Gee3
Not sure how to feel about the stripped down, industry friendly E3 this year. This time the public is relegated to the sidelines forced to watch imbedded videos like the rest of us unfortunate shlubs have to do year in, year out. Which can be a good thing as content is worth more than parlour tricks. With a shorter, leaner show developers and manufacturers needed to show polished products. The big hitters delivered for the most part, on everything but a major announcement.
Microsoft's yawn-inspiring opening gave one thrill, new footage from Mass Effect. Bioware is inspiring the same fan loyalty as production houses like Blizzard and Id have developed through immersive storytelling and gameplay. The combat will be squad based, real time with the ability to pause and issue commands. To be released in November.
In my opinion, the big news regarding the 360 is the no-news surrounding the red ring of death. As a consumer, I'm more inclined to spend for a PS3 than a XBOX 360 as the latter has been plagued by system-killing technical problems. I don't want a doorstop upon end-of-warranty. I want a faithful system that will play as last gen consoles did. Forever.
By the way, anyone really care about the Halo 3 special Edition 360? Would have been more impressive with a bit more room to grow (20 GB). Oh, and maybe the fucking game?
Gears of War coming to PC. Not a shocker. Cliff Bleszinski's announcement that it will contain new maps, campagin chapters and even bosses (?) exclusive to the PC platform. And DX-10 compatibility of course. I'd expect this exclusivity will be short-lived as loyal fans of the game will be jonesing for the right to partake in the new content.
Sony's PS3 had a great outing after last year's controversies and dubious marketing strategies. Nah, you knew they'd mess up somewhere. In an age of terabyte hard drives, why the fuck are we still quibbling about 20, 60 and 80 GB drives in our consoles? Is it 1998? C'mon, if you want these damn things to be an entertainment hub, at least place a decent sized, decent performance drive in the box.
LittleBigPlanet was salivating. God I need to play this. It seems like any 4 year old with a lot of caffeine and sucre flowing through their veins could imaginate such devices. The gameplay showing the construction of a tank made me squeal.
Devil May Cry 4. Swords, guns, Dante. What else you need? Rachet and Clank, yes please! Those are obvious. One that slipped under my radar that I really am itching to try is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It seems to be a combination 3rd person shooter combined with platformer mixed with the goodness of flicks a la Indiana Jones. Heavenly Sword is code for 'we don't talk about Assassin's Creed anymore' Well, not all of us :) Perhaps the AI and collision detection issues in AC can be settled. The voice acting and delivery and targeting lightning needs improvement so as not to ruin immersion in the game as well.
Nintendo is staying the course. Staying with tried and true IP, they are expanding gameplay options for them. Super Mario Galaxy is looking like the Wii game to need. Mario flying around in a bee costume, beautiful color palette and varied environments, it seems to have everything you want in a Mario game. Unsure if you will get want you want in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, that being online play. An omission of details regarding this may be speculative that it's being left out in the cold. Dragon Quest Swords will leave Japan paralyzed by sick calls and time off work. And Samus will roll, roll, roll in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Admittedly, I'm not too impressed by the trailer. Seems to have a lot of enemies stuck in place, waiting for you to shoot them, like a static Duck Hunt.
When I first saw the exercise pad for Wii Fit, I thought 'Who the hell can do anything on such a tiny surface?' and 'Will my fat, laborious body snap the damn thing in half?' I remain dubious, however some podcasters who had a chance to demo the surface feel its large and sturdy (can't remember which though honestly-a lot of same-day coverage this week).
Multiplatform. I came home to Jenny saying 'Oh my god, you have to see this Star Wars trailer!' We agree on Force Powers. They are good. I would use mine to pull down a Star Destroyer, she would likely Jedi Mind Trick me into getting several fluffy kittens. Resident Evil 5 creeps me out with a strange, Rwanda-like feel. Unreal Tournament III, am I the only one who like Bio-Cannons? No wonder I'm frag-bait. Still one of my favorite FPS's and its getting some tweaks, including a hoverboard.
Made it this far and figured 'what the hell, where's Call of Duty 4 in this pile of slag?' Infinity Ward brings FPS's out of 1939-1945 to give us a feel for the modern era. The demo at Microsoft's press conference was chilling. The moment MacMillan rises from being camouflaged, I just sat with my mouth hang slack. The game will likely follow linear progression and scripted events as similar games of the past, yet the environment feels vast. And surprisingly claustrophobic as enemies slowly advance on the player's position.
PC Gaming. Overall, the real next generation of games appear to be finally catching up with the two heavyweights. The only loser here according to pundits are PC gamers, with not much showing on the horizon. I think they may be reading into this too much as the console giants have the new hardware, and the games to go along with them. Development has finally caught up. PC gamers still have plenty to look forward to, with Crysis coming up, next-gen MMO's running in beta, BioShock, Starcraft 2 and Fallout 3 sure to attract or hold loyal followings. We're still waiting on Microsoft to Service Pack Vista to bring it out of the XP era as well as get DirectX 10 out to the consumer base. My favorite platform is still PC gaming, and I wouldn't count it out anytime soon.
A good showing of games in a poor showing of E3. The console giants appealed to the economists and the game developers appealed to the public. The quality of trailers and in-game footage was incredible. Old franchises got some great new facelifts and in some instances entire redesigns. The best part of this year was the games finally upstaged the personalities in the industry.
Edit: They said it couldn't be done...
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Jen's Mom
My thought remains that, personally, I don't really care to see things at E3 that I'm not going to get to play anytime soon. In Sony's case, there's several games that might even show up at E3 yet again next year. Sure, it lets them show off some new and exciting things, but what does it mean to me anytime soon? I kind of appreciated MS's approach to this... was it super exciting? No. But at least I was given a good idea of why I should be paying attention to the games they have, some coming as early as August.
As for the broken systems, I don't know what else there it to do. They've extended the warranty for that issue to 3 years now. Recalling it would kill them and there's no real proof that this issue will effect every last system (I mean, Sony didn't recall PS2's due to laser issues -- and that seemed pretty damn common too). Honestly, I'm not even aware of a recall that had been made that wasn't related to personal injuries... no one is getting hurt by the 360's issues.
They claim they've got the problem fixed and that new units aren't knowingly messed up. I'd just wait a couple of months and then go for it. As far as this year goes, I still think it has the line-up to beat... and we all know that they don't just have nothing at all for 2008 since they didn't show it at their conference.
As for Wii Fit, I don't know. Wii Sports works because people can play it together. I find it really hard to believe that people are going to come over to my house so I can see their BMI and be told that they're overweight.
Thanks for excusing my typos and grammatical liberties, it was a long post that started in the early morning :)
As a bit of a contrast, personally I like seeing what's next down the road rather than what I'll be playing come Christmas. Mainly as I've read and viewed globs of information on a soon-to-be released title and have already formulated a degree of personal hype based on that information. Just preference I guess.
As for the 360 and its technical wows, true Microsoft has made strides to reassure the public on quality control. I think they need to address the heatsink issue and find some way to turn down the oven. Instead of a recall program, perhaps have a voluntary trade-in program where you pay a nominal fee to trade an older 360 for a refurbished one (say in the range of $50-100?). I would pay for some piece of mind that my system will have life beyond the warranty. Point well taken regarding the PS2. Jen had a launch system and it is woeful compared to the redesigned one we bought several years later.
Lol at WiiBMI. Some podcasters are suggesting a better ue for the pad will come from turning it lengthwise and using it in skate/snowboarding games. This could be a sleeper if it finds the right developer.
Stuff like Fable 2 was apparently shown at the show... There was a new Too Human trailer, RE5. They did have some 2008 presence beyond the conference itself. Something I keep in mind is that MS has its own show (X07) later this year and I'm willing to bet we'll see a lot of that stuff then. Isn't the Tokyo Game Show later this year too?
Something to note is that MS offers an extended warranty for like $25 a year... so after that three year period, you can still have some peace of mind lol. They've had interviews claiming they're not knowingly shipping problematic units. Mine, from what I can tell, didn't break down to heat issues... there's definitely more than one cause to it, which I guess makes it even more of a stupid problem on their part. It's kind of amazing none of this was figured out.
That pad has a few good uses. That's kind of a cool idea. What is the official name for that thing anyway? Does it even have one? lol