So, E3 finished a couple of days ago, and, after doing a little bit of reading, it seems like a few companies weren't all that impressed with the new format. Personally, neither am I. Whether or not there will be another shake-up of the format next year, or if there will even be an E3 next year remains to be seen, but, the E3 of 2007 has come to an end.
After watching the Microsoft conference fully, it seemed to me to be just a bunch of trailers that we'd already seen, and some graphs and lots of words about how great the Xbox 360 is. Not overly mind-blowing stuff for me. Yawn, next.
Nintendo had an interesting conference. They showed a lot of cool stuff about the Wii but I kind of lost interest about 40 minutes in, and I'm not sure if I slept through the rest but when I refocused my attention on the screen it was over. Oops.
I went to bed after that, hey, it was 4:30am, deciding that I would download the Sony conference later.
I downloaded it, started watching it, changed my mind, and didn't bother. Sorry. Playstations and PSP's have never really interested me. I watched the Killzone trailer-footage but that was about it.
After the whole conference debacle I wasn't really interested in watching coverage of games, instead I decided to just catch up when the demo's were available for streaming later. I ended up watching a few stage demos, and was impressed with what I saw.
Mass Effect in particular blew me away, and that is the only game I intend to buy after watching E3. And buy that i mean i saw a bunch of games I already was going to buy, but Mass Effect was the only game E3 sold me.
The Starcraft 2 demo was the first one I saw, and it didn't really blow me away. Most of what was covered was stuff I was already up-to-date with. I guess i'll just have to wait until Blizzcon to learn more :D
Next up was Assassin's Creed. The demo was intriguing for me, I was bit more interested in the interface, but didn't learn anything about it. Most of the information fed was stuff I was already aware of again, but watching the game in action really confirmed for me that this was a gameI must have. Can't wait till it comes out :)
Mass Effect was the next demo I watched. Wow. The level of detail in the cinematics and the screen where they showed the galaxy and how you travel was enough to half-sell me. The combat closed the deal for me. I was really blown away by the level of detail and how big the game appears to be, and this is another one I can't wait to get my hands on.
Next up were a couple of games I'm a little undecided on after watching the demos; The Simpsons Game and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Before E3 I hadn't really taken any notice of these two games, but after watching the demos I may have to see how much money I have when these games come out.
The mechanics behind the Simpsons game in particular grabbed my attention, the way each character operates and how you use their abilities looked quite appealing. Mercenaries 2 looks like a game I could just use to vent my frustrations and anger out on. The amount of damage and destruction you can do is extraordinary.
On the next day of coverage I watched the Stranglehold demo. I'm not entirely sure about this game yet to be honest, the demo didn't really excite me all that much. I guess I'll just have to wait and see, after all, Max Payne 3 is still being developed out there somewhere (I think, hope, pray), and Stranglehold is quite similar to MP, although imo, not as polished. I guess that's kind of ironic, since MP was influenced by John Woo's movie which Stranglehold kinda follows - yes, I've forgotten the name and cbf looking it up.
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is my guilty pleasure of games. I am a fan of the anime series, although the US version seems kind of lame and cheesy, the Japanese version is quite appealing, although the story line is currently moving at a snail's pace and I'm sure there is another year of fillers around the corner :(. Anyway, the game actually looks kind of fun. You get to run around Konoha, which looks HUGE, and use your different jutsu's (techniques) to progress through the game, such as walking on water and other things that ninja can obviously do. The fight scenes look sort of similar to normal fight games, while different at the same time, with the button combo pressing parts. Yes, that is the official term. I hope it does come to Australia, as I wouldn't mind picking it up.
World in Conflict was originally the last game I saw a demo of, and they showed just how much destruction you can do with this game. The part they showed took place in some town, and the guy playing just demonstrated how much stuff you could drop from planes; napalms, nukes, bombs, etc. and completely obliberate the area. Fantastic fun. Hopefully I get a new computer some time this year in time for a batch of games which are coming out soon that I would like to get.
Hellgate: London was the last game I saw, as I had nearly forgotten this was going to be one of the last games shown at Gamespot's booth. I only recently learnt about this game and it had my attention, so I was intrigued to learn more. The game itself looked really fun. It's being developed by some of the guys behind Diablo, so I assumed it would be similar in some ways. Although the game is set in the future, the developers have taken some of the key points that worked with Diablo and implemented them in Hellgate; London. The game looks fantastic, and you can even play online with friends, which makes this game one of my most anticipated, if not the most.
I was a bit disappointed that a couple of other games I had my eyes on weren't covered, such as Spore and The Witcher, but we can't have everything.
Overall, I don't really like this new E3. I prefer the hustle and the bustle, the craziness of the old format. But I guess the new style allows for developers to show off their games without having to compete for attention. Anyway, I'm curious to see what happens next year.
Good lord, long post. TLDR!
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