So this year's E3 was semi-exciting for the week leading up to it, but the event as a whole was sort of "meh." I was excited to see Final Fantasy XIII on the 360, but for that being the biggest announcement at the conference, the whole event was a let down, not to mention the fact that Squeenix's FF XIII announcement has me wondering exactly what kind of delays that's going to put on the US Release. My guess is that, in 2010, we'll see FF XIII, and it's either going to be a big money maker for Square Enix, or it's going to be a huge waste of money.

Really, FF XIII aside, the only announcement that got me excited was the release dates for the PSP remakes of Star Ocean 1 and 2, which came out in the days leading up to E3. The conference itself seems almost meaningless now, besides the big three's events. After reading Atheistium's blog post asking "Is E3 Failing it's most important demographic?," and the subsequent comments by other C-Bloggers (especially Tubatic's comment), I came to realize that E3 has become a day for game developers to get out in "bigger" publications that, what most of us would consider the more "casual" gamer, read more of, rather than us "hardcore" players that read news sites, blogs, and blog about games and such ourselves on a daily basis. I guess it's pretty much always been this way, but the huge influx of information and leaks we've gotten over the past few years has sort of amplified this point. I suppose we could still have huge announcements from the big 3 at some point in the future, but moments like this are a rarity, these days. All we have now is charts, graphs, and giant enemy crabs.

Also, I really hate using the words "casual" and "hardcore" to describe gamers. I mean, I play Call of Duty 4 on my 360 quite a bit, I log on World of Warcraft just about everyday, but I also play "casual" games like Wii Sports and Brain Age every now and then. Does that make me a "Hardcore Casual," or am I just "Casually Hardcore?" Why can't people just be gamers? If you play Bejeweled during your down time at the office, you're a gamer. If you log on World of Warcraft and wipe on Kil'Jaeden and M'uru attempts for 4 hours straight, you're a gamer.

I don't like putting labels on people, like "Casual Gamer" or "Hardcore Gamer" or "Tasty Coma Wife" because they just tend to invoke something negative in people. The "hardcore" looks down on the "casual" and makes fun of him playing Imagine Fashion Designer, and the "casual" makes fun of the "hardcore" for not getting laid because he spends the majority of his time playing World of Warcraft. The "Tasty Coma Wife" on the other hand is just hot and makes fun of the two arguing geeks.

Anywho, back to E3. So the conference is about over and the journalists and bloggers covering it will probably go to after parties and get drunk while Mr. Destructoid and his Harem of Booth Babe wives will just head back to the hotel for a little Jacuzzi time. Even though it was disappointing, I consider it a win that we got more Star Ocean: First Departure and Second Evolution info, including the first english screens and a subtitled version of a Japanese Trailer I've already seen like 10 times, though it's nice to finally know what it says beyond character names.



That's really all I care about, nowadays. Tri-Ace releases and other RPGs like Tales of Vesperia and Valkyria Chronicles are the only things that get me excited. I still look forward to the Tokyo Game Show later this year. Hopefully they'll have my Skies of Arcadia 2! Until then, I'm off to celebrate my birthday on the 19th, which will partly be spent watching the Dark Knight! Bah, 23 already. I feel like an old man. :/

Ura-

BTW: The World of Warcraft video I linked earlier was my guild's first time beating Ragnaros, long before the Burning Crusade expansion. That's my guild leader yelling "ORANGE HAMMER!!!" Good Times. Axiom For Life, baby. :P