Special Wrap-Up: Pre-E3 Edition

E3 is almost upon us now. For many people, this event is like Christmas morning, your birthday, a trip to the toy store and Jack Thompson’s disbarment all wrapped up in one glorious week of advertisements. Some of our staff is already in Los Angeles as we speak. Unfortunately, there was only enough available room for a few people at the hotel room they were going to and my cunning plan of stowing away in the luggage compartment disguised as a large box full of Twizzlers didn’t exactly work out. So, the Operation Rainfall Retro Commercial Research Team (in other words, me) will be staying behind this year. But hey, this means that you’ll get some entertainment for this week’s Special Wrap-Up in the form of what is arguably Nintendo’s best E3 moment of all time.

Here are the highlights of this past week.

We share our predictions about what will happen at this year’s E3.

Square Enix announced that they’ll reveal the “Future of Final Fantasy” at this year’s E3. Although, some of that future seems to have been revealed a bit prematurely, as Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has been pushed back to 2014. Ouch.

In this week’s debate, Jeff Neuenschwander and Guy Rainey debate about the Xbox One.

On that note, Jeff Neuenschwander shows what he thinks of the new Xbox One in the form of a future conversation with it.

Tales series producer Hideo Baba states that there are currently no plans to bring the franchise to next-gen consoles.

Crystal Baltimore reviews Bad Bots for PC/Mac and Jonathan Higgins reviews Lunar 2 in this week’s Games of the Past review.

Final Fantasy Tactics S, a new entry in the Final Fantasy Tactics series, was recently announced for mobile platforms.

Crystal Baltimore talks about the main character of Lucky Star, Konata Izumi, in this installment of Building Character.

Club Nintendo recently revealed its next selection of games available, including Super Mario Bros. 3, Metroid II, and F-Zero X.

Jonathan, Jared, and Randy sit down with Denis Dyack of Precursor Games in this week’s Downpour Podcast.

Rumor has it that Square Enix is making a sequel to Bravely Default: Flying Fairy.

Jodie Langford takes a look at InuYasha in this week’s Anime of the Past review.

Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F has finally been announced for an international release for this August.

We’ve teamed up with Language Automation Inc. for a new localization project.

Finally, we listed our Top 10 picks for the next Smash Bros. game.