It's June, it's E3 2013! Possibly the most important E3 of the last few years. Now that the PS4 and the XONE have been announced, we are awaiting more news on the details of these consoles and the bevvy of initial games we can expect on the systems. Naturally, a lot of these are expected to straddle the current generation and next-generation consoles, but word has it that there are an awful lot of new titles waiting to be unleashed. It's guaranteed to be an exciting week for video games. All of the DRM discussion regarding the XONE has been very unfortunate, especially considering the rise of always-on DRM on PC games. However, PC gamers like me have been living in a non-used game world for almost the last decade, so the entire problem blowing up now as a result of these new consoles is rather crazy. Still, it was bound to blow up eventually. Anyway, be sure to check out everything GameSpot is planning over the show including the usual stage show, interviews and the like, alongside our sister site Giant Bomb who will no-doubt be doing blow-out podcasts every evening and other nonsense. Also shout out to m'colleagues c_rake and edubuccaneer who are live in Los Angeles covering E3 for Entertainium.org (to which I've contributed a review or two including Fez and Poker Night 2), so be sure to check out all their content to. :)

In other news a lot of things have been happening which I haven't been telling you about because I've been neglecting this blog again. First off I've started infrequently streaming games on Twitch.tv. Already I've streamed some Curse of Monkey Island, FTL, Start Trek Online (in 3 broken parts) and Half-Life 2. Hope to continue to stream whenever I find the time convenient and I have a game that doesn't crash everything. For example I was experimenting with trying to stream XCOM and immediately my computer when to BSoD so I'm not trying that again in a hurry. Tune in some time soon (will announce on Twitter) when I hope to play through all of Portal (original) whilst discussing E3 developments we may learn this evening. Also feel free to suggest any PC games you'd like to see highlighted. Apologies for the background hissing on all the videos but this is just my bad quality mic and until I invest in a better one it isnt going away. In other news I've naturally been playing an innumerable host of video games, the major one being Tomb Raider (2013). I was pleasantly surprised by how downright great Tomb Raider was. Truth be told it isn't a Tomb Raider game anymore really, since the gameplay more closely approximates Uncharted rather than what you got in the old-style Tomb Raiders. Nonetheless, the rebooted Tomb Raider is an all-round great game to play, being a proficient third-person shooter with an interesting plot and great gameplay. Its internal progression of gradually giving Lara more and more equipment reminded me heavily of Arkham Asylum, as is its linear, hub-and-spoke approach to level design. Lara is a great character and although she very suddenly transitions from naïve archaeologist to bloodthirsty sole survivor, I had no problem with accepting it given all the downright horrible things that happen to her throughout the game.

I have more to say, but I haven't time since Microsoft Conference is about to begin! Hold onto your hats. :cool: