It was about this time last week that the 2011 E3 Conference. There were press conferences. Four were Monday, one was on Tuesday. They were the 3 console makers, and 2 software companies: EA and Ubisoft. Many other game developers were present, and for the rest of week, they, along with press conference presenters, showed off their new software and new hardware. A lot of developers gave new ideas, improved old ideas, and even a few presented some serious new hardware. Let's start off with talking about the first part developers, the ones with the gaming systems. Instead of the typical star rating, let's give the 3 system studios medals: gold, silver and bronze.
XBox: Going into the XBox Press Conference, we all knew what XBox needed to do. They needed to proove that Kinect was not just a gimmick, but the new direction XBox was going with their games. They didn't exactly do that the first year, with only about twenty games. In fact, the problem XBox had last year was that they segregated their Kinect games from their mainstream games. XBox really did this as they spent most of their time demonstrating their Kinect used in real, mainstream games. Let's start with the Kinect updates on the dashboard. The biggest (which still is yet to come) is now Kinect can track fingers individually. While this may be a good line for making jokes about giving Kinect the finger, it really will help gameplay. For example, in shooters, you will be able to actually make the motion of shooting a gun. On the Kinect hub, a window called "Fun Labs" is added. In Fun Labs, you can buy gadgets that show off the Kinect's power. One gadget scans your body and then makes an avatar out of it for a photo shoot. Another took your avatar and made it into a bobble head. But these gadgets weren't only about you. There were 2 gadgets that scanned objects, like stuffed animals, and brought them to life. This is great for the XBox because you can see what Kinect can do through these little things. Also, they were all free add-ons!
But let's go back to the games for Kinect. As I said, most of the game were to show that Kinect was the future of XBox gaming. The first game they showed this off on was
Mass Effect 3. In
Mass Effect 3, a player can use the Kinect for 2 functions. First, it can be used for dialect choices. The screen shows you appropriate replies, and you choose them by simply speaking. The only problem I saw with this is that protangonist Shepherd says something different than what you say. So it feels more like you're whispering suggestions into his ear. I would have liked it to be more like you're talking directly to him. But the cooler function was the second part, which is controlling your allies with voice commands. You can say to one teammate, "Cover the right side," for example. But then came on Tom Clansey's latest
Ghost Recon game, and that made Kinect even greater. In the new
Ghost Recon, guns are completely customizable, allowing over 2 million possibilities for guns. How can you control gun customization? By either Kinect hand motions or Kinect voice control. Even cooler is when you test your new creation. With your one hand, you hold your gun. With you other hand, you shoot by opening your palm, and stop shooting with closing your fist (this is where the finger update will be helpful, since Kinect only can recognize open palms and close fists, this is what shooters would be). I looked this up on the official XBox website, and these games were labeled "Better with Kinect" instead of "Requires Kinect." So Kinect sounds optional, but on what level? Some games that say "Better with Kinect" mean that most of the game mainly is regular control, while only a minigame on the side uses Kinect. So I'm wondering if
Ghost Recon only uses Kinect in the gun creator, but the rest of the game is regular shooter. While this would please the Mass Effect fanboys and the Ghost Recon fanboys who claim that Kinect is ruining these games, I would disagree. The new gameplay has got me interested in these games. But those are just shooters for the shooter fanboy. For the athletes who likes sports games, EA sports came on the XBox press conference briefly to announce that 3 EA Sports games will feature Kinect:
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2012, FIFA 12, and Madden 12. This has got me excited for sports games on XBox, especially playing football with Madden. If you don't consider racing a sport, but like racing games, then you'll want to check out
Forza Motorsport 4. You still drive with a regular controller or a steering wheel controller, but you check your mirrors by moving your head, picked up by the connect sensor bar. But this is just including Kinect into these games. We still need to see some serious, full Kinect games. And they do have them.
In some opinions, when Kinect was released last year, the only serious game meant for hardcore gamers was Dance Central. So naturally this year's leader in serious Kinect games would be Dance Central 2. I was surprised that a Dance Central 2 was coming in a year. After all, Harmonix is not one to release sequels on an annual schedule. But this is worth it, as they improved everything that needed to be improved. First improvement was the Break It Down. No longer do you have do learn the whole dance over just to practice one move. It can be done individually. Second improvement is the multiplayer because it is true multiplayer. Instead of taking turns, going in and out, 2 dancers dance side-by-side. The second player can even jump in and out. Third improvement is Dance Central 2 has a more distinct story mode (if it did have a story mode in the first place). And the best thing about it all is it is typical Harmonix, allowing Dance Central 1 and DLC to be both be playable in Dance Central 2. I like Dance Central 1, but I can tell I will love Dance Central 2, which shoots it to that top of my list. Another game that is near the top of my list is
Kinect Star Wars. Last E3 were only a video clip of a possible idea. This time we saw actual gameplay, using the force and a lightsaber with your own hands. This game can really make you feel like a Jedi. From sci-fi to fantasy, Kinect welcomes Fable with
Fable Journey. I didn't put this with "Kinect convert games" because it sounds like this game is taking a slightly different direction. From the sound of things, the game is a direct sequel because you're no longer following the royal hero family. Instead of heroes being born, heroes are made. More importantly is the gameplay here. Your mode of transportation is a horse and buggy, steered by your actual hands holding the reins. The game play demo showed using magic with your hands. It was very cool. I hope they keep swords and guns, and have you use the same Kinect game play. Your sports and fitness games are back with
Kinect Sports Season 2 and
Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012. These games, however, did not impress me. They seem to be just simple additions to the original game.
Kinect Sports Season 2 is the funnier one because it was closer to Wii Sports than its first game was. And to quickly this out of the way, I will mention that coming to Kinect is a Sesame Street game and a Disneyland game. I heard people watching E3 complain this, but get over it! This game is not marketed for us! Couldn't you tell by the 3 year old playing Sesame Street and 6 and 10 year old playing Disneyland? So stop complaining because it's not intended for us! But the best game of the press conference was not only a Kinect game, but an original Kinect game with an original story. The game is called
Ryse. It takes place in ancient Rome, where a power change and a power struggle takes place. The gameplay, to simply put it, is the Gladiator game from PS Move's Sports Champions put into a full story game. See, this is the type of game XBox needs to show its players that Kinect is serious.
Speaking of PlayStation rip offs, another one is
Fruit Ninja, originally for PlayStation's move, but will soon be on XBox. But more amazing, it will be on the Live Arcade.
Fruit Ninja was featured in to make a bigger announcement: Kinect games will be in the Arcade, too. I think this is the perfect oppurtunity to allow indy companies to make Kinect games and show us for its true power.
For those gamers who aren't as into Kinect, there were your basic controller games. The first game, which was the game to start off the conference, was
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Of course it received the most applause, and it is probably the most popularly anticipated game from this year's E3. They decided to show the opening sequence, but that really wasn't the best choice. It was mostly a cinematic cutscene, there was very little player action, and it left the watcher confused on what was happening. The newest
Tomb Raider was also shown. You would think with a "butcher" looking Lara, she would be tougher, but instead, she seemed scared and whiny all the time. This is not the Lara we know.
Gears of War 3 was introduced with Ice T. And last but not least, Microsoft XBox went back to its biggest franchise and announced 2 new games. The first one was an XBox 360 remake of the orignal
Halo: Combat Evolved for its 10th anniversary. The second one was
Halo 4. This one game was really announced as 3 games, for it was called "the start of a new trilogy." So expect Halo 4, 5 and 6.
Overall, the Microsoft Conference had its positives and negatives. As I said above, it did what it needed to do with Kinect: demonstrate Kinect was the real deal that could be used in real games. Kinect is used in full games, both with original ideas and sequels, even putting it in franchises as optional or on the side is good. While this year's press conference brought the two sides of XBox 360 closer together, that gap is still too far apart. Last year they focused too much on normal controller games and too little on Kinect games. This year they focused too much on Kinect games, and not enough on the controller. For both sides, there were great new games, but you never heard about during the press conference. You had to see the E3 floor trailer for it.
XBox360 Press Conference+Positives+: Brought gap between Kinect games and controller games closer, Kinect integration into franchise games, bigger Kinect library, reaches more broadly to the causual gamer and families, dashboard/software improvements
-Negatives-: Still a gap between Kinect games and controller games, relied too heavily sequels from old franchises, sports/fitness games for Kinect showed nothing new
=Top 3 Games=: Dance Central 2, Kinect Star Wars, Ryse
*Medal*: Silver
PlayStation: I predicted this opening right, but as the presented said, it was "the elephant in the room." He apologized not only to the fans, but also third party developers who lost money in the Network's halt. Luckily he wasn't received with negative reaction. Another prediction I made was the popularity of the idea of "collections," or old games on old systems being brought to PS3 and updated with PS3. Sure enough there was a lot of them, but I'm sad to say my prediction was right. I wish it wasn't. It was just like what Nintendo did last year. It went back to old franchises, but this was worst. They could have at least made it a new game in an old franchise, but no, it was old games from old franchises, but now just prettier. There was the
Metal Gear Solid collection,
Silent Hill collection,
God of War collection,
Ico and Shadows of the Colossus collection,
Zone of the Enders collection,
Mega Man collection, and on and on. And don't get me wrong, there were new sequels to the old franchises, but the fact still remains it was heavily depended on old franchises. There was anpther
Uncharted sequel, another
Ratchet & Clank sequel, another
Sly Cooper sequel, another
Resistance sequel and another
Bioshock sequel. Don't get me wrong, some of these games will be great individually. But just like Nintendo last year, it depended heavily on its fanboys with new sequels to old franchises, and worse than Nintendo last year, some of those were old games from old franchises. There was was just too much of it. Speaking of too much of it, the other thing there was too much of was 3D. Every game that had it, you knew the game had because they would mention it over and over. I saw the spectators had to keep putting their 3D glasses on for the trailers and taking them off for the speakers. They even introduced a new TV, made by PlayStation, to feature the 3D gaming The coolest thing I saw with the 3D was that 2 gamers can look at this PlayStation TV and see two different things, eliminating the need for split-screen multiplayer. But I've been told the technology alreasy exists, so it's nothing big. But that does put PS3 as leader of the graphics race. After hearing too much about collections, too much about sequels and too much about 3D, what I didn't hear enough about was Move. PlayStation, when it first debuted Move, did a great job connecting the hardware with the software. Instead of showing its capabilities and maximum potential, it would show its use in gameplay. While PlayStation continues to do this, it didn't take a lot of time with that. The biggest one was
Bioshock Infinite. The surprising and exciting news was that
Bioshock Infinite would allow Move controls for its new game. The other games showcased with Move was
NBA 2k12 and
Medieval Moves, but really, it was only
Medieval Moves.
NBA 2k12 had an epic fail with Move. When I hear a basketball game has Move, I'm thinking your acting out dribbling, passing, shooting, blocking and stealing with the motion control. That's not true according to
NBA 2k12. To them, using Move is using the Move pointer to point to the player you want to pass to. But you just then press the square button for pass. But I guess I shouldn't blame PlayStation for 2k Sport's inability to use Move well.
But we all know the PS3 was only to show off new software, and all we all know the new hardware to show off was the next generation handheld. During the press conference, the name was revealed. Sony ditched the PlayStation Portable, PSP for short (or at least ditched the name), and went with the new name "PlayStation Vita." "Vita" means life, for PlayStation tells us this next generation handheld will be the life of the player. Just like the PSP, the player will be able to look at photos, listen to music, watch movies, and so on, but so much more. And all that so much more can be summed up in my prediction: "expect it to be an imitation of the 3DS." First, there's 2 touch screens, or better worded, a touch screen and a touch panal. The second touch panal is on the back, for what Sony calls a "reverse touch screen." Second, the PS Vita is just like the 3DS in having two surround speakers. Third, just like a 3DS, it has a front and back camera, for taking pictures of the self and taking pictures of other people and things. Now the 3DS wins with 3 cameras (2 in the outside for 3D pictures and 1 on the inside), while the PS Vita only has 2, so it's more like the DSi, which also had two cameras. Just like the 3DS, it has a microphone. Just like the 3DS, its games are put on a flash card and an SD card slot for expandable memory. And for the perfect transition, just like the 3DS, the PS Vita has the gyroscrope for motion sensing. I say it's the perfect transition because it's gyroscope sensor is really the six-axis motion control from the PS3. Just as I predicted, the PS Vita also greatly resembles the PS3 controller. Just like the PS3, it has six-axis motion, and just like the PS3 controller, it has 2 analog sticks. It is truly a cross between the PS3 controller and the 3DS. While we might be quick to point fingers and call it a copycat, and thus make it fun of it for doing so, it's for the better to improve the gaming experience. Speaking of gaming experience, an array of games was introduced for the PS Vita. Such games were
ModNation Racer, Little Big Planet, and
Street Fighter X Tekken. But the best demo by far was
Uncharted: Golden Abyss. This game showed that players can use both traditional PS3 controls or use the new controls, which feature using the touch screens. The price for this new system? $250-$300. Even though it is near the price of 3DS, it's capabilities nowhere near the 3DS does not justify the price. So why so high? The PS Vita has many online feature, from web surfing to even talking to other PS Vita people. So it definitely needs Wi-Fi capabilities. But Sony thought it would be better if it had 3G. So who did they team up with? Apparently they didn't get Apple's opinion because they teammed up with AT&T. Then I got the reaction I was expecting with PlayStation's opening: a third of the crowd applauded, a third booed, and a third just laughed. Apparently we haven't learned this lesson from the iPhone. The Wi-Fi only PS Vita will cost $250 and the PS Vita with both Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G will be $300.
Overall, the PlayStation press conference was lackluster in some points, but strong in others. It could be reflected in the way they did their press conference. Starting sixteen minutes late, the show start off weak, but ending with the new hardware, the show ended strong. PlayStation continued to show off its hardware, from the old console hardware, like 3D and Move, to the new handheld all around. The software presentation was lacking. There was too much emphasis on old franchises, on both the console and handheld, but moreso on the handheld. Most of the unique games, like
Journey and
The Last Guardian were not mentioned during the press conference; they were only showed off on the show floor. Even
Twisted Metal, an old but good series for the PlayStation was limited to the show floor. In short, the high points were the PS Vita and the low points were the PS3.
PlayStation (PS3 &
PS Vita)+Positives+: PS Vita rivals the 3DS in hardware, PS Vita has good titles for same-day release as the PS Vita, PS Vita has good socal connection capabilities, PS Vita's new menu, PS Vita has good future potential connection with PS3 (in short, PS Vita is the positive of the press conference)
-Negatives-: PS3 depended too much on old franchises with collections, PS3 depended too much on old franchises by introducing new sequels, PS3 focused too much on 3D, PS3 focused too little on Move (in short, PS3 is negative of the press conference)
=Top 3 Games for PS3=:
Bioshock Infinite, Medieval Move, NBA 2k12=Top 3 Games for PS Vita=:
Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Little Big Planet, ModNation Racer*Medal*: Bronze
Nintendo: We all knew about the Nintendo's new console for a while, and it wasn't until the last minute we finally found it's name: Wii U (more on that later). Of course to build suspense, Wii U was held to the end, that was expected. Surprisingly, the first game talked about was for the Wii. The show opened with an orchestra playing the soundtrack to many familar songs of the Zelda series. This is because this year is the Zelda series is celebrating its 25th century anniversary. So with Zelda's 25th anniversary, there were a lot of games coming out to celebrate the anniversary. What better way to start with
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. If anyone is keeping track, this
Skyward Sword's third appearance at E3. At E3 2009, we were shown a concept art for the game, with a small taste of what the story and game play will be like. At E3 2010, we were shown the game play mechanics with Wii Motion plus, but given little to no information about the story. And it seemed like with every passing month, the release date for the game was pushed back another season. Now that they fished out all the glitches, the game will be relased around holiday 2011 (even Iwata said "finally"). But that's it we heard from the Wii. The press conference perfectly transitioned into the 3DS, as the other celebrations games for the Zelda 25th anniversary will be two games for the 3DS. One will be a regular game, the other will be DLC. The regular 3DS game is
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, and the DLC game is
Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. The crowd was in awe when this game was announced to be a free download.
As I predicted, the games and other software was mostly in the 3DS section. As I also predicted, most games were repeat sequels to old franchises. As stated above, we saw Link and Zelda again in
Ocarina of Time 3D and
Four Swords (may I mention these are both remakes?). We saw again in
Super Mario 3D, Paper Mario 3D and
Super Mario Kart 3D. We saw Luigi again in
Luigi's Mansion 2. Star Fox again in
Star Fox 3D. We saw Pit again in
Kid Icarius: Uprising. We saw Animal Crossing again in
Animal Crossing 3D. But while these are repeated games in old franchises, you really can't complain too much because each one is bringing new aspects, besides 3D graphics.
Legend of Zelda Four Swords will allow that four player multiplayer with needing to be connected by one big TV and console.
Super Mario 3D is a cross between Super Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros., bringing in the best of the best worlds. It also is going bring back features from Super Mario Bros. 3, which will appease to fanboys.
Paper Mario 3D is going to incorporate the 3D screen with moving between 2D world and 3D world.
Super Mario Kart 3D is going to have complete kart customization. In racing, the kart will transform into a glider for air movement and an underwater scooter for the underwater movement.
Star Fox 3D has greatly vamped up the multiplayer, including having your friends tracked with their face.
Animal Crossing 3D uses the 3DS Street Pass to make a true MMO.
Kid Icarus: Uprising isn't your simply
Kid Icarus from the third generation console. It has everything that next generation games have: good graphics, good gameplay, good story, good character development and good cutscenes.
Luigi's Mansion 2 isn't just a remake of an old game for a new handheld. It is legit new game, with everything a new game needs. If anyone thought the 3DS lacked good titles this past year, this next year will prove you wrong. If you don't have a 3DS yet because you think there is no good games for the 3DS, after seeing this E3, you will get a 3DS in anticipation of the new 3DS games coming out this year.
Before, I go on, even though Reggie did not go into deep detail with this, he did mention that Nintendo is not going into only developing 3DS games. They will continue to produce DS games, ones that will work on the original DS model, the DS Lite, the original DSi model, and the DSi XL. He didn't go into details about these new titles, but they are there on the show floor, with E3 trailers. Titles included
Kirby Mass Attack, Dragon Quest Monster: Joker 2, and
Rhythm Heaven 2.
Now we are ready to talk Wii U. Of course Nintendo had to drag it out by starting to talk about its long-term vision. While it may seem boring, it was worth listening to. When Nintendo started their long-term vision, they said they wanted to go "deeper and wider" (and yes, all Christians now have the Christian children's song "Deep and Wide" stick in their head). What this meant is that Nintendo wanted to wider by expanded their users by introducing new people to gaming to become (what we call) casual gamers, and to go deeper by giving (what we call) hardcore gamers and better gaming experience. The say that the Wii was to do the first part by introducing a new style of game play that leveled all gamers, both casual and hardcore, to the same level. And now, because of them, everyon wants to play video games, from children to the elderly, all around the family. Now the new system was focused on the deeper part, giving the hardcore gamer a better gaming experience. This is where the name comes in. If the "Wii" in "Nintendo Wii" means "we, the large, majority population of gamers," then the "U" in "Wii U" means "you, the serious gamer." In short, the Wii U is intended for the serious, hardcore gamer. But enough about the name, let's talk about the console itself.
The introduction trailer opens with a man playing a game on the TV screen, most likely
New Super Mario Bros. Mii. His male roommate enters and says, "Alright, time for baseball," and turns the TV screen to the baseball channel. It's no problem for gamer. The trailer cuts to him picking up what looks like iPad with buttons and knobs and continues playing his game on there. As I was watching this online, I immediately see comments on the side spring up saying, "OMG is the new 'system' just a controller?" No, it is not, but it is need the new controller. The new controller is about 8 inches in length, with a 6-inch touch screen in the middle. To the left of the touch screen is a circle pad, similar to the one on the 3DS, and a control D-pad. On the right is another circle pad, and 4 letter buttons: A, B, X, Y (just like 3DS again). Below the touch screen is your + button and - button, represented start and select, as well as the home button. All 3 buttons are representative of the Wiimote buttons. On top of the touch screen is a camera and a microphone. On the back of the controller are 4 buttons: L, R, Z-L, Z-R. Yes, just like XBox and PlayStation, Nintendo now has bumper and trigger buttons. Inside, it has motion sensor gyroscope and rumble pack. So I was right in predicting Nintendo would make their console like the handheld DS. But just to be clear the Wii U is not another handheld. The Wii U controller cannot be used no further away from the console than 20-25 feet. But games can be played exclusively on the Wii U, as well as become a second screen for a home console.
They didn't give us much detail at the press conference about the actual console itself. Later, Reggie would comment on GameTrailers.com that the console is just a box. But for those concerned about the box, he did give a few specs. The box is like a rounded Wii with bigger buttons. The graphics card is 1080p. They demonstrated that with a short animated clip during the press conference. The discs they will be using is the optimal discs. I was wrong in my prediction and disappointed with that. But they did say these will be more of a HD Optimal discs, which is bigger and better. No mention on hard drive size, but there will be a slot for SD card memory expansion again. There will most likely be backwards combatability with Wii games, but less likely for GameCube games. The Wii U will be compatibile with not just the Wii U controller, but the Wiimote, the Nunchuck, the Wii Classic Controller, the Classic Controller Pro and the Balance Board. The question I have left is how they plan to incorporate this all. Is it a total abandonment of motion control, is motion control being pushed off to the side, or is it still full motion control? The best part is the online capabilities. No more friend codes. Now it's going to be more like XBox's gamertag.
Nintendo admitted it knew why third party developers were not on board with the Wii. First, it lacked the graphics capabilities. Second, it lacked the online capacity. Nintendo knew both problems. While we thought it turned its head and looked the other way, Nintendo actually did the opposite and confronted them in the new console and fixed them. When Nintendo displayed it back to the third party developers, Nintendo won them over. Already it been announced that
Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Darksiders 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, and
Tekken. Even now rumors of
Bioshock Infinite and
Battlefront 3 are circulating. Yes, these will technically be late releases of games already out, but the point is that third party developers are already on board with the Wii U, which Nintendo needed to get the hardcore gamers back. On top of that, Nintendo promises it will be releases new titles from its franchises, which is expected of Nintendo :P. One will be
Super Mario Bros. Mii, where your Mii gets to be in the
New Super Mario Bros. game. But the big announcement, the big surprise, and probably the most anticipated one for Nintendo, is a new
Super Smash Bros. game will be the debut game for this new system. The new feature will be linking with the 3DS, so it also brought an announcement for a
Super Smash Bros. game for the 3DS.
The conference closed out with the big screen showing 4 logos: Wii, WiiU, DS, 3DS. Reggie concluded with promising for the next year Nintendo would continue supporting all 4. The conference clearly showed that with the 3DS and the WiiU, but what about the other two, Wii and DS? Not so as much. None of the new DS games were mentioned, such as
Kirby Mass Attack, Dragon Quest Monster: Joker 2, and Rhythm Heaven 2. The only Wii game mentioned was
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but that wasn't the only game coming out for the present Wii. Did you know there is a new
Kirby for the Wii? It's not the
Epic Yarn crap either, it's a legit right-back-atcha Kirby game. Yet this was only on showcase floor. There's also a 9th Mario Party coming out for the current Wii, but I only found out about that on my Wii at home. So I'm not convinced Nintendo is going to support all 4. I feel like they've moved on to the WiiU for console and 3DS for handheld. But Nintendo came in and did what it had to do to win hardcore gamers back. Nintedo had to do three things to win over hardcore gamers. First, it had to produce a home console that featured hardware rivaling the XBox360 and PS3. Its new controller did, giving them all the buttons they wanted, plus a screen in the middle. Second, it had to give its handheld software that fully used its hardware's potential. It did that by giving it serious games, from reliable franchises, that were up-to-date to this generation of gaming. Third, Nintendo had to show it had third party developers backing in both the home console and the handheld. Sure enough, they do now, with the new graphics and new online capabilities. We already seen that from the lineup of third party games for the WiiU, to
Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid on the 3DS. I believe the WiiU is truly for hardcore gamers, and if call yourself a hardcore gamer and won't give WiiU a shot, then you're not a hardcore gamer, just an XBox360/PS3 fanboy.
Nintendo Press Conference+Positives+: WiiU's new controller, WiiU's 1080p graphics, WiiU's easier online access, 3DS game library, 3DS DLC, third party backing, well-balanced presentation, Nintendo reaches out to hardcore gamers
-Negatives-: Too much focus on WiiU controller and not enough on console specs, not enough coverage on games for current Wii and regular DS, still relying too much on older franchises
=Top 2 Games for WiiU=:
Super Smash Bros. for WiiU, New Super Mario Bros. Wii=Top 3 Games for 3DS=:
Mario Kart 3D, Super Mario 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising~Medal~: Gold
Now let's move onto the third party software developers. These are the companies that don't the consoles, but makes the games for the consoles. There were big names there, such as 2k Games, Activision, Atlus, Bethesda, Capcom, Crytek, Deep Silver, Electronic Arts (EA), Konami, Lionheart Studios, Namco Bandai, Natsume, Sega, Square Enix, THQ, Tecmo, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros. Most of these companies only had the floor to showcase their new games. The only two developers that got press time were EA and Ubisoft. But that didn't stop Konami from having their own the Friday before. It would take forever to review each developer and each game they had. After all, it just took a while to go hunt down each game's E3 trailer individually. So let's just look at the those who did have press conferences. I'll even throw in Konami to make it an even 3, so we can rate them with gold, silver and bronze medals again.
Konami: Konami started out by playing pity card, thanking everyone for their support with the Japan earthquakes and tsunami. Konami spent most of their press conference highlighting chunks of their the big franchises. Their biggest franchise was of course Metal Gear Solid, so the press conference began with Metal Gear Solid, and Metal Gear Solid took up the most time. The big game everyone was waiting to hear about from last year's E3 was
Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater. It was exciting to see a big franchise of a third party developer come to the 3DS and use its full potential. Some parts of the game used the gyroscope to score down enemies. Camaflogue was made using pictures taken with the camera. The touch screen was used to make buttons for fast-action buttons. And the graphics were amazing. On top of that, they announced
Metal Gear Solid collection, an HD version of 3 games:
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. This is not just to update graphics. This game has been announced for both the PS3 and XBox360. So first, it updates the PS2 game to the PS3, which is beneficial because the PS3 cannot play the PS2 games. Second, Konami, who has typically been a PlayStation developer, is now extending to the XBox360, expanding its audience. Now the Metal Gear series is really expanding to all 3 first party developers.
This is the perfect transition to talk about another big Konami franchise, who also made a collection:
Silent Hill. The opening to the Silent Hill section did not start on video games. Instead, it brought us to Canada for the filming of
Silent Hill: Revelation, the 3D sequel to the Silent Hill movie. The characters in the movie talked about how special Silent Hill was. But enough about the movie. Let's get to the new game. E3 2010 gave us a preview of this game, but in E3 2011 did not really add more to this. It seemed like the same trailer. I don't feel like I know more about the game than I did before. I found tghat quite disappointing. The other addition to the Silent Hill series is actually a re-make to the earlier Silent Hill games.
Silent Hill 2 and
Silent Hill 3 have updated visually for the next generation console. The
Silent Hill Collection will definitely be available for the PS3, but it's uncertain for the XBox 360. Rumors keep bouncing back between yes and no. Perhaps the disappointment of new Silent Hills will be negated by going back to the digitally remastered classics.
But it wasn't just old classics for Konami. They introduced a new game called
NeverDead. As the title insinuates, the game centered around the idea that the player can't die. Of course, for story reasons, the immoraltality is a curse. It's the usual "guy lost a loved one and now wants to die in order to be re-uninted with love one." It's definitely a new and different game idea. I am cautious to a game where you can't die. If there is not death, what is the risk? If there is not ddeath, is it possible to get a Game Over, or it a one play through? But then again, with today's games, when your health regenerates on its own for not being hit for a while, when your death just results in spawning at the nearby checkpoint, it may not have a difference.
Other games were mentioned, but they were mentioned briefly. Such games included
No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise, Deca Sports Extreme and
Frogger 3D. Yes, the ancient Frogger series is coming to the most recent handheld. Konami did not end its press conference with a game. Instead, it ended with the utilization of a new software for the PlayStation hardware. When I heard this on the Friday press conference, I was wondering if Konami jumped the gun by not allowing PlayStation to talk about it. But it was worth since PlayStation did not mention it. The new feature is called "transfarring," an obvious combination of "transferring" and "far." What transfarring will do is allow for PS3 games to be played on the PS Vita and PS Vita games to be played on the PS3 with wireless transfer of data. This will allow gamers to play PS3 games away from their console. Furthermore, now PS2 games can be transfarred to the PS3. This will be great considering PS2 games cannot be played on the PS3. This is also great in light of the vast Collections coming out this year. With this technology, you can see why WiiU went the direction it already did.
Konami Press Conference+Positives+: Figuring out what to do with PS2 games. Transfarring will allow PS2 data to jump up to the PS3 and Collections will allow PS2 games to be updated to PS3 standards.
-Negatives-: Spent way too much time on certain games, and not enough time on others. There was too much reliance on old franchises, mainly Metal Gear and Silent Hill.
=Top 3 Games=:
Silent Hill Collection, Silent Hill Downpour, Frogger 3D~Medal~: Bronze
Electronic Arts (EA): After watching a flashy Microsoft press conference, from Kinect demos to celebrity endorsements, it was EA's time to take the stage. First thing EA said it would not do is use celebrity endorsements, but just simply show the games as they were. We'll see about that later. EA started off its press conference with
Mass Effect 3. We didn't see any Kinect this time. This time we saw a cutscene with a rail shooter. Perhaps there was no Kinect because they felt like it was already done at the Microsoft Press Conference. Perhaps it was because they wanted to reach to the PS3 players as much as the XBox players. Either, I still wasn't satisfied with this. It was more watch than actual do. If I saw the EA demo of
Mass Effect 3 instead of the Microsoft one, I wouldn't really be excited about it. EA made up with a more action-packed demo of
Need for Speed: The Run. If you are keeping track, we're up to 17
Need for Speed games. But this one is different, though. In this game, there is some running. Suppose your car breaks down, or you get caught, or whatever. You need a new car. To get to that new car, you have to run to it, either break in or steal it, and then drive off. They demoed this in real gameplay, and it was action-packed, with the protagonist jumping from rooftop to rooftop. The only problem I had with it was that it seemed like it was more like button-mashing cutscene. Viritually, the player was pressing the triangle button at points to simply not die. But it was definitely something new.
For the social gamer, there were 2 games offered at the EA press conference. First off was the other highly anticipated Star Wars game:
Star Wars: The Old Republic, and MMORPG. Now to talk about this one, I will go a little bit deeper than what was revealed at the EA conference. From what I can tell, the game is about the Sith Empire going to subdue a sector of the galaxy which still claims to be in allegiance with the Old Repbulic. Let me tell you, this game is full of Star Wars fan service, as well as fan service to other video games. The smuggler, the "Han Solo character," not only looks like John Marston from
Red Dead Redemption, but he also sounds like him, talks like, and even acts like him. This game has characters wielding one lightsaber, wielding two lightsabers, wield a double blade lightsaber, and even at one point, wielding a double bladed lighsaber and a regular lightsaber, which is technically a triple lightsaber. I think this game is full of gimmicks that will make true Star Wars fans cringe. On the plus side of social gaming
, The Sims will be coming to Facebook! The presenter joked that people are probably bored at playing with Farm animals (a cheapshot at Farmville) and would warmly welcome a new Facebook. I would agree. The question is whether or not it will have a cost.
Electronic Arts just isn't EA with EA Sports. 3 games were mentioned: SSX, FIFA 12 and Madden 12. For these games being all big among the "video game athletes," EA Sports did a terrible job of introducing them. No demos were given, and brief trailer were shown, but that was it. For SSX, they talked about 3 ways to play this game, and that was it. For FIFA 12, they talked about a new game mode and an improved physics program for player-to-player contact, and that was it. For Madden 12, they brought 3 NFL players to introduce 3 new gaming aspects (Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was for improved defense mechanisms, Cleveland Browns Running Back Payton Hillis for the box cover art and the clutch scenarios, and Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews was for dynasty mode), and that was it. Now if you remember, during the XBox presentation, EA themselves mentioned use of Kinect, but in both press conferences, they failed to show it off. This is true for both FIFA 12 and Madden 12. It was very disappointing. It was like EA Sports was saying, "We know the Madden fanboys and FIFA fanboys are going to buy the new version with updated rosters anyway, so we might as well just announce, and that will do." Come on, EA Sports, you're better than that.
But EA's press conference wasn't just about old stuff. They had some new titles available. The first one was
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. This game is going to be an RPG. You can tell it's made by the same people as the Elder Scroll series because it has that feeling. The other game was called
Overstrike. There was no demo of it; only a trailer was shown. It was a pretty funny trailer, but this seemed just like another shooter, most likely FPS. But I'm glad to see a big third party developer producing new ideas.
And as Microsoft opened with the biggest hype of E3, EA closed with the 2nd biggest hype and probably the 2nd most anticipated game of E3 2011. The game was
Battlefield 3, another game in the
Battlefield series. I know a lot fanboys are hyped with this new game, but to be honest with you, it looked like just another FPS games, just another war game, and just another Battlefield game.
Electronic Arts (EA) Press Conference+Positives+: It reached out to gamers of all genres,
Need for Speed had something new gameplay wise, new titles
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and
Overstrike-Negatives-: There was a great lack of demos. Kinect was not demonstrated on the EA Sports games or
Mass Effect 3. New games did not show gameplay, but only cinematic trailers. EA relied too heavily on franchise names again!
=Top 3 Games=:
Madden 12, FIFA 12, Mass Effect 3~Medal~: Silver
Ubisoft: Ubisoft was the last to present overall. They surrounded their press conference with Ubisoft's 25th anniversary. Ubisoft did this with making jokes about what their games would have looked like 25 years. There was 8-bit renditions of their games, as well as text based adventures. The presenter was Mr. Caffeine, someone who cracked jokes and made it interesting. Mr. Caffeine definitely made this the most entertaining one to watch.
Ubisoft began their presentation with the game Rayman Origins. No this is not another Raying Rabbids game, that comes later ;). This is legit Rayman game. As the name hints, it is a prequel to Rayman's story. The gameplay looked fun, especially a cooperature multiplayer. Later on they did show a Raving Rabbids game called Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking. The game is for the XBox360 Kinect and features augmented reality. Augmented reality is whben a camera make a computer-generated image of what it is taking a picture of and editing it with viritual things. Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking did this by putting the Raving Rabbids right in your TV room with the magic of Kinect. But that's not all. Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking goes back to the old Raving Rabbids game style by having mini games that fully utilize the Kinect feature. This is one of the best uses of Kinect from a third party developer I've seen! It really makes me want to get it.
For racing games, Ubisoft produced Driver: San Francisco. This racing had both plot and game play. For the plot, the driver Tanner from Driv3r survived the crash in Istanbul and has now fled to San Francisco. For gameplay, players can jump between cars. This provides extra excitement for multiplayer. For more casual racer for the casual gamer, there's TrackMania 2: Canyon. This game is awesome because it combines the racing genre and the social genre perfectly. The highlight of this game is the customization, from racecars to racetracks.
Then Ubisoft went into a shooter mode. The next three games were all FPS games: Far Cry 3, Brothers in Arms: Furious 4, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. On the bright side, what Ubisoft did do right is show not only cinematic trailers, but also real game play. But when you have cinematic trailers and real gameply of 3 shooter games in a row, you realize all how similar shooters are, especially the first person ones. While these games had some interesting characters, they all seemed like the same, with the same gameplay and same general plot. It made me groan, "Oh look, another First Person shooter." The worst had to be Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. It was the 2nd longest Ubisoft Presentation, at 10 minutes. In this ten minutes of showing cutscenes and gameplay, they failed to demonstrate on their own the Kinect capabilities. Maybe they thought in unneccesary because XBox already did, but it would have been nice to see them again. After XBox won me over for this game, Ubisoft did the opposite. The only positive feature out of this was Ghost Recon's new online capabilities, which will rival Call of Duty's online multiplayer.
When Guitar Hero went on hiatus and Rock Band was dropped by media mongul Viacomm, many people assumed the music video game fad was dying, if not dead. Well, Ubisoft never got that announcement as they produced two music video games. The first one was Rocksmith. Rocksmith claims to teach you how to play real guitar. Yeah, I know this sounds like what Power Gig promised and failed epically, but this is serious. First, any guitar is usable. You just pluck the amp prong into your guitar's amp jack, the USB prong into your PS3 or XBox360, and you're ready to play. The guitar lane is in more of a 3D setting, using square windows that come down the note highway. In the trailer, people claimed they learned a real song in 10 days. Watching many trailers and testimonials, I believe this game is legit. It will definitely beat Power Gig, and it might even beat Rock Band's pro mode. As for Dancing, Ubisoft's Just Dance became a triology with Just Dance 3. The cool thing about Just Dance 3 is it is no longer exclusively on the Wii. It is now on the PlayStation 3, using Move, and XBox 360, using Kinect. If you want to know what it looks like on Kinect, remember the Michael Jackson: The Experience was their dancing game for the XBox360 Kinect. I liked both of these games and they shot up to my top 2 favorites of Ubisoft's press conference.
Ubisoft also pulled the last for best. It was the much anticipated Assassin's Creed: Revelation. This was biggest presentation and the longest, 13 minutes. It was definitely a good presentation. It had both cutscene and action playing. It look place in Constantinople, what we know as present-day Istanbul, Turkey. You saw that you could play all 3 characters. Assassin's Creed was definitely worth the wait. It was a big game that wasn't first person shooter
Ubisoft Press Conference
+Positives+: Featured many gaming genres, reached out to both casual gamer and hardcore games, big name titles, entertaining yet informative press conference, Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking utilizing Kinect
-Negative-: Too much focus on shooter games, too much time on Assassin's Creed
=Top 3 Games=: Rocksmith, Just Dance 3, Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking
~Medal~: Gold
Altogether, I would say this year was a good conference. There was more new game titles and new game ideas than there were last year. The FPS and TPS were not overbearing as they were last year. New game ideas were introduced. All the latest technologies were used, from Kinect to Move, from 3D to touch screen. I really enjoyed the excitement of the new hardware, the new software and the entertaining presentations for them. I look forward to see how the year plays when we really play these games.
Nintendo