[As part of the leadup to E3, we’re posting Community hopes and predictions about what’s going to happen at this year’s conference. Check out our call for E3 blogs and post your own response in the C Blogs. — JRo]
Do you feel it, Dtoid? Do you feel that electrifying essence in the air? That familiar stench of ripe anticipation? The deep, childlike giddiness you feel deep in your calloused, blackened heart? Of course you feel it…Because your sensory organs are about to be overloaded by the single most powerful wave of thought, feeling, emotion, and yes…pleasure, that a video-game enthusiast can ever experience:
E3 2011.
And do you know what 2011 is, Dtoiders? It’s the new “Best year of Gaming”. You thought 2007 was great? Oh my dear friends, we have not SEEN a gaming year like 2011 in most of our lifetimes. This year is EPIC in all senses and meanings of the word. This year is the year we finally get to kick more ass and chew more bubblegum…And we’re all out of gum. This year is the year that we, the last of the Dragonbourne, are destined to do battle with the ancient Dragons of Skyrim. This year is the year we fight for the galaxy’s survival against the dreaded Reaper Invasion (Well early 2012…But whatever!). This year is the year we fight in a global war, possibly for the continuance of the modern world as we know it…And finally know the fate of our long-time friends and heroes, Soap McTavish and Captain Price.
That’s just the big releases, too.
2011 is a year that will define gaming for a good long while, but this year is also a turning point for the future. With consoles looking like they’re reaching the end of their life cycles, game series wrapping up, and the war between the “Big Three” getting ever-more intense, E3 2011 is not a beast to be overlooked. E3 2011 is an open book. E3 2011 is the year we could see the next “Halo“. The next “Call of Duty“. The next “Elder Scrolls“.
E3 2011 could be any of the Big Three’s Big Moment, folks, and we are NOT going to want to miss whatever they’re showing.
How Microsoft Could Steal the Show
Microsoft has not had a good track record with its gamers the past few E3s. Coming off of their borderline embarrassing conference last year, the only direction they can go is up (unless they insist on showing us MORE pointless Kinect titles…). While I personally have very little faith in Microsoft’s decision making, they do have the potential to win the show this year without pushing many envelopes or taking a lot of risks.
1. Kinect as a Glasses-Less 3D Experience for Games.
“Say WHAAAT Time Glitch?”
Well I’ll tell you what.
Kinect as a peripheral is a brilliant and remarkably well-engineered piece of hardware. We’ve already seen many amazing homebrew mods with the device that turns it from “That Lame Kiddy Game Thing” to “Holy SHIT I want One!”. But one thing that Microsoft has completely downplayed for some reason is Kinect’s ability to perform Head Tracking. Head Tracking is a fantastic illusory technique that can make any image on a digital screen appear 3d to the human eye. Instead of wasting your time by me trying and failing to explain it to you, I’ll let this brilliant Asian guy explain it better:
Brilliant Asian Man Explains Head Tracking to Everyone Else
There’s even a demonstration!
Point being: Kinect can do this. It can’t do it for everyone in the room, but it can do it for one person, and with only a little bit of tweaking to any upcoming games. Headtracking could make any game 3d for one player, and that’s without any current hardware upgrades at all. Most of the tweaking would need to be in software, and even then? I doubt the modification to allow head tracking in most games would require too much development time.
In fact, I believe Forza 4 is already doing this, so yeah! Bring this out, Microsoft! Bring it out hard!
2. Unveil the Halo HD Remake
Anyone who’s anyone has probably played Halo. Anyone who’s a Halo fan has probably played Halo 1. If you haven’t, go play it. It’s widely regarded by the Halo community as the best in the series, and the rumor of the HD remake has the Halo community abuzz with speculation and jubilation. It’s Halo’s 10 year anniversary, and what would be more perfect than unveiling an HD version of the game for release on the original’s release date?
Not only would this excite long-time fans of the original game, it would be a fantastic way to introduce the new shooter generation to the game that basically gave birth to the modern console FPS. Add Co-Op and Online Multiplayer and you have yourself a literal gold mine waiting to bear fruits of infinite moneys.
If Microsoft brings Halo HD, in Kinect 3D, as its front-runner for E3 this year? They can’t lose.
How Sony Could Steal the Show
Yes yes, everybody get it out of their systems now: “lol no wai man PSN sux”. “LOLSONYEPICFAIL”. “More like Playstation NOTwork LOL!”
We get it. Sony has hit some turbulent waters as of late…But we can’t just count them out that easily. We can’t forget that Sony is a powerhouse. They ARE one of the Big 3, and they aren’t going to let their E3 party get ruined by a bunch of hacktivists on a mission to see them destroyed. They’re better than that. If Sony plays its cards right…It’ll blow all the other competition out of the water, by a long shot.
1. Show us More Move
Anyone here seen the tech demos for Move? Show of hands? Yeah, thats because they never really seemed to talk about them, and I don’t know why. The shit they have the capability to do with this hardware is frikkin’ AWESOME:
My personal favorite was the sword hacking the little stick figure to bits. How fun would that be, eh?
They shat all over Move, unfortunately, with lackluster launch titles, and only minor support post-launch for other games that were not built for the peripheral. What happened to Sorcery, Sony? What gives? What Sony needs to do to draw attention back to the Move is give us some real games with real appeal.
Give us a damn Star Wars game where we get to hack up Storm Troopers, and throw them around with The Force, and have a real-time Lightsaber Duel! Give us an awesome magic game where you make us feel like we’re really casting spells (sorcerysorcerysorcerysoryrlsyrsyrcoryuy). Give us something that is unique, fun, and only available with the fantastic 1:1 support you guys obviously have with the Move. Give us something the Wii CAN’T do.
Show us that Move isn’t just a Wiimote clone, and that you guys can beat out Kinect by providing some REAL motion control games. Something that isn’t just a kids toy. That’ll win over some hearts and minds, Sony.
2. Give us NGP…And Make it Not Suck
So, NGP! It’s supposedly a PS3 in a little box. This concept really doesn’t require much explanation: all Sony has to do is come out with a real NGP in their hands, have a great lineup of games — all of them looking great in 30FPS HD graphics, and they’ve won. The 3DS is great for 3D and Nintendo games, but I seriously doubt we’re going to see core games like Killzone, Uncharted, Gran Turismo, and God of War on the 3DS.
If Sony pulls out a fantastic HD system that fits in your pocket and plays like a console, they just won the handheld war — as long as they support it with good games!
Oh…And easy-to-access multiplayer tied to your PSN tag. Winning!
(Oh, and 3G online gaming if you have 3G access. Yesplz.)
3. Show that a PS3 Can Out-Perform a 360.
The PS3 was so expensive at launch because of one reason: The hardware was too advanced to be produced cheaply. The Blu-Ray drive, and the internal parts themselves, were simply not economical to produce, and this made a lot of people wonder “WTF Sony? What the heck are you doing!?”
Well, I think Sony made a golden goose with the PS3, and we just haven’t seen its egg yet.
I’m no super-tech-wizard, but I know how to look at numbers. The PS3 is better than the Xbox in terms of specs, and we need to start seeing that on a big scale. We’ve already seen it start with L.A. Noire. The game simply runs better on the PS3, having better shadow rendering as well as better shaders and better anti-aliasing. The 360 version got gimped because it couldn’t keep up.
Sony needs to take advantage of this, and FAST. They need to pump out a game that the 360 simply cannot handle. Something that if they tried to put on anything but PS3, it would fail. However, this game has to be GOOD. It can’t just be pretty. It has to be something that makes people want a PS3…
That Move game we were discussing earlier is looking awfully enticing now, isn’t it Sony?
Make the best looking game on a console. Make that game support Move in an enticing way that makes us want to play it with a Move, and not a normal controller. Show us you can do all that, and give us a well-built HD gaming platform on-the-go?
Sony…You just won E3.
How Nintendo Could Steal the Show
Nintendo. What can we NOT say about Nintendo? They’re big, they’re bad, and they’ve got all the makings of a huge win this year. Project Cafe: the FIRST Next-Gen system. 3DS: The first 3D handheld, with classics like Ocarina of Time and Kid Icarus on the way. A legion of hardcore Nintendo fans salivating at the thought of the next Pokemon or Mario game.
How could they NOT win? Well, by not doing the following!
1. Make Project Cafe Appeal to both Casual and Core Gamers
Nintendo ,this is really simple. I mean, this is IDIOT simple. You build Project Cafe in two ways: You make it appeal to the Wii crowd by providing us with a fun, motion-controlled platform that looks great, plays fun, and gives us all those awesome games we love, in HD. Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby — the list goes on. All these greats get an HD game to themselves?
Win.
But Nintendo must also do something else this year that its never done before, if it wants to win the show. It must come out and show the world that Cafe can be played just like the other two consoles, with the same third party support as the other two consoles, and with the same online and graphical capabilities as the other two consoles. Nintendo must show us that you can play CoD online just as well, if not better, on Cafe than on Xbox Live or PSN. Nintendo must show us that it can pump out better graphics than the competition, with a traditional controller that appeals to the core gamer.
Furthermore, Cafe needs to have a legitimate, easy-to-use online system. Abandon Friend Codes and all that rot. Gamertags/Usernames work. Build a whole new system that’s free to use, easy to use, and fun to use. This is something Nintendo needs to show the world it can do
If Project Cafe merges the Casual and Core, then it will become king, and Nintendo will have won E3. Hands. Down
DAMN
That took a long while to get through.
*breathes*
Alright…Well I hope you all enjoyed the read! I honestly think that this year is the best year of Gaming in my lifetime, and I am so pumped to see everything at E3 this year. I’m excited like a little kid at Christmas! In regards to the Big 3…Anybody can win it. It all depends on what they bring, and how hard they bring it.
The stage is set. The lights are warming up. There’s a tense excitement in the air…
It’s E3, people.
Let the games begin…
