World of Warcraft: Legion

The new World of Warcraft expansion has officially been announced today at Gamescon. Titled World of Warcraft: Legion, players head to The Broken Isles after Gul’dan brings back Illidan and delves into the Tomb of Sargeras. With the level cap raised to 110, players can expect several changes to World of Warcraft including a new class and a new honor system.

In Before It’s Out: Gat out of Hell

Yesterday at PAX, Volition released a brand new trailer for the newest entry in the Saint’s Row series. Gat out of Hell will be a stand alone sequel to the 2013 release Saints Row 4 set to debut January 27, 2015.

After finishing Saints Row 4 last year, I said the only place Volition could take the Saints next was to world domination. I was wrong. We’re headed to Hell with Johnny Gat and Kinzie Kensington after the protagonist from the first three games is sucked through a portal created by the Devil himself. The insanity that is Saints Row will include new weapons (like the Locust gun that shoots plagues of frogs), pit players against ‘historical figures’, and (hopefully) take us back to the hay days of Saints Row 3.

IT’S TIME! Patch 5.0.0

The time has finally come to experience patch 5.0.0 and the beginning of Mists of Pandaria. I just pre-ordered my collectors edition of the game and now get to experience part of it this coming week as the patch hits (probably) Tuesday. So get ready to update your add ons and find out if your graphics card can handle MoP!

In case you were living under a rock, here’s the run down of what we get to look forward to:

Ouya Update

Now at $5,000,000 in donations and with 22 days left in their campaign, Ouya is off to a great start in getting out to the public and helping shape the course of games and consoles for the next decade. I’ve been keeping up with all things Ouya, and compiled a short list of new information to pass along.

Here are the Specifications (which I didn’t list before) for the Ouya:

• Tegra3 quad-core processor
• 1GB RAM
• 8GB of internal flash storage
• HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth LE 4.0
• USB 2.0 (one)
• Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad
• Android 4.0

The big announcement is that the Ouya will be ready to ship in March and will be usable in other countries (so long as those users purchase of an adapter). At the beginning, though, the Ouya will only be available in English.

Now for what everyone really wants to know about, the games.

Surface, the new Microsoft Tablet

Once again I’ve scoured the news releases to bring you all of the information I can find, this time about the new Microsoft Tablet, Surface. Announced in Los Angeles this Monday, it’s made a splash in the hardware market, but there’s more speculation than real facts out there.

So what do we know? There will be be two versions of the Surface, consumer and enterprise. The later is for consumers and the former for the workplace and is called the Surface Pro. The consumer version will release first and the Pro version about 3 months later. There were no prices given for either version, but we’re told they will be priced “comparably” to other devices on the market. The Surface could therefore be priced anywhere from $499 to $829 as Apple’s most basic version of the iPad retails for that much, depending on the model. The Surface Pro will run around $1,000 as that’s what ultrabooks typically run for. Unfortunately for Microsoft, most annalists are saying the same thing, “Microsoft will need to significantly undercut the iPad to be competitive.” (Peter Misek, Jason North, and Billy Kim of Jefferies & Company, Inc)

Nintendo E3 News – All about the Wii U

The second part of my E3 news coverage is solely about Nintendo. They came out quirky, as always, with a lot of news about their new console. Their second press conference (on the 6th) was completely about the 3DS. To read the news from Sony, EA, Ubisoft, and Microsoft’s press events, check out my other blog And Ubisoft Takes the Prize – E3 News.

Opening with a demo for the new Pikmen 3 for the Wii U, they did their best to push how innovative the new Wii U Gamepad would be. If the system was set up to just use the Gamepad, I wouldn’t be complaining, but after repeated references to not only the Nunchuk but the Pro Controller and the Balance Board, I’m wondering just how many peripherals Nintendo wants their customers to purchase. Is this everything you’ll have to buy to play all of the games on the Wii U?

And how many will you need? Since the system is being catered towards families, owners may need more than one of each and the only controller announced to be packaged with the Wii U is the Gamepad. The lower priced tag system could be concealing a lot of hidden costs.

And Ubisoft Takes the Prize – E3 News

E3 over the last two days has been a flurry of news and information. While it’s not over yet, all of the big press conferences are over. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, and Ubisoft held major press conferences and wowed, or bored, crowds with their presentations. Here’s what I thought stood out during each.

Microsoft came out with a presentation for the next Halo. My opinion is the game will be mediocre now that the old team is no longer developing it, but time will tell how good it really is. They also announced the release date, November 6, so we won’t even have to wait that long.

Next was the announcement of the new Splinter Cell which attempted to demo voice commands via Kinect. It didn’t come off so well. The developer playing the game knew the commands, but it’s going to take some heavy tutorials to get players using them as smoothly as a button press. The guys from Madden came in afterwards, though, and they showed how Kinect voice can really be utilized.