After many pots of coffee and a few days to let my thoughts brew, here are what I thought of the conferences; with Light, Medium, and Dark Roast awards(dark roast being the best, imo).
Here are my brewed thoughts about E3's big three's conferences.
I think Kingdoms is the most interesting of those games, even though very little is known about it. The remainder of Microsoft's show seemed mainly focused on Kinect. I was not impressed by anything that I saw with Kinect, as it still seems like an expensive version of the EyeToy.
I am a huge Star Wars fan, and even Microsoft's Star Wars game for Kinect does not have me interested enough to purchase a Xbox 360/Kinect at this point to play it.
Microsoft ended their conference announcing the newly designed Xbox 360, that is now in stores.
Overall: Light Roast
Bitter: Too much Kinect
Sweet: Crytek partnership may be interesting in the
long-run
I think Kirby's Epic Yarn appears to have some great ideas implemented into the 2D platforming genre, and I look forward to finding out more about the game.
Donkey Kong Country Returns has me really excited, as I was a huge fan of the original Donkey Kong Country back on the SNES and the game-play looks nice with some great attention to details in the levels.
Disney Epic Mickey looks like it is coming along nicely in production, and I think it will be interesting to see how well the use of "paint" and "paint thinner" is used in the game.
Last, but definitely not least, was the announcement/trailer of the new Goldeneye game being developed for the Wii. I was/am a HUGE fan of the original Goldeneye on the N64, and I will be looking for more information on this Wii version in the next few months.
Nintendo ended their conference showing/talking about the Nintendo 3DS for about 25 minutes. What they showed and talked about with the 3DS, now has me more interested in it, than I thought I would be.
Overall: Dark Roast
Bitter: No Conduit 2 trailer/game-play; not a lot of third party games demoed(Disney Epic Mickey was the only one?)
Sweet: Lots of new games(Goldeneye!?); little sales talk(only about 2 minutes worth this year!); 3DS looks solid, with great software support
Then, a huge time slot was allowed to talk about and show the Sony Move controller. My issue with what they showed, was that the "live" demos on stage did not really show anything that the current Wii Remote is not capable of already.
After about an hour of Move talk, they started rolling out the more "core" games and announcements for the PS3. They showed/announced a lot of games in the last 50 minutes of their conference. Dead Space 2 was shown, Medal of Honor was shown; Little Big Planet 2 was demoed, Gabe Newell announced Steam coming to the PS3 with Portal 2; they showed a trailer for inFAMOUS2.
Sony's big exclusive at the end was announcing a new Twisted Metal game for the PS3.
Overall: Medium Roast
Bitter: Long, with too much 3D talk, and too much Move talk; no games demoed for Move that showed why it's really different from the Wii Remote
Sweet: Nearly the last hour of the conference was solid, with a lot of games being shown/demoed
Questions:
What did you think of E3 this year? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts on the conferences?
I think your order of 1.Nintendo, 2.Sony and 3.XBox is pretty spot on.
ReplyDeleteI think Sony had some really good stuff and finally is getting into their stride. They seem to be getting lots of exclusive games to get excited about.
Xbox seems to be diving in all the way with Kinect. The more I see people play the thing the more I think the move might be the better motion control set up for gaming. People just look too weird playing the thing. It seems price wise both of these set ups are going to cost a good chunk of change. From what I've seen neither the Move or Kinect seem worth it... yet.
Nintendo spent a good amount of time on games this year. Finally. It's hard to deny Nintendo when they get down to their base. I wish I saw a few new IP's in there instead of remakes but what they have coming all looks top notch. GoldenEye FTW, let's hope nostalgia lives up to the hype on this one. But in the end the 3DS stole the show and caught everyone by surprise. I think a lot of people are skeptical of 3D gaming but from reading and watching peoples reactions to the 3DS. Nintendo may once again be leading the way while Sony and Microsoft play catch up.
My buddy Den got to play the 3DS and says its amazing.
The only notable difference in what I thought about the three conferences is that I thought the Sony one waaaaaaaaaaayyyy too long. It also felt like I was watching a Sony ad within the conference and that's not even counting the actual new campaign ad that they showed. There was way too much fluff. After the first hour I kept thinking it would end all the time and wasn't interested anymore.
ReplyDeleteMicrosoft at least kept it shorter, though they had more awkward moments. But Microsoft and Sony both lack a good speaker. When you heard the ESPN guys or that funny guy that made the stupid gaming speech that got a juvenile reception from the press, going back to hearing the other guys was painful. Reggie, while not being as comfortable as these guys, still has good presence and charisma. Having a good lineup to announce also helps. I thought Iwata was a little weak compared to previous years.
DKC4 was the highlight for me.
@The Butcher:
ReplyDeleteYea, I was hoping for a new IP from Nintendo; or even a 2nd Party like Retro, Next Level Games, etc., for the Wii.
I am cautiously optimistic for Goldeneye, both the Wii and DS versions, and all the nostalgia came flooding back when watching the trailer.
@Jonath:
So, did you enjoy Microsoft's more than Sony's, due to length? I thought Microsoft's was pretty long also, because of all the Kinect talk.
I'll go check to see how long each conference was.
Thank you both for the comments!
I'd say so. I'd say Sony had the better content but it failed to deliver it in a good way. Though Microsoft did not do much better. I remember Sony's conference lasting almost exactly 2 hours (I was half reading a book during the last hour because it started feeling like a waste of time). Microsoft probably lasted an hour and a half, but no more.
ReplyDeleteI think Nintendo's conference lasted an hour and 15 minutes to give enough time for the Zelda and 3DS hands-on. At that point I was ready for more and luckily we sort of got it from Nintendo's E3 Network with interviews and 3ds games. By the time I was done watching everything, the Sony conference started.
I watched Microsoft E3 and wanted to throw up. Call me OCD but they did not do a very good job presenting their products. The whole time you could see the speakers looking at the teleprompter, the sound cut off a couple of times, the demos were all pre-recorded, and the fact that most of the items were about multimedia did not interest me at all.
ReplyDeleteI started watching the Nintendo E3 after the Zelda demo. I was blown away by all the games, especially Donkey Kong Country Returns. I remember getting so good at the 1st one, that I memorized all the bonus stages to get the 101% completion, and I got 102% in DKC2. Goldeneye is going to be a must buy and is already in my Amazon cart. I never really played a Kirby game so I can't comment on it.
The 3DS is unreal to me because I can't see how it will work. I mean, I'm sure it's awesome but I just can't imagine.
I only watched Sony's E3 for about an hour and got to see Killzone (I think it was anyways) which blew me away.
All in all it's going to be a good holiday season for Wii owners and fan bois. And Coffeewithgames, good summation of the 3 E3's even if someone was IMing you the whole time!
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