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The Questions I Want E3 To Answer

Jeff gets stuck on the ground, jots down his thoughts on the coming storm of gaming information.

Once you get past all of the livestreams and interviews and spin, E3 is really designed to do one thing. It's there to give the world a glimpse into the future of video games. The press reports on what they see, the retail buyers try to get an idea of which games are going to require larger orders, the analysts... well, they analyze, I guess, and the fans tend to go wild and watch as much of it as they possibly can.

For me, it's usually a tiring, but very rewarding week. It's exciting to see this stuff first-hand and watching the announcements unfold in real-time is positively thrilling, even if we usually know somewhere between 40 and 80 percent of the big announcements ahead of time. Right now, I'm stranded in an airport, getting ready to head south for a week of pre-E3 presentations. It's an interesting bit of pre-show that gives one a good look at what the actual show is going to be. And most of what I see this week will be under embargo. In exchange for getting this early look, I agree not to talk about it until E3 begins. That might sound weird, but it's a reasonably fair trade that helps us prepare for the show itself, which has gotten so big that it's impossible to see it all during the actual show.

With that in mind, this is, more or less, the last time I'll get to speak completely freely before going "behind the veil," so to speak. Here are some of the things I hope we'll find out over the course of E3 2011.

Before we get started, I'd like to thank the Lakers for choking and making E3 slightly less riot-filled.
Before we get started, I'd like to thank the Lakers for choking and making E3 slightly less riot-filled.
== TEASER ==

Nintendo's New Console

Obviously, this is the big question mark, though that question mark has gotten a bit smaller over the weeks as more and more developers start to slip out whatever details they've heard as work begins on crafting games for Nintendo's next machine. The rumors sound like they're true, and all that "embedded screen in the controller" stuff sounds like it's actually going to happen. And other publishers have gone on the record in vague terms, such as Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot, who has said that his company will be able to "leverage a lot of the work" that it's already doing for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. That can only mean that Nintendo's box is at least as powerful as those machines and will have the sorts of controllers it needs to have to duplicate those other consoles' experiences.

But how powerful will it really be? Will this be a full step up? Or a Dreamcast-like half-step that puts Nintendo slightly ahead of the current machines? Actually, maybe a better question is something like "what does a full step even look like right now?" Or how about "they can't really be serious about shipping this thing with only 8GB of internal storage, can they?" Sounds like they can. But until we see the games, it's impossible to know for sure if that'll have any meaningful impact on the games themselves. Also, will it interact with the 3DS at all? How will the controller-screen-things be used? OK, maybe that's more than one question. But I suspect you'll all agree that this thing is already most interesting thing at the show... that we already know to expect, anyway.

The NGP

No Caption Provided

Hardware news rules the show. It always does. While select members of the press got an early look at Sony's next handheld in Japan a little while back, E3 will probably be the first big blowout for the device. Expect newer versions of games we already know about and announcements of new products for the platform.

We'll also probably hear more about the North American release of the system, like a launch date and price, as well as whatever details they've got on how the device's 3G connectivity will work in this territory.

Oh, and hey, how about the name? They can't keep calling it NGP, can they? Unless Sony's cooked up a good name that still abbreviates to NGP, I can't imagine they'll keep the name. Also, while we're chatting, they can't possibly call it the PSP2, can they? After all this time with "NGP" as its codename, reverting right back to the basic, common, expected name doesn't sound like a great idea. If it's still coming out this holiday season, now's the time to get the real name and firm details about availability out there.

I just want to know if more of the games will be able to do things that can't already be done better on a full-sized console. Or if it'll let me hook it up to a TV and play there, but that's one of those "we work on video of video games and if it isn't easy for us to capture video of the device, it's hard to for us to cover it" sort of desires, I guess.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

You know, for as easy as it's gotten to talk shit about the way Activision does business and the future trajectory of the Call of Duty franchise, it's still just about as easy to get excited about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. But the slider that governs the reasons that excite me about the game has shifted. For Modern Warfare 2, said slider was all the way on the game itself. As far to the right as possible. 100% game. This was Infinity Ward, the series' original developers, returning to create a sequel to the game that shifted the way we think about first-person shooters across all platforms. World at War, still a solid game in its own right, was immediately overshadowed. This time around, the situation has changed. I certainly enjoyed Black Ops, but it's hard not to let all that peripheral stuff creep in. Can Infinity Ward, now apparently being bolstered by two additional studios, do it again? Are the right people still in place to create Modern Warfare 3? Or did they all jet off to form Respawn? The story behind the game, for me, has become at least as interesting and exciting as the game itself. Can they do it again? That, for me, is one of E3's most interesting questions.

Obviously, it'll probably sell just fine either way. But the tide of opinion is turning, and I can't help but feel like this game is either going to cement the franchise's position on a slow, downward spiral or shut everyone up for good. Or for at least another 11 months or so.

Speaking of Respawn...

What are they up to? Yeah, I doubt we'll hear about it during the show. At most, we'll probably get a quick mention during a press conference. But with those guys still sitting in lawsuit land, it's hard to imagine them saying anything. That said, I ain't no psychic, and E3's pretty good at throwing you a curveball or two every year.

But what about the other console shooter developers out there? Bungie's already said not to expect their presence at the show. What about 343? Those Halo remake rumors are getting old and we're still not sure what the future holds for that franchise. Then again, with "Halo Fest" set to take place at PAX this year, maybe that's a better spot for a big Halo-related announcement.

The Writing's on the Wall

No Caption Provided

Will Microsoft play "Connected" by Stereo MCs during/prior to its press conference? Totally called that last year, by the way. While I'm not sure it's what I, as a player, want out of Microsoft this year, I have to imagine that large chunks of its press conference will be devoted to Kinect-friendly software. There's something Alan Wake-related in the works at Remedy, and the speculation puts that firmly in the Kinect camp. I tend to believe that. Remember that old Gears of War Kinect rumor? Wouldn't it be weird to talk about two disc-based Gears games in such a short period of time? At this point I'm just assuming that the Gears thing exists and making ridiculous guesses, but if that thing comes up this year, I almost feel like it has to either be downloadable or built into Gears of War 3. Forza 4, of course, will have to make some sort of appearance, and it looks like at least some of that Kinect-enabled Forza stuff Microsoft showed last year will find its way into the game somewhere.

And What of Sony's Situation?

PSN is partially back and hopefully the healing process can begin. Actually, as I write this, it's down again due to a backlog of password change requests. But you get my point, we're getting close to being able to put this behind us. No huge credit card scams or massive increase in spam has happened as a result of Sony's security breach... yet. I'm still tossing the Sony press conference around in my head, trying to figure out how they'll address the outage. Will the store even be back online by then?

My immediate reaction to dealing with any sort of negative or sad situation is to crack wise. I'm the guy telling off-color jokes in the last row at a funeral. But once the federal government gets involved, it might be best to not make light of something that exposed so much personal information. If this hadn't been quite so serious, I'd say they should trot out that Kevin Butler guy, have him tell a few jokes, then end the bit by having Jack Tretton walking out and firing his ass. The character's pretty tired, anyway, so there's no real harm in painting a fictional character as your scapegoat. Well, except for potentially incurring a load of rage from the large number of angry people and curious government officials that can't take a joke, that is.

So I have to guess the press conference will open with a 15-minute chunk from Kaz Hirai, and he'll recap the situation and talk about the steps they're taking to protect their customers' information more effectively in the future. Companies developing for Sony platforms, especially those trading exclusively in digital goods, could also use some reassurance at this point, as well. Once that's covered, I bet it'll be business as usual.

But Wait...

Obviously, I'm only covering the biggest, broadest stuff so far. But there's more to see and more I want to know about. Here are a few quickies, since this flight's been delayed for an hour and I'm still stuck here on the ground:

The good news is that we'll all have a better idea about these things in a few weeks. The bad news is that Adidas store in Santa Monica is going to be closed by the time I finally get into town tonight. I know you're at least as broken up about that as I am.

Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

212 Comments

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sameeeeam

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Edited By sameeeeam

I wonder if we will see anything from Bioshock: Infinite. Mainly though, I am pumped about Batman.

I'm fairly certain it'll be at the show. I think there was a contest a while back to win a chance to go see the Bioshock Infinite E3 demo.
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brink22

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beard_of_zeus

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Edited By beard_of_zeus
@528seven said:
Wow. It's not often that we see full-on articles like this. I'm a fan.
Word. Thanks for the nice writeup, Jeff. It's like all my thoughts have been converted into an article on the internet!
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EchoForge

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Edited By EchoForge

Kaz and co. have to bring up the PSN issues; it would likely still be too open a wound at that point. They can't ignore it but they cannot make fun of it; if something happens down the line (ie. the exposed credit cards go nuclear), then people will look back at any humourous attempt in a sour manner as well, so I don't see how they cab laugh it off.

I'm MORE curious about any potshots Nintendo and (especially) Microsoft will take.

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Swordfish9

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Edited By Swordfish9

What about Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO? Will there be any news or release date announcement?

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leejunfan83

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Edited By leejunfan83

where the fuck is spec ops the line looked ok probably got canned 

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GreggD

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Edited By GreggD
@Brackynews said:
@p_p_o_d: Now now, there's no reason to be ungentlemanly about it.I am hoping for an illegal amount of Paul Barnetts.
Any amount of Paul Barnett is illegal because he's so good, he must be bad for you. 
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Daveyo520

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Edited By Daveyo520

Oh god, it is too soon!

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AllanIceman

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Edited By AllanIceman
@weeman105 said:
@rjayb89 said:
Wait a second.

That said, I ain't no psychic, and E3's pretty good at


Good at what? Good at whaaaaat?

WE NEED TO KNOW!
Just wait a bit until Jeff gets WiFi on the plane and he can fix the typo.
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Blackout62

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Edited By Blackout62
@awesomeusername said:
Where's Agent Sony and Rockstar!?!?
Dude I totally forgot about that game but now that it's back in my head I demand an update on it!
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godzilla_sushi

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Edited By godzilla_sushi

Great write-up Jeff. I've been thinking about how soon Forza 4 actually is! It hasn't been that long since they've released a massive and substantial release. Are they just going to stack on top of that content or make a dramatic change as big as Forza 2 to 3 was. Rally racing would be a great addition from the Turn 10 guys, but would there be enough of that to make a new purchase worthwhile. I can't wait to see!

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AgentofChaos

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Edited By AgentofChaos

Seriously! 2K Show us some X-COM!!! That was something I was vaguely interested in.

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peetr

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Edited By peetr
@rjayb89: Shut up and take my money.
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Cirdain

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Edited By Cirdain

Konami ftw!!!!!!!

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sameeeeam

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Edited By sameeeeam

I need Kojima to announce something crazy this E3.

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Funkydupe

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Edited By Funkydupe

My question is, where is SWAT 5?

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MisterMouse

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Edited By MisterMouse

7.75 million!

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TadThuggish

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Edited By TadThuggish

You forgot Metal Gear Solid Rising.  I almost did, too.

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StealthRaptor

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Edited By StealthRaptor

I need a Bioshock Infinite update!

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SaturdayNightSpecials

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@Funkydupe said:

My question is, where is SWAT 5?

My dearest wish for E3 is that Irrational will announce they've canceled Bioshock Infinite to work on that.

But let's not delude ourselves: it's never happening, and if it does it will be some scripted corridor-shooter bullshit where you kill suspects on sight.
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dtat

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Edited By dtat

Fantastic article, Jeff.

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deactivated-5a46aa62043d1

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Who's going to walk out on some press conference stage and change everything forever?


That seems strangely portentous. I wonder if Jeff has some inside info on something big?  Or was he just ruminating?
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wumbo3000

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Edited By wumbo3000

GODDAMMIT LAKERS! why did they have to lose....i want my lakers winning the nba finals and e3 on the same goddamn week just like last year. sigh...gotta wait until next year i guess.

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bybeach

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Edited By bybeach

Good article Jeff. I appreciatte that you are contributing while out of town. I hope this week does what it should do and help you target your itinerary for E3.
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617_jbug

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bosshog70

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Edited By bosshog70

I'm hoping for Black 2 info

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Kajaah117

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Edited By Kajaah117
@617_jbug: Yup. That's actually where I first read the news.... well, it was actually it was the from the Game Informer Facebook news feed. The world we live in. -_-
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Edited By Twinblade

am i the only shocked at the lack of BF3 in this article? They're going to finally reveal the multiplayer, i don't know about anyone else but thats definitely what im most excited for.

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recroulette

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Edited By recroulette

My only real big question is will there be a The World Ends With You 2?

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PhilESkyline

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Edited By PhilESkyline

I would not be surprised to see a Kinect and Skype in-game chat demo for co-op and online play games such as Call of Duty.

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234r2we232

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Edited By 234r2we232

Super excited at the possibility of X-COM news. I'm ready to be blown away, 2K Marin :D

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Edited By awesomeusername
@Blackout62 said:
@awesomeusername said:
Where's Agent Sony and Rockstar!?!?
Dude I totally forgot about that game but now that it's back in my head I demand an update on it!
Yes, we do!!!! Let's go show SONY and Rockstar who's boss Ramona! Just pull a mallet out your bag and smack them!
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@Soapy86 said:

Who's going to walk out on some press conference stage and change everything forever?

That seems strangely portentous. I wonder if Jeff has some inside info on something big?  Or was he just ruminating?
Probably referring to Wada's appearance at Microsoft in 2008.
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Lonely_Ogre

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Edited By Lonely_Ogre

New Smash Bros!! ;) (That won't happen for a long while)

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Edited By BD_Mr_Bubbles

Sucks about the flight delay, but have fun Jeff!  
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Ontheocho

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Edited By Ontheocho

Certainly a strage year for E3.  It seems that Nintendo is breaking all the rules for a new console generation.  I would ask, is the concept of a console generation as we used to know it dead, or is Ninento piggy-backing on 360 PS3 technology for a truly current gen console while Microsoft and Sony prepare for the next gen further down the road?

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deactivated-6071c19eec72a

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I just can't wait for the Konami press conference, it was literally the funniest thing I've ever seen.

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Jackel2072

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Edited By Jackel2072

Yeah Rockstar what ever happened to Agent? That was a Rockstar North joint so i have pretty high hopes for that one. What better way for all of us to forget about the whole PSN thing, then showing some gameplay of that? 

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Edited By LiquidPrince

Metal Gear Rising will hopefully be shown...

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Edited By vigorousjammer

Things I'm NOT expecting from E3, but would be SO EXCITED to hear about:

- Yu Suzuki comes out and says they're making a Shenmue III
- Somebody announces a new Jet Set Radio game
- Sega WoW announces that instead of a new Valkyria Chronicles, they're working on Skies of Arcadia 2, clearly the better of the two series.
- Maybe Power Stone 3? hm? maybe?

Of course, SEGA has moved on to other stuff and abandoned all of these franchises... blah!
wait Power Stone is Capcom, right?
anyways, SEGA should go back to the good ol' Dreamcast days.

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tracerace11

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Edited By tracerace11

Dang it! I so wanna read this, but it is freaking 1 in the morn man..... it will be here when I get up........


(starts reading)
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Aegon

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Edited By Aegon

Damn Jeff Girztman, you write fast.

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Edited By MiniPato
@LiquidPrince said:
Metal Gear Rising will hopefully be shown...
Man, if we don't get any solid MGS Rising gameplay, I will be pissed. At least give us the story context or something. As disappointed as I was with MGS4, MGS Rising manages to give me that pre-MGS4 hype. Just seeing an MGS game (whether you consider Rising an MGS game or not) on a current gen console gets me excited since we only really had MGS4.

I'd also like to see Battlefield 3 multiplayer footage. It'd be interesting to see if BF3 can at least minimize the MW3 hype that is sure to surge and also if the multiplayer holds up to BF2.

Some goddamn Final Fantasy Vs. 13 for a change. Heck, ANY new JRPG for PS3 and 360. But mostly VS 13, cause I get the feeling Squeenix is shitting their pants not knowing what kind of game Vs 13 is supposed to be.

Extensive Dark Souls demo displaying all the features of the game.

Looking forward to the inevitable Uncharted 3 demo featuring some crazy set piece moment.
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LiquidPrince

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Edited By LiquidPrince
@MiniPato said:
@LiquidPrince said:
Metal Gear Rising will hopefully be shown...
Man, if we don't get any solid MGS Rising gameplay, I will be pissed. At least give us the story context or something. As disappointed as I was with MGS4, MGS Rising manages to give me that pre-MGS4 hype. Just seeing an MGS game (whether you consider Rising an MGS game or not) on a current gen console gets me excited since we only really had MGS4.I'd also like to see Battlefield 3 multiplayer footage. It'd be interesting to see if BF3 can at least minimize the MW3 hype that is sure to surge and also if the multiplayer holds up to BF2.Some goddamn Final Fantasy Vs. 13 for a change. Heck, ANY new JRPG for PS3 and 360. But mostly VS 13, cause I get the feeling Squeenix is shitting their pants not knowing what kind of game Vs 13 is supposed to be.Extensive Dark Souls demo displaying all the features of the game.Looking forward to the inevitable Uncharted 3 demo featuring some crazy set piece moment.
Wait wait wait... you didn't like MGS4?
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tebbit

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Edited By tebbit
@Snipes424 said:
I just can't wait for the Konami press conference, it was literally the funniest thing I've ever seen.
"one meeeeeeelion troops"
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Vexxan

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Edited By Vexxan

I really wonder what Microsoft's gonna show, I don't really care for Kinect so I hope that it won't steal all of all show time again this year.


GIVE ME MORE ALAN WAKE!!
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Lifestrike

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Edited By Lifestrike
 "That said, I ain't no psychic, and E3's pretty good at"

No Caption Provided
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MiniPato

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Edited By MiniPato
@LiquidPrince said:
Wait wait wait... you didn't like MGS4?
As an avid MGS fan who played through MGS1,2 and 3 maybe 10 or so times a piece, I was disappointed with MGS4. It was easy and the story left me unsatisfied. I loved Peace Walker though. Story was okay in Peace Walker as MGS4 lowered my standards for future MGS stories. But I won't discuss it further here.

Also, I want to see if Kojima announces a new project at E3. Or if he's to busy being president of Konami to be working on a new Zone of the Enders or what not.