If there has to be a weak conference, I think Microsoft had it. They started off strong with the next Call of Duty: Black Ops and followed it with the fantastic looking Metal Gear Solid: Rising. My jaw literally couldn’t close because I was in hilarious awe at just how gruesome MGS: Rising is. Cut the way you want. Playing as Raiden with his amazing sword, you can slice, dice and chop enemies every which way. Take that Miracle Blade! Microsoft then continued to show off their exclusives, which are essentially their heaviest hitters of this year. Gears of War 3, Halo: Reach, and Fable III all look to be fantastic games, but what else is new? Oh, that’s right, the renamed Natal, introduced now as Kinect, and we go a bit downhill from here. Remember how Nintendo’s conference was torn apart for focusing on fitness games? Microsoft apparently wasn’t watching. While the Kinect technology is impressive, able to recognize faces and the amount of people on screen, their software lineup is not as impressive. While I do look forward to navigating the 360 menu like Minority Report, the games all focus on parties and children. Want to pretend to pet a cute lion named Skittles? Or do you want to dance like a fool in front of others? If none of these sound like your cup of tea, then Kinect isn’t for you. It’s obvious that this device is clearly meant to take a chunk out of Wii’s audience base, but can you blame them? Nintendo did something right, even if to us core gamers they did wrong. Their final announcement was in regards to the slimmer, sleek looking 360. It comes with built in Wi-Fi and a 250GB HDD. It’s priced the same as a PS3 at $299, and it looks like a great piece of hardware. Oh, and if you were in the audience, a free 360 was waiting for you. Well, if you can awe them, buy them (I’m just a bit jealous…).
Fortunately for Nintendo, all our bitching and moaning from past shows resulted in one thing: a fantastic conference show. We all knew that a new Zelda was coming, and while Zelda: Skyward Sword looks absolutely gorgeous with its new art style, Miyamoto (who teleported magically on stage) had some interference between controller and console. This resulted in a bit of an embarrassing show. Reports have it that Zelda plays just as expected on the show floor, but on stage was probably the worst place for it to go wrong. Fortunately for Nintendo, they recover quite nicely. No longer focusing on statistics, fitness or looking like a fool, we get a plethora of new releases. We see some great gameplay of Other M, the latest installment of Metroid by Team Ninja. GoldenEye 007 makes a return in the form of a remake starring Daniel Craig as the new Bond. Of course, Rare is not a part of the development so honestly, success will be tough with this one. Kirby makes a triumphant return in Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which, despite the ridiculous name, has a great art style to it that’s reminiscent of Paper Mario and might just be some good fun. In another return to form, a new Donkey Kong Country comes to the console, bring back some great nostalgia. There’s a new, intriguing, Epic Mickey Mouse game as well, but if it isn’t Kingdom Hearts, I’m not that interested.
Of course, the big surprise (or at least reveal) by Nintendo is the latest portable in their lineup, the 3DS. Boasting improved graphics, a new analog nub, and a 3D capability without glasses, this seems to be the ultimate DS to own. While no date or price is set, plenty of games and game developers are on board. They showed off Kid Icarus’ return to the gaming world (with the exception of SSBB) and eventually took to the audience to show off the 3DS. Obviously the computer monitor I was watching on could only show so much. From reports, the 3D does work like expected and looks great. This may be the DS I’ve been waiting for since my purchase of the original Phat DS.
Last, but not least is Sony, who definitely had the most entertaining show. They started off by showing stereoscopic 3D games using the glasses, which of course was lost on those watching at home. But they showed off a level of Killzone 3 which looked great. We eventually saw new releases such as LittleBigPlanet 2 and InFamous 2, both of which I’m excited for but not nearly as much as I was when the IPs were still new. Gran Turismo 5 is FINALLY getting released and while I’m not much of a racing fan, the game looks absolutely gorgeous and lifelike. Of course Move was shown off, and they demoed a game called Sorcery, which is a shame because it really should’ve been the next Harry Potter game. Still, the game looked great and between Move and Kinect, it seems Move will be the device of choice for the core gamer. Support for games such as Socom 4 and Heavy Rain is the complete opposite of what Microsoft had to show off. Though that’s not to say the PS3 is without its own boxing or golf game. At the end of the day, the awesomeness of each new motion device really just depends on who’s doing the gaming.
The PSP hasn’t gotten an upgrade, although they are launching a new campaign to get people to play it. Frankly, I say bring out the PSP2. I think that the lack of a second analog nub is really destroying the potential of games on the system.
The entertaining portions come from two men. The first of which is the fantastic VP of Awesomeness, Kevin Butler, Sony’s amazing PR character. He gives an amazing gamers speech that, despite starting off the show with insulting the Kinect launch show, reaches audiences of all consoles. Of course, it’s an actor has the chops to deliver something so awesome as opposed to all these company men who lack the charisma needed to be as awesome. The second man is Gabe Newell, the known basher of the PS3 console. He comes on stage and I’m sure everyone had to be shocked by this. He then announces Portal 2, which people originally believed to not be at the show, and says how it’ll be the best version on any console. This is due to Steamworks which means cross platform multiplayer and hopefully FREE updates (I’m looking at you 360).
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So overall, it was a good E3. Nothing too shocking, but to get a glimpse of new games and hardware is always a welcome. In any case, it’s damn good to be a gamer.
