Well, E3 2008 has ended! It was such a great time too. Big thanks to all the folks at Gamespot for the awesome coverage, that is after you got your tech issues fixed. Other than the conferences, I saw lots of great stuff.

Some of my favorite games I saw:

1. Dragon Age Orgins: Finally, a successor to Bauldars Gate from Bioware. I am so hyped for this game, I hope it delivers. The previews and such looked great, and after reading Gamespot's impressions, I can't wait. What will be interesting to see is if Bioware will live up to its hype. They claim it will have some of their deepest moral choices, and if it truly lives up to Bauldars Gate gameplay.

2. Far Cry 2: This game looks like a beast. A true Crysis contender. The new night element I saw is really great. It is nice to see the AI changes from day to night. The graphics looks beautiful as well. The free-roaming aspect seems to be intact, and the interaction with the environment, for example fires is really spectacular. Also healing yourself is some hardass business :P.

3. Empire Total War: The New Total War game from Creative Assembly. This time, they have moved out of the age of swords and bows, and into the age of ships and guns. And the game looks great doing so. Probably the biggest thing is ship battles, and they seem awesome. The detail like wind, masts coming apart, the destruction, boarding a ship and taking it over. It sounds great. Then there is the land battles. With new features like buildings in the middle of the map, battles will be fought a bit differently. It will be interesting to see how the muskets turn out though.

4. Fallout 3: I know what some of you will say, the game sucks. But to me, it does not. The graphics looks awesome. It really shows you the gritty feel of the gameworld. Also the free roaming. I've always been a fan of free roaming games, so that might be a reason why I like Fallout 3 so much.

5. Animal Crossing: When Animal Crossing was shown, I was pretty happy. I was a fan of the GC and DS game, and I eagerly awaited this game. Just having the sense of I don't have to beat anything is a bit of relief, and building up your house, collecting all the fish, fossils, and insects, and talking to the towns folk is just fun. I am glad this version also has online play. The graphics also have a certain charm to them, and I like how they went with the DS version in rendering the world, kinda like a globe instead of the isometric kind of view in the GC version.

6. Spore: It would be a crime if this wasn't one of my favorite games of E3. The Reason why its lower in the list is because I pretty much got what I expected from Spore, nothing totally new. Nevertheless, still looked awesome. The timeline feature shown is pretty great, a record of your creature. Not much else for me to say about this.

7. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky: Uh, a great game even better? The first game had great atmosphere, good graphics, and an immersing experience. This prequel seems to expand on that, with much better graphics and lighting, nice features, and open world immersive gameplay. I will await more info about this.

8. Fable 2: Yea, I don't even have a 360, and this is one of my favorite games. Ah well, it will come to PC soon enough :P. The graphics look awesome, they have a nice charm to them. At first the game didn't really blow me away......that is until they got into the first big city. Then that just blew me away. It looked awesome. I hope Peter's hype lives up, and the game turns out great.

9. Operation Flashpoint 2: While we don't know how this game looks, Codemasters told Gamespot they will make it look like the pre rendered screens like the one shown above. I am very curios to see if they actually do that. It will also be interesting to see how this game stacks up to ArmA 2. If this game lives up to its original, then it truly will be an awesome experience. We don't know much, so all I can do is wait.

10. Rise of the Argonauts: While I never really looked into this game, I finally did for E3. And well, what I found was great. The combat system looks awesome. If you hit someones neck, its gonna come off. No more health and stuff, if your sword contacts, it is coming off(or that is what I understood. Maybe I'm wrong). That seems to give a bit of a realistic feel to the game. The setting is also not one I've seen a lot in games. Good old Greek Mythology, specifically with Jason. I will await more info about this game in the future.

Honorable Mentions

Crysis Warhead

Gears of Wars 2

Resistance 2

Star Wars the Force Unleashed

And a bunch more I didn't bother mentioning.

Biggest surprises

The biggest surprise for me is FF13 coming to 360. Nothing else really compares, and I didn't see it coming at all. It was a big blow to Sony, and all you sony fanboys have been owned. :P

Now I wish I knew where that square jump in photshop picture is.:cry:

GTA on DS?: Didn't see this coming either. Maybe it will be like the retro top down versions? That would be awesome. Other than that, don't have anything else to say.

Microsoft Dashboard: Well, I knew avatars was coming, but I didn't know they were going to totally copy Sony and make a new dashboard (it does look cool btw). It looks totally different from the blades, but that isn't a bad thing.

Dissapointments

All the conferences. They all sucked. See my other blog for more details.

No Starfox, Kid Icarus, Zelda game.

Lack of new games and announcements.

Well, there you have it, my impressions of E3 2008.

I got all the emblems too, woot!:P

E3 is the time gamers are all looking forward to. It is day for us gamers to learn about new games, get information, and see whats coming out. I eagerly awaited the conferences from the big three companies, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. After waking up early, staying at home all day I was really dissapointed. Microsoft's conference was pretty bad. It started of ok, but all the info wasn't really new. Then it got to all the casual games. It was pretty dissapointing to see that Microsoft put so much attention into these games. DO CASUALS EVEN WATCH E3? Seriously, why would they take so much time when I don't tihnk casuals even care about E3. The bombshell at the end was surprising though. Who would have thought Final Fantasy 13 will be coming to the 360. Then there is Nintendo. Equally dissapointing. They talked about sales......again. There was like maybe one surprise which is Grand Theft Auto is coming to DS. It will be interesting to see how that goes. While not a surprise, Animal Crossing Wii was a good announcement, and I quite like the games. As for the rest of the conference, it was sub par. It catered to the casual gamers again. It almost felt like a slap to the face. Maybe this is all a top secret plan?:P Sony I think had the best conference, they showed quite a bit of stuff, Home looks interesting, though it still wasn't that exciting. I notice that none of the E3 conferences this year had the excitment, and talk of past E3s.(except for ofcourse 2007) Ever since E3 was restructured, streamlined, and made smaller it doesn't seem as if the companies are showing as much stuff, and the excitment just isn't there. Luckily, we have Gamespot to show us all the info, demos, trailers etc.

Regardless, I hope all have a great time watching E3.

Ok, something that really irks me are Fallout fans. They are the biggest whining bunch of people I ever met, and all for the wrong reasons.

So I was just looking through some posts at the Bethsoft forums, and I came across this huge thread that has to do with groin shots. I go to look into it further and people are basically calling Bethesda the devil because there are no groin shots. What the heck is up with that? To make things worse, I asked why does it matter and I basicalyl get flamed. Recently in a Gamespot thread, these Fallout fans were complaining about their being no child killings. Are they disturbed or something? Why do you need to kill a child in the game? And again, they basically called Bethesda the devil.

What is WRONG WITH YOU?! Why do you complain about the dumbest crap ever. Why don't you actually complain about important stuff, like the GAMEPLAY. Why don't you complain about things that actually hold some meaning instead of just being these sick minded individuals. What about the fast travel? The "Oblivion with guns" thing? Why do you focus on all these dumb things?

Seriously, instead of complaing that I can't shoot someone's groin, why don't you complain about things that really matter. Like how perks and traits are combined. That is something important you can talk about. But most of these said arguments and hating threads are on stuff I mentioned above, lack of groin shots, child killing, etc.

Rant over.

The first time I heard about Mount and Blade were on these forums. I was wary of playing it at first seeing as it was a small indy game, but all that quickly changed. This game has some of the best combat ever made. One of the main points of the game is the horse combat, including horse archery, and it is awesome! Everything feels realistic enough, but also maintaining the fun aspect of it. The single player is also great, played like an rpg. You can join one of five factions, and the world is a living world constantly changing. You can see different parties moving around the map, caravans that you can loot, bandits moving. One faction laying siege to another faction. You can even form your own party and hire people to fight for you. It has some rts elements as you can order your units around in battle! It is an open ended world. Check out my video for a look at the combat.

I encourage everyone to check out the game!