming to PSVR. They'll probably announce Skyrim for TurboGrafx16 or Saturn or both. Then it will probably be over and that will be it.

What conference comes up after theirs? Hopefully it's Ubisoft. I'll look at the list later. Whatever it is, I'll be posting about their conference later so be sure to read that one as well.

What Sonic Generations Should Have Been

This is less about the game itself and more about the surrounding details, okay?

Spoilers.

Sonic Generations was released in 2011 to pretty much unanimous praise. But do you know what platforms it was on? Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo 3DS. Do you know what platforms it should have been on? Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and PS Vita (as a launch title). The 360/PS3 version is great, but the 3DS version? Not so much. And with the Wii and Vita also available, the game itself could have been so much more.

First of all, we'll start with the PS3 version.

It features levels from all main series Sonic the Hedgehog titles- Sonic 1, 2, 3K, Adventure 1 & 2, Heroes, Next-Gen, Unleashed HD, and Colors. Is this a bad lineup? Let's take a look at the levels chosen.

Green Hill
Chemical Plant
Sky Sanctuary
Speed Highway
City Escape
Seaside Hill
Crisis City
Rooftop Run Day
Planet Wisp

Yeah, I'd say this is a good lineup. It's missing a few key games, though; Sonic CD, Sonic Advance, Secret Rings, stuff like that. Now let's look at the 3DS version.

The 3DS features only 7 stages instead of 9. They are from Sonic 1, 2, 3K, Adventure 1 & 2, Rush, and Colors DS. We could've gotten more, but let's see what levels were chosen.

Green Hill
Casino Night
Mushroom Hill
Emerald Coast
Radical Highway
Water Palace
Tropical Resort

Oh, of the 7 levels, 3 are first levels. 4 if you divide up 3 and Knuckles. That's not the greatest.

So those are the 2 versions. What do I propose we do with the game?

For the PS3, not much. The game is very creative and has good control. What I would add is Stardust Speedway from Sonic CD, Hydrocity from Sonic 3, Westopolis from Shadow the Hedgehog, and Radiant Emerald from Sonic R as a race level.

For the 3DS, change the levels and the art design. The Modern Sonic levels looked good, but the Classic ones look too similar; they should have had more of a Sonic Advance style to differentiate it.

What levels would I pick? Here's a list.

Green Hill - Sonic 1 on Game Gear
Aqua Lake - Sonic 2 on Game Gear
Sunset Park - Sonic Triple Trouble on Game Gear
Cosmic Casino - Sonic Pocket Adventure on Neo Geo Pocket Color
Ice Paradise - Sonic Advance 2 on Game Boy Advance
Toy Kingdom - Sonic Advance 3 on Game Boy Advance
Water Palace - Sonic Rush on Nintendo DS
Haunted Ship - Sonic Rush Adventure on Nintendo DS
Tropical Resort - Sonic Colors on Nintendo DS

And then the Wii. Why wasn't there a Wii version released? Sonic Colors was probably finished in early 2010 or even late 2009; they could have had time to finish a Wii version of Sonic Generations. They even had an engine built for Sonic Colors that they could have used. All they had to do was design the levels and add Classic Sonic. And since it's on the Wii, it can have different levels and give people a reason to buy both, just like Sonic Unleashed. How would that be built?

Well it would work very similarly to Sonic Colors. Running in the same engine and having a few shared cutscenes with the PS3 version. The levels would be as follows:

Green Hill - Sonic 1 on Genesis
Mystic Cave - Sonic 2 on Genesis
Stardust Speedway - Sonic CD on Sega CD
Hidden Palace - Sonic 3&K on Genesis
Windy Valley - Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast
Pyramid Cave - Sonic Adventure 2 on Dreamcast
Egg Fleet - Sonic Heroes on Nintendo GameCube
Deep Woods - Sonic and the Black Knight for Wii
Sweet Mountain - Sonic Colors for Wii

The Wii version would support the GameCube controller and the Classic Controller, but they are not required. You know what would be required? The Nunchuk. Sonic Colors didn't require the Nunchuk and the controls suffered for it. D-pads are not good for controlling characters in 3D Space (except for games like Bug!). The controls for the GameCube controller is the same as Sonic Colors or Sonic Unleashed Wii. The 2 schemes can be swapped in the menu. The Wii Remote & Nunchuk controls are as follows.
The stick moves Sonic.
The D-pad moves Sonic in Classic Stages if you so desire, or rotates the camera in Boost Stages.
A and 2 are jump/homing attack.
1 and Z are boost/spindash.
C is to ground pound.
+ and - are to pause.

The Wii version also supports multiplayer modes like race and battle from Sonic Heroes. A nunchuk is required for both players.

And finally, the Vita version.

For the Vita version, I would make it the same as the proposed 3DS version from above, but with updated graphics and textures. It would also look nicer due to the 544p OLED screen on the Vita. Hopefully that's enough to get people to buy it. That's why I would buy LEGO Batman 2 on the Vita- It's the 3DS version that I like, but with a better resolution.

So what would you have liked to see for Sonic Generations? Tweet me @Icystorm9 telling me (if you care). Goodbye!