E3 is Now!

Well if you didn't know E3, aka Electronics Entertainment Expo, is going on right now and console makers, publishers and developers are showing off their latest in the gaming department.  We got to see the typical, the not so expected and the just plain wow really. To start it off let’s re-cap day one of E3.

The first game company to hit the stage was Microsoft. Splintered into a hardcore, casual and back to a hardcore focus the press conference felt like a mixed bag. There was footage shown of Gears of War 3 and an epic battle against a lament sea creature. Forza 4 was pimped by Microsoft with promises of more epic numbers of new cars and tracks for racers to experience come fall. Then we got into the Kinect business. Mass Effect 3 was shown with a Kinect enabled feature of using your voice to select dialogue, ok?, and to issue orders to your squadmates in combat, that might be cool. Ghost Recon Future Soldier was shown off with its signature stealth cloaked gameplay along with a demonstration of how Kinect can be used to mess around with the gun customization locker and even test out your creations in a firing range like setup. That might work there but using the Kinect as a motion controller to fight off enemies in a twitched based shooter environment is still a long ways away.

Next up we got the EA press conference where we were told they don’t use celebrities in their press events. Queue the promo video of FIFA 12 a few minutes later where Lil’ Wayne is telling us he’s a big soccer fan and FIFA 12 is great. Haha, right and then after that we got Madden 12’s presentation with three veteran football players that were announced, discussed with and praised on stage. Well comical errors aside they also showed footage of Battlefield 3 and talked about their new enhanced FrostBite2 engine. This said engine builds off of the previous FrostBite engine, if you don’t know the engine it allowed players to demolish anything they came across/ it also has great sound capabilities, which were seen in the Battlefield: Bad Company games. Oh and Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic get presented and demoed as well. All jokes aside to the comical error mentioned already, EA games all looked fantastic. Well aside from Need for Speed: The Run, which has players getting out of their cars and performing quick time events as they try to escape from the police as they take part in an overall grand race from L.A. to New York, (a Cannonball Run like race).

Later on in the day Ubisoft had their press event and quite frankly last year’s was hard to watch so I skipped it this year. That doesn’t mean I missed what happened as a quick revisit through youtube brought me up to speed. Rayman’s new game looks amazingly beautiful with a unique art style that could encourage anyone to be interested in. Far Cry 3 was demoed and quite frankly I’m glad they’re going back to Far Cry 1’s design elements. The game will take place on a tropical island where the player is facing off against a militia of bad guys and as the video shows one crazy “insane” villain. Far Cry is a great sandbox game which allows the player to choose where they want to go and what they want to do while also being guided by the developers of what to do next. Far Cry 2 was a good game but it had many design decisions that I kept scratching my head on why the developers felt was the best direction for the franchise.

Alright set for a later time slot, and to give press some time to eat or get to the press conference, was Sony’s press conference later that day. Sony’s conference started out with a humble apology to the developers and fans addressing the PSN down situation. We were shown many demonstrations for Move enabled games along with 3D support for their vast library of 3D games. All the trailers shown in the event were shown in 3D as well. The PSP’s successor was shown and renamed from the Sony NGP to the Sony Vita. Sony’s newest handheld comes backed with features and light on your wallet with the base wifi model running in at a competitive $250. Multiple games were shown for the system along with many heavy hitters for the PS3 such as Uncharted 3 and Resistance 3.

Last and not least was Nintendo’s Press Event starting the very next day. They started theirs off by having a fully manned orchestra playing The Legend of Zelda music honoring 25 years of Zelda. Promises of a Zelda title for each platform and the reveal of a golden Wiimote were revealed in relation to Zelda’s 25^th Anniversary. Multiple games for the 3DS were showcased including; The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Starfox 64 3D, Mario Kart 3D, Luigi’s Mansion 2, and Kid Icarus Uprising. These titles were all given a time or date for within this year or the next. Being a big Mario Kart fan I was extremely excited to hear that you could not only customize your kart but also there were parts in the track where you could hang glider over, as a little hang glider accessory pops out of your kart to let you soar through the air. 

Skip to the Wii u announcement, the name of Nintendo’s next HD console and the discussion and presentation of the console’s versatile controller. Nintendo’s new controller is a combination of a 6.2" touch screen in the middle and typical controller sticks and buttons on the sides (and underneath too). The controller was demoed with a nice presentation trailer showing many things like using the controller to continue playing your game if someone wants to watch TV (this is big in my house), the ability to have all the inventory or non visual cues off the TV and on the controller itself, or even using it as a window for a virtual environment. It really looks like it has a lot of potential and here’s hoping developers can tap some creative ideas out of the thing. I wasn't fully sold on the Wii u but I believe I'm leaning heavily on picking up the 3DS once Nintendo's core featured titles hit the market.