For us video gamers, E3 is like a sports draft, election night, and a hot date all rolled into one. Massive amounts of speculation to be confirmed or denied (in real time, thanks to the Internet: you crazy kids who never had to wait for your EGM features don’t know how good it is nowadays), a few surprises, and–if all goes right–a great feeling when it’s all over with.
Microsoft popped out their keynote today, and I’ve got to say that my previous “meh” attitude about the rest of the year has reached nearly debilitating amounts of joy. It’s gonna be a good twelve months for 360 and PC gamers.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that I was there. I would have love to have been there, but I’m not there. I’m not a well-traveled video game journalist. I’m just a fat dude with a laptop and a reliable Interent connection. So if you want professional, in-depth coverage and commentary, check out Kotaku and Joystiq.
If you want my opinion on the big news items from today, read below.
- Halo: Reach is indeed in the works. Microsoft rolled out a teaser that would make Michael Bay stand up and clap, and it ended with a Spartan saying “We’re not going anywhere.” The Halo games may be the finest recruitment tool that the US military never realized it had. The trailer implies that Spartans, not Marines or ODST, will be the main player-characters, and I am using the pluarl because I see this as a squad-based shooter. Maybe even third-person. After all, also revealed was the “Firefight” mode for Halo 3: ODST (think Horde mode), and 3rd-person shooter Gears of War did kinda-sorta steal the thunder of the Halo series. If this game ends up being a 3rd-person tactical shooter, remember: you heard it here first folks.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic will have full-voice acting. I’m cool with this, so long as you can skip the dialogue and get to the freakin’ quest. In even bigger news, the first cinematic trailer is out and it is beautiful–really beautiful. This is what the prequel trilogy should have been, but no: we’ve got Jar Jar Binks and Darth Vader giving a slack-jawed “Noooo!!!” at the end of it all. I will be picking this game up, and if any game can kill WoW it is this one. I don’t think it will, due to economics of both time and money (that’s a whole new post), but last time I checked there are more people who don’t play WoW than do; this game could bring in those who would have never picked up an MMO otherwise.
- Summer of Arcade is back, or: more reasons to stay broke. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and a re-imagined TMNT: Turtles in Time won’t be hard sells. Shadow Complex from Epic Games looks pretty sweet, for Contra fans, but it damn sure better have co-op.
- Metal Gear Solid: Rising is coming to the Xbox 360. Awesome. Five hours of cut scenes punctuated by a few seconds of game play here and there. I loved every part of Metal Gear Solid 3 except for the cinemas and the original Metal Gear Solid truly captured my imagination, but am I the only person in the world who thinks that Metal Gear Solid 2 was the world’s biggest vanity project? Am I also the only person in the world who has not played Metal Gear Solid 4–and is perfectly fine with it? In short: life was fine without a new Metal Gear Solid, life will continue to be fine. Doesn’t mean I won’t buy it, doesn’t mean I will.
- Ozzy Osbourne is in Brutal Legend. \m/
- Project Natal is going to eliminate the need for the controller…supposedly. I’m sure this will be awesome for at first, but I see too much potential for gimmickry. That, and so many games require complex body motions: can you imagine playing Gears of War with your body? Yeah, I’d have a coronary. Peter Molyneaux, who gave us the Fable series, is involved so we’ll have at least one innovative game, but I see this quickly becoming Wii Remote for the 360.
- Left 4 Dead 2 will be released this year. Too soon. Way, way too soon. It will apparently bring lots of cool stuff to the table–more melee weapons and an advanced AI Director–but Valve, would it have hurt you to sit on this thing for a year so I’d feel like I had gotten my money’s worth from buying the first game? Are times that tough? Oh, and this game will be set in the South. Get your stereotypes ready, boys! EE-HAW! Break out the Beam and put your arm ’round your cousin’s waist–we gwine to a shindig!
- Nintendo continues to betray its once longtime fans and focus entirely on bringing in new gamers who may or may not stick with the hobby. Okay, we don’t know that for sure. Their keynote is later this week. I’m pretty sure I’m right however. I’ll bet this year they’ll announce Wii Music 2: this time, all you do is put the disc in the machine and dance. It’s like a CD player with Miis! What fun!
June 1, 2009 at 11:19 pm |
I have to admit I’ve been impressed by Microsoft’s Keynote, I really didn’t expect much (and really they didn’t deliver much), but all the summer of arcade titles tipped me over the line – I am now envious of xbox owners.
As far as MGSR, I wouldn’t be too concerned about lengthy cutscenes and minimal gameplay, my guess is that it’s going in a more action orientated direction, considering all Kojima’s talk about western influence and new direction and whatnot.. unless western influence and new direction simply means bringing the game to xbox and PC too.
Either way I’m anxious to see Sony’s keynote.. there is talk about a few really big surprises being dropped, but as of late I’m beginning to doubt Sony’s PR could even keep the lid on anything that exciting.