My E3 thoughts

Hello everyone. If you know me well enough, you probably know that I love video games. So E3, the Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles is a pretty big deal for me. It sucks that I'll never be able to go, what with the restrictions on who gets in, but I can at least watch G4 and get all the inside scoops.

Let me recap what happened over the past two days. Microsoft got a jump on the competitors by debuting their press conference a day early, and shocking us with quite a few demos and conformations of changes to Xbox Live.

The next day, it was Sony and Nintendo's turn, each of them showing off new console peripherals and trailers for games. So who really won this competition? Personally, I think Microsoft took home the gold.

Microsoft showed several demos for up and coming titles like Fallout 3, Gears of War 2 and Resident Evil 5. Fable 2 I could pass on, personally. I can take or leave RPGs by Peter Molyneux. Plus, they showed some fantastic new updates to Xbox Live, including avatars, a partnership with Netflix, and several new games for XBL arcade, including a sequel to Galaga, Portal: Still Alive, and a South Park game that didn't have much screen time. But perhaps the biggest surprise of all was the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would be arriving on the Xbox 360. I'm frankly shocked that something this huge didn't leak.

Nintendo's conference seemed to dawdle on for far too long. Most of the execs gave long winded speeches on improving the status of their games and seemed to be skating around the issue of actually getting to the games. And pretty much the only thing I saw that looked good was Animal Crossing for the Wii, which seemed pretty fun. In a later interview with G4, when asked why the conference focused more on casual gamers than the hardcore, one of the execs asked how they could be viewed like that with titles like Animal Crossing and (I swear I'm not kidding) Grand Theft Auto for the DS. I... I honestly don't know what to say to that, except that I rolled around in laughter for about five minutes after I heard it. Oh, and they had Shaun White promoting a snowboarding game. That was alright.

Sony's was just a bunch of lies and shameless evading. Probably the only thing that piqued my interest was a new trailer for God of War 3, the only reason I would consider getting a PS3, with so many other series jumping ship. Speaking of which, one of the speakers listed Grand Theft Auto 4 and Metal Gear Solid 4 as their best sellers. MGS4 I can understand, but what he seemed to fail to comprehend was that GTA was selling more copies on the 360 than the PS3. Yeah, you're not fooling anyone. Plus, a lot of the conference was about promoting the PS3 online service, which is a load of bull. Everyone knows that Xbox Live is infinitely better, at only 50 dollars a year. It's not that much, seriously. They then went on to show one of the 2 demos of the night, Resistance 2, which actually looks okay. Then again, I said the same thing about Haze when I saw the trailer. Then Little Big Planet came on, which looks like it'll appeal to a lot of people, just not me.

I'm feeling in an organized mood, so let's break down the three things that make a conference good: Demos, New Announcements, and Interest.

Demos:
Microsoft: Came right out and showed several demos back to back, and got me hyped as hell for some of these games.
Nintendo: Had a couple of demos for Wii Sports 2, but nothing really spectacular.
Sony: Showed a kick-ass demo for Resistance 2 and a LBP/PowerPoint demo. You'd have to watch it to understand what I'm talking about.

New Announcements:
Microsoft: Had several new announcements about XBL and how it's going to work, plus the fact that Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour will be coming to the 360 first. But probably the biggest announcement was Final Fantasy 13, something that's certian to rifle some feathers in the coming months.
Nintendo: Um, a band game that you can't miss a note on, Animal Crossing and a Wii Sports sequel. A lot of these were rumors, so it was nice to see some conformation.
Sony: Showed a pretty nice trailer for God of War 3 at the end and a few updates to the online community. Not much to say.

Interest (Or hype):
Microsoft: Fallout looks fantastic, Gears looks very... erm... manly, Resident Evil looks freaky and Fable looks ehh. All in all, a good turnout.
Nintendo: Pretty much nothing. I mean, Animal Crossing? Come on! I would have loved to see a new Metroid or Zelda title grace the platform or even a trailer for a 2009 release.
Sony: God of War looks awesome, but other than that, nothing makes me want to sell my internal organs any more. A cheaper way is to wait about six months for whatever game to come out on 360.

What would I like to see from this E3? As I've said before, I'm a big shooter fan, so I was slightly disappointed when Microsoft didn't show anything about the upcoming sequel to Bioshock. So, I'd like to see more of that. Fallout 3 simply looks amazing. As Tod Howard said during an interview, "It's easy. You just cue up VATS, and it's as simple as selecting sniper rifle, head, fire. Bam!" That I'm really excited to see. Plus, the new fast-paced zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has got me hyped and a bit scared. I'm going to use it as a training simulator for the worst case scenario zombie outbreak.

This year's E3 looks to be pretty exciting. Most of the titles are going to be out before Christmas, which is also good. I'll keep you covered with any new information that I find out.

Hentai, video games and other nerd stuff forever,
Kyouger.