Mike Tyson- Mike Tyson’s Punch Out

Iron Mike’s legendary performance in the world of boxing is as well documented as his fall from grace and infamous tattoo, but his early appearance in the world of Nintendo has gone down as one of the moments that would define “Nintendo Hard”. In a display somewhat similar to the real life events, the AI was only able to deliver KO punches against the player character, Little Mac for the first round. His fast, hard to read movements made just surviving long enough to have a shot against Tyson difficult enough, but unless you were omnipresent, you weren’t going to last that long anyways.

Vaas – Far Cry 3

The intimidating Vaas steals the show of Far Cry 3 for very good reason, this unhinged madman just visually looks like he’s hanging onto reality with a fingernail, and has a presence that both works as the foil to white bread Jason Brody and helps to goad the player into furthering their quest. Each time Vaas gets the upper hand on the player, he just toys with them, leaving both Jason and the player living through him all the more determined to finish the adventure, until he gets them again. Do you know the definition of insanity?

The New York based National Museum of Play has recognized a lot of world changing and influential games over the several year’s they’ve been operating out of The Strong in Rochester. Now, in their World Video Game Hall of Fame, alongside titles like DOOM, The Legend of Zelda and Grand Theft Auto III, several new titles have been placed with these heavyweights.

The four new inductees include Final Fantasy VII, Spacewar!, Tomb Raider and John Madden Football. Each title was given a short write up by the museum (which you can read in full here), explaining how they came to pick these titles. John Madden Football was largely selected for it’s influence on sports and sports games, Tomb Raider for the unique combination of action adventure, planning and puzzle solving, and Final Fantasy VII was chosen for the game’s technical achievements, characters and bring JRPGs to global attention.

The Hall of Fame was established just in 2015, with the purpose of showcasing and preserving some of the most influential and popular video games of any type and their effect they’ve had on gaming as an industry, popular culture as well as society. Do you agree with their choices? Let us know in the comments below.

A few years ago, the belief that console game was on its last legs was so strong that a number of gaming companies believed they had to change their approach to production in order to stay alive. When the iPad hit it big, there were quite a few people in the industry who believed gaming was going to make a huge move towards the mobile and online platforms and leave consoles behind. While Microsoft and Sony believed the Xbox One and PS4 could reinvigorate console gaming, Square Enix reportedly believed the opposite.

Crave Online reports that online video game critic Jim Sterling is claiming Square Enix was so concerned about the future of video gaming that they cancelled a number of games that were in development and badly meddled with other titles. Sterling said his sources have pointed to the remake for Final Fantasy VII and the newest Hitman as the proof of the company going into a full on panic. Hitman was going to be an online only game, which is why it has been divided into installments. This is also likely why the company has had so many problems getting the game to market once it realized the PS4 and Xbox One sales were plenty healthy.

The lack of confidence in consoles might also be why Square has been hemming and hawing when it comes to Final Fantasy games. To be fair, Square Enix isn’t the only company that thought console gaming was on its last legs, but it is a company that might be front and center when it comes to gambling hard against consoles and being very, very wrong.

This year is different, though. PlayStation Experience turned out to be successful last year, and Sony, at the very least, seem to be on board with using it as a platform for major announcements. And with the success of major third party announcements at PSX last year, like Street Fighter V’s PS4 exclusivity, it is pretty clear that their third party partners will be looking at the event closely too.

All of which is to say- the first timer blues that may have held back last year’s already excellent event from reaching its full potential no longer apply here. This year, we can expect Sony to go big, and go hard. This year’s PlayStation Experience will probably be full of major announcements- and here are the five that we think, we hope, we’ll definitely be writing about ten days from now.

5. THE LAST GUARDIAN FOOTAGE, AND A RELEASE WINDOW

The Last Guardian was re-revealed, after nearly a half decade of speculation about the game’s ultimate status, at Sony’s E3 press conference earlier this year. The game looked like everything that fans of Team ICO, who had been waiting for their next masterpiece to follow up on Shadow of the Colossus, had ever wished for. It was reassuring to see the game being played in real time, reassuring to see it in person again, and reassuring to see the game being given a 2016 release date.

And then the game disappeared. Again.

We haven’t seen nor heard hair or tail of The Last Guardian since its E3 (re) debut. And while no one reasonable doubts that Sony means to meet its 2016 release date this time around, doubts on their ability to are not entirely unfounded- especially given this game’s history. So, what better course of action for Sony than to show off the game, preferably a new area, alongside a firmer release date (something like Summer 2016), not only to lay to rest all speculation about the game’s status, but also to reassure the faithful that the game is indeed coming, that the E3 show was not just smoke and mirrors?

This is why we fully expect The Last Guardian to be there at Sony’s PlayStation Experience keynote in some capacity. We’ll almost certainly see more of the game, and we’ll probably get a firmer release window too.

4. SUCKER PUNCH’S NEW PROJECT

Sucker Punch released inFamous: Second Son in March 2014. Since then, they have been working on something- frequent job listings and hirings have given us an indication of as much. It was not inFamous: First Light, the standalone expansion for Second Son that was launched at the end of 2014, as that only required a skeleton crew. So what, then, is Sucker Punch working on?

We think we’re going to find out at PlayStation Experience this year. It has been twenty months since the launch of their last major project, which is a long time- for context, Guerrilla Games announced their next project after Killzone Shadow Fall, Horizon: Zero Dawn, far sooner. Given all the evidence we have on hand (the job listings), it is clear that Sucker Punch is ramping up and working on something big. Exactly what that is, we expect to find out at PSX- it’s as good a venue as any to announce their next venture.

Just don’t expect it to be another inFamous.

3. FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE MORE FOOTAGE AND INFORMATION

When Square Enix announced the long anticipated Final Fantasy VII remake at E3 this year, it was with only a very short teaser, and the promise of more information to come at the end of this year– a timeframe that lines up suspiciously and conveniently well with the PlayStation Experience.

That is the basis for our expectation for seeing the remake feature at PlayStation Experience this year- the game has a long history of association with PlayStation, and the remake is going to be exclusive to the PS4, at least for a while. We fully expect to see more of the game next week- from how Midgar looks in the shiny new HD graphics that the PS4 can afford it, to how the battle system may have been changed from the classic turn based system, which is something that Square Enix has been hinting at for a while now.

And hey, who knows, we may even get a release window for the game. 2017 is coming up, and it does line up pretty nicely with the game’s 20th anniversary…

2. PS2 CLASSICS ON PS4

Of all of our predictions made in this article so far, this is the one that we are the most certain of. PS2 Classics on the PS4 have been speculated at for a while, now- there have been loads of leaks, from internal testers, patent filings, and from ratings boards, that have hinted at some sort of PS2 compatibility coming to the PS4. And then earlier this month, Sony went ahead and explicitly confirmed this to us all, declining, however, to share more details.

Why would they decline to share more details? Why, because they have a major event coming up where they get to do so on their own terms, with the proper pizzaz. The PlayStation Experience is a celebration of PlayStation- what better way to celebrate PlayStation than to bring the library of the greatest PlayStation system to its modern descendant? And just imagine- the announcement that PS2 classics such as Final Fantasy X, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Dark Cloud, Dragon Quest VIII, Devil May Cry 3, Resident Evil 4, and Persona 4 can be played on your shiny new PS4 will definitely bring the house down.

Definitely expect to see more on this next week.

1. SONY BEND’S MYSTERIOUS GAME

Sony Bend Studio have been silent for a couple of years now- that’s a long time for a studio to go incognito. And since we know they have been working on a new IP for at least half that time, it’s pretty clear that we’re pretty close to the announcement soon.

But why would Sony waste such a major announcement on PSX, instead of saving it for E3, you ask? Because what better way to legitimize the PlayStation Experience as an outlet for major announcements than to actually make a major announcement there?

Consider Nintendo with their Nintendo Direct format- we now expect major announcements from each new one, but how did we get here? It happened when Nintendo announced major new games, such as The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., Pokemon X and Y, Fire Emblem Awakening, Fire Emblem Fates, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D, and hardware like the Nintendo 3DS XL and New Nintendo 3DS, there. If Sony really wants all eyes on them at the PlayStation Experience, they need people convinced that the PlayStation Experience will have major announcements. And for that, they need to make major announcements at the event. A new major IP launch from one of their bigger studios seems like the perfect way to do just that, don’t you think?

Fans of the Final Fantasy series got a special treat they were likely not really expecting when E3 2015 kicked off. Square Enix announced that not only were PS4 users going to be getting a port of the original version of the game from the PC, but there was also a full fledged remake of Final Fantasy VII coming to the PlayStation 4 as well.

While fanboys and fangirls were squealing with delight at the massive bit of news, some questions about the timing of the announcement arose as well. The game’s creator and chief producer Tetsuya Nomura sat down with Engadget at E3 in order to answer some of the more obvious question. That question was “why make the announcement of a full fledged remake so close to the the announcement that you were porting the game from the PC over to the PS4?”

The decision seems to, at the very least, undermine the excitement that might otherwise have been felt when it came to the ported game. It turns out, Nomura had exactly the kind of answer that perfectly explains the move. He hadn’t even given the PC port version a second thought.

“I thought it was already on sale. Regardless, there’s really no relation between the PC version and this remake.” He told the website. Nomura also made it clear that the timing of the remake announcement was something he hoped would get people excited about Square Enix and the PS4. “This week at E3 we announced several titles coming to the PS4: not only FFXV, Kingdom Hearts 3, and World of Final Fantasy, but [also] a new Star Ocean and more. Rather than announce the remake after those titles went on sale, we wanted to give gamers something that would make them happy,” he added.

Square Enix almost single handedly soured everyone on Sony’s otherwise pretty well done keynote address at their PlayStation Experience event a few weeks ago, when they trotted to the stage and announced that Final Fantasy VII would be coming to the PlayStation 4; but this would not be the remake like so many people have dreamed of for nearly a decade now, but instead, the PlayStation version’s PC port, brought over to the PC port as is with no changes.

A lot of people were thinking that Square would have the gall to then go ahead and charge a full $60 (or at least $40) for the game; thankfully, the company doesn’t seem to be that disconnected from reality, as it has announced that on the PlayStation 4, Final Fantasy VII will cost $16- still too much for an essentially untouched port of a twenty year old game, but better than paying full price for it.

Final Fantasy VII is finally releasing on the PlayStation 4 in Spring 2015.

Excited yet? Good. Because it’s a remake.

This version of Final Fantasy VII will actually be a port of the PC version that recently came out on Steam. So you can expect quick load times, cleaner visuals and much more. But this is still the same Final Fantasy VII that you’ve been playing since 1997.

But hey, it’s on PlayStation 4 now. So win?

On a more serious note, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII is arguably one of its greatest games ever made and perhaps the best iteration in the series. This is due to the unforgettable story mixed with the Materia system, soundtrack and memorable setting. Regardless of how many times it’s revisited, it’s still a great game.

But are you willing to buy it on PS4 in its original form? Time will tell but let us know in the comments below.

Next gen consoles have come and gone. The same can be said for Final Fantasy games, with the series having seen its highs, lows and unpredictable circumstances. But one thing has stated constant: Players still want to see a remake for Final Fantasy 7, arguably Square Enix’s most successful Final Fantasy game of all time.

Speaking to Eurogamer, series producer Yoshinori Kitase said he personally would like to make the game, but that it would be a tall order overall. “I can honestly tell you I would love to do that. If you simply ask me if I personally would like to do that, yes I would. Definitely. There’s no lie about it. But you must believe me when I say it would take a lot to happen.

“Even if I casually say I would like to do that, because it would be a huge project I would have to motivate myself to the level that I really am prepared to take on this huge responsibility

“I don’t know if those three things will happen simultaneously. It has to tick lots of very big boxes. I won’t rule out the possibility, but it would take a lot to make it happen. But should I ever take it on, it would have to be the biggest project I’ve done. My life work. So I would have to be as highly motivated as that to end up with something I’m very happy with. It’s a huge thing for me.”

One thing is for sure though. With projects like Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III incoming, Square Enix isn’t hurting for fan interest. If they really need the bump in profits though, look for a remake to be on the highest priority.

In case you are thoroughly confused as to what the hell that headline means, and I think you probably are, Final Fantasy VII Play Arts Kai is a range of figures that is modeled on the characters from Square’s seminal magnum opus, available in the UK.

After last week, which saw the launch of two new figures in the range, today marked the announcement of one of the most long awaited characters: Vincent Valentine from the Final Fantasy VII series; Vincent was a gunman who worked for Shinra Corporation, for those familiar with the lore, and his skills are legendary.

The figure captures this by modeling his gun in great detail, as well as recreating every element of his visage painstakingly accurately, down to the trademark red eyes and the crimson red cloak. The figure retails in the UK for a steep asking price of £79.99, but if you’re a fan, something tells me the price won’t bother you.