Announcement

 Cooking is fun, especially when you have the right tools. KitchenAid has been making the right tools for decades and their newest mixer will bring years of enjoyment in the kitchen to anyone who uses it. The Artisan Mini Mixer is 25% lighter and 20% smaller than their flagship mixer, so it is perfect for any chef with a smaller kitchen. What recipe would you love to make in the KitchenAid Artisan Mini Mixer? Tell us and you just might win one from Best Buy and KitchenAid. 

 Following a supercharged E3 Expo, and a spring season filled to the brim with blockbuster games, July is comparably quieter month for video games. As such, I’ll be devoting some time to catching up on recently released games, but I also plan on checking out a few new games too. Games high on my radar this month include Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII, Monster Hunter Generations, Batman: Return to Arkham, and a few more!

 In celebration of the upcoming release of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, WB Games hosted an exclusive Canadian media launch event inside the Rogers Centre’s upscale TD Comfort Clubhouse. At the event, not only did I get a chance to try the game early, but also the opportunity to meet Toronto Blue Jays’ starting pitcher R.A. Dickey!

E3 2016 is officially in the books, wrapping up my second year in a row providing highlights on Best Buy’s Plug-In blog, and fifth time overall attending the greatest gaming show on Earth. Now that I have a moment to reflect on the show, I’d thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you all my best highlights of the show!

 My last booth visit at this year’s E3 was Konami to check out the latest version of this popular soccer franchise, Pro Evolution Soccer 2017. The folks at Konami were kind enough to invite us into their private room so that we can play as we please. Melanie and I spent our time learning about the refined controls and updated to get an idea of what this game will offer when it releases later this year for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. 

 This week, Melanie and I took advantage of our time at E3 to stop by the booths of companies offering cutting-edge devices for gamers. These include Alienware, Thrustmaster and Emtec to discover their new GEM Box, a tiny Android box that lets you stream and download a wide range of video games.

 On the final day of E3 2016, Deep Silver and Volition invited me in for a one-hour private session with their brand new action-adventure IP, Agents of Mayhem. This amazing opportunity include a nearly 40-minute hands-on session where I got introduced to the game’s zany cast of characters and experience first-hand the explosive gameplay. Come take a look!

 During E3, Nintendo gave Melanie and I the extremely rare privilege of meeting Risa Tabata, the producer of Paper Mario: Color Splash, who flew in all the way from Japan for E3. Apparently we were the only media in Canada to get this opportunity (wow!) and while we thought this was most likely a straight interview, it turned out to be much, much more. 

 At E3 2016, Xbox held an “International Media event” that gave us access to their entire show floor games line-up for about two hours. With short lines, I managed to play four games: Dead Rising 4, Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 3, and ReCore. Here my impressions of each! 

 At E3 2016, I had a chance to play the first 15 minutes of Nintendo’s upcoming adventure game The Legend of Zelda: The Wild Breath, and it was even more epic than I had imagined. A sprawling open world, the most gorgeous graphics I’ve ever seen for a Wii U, and fascinating new gameplay are only the beginning. This is Zelda like we’ve never seen before, yet at the same time stays true to this beloved franchise. Here are my early impressions of this 2017 title: