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Conference Call: Uncle Lapti Tries to be rational about E3 stuff

By bonbolapti June 7, 2011 1 Comments

Kids, it's that time again isn't it? Hordes of Press and industry folk flock toward The Electronic Entertainment Expo while the rest of us gather in front of our TV screens being harsh critics at everything presented in front of us, just so we can proclaim one company the Champion of E3. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo said their pieces and hoped that you'd join the for the ride. Well did you? Anyone still for Kinect? How about the Play station Vita? That Nintendo thing? ( I imagine everyone is already making that joke.)

Microsoft is probably the Nintendo of years past. The, hey we have this technology, and hey look we're really trying to work it! Look at all these people smiling! All of these families having fun! I wish I had a family.... *cough*

It was a Kinect centric media briefing, still showing off their mini-game collections that I guess are doing well for them... but it was also kind of neat to see it used for the more 'core' kind of games. That Tom Clancy game where you're taking the guns apart and swapping pieces with your movement, as well as voice commands in that and in Mass Effect 3. It was really neat to see! And you could ask yourself “Why do I need to do these things that I can already do with a controller?” Considering how those are just optional tweaks for people who want to make the most out of the Kinect device that they already have, then you have nothing to worry about. If you don't own Kinect, then it was your choice to not get it, but there are people who do have it and would like to make at least some use from it. So this briefing was more geared toward those people. If you happen to be on board for Kinect now from everything they've shown then congratulations?

But that's where I was sitting from... I'm the “not going to bother with Kinect” type, so I didn't get much of anything out of Microsoft, because Minority Report Gaming doesn't really interest me. It invokes the kind of active-ness that'd I'd rather get away from the TV screen. Don't get me wrong though, I commend them keeping up with it. They really want this to work out and it shows. It's a lot of fun little things for families to get behind. And I'm sure if I was a little older and I had some kids that want everything, I would buy into this just because I think it would be fun enough for them to enjoy, regardless of how I feel about it.

Another dashboard update is neat I guess, and the inclusion of streaming live TV from your xbox doesn't interest me because I have cable / barely watch TV anyway. So with all this said, I appriciate what they're doing, I just can't yet sink my teeth into it.

Sony on the other hand is a little bit more interesting, mainly because in the past year I've done a lot more of my gaming on the Playstation 3. There was just a lot more there for me, so I wanted there to be things for me at their Briefing. Did that happen? I'm not sure. Uncharted 3 is pretty awesome only because it's the next Uncharted 3. But that's all I got excited about. The PSVita as interesting as it seems, I'm already Biased towards the Nintendo Handhelds that I don't think it's really for me at all, even at the Vita's price point. Yet, my opinion could change if I got a hands on of the Vita myself, the Over the shoulder camera of play gave me a disconnect from enthusiasm. It's Transfarring from Vita to PS3 seems nice, but perhaps they ought to show more of that in-between. Front and Back touchscreen still seems kind of ridiculous right now. I get the feeling it's a tacked-on thing and not necessarily feels like what the portable is all about.

HD collections of Old games it cool, but it's just something they're going to do now anyway, so I can't be surprised about that stuff. But I will hold out for Final Fantasy XII international edition.

And Jack gets point for probably being my favourite Speaker. From the way he talks I believe he's not a bullshitter, and that a lot of his business seems very sincere. So for him to address the PSN right at the beginning, didn't really have to take balls or is supposed to be necessary , but just very honest. So Sony, had a nice conference, but not a lot of wow. Their push for 3D is expected because they want to sell their Tvs, the 500$ tv is cool, and feels like a smart thing to do though, and It'd be nice to see people on board for it. Too bad it's another thing I'm counting myself out on.

Now let's talk about Nintendo. This is pretty much like Ending the Show with a show stopper, because imagine a lot of people want to stop the show and scream “What the fuck?”, till the cows come home. It's always the more ridiculous with Nintendo because you get the highest percentage of people exclaiming how Nintendo is off their rocker right about now, as if they masses just lose so much faith in Nintendo only because the company is trying something different rather than doing the same thing as everyone else. But it's throwing a curve ball. Nintendo isn't really being ahead of the game in anyway, they're just offering you something new while trying to meet the demands of the current generation. (HD, online) But good press or bad, this is probably going to be talked about the most only because Nintendo didn't really say much about it right now. They want people to come in check it out, and Nintendo wants the questions to continue to build up. The curiosity for this WiiU is constructed from all the confusion and skepticism and The Convention floor has just opened up today, so we can expect to hear more about it in the week and even more as the year goes on till the WiiU's eventual release.

I also came out of it even more excited for the 3DS. I have not purchased it yet, because I don't have the money for it / I've just been waiting for the right thing to come along. (I will be buying RE: Revelations, Day ONE) Mario Kart is a probably going to buy, same with star fox and Kid Icarus (which is all stuff that was mentioned last year, but this is just a re-assurance that it's all still here.) my personal Excitement for Luigi's Mansion 2 has got me stoked for the the 3DS this year, and I can't wait to see what else is in store for it.

All in all, It's up to the 3 party developers to make something for Nintendo, because the big N seems to do so well on their own. People complain that nobody makes games for Nintendo's systems but it feels like nobody is really trying. So now that the WiiU is HD (with whatever bells and whistles are behind it) maybe we'll finally see some 3 part support and then everyone can finally be happy with every system.

Also a lot of personal excitement for Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3 and Uncharted 3. It's the year of threes for me and I couldn't be happier. What have you got out of it? What are you excited for / walking away from? Do we even care anymore?

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