This week – at least in the European Union region, the battle is between two Blackrock Mountain Stalwarts, Nefarian and Ragnaros.  The battle is on to see who’s the tougher boss.

Skip past the break and I will explain how it works.

There’s nothing specifically difficult to understand here, but it is interesting to note that it only tracks your wins and not your losses.  We’ll talk about that more in a moment.

This week, the brawl is free [though that might not always be the case, of course – this is Blizzard and they do love their Macro Transactions [go and look at the prices for the new hero trays and tell me I’m wrong.  $10 for an animated .gif?!  Thanks, but no.]] – all you have to do is have a hero of Level 20 or above to access the game mode.

This week’s particular brawl – as mentioned – is Nefarian versus Ragnaros.  If you stick with the brawl for long enough, you’ll see that after each win/loss, you trade places.  So in one game, you might be Ragnaros and in the next you might be Nefarian.

The decks you get are pre-made and the hero powers are pulled directly from those boss fights in Blackrock Mountain.  [For those still playing through that, I won’t spoil anything.]

What I will say is that this doesn’t seem like it was beta tested very well, because the Nefarian deck is absurdly strong against the Ragnaros deck – plus:  Nefarian just starts off stronger, with armor, a four mana head start and an ability that gives him access to more cards.  It’s almost unfair wrecking the Ragnaros player in this set up, because they don’t really get long enough to respond.

The prize for this week is a classic pack with the standard five cards [one of which could be rare or better] – so, for folks new to Hearthstone, this is an easy-ish way to getting a free five cards for your collection.  Given that this is a PVP mode, [at least, it is this week] if you win three brawls [it’s possible to do the brawls as many times as you like as long as the brawl “window” of four days is open – you just won’t get the initial pack you got for wining this particular week’s brawl] you will get the usual ten gold for that win streak.

The mode seems interesting, but balance does need to be addressed – particularly because Blizzard are doing a somewhat very Blizzard thing here and stripping you of “your cards” and “your heroes” and giving you a new set of abilities and cards [a thing they enjoyed doing a great deal in Wrath of the Lich King – and which they later said they regretted.]If you are about to try the brawl, good luck and feel free to let us know in the comments how annoyed you feel whenever you're Ragnaros ;)

Stream crashed for me, now it’s back. I get back, and a guy is on the stage talking about Kratos? What the…ooooh, creators.  And my browser crashed. Come on -.-

Back to Just Cause 3. Ok, so they've upgraded the grapple features. Nice. Game launches December 1st (or was it 3rd?) 2015. Busy time. I doubt they are doing themselves many favors there. Story trailer now. Some small time dictator wants globals domination. Ok, it’s Just Cause, I excuse it. Combat and grapple looks cool. Lots of shit blowing up, even riding a rocket. Sweet.
Couple of cool arcade modes with online highscores. Fair enough, but is there a cooperative multiplayer? No? Bummer.

Next game. Early footage. Oooh, Platinum. Some post-apocalyptic world. NieR flashing up on the screen. Boobs falling from the Sky. More Information coming Fall 2015. No wait, more information now: New Nier game for the PS4. A smiling moon takes the stage. It can talk. But nothing of interest has been said.

Tomb Raider. Behind the scene stuff. Lots of “ooh, look at that shiny Lara we made. It’s like real life and not torture porn at all”

Mobile talk now. Tomb Raider gets a Hitman Go style game. Looks Interesting. Lara Croft Go…

Kingdom Hearts now? Sorry Square, my Japanese is a bit rusty. Could you repeat what you just said? The Final Fantasy 7 Remake trailer again. Is this were we find out, that Square was trolling the internet again? No, still sticking to it. No more information however. They still plan on releasing the PC version of FF7 in the winter. It’s also coming to mobile.

And now it’s time for Kingdom Hearts. Some guy in the audience is losing his shit aaaaand it’s a mobile thing. I believe he’s rioting now. Looks like a decent mobile game, but I feel for the guy who was really losing it a minute ago. The game is called Unchained and links into Kingdom Hearts 3. Talking about Kingdom Hearts 3, we finally get to it now. The guy is losing his shit again. Again riots, as we only see 2 people sitting in a room talking PR speak. But nooow…back to talking. Ok, now, no, no, still not. One guy from the video is here, so he gets a cheer. Now? Maybe? Yes. We see Kingdom Hearts 3
It’s a chess game. Ok, looked sweet. But no idea about the Story. Can’t remember a thing about the first one, and don’t get me started on 2. They have a real mess to sort out.

World of Final Fantasy, the Vita and PS4 game we’ve seen at Sony’s press conference. It takes place in a completely new universe? Wow, that’s a first for the Final Fantasy franchise …not!
They believe that people aren’t interested in Final Fantasy anymore because it’s been such a long running series? Square really doesn’t get it.

IO Interactive takes the stage, so it’s Hitman time. December sees a digital release. So no retail? Interesting. It’s based on one time challenges, were your targets can escape for good, with no chance of repeating the mission? Interesting indeed. So no real story? Ok, maybe some story. Some spy faction that recruits fashion advocates? Ah, so only some targets appear one time. And contract mode from Absolution is getting a bigger focus. December 8th. Square Enix is making life hard for themselves. Just Cause 3 and Hitman only days apart in a season that’s already busy as hell.

A new Star Ocean. Fine with me. Integrity and Faithlessness. What a stupid subtitle. PS4 release announced. Why didn’t Sony show that at their E3? People complain about them not having many exclusives to show. There would be one. Ok, now I know. The trailer is bad. Like really bad. Like extremely bad. Coming to North America and Europe in 2016. This is a mess.

Deus Ex! Did she really just say Illuminati? Ok, best not to listen.
In-game trailer now! Yeah! More like cutscene trailer. Looks good though. Visually speaking Some aliasing issues maybe. 30fps at best “confirmed”. Looked quite stuttery, unless this was a Youtube compression issue. Playable at E3, coming early 2016.

Final Fantasy Portal App. Yawn.

A new RPG project by a new studio. Studio is called Tokyo RPG Factory. Guess we’ll only see JRPGs from them. Games working title: Project Setsuna.

I love it when Japanese people who don’t speak English get on stage and read from a teleprompter. You need to have some balls to do that.
That’s all folks!

Within the first hour of that particular stage show going live, the game had racked up an incredible $1 million.

9 hours later, more-or-less the project is completely funded – getting all of its $2 million in that short time.  One wonders just how far – and how fast – this particular Kickstarter will climb?

As per news from E3, this new team is starting a whole new adventure in the land of Daventry in July, 2015.

Follow along after the break for more information.

This new venture will not be in the style of the old games; instead, it will feature a little bit of action along with puzzle-solving elements that utilize an inventory.  The backbone of the first episode will be somewhat open-world in that you should be able to go and solve puzzles in any place and at any time.

The current platforms for release are PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC [via Steam]

Get ready, for your legacy awaits.

Aisha Tyler, still the best thing about Uplay people press conferences, acknowledges their failure in the last year.

Yves Guillemont or however you spell him comes on stage to show us a Samurai, Viking, Knight game. Trailer looks pretty damn cool. Game is called For Honor, but you can’t fool me again. Oooh, actual gameplay coming up. So it’s a co-op game?
Fuck. This looks nice. Not co-op, but versus. 3rd person Chivalry, with slower fights. Really looking forward to trying that out at Gamescom. If you are going to E3, you can so tomorrow.

The Crew expansion. Yawn.

New Trials expansion. Awesome Level MAX. No idea what to say. “You’re a cat riding a fire breathing unicorn”

The Division. Remember: This game is made by 4 development studios. If this isn’t the biggest and best thing ever …who am I kidding.
Same acted voice chat. A Wilhelm Scream. Can’t say much about it. It’s playable at E3. Beta access for everyone not at E3 early 2016, full release is on March 8th 2016.

Blue Byte up next. Could this mean Anno? It’s sci-fi. Looks like you are on the moon. Yep, it’s Anno 2205, you can play on the moon, but you will start on earth. Sounds a bit boring though. Earth is all beautiful and shit, and the moon? The moon is grey.

Cringe moment with Aisha

Just Dance 2016. No camera needed. You can use your smartphone instead. Probably works as well as Kinect. Now some dude singing on stage. Song sucks, singing is bad. WHAT ARE YOU DOING UPLAY PEOPLE?! THIS IS AWFUL?! DID YOU ACTUALLY PAY THEM FOR THIS? You just ruined music for me. Thanks!

Is this the rumored ZombiU sequel? Nope, it’s Rainbow Six: Siege. After some talking we finally see some actual live gameplay. AI is stupid as can be, game looks fun though. Beta starts September 24th and feature PvP & Co-op.

Trackmania, nice! Trackmania Turbo to be precise. If you are unfamiliar with the series, it’s an arcade racer with a great map builder. Ohh, there is also a VR demo available at the Ubisoft booth. Nice! Get the vomit bucket ready.

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. NEXT!
Setting is sweet, no question, but it’s just another AC.

One last thing from the Uplay folks. A new IP? Made by a “very good group” and it’s supposed to be “so good”. There it is, the first mention of the “Cloud”. Nice Soundtrack. Game is set in middle/south-america. You are part on some anti-drug enforcement agency. Ghost Recon? Some Vin Diesel look-alike whit face tattoos. Now come the bullet points. Open world. Nice scenery, looking good. And it’s confirmed, we have Ghost Recon: Wildlands. That whole South American Drug Lord thing made my willy soft, but the game itself looks pretty cool so far.

And that’s it. Stronger showing from the Uplay people than expected. Actually looking forward to some of their games.