My 2 cents- A point by point breakdown as I saw it

So E3 is going on, and all the major press conferences have just wrapped up, and I felt like screaming my opinions out to the world because that’s what people do right? Awwwww, here it GOES!



Microsoft

I want to get this out of the way first- I, like many of you, think showing off Kinect was boring . I saw the Star wars fail, the rail...everything lag, and the fake enthusiasm from the paid actors made me cringe.

That being said, I hate to defend it, but from a business standpoint- Microsoft showing off Kinect makes perfect sense. They HAD to come out and justify the purchase of a system (let’s face it, it has more in common with a console launch than a peripheral one) to the people who have it sans-kids and are already bored of Dance Central. They had to tell the hardcore of you that there is more to it than just cool tech that other people hack onto it and 1 game. They had to pound it into your head that Kinect is going to have games that are “hardcore” like Star Wars, Ghost Recon, and Fable. The choice was made for them from the getgo- talk about Kinect to justify the people who purchased it, and to try to get more people to pick it up.

Unfortunately, I was not pleased pretty much from the start.



-I’m in the strange boat of people who isn’t big on realistic war shooters, so the first massive chunk dedicated to Modern Warfare bored me.

-Tomb Raider looked cool, and I was a fan of the sexy Lara moans while playing Uncharted except surrounded by pirates thing they had going on.

-Sports I don’t really care about in virtual form.

-Mass Effect had the voice integration that I’m torn:
---On one hand, being able to yell commands to your AI squad-mates during combat is pretty awesome.
---On the other hand, reading dialogue in your voice and then hearing a similar line from a voice actor is probably going to be pretty jarring and awkward.

-Ghost Recon’s gunsmith stuff was cool, but when he actually used Kinect to fire his weapon, you can see the lag and the awkwardness of it all and it was pretty boring and frustrating looking. I can’t imagine being in a firefight and having the trigger pull at the wrong time, or trying to be stealthy and accidentally shooting.

-New Xbox Dash makes sense- they’re trying to do the whole windows 8 thing look the same so I can’t blame them for that.

-Youtube is cool, but I already have way too many ways to access it on other devices.

-Bing makes sense from their standpoint, but I can’t see myself using it ever.

-UFC came on stage, and all I could think about was this

-Gears was nice, but some of the building breaking animations were awkward (as usual), but I feel like if you’re buying it, you already know you are and don’t need another demo.

-Ryse got a meh from me, again because it’s kinect, but also because it’s probably going to try to be serious but fail at it.

-I’ve never been a big fan of Halo, I don’t think it’s a BAD game, just not a game I enjoy, so I guess the remakes are cool, but nobody can do fan-service like Nintendo.

-Forza actually perked my ears a bit. The models looked absolutely stunning, running at over a million polys a piece, and all having the doors/trunks open was a crazy nice touch. The kinect stuff....MEH, but the game itself looked neato.

-Fable on Rails....it looked unresponsive.
-Minecraft was a neat touch, but they really skimmed over it. It’s probably what got the internet most excited, and they glossed over it almost completely.

-The Disney park was a nice touch for the kids, but I also feel like just about everything they showed was for the kids.

-Star Wars looked broken. He’d make movements and not have anything happen, and he’d flail around and almost auto-win. Not a strong showing, and movement looked...I don’t know what movement looked like but there was a lot of dashing.

-Tim Schafer I like not necessarily because of the product he was pushing, but because he didn’t try to make it seem like it’s anything other than it is. It’s a kid’s game through and through- no hyper bro fist bumps to try to make it seem cool.

-The tech stuff was pretty nifty, but I felt like a lot of the community/hax had already done cooler things with the tech. Although I will admit that it’s nice to start seeing some of those toys make their way to consumers. Also, FACE TRACKING FINALLY.

-When I saw Kinect Sports 2, I actually yelled at my TV- “THIS is what you force the studio that made Donkey Kong Country, Banjo Kazooie, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day do!” I loved Rare, but they have fallen.

-Dance Central 2 simultaneous play was cool. A nice natural progression, but I don’t think they’ll release 3 anytime soon.

-Halo 4- Meh. I’m sure a lot of you guys are upset that it’s not Bungie, but I’m sure it’ll be more of the same, only with less polish until the 2nd game of the new trilogy.

If you want a grade score (because that seems to be the cool thing to do) I’m gonna give them a C. It wasn't exactly terrible since it had a few things to interest me like Forza and the neato tech stuff, but it wasn't exactly great either. AVERAGE.




EA

EA had a pretty solid showing. I was bored in some parts, excited for others, but I still get the nagging feeling that sometimes they don’t know what they’re doing for some games. For example, I like kooky racing games, but I don’t know if letting you run around on foot in Need for Speed: The Run is a good idea. “Open World” games can’t work when the main plot of the game is that you’re being very heavily hunted by underground crime syndicates. I like the idea of the plot though, and I hope the running is far outweighed by the driving. I also hope you can’t GTA snatch someone’s car, because then every pedestrian is probably gonna have $50k+ vehicles which will make no sense (hey guy, I’m jacking you’re Audi R8. THANKS!)

As for Star Wars, although they have shown gameplay, they seem to be very shy about it and instead spend most of their time showing off their stunning cutscenes. That’s cool and all, but cutscenes aren’t gonna sell your game. It didn’t work for Final Fantasy, it won’t work for Star Wars.

OverStrike I am excited for. One of my friends pointed out that the trailer was very “TF2 Meet The”-esq, but I don’t mind that. I think they hit the humor right on, and I’m glad that more and more studios are willing to add flare to realism instead of trying to make everything super realistic or leaving the visual appeal to shaders and post processing. Of course, I was a bit reminded of Mass Effect, but there’s really nothing you can do to avoid comparisons when you’re making a squad shooter at this day and age. Besides, everything is just a Doom ripoff anyway.

SSX looks fun, Fifa appears to be doing the Modern Warfare pay-thing for free, Sims Social is Forever Alone, and Battlefield 3 looks phenomenal, but not my cup of tea so no-thank-you. Verdict- C+ For having some games I’m interested in, but confusing/boring me the rest of the time. At least they didn’t over-promise anything.

Ubisoft

Now I REALLY need to hand out some respect to Ubisoft. I don’t think any other company spent as much time as they did actually playing the games. Their formula appeared to be “show trailer->play game for 10 min->repeat”, and even if you didn’t like some of the games, at least you got your fill of the ones you did. They did a great job of showing off some variety, but I think that scared away more people than it brought in.

On a side-note- am I the only one who wants the “old school version” games they were showing? those were really badass.



-Rayman Origins looked great, really nice to see big publishers work on a very traditional 2D platformer.

-Driver San Fransisco was cool- it reminded me a lot of Midtown Madness in a good way.

-Far Cry 3 may have had some people excited, but it looked very “generic action fps” to me. The textures looked a bit sloppy, and the environment didn’t seem up to par with some of the stuff we’ve been seeing recently from heavy hitters like Battlefield and Uncharted.

-I’ve had enough discussions on this to last me a lifetime, but I don’t like Tarantino, so I’m not a fan of Inglorious Basterds, so Brothers in Arms looked kind of dumb to me. If you guys really want (which you don’t) I’ll write a Flixist post about my Tarantino hate, but for now- my opinions are my own.

-TinTin looked neat. I’m not even a little bit familiar with ANYTHING to do with TinTin, so just from a completely neutral perspective I was intrigued by the “golly gee mister” feel to it, as well as the fact that I am 100% behind any game that lets you control you’re cool pet quadruped.

-Ghost Recon as a game looked ok. I wasn’t too sold on it, but the tactical part looked acceptable.The HUD however, was sextacular. I don’t know what it is about the clean text floating in the middle of the level, but it looked really cool and I was totally a fan of having that kind of HUD/UI in any game I play.
Didn’t Battlefield try the “free online game” thing and that didn’t work out so hot? Maybe Tom Clancy will fare better, but I doubt it.

-Trackmania looked pretty boss. I’m not a huge fan of Trackmania, but I do like to pick it up and play for a few seconds just to watch cars fly around doing crazy physics shit. All in all, I’m sure the fans of it will love this, but I still think the series will remain a cult classic.

-Rabbids....ugh. I mean I get that it’s cool to have Kinect Party games, but it’s not even remotely interesting to me. Thank them though for removing the little bastards from the Rayman series.

-Just Dance = cool story bro. It’ll probably still outsell Dance Central (just because of it’s reach and previous install base) but much like games with plastic instruments, teenagers and above will prefer the Harmonix version.

-Rocksmith- people already tried this, and they had a lot of actual guitarists behind it, but it didn’t sell or work. Playing a real guitar is a skill that you cannot directly replicate on a game- it’s too complex, so stop trying.

-Assassin’s Creed was an excellent choice for a closer. Nice CGI trailer, and a cool long demo sequence. Although I will admit, I’m getting a little disheartened at their willingness to very quickly pump out new games every year, and I hope they stop and slow up the pace before they burn out the franchise too quickly.


Overall, I give Ubisoft a B for showing a lot of stuff that looked cool, and for taking to the time to actually play most of their games instead of just teasing them.

Sony

Much like Microsoft, I have to defend Sony’s decision to push 3D HARD. I don’t like it, I personally think 3D is not the way of the future, but Sony is so heavily invested in 3D (from the TVs they manufacture, to the projectors they convince theaters to use, and the cameras they give studios to film with), that they really have to put all their faith and money in forcing 3D to be the future. It’s too late for them to back-out and say “JK guys, 3D really is bad and the consumers don’t want it” this deep into the investment, especially after riding the high of their BluRay success over HD-DVD.

I don’t like it, I don’t think a lot of people think it’s necessary, but it’s sort of what they do now. The good news is, it’s not completely forced. I imagine most of you just see it as a “cool that it’s there, maybe one day I’ll use it, but if not- no big deal” kind of thing, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but Sony seems really intent on changing that attitude to get people to actively use their 3D....and at least for me- it’s not working.

Out of all the big 3, Sony imo had the best shot to come out and “wow” everyone. After the huge PSN fiasco, they had an opportunity to come out and say “look, we goof’d, but we love you and need you to move on, and here’s what we’re gonna do for you to bring you back”. Unfortunately, I felt like the tone of their presentation was more along the lines of “yeah we messed up, but oh well what’re you gonna do? Anyway, here’s how awesome WE are with all this cool neato 3D you don’t want, and here’s a game coming out tomorrow”. I honestly don’t think Sony knows it’s audience, I feel there is a huge disconnect between what they think people want, and what people actually want. Luckily, they’ve done such a good job in the past, that people are willing to let them get away with murder, but I guess you have to be doing something right to get that many people completely convinced you’re doing it right.



As for the Vita, I really like the hardware, and unlike the 3DS, I feel like $250 is a great price for it, but I don’t want any of the games except for Uncharted. Even digging into the old PSP library- I’d get Locoroco, Patapon, and Kenka Banchou: Badass Rumble. So that’s 1 new and 3 old games + 250 for entry. I’ll pass for now. And no don’t try to recommend Little Big Planet or ModNation racers- I’m not big on creating content, Modnation is too loose for me to like, and Little Big Planet is shitty as a platformer (which happens to be my favorite genre).

-I kind of agree with Jim Sterling- the apology was kind of weak, but I at least respect that they started with it very frankly.

-Cinemanow? don’t care.

-The Uncharted stuff was really sharp. I liked the waves, and I’m almost 100% sure that the boat is actually moving at those wave angles in engine, no camera/environment tricks- Naughty Dog likes to keep it real. I do like this game, and that’s not a bad way to hook people.

-Resistance 3 doesn’t speak to me so much. I forget who I heard say it, but nobody is going to want to come into the Resistance franchise this late. But, (my friend Harry brought up an excellent point), Resistance is Sony’s Gears of War. Sure the people want it already know they’re going to get it, but Sony still has to show it at a huge event like this.

-HD Remakes are always a plus, points for fanservice for doing God of War and the team ICO games.

-The $500 TV thing was dumb. Theoretically- any 3D TV should be able to do that. Also- it’s half a grand for 24 inches? It’s almost as if they’re demanding rich fratboys to take it out of their trust fund. I don’t want to sit that close to someone wearing goofy 3D glasses, sure it’s a neat concept, but you can’t pretend it’s affordable and tell me 5 hundo is worth it for some glasses, 24 inches, and an HDMI cable.

-NBA 2K12 Move control was a joke. The guy treated Kobe like an asshole, Kobe had no idea what he was doing, and the whole “it’s so easy anyone can do it” thing doesn’t work when nobody actually manages to do anything.

-Dead Man’s Quest was cool, but was he only using the pointer? Was it on rails or free roam? Either way, a neat game.

-I’m with the public on this- Why show Imfamous 2 when it comes out the next day? you’re here to win your fans back and gain new ones in the future, not sell them something they’ve seen enough of and can get tomorrow.

-Starhawk looked...meh. It all felt really confusing and too much “YOU CAN FIGHT WITH ANYTHANG!”. Spoiler alert- I like focus in my games.

-Sly Cooper was a good move. 3D platformers are few and far between nowadays, it’s nice to see one come back.

-Dust 514 is dumb for 1 reason- it means you have to play with people who like EVE online. If you like flying around galaxies crunching numbers and pretending to live in the space age, then good for you, but I don’t want to be in a situation where those people are trying to “hire me” to fight their wars.

-Bioshock Infinite is cool, but it’s not gonna sell me on a PS3. Also, as much as I respect Ken Levine, and LOVE him for coming out and not doing the bullshit prepared hype speeches, I don’t think you can convince me to use move to play a game when you say “we don’t know how to use it yet fully”. I truly appreciate the honesty, and I will not be looking to play that game with Move, but am excited to see a game you design around Move.

-The next part was “games have PS3 exclusive content lol” but I’m seriously not buying that bullshit. Within a month or two, all of the major games will probably have the content on all sites, and playing it “first” isn’t going to influence me to get it on PS3. I want to play the game to enjoy all of it, and if the same content goes everywhere, you have to convince me to play it on PS3 by other ways than saying “FIRST!!!1!”

-Vita on AT&T? I’ll let the audible groans do the talking on that one.

-Uncharted was neat, and the pricing is fair, but did anyone catch the Rune guy not actually continue on the PS3 where he left off? They were totally like “Check out this cool feature” and then the feature didn’t work even a little.

-Cole on StreetFighter X Tekken was cool fighting game fans love that stuff.

-And a ton of games none of which I personally care about.

So unlike the other conferences, Sony didn’t exactly go out with 1 huge bang. I give them a C+, sure you showed off some cool stuff, and the Vita is neat, but I’m not into any of your games, and I personally sensed an air of smugness that I did not like.

Nintendo

If there’s one thing Nintendo is good at year after year, it’s fanservice. They ALWAYS will show you at least 1 or 2 things you’ve seen before, but with a shiny new coat. This isn’t nessecarly a bad thing, but that opinion is up to you. I’m personally getting a little tired of it, but I can understand why people hoop and holler everytime they say “Luigi’s Mansion, Super Mario 3D, Star Fox, Ocarina of Time, Link’s Awakening, Smash Brothers”. They came out full force with the fanservice, and they did it better than any other major player.

Nintendo was in a neutral position from last year. They did messed up a bit with the 3DS (it’s kind of being considered a failure at the moment because it doesn't have good games) but they did push out a very well done Donkey Kong Country Returns and a Pokemon game that way too many people over 20 years of age played. They could’ve come out and done nothing and people would have been disappointed, but not upset. They also could’ve come out and said “we have all of the games from PS360 on the next Wii for cheaper and better”, and money would be flying at them, but they seem to have taken an awkward middle line.

Ignoring the Zelda intro which was clearly as a celebration for themselves, and the 3DS section which was about trying to convince people that the system has games worth playing (imo it doesn’t...especially not at that price), the big centerpiece of big N’s talk was the WiiU. Ignoring the gimmicky gameplay, and the possible cool designs that can come from this, I feel that the success of this system with the “hardcore” crowd lies in 1 very simple question- “what games is it getting”. I don’t mean “what franchises”, I saw the very impressive list of Batman, Assassin’s Creed, DiRT, Darksiders, etc, and that’s really cool, but are they the SAME GAMES that the 360 and PS3 are getting. The videos you showed were certainly the same , but are the final games that the system will get the same available on the competitors, but with added functionality, or are they just gonna be Wii U ports “designed to take advantage of the innovative controller” like all the ports the Wii got of AAA titles?

IF the Wii U gives me the same Assassin’s Creed the same time the other systems get it, and it has some super cool functionality that helps instead of hinders gameplay, then I think Nintendo will have succeeded immensely; but if they’re just pulling the wool over our eyes and pulling the “built from the ground up for WiiU” bullshit for their 3rd party games, then me and a lot of other people are going to be very disappointed.



-Zelda Montage means Nintendo is clearly out to please it’s fans instead of bringing in new ones. Interesting considering the entire purpose of the Wii was to bring in new fans.

-The Orchestra is a baller touch, I’m just sayin’.

-Zelda games were a nice touch, Ocarina out soon is cool, and golden wiimote reminds me of old Bond 64 controller. Not necessarily a bad thing, but we want our gold cartridges back!

-Concert series? Neat, didn’t expect that announcement, or the CD drops.

-Nice to pay respects to your development team, but I don’t think I can stress enough how bored I imagine people who don’t like Zelda are right now.

-For the sake of “I’ve already burned enough bullet-points”, I’m just gonna say that all the 3DS games feel like too little too late. Not enough “innovation”, (some fresh IP would have been nice) but if you drop the price for the holiday season when all those games allegedly come out, you might have a chance to compete with the PSVita.

-I also want to save bullet points for the Wii U because...well I don’t know how I feel about the controls yet. I’m still a tad confused about the whole thing, but Nintendo has a lot of big promises that I think they will have a hard time trying to keep, but if they do- then I’m excite.


Here’s the part where you guys label me a fanboy and say I’m biased, but I’m gonna give Nintendo a solid B. They did spend the first 1/3 patting themselves on the back and giving content to existing fans, and middle section was just rehashes which you may or may not find boring, and the last half was tons of promises. They certainly convinced the old fans they’re worth sticking with, and the huge promises of the still confusing Wii U are...well...lofty. I’m giving them a B now assuming they hit ~90% of those promises, but I’m adding a warning that they better not be biting off more than they can chew or people will remember this E3 presentation as the big lie.

In the end

Sony loves 3D, Nintendo loves introducing shit to make people talk, and Microsoft loves Kinect. EA and Ubisoft had solid showings, and there is a lot of interesting news coming in for games not announced at major presentations. It’s not like a “SUPER DUPER AMAZING” E3, but it’s not a bad one. Overall, I rate the presentations a B-. It’s just above average with some strong hitters detracted by a lot of face-palming and boredom.