Today's big conferences included Nintendo and Sony, both with some awesome games to show off but I'll kick it off with Nintendo first so I can talk about my favorite series first; The Legend of Zelda.

Yes! Legend of Zelda is back with Skyward Sword. Right off the bat the art s.tyle has changed once again, it looks to be a mix between the cel shading of Wind Waker but the more realistic approach like Twilight Princess. It looks great and the environments look very lush. Though it looked like they had some minor difficulties swinging the Wiimote to control the slashing and item use on screen I still have hype for this game and just hope what happened on stage was because all the other wireless interference going on. I felt a little embarrassed for them but they seemed to handle the technical difficulties well.

Goldeneye 007 is coming to the Wii! The video looks amazing but instead of Pierce Brosnan being James Bond like it should be it was funny to see Daniel Craig in the game instead. It doesn't really matter to me, the video made this game look awesome with silent take downs and c.lassic multiplayer action.

Nintendo also showed off some more gameplay for Metroid Other M for the Wii. It looks to have some elements of side scrolling, first person and third person. Definitely more excited for this title and it's almost out with a release date for August 31st. Speaking of returning; Donkey Kong Country also makes a return to it's side scrolling roots and looks excellent.

Of course Nintendo didn't close their conference until they announced the Nintendo 3DS. Definitely an awesome looking handheld that has some 3D elements that doesn't require glasses to wear. It's also a nice touch that included a slider that controls just how much 3D you want. You can even turn it completely off. It's backwards compatible with the DSi and there's some awesome games coming out for it; Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64 remake just to name a few.

While the majority of Nintendo seems to be a lot of remakes and re-masterings (not a bad thing) Sony seems to be pushing for the 3D on the PS3 a lot more than other consoles were pushing for it. Can't forget about their motion control either with the Playstation Move. One of the biggest titles for the PS3 that may have Move capabilities isKillzone 3.

Sony showed off their 3D games and Move but they also showed a bunch of new games. Some of their games were already shown during the Microsoft press conference but they flaunted the exclusives they were getting on the PS3 like the Medal of Honor pre-order deal. Pre-order the new one and get an HD remake of Medal of Honor: Frontline. Pretty awesome deal.

Little Big Planet 2 was shown off and looks even more amazing than the first one allowing full game creation this time around. Some games shown that were created included a racing game and a real-time strategy game. I sense a strong community for this game.

Sony is also stepping up it's online services with Playstation Plus. It's a paid service for the Playstation Network but boasts that members of the service will get "hundreds of dollars" in free content and discounts in the Playstation Store. It's a step in the right direction especially with Xbox improving their service as well.

Before the Sony conference was over there was one more surprise to throw at the crowd. Twisted Metal returns for the Playstation 3 and it looks like it's pretty damn close to being finished and the game has improved drastically from the previous titles. Included are new game modes, new weapons and a lot more team action. It's just scary when real people come in the conference room dressed as Sweet Tooth. Nightmares!

Bullets to pass the time!

-Apparently Gabe Newell no longer hates PS3's because Portal 2 is on it's way to the system.

-Kirby returns to the Wii in Kirby's Epic Yarn. Side scroller but with a great artistic "yarn" look. Looks as if it's more of Kirby changing shape than previous titles where he ate enemies and took their power. I'm intrigued.

-Playstation Move is coming in September.

-Mario Sports Mix brings Mario and friends to various games like Volleyball, Basketball and Hockey, just to name a few.

-Wii Party brings...party games to the Wii (this must be the 100th party game).

-NBA Jam looks jammin'

-Michael Jackson game...really?

-Metal Gear Solid series on the 3DS!?

-Golden Sun Dark Dawn. Finally, this great RPG returns.

-Kid Icarus has an annoying voice actor.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo kicked off today and I definitely made it a point to watch the press conferences today and see the up and coming goodness in the land of video games. There's a lot to cover so I'll just cover the stuff I thought was cool enough to talk about again and hopefully it'll give you some insight on this years E3 and what to expect soon. I also threw some bullets to other stuff at the end that I wanted to spill out, Itriedto keep it short.

Microsoft had their press conference first, just as most expected, it was about their motion control "Natal" which they changed to "Kinect". First impressions: a.) the first release of games reminds me a lot of Wii's launch games, a lot of sports games and party games. b.) I think it's already blown the Wii Fitout of the water with Your Shape: Fitness. c.) Voice and motion control with the Xbox Dashboard? Flippin' sweet. d.) Video Chat, definitely awesome for friends and family.

The games side of the show what comes to mind first is definitely Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.Wow, how sweet the gameplay video of that was. The cover system looked much like Splinter Cell: Conviction and the ability to take down enemies up close for a one-hit KO. What made it especially intriguing was how he was able to seamlessly command his squad and they were able to take care of themselves very well. Near the end the player was sneaking up on a target enemy while invisible as he had his snipers behind him target other enemies around the target enemy, as the player crept up to the target you saw green lasers shine on the other enemies as the snipers took aim and in 3...2...1... everything was executed at once, so beautiful. It's also worth mentioning he was able to snipe the pilot in a helicopter causing chaos for the enemies below. Definitely hyped for this title now.

Halo Reach showed some campaign gameplay which looked pretty slick but who thought otherwise? It got different when the player jumped in a spaceship and the game suddenly changed to a space shooter, this is definitely a change and shift in gameplay and I'm hoping it's sweet because, honestly, it scares me a little.

Ubisoft also showed off Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood which is supposed to be a multiplayer title set in theAssassin's Creeduniverse. The gameplay showed off some combat improvements and much more aggressive AI enemies.

EA had some interesting stuff to show off. Medal of Honor multiplayer was showcased and looked a lot like Bad Company 2 multiplayer but it also looked like there were some killstreak stuff going on in that multiplayer match as well hinting at some Call of Duty?. It looks awesome but we'll have to wait to see. They also announced the Gun Club which will track your first person shooter achievements online and this, in turn, will enable certain unlocks for you. The first being early access to the Medal of Honor multiplayer beta.

Those were the main points that definitely excited me but there was so much more to the first day at E3 so I'll point out some more in bullet form.

-Metal Gear Solid: Rising holy crap! Sword slicing action looks promising and a new gameplay shift for the Metal Gear series.

-Call of Duty: Black Ops looks scary good, I have more hopes for Treyarch.

-Microsoft has a slim version of the 360 shipping immediately.

-ESPN has a partnership with Microsoft so now you'll be able to watch sports on your Xbox 360.

-Laser Tag game that hooks up to your console and gives you stats on players after the game. "Laser tag for fat kids" -Andy Tran

-Slightly intrigued by Shaun White Skateboarding

-Project Dust...I'll keep an eye on this one

-Another eye on Homefront

-Star Wars: The Old Republic. Everyone gets their own starship. Awesome.

-Star Wars Kinect turns you into a Jedi badass

-Kinectimals. Slightly creepy.

This weekend was slightly different from the past, I beat Bioshock earlier in the week and I got on this good deal at a used game store and got Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. so I was playing that for a good portion of the weekend. Besides having a ridiculous name H.A.W.X. is a pretty sweet game, I got into it just in time for the second one to be announced during E3. It has some great flight mechanics and makes you really feel like a top gun flying around especially in the "Assistance OFF" mode where you can see your sweet dodging and weaving from a cinematic angle. It's also a nice touch that they added the characters from Ghost Recon to make a cameo and add some missions where must provide support for them it ties in the series and is cool for any Tom Clancy junkies like myself.

Of course Mass Effect 2 got some play time and I was able to complete a lot of missions and dig deeper into the storyline. I might actually be able to complete it in the next few weekends, that is if I don't get distracted by randomly feeling the urge to play Fallout 3. My friends and I were talking about Fallout 3 since New Vegas was on the approach and it gave me this urge to play it so that got a little play time as well on the side. It's definitely a favorite amongst my collection.

The last game worth mentioning over the weekend is Super Paper Mario. This is an old Wii title that I've always wanted to get into that I missed when it was first released. I got it earlier at a used game store so it was exciting to finally pop it in and get it going. It's a fun game but a lot different from it's Nintendo 64 predecessor. It plays more like a c.lassic side scroller than what the N64 did with it's turn based battles, it's an interesting touch but very enjoyable.

Now that E3 is here it's crunch time to get these old titles I've been playing beaten and ready to gobble up all these new great titles coming up. Is anybody else feeling this crunch?

This was a big weekend for me since I shelled out the dough for the Resurgence Map pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The maps are great and only further enhances my love for the multiplayer not to mention this weekend had double XP so I was able to get up there in the ranks and try out some new weapons and perks. I've been feeling the M21 with the SPAS-12, it's pretty deadly, especially with that new map, Trailer Park.

It wasn't all Modern Warfare 2 though, I spent quite some time back on Bioshock and got a pretty good grasp on the game. It's getting better and better, the story is enticing and I almost missed lunch getting sucked into it until my stomach gave me a good kick then it was sandwich time but it's truly a great one. I think I could finish it if I had some good time to play it this week. Definitely can't wait for that so I can get into Bioshock 2 as soon as possible.

Though Modern Warfare 2 and Bioshock were the main games of the weekend I can't say that was all, I did slip in some Pokemon Soul Silver in there which I just got recently thanks to some encouragement from my girlfriend to get it since she recently purchased Heart Gold. This will make for some battles later on down the road as we go through the game and I say bring it on! In my opinionGold/Silver were the best in the series and I can already tell by looking at the improvements made in Soul Silver that this will surely not disappoint. I'll be slowly etching away at this title in between Bioshocks and Modern Warfares I'm sure of it.

What did you get around to this weekend?

Whoa, four day weekend!? What am I supposed to do with myself!? Games are always a good time filler and there's a couple games that stood out more than others during this Memorial Day weekend.

First off I started Mass Effect 2 since I beat Dragon Age: Origins last weekend and I must say, just as I thought, I'm hooked. Bioware is one of those companies that if you are an RPG lover as much as I am then you will come to love Bioware games. Mass Effect 2 has an even greater storyline from the first and the combat is much more improved and welcoming. I sat at my PC slowly seeing my hours played rise every time I went to save, it was excellent. The Collectors make for such a great enemy, I'm probably playing it again as you are reading.

Mass Effect 2 wasn't the only game I started up over the weekend though. I finally took my first leap into the Bioshock series playing the first one and boy am I impressed. There were many games I was playing at the time of the initial release and I slowly forgot about it but now I'm glad I'm going back to marvel at this masterpiece of a game. Maybe when I beat the first one the second one will be at a reduced price. Fingers crossed. I love how seamless using plasmids is then switching to gunplay combat, it's great and the combos you can pull off are very rewarding. It's been awhile since I've played a creepy game like Bioshock but I'm happy to finally be playing it.

Finally to celebrate Memorial Day Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 had a double XP bonus going on for it's multiplayer which was too good to pass up. I've always played Team Deathmatch or Hardcore TDM on average but this weekend I discovered the Ground War playlist that has hooked my attention span. Big team Team Deathmatch and Domination games make for some real exciting games and a lot of points. My friends and I jumped into the fray and has some good matches and others...not so good...but that's how Call of Duty works sometimes.

Overall, very good weekend for games.

You've heard about the game modes and the maps now it's time to hear me splurge on the good stuff, the c.lasses with armor abilities and mechanics like controls and vehicles.

In Halo 3 players got equipment to use in multiplayer and singleplayer such as the bubble shield, power drain, health regenerator or gravity lift. In Halo: Reach equipment is built into the Spartan suit creating c.lasses such as Airborne, Guard, Stalker or Scout. Airborne has a jet pack allowing for some players to get in good sniper positions or get the drop on unsuspecting enemies. Guard is like have your own personal shield, but only for a certain amount of time that is. It's great during Team Slayer if you get in a jam you can guard yourself and wait for some teammates to come to your rescue. Stalker gives you a limited time of invisibility and when you are near an enemy while invisible it causes the enemies radar to look as if there are about 20 enemies around them and the slower you move when invisible the more invisible you are to your enemies. You have to be patient but it's well worth it. Finally, Scout gives your Spartan the ability to sprint for a certain amount of time which is especially useful when trying to get to a flag quickly or rescuing a teammate. Spartans aren't the only ones that get armor abilities because in the Invasion game modes we can't forget about the Elites. Elites in the beta thus far have the ability to turn invisible just like the Spartan's Stalker ****and also have an armor ability to do the dodge roll many fans of the series will recognize from the previous Halo games when facing Elites as the enemies, very useful move and very scary when facing an Elite that knows how to use it well.

After choosing your c.lass probably the next thing you'll notice is the control changes. The most notable of changes is the melee button being changed to the right bumper instead of the usual B button and using your equipment is done with the left bumper. It's hard to change a control scheme when you are so used to it one way but after playing Reach for awhile you soon find that this control scheme works, and it works well.

Well you've chose your c.lass, got killed trying to get used to the control scheme and now right in front of you spawns a shiny new Warthog. You yell at your buddy to take the wheel while you take the back and get ol' Betsy. Flashing back to your Halo 3 glory you lay down on the fire button ready to take on anyone moving but what's this? Why did the mini-gun stop firing!? Overheating you say? Yep, in Reach you can no longer fire billions of rounds without skipping a beat. This is good though, it makes the Warthog a little more balanced on the battlefield and definitely gives more opponents opportunities to take it down.

There are of course other ways to take down your enemies and that's in the way of assassinations. What is more humiliating for your enemy to be forced to watch you do a sweet assassination? Not much and that's what makes these so awesome to do during gameplay. Simply holding the melee button an extra second behind an enemy will perform the short cutscene assassination but it doesn't make anyone invincible, a quick teammate can come to the rescue and can kill you fast enough and save his buddy so sometimes you have to decide if the assassination is worth it but most of the time, it is.

Halo: Reach has improved on many things large and small and will definitely make a big impact as how players will play which may be a little different from what they are used to. No longer can many players just rush in, shoot and melee for a quick kill because if the player has a shield still the melee will only take the shield down so a little more shooting and accuracy is required in Reach, less on the run and gun. I'm definitely excited for the release and I wish it wasn't so far away!

The Halo: Reach multiplayer beta has come and gone and hopefully most had a good chance to play it because this is one solid multiplayer game even for being in beta stages. If you didn't get a chance to play it bask in my reminiscing of this great game as I explain the ups and the downs.

When the beta was first released players could play Slayer, Team Slayer, Stockpile and Headhunter on two maps; Powerhouse and Sword Base. Aside from playing Slayer and Team Slayer in the mixed bag playlist where it would cycle through all the game modes you could also go into "The Arena," which is more like a ranked playlist that takes three games that you play and then gives you your average rank and groups you with like players. If you play the next day your rank will reset but your previous rank will be archived to be placed for a "season rating". It's an interesting take on ranked matches and will most likely keep more players competitive working towards being a top player during a particular season.

Headhunter is a new twist on Free For All. Each kill players get will give them a skull to carry and return to their base respectively but if you think you're Mr. Badass you can kill multiple enemies and gather multiple skulls to return all at once but don't get caught with your pants down because if you get killed before you return your skulls all of them will drop that you were holding allowing another lucky spartan to steal them and return them to their own base. It's a frantic game mode of hording and stealing that surely has many yelling over their headset in disappointment or excitement.

Stockpile is a team based game that is in a sense much like Headhunter but with flags. Each team has a base where they must return collected flags scattered around the map. The kicker here is that the flags are returned every minute so this gives a chance for teams to steal the other teams flags so they don't get the capture points. Teamwork is the key here and some strong defense/offense skills. Very fun game mode to be played with your friends and playing it on Powerhouse is perfect allowing for many escape and sneaking routes to get some flags for the team.

One week after the beta was released Bungie added the Invasion game mode on a new map; Boneyard. Invasion is Elite vs Spartans, the Elite storm the base to capture points throughout the map in a Battlefield-esque manner while the Spartans are left to defend the points. It was one of my favorite game modes to play during the beta as was Invasion Slayer which is just Team Slayer but with Elite vs Spartans. I can tell I'll be playing this one the most during the full release.

The next week Bungie released the final game mode to be tested: Generator Defense on the Overlook map. This is where the beta showed its colors the most, the game mode was Generator Defense but at the match maker it was titled "Network 1". I could see that this was a great game mode of Spartans defending three Generators around the map while the Elite must destroy them but since this network test was going on it was very laggy for me and a lot of other players so that was a slight disappointment but I still like the idea of the game mode.

Stay tuned, I'll let you know about the different c.lasses, armor abilities and customization.

This was the first weekend without Halo: Reach multiplayer, I was going through some withdrawl and still a little frightened to go back to Halo 3 so I played some other games quite extensively.

I'd say the major game of the weekend was Dragon Age: Origins. I finally beat it and I must say that game did not disappoint one bit. As much as I want to start another playthrough I'm going to start Mass Effect 2 now since I'm still trying to catch up with that game. I know that's going to be equally awesome because it's Bioware when have they ever failed with an RPG? I recommend Dragon Age for anyone that is looking for an RPG and can play for a good 60 hours.

In between times of Dragon Age or when I needed to take a major break from anything so intense I've been playing a rather simple Indie game called Altitude. It's a side-scroller multiplayer shooter where the players customize their airplanes for combat against other players online. It has some pretty in-depth customization options organized much like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. You have different planes, three perks to add to your plane and even challenges to complete to rank up. Very addicting and very fun to play casually.

Though much time was spent at the computer with Dragon Age I managed to give the ol' Xbox a whirl as well with some great co-op sessions with Splinter Cell: Conviction. With the help of my friend Andy we were able to finish up the campaign on realistic. Very fun co-op campaign but you can probably ask either of us how many times we got frustrated when things got bad and one of us got seen (I account for 90% of those spotted moments, sorry Andy).

Good weekend of accomplishments and I'm finally starting to dwindle the amount of games I have to catch up on. Go me. Does anyone else have a stack of games to catch up on besides me?

The biggest gaming event of the year is approaching so it's time to get excited, I have a feeling this Fall and Winter is going to be one great time for gamers.

Halo: Reach

I've been playing the beta quite extensively and there's no doubt in my mind that the retail version of this game will definitely deliver. The multiplayer itself seems like it's a must buy but I'm sure the singleplayer campaign will be just as good with the ability to bring your customized spartan into the story.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Bioware has an outstanding track record for making RPGs and now they are moving their Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series to the MMO universe in Star Wars: The Old Republic. With the choice of joining the Rebels or the Empire there's sure to be some epic Jedi vs Sith lightsaber battles and awesome bounty hunting going down.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Ghost Recon has always been one of my favorite series but seemed to take a different turn when the series went the Advanced Warfighter route but I'm giving it another shot because Future Soldier looks pretty amazing. From the trailers it looks as if you're going to be able to cloak or even fire off your own mortar strike from your shoulder, whoooaaa.

Zelda Wii

There's never been a Zelda I wasn't excited about but this is going to be the first true Zelda on the Wii and I'm sure it's going to have some Motion Plus movement so Zelda fans around the world are going to be flailing in front of their TVs for awhile. Nothing too much is actually known about this title so I hope to see some good info.

Metroid: Other M

Headed up by Team Ninja this Metroid game looks to return to the 2D roots it all started with but with some cool cinematic 3D elements. It seems the story will be a lot deeper this time around too and Samus' face isn't going to be such a mystery. Action packed and story driven, this will be a new kind of Metroid I hope to discover a little more about it during E3.

Fable III

I played Fable II for hours on end even when I was done with the main quest. I loved the ability to buy/sell and rent out areas and just sit back and gather in the money. How the town would react to you if you were evil or good, it was a very immersive game and Fable III sounds like it's going to be even more in depth with being able to interact with the community more in each town or area. You get to be a king! How cool is that?

Fallout: New Vegas

I'll admit that I still have some DLC to work through on Fallout 3 that I definitely have to finish though because New Vegas looks like one hell of a game. Set in Vegas (the title didn't clue you in, I know) this time around it's sure to have a lot of surprises and badass enemies that weren't in the Capital Wasteland and Hardcore Mode? That is a must for how I like to play Fallout.

This weekend I was mostly on the go so it was ample time to spend with my DS.Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story was the name of the game, very enjoyable just like the other Mario & Luigi RPGs that have been released before.I think what makes this one so enjoyable is the moments in the game where you get to play as Bowser and just have the ability to beat up anyone.

Another DS c.lassic I dove into is Professor Layton and theCuriousVillage.I've always wanted to get into this series and I absolutely love it, the riddles and puzzles in the game really get my brain cogs going and so early in the game too! I'm just not that awesome at puzzles I guess but I love it.

But it wasn't all portables I was able to fit some Dragon Age in there for a couple hours and I think I'm finally getting to the end of this game which makes me happy because I'll be able to fulfill my promise of starting Mass Effect 2 after DAO but on the other hand should I finish the DLC of Dragon Age first?I don't know if I'm quite ready to move on, I'm really enjoying Dragon Age and I think I could definitely go back and playthrough it again eventually but I also know I'm going to love Mass Effect 2 because it's so improved from the first one.

What did everyone else play this weekend?Do you only play your DS when you are on the go or do you find time to just sit and play?