As of this writing, Tavern Brawls – the new game mode for Blizzard’s free-to-play collectible card game Hearthstone have started up.

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.

When you get into the game, an extra tile has been added to the menu – this new tile is the “tavern brawl” mode.  Clicking on it brings up the brawl screen – there’s a large banner declaring what you have to do, a little treasure chest off to the left letting you know what you’re going to win this week, a counter of how many brawls you’ve won, a big “brawl” button and a timer up at the top telling you how many days remain in the current brawl.

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 ;)

I am almost done with my E3 "coverage" for this year. Good. Need to play some games now.

Square starts with a Just Cause 3 trailer. Nice one.

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!

On June 15, 2015 at approximately 16:00 on the Sony stage, Ys Net’s Yu Suzuki told us about his dream project:  Shenmue III.  And then, of course, a timer started.  That timer lead directly to the Kickstarter page.  His request was clear:  help save Shenmue III.

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?

King’s Quest – a venerable gaming franchise from the 1980’s is slowly but surely coming back to life.  It is being bought to modern audiences through the combined efforts of a reborn Sierra On-Line and a development studio known as The Odd Gentleman.

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.

King’s Quest will be an episodic game that tells stories from the history of King Graham’s many feats and accomplishments.  The first such instalment tells of how he became a knight in Service of King Edward and is called A Knight To Remember.

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.

You should already be familiar with how I do this, so enjoy more brainfarts from the conference. -Dr. S

The Uplay people start out strong. A new South Park game, The Fractured But Whole. HELL YEAH!I was thinking about skipping this one, but South Park!It’s a successor to The Stick of Truth, and it’s all about your butthole. They promise that it’s going to be a much better game than the previous one.

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.

Microsoft shocked us previously by announcing mods for Fallout 4 on the Xbox One. Now Todd Howard shared some more information.
Most importantly: Mods are also planned for the PS4!

The modding tools won't be available at launch, but like with Skyrim, some time after launch. Xbox will receive mod support early 2016 first, after that, and if everything works out, the PS4 will receive them.
However we don't know which mods make it onto the consoles. Do all the mods work? Unlikely. Will it be a curated mod system? Likely. Does this mean paid mods? Could very well be.
Your thoughts on this? Share them in the comments.

Same deal as with Microsoft. Not a real recap. Very personal opinions that don’t reflect anyone elses but mine. – Dr. S
(Video of the conference as soon as it’s available)

EA starting with Johnny Cash and Mass Effect! Big opening.
Mass Effect: Andromeda, Holiday 2016

Need for Speed, yeah, we know. The Screenshots look good and it looks like the much beloved NFS: Underground series. Release November 3rd. It’s something for my EA Access vault probably, but something I look forward to.

Star Wars the Old Republic gets an expansion October 27th. Knights of the Fallen Empire will be free to subscribers and story focused. Don’t know. Tried out TOR, but didn’t really get much into it. Not big on the whole MMORPG thing.

Lots of thumb pressing going on now. Maybe he isn’t sure about the reaction the next game gets: Unravel.
Looks cute. The guy on stage now is super shaky and nervous. Makes it way more interesting than some EA business guy talking like he’s on sleeping pills.
Now some gameplay. 2D action platformer. You use yarn to swing and jump around places, or drag stuff around. Looks super adorable.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. The game will feature a couple new characters and cutscenes in the co-op. Not much else new. Characters can be transferred from GW1 to GW2. Free content updates are also promised.

NHL. Last year’s was shit on launch, so I don’t care. PGA Tour…next? Ultimate Team talk….next!
NBA Live…AHAHAHAHA. Well, who knows. Last year’s was decent, but still miles behind NBA 2k.

Mobile talk. I think I stop this until they get to Star Wars.
That was quick. A Star Wars CCG. Not what I wanted. And now a minions game. Just kill me.

FIFA 16. It’s supposed to be really good. Pelé talking stuff. Wait a second, last time he was involved with a football game, it was Academy of Champions: Soccer for the Wii by the people behind Uplay. It sucked. Not a good omen. Nah, it has nothing to do with me not liking Pelé. Pelé rambles on for about 10 minutes about women who touched his head. Boring stuff.
Defensive play is supposed to get a major overhaul. Really needed in my opinion. Messi is doing motion capturing. Little present for FIFA 15 Ultimate Team players: You get Messi and Pelé for free.

Mirror’s Edge. Looks nice. Again a very clean style and all. Bad guys are called Kruger. Of course, it’s a game dealing with futuristic fascism after all. Release: February 2016.

Back to sports with Madden. I care about FIFA, less so for Madden. So could we continue with something else? I want a Blitz: The League.

Now it’s time for Star Wars: Battlefront. PR talk. More PR talk. The Swedish accent makes it a bit more entertaining, though not exactly easier to understand. And I believed mine was bad.
Actual gameplay now. Finally!
Visuals look good. Gameplay…well, what we’ve seen is clearly scripted. But it could be amazing. Either way, I’m stoked for it.That’s it. Well, it was an EA conference. Too little Mass Effect info. Battlefront looks good. The rest? Not bad, but far from really interesting.

It’s by the director of Metal Gear Rising, comes in a cell-shaded optic and features 5 playable Autobots. The game will be released October 6th for both last gen and current gen consoles.