With the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), there will be a ton of new announcements, disappointments, and even some release dates. So there is a lot to cover for last week, and I’ll go over a few of them today.

World of Warcraft:

Patch 2.4.3 is out. The latest patch notes can be read here.

The significant changes in Patch 2.4.3 are:

General

• Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
• Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World’s End Tavern!
• Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
• Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.

Mages

• Frost Armor, Ice Armor, Mage Armor, and Molten Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.

Warlocks

• Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
• Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.

Mounts at level 30 for our baby Mages, 22 Slot Bags for our older Mages. Our Armors can no longer be dispelled in PvP, and Warlocks will buff our PvE regardless of the number of Mages in the raid.

Also, if you are using the Evocation macro, if you switch back to your DPS gear too early now, it will cancel your Evocation channeling.

I finally got my WoW Authenticator! It is kind of a hassle to needing to have it on you whenever you want to log in, but he added security is way worth it!

Video Games:

Ah… E3 has begun and there are a lot of exciting news. E3 begins July 14th, and lasts until July 17th, so there will still be more news to come.

The biggest news so far is Final Fantasy XIII will also be released for the Xbox360! This is a huge blow to Sony, and Microsoft has taken the final steps to making the Xbox THE system for JRPGs. I for one, am really excited about this announcement. I have an Xbox360, but no PS3 (although I still want one!). Final Fantasy XIII would have been one of the reasons for me to break down and finally get a PS3, but now there is no need to anymore.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still a PS3 exclusive at the moment, but I guess the “exclusiveness” of any game can be taken away at anytime now. Seems like nowadays, “exclusive” just means “for the time being, will only be for”.

A new Fable 2 trailer was shown, and the announced release date is for October 2008. There was also a new Star Ocean: The Last Hope trailer. The release date for that is Spring 2009. Some new clips for Halo Wars was also released. A release date for that is early 2009.

Microsoft also announced that they have partnered up with Netflix, and you will be able to download the movies you want if you have a Netflix account. My roomate has a Netflix account, this will be nice to have.

The Xbox360 interface is getting a new upgrade too. They’re adding a couple a few features, one which resembles the Nintendo Wii’s Mii feature.

I know that is a lot of Xbox360 news. The Microsoft part of E3 was July 14th, hence all the Xbox360 news. July 15th will be Nintendo and Sony’s day of announcements.

Also, fans of the Sims game, Sims 3 is coming out in 2009. Here is a small trailer for that.

Movies:

The Dark Knight, July 18th, that is all…

Real Life:

I finally joined BlogAzeroth for the first time last week. Crazy (but awesome) group of people I tell ya. Great place to hang out during the day.

WordPress 2.6 is out! I upgraded with now problems. Haven’t noticed any new changes yet.

Sports:

It is the All Star break for baseball, and the Phillies are still hanging in there at the top of the NL East, half a game ahead of the Mets.

2B Chase Utley, and P Brad Lidge have been selected for the All Star game. Chase was also selected for the Home Run Derby, but failed to advance to the 2nd round with 5 Home Runs.

“You must defeat Shen Long to stand a chance!” will actually have some meaning behind this now.

Another fun filled week for me, including finally upgrading my outdated WordPress 2.3.2 to Wordpress 2.5.1. and me going home to my parent’s house for the weekend for some grill’n and chill’n.

World of Warcraft:

Good raid week for Utada. Although we only had two days of raiding, we made good progress in the Sunwell Plateau. Killed the first four bosses on the first day of raiding, and had a whole night of attempts on the Eredar Twins on the second night. I got my [Bracer of the Tempest], making that my 7th piece of my Tier 6 gear.

Kil’jaeden was killed by SK-Gaming on May 25th. World First Kil’jaeden kill. They have now beaten The Burning Crusade. More info at: WorldofRaids.com

Movies:

I watched the new Indiana Jones movie with a couple of my friends. I had mixed feelings about the movie. Without spoiling anything, the movie had everything I loved about the Indiana Jones series, but the story was a bit… over the top.

I also ended up watching Iron Man again with my cousin because he has not seen it yet. The movie was still very good, and Robert Downey Jr. was such an awesome Tony Stark. There were also many subtle hints throughout the film at a sequel or other Marvel Superhero movies.

By coincidence, Ghost Rider was on HBO later that night. It was my first time watching it, and wow was that an awful movie. “Feels like my skull’s on fire” /shudder

Video Games:

Oh yea… at the movie theater, one of my all-time favorite arcade game was there. Marvel vs Capcom 2. My team: Ken, Cammy, Hayato. Me and my cousin had a lot of fun playing this game again after all these years. Still a ton of fun to play despite how broken the gameplay is.

Blogging:

After reading Usagijen’s post on upgrading her WordPress with ease by using a plugin called Instant Upgrade, I decided to finally upgrade mine as well. Using that plugin, I was able to upgrade my WordPress in about 5 minutes with everything working fine. w00t! Me likes the new interface

Real Life:

Memorial Day Weekend! A lot of BBQing, a lot of good eating, and a bit of drinking. It was a fun weekend, and the weather was all so beautiful.

A new vs Capcom game has been announced and I am very excited. It is not a new Marvel vs Capcom or a new Capcom vs SNK. This time it is Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes.

Tatsunoko? Who? Tatsunoko is a Japanese animation company founded in 1962 by legendary anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida along with his brothers Kenji and Toyoharu.

Well we have a good idea of who Capcom can bring to this fighting game, but who can we expect from Tatsunoko’s side? Some of the well-known anime series that Tatsunoko have done are: Speed Racer, Gatchaman, Casshern, Neon Genesis Evangelion (co-produced with Gainax), Tekkaman Blade, Samurai Pizza Cats, and Soul Taker. The entire list of anime series from Tatsunoko can be seen here at: Wikipedia.com

So far the confirmed characters from Tatsunoko’s side are Ken Washio from the Gatchaman series and Tetsuya Azuma from the Shinzo Ningen Casshan series, and from Capcom’s side are Ryu and Chun Li from the Street Fighter series. Capcom has a ton of characters to choose from, so anything is possible for this game. We may even see Racer X from Speed Racer fighting against Mega Man, or Rei Ayanami and her Eva fighting against Captain Commando. The possibilities are endless.

So far from what I’ve seen from the screenshots, it will be tag team two on two fighting, with the ability to use your teammate to do assist attacks. The over the top super-moves looks like it will still be there.

I have always been a huge fan of Capcom’s vs series, and Tatsunoko vs Capcom won’t be an exception. I am still waiting for a Marvel vs Capcom 3, but this will do. Will we see this hit the arcades in the United States? Hopefully. Only time will tell. I can’t wait to see what other characters will me coming out for this. When I find out, I’ll be sure to let you know too.

Source: http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1215298_1124.html

My first impression when I saw Rufus was, “Not another grappler fighter… we just got two more of those.” but he turned out to be a quick an agile fighter. His moves consists of an array of acrobatic somersaults, spinning kicks, and flurries of fists. Something you would not expect coming from what looks like a carnival clown.

It also looks like Capcom took some notes from Team Ninja on “Jiggle Physics“, but it looks like they forgot to jot down the side note: “on female characters only”. It is a shame Capcom chose to use in on their new acrobatic circus freak. His enormous belly flowed with every jump, kick, or punch. It’s rather… hypnotizing…

Gameplay video of Rufus:

When it comes to Capcom with new games and characters, I always expect some randomness. Of course I would like to have them bring back some Street Fighter veterans (*cough* Sakura and Cammy *cough*) to SF:IV, but introducing a variety of new characters isn’t going to hurt.

Cammy wants in on some SF:IV action!

Not much else is revealed about the character’s moves and special moves-wise, but he appears to be a “Grappler” type of fighter. Looks like Zangief and Abel will some competition in that fighting category.

The final version of the game is not nearly complete yet, and there is still time to add new characters and tweak with the system a bit.

So far for playable characters, they have the original eight, two boss characters, and two of the new characters.

We have yet to see M.Bison and Vega as the two other boss characters. Maybe even Akuma will make an appearance. Even EGM’s April Fool’s joke way back in the day, Gouken (Ken and Ryu’s master) was hinted by Yoshinori Ono (game’s producer), to make an appearance.

While characters specific to the Street Fighter Alpha series or Street Fighter III have not been announced, Yoshinori Ono stated that characters such as Sakura or Ibuki could appear in console versions of the game if or when such versions are developed.

I particularly don’t like using “Grapple” type characters in fighting games. Hopefully they spice up El Fuerte’s moves a bit to make him really unique from Zangief and Abel. As for the remaining characters, Vega and M.Bison should be an automatic bid. Ono stated that he’s trying to get every character from Super Street Fighter II – Turbo into the game, so we might be seeing some Cammy, Fei Long, T.Hawk, and Dee Jay action.

Although it is sad to see they won’t make it into Street Fighter: IV, I’m glad that the console versions are said to have maybe Sakura or Ibuki. Good enough for me.

The original eight “World Warriors” are back: Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Guile, Blanka, Dhalsim, E. Honda, and Zangief. The new character models for all the characters look amazing. They still look a little bit like the Incredible Hulk, but the more I watch the trailers, it doesn’t bother me anymore, and they actually look well done.

Two new characters are shown in the trailer.

Chun Li won’t be the only female fighter again, and will be accompanied by C. Viper. Her fighting style reminds me of Rugal from King of the Fighters, or Kyosuke Kagami from Rival Schools, which fights predominately with their legs.

The other new fighter is Abel, who according to Capcom is “A man with no past: ABEL”.  His fighting style seems like mixed martial arts with some grappling.

Watching the trailer brings back “Old School” fighting game feel with the gritty pound at each other faces til one person is left standing. There wasn’t any 98 Hit Combos, or any 10-String Air Juggles. No False Roman Cancels or Combo Breakers here either. Just some good old attacking and blocking. Of course Capcom isn’t going to keep it just to the bare minimum, but it’s nice that they are going back to the basics.

The Street Fighter IV storyline falls between SFII and SFIII, so there is hope for more characters to make the cut still. A few characters that I would like to see are: Sakura, or a grown up version of her, Fei Long, Ibuki, Makoto, Sean, Yun, and Yang. Any of those characters would be nice, but I’m rooting for Sakura.

Although it would be hard to see Sakura without her “school girl” look, I would like to see the outcome of years of training with Ryu.

Same thing with Sean and his training with Ken (but that takes place in SFIII so no luck there). Capcom needs to hurry up! I needs my Street Fighter fix now!!