Hurricane Sandy, for the most part, finished its course on Tuesday. Its effects were – and still are – being felt throughout the East Coast, however.

As a New Yorker, the entire experience was pretty frightening. There are a bunch of large trees scattered around the property – some of which could be healthier – so with each wind gust, I was concerned that one of them could come crashing into the house.

And man… I have never in my life heard the wind howl like it did. We honestly didn’t get much rain here (which probably helped out the trees’ stability), but the wind was enough to drive me insane. When you’re hearing those strong gusts for 12-24 hours, they’ll drive some terror in your heart!

I mentioned earlier this week that our power was cut on Monday. That was around… 6:30 ET. Obviously the lack of power brings about a huge amount of problems. It’s not until it’s gone that you realize how important electricity is in our day-to-day activities.

I notified Austin that he may need to take over NE/GE prior to Sandy’s arrival, yet I still had a pit in my stomach over the fact that I couldn’t contribute to the sites. Am I insane? Quite possibly!

Heading to a Wi-Fi spot during the hurricane was most definitely out of the question. Once the storm passed on Tuesday though, a friend luckily agreed to let me stop by for a few hours for some site updates.

That was basically what it was like throughout most of the week: searching for Wi-Fi spots, heading home at 4:30 ET so I could eat dinner before total darkness, and then spending seven hours in complete darkness. That’s what things were like around the Valay household before the power somewhat unexpectedly returned Thursday night.

Fun times! Well, no, not really.

No traffic lights. No lights in general. No people on the streets. Lots of fallen trees and wires. Property damage.

In the end I’m extremely grateful though. There are thousands upon thousands in the East Coast without power still, homes that have been demolished, and peoples’ lives that have been destroyed. I truly feel for the affected families out there and hope that some sort of normalcy can be established in the future.

Brief picture time!

That’s across the street here. A huge tree fell over and sprawled itself over the driveway, so the people inside this house were stuck inside (basically) until it was chopped up and removed.

A random downed wire. It’s kind of hard to make out in this photo.

These photos were taken a bit further down the block. Lots of trees on the house and on the ground. I’m not entirely sure if their house was severely damaged, but I can’t imagine things being too swell here…

Hopefully this week wasn’t too abnormal for you folks in terms of site updates. I truly apologize for not being able to maintain my usual routines.

Having said that, I really have to thank Austin and Patrick for helping me out. I’d say they were able to replicate updates on NE/GE very well.

Believe me… when I couldn’t get to the sites, it drove me bananas. I literally spend almost every available moment of my time on NE/GE-related activities, and since they’re such integrated parts of my life, being unable to update and not knowing what was going on wasn’t easy!

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Nintendo’s Wii U page has been updated with a bunch of different specs for the console’s web browser.

It’s been reconfirmed that plugins such as Flash won’t be supported. You also won’t be able to save/upload images or video through the browser.

The full list of specs – browser engine, user agent, codecs, and more – can be found below.

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Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion fans can look forward to a lot of replay value in the upcoming game. DreamRift creative director Peter Ong said that over 20 different endings will be included.

“The character rescuing and quest system in the game involves a lot of optional choices the player can make. These choices influence the ending of the game. In fact, there are over 20 different endings to the game, and many more ways to influence how the Fortress will grow by the end.”

Sounds like Power of Illusion won’t be one of those games that you’ll only play through once.

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Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. U ad is being shown across North America – particularly in theaters. Moviegoers will find the commercial is displayed prior to Wreck-It Ralph, which made its debut in the US today.

Be on the lookout for it, folks!

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Practically every game out there has seen some of its content doesn’t make it into the final product. In the case of Muramasa: The Demon Blade, it sounds like quite a few ideas were left on the cutting room floor.

Marvelous AQL producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto confirmed that Muramasa saw quite a few gameplay features and story scenes removed. In case you were wondering, this content will most likely not be included in the upcoming Vita version.

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Ubisoft is teasing a “surprise announcement” on its Facebook page. The notice was attached with the image above, leading to speculation that a live-action commercial could be on the way.

Whatever is planned, we’ll be hearing about it “soon”.

Here’s the Facebook post in full:

“There’s nothing better than a trusty shotgun during a Zombie invasion. ..Well maybe a cricket bat! Get ready for a surprise announcement soon!”

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IGN has gone live with a new preview of Paper Mario: Sticker Star, which is based on the final retail version of the game. Details from the article can be found below. There’s information about Paper Mario’s sticker mechanics, museum, and more.

– Not all sticker attacks work on all enemies
– Can’t hit flying enemies with most Hammers
– Standard Jump attack won’t work on spiked baddies
– Need to learn each enemy’s weakness
– You’ll eventually unlock the Sticker Museum
– Store and view your stickers at the museum
– Museum is huge
– Toad hints that you’ll get a prize for completing the collection at the museum
– Things include electric fans, baseball bats, lucky cats, soda
– If you run across some weird, non-flat object, you can take it back to the main town to transform into a sticker
– Use these stickers to defeat enemies in some extravagant way
– Can also help you find secrets
– Since you can “paperize” at any moment, you can get a different perspective of the world and spot certain areas with big, red squares or glowing purple spots that that nudge you to use a sticker
– Find the right sticker for the right spot and something cool will happen, whether it helps you push forward in the story, unlocks a secret area or yields you some kind of prize
– These areas are all over, sometimes in surprising places

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