Well, compared with last year's, there was a shotage of new games... But there were a few, and I'm here to tell you about what I felt about some of them... Very brief. Detailed impressions will come later...
HellGate London: Demoed on DirectX 10. It's a nice looking game, and an even more fun one at that. Playing single player, the best way to describe it is like Diablo in 3rd or 1st person, your choice. Yes, you can switch from 3rd to 1st person mode with the flick of a mouse wheel. I demoed the Summonor class for a bit. The summoner initially can summon (o rly?) a creature to help attack enemys and such for you. The little I played, I was able to level up to allow for 2 creatures to be summoned at once. Pretty cool.
Like Diablo, when you die, you have to go and find your tombstone, or you can pay a cost for ressurection. The summoner had an interesting weapon initially, and I wasn't able to find anything else in the 15minutes of me playing (playtime was not limited, I just didn't want to be that annoying guy who doesn't give anyone else a chance...)
But then, it was off to Crysis...
Crysis... Direct X 10, at max glory was... beautiful. The lighing, water effects were just stunning. how did it play? Well, this one I got a very short playtest, but it looks like it will be a really fun game... I can't detail much about this one such as what things were called, etc, but do know that this game just might live up to the hype... The design of the tropical area was just beautiful. The physics engine in motion was amazing... You just have to play it when it comes out (if you didn't get a chance to try it yet)... I just hope the greatness lasts through the entire game... The gameplay so far (of what I played) was standard FPS fare, but with the unique twists we were told of. It's those little twists that make the game fun, and I can't wait to see how it all will come together...
Eye of Judgement ... I'm a fan of TCG's (mainly Magic The Gathering) and this game was cool. You play a TCG against a friend, the CPU, or over PSN. The goal is to occupy 5 spaces with a creature, which can be killed before the end of the turn you summon the 5th... Each tile has an element. Summoning creatures with the same element on those tiles will boost them up, while opposite elements will break them down... There's a card that can flip the ground and reveal the underlying element (displayed n the bottom right corner of the tile) among other things...
Basically, the Eye Toy reads the card you placed on the mat, and the game reacts accordingly. I happend to win my first match, and I had a blast playing. There's a few action cards that you place to tell the game what you want to do in some cases. An action card lets you use an action (usually attacking) of another creature by placing the card over the creature card. End turn card does just that. Cancel card undo's silly mistakes. Status card can tell you info about a specific creature you place it over, or the game in general. Creatures you summon can have activated abilities that take place once something happens, or if you summon it on a certain terrain type...
I'm a MTG fanatic, so expect this to be the first game I fully write about... Heck, it almost makes me want to get a PS3...
Gears of War PC: It's like Gears of War 360 (down to the fact that you can use the 360 controller) only prettier, and more stuff to it... That's all really...
Finally, I'll get to Guitar Hero III. There's nothing much to say other than it's a great sequel. Controller feels good, song selection seems like it's going to be awesome this time around. And with 360, Wii and PS3 getting it (I do hear PC support as wsell, but we'll see) everyone has no excuse not to get this game...
Well, that's all for now... Expect a detailed Eye of Judgement preview from me soon...