So as some of you may know, I’m the resident Rebel FM host who didn’t end up attending E3 this year. While this means I don’t get to play anything that you all don’t, it does mean that I’m not too exhausted to write up some impressions of the three conferences that went down today before I dig in and finish up inFamous.
The day started out with a much better than expected Microsoft press event. Over the last few years, Microsoft has made it a point to avoid the long game and go short, sticking to announcements and coverage of titles that would see the light of day before the following E3. This has resulted in two things: the first being that everyone starts the year chanting “I don’t know what else Microsoft has left this generation”, and the second being that everyone leaves E3 excited over the games Microsoft has to offer in the fall as they remind people that they do in fact have things in development. This year continued that trend in both regards. Before this morning, the general consensus was that Microsoft would limp its way through the rest of the year, a sentiment I shared, to be honest. After today, I’m excited again, and if you’re smart, you should be too.
5 minutes into the conference and it’s official: I am now seriously interested in The Beatles: Rock Band. I’m not a huge Beatles fan, but the artistry and care on display have sold me. Also, the Harmonix house band was a great way of confirming the previously suspected vocal harmony feature in the game. It feels like a game born of a love of music, rather than profit, and that makes me want to support it.
Two of the biggest showings were from games that had vanished from public view for extended periods, Alan Wake and Splinter Cell: Conviction. Alan Wake didn’t impress me much initially. It’s clear that Remedy are making a story heavy game with some novel presentation in the form of TV style cliffhanger-bumps, but the voice acting in the demonstration hit some poor notes, and I’m not sure how well the title character’s narration is going to work. However, once the action got rolling and we had the chance to see the light based combat and some really impressive environmental effects, my outlook grew more upbeat. I was surprised to hear that it won’t be out ‘til next year given the extended development cycle for the title, but, you know. At least now we know it exists.
Splinter Cell: Conviction has been under a shadow since its unimpressive debut in 2007 and its unceremonious delay for reasons that were never made explicit.
What we saw today is a game that has changed completely. It’s slightly more recognizable as a Splinter Cell game with a re-shorn Sam Fisher, and the crowd-based “social stealth” Ubisoft was talking up before is nowhere to be found. Instead, we have a more sandbox oriented title that bears the influence of the Bourne films and the rebooted Bond movies.
This is not a bad thing. It’s also showing some really bold experiments with storytelling and direction, as you see backstory and mission objectives projected on the environment as you play. It’s also worth noting that since Ubisoft demonstrated the game live today at two press conferences, we got to see the same scenario play out different ways, which just makes me more excited for the possibilities.
The rest of the Microsoft press conference was no slouch either. Modern Warfare 2 was an expected but nice appearance, Forza 3 looks good, Crackdown 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 look great, and Halo: ODST looks… well, it’s hard to say, isn’t it? The Halo series has always been about sandbox combat based around gunplay, melee and grenades, and we didn’t see much of that. I’m sure a lot of veteran Halo players are as eager as I am to get their hands on the Halo 1 pistol again though. As for Halo: Reach, who knows? It’s a year plus change away. But the inclusion of a multiplayer beta key for Reach in every copy of ODST would seem to indicate another first person shooter, at the very least. It does make me wonder how Microsoft plans to juggle Gears of War 3 and Halo Reach next year, as I fully expect an official announcement of the former by GDC in 2010.
Oh, and of course, there was the minor incident where Microsoft had Hideo Kojima announce the next Metal Gear on their stage. The surprise was less than last year’s OMGATON announcement of Final Fantasy XIII on the 360, but it indicates that Microsoft is serious about dismantling Sony’s network of third party exclusives, and at this point, they don’t have many targets left. And having the first English language footage of FFXIII and the first reveal of the Odin summon (and I can’t tell you how much of an idiot I feel like saying that) during the Microsoft press conference has got to sting Sony at least a little.
Then there’s Twitter and Facebook on Xbox Live, which I’m sure lots of people care about. I just don’t happen to be one of them. What I was genuinely surprised by was the introduction of Last.fm to Xbox Live, which I will be using as much as possibly anything else on the console, I imagine. I do wonder if they’ll add Last.fm scrobbling to music streamed through the 360.
Microsoft closed their show with half an hour on Project Natal (which CNN seems to think is called (Xbox Liquid or something?)), which looks interesting, obviously. While I’m skeptical of how well it will work in games, given that I noticed the same input lag that drives me insane with the Wii-mote, they did more or less have me saying “Fine, I’ll buy another goddamned camera for my 360” by the end. I can’t plan for that until they announce a release date though, which they haven’t done. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it slip to next year, but at the very least, Microsoft fired a business-like shot across Nintendo’s bow. Now we’ll have to wait and see if the general public cares.
After that EA and Ubisoft played cleanup for the rest of the day. The highlight at EA’s show for me (other than Tim Schaeffer, of course) was APB, which could turn out to be the first MMO I pick up day one. Mass Effect and Dragon Age looked awesome, but there was nothing new there, and EA, for fuck’s sake, stop using that Marilyn Manson song for Dragon Age. I like Marilyn Manson. But it’s tonally inappropriate for the game. Star Wars: The Old Republic had a nice showing, but it was all CG trailer and no gameplay. EA showed a generally solid lineup and kept the focus on their games, which Ubisoft could have taken a lesson from. Taking a cue from Nintendo and Activision in years past, Ubisoft’s press conference stumbled again and again. It was almost a half an hour in before any gameplay was shown, and while I really like James Cameron as a director and visualizer, watching him on stage was like watching a director’s commentary recital. Things picked up near the end with another great demo of Splinter Cell Conviction and a really cool CG trailer for Assassin’s Creed 2, but the gameplay reveal is apparently being saved for Sony’s press conference tomorrow afternoon. Which is good for them, because they’re going to need it. Microsoft came out guns blazing today. I don’t care much for cliché, but the imagery is apt this time around, as gaming media seemed genuinely impressed afterwards (and Microsoft kept the info coming afterwards, announcing full retail downloads for selected 360 games in the fall and more). While Nintendo has their niche pretty clearly carved out, Sony has an uphill race tomorrow. Luckily, we can at least count on Assassin’s Creed and God of War 3.
Quick thoughts: Splinter Cell Conviction was exceedingly impressive; heavy on sequels/known franchises, in a mostly good way; debuting the new THRide board, only to later highlight controller-less skateboarding with Project Natal (and basically decry the video game controller as the root of all evil) was somewhat perplexing; cocky swipes at Sony’s “graphs” and Nintendo’s “waggle” were a bit unnecessary.
Overall Microsoft Conference Grade: B
I’m going to give them a B+, maybe a A-. I just think the fact that they got MGS is a bigger deal then people are making out to be.
I guess I was kinda looking forward to the Beatles rockband, but I had my doubts about, but those videos make it look great. It definately looks a step above GH: Metallica and Aerosmith. The trailer/opening sequence looks great, although the latter part reminds me of a coke advert.
I was extremely disappointed by the lack of original games shown during Microsoft’s press conference. Aside from NATAL, which isn’t so much a game as a concept tech demo, there was ONE original IP, and that was Epic/Cliffy B’s XBLA shooter, and judging by the fact that I can’t even remember its name, I don’t know how exciting it is to most folks. Oh, Alan Wake does not count considering it’s been floating in the ether for the almost the last decade.
As for the other press conferences that day, I thought EA’s was solid if predictable and Ubisoft…well, let’s just say “tough crowd” in regards to the press in the audience. The “Soup” comedian fellow wasn’t that bad, throw him a friggin’ chuckle once in a while.
It’s a shame you had to miss E3, Arthur, If it helps you and I can wish for Anthony to get punched by a leprechaun while in L.A.
I hate to break it to you but Alan Wake is in fact the definition of an original IP. The fact that it has been in the “ether for almost the last decade” has nothing to do with its IP originality.
Fine, I’ll cede to your logic and rephrase: Alan Wake — The only original title at Microsoft’s press conference that wasn’t an XBLA game.
All in all it was a pretty packed show. I think what I am most excited about is the full 1080p video player being available in Canada. It will be nice to have all the same benefits that America has for movies and tv. Since Canada has no real form of Netflix, it should be a really nice addition here.
I think the Old Republic trailer was pretty exciting. I know better than to get overly excited for a CG trailer for an MMO, but I think it does remind everybody that BioWare gets what makes Star Wars as a universe interesting, and if anyone can invest the time and money into making an MMO enjoyable and polished it’s BioWare. I’m eagerly awaiting more info.
I’m not so sure about all the new social networking on Xbox Live… who really needs it? It was a good start by Microsoft, but I kinda wish they had a few more surprise exclusives. Can’t wait to see what Sony’s got.
pretty amazed by microsoft’s press conference… i took all the bait, even natal looked pretty revolutionary. in my eyes it appeals to a broader demographic than the wii is capable of doing? aside from the asthetic of the xbox itself, and the image that nintendo have carefully spent the last couple of years crafting. but we will see.
is APB pc only? shame if so (for me, anyway).
splinter cell conviction looked great, but after seeing the second playthrough i was a little concerned that it’s not as dynamic as i was lead to believe. still think it looks incredible though.
You forgot that we finally got to see what the bottom of an avatar’s shoe looks like.
But in all seriousness, I’m with the majority in thinking that Microsoft hit the nail on the head with this press conference. They knew exactly who was watching: those in games press, and those that err on the side of “core.” I’ll be pleasantly surprised if Sony or Nintendo manage to give conferences with nearly as little fluff as Microsoft…but here’s hoping!
Funny thing is that we really didn’t see the avatar’s shoe. It went all spastic and had a seizure before reverting to an “at-rest” state.
What I find interesting is that from the conference summaries I’ve read, not many dwell upon Peter Molyneux’s creation. Why is that? Is it tough to write good things about an app which centralizes on a small boy and his day-to-day life? I admit the technology is cool, but I think the pedobear demographic Molyneux was aiming for doesn’t represent the core of gamers that generate money for devs.
Overall, I think MS delivered the goods. Like the Wii-mote, I’m skeptical about Natal living up to its potential, but it’s great to see people trying new ideas with some semblance of direction.
I’m in the same camp as Arthur about The Beatles: Rock Band. I’m not a huge fan, but I thought it could be fun. The trailer got me more excited for a music game than anything since Rock Band proper.
MGS on 360 sounds great, but I’m waiting for the other (gameplay??) shoe to drop before I get full erect about this one.
Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm on Xbox Live is a strange beast of an idea. Of these services, I’m most excited for Last.fm because it makes the most sense to me, and the idea snuck up on me. I had half-expected Facebook to be rolled into other places like XBL. While it’ll be great to consolidate friends lists together, I’m going to be the guy who wonders if this is excessive. The time spent fucking with pictures and tweeting is less time playing good games.
Like what I hope Alan Wake will be after seeing the demo. I’ve heard the name drop, but had seen nothing of the game prior to E3. If the gameplay is as good as the presentation, we could be in for a treat. And personally, I can wait until Spring 2010. I’ve got lots of gaming on my plate anyways.
I haven’t fully read up on EA/Ubisoft’s announcements, just the highlights, but some inital thoughts:
-Brutal Legend, fuck yes! (Again) I’m very happy that EA is giving this so much support.
-What about a Mirror’s Edge sequel? Late last year, someone from EA was quoted as saying they were planning a sequel despite low sales. I really hope they are still planning this.
-Ubisoft, no BG&E 2? Did I miss the quote saying it wouldn’t be at E3?
Sorry to hear you couldn’t go, Arthur. It sounds like the Internet is close enough these days.
I was at work streaming the Microsoft Event and so I was doing more listening than watching, but I did watch the Modern Warfare 2 game play (amazing) and saw some of the stuff on Natal, which looked semi-interesting.
Unsurprisingly, more milking of the Halo franchise is in the future. Forza 3 = meh. I prefer the Gran Turismo games more even though they don’t feature damage modeling.
I just can’t get pumped up for Alan Wake. I don’t know what it is.
Splinter Cell Conviction looks interesting.
Facebook and twitter? Really? Is this that big of a deal? It seems to me as if Microsoft is going for what I call the ‘bullet list attack’. Lots of small features, nothing amazing. Quantity over quality if you will.
Sony’s press events are always kinda lame so I’m not really holding my breath, but I am very curious about the soon to be announced game(s).
I’m with you about Facebook and Twitter, but time will tell if people utilize it. I agree with you, but I’m keeping an open mind about. Last.fm, though, is a great addition, especially if we can listen to it in a similar way to custom soundtracks while playing games.
Totally in agreement about Halo and Forza. Forza’s just not my cup of tea, though, and I can justify it more than the far-too-often explored Halo’verse additions. However, I heard some Whedon-verse dudes lend voices in ODST (Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, and Adam “Jayne” Baldwin, if I’m not mistaken), which is a plus in my book.
Now if Joss Whedon would only write his own video game story…
Rock Band: Beatles was going to be good, no doubts. But that looked better then expected. That the Beatles is at the top of the title with just a little rockband written below is some indication. Then the intro video makes it pretty clear that to Harmonix music is a religion whereas to Neversoft it’s just a license.
Forza 3 was most disappointing. The way it’s presentated it looks like the most generic game with cars ever. Especially compared to what the other racing games are doing from Codemaster’s ‘sort of like swearwords’ four letter titled racing games each with a very definate theme to EA’s sensory overload cockpit view in Shift and Gran Turismo’s consistent tone of classy car porn.
Splinter Cell is by far the most surprising. Especially the speed of the game is amazing. Totally breaks with stealth game conventions, instead much more the sort of design stuff Clint Hocking was talking about last GDC.
Also, with IO apparently being done with the Hitman series Splinter Cell seems to take over it’s rather freeform approach to stealth, so I hope the level design will live up to expectations.
I was never a big fan of the splinter cell series, but this game looks bad ass.
I’m pretty much like you. I like the the Beatles, there a great band but I wasn’t too big on playing the game until I saw that trailer and everything at the beginning of the conference.
I’m kinda sulking at Microsoft (since I only have PS3) that they snag all the 3rd party exclusives from Sony and yet they keep all their stuff exclusive (inc DLC contents). I just feel that it is unfair on PS3 owners to only to be able to play on limited stuff. Good for Xbox owners I guess.
Does Microsoft really have a lot more money than Sony? It must have taken a lot to persuade Kojima to develop games for Microsoft.
Having said that, I am tempted to buy Xbox 360 so that I won’t get this feeling everytime microsoft annouce an exclusive title.
I really thought Splinter cell had enough innovation to be game of the show… Or maybe i’m just too much of a splinter cell fan. But still, Projecting your memories, objectives and thoughts on the wall? Now that’s what i call innovation.
The showing of Alan Wake was hardly unexpected but still very refreshing since we finally saw some footage… Light vs. darkness; the struggle continues
(Arthur, you’re right about the voiceacting… It reminded me of alone in the dark.. which i didn’t like)
MS did a good job with the natal project as well. If it really works i think this might be the next big step in videogames… Goddamn you MS..
Also Crackdown 2 and Forza 3 look like fun games but i was disappointed that they didn’t show any footage for Crackdown2… I’m really excited about seeing it in action.
On the downside they announced 2 Halo games… *sigh* Aaaaand i’m pretty sure every Halofan is getting tired of it… Or so i hope. Otherwise there will be another 5 games after these…
But hey, they got MGS so that’s a big chunk out of Sony’s exclusive games… Good work MS, stealing games and all. Sony’s going to have to work their asses off.
What specifically bothers you guys about the voice acting? I didn’t think it was terrible. Not great, but not terrible, given the X-Files/Twin Peaks vibe. Discuss.
Well for a game that’s all about the story and the feel, I just don’t think the voiceacting was good enough. Maybe it’s just something about the audio that’s not been tweaked but the voices really sounded like the lines were spoken in and not like the gamecharacter was saying them… It lacked emotion maybe? Like a B-movie with a good story but sloppy acting. Which isn’t bad at all but for a game that’s about bringing over a scary vibe it’s not good enough…
Making sound more in-game than voiceover might be an issue with post-production. Since it’s not coming out until 2010, there’s some time for the devs to (hopefully) tweak it. I wonder if they’ll go back into the recording studio for any lines. You make a fair point. I initally misconstrued people’s impressions of the voice acting.
As long as it doesn’t get any WORSE than what we’ve seen, I’ll still consider a day one pickup.
left 4 dead 2…really..do we really need one,i mean it looks cool and all,but maybe if they just make it downloadable.i dont like the idea of haveing to buy another copy of L4D.but Alan Wake,ya i didnt like the narating in-game stuff either.they still have time to work on it though
After viewing all 3 I think MS has come out on top.
Here’s my ratings:
MS A
Nintendo: C+
Sony: B(+ if you add the PSP GO that was leaked last week)
I feel MS really delivered. New Halo game, NFS Shift, New Epic game ,Mass effect 2, Splinter Cell, Rock band Beatles, L4D 2, Crackdown 2, Forza 3, Alan Wake/COD-4-2/Halo ODST Game play Really went down well. Oh and mother fuckin metal gear. I think the Project Natal is probably the best innovation to come since the wii came out. People in my office, and I included want to be able to use the Natal Sensor, to taunt people in Halo. If MS can develop this hardware enough to be integrated into games, and not have it’s price point be off the wall, this will be a cool peripheral that I would like to see.
Nintendo: 3 mario games, and Metroid.
4 player new mario, Mario Galaxy 2, Mario and Luigi.
Those look good. I’m not big into mario, but enjoy Mario and Luigi rpg games. Metroid looks good(Let’s hope team ninja can get over their camera issues that were in ninja gaiden). I wasn’t a big fan of golden sun, but I guess that looks interesting to try.
Sony: Lot’s of new PSP stuff. Of course the PSP go(I’m kinda glad Jack Trenton was able to joke about the leaks). Metal Gear portable, Resident evil, and Gran Turismo(which is really kind of bullshit.. this should have been a fuckin psp launch title). God of war 3 looked excellent, Assasins creed 2 looked great. Also GT 5 needs a 2010 released date (if not sooner). Mag looked like old battlefield games, I’m gonna have to try it before I decide. FF 13 release date next year, and FF 14. As well as during their little psp montage: fat princess, and a bunch of other cool games. Sony’s wand looks like a wiimote fairy princess knockoff. I think it feels a little too little too late for the Wand.
I would have liked to have seen Heavy Rain.
I’m really hyped for this year’s gaming. Old style e3 > last years bullshit version.
Left. 4. Dead. 2. I’M SOLD
Hey Arthur, if/when you recap day 2 (1?) and the Nintendo conference, could you please try and find out more info on Golden Sun DS, particularly whether or not Camelot has anything to do with this one? Thanks.
I know its been mentioned b4 but who else is into Gears2 Horde mode and has trouble finding 5 peeps that know how to play? I want to finish it but need players.
I can understand why you’re excited considering their predecessors, but I don’t see how you could say “Crackdown 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 look great” from the cutscenes they showed. They were good looking, but they were still cutscenes.
I give their conference a B. MGS coming to Xbox 360 too is big, even if it is a(n) (action) spin-off. I’m not sure I was impressed with a single exclusive (not counting ones that are coming to PC) with the possible exceptions of Shadow Complex and Crackdown 2 pending more information on them. But it would be unfair to judge them only on exclusives, and most of the multi-platform stuff they chose to show looked good. I was not impressed with anything they showed of Natal except Milo, and it wasn’t even live. I wonder how you’d make a game out of that, though. It’s definitely interesting technology, but I did not see applications that interested me.
Double Negatives! Arg.
After the press conference I was really proud to own a 360.
Now it’s just a matter of finding the time and money to buy all that shit when it’s released.
With all the stuff Microsoft keeps adding to the 360, I wonder how much longer will it be until a new system is announced? I’m more than satisfied with the 360, and the thought of having to spend nearly $1,000 on a new system plus games and accessories makes me cringe. But with continual addition to services to xbox live (Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, etc.) and the supposedly revoultionary project Natal it makes me curious how much longer Microsoft will support the 360 before announcing a new system.
Also, I really thought Microsoft was going to announce a new gaming handheld, but they didn’t. Oh well, I guess I will just go for the new PSP Go.
Poor Arthur. All alone and brokenhearted,
Nobody to stare condemingly and say, “you farted”
But fear not Arthur, you’ve got games to dull the pain,
….something something…fat penis in andy dufrain.
Arthur Arthur Arthur. I apologize but I’m going to have to stop following you on twitter after your self indulgent overcooking of the tweets during the Nintendo and Sony Pressers. Seriously, it’s annoying having someone tweet every 5 fucking seconds and having just a string of them from one person. That and your random and annoying political musings have just taken the cake and I can’t take it anymore. I wanted to give you a chance since I was very much weird with you being a big part of a podcast that I was hoping was going to be a reconfigured 1up FM, but then Nick left and I was like, who the fuck is this Arthur guy? Besides sounding like Kevin Smith, what the hell has he contributed to? But because I’m a nice guy, I wasn’t gonna hate. But now I gotta hate. That is all.
What was that?
…
..
.
Oh… Just the wind passing by…
@Arthur; Did you hear anything?
eh, i thought we got over the whole giving arfur shit thing months ago?
Obviously with infamous to play (or freelance to write), dude has not got round to writing up the other pressers. So what? U prolly watched them anyway, and if u really need arfur to tell u what to think about them, then the problems we are encountering here are beyond remedy via talking about them on the internet. Rebel FM / ESG is the not the place u come to hear it fist – its the place u come to hear an opinion. So u gotta hate? I am sure a lot of sleep is gonna be lost over that.
shit i should not post when I am drunk.
No blowjobs here. Carry on.
to here it fist lol.
please. never ever do that.
I meant to hear it first – pls delete as appropriate.
Quick recap from me on the 3 BIG conferences.
Sony -> Best lineup but a lot of things got leaked…
Microsoft -> Biggest surprises and best event in terms of enjoyment.
Nintendo -> A shitload of boring stuff but 10% of pure awesomeness.
Best E3 ever maybe? It certainly was a bukkake of footage…
Inglorious Basterds game, anyone? Why isn’t there one? There definitely should be.
Saboteur?
Such superb post! I have no clue how you wrote this text..it’d take me days. Well worth it though, I’d assume. Have you considered selling banners on your blog?