Oni's E3 day 1 wrap-up
By Oni 2 Comments
I am at E3.
It's pretty awesome. Today was the first day, and I've already seen a bunch of awesome stuff. Also it's basically everything you probably expect it to be: noisy, busy, and huge. I only saw half of the stuff today, and there was still so much I didn't get to play. Wait times in general weren't as bad as I expected though, except for obvious stuff like ODST (which I didn't see yet). Here's what I did see/play:
Brutal Legend.
Kind of underwhelming. It was hard to hear the dialogue, what with it being so noisy and all, and I bet that game really relies on its charms. Also, it was pretty much the very beginning of the game, as you're just getting your weapons and abilities, so it didn't feature any of the open world stuff or minion control. As such, there was only some basic hack n slash action, which was alright, but nothing you haven't played before. And also the driving, which felt pretty smooth. Will have to see more.Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Lego Rock Band.
It's Rock Band. With Lego characters. Seriously.Dead to Rights: Reckoning (?)
This one took me by surprise. First off, it looks really good. Very impressed by the graphics. Second, it's a pretty satisfying action game. Shooting fools results in slow motion close-ups, and you can pull off some nice melee moves. Also your dog's kills are pretty vicious. I only felt that aiming and shooting was too twitchy, it was actually hard to hit guys and they're not shy about rushing at you with some melee moves. Probably better than the prequels.Dragon Age: Origins
I know a lot of people are pretty hyped about this one. I saw a presentation on it and got to play it afterwards. The story looks pretty good, but like what you'd expect from Bioware: Building relationships with your homies, romances, all that. Combat.. eh. I played it on the 360. Special abilities are mapped to the face buttons, and you can switch between 2 presets by using a trigger, and A just does a regular attack. Combat didn't do much for me personally. I was never a Baldur's Gate guy. It also just feels a little weird playing a game like that on 360. If you like traditional PC RPGs and Bioware games, odds are very good you're going to like this. Everyone else, try it out for yourself if/when a demo comes out.Mass Effect 2.
Only got to see this, they didn't let anyone play it. It looked goddamn amazing. Best graphics on the 360, probably. The cut scenes are even better than before, and this time the dialogue is integrated seamlessly into them. There are even little moments where you can occasionally react to unexpected stuff in a cut scene by pressing the left trigger. It's like a quick time event, except you don't fail if you don't do them, totally optional. They also showed how it is a darker, more cinematic game. The cut scene they showed was a total spoiler, so I'm not going to tell you here, but suffice it to say it was a pretty dramatic event. They also said that it's totally possible to not survive the game, and not in a "Game Over" kind of way, but in a "your Commander Shepard totally fucking dies" kind of way. So you could screw yourself if you wanna take your Shepard into ME3. Also, they confirmed that all the choices you made in ME1 will totally carry over into part 2 if you transfer your save. The gameplay also looked much tighter, with guns that are more accurate, with skills only influencing your special powers and abilities. You can also give orders to your squad mates. Really excited for this game now.Dante's Inferno.
Last game I checked out in detail. Again, only shown being played by a developer. Graphically and stylistically, I love how the game looks. They had Guillermo del Toro's artist design the monsters, and it shows. The environments also look very... Hellish. Which is appropriate. Loved the look. The gameplay was totally God of War, but with a scythe. Quick time events were of course in ample supply. Bosses were suitably big and mean-looking. Also, you get to ride around on the backs/heads of big-ass monsters. Seems like a game worth playing for genre fans because of the high production values and cool setting, even if the gameplay is pretty derivative.So that's it. Tomorrow I'm gonna check out a whole bunch of other stuff. I'm going to try and get into presentations of Assassin's Creed 2, which is apparently hard, The Beatles Rock Band, which is also hard to get into, and Final Fantasy XIII, which is probably the hardest to get into. Also stuff by Activision, THQ and whatever else wasn't in the South Hall.