Saturday 11 June 2011

The E3 Roundup

For once, I acutally jumped on the E3 bandwagon pretty hard this year. Also like many of you I tuned in to see the show live courtesey of IGN. However that is sadly as far as my reportings go. You see I was immediately and devestatingly blinded by how flashy EA's conference was. Damn. I watched the entirety of their effort and Ubisoft's effort as well as appearences from a wide selection IP'S and their pimps from other companies. Honestly? I haven't really conducted a thourough inspection of the two new consoles because they were- on at least one level- spun in order to eclipse the other announcements. Honestly again? Are they not just fucking size variations on the principal consoles in terms of what's being done with technology?

Still.

Electronic Arts


Jesus, were those real American Football players? As in are they examples of people it would cost an obscene amount to hire to show off your game. Let's be fair, the whole assinine EA thing wasn't really in play this year because they poked the developers they own on stage to dance for our amusement. To that end the new Need for Speed actually looked alright for about five seconds. Quick time events aside though, that one could actually turn out to be a good effort if they really have mapped out San Francisco to New York.

Mass Effect 3's appearence was like a pretty girl looking in your general direction-you don't know if it will end in deep sadness or wily-wetting action. The only problem is said genital saturation might just manifest as this new "streamlined" gameplay and if so God help us because GOW3 isn't exactly going to save the third person genre. The other Sci Fi venture that caught my eye was of course synonymous with the Imperial March that must have nearly torn that theatre apart. It also made the bloke that came on to plug KOTOR look like a megalomaniac. Yes I am dissapointed it wasn't Battlefront 3 and yes the KOTOR trailer was good but it needed to make like the Rayman crew and show a large proportion of the game to convince us peasents it's not just Mass Effect 2.9.

Of course, there was also a little matter of the thing that with some hope will eclipse Modern Warfare...47 are we on now? Battelfield 3 has been candidly revealing it's superbly detailed yet hugely open experience. I am begining to think of it as the San Andreas of the modern war shooter; an incredibly lasting impression.

Ubisoft

Ok Gentlemen lets try to act like professionals shall we. The idiotic presenter aside, Ubisoft seemed to be in a schizophrenic rush to dish out little nibbles of new IPs whilst giving shitloads of attention to Rayman of all things. Don't get me wrong I have fond memories of that too but they managed to piss all over them is all. Barely a snippet of the new Assasains Creed which was a shame. Far Cry 3 still managed to supply the greatest I see what you did there moment. Doing the same thing over and over? Like say-making the same damned game?

Konami


Finally a relevant remake? All I know is that I and many others believed the new MGS and ZOE reboots were at some point set to be on the PS3 and abstained from further gimmickery such as 3D and what have you. No such luck I'm afraid but I do think that a refined MGS4 gameplay engine could work on some of these titles, though that seems to be the last thing on their minds. Perhaps Rising will be left as the placation of ps3 users and after seeing the gameplay of that title last year I'm quite happy with that.

Lastly, does anyone still care about the Silent Hill series? I for one hope so.

Microsoft


Oh you. You coy little shit. When have these people not been able to identify a cash cow. I can let you in on a little secret. I'll be quite happy if the greatest thematic deconstruction of Heinlein with an overdone lighting engine does indeed overtake the attention Nintendo and Sony gained with their new playthings. I'm talking of course about Halo 4 and teh blue balling trailer. Talking of Beggars belief-a new Fable already? I thought those games were shit now.

IP Cattle


I saw the ten minute Dead Island trailer, by which I mean I didn't watch it all because I could feel the dissapointment setting in that it looks like Dead Rising meets Morrowwind-in alot of the worst ways. However-the variety in the layout and the detail over the openess and scale was quite something. Speaking of elaborate trailers and demos, have any of you played this leaked version of Deus Ex 3. I want to sharpen up the troll filter on the game and see what's true and what's spite. Lastly, Skyrim seems genuinely impressive although I do have to agree witht the punters on the graphics. That said if there was one thing Oblivion lacked it was subtle refinement which they seem to have taken care of-all before adding a bunch of unscripted dragons.

Sorry that mt roundup was a bit more brisk than others you may have found. I hope to post sme resolutions on the inevitable arguments that will come out of the blooming of all E3s. Every major developer seems to have got a ball rolling and most communities have their new investments pick up shit pretty fast.

Here's to Oni 2.

  

7 comments:

  1. Good read. The E3 seems to be developingp retty well so far. And as for Microsoft, they've always been coy little #@@!#

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  2. Thanks. It looks like they needed a way to cover their asses with the major companies so...

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  3. it's true they're doing good and they have potential for a lot more

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  4. Oh lord, EA sports was the most boring part about E3

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  5. Agreed-and that was a pretty fine achievement.

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  6. I love E3, but EA is...well, they're EA -.-

    Followed!

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  7. Thanks for the correspondence- all of you :). I think we can all agree that EA have always been the first to hold up a shiny object to the Magpies and that E3 is just a perpetuation of this.

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