Well just got back from Day 1. My oppinion in a nutshell? This years E3 is easily the most BORING E3 I have ever attended. You read that right... BORING.
Here's my summary... it's long... you've been warned. Oh, and one note, we didn't get in until late, about noon... took a long time to get processed to get in, so I basically almost RAN thru the whole place (it's very BIG) to see as much as I could as quickly as I could. So... this is more a preview, just first impressions from looking w/o doing much stopping. Please keep that in mind.
Sony - Sequel upon sequel upon sequel. And what few non sequels there were that I saw looked so similiar to other things I've played that they might as well have been sequels. This wasn't just Sony though... this E3 may as well be called Sequelfest '05....
The big story, PS3, was hardly a story at all. I waited in a 45 minute line to be herded into a small theater where they presented us an 8 minute video that is basically the video clips many of us have already seen at Gamespot or IGN with the tail end being short clips of upcoming games. *yawn* After that they let us out onto a little ledge area where there was one display of 4 PS3's and one controller on a rotating stand encased in glass. We were allowed to take pics, and that was it. No real hardware running any demos, nothing playable, nothing. No third parties had any PS3 work's in progress on display either. 45 mins in line plus 15 mins got you everything there was to see of the PS3 at this years E3. *yawn* MMMM but watching those game demos on a 20' large HDTV was nice... the Unreal 3 Engine and Killzone 2 trailer looked SOOOO much more amazing than when streamed off the internet. I truly hope it's really gonna look that good.
PSP... also dissapointing, there were only a couple games on display that we haven't already seen or heard or known about since way back before the US one launched... MOST of the playable PSP's were running games that are already available. The only notable games I saw that WEREN"T out yet were Viewtiful Joe and Coded Arms... they both looked good, at least, though I couldn't get too close to Viewtiful Joe due to the large crowd. None of the cool accesories that were shown at last years E3 like the camera or keyboard were on display this year, nor any of the different colored PSP's. So basically everything there but a handful of games was old news. *yawn*
Nintendo - Their booth was mostly DS stuff this year. For Gamecube, there was little that looked interesting. A couple new Mario sports titles, a Mario DDR, a couple RPG's... whatever. Most of the DS stuff looked bland as well. Mario Kart looked VERY nice though, better than the N64 version, and was lots of fun to play multiplayer. The "New Super Mario Bros." was also a lot of fun and interesting... though growing into super sized mario seems like a bad gimmick, the game itself plays well and I'll definately pick that up. Animal Crossing was playable, and looked pretty good. I missed the Konami booth some how so didnt' see the new Castlevania. Tommorow I'm priortizing tracking that one down.
For GC, Zelda Twilight Princes (or princess of twilight I forget) was either not there or was behind closed doors. :angry: I was fully expecting that one to be playable... very dissapointed.
The big story, Revolution... again... behind closed doors as was expected. However, the line to see whatever THEY were showing was well over two hours wait, and I didn't have the time today, but will try to check that out tommorow. There were a few people walking around I caught bits of conversation and what I gathered was that whatever they were showing of the Revolution was not that impressive.
The OTHER big story... or... the very little story... the stupid-as-fuck GBA Micro... whoop-dee-doo. It's... very small. Yeah it looks cool... but it is seriously flawed in that, the screen is VERY tiny, we're talking sub-N-gage size here. I was trying to play Donkey Kong Country on it, and seriously there were moments when I was having trouble making out what was going on... the screen is very tiny like 1 inch by 1.5 inch or like 2.5-3.5 cm I guess? Very small. The backlit screen is nice, same quality as the DS... but who cares when it's just THAT tiny??? They should have kept the SP and made THAT backlit. Much as I love handhelds and love COLLECTING handhelds I am VERY uninterested in this Micro. The changeable face plates are about the only thing I thought was really cool about it. *yawn*
Microsoft - ohhh microsoft. well... I hope you guys who will be holding onto your xbox's til the bitter end like FPS's... because I'd say that was at least 50% of what they had for Xbox 1. The cream of the crop was a playable version of Half Life 2, which just like Doom 3 before it, looks to be coming along VERY nicely and very close to matching the PC version graphically. Otherwise, nothing really caught my eye. Though I will say I wasn't looking too hard, my priority was getting a look at the 360. I'll try to look a bit more at Xbox 1 stuff tommorow.
The big story.... xbox 360... well for any big MS fans please don't read any further because this next bit will have you crying 'fanboy' and I really dont' feel like arguing it. Well first off... I was very surprised, being as Xbox 360 is mere months away (they said it was due before thanksgiving), I expected there to be a LOT of playable Xbox 360 kiosks and games. Haven't MS been saying that they're gonna have this huge launch with all these games right off the bat? Well... I saw all of FIVE F'ING GAMES in the 360 area. That was it. There was a new Need for Speed, a new Medal of Honor, a Sega car game that looked like Crazy Taxi only with blowing stuff up, and a couple other games that did not even look interesting to me. And here's the part where you MS fans will cry fanboy. I'm sorry but... the games on display did NOT really look THAT great. I mean graphically. I mean, Xbox 1 has amazed me, with games like Riddick, and Doom 3, and Forza.... it is a VERY powerful system. But I was playing the new Need for Speed, and yeah there's a lot of little details that caught my eye right away... the car reflections look great, and particle effects like sparks flying and stuff when you scrub the walls... but I mean... it didn't look just SO much better than the current Xbox. The biggest improvement I noticed was the draw distance, you could see much further ahead of you, and the buildings and stuff did look nice. I'd say it was like Xbox 1 power times 2 or 3, not times 15. The Medal of Honor game didn't look any better than the most recent PC game of the same franchise running on my friends midrange gaming PC. Oh and on both games the framerates SUCKED... I was expecting smooth 60fps but they both seemed to be chugging REALLY bad dropping below what I think was like 30fps many times while I was playing them. I am NOT impressed, and if Sony isnt' lieing thru their teeth with their hardware specs and the game footage (the Killzone 2 footage is still debatable I guess as far as if it's real or not but at least we KNOW the Unreal Engine 3 footage was real and there is no debating that demo looked AMAZING) then these early showings definately are making the 360 seem to be not even CLOSE to the PS3 in terms of power. I know it's all very early so am holding my own final judgement and really dont' want to compare what seemed to be nearly finished 360 games to a demo reel for the PS3 when we know Sony does like to hype their new stuff up quite a bit. But if the REAL PS3 games end up looking close to what I saw of the 360 games than NEITHER of them will be very impressive to me at all.
Other games that caught my eye? Not many. Katamari Damacy is getting a sequel called We Love Katamari. There's a new Spiderman game coming out based on the Ultimate Spiderman comic series instead of the movies that looked REALLY good though there weren't letting anyone play (this is a very common theme this year... so many games that they wont let you play). The Shadow of the Collosus (by the same people who did Ico) on PS2 was GREAT from what short time I played it... DEFINATELY getting that one.
There was just SO many FPS's and PC games were also a lot more common this year as well... neither interest me so I really just breezed thru the whole thing very quickly.
So there you have it... IMO... the suckiest and most boring E3 I've ever been to. And that's just crazy considering there were THREE new systems debuting this year... but damn... all behind closed doors or with very little to show... what was there to be excited about? It SHOULD have been the biggest E3 ever. I've GOT to get into the nintendo closed-off thing hopefully tommorow and see what they're showing for the Revolution. Otherwise I dunno... I was going to go all three days but I think I'll be done after tommorow. I'll try to take my time tommorow, we're goign to get there right at opening time and stay as long as we can stand it
So I'll hopefully come back here with some better or more interesting info.
Here's my summary... it's long... you've been warned. Oh, and one note, we didn't get in until late, about noon... took a long time to get processed to get in, so I basically almost RAN thru the whole place (it's very BIG) to see as much as I could as quickly as I could. So... this is more a preview, just first impressions from looking w/o doing much stopping. Please keep that in mind.
Sony - Sequel upon sequel upon sequel. And what few non sequels there were that I saw looked so similiar to other things I've played that they might as well have been sequels. This wasn't just Sony though... this E3 may as well be called Sequelfest '05....
The big story, PS3, was hardly a story at all. I waited in a 45 minute line to be herded into a small theater where they presented us an 8 minute video that is basically the video clips many of us have already seen at Gamespot or IGN with the tail end being short clips of upcoming games. *yawn* After that they let us out onto a little ledge area where there was one display of 4 PS3's and one controller on a rotating stand encased in glass. We were allowed to take pics, and that was it. No real hardware running any demos, nothing playable, nothing. No third parties had any PS3 work's in progress on display either. 45 mins in line plus 15 mins got you everything there was to see of the PS3 at this years E3. *yawn* MMMM but watching those game demos on a 20' large HDTV was nice... the Unreal 3 Engine and Killzone 2 trailer looked SOOOO much more amazing than when streamed off the internet. I truly hope it's really gonna look that good.
PSP... also dissapointing, there were only a couple games on display that we haven't already seen or heard or known about since way back before the US one launched... MOST of the playable PSP's were running games that are already available. The only notable games I saw that WEREN"T out yet were Viewtiful Joe and Coded Arms... they both looked good, at least, though I couldn't get too close to Viewtiful Joe due to the large crowd. None of the cool accesories that were shown at last years E3 like the camera or keyboard were on display this year, nor any of the different colored PSP's. So basically everything there but a handful of games was old news. *yawn*
Nintendo - Their booth was mostly DS stuff this year. For Gamecube, there was little that looked interesting. A couple new Mario sports titles, a Mario DDR, a couple RPG's... whatever. Most of the DS stuff looked bland as well. Mario Kart looked VERY nice though, better than the N64 version, and was lots of fun to play multiplayer. The "New Super Mario Bros." was also a lot of fun and interesting... though growing into super sized mario seems like a bad gimmick, the game itself plays well and I'll definately pick that up. Animal Crossing was playable, and looked pretty good. I missed the Konami booth some how so didnt' see the new Castlevania. Tommorow I'm priortizing tracking that one down.
For GC, Zelda Twilight Princes (or princess of twilight I forget) was either not there or was behind closed doors. :angry: I was fully expecting that one to be playable... very dissapointed.
The big story, Revolution... again... behind closed doors as was expected. However, the line to see whatever THEY were showing was well over two hours wait, and I didn't have the time today, but will try to check that out tommorow. There were a few people walking around I caught bits of conversation and what I gathered was that whatever they were showing of the Revolution was not that impressive.
The OTHER big story... or... the very little story... the stupid-as-fuck GBA Micro... whoop-dee-doo. It's... very small. Yeah it looks cool... but it is seriously flawed in that, the screen is VERY tiny, we're talking sub-N-gage size here. I was trying to play Donkey Kong Country on it, and seriously there were moments when I was having trouble making out what was going on... the screen is very tiny like 1 inch by 1.5 inch or like 2.5-3.5 cm I guess? Very small. The backlit screen is nice, same quality as the DS... but who cares when it's just THAT tiny??? They should have kept the SP and made THAT backlit. Much as I love handhelds and love COLLECTING handhelds I am VERY uninterested in this Micro. The changeable face plates are about the only thing I thought was really cool about it. *yawn*
Microsoft - ohhh microsoft. well... I hope you guys who will be holding onto your xbox's til the bitter end like FPS's... because I'd say that was at least 50% of what they had for Xbox 1. The cream of the crop was a playable version of Half Life 2, which just like Doom 3 before it, looks to be coming along VERY nicely and very close to matching the PC version graphically. Otherwise, nothing really caught my eye. Though I will say I wasn't looking too hard, my priority was getting a look at the 360. I'll try to look a bit more at Xbox 1 stuff tommorow.
The big story.... xbox 360... well for any big MS fans please don't read any further because this next bit will have you crying 'fanboy' and I really dont' feel like arguing it. Well first off... I was very surprised, being as Xbox 360 is mere months away (they said it was due before thanksgiving), I expected there to be a LOT of playable Xbox 360 kiosks and games. Haven't MS been saying that they're gonna have this huge launch with all these games right off the bat? Well... I saw all of FIVE F'ING GAMES in the 360 area. That was it. There was a new Need for Speed, a new Medal of Honor, a Sega car game that looked like Crazy Taxi only with blowing stuff up, and a couple other games that did not even look interesting to me. And here's the part where you MS fans will cry fanboy. I'm sorry but... the games on display did NOT really look THAT great. I mean graphically. I mean, Xbox 1 has amazed me, with games like Riddick, and Doom 3, and Forza.... it is a VERY powerful system. But I was playing the new Need for Speed, and yeah there's a lot of little details that caught my eye right away... the car reflections look great, and particle effects like sparks flying and stuff when you scrub the walls... but I mean... it didn't look just SO much better than the current Xbox. The biggest improvement I noticed was the draw distance, you could see much further ahead of you, and the buildings and stuff did look nice. I'd say it was like Xbox 1 power times 2 or 3, not times 15. The Medal of Honor game didn't look any better than the most recent PC game of the same franchise running on my friends midrange gaming PC. Oh and on both games the framerates SUCKED... I was expecting smooth 60fps but they both seemed to be chugging REALLY bad dropping below what I think was like 30fps many times while I was playing them. I am NOT impressed, and if Sony isnt' lieing thru their teeth with their hardware specs and the game footage (the Killzone 2 footage is still debatable I guess as far as if it's real or not but at least we KNOW the Unreal Engine 3 footage was real and there is no debating that demo looked AMAZING) then these early showings definately are making the 360 seem to be not even CLOSE to the PS3 in terms of power. I know it's all very early so am holding my own final judgement and really dont' want to compare what seemed to be nearly finished 360 games to a demo reel for the PS3 when we know Sony does like to hype their new stuff up quite a bit. But if the REAL PS3 games end up looking close to what I saw of the 360 games than NEITHER of them will be very impressive to me at all.
Other games that caught my eye? Not many. Katamari Damacy is getting a sequel called We Love Katamari. There's a new Spiderman game coming out based on the Ultimate Spiderman comic series instead of the movies that looked REALLY good though there weren't letting anyone play (this is a very common theme this year... so many games that they wont let you play). The Shadow of the Collosus (by the same people who did Ico) on PS2 was GREAT from what short time I played it... DEFINATELY getting that one.
There was just SO many FPS's and PC games were also a lot more common this year as well... neither interest me so I really just breezed thru the whole thing very quickly.
So there you have it... IMO... the suckiest and most boring E3 I've ever been to. And that's just crazy considering there were THREE new systems debuting this year... but damn... all behind closed doors or with very little to show... what was there to be excited about? It SHOULD have been the biggest E3 ever. I've GOT to get into the nintendo closed-off thing hopefully tommorow and see what they're showing for the Revolution. Otherwise I dunno... I was going to go all three days but I think I'll be done after tommorow. I'll try to take my time tommorow, we're goign to get there right at opening time and stay as long as we can stand it
So I'll hopefully come back here with some better or more interesting info.
