Or as I like to think of it, Christmas for gamers. This is my absolute favourite week of the year – yes, even more than Christ’s birthday (sorry bro). It’s a week filled with games, surprises and media mayhem. This year was particularly great because all three console juggernauts Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony showed off their new hardware. I'll start off by giving my thoughts on each company's press conferences, starting with..
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Microsoft: Okay, so apart from Metal Gear Solid: Rising (which I don't doubt will get some sort of censorship in Australia), Halo: Reach and the relatively humble display of space dogfighting, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and Dance Central, the show was rather bland. Most of the other items presented were ones already announced at an earlier time or just had little impact at all. Well, except for the 360 Slim reveal and announcement that everyone in the audience gets a free bribe - err - I mean unit. Kinect Sports, Kinectimals, Kinect-other-stuff just looked like knock offs of other efforts (or lack of) already done on the Wii.
And I know what most people are probably thinking - "Uhh, Call of Duty: Black Ops?". Come on, it's more Call of Duty. The only impressive thing about that preview was that it looked like an Infinity Ward game rather than a Treyarch game. With the abundance of high-octane military shooters already released and the ones still on the horizon, is there really reason to keep being so excited about these games? No, no there isn't.
As for my thoughts on Kinect itself... Well... There's a lot of potential there. But then again, there's always a lot of potential with new hardware, it's just a matter of developers thinking more with their heads and less with their wallets - and in most cases that's too much of an ask. Harmonix's Dance Central looks like a great new dance game that you actually dance to. I enjoy going out with friends and dancing every now and again, but hopefully this game'll help me learn some new grooves to bust out for the chicas.
Nintendo: If you've read my rant on Nintendo from last year, then you'll know that I've grown to become really disappointed with them over the last few years. I honestly didn't know what to expect out of their upcoming conference, so judging by their efforts over the last three years I decided to go with low spirits. Passed the first twenty minutes of an incredibly awkward demo of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword by Miyamoto (God that was hard to watch...), the briefing really picked itself up and worked to be the best conference of the show. So many great announcements were made such as Donkey Kong Country Returns, Goldeneye, Kirby's Epic Yarn and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Then there was the 3DS reveal and the myriad of announcements (on and off-stage) for that console as well - Kid Icarus: Rising, Nintendogs + Cats, Metal Gear, Lylat Wars, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil, Super Street Fighter IV, Animal Crossing, DJ Hero, Kingdom Hearts, Pilotwings, Mario Kart and Paper Mario just to name a few. There were also quite a few new features mentioned by Ninty such as 3D photos thanks to the front-loaded stereoscopic cameras, a “tag mode” not unlike bark mode in 2005’s Nintendogs, improved processing power that’s comparable, if not more powerful, than the Wii and an analogue nub. With so many titles already announced – a lot of them supposedly aiming for the launch of the handheld – the 3DS has the most potential out of the upcoming hardware list to be the best piece of gaming hardware yet.
All of my nerdgasming aside, it’s a safe bet that Nintendo “won” E3 this year. However, with such huge announcements this year, there is very little for Nintendo to expose next year other than a successor to the Wii – hopefully catching up to current-gen specs in HD performance – and franchises like Pikmin, F-Zero (please Ninty, pleeeaaase), Fire Emblem or possibly even a stand-alone Yoshi title. I’m extremely happy that they’ve decided to shine the spotlight the hardcore crowd, it’s just that I’m afraid they may have put all of their eggs into one basket.
Sony: Hoo boy, if you thought Nintendo had a lot of stuff going on during their show, Sony’s was a huge mash of content. The presentation went for over two hours and most of it was already stuff the public knew, however there were some great moments – like Kevin Butler’s “impromptu” speech.
[This blog-post is unfinished due the increasing lack of interest in writing it. I started it a couple of weeks after E3 had finished and at that point the news had already spread all over the interwebs so there was really no point in giving my views on it. Sorry peeps.]
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