I guess most of the announcements and big reveals have been made by now, so it’s safe for me to write up my thoughts on the event. I usually don’t bother with E3, but I had a bit of time on my hands this year, mostly because Jane was in Newcastle, so I sat at the PC looking at new games instead of doing stuff with her.
Where to start? I guess with the game that I’m looking forward to most: Reach. They just keep adding more and more cool stuff to it. We got our first look at the Campaign mode at Microsoft’s conference, overall it looks busier, grittier, and somehow more vibrant. Seeing the neon Jackal shields against the green grass brought back so many memories of Halo. We also got a first look at “space combat” – a massive departure for the Halo series which sees you take to the upper atmosphere and blow up Banshees. I’m unconvinced on this one so far to be honest. Halo very rarely doesn’t let you do things your way, and you can’t exactly hold X to hop out and try the mission on foot.
Then there’s Firefight, which has been given a massive upgrade – it’s now as customisable as multiplayer games are. You can choose how many enemies (and indeed what type of enemies) spawn in each wave, customise loadouts and armour abilities, choose which skulls activate and when and you can even design your own custom skulls (manipulate player and enemy traits to create subtle or outlandish combat modifiers). The biggest plus point for me is probably that Matchmaking has been integrated into Firefight – it was quite annoying having to either round up friends or go it alone, and not being able to drop in to a game of Firefight with randoms. Of course, stuff like Forge and the Theatre will still be in there – Reach is looking like an incredibly generous and complete package.
The second most anticipated game for me is Child of Eden from Q Entertainment – a follow up to the incredible Rez, in all but name. I was initially distraught, thinking it would be a Kinect-only title, but I was so happy to read that it would work with a regular controller. But then, thinking about it, if one game could sell Kinect to me, it’d be this. After watching various gameplay videos, I’ve come around to the visuals now. At first I was like “It’s too busy! It’s not as streamlined and sleek as Rez!”, but now I’m like “It looks gorgeous, I want it to melt my eyes”.
Other random things I like the look of: Portal 2 – The original hurt my brain so much, I can only imagine the kind of head-aches having twice as many portals to worry about will bring. Marvel vs Capcom 3 – Dante looks promising, but I can’t see it bettering Super Street Fighter IV. Fable III – a release date, yeah! Crazy Taxi on Xbox Live Arcade – not strictly an E3 thing, but it was at the show. Although, will it be the same without The Offspring? Pac-Man Championship Edition DX – more modes, more mazes, more fun. Bomberman Live Battlefest – I’ll do my usual moan – I hope they make it so you can skid round corners like Pac-Man like you could in the classic games. Dead Rising 2 – Slightly worried about some aspects of the game, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. Crackdown 2 – I’ll be sure to post my impressions of the upcoming demo. Vanquish – Fast paced shooting action, it looks absolutely stunning. I’m sure there’s stuff I’ve forgotten to mention, too.
A lot of it was “not for me”, but seeing as I’m not really interested in those things, I won’t knock them. So what if I don’t like the idea of waving a wand (or just my arms) around – I like to keep things positive nowadays. Criticising something just for the sake of it does no-one any good.
First point, PORTAL 2 WOOOOOOOO
Nah, seriously I was watching the Sony Conference and when Glados started speaking I had so many butterflies. Loved the original, and so glad they are actually doing a sequel. It does look hard, but I assume the vids were from somewhat into the game (also assuming it will be longer this time too) and the first few levels will break you into it. I hope 🙂
Reach looks awesome, and I’m actually interested in the single player more than the past Halo games, so looking forward to both the SP and MP (mostly firefight, which is what ODST’s version hoped to be). SP looks a bit more hectic this time, and feels like you’re part of a bigger battle, which ODST didn’t do for me due to no one else being in New Mombasa and it felt lonely.
I also managed to catch Crazy Taxi, was surprised on gametrailers when I saw Crazy Taxi. I was like “hang on, this game shouldn’t be at this E3 surely, and there it was. XBLA. Quality 🙂
But my best game of the show……..Child of Eden. I was not hooked on the Kinect idea, thinking here’s another gimmick, but unless they charge over £100 I’ll get this near release. Rez was fanatastic, and this looks even better, looking like you’re an actual part of the game! The vocal bits were also a worry, but they pulled it off. They pulled the whole thing off. They can pull my clothes off anytime with this game. Yeah baby!!!
Few other games floated my boat, Parasite Eve 3, Dead Space 2 and Gears 3, but there was so much E3 stuff I’m still getting through most of it!! Will update soon 🙂
I’m still finding games that were shown at E3 that I’ve not heard of until now – it’s so strange that all these games are announced all at once, it’s just too much!
I want Reach so bad. The amount of customisation options in Firefight is mind-boggling, it really is. Did you catch the Reach Beta at all?
Child of Eden looks so fucking hot it’s unbelievable, and I’m warming to the idea of Kinect. With two actual kids and three grown up kids (Jane, her sister and I) in the house, I can see this competing with Lips for our Saturday night entertainment to be honest.
I’m still catching up with things I missed from E3, and finding games that everyone has been raving about for months and I hadn’t even noticed. I need to get back on the gaming scene now I’m settled, I’ve missed so much lately!
I was in the middle of moving during the Reach Beta so had no internet anyway, else I would have been online killing some Spartan Scum 😉
Yeah, I love the look of Child of Eden, it’s just sooooo…..whats the word? Fantastic? Trancetastic? On that note, I got Sam to play Rez the other day, she wasn’t impressed! She just sat there going, “is this it”? So maybe it will be a solo thing for me I guess.
The Reach Beta was great, shame you missed it. The controls have been switched round a bit, took me a while to get used to it, I was zooming in instead of hitting people and reloading instead of using my jetpack – I’ve gone back to Halo 3 for a bit, so I’ve forgotten the new button layout already!