E3 2010: Overall Impressions

Well, E3 ended last week and it took me awhile to get to this point as I've been pretty busy over the last week. After thinking about it for a while I decided that E3 2010, like last year, was decent, but nothing mind blowing. The big difference is that most of what was really good about this years showing only came from Nintendo while Microsoft and Sony were weaker than they usually were which I guess I should elaborate on.

Out of the big 3, I think everyone agrees that Microsoft had the worst showing without a doubt. They didn't have have much to present that wasn't already known or guessed at in some shape or form and half of that had to with the fact Microsoft unveiled half of their stuff in the weeks leading up to E3, Gears of War 3 being the biggest spoiler. Last year Microsoft had 90% of their game shown before the conference and this year that total is somewhere around 99%. Microsoft needs to learn that part of the fun in E3 is the surprise and wonder in what new game could possible be shown off. Even worse was Microsoft's Kinect. Their answer to the Wii turned out to be nothing more than a straight up rip-off as every game looked and played a like poor man's Wii game and considering that the 360 is more powerful than the Wii, this is just pathetic. The gadget's use for interacting with the console itself is less impressive than it was last year as it looks like it would be easier to just use the controller, which defeats the purpose of Kinect entirely...I don't know what the hell Microsoft is thinking...

It seems like Microsoft and Nintendo switched places. While Microsoft was trying to damn hard to grab some casual gamer attention, Nintendo actually showed off a surprising amount of new games. Even more shocking is that most of these games are from franchises that the company has ignored on the Wii. The fact that Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Kid Icarus are getting high profile games alongside Metroid and Zelda is nothing short of mind blowing. The only thing they could have done to make this any better would have been holding off on revealing Mario Galaxy 2 last year and showing it now. Nintendo seemed to finally realize that they can target hardcore and casual gamers with their classic series and it paid off wonderfully. Even though I can't comment on the system, the way they handled the 3DS unveiling was just the icing on the cake. It truly was Nintendo's E3...

Sony managed to convince to buy a PS3 last year with they're comparatively stronger showings and its a purchase I haven't regretted yet. I've play my PS3 more in the past 6 months than I played the 360 in the two years I've had the thing. Sadly, Sony fell in the same trap Microsoft did, only they aren't in as deep. Only Twisted Metal was a true surprise announcement and everything else was shown beforehand. It doesn't speak well that the game I'm most excited for is The Sly Collection...a group of games released roughly 5 years ago. Sony's games are at least more interesting than Microsoft and I say that I'll actual try to play most of them. Their attempt at a Wii counterpart, The Move is somewhat more respectable as it appears to work much better than the Wii does and the games seem kinda interesting, but like Kinect it seems to be 4 years too late. Unless casual gamers with a Wii happen to also have a PS3 or 360, I don't really see the market for either motion control device. They still haven't given me a reason to get a PSP, although I think the thing has enough games that I could justify getting a used PSP...still better than anything Microsoft has come up with.

So in summation, E3 2010 was okay. Microsoft was the worst, no question asked. Some of Sony's games mentioned should be pretty good. And Nintendo did the reverse of the other two and give everyone what they want.

Score below is as follows.

CONFERENCE PLACING:
1st: Nintendo
2nd: Sony
3rd: Microsoft

E3 2010: Additional Game Impressions

Here's My quick thoughts on some additional games that were on display at E3 but not shown off during the conferences.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3DS): The N64 classic and self proclaimed best game in the universe will be released on Nintendo's new handheld system. I never played the original game as I didn't get into the Zelda series until Wind Waker. All I've heard about this game is that its really good and the water temple is bitch, which apparently is going to be made a tad easier in this version.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Really..another Kingdom Hearts game? I love the series but they're really just stalling with the third game. We've already got a prequel coming on the PSP and two handheld titles that take place between the first and second games. Its unknown where in the timeline the game will take place in, but I'll probably play and at least the 3DS's analog nub will make the game more playable than the DS iteration of the series that came out last year.

Sonic Colors (Wii and DS): This looks like it takes what worked about the sonic levels in the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed and made them into their own game. Sonic has some power-ups to use that don't seem to impede the gameplay so is shaping up to be a pretty good title...lets just hope that Sega doesn't predictably mess this up...

Marvel vs Capcom 3 (PS3, Xbox 360): I guess this is the Vs. Capcom's series answer to Street Fighter IV. I don't play Marvel vs Capcom 2 that much but I might give this a shot when my fighting game friends get a hold of this.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 (Multiple Platforms): This is just further devaluing of the Star Wars series. The purpose of the first game's plot was to bridge the gap from the prequel series to the original movies so making a sequel to that seems kinda pointless...I did kinda like that game, so I'll check this one out in spite of my bitching...

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (Multiple Platforms): seems to play more like the DS games than an actual continuation of the original series, but I'm intrigued by the episodic content and my fondness for the series pretty much forces me to want to download this. If I had a choice between Sonic Colors or this, I'd guess I'd go with this one.

Okamiden (DS): I still need to finish the Wii version of Okami before I can even try this, but I like what played in that game and I hope this handheld version doesn't disappoint.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem (DS): Sadly, this game continues the Mini Mario gameplay that second game used...I want them to go back to the Donkey Kong Arcade style gameplay from the first game.

Star Fox 64 3D (3DS): WooHoo! I love Star Fox 64 and having a portable version of it is a dream come true. I don't know what will be added to the game other than 3d effects but I hope it doesn't mess up with what made the original game.

And so E3 2010 comes to a close...

E3 2010: Mircosoft Impressions

Seems like it wasn't that long ago that I was blogging about E3 2009. Okay it was a little over a year ago but damn that year went by pretty damn quick. Microsoft started off the event as usual and...to be honest, I couldn't really care less. In the past year, the X-box 360 has really fallen out of favor with me. I haven't played a new game on the system since Prototype, which was last summer, and The only games I go back to the system to play are the X-Box Live Arcade versions of Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. This press conference didn't offer any real new announcements or surprises, just clarification on stuff we already knew about. This really was the worst showing Microsoft had in years...

Call Of Duty: Black Ops: The show kicked off with the yearly offering from the Call Of Duty series. Now, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I don't care too much for shooters anymore, largely because the 360 has run that genre into the ground. And I'm only bringing this up now to cover up the fact that there is nothing to really talk about for this game, the demo they showed was incredibly standard and boring and since this is one of those odd numbered bland Call of Duty games coming from Treyarch and not Infinity Ward, who work on the more notable entries in the series, only makes this game even more uninteresting. Like all the other games, this one will be released in November.

Metal Gear Rising: Well, they have actual footage (roughly 8 seconds of actual gameplay) from the game this year and it looks like fun. I'm still hold to my previous comment that I'm going to get this for PS3 instead as that platform the franchise was designed for. Oh, yeah and precision cutting on watermelons is awesome.

Gears of War 3: From this point on, Microsoft made it obnoxiously clear that every game was going to be exclusive to the X-Box brand. Gears of War 3 follows Halo 3's path by adding four player co-op to the mix and probably new weapons and other stuff. I actually did play Gears 2 around the time it came out and found it to be a pretty enjoyable outing, certainly more deserving of its praise than Halo ever was. If there's one exclusive game for the system I'm gonna play its going to this one.

Fable III: Never did get around to playing the second one like I said I would, but this still looks pretty interesting. Peter Molyneaux pretty much said most of same things he used to described the other two games, but the only real difference is that this takes place several decades after the second. I'll have to more into it, but only other thing I know about the game right now is that its going to be released on October 26.

Halo Reach: Bungie continues to crush people's hope that they'll work on a new franchise by showing more from a game that we've already heard too much about. Nothing that was shown in the demo looked new to the series, but I'm probably wrong. Anyway this game comes out sometime in September and I'm sure I'll end up playing it when one of my friends end up getting it. I will give Microsoft credit though, they actually got all their big name franchises out of the way in the first half of the show and left the rest of the showings to somewhat new faces.

ESPN on X-box: I understand that this is a big deal, but did they really need to spent 7 or 8 minutes going on about this, They didn't really do anything with this feature that we couldn't have figured out on our owns and did they really need to get those guys from Sporstcenter to show up. Great for sports fans and great move for Microsoft, but the whole thing was just an extended demo for my next subject...

Kinect: Kinect is new name for Project Natal and is what the remaining 40 or so minutes of the conference focused on. Its an impressive piece of hardware but its a shame that they spent the rest of the show covering it because apart from the actual games, they didn't really show anything new from last year so my opinion of it hasn't changed from last year: The voice interaction is pure awesome sauce, but the full body motion control aspect only seems to be a little better than the Playstation Eyetoy that was released several years ago and given that what the eyetoy brought to the gaming table wasn't much, I doubt that Natal's implementation in games will be too much to gush over. Its use to enhance movie watching and chatting with friends is cool, but the games...not so much, which brings me to...

Kinect Launch Games: Okay, so there are 6 of these and none of them are really noteworthy. Kinectimals is basically a mix of the Milo demo they showed last year and Nintendogs. Its kinda cool and cute and I could have an actual interest in playing this if I didn't already have a dog to take care of. Kinect Sports is just Wii Sports...that's it...oh, and its made by Rare, the same people who gave us Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country, and Goldeneye. It only showcases how far they've fallen as a game company. Kinect Joy Ride is just a kart racer that looks really generic, Kinect Adventures actually looks like its fun to play with friends but like most casual Wii games won't gain much interest. Your Shape Fitness Evolved is just those wii fitness games they made on the Wii and Dance Central is the same thing as that Just Dance game for the Wii. All of this and Kinect itself will be available November 4th.

Star Wars Kinect: Our first look at how Kinect could be used in a more traditional game and it seems kinda lame. Yeah, it was only about 30 seconds of gameplay that mostly involved moving forward and swinging the lightsaber, but it seemed really underwhelming. Its due out next year.

Turbo 10 (or just "10"): I couldn't tell what the title was but this looks like Forza Motorsports with Kinect thrown in. All it really did was show how a controller is probably easier for games like this. I mean, you actually have to walk around and do specific motions just check out your car, when you do it a few seconds with a controller.

Slimer X-Box 360: So the conference ended with a pretty big shocker, not the redesign of the console itself, but the fact that its available right now (though I kinda saw it coming when they playfully asked when we thought it was going to be released.) Other than that it comes with a 250GB HDD, built-in Wi-Fi, a shiny new coat of glossy black paint. Also everyone that attended the conference got one for free in what felt like an homage to Oprah's "free car" moment. It was a nice way to end the conference.

So yeah, this was probably the worst year for Microsoft...ever...

Best Games of 2009

2009 was a relatively decent year in games or at least it was in terms of what I played. My lack of job meant I couldn't try out many new titles and my lack of a PS3 until just last week ensured I was unable to play the system that seemed to have the best year as far as exclusives were concerned. The Wii and 360 had almost nothing to offer in terms of big titles...well the 360 actually had two Halo games, but I have no interest in that series. There was a pretty strong showing for multi-platform releases and I guess any year that gives me a proper Mario game and a Ratchet and Clank title couldn't be all bad. Now that I've got a job and PS3 maybe I can go back and play some of the year's big releases.

Best Games of 2009

5. [Prototype] (Multi-Platform)

Though the missions get repetitive and the difficulty somewhat spirals out of control in the last few missions, this is a pretty fun open world game. The sheer variety of moves that you can unlock and preform is staggering and something as simple as traversing the city is a blast. This game is often compared to PS3 game Infamous, but since I haven't played that yet I can't really say which is the better anti-hero game, but Prototype is a solid action game.

4. Metroid Prime Trilogy (Nintendo Wii)

I wasn't sure at first whether to count this, as it sort of seems like cheating. I haven't reviewed it yet, and I'm not going to cover it as a single package. After all, it's not one game, it's three, All of which I've already played before. But even with the old content, I still got more fun out of it than most of what I played this year. Metroid Prime is still one of my favorite games of all time,. A fun shooter with a wonderful atmosphere. Metroid Prime 2 is still kind of a letdown with it overuse of backtracking, and Metroid Prime 3 makes up for the second game and is fun closure to great trilogy. Sure I'm kind of cheating, but The Metroid Prime Trilogy is the best gaming value you can get for your money this year.

3. New Super Mario Bros Wii (Nintendo Wii)

This is a pretty personal choice, as New Super Mario Bros Wii didn't do anything to push the franchise forward, it's just another solid entry in one of my favorite series. The game is kind of lazy in the sense that it doesn't have any new ideas of own, it just reuses old standbys from the series's past. The new items are fun and the co-op mode, while annoying at times is fun in a screw around with your friends way. It's not the best Mario game, but its certainly a fun one.

2. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)

Ratchet & Clank is right up there with Mario as one of my favorite franchises, so luckily I had a friend with a PS3 who bought the game and though I didn't complete it, I was still able to play enough of it to gather my opinion of it. A Crack in Time doesn't alter the gameplay formula of the series, it just continues the run of gaming goodness that the series excels at. It had been some time since I played a new Ratchet game (2005's Deadlocked was the last for me), but I settled right into the groove as soon as the game started, blowing up everything in sight, collecting experience, and just having a fun time. I've got a PS3 now and I'm working through the earlier PS3 Ratchet entries and I must say this series is still a treat.

1. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Nintendo DS)

And the best game of year is actually a handheld title. The Mario & Luigi series has always been a strong series and this third outing may easily be the best. The Mario RPGs have always allowed the writers to throw the Mario cast into bizarre scenarios and Bowser's Inside Story may be the most bizarre. The narrative goes in so many strange and wonderful directions and its all surprisingly funny. The combat is more involved than most RPGs on the market and getting to actually fight as King Bowser is more fun than it has any right to be. It's a very enjoyable experience I think that there should more games as unique as this.

Brutal Legend (Review)

Thus far, I've enjoyed the work of Tim Schafer. Psychonauts was one of my favorite platformers from the previous console generation and Grim Fandango was a brilliant story driven title that the gaming industary needs more of. Brutal Legend sets itself up as Schafer's most ambitious project to date, what with it relatively long development time and the number of big name actors and rock legends lending their talent to it. The game tells the story of Eddie Riggs, a roadie for some shitty band. After a bizarre chain of events, he ends up summoning the metal God Ormagoden, and is teleported to the metal world. There, he meets the three people of Bladehenge, and learn that the leader Lionwhyte has enslaved their men and imprisoned their women. The overall story is not as well written or as unpredictable as Schafer's previous games, but it did at the very least make me want to move forward in the game at least to see where they were going with all of this and it the world that game presents shows the creators truly love heavy metal music (everything in the game looks like came from a album cover.).

The main characters have are well varied. Eddie is hilarious, while characters such as Lars and Lifa are serious and somewhat inspiring in their leadership. Villains, such as Lionwhyte are not only can be a bit humorous (at least in their appearance), but most of them represent the darker eras of metal (Glam rock, Emo). All the characters fit the universe well, and the performances are of high quality. The voice acting is top notch. Jack Black plays Eddie Riggs and does an excellent job, surprising since I've never found Jack Black to funny...period, but he really does solid work with the material. Also appearing here is Rob Halford (of Judas Priest) as Lionwhyte and Ozzy Osbourne as the Guardian of Metal, and you have some noteworthy metal credentials to the cast. The rest of the group are also voiced well even though I couldn't recognize most of them.

The gameplay is the typical mash-up of genres: sandbox, hack and slash, racing, and real time strategy. The hack and slash by itself is pretty good and dismembering enemies rarely gets old . Playing solos to unleash special attacks keeps the action fresh and the attacks themselves are quite impressive like the zeppelin crash attack or the facemelter (self-explanatory). The driving is ok, but most of the time I found the car hard to control. The car's brakes are practically non-existent, although thankfully, the game rarely has a need for them in missions. The side-missions can be fun but they get old and repetitive rather quickly as there are only about 5 or 6 different types of missions to take on. The RTS elements come in during the stage battles. The RTS element is very light and mostly simple which is great since this a genre I'm unfamiliar with. As an added bonus when things get hairy with the troops, you're able to jump down into the action and deal with things yourself.

The big problems with the game is that there is an over abundance of the RTS missions after they are introduced (pops up roughly ever 2 missions) and afterwards there's a rather ludicrous increase in difficulty making the game a bit of frustrating chore to finish, but luckily there isn't much left in the game from that point. I didn't get much time out of the game, but found it to be enjoyable. While Tim Schafer has come up with better games, I found something to enjoy from the second the game started until the credits began to roll. I can said that everyone at least needs to rent this title as it's hilarious and we need to see more inventive titles like this in the future.

Banjo-Tooie - XBLA (Review)

I recall never liking Banjo-Tooie as much Banjo-Kazooie when they were on the N64 and after playing through Tooie's re-release on the X-Box Live Arcade, I can say that my feelings haven't changed. Banjo-Tooie attempts to go through the natural evolution of a game series by taking everything that made the first game great and super-sizing it. While I would like to say that this grandiose scheme is an improvement, this is only serves to make the game a giant chore. Gone are the relatively small, enclosed worlds of the first game. Instead, worlds are more like giant hubs for smaller areas and some of the worlds are even inter-connected with each other. Every level after the first three becomes an exercise in tedium rather than exploration. Some of the Jiggys can't be obtained learn moves from other levels, yet there is no indication of which Jiggys can't be collected and what moves are needed. I found myself exploring for hours, accomplishing little and getting tired.

In a rather welcome move, Banjo and Kazooie start the game with all the moves they learned in the first game and begin to add a lot more to their repertoire. This helps keep the original game's habit of throwing new gameplay concepts every other moment in tact. But while the first game did this flawlessly, Banjo-Tooie mucks this up a little bit. Some of the new moves are innovative and cool and have a multitude of uses like the new types of eggs, the drill beak attack, and the areas where you use Kazooie like a gun. A good bulk of the other moves are used once, but never again in the whole game. It’s great that Rare wanted to add so much innovation in Tooie, but sadly a lot of it just doesn’t work like the moves that result from the split-up ability, they just feel like unnecessary additions.

Banjo-Tooie is a sequel that suffers from the old cliche of bigger is better. The game that I loved is in here somewhere and when the design pulls itself together the game gets really good. Some Jiggies are a lot of fun to discover, some levels are interesting and unique, and the boss fights are a real treat. Having now played through all three major games in the series, I found that series has clearly gotten weaker as it goes along. Banjo-Kazooie is a true classic, Banjo-Tooie is a flawed but decent follow-up and Nuts & Bolts is just a middle of the road outing. It mentioned within the game that Rare at least has plans to do another Banjo game and I'm up for it so long as it captures some of the magic of the original.

Banjo-Kazooie - XBLA (Review)

I loved this game when it was first released for the Nintendo 64 over 10 years ago. I haven't played the game much since then, but I was really excited to hear that Mircosoft was releasing the game for their X-Box Live Arcade service in conjunction with the franchise's recent game "Nuts & Bolts". I'm pleased to say that the game is just as fun as it was then. I personally think Banjo-Kazooie was better than Super Mario 64 (and I love Mario 64). The game takes the formula of that game and tightens it up. Like Mario 64 (and almost every 3d platformer since) you're still collecting a certain number of objects to gain access to other areas. It’s a formula which has been used many times before by platformers new and old, but that doesn’t mean it feels anywhere close to dated here – it’s still just as much fun to play, if not more than when it was released all those years ago.

The game keeps throwing new gameplay concepts just as you've come to master the last one. By the time you've gotten the hang of egg shooting, you're learning to fly. After you've learned to fly, you learn a dive bomb attack and so on and so on. This is a wonderful method of gameplay that I wish more games these days would adopt, it really keeps things from getting stale and repetitive. The best part is not the sheer number of moves, but how necessary they are in many situations and the ease and responsiveness at which they are pulled off. Many puzzles are designed to be solved with a specific move or combination of moves. . The game is very well-balanced in this respect, and since most moves are specialized with obvious purposes, it's never a matter of guessing to get past an obstacle.

Rare's talent for creating well written stories is still intact as the characters are charming and the dialogue is amusing, though it's not as clever as it thinks. The game was never as challenging as Mario 64 and this re-release actually makes the game easier by saving all the items you collect as you collect them (You would lost them if you dyed or quit in the original). The gaming world is littered with 3d platformers, but this game stands out from the crowd even 10 years later. I proudly admit that Banjo-Kazooie is a game I love.

Saints Row 2 (Review)

I was very surprised by this game. Saints Row 2 is without a doubt a Grand Theft Auto clone in every sense of the word, but the game managed to do the impossible by beating GTA at it's own game. This is mainly due to GTA4 being fairly restrictive in what it allowed you to do. Saints Row 2 understands want people want from a sandbox game: freedom. The level of customization the game throws at you is almost too much. You can basically make you character look and act anyway you want. You're pretty much allowed to do whatever you want, when you want to and most of things the game has available for you to do are pretty damn fun, like driving around in septic truck spraying poo over everything, and posing as a cop who takes down law-breakers in the most damaging way possible.

I always wanted to play a game where you could take over a location and build an evil empire and Saints Row 2 is pretty close to that type of game. As you seize locations from rival gangs, you'll see your own men strolling down the street and as you buy stores, you gain a sizeable revenue from that store's sales. It really gives you sense that you own the town. One of the only things that bothered me was that helicopters controlled like crap and blew up too easily

I actually don't have have any other complaints about this game. The characters and plot aren't as well developed as a Grand Theft Auto 4's were and the ending is very weak and uninspired, but the whole game doesn't take itself too seriously and honestly this is the route GTA4 should have gone. I loved this game from start to finish and its become one of my favorite games of this console generation. Their apparently working on a Saints Row 3 and I'll definitely be up for more if they make it.

E3 09: Best Games

Okay, this is my last E3 09 post. I decided to end this by listing my ten favorite games that appeared at E3 this year. This includes any game announced or mentioned during the press conferences or games that were said to be on display on the show floor.

These are the 10 games I'm most excited for and the list is in no real order.

1. Super Mario Galaxy 2
2. New Super Mario Bros Wii
3. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
4. No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle
5. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
6. Metroid: Other M
7. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
8. God of War III
9. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
10. Crackdown 2

And that's most of what I want that I found out at E3 this year.

E3 09: Overall Impressions

Well, E3 ended yesterday although I didn't really pay too much attention to it after the major press conferences ended on Tuesday. After thinking about it for a while I decided that E3 2009 was decent, but nothing mind blowing. Each of the 3 companies had their own strengths and weaknesses which I guess I should elaborate on.

Out of the big 3, I felt that Microsoft was the weakest of the bunch. They didn't have have much to present that wasn't already known or guessed at in some shape or form. More so than any company, Microsoft had the least amount of games to show that were ready for launch during 2008. About 90% of what they had were slated for a 2010 release or later. The games that are coming this year were multi-platform games...so yeah. The thing that pretty much everyone remembers from the conference was Project Natal and to me it doesn't look like it's worth getting extremely excited about. The voice interaction is pure awesome sauce, but the full body motion control aspect only seems to be a little better than the Playstation Eyetoy that was released several years ago and given that what the eyetoy brought to the gaming table wasn't much, I doubt that Natal's implementation in games will be too much to gush over.

Where Microsoft really shined was in the enhancements it was making to the 360's role as an entertainment center. The improvements it's making to the Netflix application is long overdue and should have been there from the start. The facebook addition is pretty cool even though i don't have a facebook (been thinking about it though). And what project natal is going to do the interface of the system is pretty sweet as well.

Nintendo had a lot to make up for after last year's embarrassing showing and they did step it up a little by showing that they had actual games coming out this year (although even if they had only one real game to show, it would be an improvement). The problem is, even more than Microsoft, Nintendo didn't have much to show that we didn't already know about in some way. We already knew that a 2nd New Super Mario Bros was coming, we just didn't know it was going to be mulitplayer and for the Wii. We already knew about another major 3d Mario game coming as well. Only Golden Sun Ds and Metorid: Other M were genuine unknown surprise announcements. Nintendo also spent too much time on junk they've shown before like The Wii Motion Plus and Wii Sports Resort.

Also since they've started the whole casual game trend, Nintendo doesn't really know how to do an interesting conference. Seriously, Nintendo's conference felt like a PTA meeting. Nintendo still needs to understand that the casual market their shooting for doesn't watch or care about E3. Nintendo's showings were better than Microsoft's largely because they had decent mix of games that are actually coming this year and games to look forward to in the future. The fact that there are 3 Mario games of actual substance on display (2 platformers and an RPG) is pretty damn impressive and the fact that 2 of them make heavy use of my favorite game character Yoshi is just amazing. Mario may be my favorite game franchise, but I really wish they would have focused a little more on some of their other franchises (The long-awaited Wii Zelda title was revealed to be in development during a roundtable and will released next year at the earliest). Overall Nintendo did pretty well, even though they clearly did the bare minimum to make up for their past failings....just don't get me started on that completely retarded Wii Vitality Sensor...

Sony has never really impressed me with their press conferences. Their E3 presentations aren't bad, their just not that memorable. As such I don't really have too much to comment on with Sony as I did with the other 2. This year was a tad better than their usual showings but not by much so it kinda sad that I feel that Sony had the best presence at E3 this year. Sony had a better balance of stats and games and they revealed the most new games coming out with many interesting features. I felt that Sony's conference had the best structure as well: focusing on the one console at a time as opposed to Nintendo who jumped back and forth between their 2 systems. Although Sony failed to convince me to buy a Psp, I was gald to see them make an admirable attempt to make it appear like a worthwhile handheld (I'm sure it is) and I'm sure that those who own one are thrilled to see some actual games released for the system. If I did get a Psp, I would definitely buy MGS: Peace Walker (In related news since the press conferences, it was announced that the 360 game MGS: Rising is indeed coming to the PS3)

After a few years, the PS3 has finally got a decent number of games and this year's showings have finally convinced me to pick up the system when I have the cash, although Sony's really gonna need to do a price drop first. God of War 3 may not be very different from it predecessors, but at least it's clear that the game is gonna be just as good as what's come before. Like I said in my Sony impressions posts, there was a distinct lack of Ratchet & Clank that really bugged me but I think in the end Sony may have made the right choice focusing on GOW instead since it is higher profile and R&C (much like GOW) hasn't really changed much over the years to really talk about. As for Sony's motion control, if Sony can release some decent software for it, I'm sure it could possibly outdue the Wii Remote...and as I said before at least this thing's implementation in games is more realistic than Project Natal.

So in summation, E3 2009 was okay. Microsoft was the worst to me as they only had about a handful interesting things and most of it won't be out for quite a while, but I won't deny that some of those games mentioned should be pretty good. Nintendo gave their their fans much more interesting stuff unlike last year and Sony just did their thing and came out one top.

Score below is as follows.
CONFERENCE PLACING:
1st: Sony
2nd: Nintendo
3rd: Microsoft

E3 09: Mircosoft Impressions

Wow...is it that time of year already? E3 is upon us again and like last year I'm going to give you my impressions of the keynotes. Microsoft kicked things off like they always have these past few years. To me personally, I felt their showings of core games didn't appeal to me as much as last year, but I still enjoyed their offerings and can't wait for some of these games.

The Beatles Rock Band: Like last year, a long amount of time is spent talking about what is basically an expansion pack to game that's not worth spending too much time yapping about. I do like the Beatles and it was pretty awesome that Ringo and Peter were there in person to promote the game. Oh yeah and Yoko Ono was there.....

Modern Warfare 2: I don't like war games, but I've heard how Call of Duty 4 was different...although it didn't look different enough from what came before for me to give it shot. Although this follow-up game doesn't look much better either..it did manage to make me want to run out rent the 1st Modern Warfare...so I guess that's something.

Shadow Complex: An Xbox Live Arcade game coming from Epic Games. Cliff Bleszinski said that it would mix elements from titles such as Contra and Super Metroid which sounds good to me, And I'm not too sure but I think they said it was releasing over the summer, which sounds even better to me.

Crackdown 2: I love Crackdown! Everyone was bummed last year when it was stated that there wouldn't be a follow-up to awesome game Crackdown, but it looks like they changed their minds and to me, this was the biggest surprise announcement in the show. While the art style in the trailer was similar to first game, it also seemed a tad more realistic, which added to the shock that this was a Crackgame game. Sadly no release time frame was given.

Left 4 Dead 2: Too Soon... Not Another Zombie Game... Those were the only things going through my mind while this trailer was going.

Splinter Cell Conviction: The Splinter Cell series has fallen in recent years and it seems that Conviction is banking on bringing the series back to prominence. I haven't played the series since Chaos Theory on the Gamecube. The Graphics look amazing and the gameplay seems to be fast paced which would solve what I feel to be the sole problem with the series.

Halo ODST & Reach: I've always been thankful for what the Halo Series has done for first person shooters on home consoles...that doesn't I like the games. I feel the series has never deserved the amount of attention it gets and these games aren't changing my opinion of them. ODST is a prequel to Halo 3 and apart from it's admittedly interesting story telling approach, the game doesn't really seem to be an improvement on Halo 3. The games' developers, Bungie, also revealed that Halo: Reach was the secret game they had in development, dashing hopes that were working on a new IP.

Metal Gear Solid Rising: Rumors of MGS4 popping up on the 360 has been around since before E3 08. What no-one could have predicted was that a whole new Metal Gear would appear on the console. MGS Rising stars Radien instead of Solid Snake and may not be a system exclusive. This game does however open the doors for all of the previous games to be made available on the 360. Personally I think I'd stick with Sony for my Metal Gear...if I ever get a PS3.

Project Natal: This is Microsoft's big answer to the Nintendo Wii and it's pretty damn interesting. It's basically a motion and voice sensing peripheral that will allow you to simulate handling a steering wheel, navigate the 360 dashboard, control a kung-fu fighter, dress an on-screen avatar and so much more. Peter Molyneux's Milo project (which isn't a game, just something he's be using Project Natal to tinker with) was amazing, if not kinda creepy. I doubt I'd personally have much use for Project Natal but I'll admit that I'm excited to try this thing out.

Overall Microsoft gave a solid showing and a few legit surprises. This should be another great year for the 360.