So, straight into the blog this week, no time to talk about what I’ve been playing ‘cause I got a video game expo to talk about. Please don’t be afraid to skip through whatever of this gargantuan wall of text doesn’t interest you or read part of it now and come back later.
Microsoft
The Microsoft press conference was definitely my favourite press conference of the show this year and the one that really sticks in my mind. For a while I was just sitting back and watching it thinking what I was seeing looked really good but not much blew me away in a really big way. I did think that the whole concept for Tony Hawk Ride was good and the game itself looks like a good play, although I don’t really want to pay that much for the board peripheral. Although I’m not a big fan of stealth games I did think that Splinter Cell: Conviction presented itself really well and the look of the game world and the various elements being projected onto the environment were really stylish. I thought Modern Warfare 2 looked like a lot of fun for those who enjoy the Call of Duty series even if I’m not overly partial to Call of Duty myself. I also thought that Final Fantasy 13 also looked like a game well worth picking up with its combat and the brilliant world the game was set in.
As a huge Halo fanatic I do have to say that I was absolutely glued to the screen in a moment of pure captivation as Halo 3: ODST was shown. I thought the opening of the game came across really well and I liked the look of all the gameplay as well as the darker feel of the games setting and the new firefight mode they showed post-conference. They also announced Halo: Reach and while we have no clue what this is (although I may talk more about this in a later blog) I’m sure Bungie will very gradually reveal details on this mysterious game and at any rate we’ll get to experience it this September in the beta.
So everything was going great for Microsoft and proceedings then reached the point where I pondered whether they were about to wrap things up, when Microsoft unleashed something I was completely unprepared for. All of a sudden I was watching this strange but rather brilliant turn of events where Steven Spielberg was on stage talking about this wondrous new peripheral, the natal. Even trying to keep calm and critical I couldn’t help but get excited over what Microsoft was showing. It wasn’t just the motion capture aspect of it; it was also the voice and facial recognition features which really gave it some of its potential. Although I did think the somewhat controversial “Milo” scene was undoubtedly scripted in one way or another, I think that the basic concept of an interactive computer AI which works with the natal would be possible and very fun at that, even if not quite in the magical sci-fi way Microsoft presented it in.
The 1 thing I wish I could have seen on a Microsoft console that wasn’t there was a Portal 2 or a Half-Life 2: Episode 3, instead Valve opted to showcase a Left 4 Dead 2. This’d be all well and fine but considering the latest series of Half-Life games are supposed to be episodic I think we’re owed at least a glimpse at Episode 3 when Episode 2 was more than a year and a half ago.
EA & Ubisoft
So I knew the EA and Ubisoft conferences weren’t going to be as big as the big three’s but when EA’s hit off it wasn’t too bad. I’m far from being fanatic about anything in the EA Sports franchises but what they showed of Brutal Legend was very entertaining, The Saboteur was interesting in both art style and gameplay, there were some nice trailers here and there and all other content at least managed to hold my attention. Particularly the confusion of Gamespot users tuning into the live stream just as EA began showing everyone The Littlest Pet Shop game. It also seems like Mass Effect 2 is really a step up from its predecessor with much less of the technical issues and a darker story.
I wish I had something positive to say about the Ubisoft conference but sadly I feel like I gained little more than a 2 hour nap from watching the show. Granted it was pretty late when I watched but I was awake enough to properly take in what I was seeing and for E3 I was willing to sacrifice any amount of sleep if I got to see something good. But the only one thing in this conference which really interested me was James Cameron’s lengthy talk on the universe of Avatar he and his team had created; apart from this the only other items of the conference which I really had any interest in were the showing of a very small amount of information about Red Steel 2, the announcement of No More Heroes 2 and to a certain extent the demo of Rabbids Go Home which seemed very Katamari-like to me and could be relatively fun. Most of the rest of the conference was filled with the same Splinter Cell content we saw in the Microsoft press conference, Academy of Champions which still seems like a bad football/Harry Potter crossover to me and a big presentation on games for casual gamers. I understand that Ubisoft are a company and like any company what they aim to do is make money, they are not simply here to entertain me, but while statistics of high profits and exploitable markets are all well and good for those in the business, they risk putting off potential supporters of their games by having a large chuck of their press conference dedicated to flaunting fitness titles and “tween games”. Indeed at the time watching the Assassin’s Creed trailer was good but it wasn’t worth waiting through some of the rubbish that led up to it, when both the trailer and a full demo of the game were featured at the Sony press conference.
Nintendo
For Nintendo I was expecting something amazing. I was expecting to see some awesomely innovative new peripheral or some really inventive applications of the Wii Motion Plus. Sadly it transpired that there was no presentation of either of these things. The Wii Motion Plus however is still looking like it will modify the Wii motion controls in the way everybody wants and it looks like there are some genuinely fun mini-games in Wii Sports Resort, so I think I’ll enjoy that when I get it. Nintendo’s new peripheral, the Wii Vitality Sensor however seems decidedly set around a single idea and seems like the kind of thing that may be used for one fitness game and then simply die. We might get maybe a few games out of it if we’re lucky but I can’t see it being used for anything ground-breaking.
As for the games themselves I’m surprised that I wasn’t more excited over New Super Mario Bros. Wii, although I think this was just due to the way it was presented, with the 4 players in a sort of competitive co-op platformer situation, but with what was broadcast from the show floor later I was able to remind myself “Yeah, this is still Mario and Mario is awesome”. The Wii Fit Plus will undoubtedly be another big money-maker for Nintendo but I don’t think it’s really the game for me, out of the RPGs they showed there wasn’t much that appealed to me apart from the new Mario & Luigi RPG, the new Mario vs. Donkey Kong looked kinda good with the same old gameplay and the level creator, I thought the microgame creator in Warioware seemed like a great feature and hopefully it will be as good a creative tool as they said it would be (seeing the music editor for it was a very promising start), however I was surprised to see no demo or even trailer of Zelda: Spirit Tracks during the conference, but what was on the show floor reassured me that it will be another solid Zelda title.
However the two major announcements for me were the announcements of Metroid: Other M and Super Mario Galaxy 2. As far as Nintendo games go Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the highlight of E3 for me and a second 3D Mario game for the Wii really took me by surprise, of course we only got a glimpse of it but the brief look seemed to give the impression of a game that has more of what we saw in Super Mario Galaxy (which was a phenomenal game in my opinion), mixed in with some fun new content... Called Yoshi. Metroid: Other M looked very different than any Metroid game before it, being less isolated and seeming like it was a game with a story much more driven by character interaction, but I think this will provide a refreshing take on the Metroid series and I’m very interested to see what Team Ninja can do alongside Nintendo on this game.
Sony
Now I don’t have a PS3 or a PSP but I have to say that even I was reasonably impressed by what Sony had to offer. Of course with the numerous leaks this year the announcement of the PSP Go was hardly the most surprising event of the show but none the less there it was even if I wouldn’t want to pay all that cash for the console.
The way the new Uncharted presented itself certainly seemed enticing, MAG looked quite exciting and unconventional even if you will need the world’s best internet connection to play, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker looked okay but it could have done with a few more Snakes, Assassin’s Creed 2 looked very good and fingers crossed this game will have more longevity than the original, Final Fantasy 14 Online was as much a surprise for me as it was to anyone but it none the less looked like another very good game, the trailer for The Last Guardian piqued my interest and had me slightly confused, I’m sure more Little Big Planet won’t be a bad thing and the track editor in Mod Nation Racers did look absolutely awesome.
The big deal at the Sony press conference for me though was their motion control peripheral. No doubt an attempt to improve on Nintendo’s Wiimote, but this kind of thing will be an essential if they wish to survive in the market and if applied to games properly it could (much like the natal) snap up some of those casual gamers that Nintendo have been hoarding all this time, although I do wonder about how well they’ll be able to break into an area of the market Nintendo has themselves so deep-rooted in. However it didn’t really hit me properly until some time after the Sony press conference that none of the motion control devices we saw at E3 are necessarily better than any other; there are advantages to having buttons on your controller and advantages to not having buttons on your controller, there are advantages to having a camera and advantages to having something in your hand. At the moment although I think I probably favour what Microsoft is doing if I have to choose, I see each company’s motion control peripheral as an alternative to the others, not something that is necessarily inferior or superior.
Until Next Year...
It was sad to see E3 end this year but honestly I don’t think I could have properly taken in any more information about all the insane games there. There were tons of great games, some interesting peripherals and overall a whole plethora of exciting, interesting, promising and just plain awesome things that we’ll all have our grubby mits on some time in the future. I’d like to thank you very much for reading and I’ll be writing again next year when hopefully we’ll see more of what made E3 2009 so special.
-Gamer_152
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