DrakeAsh

After the dust has settled at E3 with the Kinect announcements, I am left wondering if I am even interested in buying this product.  Thinking about the new 360 Slim, the question becomes do you wait until Kinect is out and get a bundle or do you spring for one now.  While I have two 360's now after having 5 machines fail on me already, the thought of being able to trade in one for a much quieter system is quite appealing.  Add that to the fact that the storage capacity is much greater and Wireless-N WiFi out of the box it is a compelling product.  At this point I am just wondering if I should wait for Kinect to come out. 
 
After watching much of the video that Giant Bomb has provided on MS's Kinect, I have not seen any game beyond Harmonix's dance game and possibly EA's fitness title that intrigues me in the least.  The truth is, neither of these titles is really high on my list right now as well.  This brings up a major question for this new peripheral.  If we as gamers are not interested in the product right now, I am still trying to figure out how it is going to be interesting for the mass market that does not already own a 360.  Herein lies the crux, because I have the sneaking suspicion that this is going to end up like the Vision Camera.  While it is great to use to see my family down south, there is not a single product on the market beyond this that makes it worthwhile.  I got it used.... cheap. 
 
I am really wondering if there is going to be anything in the next year or so that is going to be anything more than tech-demo games.  Right now, the Move looks a lot more interesting, and this is something that even surprises me there.  In the end, I think this new 360 being launched now is confusing the marketing that they are trying to get out for Kinect itself.  It seems like there is going to be a lot of SKU's out there, and I am really wondering what caused them to release the system now instead of waiting a while for the launch in November.  It would seem to me that having it as a pack-in in every system being sold after the Kinect launch, the market penetration would be much more substantial. 
 
I think I am going to pass on it entirely.  Just a thought....

I am really starting to wonder if Zelda just isn't for me, and that I do not have the same type of nostalgia for it as many people my age have.  Sure, I remember the first one, and it is something that I played for countless hours, but it is not a game that takes me back to a specific time and place in memory.  I guess I am just much more of a Mario person, and that is why I have not really gotten into a Zelda game since the first one.  So, being the show opener, the new Zelda on Wii was not this earth-shattering announcement that I think it was for many. 
 
What really got me interested in Nintendo's press conference was the reveal of what the 3DS is.  They genuinely seem to be listening to what gamers want out of a portable system, and they are taking note of what is gaining momentum in the portable space - but not just in handheld gaming systems.  What is interesting is that you can tell that they have been paying attention to the popularity of the iPhone and what it has done to mobile gaming.  Nintendo has managed to create a system that I am excited for right away, and that is saying a lot since I have not been a day one adopter, if at all, for a new system of theres since the SNES. 
 
The tone of this conference was markedly different from what they have had in the past 4 years, and you could tell that they purposely did this.  It really was not pandering to the casual market and the mass media, but rather there was something there for everyone.  There was not a feeling of alienation, and it was a pleasure to watch it in its entirety.  That is something that has been hard to say in recent memory unless you are a die-hard Nintendo fan. 
 
While there may not have been that one game announcement that got me really excited, I am excited for what developers will be able to create with the 3DS.  There have been some beloved titles on the DS, and I am looking forward to being able to be surprised by many more in the future on the new system.  It is nice to see them bringout a new system instead of rehashing the DS over and over again with slight improvements.  Kirby looks phenominal on the Wii, and it looks like this fall is going to have some interesting titles.  In the end, this was a very strong presentation backed with some strong announcements and exciting new tech.  I am truly hopeful that the 3D ends up being something game changing and brings in some new ways to interact with the titles that we have come to love in the Nintendo pantheon.

Sony is the second press conference that I watched, and I will be watching Nintendo's tonight as everyone is saying that it was the best one.  What is clear is that Sony is behind the tech of the PS3, and is really making an effort to become the market leader of games in 3D.  While I am not sure if this is something that I really want, at least it is something that is not taking away from the regular experience as both versions are on the disc.  The question will be is if the 3D version will be given the attention that it needs to really make people want to invest in the costly upgrades. 
 
The thing that surprised me the most is that there were no real bombshells besides Portal 2 with Steam support for the PS3.  What seemed lacking is a mega-blockbuster title coming in the fall.  After seeing GT5 for 4-5 years now, I am not sure if that is going to be able to hold that weight like a new Uncharted would be able to.  I was really hoping to see something from the ICO and Shadow of the Colossus developers, but alas there was no news on that front.  I know that there is going to be some wonderful 3rd party titles, but for both Sony and MS, it is clear that the Spring of 2011 is going to be where a lot of the exclusives are going to come out.  Maybe this is a smart shift for both companies, as it allows for some great content to come out practically year-round instead of the insane 4th quarter of years past. 
 
We would be remiss not to talk about Move, and at least it seemed better than the Kinect games that were shown in Microsoft's press conference.  Neither product really has convinced me to spend the money on upgrading to them, but it seems like the Move has more real tangible influence on major games being produced.  The inclusion of Dead Space Extraction with Dead Space 2 makes for a really interesting and strong package, and it is going to be interesting if more companies start to do this.  In the end, I am not sure if there is a killer app for either platform on the horizon, but I am hopeful that eventually there will be something.  I just won't be upgrading on either platform until that happens.  All the waving and voice recognition in the world will not make me spend the rumored $150 on Kinect.  At least the Move is a bit more affordable, but that is if you don't need to buy several remotes and sub-controllers.  Like the Wii proved, that can become an expensive proposition. 
 
It was nice to see Kevin Butler deliver a great performance as I was not sure if this would translate in a live show, and the feel of the show was much better than the fake fun that was included in the Kinect demos.  A solid performance for Sony, but we will have to wait and see what comes out in the next couple of months.

Having watched the vast majority of the conference now, I am not sure if I am more excited for Kinetic than my "meh" feeling about it before.  While some of the stuff looks great in theory, I am not convinced that It is going to be able to have much of a market penetration enough to make it worthwhile for developers to really utilize the device.  This is the problem that I have talked about before, and it is still the largest hurdle for the device.  The voice recognition seems to be the best thing that they have going for it, and even this does not excite me all that much.  The thought that I would not want to press two buttons on a remote is a bit far-fetched.  I have not been bemoaning the annoyance of having to control games and electronic devices through a remote for the past 30 years. 
 
I was just very underwhelmed by nearly all of the software announced, and especially the 1st-party games that MS announced.  Those titles seem thrown together, and if they are going to ask $60 for those titles I really don't see them selling.  The main problem that I see is that there is not that killer app that the mass market can really attach itself to.  Then there is the fact that the market that MS seems to be going for is the casual Wii owner, and I the cost associated to get into these games are quite prohibitive.  I may change my mind if there is something mind-blowing at the end of the conference, but the whole conference comes across as canned and quite fake.  None of these MS exec.'s are able to connect to me, with the only person so far doing a good job being the gentleman presenting the Kinetic movie/music support and the ESPN presenters.

Having the Ion Drumset already, this is an easy purchase.  Plus, if the Pro mode is available in guitar as well, which it looks like it will be, this is the fresh breath of air into the series.  I love the series dearly, and I have pumped in more hours and money than I care to realize, but it has been a lot of fun learning to play the drums through this game.  I am all for the innovation, and Harmonix seems to always get it right.  

 After playing GD:RB for a couple of hours tonight I have to say that I am impressed with the title as a whole.   After reading the review on GB about it, I was a bit unsure if I was going to be a fan of the game as I am not a die-hard fan of Green Day.  Let's just say that I have had a passing relationship with the band, and that is nothing to do with the quality of the songs that they have produced, just the fact that I have been out of the loop of much of music in the past 7 years or so.  Sure, I loved Dookie as a teenager, but that is about the only album that I really have of theirs. 
 
All I can say is that Harmonix really takes care in making all of their games.  I am a die-hard fan of Rock Band, and have put in hundreds of hours on guitar and drums - I have purchased the ION kit, so you know I am a fan of the series - and have dropped hundreds of dollars on DLC.  They really did not disappoint here, and I have to say that the interface that they made in RB:B was perfect for this type of game, and that has translated very well here.  I am hoping that they do some type of variation of this on RB3, as this is one of the games that I am always saying "just one more challenge or achievement" because it is so easy to see how close you are to all of them.  For me, this adds quite a bit of replay value even after completing the game once through, which is more than I can say for much of the Guitar Hero series before GH5. 
 
The song selection is perfect, and really manages to encompass the vast majority of their career, and I have to admit that I forgot about how much I loved so many of the songs.  It has just been a long time since I have listened to a lot of them, and it really managed to bring back a lot of memories.  I really wish that some of the perennial 70's bands would do something like this.  I would really love to play a Pink Floyd version of this game, but it really seems like the band specific games are going to become less and less as the music genre is shrinking quite a bit after last year's onslaught of Hero titles.  Harmonix just oozes attention to detail, and the polish on their games that they make are stellar.  This really makes me hopeful for RB3, and I look forward to playing a lot more of this game in the coming months.