For anyone who has forgotten, it does indeed start later today...
http://e3.gamespot.com/how-to-e3/index.h...learn-more
Nintendo and Sony's conferences are on Tuesday, MS today. A bunch of E3 stuff has already come out, and I'm sure there are a lot more to come... I think it'll be a very interesting week. :)
MS conference - 10am PST Monday
Nintendo conference - 9am PST Tuesday
Sony conference - 12am PST Tuesday
While I'm certainly looking forward to any good stuff coming from those three, I won't lie that my most anticipated news will probably be from Valve.
Well, you should be excited about Move and Kinect!
Because they're the FUTURE of gaming!
Oh yes, such a great future...
I mean sure, motion/aiming controls are good in some games. They're not so good in others. It's a neat option to have, but really for many/most kinds of games normal controllers are better...
MS conference is about to start! Should we be on MSN or something?
MS's conference has gotten really, really bad.
I've been watching the whole conference, and yeah, it has. But it's a long section on Kinect, what else would you expect?
Call of Duty Black Ops - Looks alright for its genre. First Vietnam game in the series, right?
Halo Reach - Looks like Halo...
MGS Rising - Looks alright. Not very MGS-ish at all (unless it has numerous hour-long cutscenes :)), but decent. Swords are fun. :)
Gears of War 3 - Looks like it could be good, maybe better than the previous two?
Fable 3 - Now that's interesting, an 18th century Fable game, with a revolutionary (literally) setting? Different... could be pretty cool, too.
Kinect - I still think the idea of controllerless game control isn't a very good idea for most kinds of games. Doesn't look very interesting.
Oh, and evidently PC games do not exist. I'm not impressed, Microsoft. :(
Yup, apart from "the video conferencing feature works on Windows Live Messenger too", PCs do not exist.
Also, most of the Kinect games don't look particularly interesting. The kart-ish racing game looks alright, though it'd be better with a controller, Wii style... I don't understand at all how not having a controller is going to be better in much anything beyond very casual games. As for the rest of the games... yeah, not so much.
As for the new Xbox, the smaller size is nice and it looks good, but no price cut, and will it be any more (or less) reliable?
"Here's some sequels and some stuff you don't care about!"
At least that part was about actual games though, the Kinect part was just a terrible ordeal of lame "controls", bad games, and a very iffy at best concept.
Kinect has some pretty bad lag too, evidently... from GAF...
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In all honesty, the modern models of the 360 have already dealt with the original's terribly flawed and fatal design. It's just that there's still a lot of that original model out in the wild just waiting to fail, plus Microsoft's weird need to simply "refurbish" those failed models without actually addressing the core flaw. Anything made since 2008 seems okay though.
I really doubt they'd screw up with the smaller model. The real question is: do they still use proprietary memory cards and hard disks, or did they finally just use SATA hard drive and SD card slots? Seriously, their own hard disks, 120 GB things, are twice as expensive as a frickin' Tera byte drive.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/14/new-xb...t-in-wifi/
Is it really smaller? Hard to tell. The design looks odd. Is it actually pinched in like that, or is that just perspective? It doesn't look good putting all the weight on the two sides instead of across the bottom. I think it may be perspective though, because I thought the same when looking at "head on" images of the first 360 model. At any rate, the "angles" just don't seem to appreciate modern aesthetic much. It should be box, a box, just plain glossy box with rounded corners but nothing else but box to it. Adding angles and odd bends randomly is so... late 1990's. What is this, an Alienware computer? Built in wifi and 250 GB as standard is a nice improvement at any rate.
I forgot to mention the Crytek game (Kingdoms or something? I'm not sure what the name is), that did look great... it's Crytek though, so of course it will be good. Also we saw nothing of what the game will actually be. And it was an actual new game, not a sequel!
250GB HDD built in, same ($300) price, DJ. Built in wifi too. Not sure if it has an ethernet port...
Oh, and no Natal pricing announcement. Hmm...
Yeah ABF I saw that. That doesn't answer any of my questions though.
A Black Falcon Wrote:I forgot to mention the Crytek game (Kingdoms or something? I'm not sure what the name is), that did look great... it's Crytek though, so of course it will be good. Also we saw nothing of what the game will actually be. And it was an actual new game, not a sequel!
They showed a live-action trailer, big deal.
But it was
1) Crytek (thus it will look amazing)
2) New
3) Medieval, I think
That's more than enough to make me interested. Hopefully there's a PC version...
Oh, DJ, it is smaller. In the press conference they took an original 360 shell off of the new model to reveal it.
A Black Falcon Wrote:But it was
1) Crytek (thus it will look amazing)
2) New
3) Medieval, I think
That's more than enough to make me interested. Hopefully there's a PC version...
It's not medieval, more like Roman Empire.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, from Criterion. It should be NFSHP3 of course, this "dropping numbers from things that need them" is really stupid, but ... as they said, Need for Speed is back. I'm actually interested in a Need for Speed game for the first time since NFSHP2, and that was a while ago... very awesome. The game looks great. You can play as both the police and the speeders, the music was epic chase stuff and not rap, it was daytime and not night, lots of touches from NFSHP and HS were there like the spike mats, roadblocks, and police chatter, and more... good stuff. :)
I remember when they made Sonic the Hedgehog with no subtitle for 360/PS3. That was confusing, as was Prince of Persia (No subtitle). It's just dumb.
Medieval! Yeah, haven't set a game in THAT era before. Except, oh right, ALL OF THEM EVERYWHERE! Roman empire is a bit more original.
It's a trend with movies too, such as the most recent Rocky movie, Rocky Balboa (admittedly not the name of a previous movie in the series, but not something showing where in the series it is), or the most recent Rambo movie, Rambo (same as previous)... and yeah, it's lame.
Quote:Medieval! Yeah, haven't set a game in THAT era before. Except, oh right, ALL OF THEM EVERYWHERE! Roman empire is a bit more original.
Bah, I don't care. I love medieval themed stuff anyway. But yes, Roman and Greek stuff is also pretty awesome.
Well, you gotta admit it's an overplayed card. It's always medieval, even if it's another planet's medieval times. I'd love to see just one game, one that isn't comedic, that's set in a sort of stone age inspired era.
So, they apparently not just announced but RELEASED their new model 360 today. Who thought that up? Does anyone remember the last time someone tried to "surprise release" something? I do, and it was called the Sega Saturn's American release. Yeah, if no one knows until you release it that it even exists, don't be surprised if the initial sales suffer terribly.
An XBox slim with no price break, but built in wifi? that's a good deal... but the Wii an PS3 beat them to that punch.
Kinect looks bad. It's slow and unresponsive. It looks excellent as a menu interface. Like, imagine playing with a controller and then being able to drag and drop or motion your hand for certain moves. But as the game's only method of playing? Really? So Kinect has to have slow games? Even the racing lagged and looked awkward and that's just side to side movements.
It will get better as they have more time with it but Jesus. Talk about bait and switch. The social aspects look amazing though, I can totally see that becoming a mainstream product. That kinda makes me think that the real gaming of Kinect will be in the form of Facebook-style apps on XBox social zones. Cam chatting, group movie streams, and lots of "like" and "comment" posts. Chatroulette style apps for Kinect are going to do well, especially when you consider you can roulette someone, bullshit, then jump in to a game of whatever.
As long as its not a Kinect game. Ugh. Hopefully Sony is more impressive with Move. Nintendo is going to lose more online players to XBox's social aspects if they dont improve their systems, so here's hoping for that too.
3DS is going to steal the show but I know Nintendo's going to show either Wii2 or Wii Plus, even in the form of a super update for the system. The nerds see that Kinect needs work, but the normies will buy it up in droves.
All in all, a badly acted conference with a lackluster product. The silver lining is that developers will use Kinect and get used to it, I give it 3 years and we'll see something closer to that video they teased us with where we could scan skateboards and have full body immersion. But definitely not at launch.
Try not to "know" things in advance lazy. I figure the 3DS is going to be shown, but banking all your hopes on a new Wii is just a setup for disappointment. I'd be interested if they did though.
I think that aside from those clips some are saying it's pretty responsive. That thing is still in development, so I'll wait until release before judging it. They should be aiming for at least the responsiveness of the Wii controller with Motion Plus if it's going to have some staying power. I still have one big question. How they heck do you "walk"? I mean, my room isn't as big as the fields of Northrandilestarondamadingdingdong, so I have to stop at some point and my character will have barely moved. Will I just be walking in place, or what? This is also a weakness of the Wii movement scheme, but at least there you have some controls in your hand to just move that way.
So the new hard disk setup is a lot smaller, and is inserted just like the PS3 hard disk slot. However, it still looks proprietary. The way it connects does leave some ROOM for allowing any 2.5 SATA drive stuck in a special caddy to work, but it doesn't look that good. Also, it IS just perspective making the thing look like it pinches in in the middle, so that's good.
Hey lazy, ALL conferences everywhere are badly acted. Steve Jobs is a terrible actor, Bill Gates is a terrible actor, the weird people they have working at NOA are terrible actors, and the goofballs over at Sony's US headquarters are terrible actors (and ignorant of giant crab history).
Ubisoft conference (which is now) --
Mizuguchi game - He made Rez. It's a synthastesia game. Obviously very awesome.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood -- Looks great...
Shaun White Skateboarding -- The world changes as you do tricks, you can create paths through the sky as you go, and more? Now that's a cool concept for a skateboarding game... looks pretty good.
Laser tag with online hookups ("Battle Tag") -- Weird thing to have at a videogame convention... not that it looks bad, for what it is it looks fine, but it's just an odd thing to have here.
Innergy - product (I don't know if I could call this a game) designed to reduce the players' stress. Um, okay. Why not. On that note, I wonder if we'll see Nintendo's pulse sensor again... and that this game is obviously a ripoff of that concept...
Kinect games - Casual sports title (I think we have seen this kind of thing before...) and another fitness game. Zzzzz...
Raving Rabbids Travel in Time -- Good stuff... all CG and not gameplay, but the Raving Rabbids conquer the moon game (Wii) seems to have done well enough to get a sequel, which is great. I definitely want to play that game, and if this is like it it could be fun as well. :)
Oh, and a lot of people seem to be bashing Ubisoft's conference, but at least they're trying to be funny, and some of it is amusing. It's certainly less painful than Microsoft's conference, even if it's bad. :)
Ghost Recon - Another shooter... not my thing. Looks fine for one of those games at least, but I won't be playing it.
Driver San Francisco -- As like many people I loved the first game, but didn't like any other game in the franchise. As this game seems to be getting back to the style of the original, I'm interested, and it's looking pretty good. The Shift ability is weird... could be interesting, we'll see.
Dust - Very cool video, but what's the gameplay? Hopefully it's as unique and interesting as the video was...
Rayman Origins -- WOAH! Now that is a surprise, I had no clue that this game existed... did anyone? It looks like the original Rayman, except redone and in 3d... awesome! It looks fantastic. Hopefully it won't be impossibly hard like the original game was (or too easy), but what was there in that video looked brilliant. I want to play that game now. :)
Mania Planet - Game creation software? Very cool, stuff like that is great... I'm very interested.
Michael Jackson dancing game - If good that could be very popular, but not my interest.
Overall a pretty solid conference, with some nice surprises. Cheesy, not great jokes? Yes, but I mostly didn't mind.
That "innergy" thing sounds like complete hogwash. If the "big three" are financing that sort of nonsense then shame on them.
Project Dust is an Eric Chahi game! My interest level just went way, way up...
For anyone who doesn't know, Eric Chahi made Out Of This World and Heart of Darkness. This looks completely different from those, if I can guess about the gameplay at all, but still, it's been so long since he worked in the industry... it's just fantastic to see him back.
Overall, Ubisoft showed some pretty good stuff. Sure, the presentation was silly (though I didn't dislike it nearly as much as many people at GAF), but Ubisoft had far more games I actually really wanted to play than EA or Microsoft. Rayman Origins (!!!), Project Dust (Eric Chahi!), Driver (coma thing is stilly, but still it could be good), Children of Eden (Mizuguchi), Mania Planet (creation stuff is awesome), perhaps the Shaun White Skateboarding game... now that's an interesting lineup. They acknowledged that the PC exists, too, unlike Microsoft, where the only time PCs were mentioned was in the Windows Live messenger-Natal video chat conferencing thing... shameful, Microsoft. In comparison Ubisoft didn't just have multiplatform PC-console titles like EA, they even announced a PC-exclusive game, Mania Planet.
Sure, MS had some interesting ones (Kingdoms or whatever the Crytek game is, Fable 3, maybe the MGS game if it's not all cutscenes?), and so did EA (NFSHP, Crysis 2), but still... for originality and variety, Ubisoft clearly wins.
You've got a good point there, but there's still a few days left of E3. MS does technically have two platforms, and it's in their interest to advertise the fact that Windows can play games. Maybe they just cut it apart into two different presentations on two different days?
I don't know why MS is trying to destroy one of its platforms with its other platform, but no, it really seems like they've abandoned the PC and have no intent on coming back. I mean, they shut down the MS Flight Simulator team a few years ago, shut down Ensemble Studios after forcing them to make an Xbox 360 exclusive, canceled the PC version of Alan Wake, didn't mention one single PC game or even PC version of a console game at their E3 presentation this year, and more... I think they're saying a lot about what they think of PC gaming, sadly enough. And if Microsoft, the people who make the OS, aren't even supporting it with games... well, it's not too surprising that PC gaming is in the bad state it is, is it? I mean, MS is only one studio, sure, but they're symbolically important for sure.
At least let E3 end before saying they haven't mentioned it at all.
Afterwards complain about it.
Goldeneye 007 is being remade for Wii by Activision, apparently. Darunia will be thrilled. :)
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It hasn't been officially announced yet, so it's hard to tell if that's an official Wii game or just some amateur's project (BAM, BURN!).
On the note of Kinect, a few web rumors (a quickly removed Gamestop page most notably) put the price at $150... if it really is that expensive, the thing will have an extremely hard time selling. I mean, the thing is for casuals. Are people really going to buy if they need both a system and a $150 addon? Some price will need to go down there...
Of course it might bomb anyway, but if it is actually priced that high and the 360 doesn't receive a price cut, they'd be making it more certain, I think. But that isn't a final price, just a rumor, so we'll see...
On that note, is Microsoft going to continue to sell the older models of 360s, the Arcade and Elite (which are now marked down to $150 and $250, like Nintendo marked the non-Wii Sports Resort Wiis to $150 after releasing the new bundle), or are they getting rid of at least one of them in favor of the new model? They've only announced one model of the new one, the $300 one, so where's the "Arcade" version of it... using the old arcade seems like it would be not quite as good, given that the Kinect can get power through a new model system, but with the old one it needs a separate power brick.
Oh, and I think the chances of seeing any kind of Wii 2 at the Nintendo conference are near zero. We'd have heard rumors about it if it existed. 3DS is the new hardware this year.
On one of the news sites I read they are doing the remodel "down the line" including Arcade. No announcement on what won't be in the Arcade versions though.
I just got done watching a little of Microsoft's press conference. I watched for two reasons: COD: Black Ops and MGS: Rising. Watching Raiden slice his enemies in half in Matrix style sold me. I was also very impressed with Black Ops. I was a little skeptical at first because of IW's fallout. Treyarch really stepped up to the plate with the demo that they showed-off.
Nintendo's conference starts in a few minutes. I can't wait to see the new Zelda game that they have in store for us!
Sacred Jellybean Wrote:Goldeneye 007 is being remade for Wii by Activision, apparently. Darunia will be thrilled. :)
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Activision's copyright claims=epic fail.
Wow. The Zelda demo is not exciting at all. Hell, the game doesn't look that impressive, either. I hope Nintendo puts a lot of work into this game.
I only really care about the new Silent Hill game to be announced tomorrow evening.
Looks like Goldeneye is official now. That'll be interesting, but I'm not sure it's a remake or a completely new game at this point.
The 3DS looks neat, and is pretty powerful if that Kid Icarus game is to be believed. Donkey Kong Country from Retro Studios? Hmm...
Golden Sun Dark Dawn. It's a brand new day.
The new Zelda seems interesting, but all I've heard are descriptions. No video of it over at Joystiq at least.
Zelda looked great! I am a little disappointed that there wasn't a real trailer, I wanted to see something of the story for sure, but seeing actual gameplay was fantastic... it's too bad it was delayed to next year, but it's playable and looks good, which is fantastic. The controls definitely look like they'll take some getting used to, but that's the whole point, isn't it? I don't know if I like the art style quite as much as Twilight Princess, but it looks pretty good, certainly, and the game is innovative and original, and looks really fun to play. It's just too bad there was no story trailer. The long gameplay demo came a long way in making up for that though..
Overall, Nintendo had an outstanding show! Zelda, Epic Mickey, Golden Sun DS, and Metroid Other M looked fantastic. The 3DS looks really cool. New titles such as Kirby Wii, Retro's Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Kid Icarus 3DS looked spectacular -- and though the Retro Donkey Kong game leaked and the idea of a GC and then Wii Kirby 2.5d platformer has been on and off for at least five or six years (hopefully this one will actually come out...), no one had a clue about Kid Icarus 3DS... amazing stuff!
DKC Returns -- Looks AMAZING! Fantastic graphics, great music, great DKC level designs... it looks like something Rare should have made. Amazing job, Retro! And 2010, too... very impressive!
Kirby - Pretty cool. Interesting visual style, looks pretty fun too. And it's also2010? It's interesting to see that two of Nintendo's main late 2010 titles are sidescrollers... I guess the massive success of NSMBWii inspired them? :)
Epic Mickey -- Looks like a fantastic game. Outstanding graphics and art design for the platform, gameplay looks really, really good too. This is probably a must-buy... not that I expected any less from Warren Spector.
Goldeneye - So it is real. Not bad.
Golden Sun DD - Looks fantastic, and 2010 also. Great news. This will be a must-buy!
Dragon Quest IX - I know the game is great, the only question is how much I'd actually like it...
Metroid Other M - Looks good. I still don't think it look quite as good as the Metroid Prime games, gameplay-wise, but it looks good enough I guess. I probably won't be getting this soon though, I just got Metroid Prime Trilogy recently after all...
3DS - Analog control, two cameras for 3d pictures, a tilt sensor inside, vastly improved graphics versus the DS (maybe Gamecube levels? We'll see), 3d... sounds fantastic! I think I'll definitely have to get one, my DS is wearing out and really needs an upgrade... and a great lineup of third party games were announced too, as you'd expect for the followup to this generation's most successful system.
Kid Icarus 3DS -- I know I said it already above, but WOAH! Amazing surprise, and it looks outstanding too! 3DS system seller indeed, if it's anywhere near as good as it looks...