Gaming E3 2007

[Japan]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]It is almost a sin to not have an E3 thread here. As gamers we all know the excitement that E3 brings every year. I am looking forward to Halo 3 and Devil May Cry 4. Sorry, I am not that much of a gamer so the start of the thread sucks. There is no excuse to not have a thread on E3!

So what do you guys think of the upcoming games? Any other things that excite you?[/COLOR]

[Goodbye, Face]

[font=arial][size=1]Apparently, there was no mention of the "extra content" of the new Vista version of Gears of War coming to the Xbox 360 as well. They're getting five new chapters and a new final boss, as well as an editor tool. It would've been better to call this new material a sequel.

But maybe it will come out on the 360 and I'm just paranoid.[/font][/size]

[Japan]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]I just watched some of the nintendo news conference. The new controllers that they made look like a lot of fun. There is the zapper that will be used for Resident Evil. It is like duck hunt but you zap zombies instead!

When they talked about the new wheel controller for the Mariokart game on the Wii, I was ecstatic. Mariokart is one of my favorite nintendo games. The wheel will make it a challenge to play since I never used a wheel before for racing games. [/COLOR]

[Treble]

I haven’t really check all the news from E3, but there are a few games that sparks my interest.

Resident Evil 5
[URL="http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21514.html"]RE5 Trailer[/URL]

Not much was shown for RE5, but it looks like it takes place somewhere in Africa. The crazy villagers from the desert gives me the impression that this game will have a higher sense of speed and danger as opposed to RE4. Can’t wait to see more when Capcom reveals a longer trailer on the 26th .

Halo 3
[URL="http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160984"]Trailer[/URL]

I never really was a big Halo fan, but I have to say the single player campaign looks pretty amazing so far and I love the instrumental they used for the trailer.

Mario Kart Wii
[URL="http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21542.html"]Trailer[/URL]

Along with the unexpected custom wheel, I’m excited that Nintendo is finally bringing online multiplayer battles to the game.

Edit:
Wow, anyone seen the new the Super Mario Galaxy video yet? It’s breathtaking. Throughout the video, Mario transformed into a bumblebee and a ghost(Boo)! Makes me wonder if there will be even more cool transformations throughout the game. Raccoon Mario anyone? And I love how diverse and vibrant the levels are. It’s definitely one of the best trailers to come out of E3 so far.

Here’s a link in case anyone else is interested: [URL="http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21554.html"]Mario Galaxy Video[/URL]

[Magus]

[font=comic sans ms]I was actually going to start an E3 thread since I started the last one ^_^, but I couldn't think of anything to discuss about it.

All the games that I've been excited about was mentioned last year (Halo 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, Devil May Cry 4, etc..), and since then there haven't been any new games to catch my eye.

Lost Odyssey is probably the only game that I'm a bit curious about. (My first time hearing about it was yesterday watching the Microsoft press conference thing.)[/font]

[Semjaza]

[quote name='Tombstone'][font=comic sans ms]
Lost Odyssey is probably the only game that I'm a bit curious about. (My first time hearing about it was yesterday watching the Microsoft press conference thing.)[/font][/QUOTE]

It was announced a while ago, but that was the most anyone has ever seen of it... It's looking pretty cool.

I watched all three conferences and I have to say Sony's was the most impressive. They covered some games we knew about, but they also showed a few that were completely surprises. Not to mention a couple of pretty decent timed exclusive announcements. Killzone 2 looks like a relatively normal FPS, but it's pretty and action-packed. It'ss clearly becoming a major talking point for owners of the system.

The only problem, to me, is that a lot of what they've announced that was new is not coming this year (they said "fiscal year" a few times, which goes till March 2008 in most cases). A lot of people seem big on E3 showing them the future, but when I know I might possibly see some of these "new" games again at the next E3 it's not very exciting.

MS's was OK. They have a really strong line up this year and concentrated on it and it alone. The new game announcements, to me, weren't exciting at all (although kids and people into trivia games might be happy). There was also some games for windows stuff in there, most specifically focused on Gears of War (and all the new **** it's getting :o).

As far as press conferences go, because most of it was known ahead of time and for quite a while, it was somewhat dull. I mean, hearing about Katamari and Call of Duty 4 (as good as it looks) and Mass Effect yet again is tiresome. I think it's balanced out, at least partially, by knowing that I'll get to play what they showed this year, some titles as soon as next month.

I'd say, despite this, for most people it was probably the most disappointing/dull conference, which I can understand. 2008 games like Fable 2 are being shown to some groups, at least, so it's not like there's [I]nothing[/I]. I've read some neat previews on that.

Nintendo's I'm mixed on. MP3 and Mario Galaxy look awesome. We finally got dates for Mario Galaxy (November) and Brawl (December). They briefly showed off a new Mario Kart that will be online for Wii in early 2008... It looked great, very much in the style of Double Dash, but with one character per car. Seemed to take some influence from the DS title, including at least one redone track from that game. I think I saw Peach Beach too... which I kind of like since that's never been online before.

At the same time, there was an awful lot of "Wii Sports!" is awesome and "Wii makes people who never play games play games!" back patting. I'd estimate 10 to 15 minutes of it. Iwata appeared with his typical speech that takes forever to deliver.

Then they showed Wii Fit for about 30 minutes. It's an interesting concept, but what they showed was so slow paced that I could only see the elderly and kids getting a lot out of it exercise wise. If it can be sped up, I'll be more interested. They showed some OK looking mini-games and I'm interested in seeing more of those.

Overall I think they all did OK, but Sony "won" the conference battle. How much of it will be on the show floor and playable, I have no idea, but in terms of online public opinion Sony got that one. How it'll reflect in sales in the coming months (and if this PS3 sales spike will last) remains to be seen.

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]Every time I see a new trailer for Super Mario Galaxy I get all hyped up about it again. The bumblebee and boo suits look great and I'm also wondering if we'll see the tanuki suit and other classics from SMB3 return. A hammer bros. suit would rock.

ZOMG Super Smash Bros. Brawl on December 3. Exactly six years after Melee was released in the US. . . . And that's all there really is to say about that. :animesigh I'm still holding out for details about its online capabilities.

I figured a Mario Kart for Wii was in the works but I'm happy to hear it'll be out early next year. Online battle mode is something I've been waiting for ever since MKDS so I'm very pleased that it's finally happening. I just hope they do a better job with the interface and matchmaking options for online play. The system they used in MKDS seemed rushed and crappy and I'll be very disappointed if it's more of the same with the Wii game.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to get Metroid Prime 3. I loved the first one but the second one was too annoying with the constant life drain in dark Aether any time you weren't in one of those stupid safe zones. I'm also wondering how well the point-and-shoot system will work, since I wasn't too impressed with Red Steel. Not to mention I'll be saving up for Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and SSBB. At any rate I'm going to wait and see what it's like before dropping the money on it.[/color]

[Semjaza]

[quote name='Desbreko'][color=#4B0082]I'm still not sure if I'm going to get Metroid Prime 3. I loved the first one but the second one was too annoying with the constant life drain in dark Aether any time you weren't in one of those stupid safe zones. I'm also wondering how well the point-and-shoot system will work, since I wasn't too impressed with Red Steel. Not to mention I'll be saving up for Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and SSBB. At any rate I'm going to wait and see what it's like before dropping the money on it.[/color][/QUOTE]

I don't know if you've seen videos of it, but the control system appears to work very well. They have a few options, one of which is basically just like the old Prime set up with a basic lock-on.

But the more advanced system is probably what you or I would use. It allows you to lock on to an enemy and strafe as normal, but you're allowed to freely move around the cursor to shoot at whatever you want. So, you can lock onto the main enemy, but pin point specific parts... or shoot at some smaller enemy coming at you while you're still locked on to another.

I've not read a single bad thing about how this works, the dead zone or anything else.

[Magus]

[font=comic sans ms]So I've seen the E3 day one repeat earlier this morning on G4, and much like last year, I'm not all that impressed. Seeing the demos or whatever they're called to Heavenly Sword and Assassin's Creed was probably the best thing I saw.

I'll admit, Mario Galaxy and Rachet and Clank looks prettiful, but I'm just not into those type of games anymore. I hope they have a better showcasing of games tonight.

[quote name='Semjaza']I'd say, despite this, for most people it was probably the most disappointing/dull conference, which I can understand. 2008 games like Fable 2 are being shown to some groups, at least, so it's not like there's nothing. I've read some neat previews on that.[/quote]
Now I didn't see Sony and Nintendo's conference, but I agree. I found Microsoft's conference boring. I've never been a fan of playing my games online, and Microsoft Arcade didn't spark any interest whatsoever.[/font]

[Japan]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]I only watched the Nintendo and Sony Conferences. I was all happy about the Nintendo one until they got into Wii Fitness. From there, my interest in E3 went down the drain. I was disappointed that they did not talk about Devil May Cry 4 in Sony's but I guess that is just me. Killzone 2 looks kind of fun. I guess I am too prideful to say anymore than that about it.[/COLOR]

[Semjaza]

[quote name='Tombstone'][font=comic sans ms]Now I didn't see Sony and Nintendo's conference, but I agree. I found Microsoft's conference boring. I've never been a fan of playing my games online, and Microsoft Arcade didn't spark any interest whatsoever.[/font][/QUOTE]

I don't really know that most of what they showed really made any major deal about them being online any more than being offline. I mean, in terms of the games that got the motion attention, I saw videos of games like Call of Duty 4 and Assassin's Creed and the only things they really concentrated on were the single player experiences. Even the Halo 3 closing video was largely single player.

[Desbreko]

[quote name='Semjaza']I don't know if you've seen videos of it, but the control system appears to work very well. They have a few options, one of which is basically just like the old Prime set up with a basic lock-on.

But the more advanced system is probably what you or I would use. It allows you to lock on to an enemy and strafe as normal, but you're allowed to freely move around the cursor to shoot at whatever you want. So, you can lock onto the main enemy, but pin point specific parts... or shoot at some smaller enemy coming at you while you're still locked on to another.

I've not read a single bad thing about how this works, the dead zone or anything else.[/QUOTE][color=#4B0082]I did go and watch the three videos they have up on Gametrailers for MP3 and it looks like it works pretty well. Being able to lock on and still aim freely is definitely cool and takes care of most of my skepticism about the control.

I mainly want to know if it's set up to strafe with left/right on the control stick even when not locked on, like most FPSs, and you just use the cursor to turn and look. And, if so, how well the cursor works for that. It was hard to tell if that was the case in the videos.

What would be nice is if they just gave us a fully customizable control scheme along with the presets. That way I wouldn't have to care about this stuff and could just set it up however I like best. Not nearly enough console games give you that option.[/color]

[Magus]

[quote name='Semjaza']I don't really know that most of what they showed really made any major deal about them being online any more than being offline. I mean, in terms of the games that got the motion attention, I saw videos of games like Call of Duty 4 and Assassin's Creed and the only things they really concentrated on were the single player experiences. Even the Halo 3 closing video was largely single player.[/QUOTE]
[font=comic sans ms][color=blue]Rephrasing. Hmm... How should I say this... It seemed like all the talk was mainly focused on the Xbox Live stuff more than anything else that's been mentioned, and so, it didn't spark anything with me. Oh yeah, before I forget, I did change the channel before the 2nd half of the conference started. :)

2nd day of E3 wasn't as underwelming as the 1st day, but I still wasn't all that impressed with what was shown. There were some games that stood out though. Bioshock looks nice. Another game that stood out, I can't remember the name, but it was another FPS where you can slow time. A FPS version of Prince of Persia. I think I heard some guy on there say you can stop a bomb from going off on you, and use that same bomb on an enemy or something of that sort. Very cheap, lol.

Although I'm not much of a fan for world war games, Call of Duty 4 was impressing as well.

That trailor of MGS4 was crazy. I didn't mind Raiden in MGS2, but seeing him in action in this one makes me not want to play as Snake. But that's just me :).[/font][/color]

[Ellerby]

[quote name='Japan_86'][COLOR="DarkRed"]I only watched the Nintendo and Sony Conferences. I was all happy about the Nintendo one until they got into Wii Fitness. From there, my interest in E3 went down the drain. [/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[FONT="Tahoma"][COLOR="DimGray"]Oh, come on. Because the announcing of Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party DS, Super Mario Galaxy release date (Nov. 12) and new gameplay, Super Smash Bros. Brawl release date (Dec. 3) and new gameplay, Metroid Prime 3 gameplay/walkthrough, The Wii Zapper presentation (Ghost Squad and Resident Evill for the Wii) wasn't enough. >_>

I'm seriously excited for Super Mario Galaxy. It comes out 7 days before my (and Shinmaru's) Birthday! Nintendo always did love us November babies.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[Japan]

[quote name='White'][FONT="Tahoma"][COLOR="DimGray"]Oh, come on. Because the announcing of Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party DS, Super Mario Galaxy release date (Nov. 12) and new gameplay, Super Smash Bros. Brawl release date (Dec. 3) and new gameplay, Metroid Prime 3 gameplay/walkthrough, The Wii Zapper presentation (Ghost Squad and Resident Evill for the Wii) wasn't enough. >_>

I'm seriously excited for Super Mario Galaxy. It comes out 7 days before my (and Shinmaru's) Birthday! Nintendo always did love us November babies.[/COLOR][/FONT][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]I just meant that I was excited for Nintendo until they got to Wii fitness. All that other stuff, cool.

I just can't wait for Metroid Prime and Mario kart...that's it. If I want to play Mario, I stick with Mario 64 and the mini games for the Mario DS game.[/COLOR]

[James]

[color=#606060]I think people are generally underestimating Wii Fit. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being one of the more popular gaming-related products of 2008 - and for good reason.

I can understand that Nintendo's constant reiteration of its principles/philosophy is annoying, but really, every company does it. And in Nintendo's case - especially in the face of criticism - I think they have reason to say "We said we wanted to expand the market and we actually are, despite what some say". They don't really say it as concisely as that, but you know, I think it's fair for them to want to present the actual results to the media at large. It really does justify their strategy.

I've only seen Nintendo's conference and I've read the items from Microsoft's. Haven't yet seen Sony's, so I can't comment on that.

I really think all the conferences were somewhat underwhelming to many of the hardcore gamers out there, but that's largely because of the nature of the new E3. Due to the time of year as well, a lot of companies don't want to pull development team members away from their projects to produce demos of titles that are in the midst of development.

Also just as an additional note to that, it's worth remembering that these press conferences are primarily designed for the [i]press[/i] and not the general fans. Sales figures, market expansion and "business-related" information is highly relevant to press outlets. It's just not so exciting to gamers, which is understandable.

I know for a fact that Nintendo had a lot more they could have shown at their conference - but I suspect much of that will be shown separately. This conference was all about emphasizing a few key points and focusing on the really big releases of 2007. I think they were successful with that, in terms of what they intended to do.

There are a few games I'm looking forward to, but my most-wanted game is undoubtedly Super Mario Galaxy. I'm a Mario fan and I'd buy any Mario game...but Super Mario Galaxy is really the next true evolution of the franchise.

Nintendo said that they believe SMG will set new standards, not just for Mario games but for games in general. I'm inclined to believe this. I also think Super Mario Galaxy will set a new standard for the platform genre particularly.

Other than that, there are a few games that come to mind. Mario Kart, Wii Fit (as mentioned), Assassin's Creed, Phantom Hourglass, Call of Duty 4, Metal Gear Solid 4...there are quite a few, some of which just aren't coming to mind at the moment. And of course I'm looking forward to Spore - no new gameplay to show but at least there's a new trailer showing the game's massively updated visuals...which is great. [/color]

[Semjaza]

[quote name='Tombstone'][font=comic sans ms][color=blue]Rephrasing. Hmm... How should I say this... It seemed like all the talk was mainly focused on the Xbox Live stuff more than anything else that's been mentioned, and so, it didn't spark anything with me. Oh yeah, before I forget, I did change the channel before the 2nd half of the conference started. :)[/font][/color][/QUOTE]

Well then you mostly just saw stats, which is kind of a poor thing to base any of the conference on. If I changed out of Nintendo's while they were showing that montage of why Wii Sports and the Wii remote were awesome, I'd not be very happy either... lol.

[Kenshin DX]

This is how I saw it go down

Sony - They did an excellent job of showcasing their games. They have a ton of AAA titles on the way. MGS4 alone would have been a system seller. As a future investment PS3 is going to be essential if you are truly wanting to play a next gen game. What I hated was they spent too much time trying to redeem the PSP which is still a piece of crap system that they should have just given up on. Then there was the whole release of the 80GB model and the discontinuation of the 60GB which drove people insane. Still Sony did a great job of demonstrating it's new games.

Microsoft - Pretty bad. All they really had going for them was Mass Effect which everyone has high hopes for but Jade Empire sucked so bad I lost a lot of faith in Bioware. Then Halo 3 which looked terrible . It was the most underwhelming game at the show. Factor in the fact 1 out of 3 360s break by the time these games roll around your systems broken. So Kudos Microsoft.

Nintendo - Very good for the most part. Mario Galaxy looked amazing but everyone knew that already. Brawls release date has been confirmed which we all know will be awesome. Finally some news on Phantom Hourglass(I thought they had dropped the game). Then Metroid Prime 3 with Wii controls looked great.

While it wasn't the greatest E3 with MGS4 being the highlight of the show. It demonstrated the power of next gen systems.

[Guest The Blue Jihad]

I must have been watching different conferences than nearly all of you, because Microsoft stole the show, hands-down, no doubt about it.

Microsoft had ten slam-bang-you-in-the-face titles ready to go for this holiday season. Halo 3, Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, Bioshock, Eternal Sonata, GTAIV, Assassin's Creed, Virtua Fighter 5, Resident Evil 5, and Rock Band. Sure, some of those aren't exclusives, and some are coming in 2008. But in all honesty, stuff like Halo 3, Mass Effect, and Bioshock totally tip the scales in favor of the 360. Not to mention that Blue Dragon is shaping up to be a totally ****ing epic RPG. Can't forget Left 4 Dead, either.

Sony and Nintendo each had maybe six remotely interesting titles.

And quite honestly, I don't see how anyone can orgasm so much over what Sony showed. MGS4, so what? Heavenly Sword? Why are people getting a hard-on there? That game looks so terribly generic it hurts. The only game that truly got me mildly interested was Infamous, but then again, Crackdown is still rocking my world on 360.

In terms of solid holiday releases, Nintendo is barely hitting 5. Smash Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, RE:Umbrella Chronicles, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Kart Wii.

Nintendo won? Sony gave the better conference? Y'all are crazy.

[Charles]

[quote name='The Blue Jihad']I must have been watching different conferences than nearly all of you, because Microsoft stole the show, hands-down, no doubt about it.

Microsoft had ten slam-bang-you-in-the-face titles ready to go for this holiday season. Halo 3, Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, Bioshock, Eternal Sonata, GTAIV, Assassin's Creed, Virtua Fighter 5, Resident Evil 5, and Rock Band. Sure, some of those aren't exclusives, and some are coming in 2008. But in all honesty, stuff like Halo 3, Mass Effect, and Bioshock totally tip the scales in favor of the 360. Not to mention that Blue Dragon is shaping up to be a totally ****ing epic RPG. Can't forget Left 4 Dead, either.[/quote]

I'll be interested in seeing sales numbers. I feel that the holiday market will be too saturated and that Halo 3 will hurt the sales of some other games. Between Grand Theft Audo IV [i]and[/i] Halo 3, I have a feeling that many awesome games will get neglected.

[quote]And quite honestly, I don't see how anyone can orgasm so much over what Sony showed. MGS4, so what? Heavenly Sword? Why are people getting a hard-on there? That game looks so terribly generic it hurts. The only game that truly got me mildly interested was Infamous, but then again, Crackdown is still rocking my world on 360.[/quote]

MGS4 looks stunning and after MGS 3, I'm really excited about it. Although I do not own a Playstation 3 yet, Kojima and his team do a great job of getting the most out of Sony hardware, so I'll be interested in seeing what they pull out of the Playstation 3.

I still don't know what you're smoking when it comes to Heavenly Sword; it's probably one of the best-looking games I have ever seen. The game is both technically sound and it features a cool art direction.

[quote]In terms of solid holiday releases, Nintendo is barely hitting 5. Smash Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, RE:Umbrella Chronicles, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Kart Wii.[/quote]

Super Mario Galaxy is my most anticipated game for this year. Before I was interested to see where they were going with the game, but this year's E3 really drove it home for me. The platforming looks phenominal and the return of suits has me pumped. All of the other games should do pretty well in sales too. Smash Bros, in particular, has a lot of anticipation going for it. I feel that Wii Fit has the potential to be the Wii's Brain Age or Nintendogs; it has the potential to be huge. Sales-wise, I think that Wii games could very well outpace the 360's holiday offerings, in general. Halo 3 will do huge numbers and Grand Theft Auto should do very well, but if we see a "trickle down" effect and everything else does so-so sales, then what's the point? Conversely, if all of these Wii releases do strong, well-rounded sales, then who is to say that the holiday season won't be strong for that system? Sadly, I doubt that third parties will really benefit either way.

Anyhoo, I liked MS's conference too, but I think they were all pretty good for their own reasons. Why does there have to be a "winner" among them? heh

[Guest The Blue Jihad]

[quote name='Charles']I'll be interested in seeing sales numbers. I feel that the holiday market will be too saturated and that Halo 3 will hurt the sales of some other games. Between Grand Theft Auto IV [I]and[/I] Halo 3, I have a feeling that many awesome games will get neglected.[/quote]

At this point, holiday sales aren't much of a factor (especially when they don't exist for another 8 months), because my point was (and is) that when it comes to a game line-up, Microsoft has the deck stacked heavily in their favor. And there are easily half a dozen titles there that are guaranteed to knock us flat on our ***. So I just can't see how people can salivate for something like Heavenly Sword, then turn around and say Microsoft's press conference was underwhelming when the big M was showing Mass Effect, Bioshock, Blue Dragon, and Halo 3.

[quote]MGS4 looks stunning and after MGS 3, I'm really excited about it. Although I do not own a Playstation 3 yet, Kojima and his team do a great job of getting the most out of Sony hardware, so I'll be interested in seeing what they pull out of the Playstation 3.

I still don't know what you're smoking when it comes to Heavenly Sword; it's probably one of the best-looking games I have ever seen. The game is both technically sound and it features a cool art direction.[/quote]

MGS4 looked average at best. When talking visual fidelity, of course it looked incredible. I really like the direction they've taken with Meryl in terms of style.

But with that said, the trailer showed absolutely nothing in terms of gameplay, and most of it looked like pre-rendered CG. The combat and animation looked nice, but quite frankly, I'm not holding my breath that anything that [spoiler]Snake, Raiden, or Vamp[/spoiler] was doing is going to be included in actual gameplay.

And quite honestly, we've had enough cut-scene bullet time martial arts in the series. I know I'm tired of that **** at this point, because it's just not exciting anymore. The cut-scene bullet time martial arts was fun in Twin Snakes because it was new to the series. Now it's just played-out.

So seeing a trailer with basically nothing but that, and a few little kernels of hyperbolic dialogue...not exciting at all.

Regarding Heavenly Sword. It looks pretty, but the art style is terribly generic. Most of the characters in the trailer look straight out of Final Fantasy, dude. Same goes for the combat. There's nothing new there at all. I can't see how you're excited about combat sequences (or action sequences) that have been around for God knows how long.

With regards to your Nintendo bits, I generally agree with you. If there's one first-party Wii game I'm reserving, it's Super Mario Galaxy. I have high expectations for the other costumes, as well. I'm hoping Racoon Mario makes a comeback, and I kind of would like to see what a next-gen Frog Mario can do.

But other than that? If Nintendo had something to show for Brawl at E3, they should have shown it. Because as it stands right now, the daily updates on SmashDojo are useless or irrelevant, and sure as hell don't excite me about the game. Last year we were shown four or five of the new characters, and those ended up being huge announcements.

But this year Brawl got a release date and that's it. Big fricking deal. Having a release date doesn't get me hard these days. What does get me hard is getting to see a nice chunk of the character roster, or half a dozen of the good levels (all of the recent level reveals on SmashDojo have been crap). After seeing nothing at E3 07, and barely anything on SmashDojo for weeks, Brawl dropped off my reserve radar entirely. And last year, it started at the top, due to the character reveals at E3 06.

Metroid Prime Corruption. Rental. I have faith in Retro Studios. I have confidence in their abilities. I'm sure that Corruption will be fun. I genuinely like some of the stuff they showed. But I'm still ambivalent because they barely spent any time at all on Corruption at E3 07.

Mario Kart Wii. Looks fun. I'll probably pick it up eventually. But I'm not won over at all, because they barely spent a few minutes on it.

Instead, they spent most of their presentation focusing on Wii Sports and Wii Fit. Wii Fit has potential, yes. But showing that game should never, ever come at the cost of less time devoted to the more hardcore games.

[quote]Anyhoo, I liked MS's conference too, but I think they were all pretty good for their own reasons. Why does there have to be a "winner" among them? heh[/quote]

There doesn't have to be a winner, per se. It's just that I found it absurd that people were praising Sony and Nintendo for things that really weren't all that impressive, then turning around and saying that Microsoft's conference was lackluster or whatever, when MS' game line-up was twice as amazing and long. It just makes no sense at all.

[James]

[color=#606060]I think it just depends on your expectation. If you expected Microsoft to show something radically new, you'd probably be disappointed. But then again, this would be the case for all three shows - it's the nature of this year's E3. And in some ways I'm sort of glad about that.

Generally we weren't shown anything new from any company (save maybe Wii Fit). It was more about what's coming this year and early next year - it wasn't about "we're unveiling this game that's coming out in 2010". This is good because it takes pressure off developers, I think.

I don't really think anyone "won"; in fact it was all largely as I expected. Nintendo was probably only an exception in the sense that they focused primarily on first party stuff (almost totally excluding third party content). Whereas Sony and Microsoft emphasized the full range of upcoming portfolio. Nintendo's stuff was a bit more all over the place in that sense - you had to go looking for relevant third party content (of which there was a decent amount).

IGN wasn't terribly impressed with MS's actual conference - they were happier with the post-conference stuff. I think that's pretty reasonable. This E3 really afforded more real hands-on time with specific games rather than lots of rhetoric.[/color]

[Gavin]

[SIZE="1"]I just watched the [b]Fable 2[/b] trailer on the official site and I'm pleased to say it's looking to be an interesting prospect, though hopefully Peter and Lionhead will launch the PC version and the XBox version at the same time rather than as another "The Lost Chapters" styled edition months later.

KillZone for me was sort of a unexpected pleasure for me, so hopefully the sequel will be something of the same, though I hope this time they don't choose voice actors people immediately identify as being badguys, Ronny Cox being an obvious example. Funny, I've used his name twice today in two entirely different connotations.

After MGS3, I've got high hopes for [B]Guns of the Patriots[/b], though the plotline from what I've read seems a bit far fetched, but with MGS that's hardly new. [/SIZE]

[Guest The Blue Jihad]

IGN's coverage in general was pretty trashy, especially for Nintendo's conference. They were doing commentary with snide little remarks instead of just reporting what was being said or shown. Bunch of lame-*** bitches.

What I expected at E3 here was solid pitches that would convince me to buy the game. I didn't really expect anything earth-shatteringly new; I just expected some decent game information beyond "Brawl is coming December 3rd."

E3 should be about the major game line-ups first and foremost. Quirky little first-party side projects are nice and all, but when a company barely gives a flagship title like Smash Brawl nothing more than a release date, and at the same time, ends up spending 20 minutes on Wii Sports and Wii Fit, something is wrong there. I can understand wanting to re-iterate their success, but that kind of time ratio was embarrassing.

I appreciate that Sony at least focused more on their [B]games[/B]. It's just a pity that nearly everything looked so generic and boring...and were basically re-hashes of previous franchises, except with new paint-jobs, like MGS4 and Heavenly Sword.

So that's about it. E3 is a game expo. I expect to see games revealed, discussed, played, and so on. So when a company doesn't focus on its marquee games...yeah...