If there's anything to be said of this year's E3, it's that it lived up to expectations.
What I mean by that I expected to see the new Call of Duty because there is a new Call of Duty every year. I expected to see more on Gears of War 3 simply for the obvious fact that it hasn't come out yet. Some goes for titles like Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Batman Arkham City and Battlefield 3. Not to discount the quality of these titles; in fact, I can hardly wait for the release of most of them. But what I came to E3 for was to be enthralled by the 'fresh' and the 'new'. After a lot of digging, I was pleasantly satisfied with what I found.
New intellectual properties and new independent titles are what E3 is all about! I was absolutely giddy when I got my hands on Indie games like Skullgirls, Bastion and BloodRayne: Betrayal. I loved hearing news about new IPs like Starhawk, Asura's Wrath and Overstrike. Those are the kinds of new E3 developments that really get my blood pumping. Not to say that the existing IPs that I mentioned earlier are anything to sneer at. The gameplay of Gears of War 3 was an absolute highlight at the show and so was the gameplay of Duke Nukem Forever. Trailers for titles like Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic had me salivating!
Hardware was yet another highlight this year. Both Sony and Nintendo's exhibitions of their respective new systems were extremely welcome. In fact, the announcement of new consoles are a welcome addition to any E3. I personally would have loved to see even more new IPs and Indie titles to support both new and existing hardware. Was it a 'good' show? I would say 'absolutely'. It's a comforting feeling when I see that game developers are making a conscious effort to serve the gaming public. Can't wait to see what next year brings.
Share This
Bioshock Infinite
Sunday 12 June 2011 - 12:25PM
Peter Rizkalla
The polar opposite of the last two Bioshock titles is Bioshock Infinite.
While the first Bioshock titles took place under the ocean, Bioshock Infinite takes place in the skies of a floating city called Columbia. While the first two featured a silent protagonist, Infinite features an verbose and involved hero. The hands off demo that was shown impressed on many fronts. The first thing I noticed was the dramatic change in graphical style and direction. The first two titles went for the realistic look, Infinite is slightly stylized. Characters resemble something that might have come from Lionhead Studios but by no means are they lighthearted. Colors are vibrant and almost seem to have a painted quality; almost like a slight cel-shaded look. However, the damsel in this Bioshock, Elizabeth, seems to have inter dimensional powers and at one point she opens a portal which changed the environment from the Bioshock Infinite world (which looks to be an alternate version of the 1800s) to a modern day city. The modern world had a much more realistic and grittier feel and was a stark contrast to the original Infinite world.
The gameplay looks intense as well as rather intimidating. The main character, as well as the enemies, are equipped with mechanical, rotating hooks on their arms which they use to travel along the rails that fill the skies of Columbia. Mind you, the rails look like roller coaster rails and propel the characters along them as such but they stretch much farther than any roller coaster I've ever seen. In fact, you will often see enemies launch themselves from one rail to another in mid air. The main character took a flying dive at one point during the gameplay shown where in any video game, had he not had that hook contraption to catch a rail, would have instantly been killed. I instantly thought, "We're going to have to navigate through all this? This looks like it's been made for super geniuses!" It filled me with dread as well as optimism. All intimidation aside, I can't wait to get my hands on it. Bioshock Infinite is expected to release on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC sometime in early 2012.
Releasing another iteration of Mario Kart onto Nintendo's newest portable is a smart move.
Predictable, but smart. Not to mention that every single person at the Nintendo press conference went nuts, including myself, when they played the trailer for this new Mario Kart for the 3DS and here is the reason why. Nintendo always pulls off something new for the Mario Kart series; the GameCube version had you choose two characters per kart and you could switch between them at anytime, the Wii version introduced motorcycles along with karts and now the 3DS version allows you to take your kart into the sky and underwater.
I got my hands on the early build of this title and once I went off of the first big ramp, a hand glider popped out of the back of the kart and allowed me to glide into coins that were floating in the sky. By the time I came around for the second lap I was starting to get used to how the glider controlled so this time I was able to short cut past a few of the twists and turns of the track by gliding myself straight across them.
Of course, I couldn't help but notice that the graphics are a large improvement over Mario Kart DS. As I raced across the track, there wasn't a single pixelated texture map in sight. Other gameplay aspects that Mario Kart 3DS will boast is the ability to drive your kart underwater. In certain levels, the track will lead under water and a boat propeller will pop out of the back of the kart allowing you to drive along the ocean floor. Lastly, and this is a big one, players will be able to customize their own kart. You'll be able to choose the kind of body for your kart as well as the wheels and accessories. There is no set release date for this title nor is there an official name; Mario Kart 3DS is a tentative title.
Yes, I know this was at last year's E3 but this time it's different.
This time we actually got to play it. Yes, I know that we were able to play it just a few weeks ago during the beta but this is still different. We got to try out Beast Mode! Available during only one of the days that the show floor was open, Epic games had a playable build of Gears of War 3's Beast Mode; it's a mode that allows you to play as the many different Locust Hoard monsters found in the Gears of War universe and fight against the human COG soldiers.
The first impressions of this was that it is completely and utterly satisfying! It has a buy-in mechanic much like Counter-Strike where you start with a small amount of money and you use that money to buy the kind of species you want to use. As you do better, you gain more money and then you can purchase a more expensive species. We started off as Grubs and Tickers and ended up doing pretty well. Soon we were able to buy Boomers, Grinders, Butchers and Berzerkers. Mowing down COG solders is a blast but getting in close with a melee based character, like a Butcher, is a chore as the COGs will set up obstacles to prevent you from getting near them.
Let's talk about the art. Like any other Gears title, it's simply gorgeous. The bigger Locust monsters look incredibly detailed and their animations are slow and menacing. The Berzerker was the most interesting to use. For example, she does a dramatically rageful animation pose right before she starts running. It's down right intimidating even when you're the player controlling her. In the Gears storyline the Berzerker is almost blind, so to emulate that partially blind effect, everything on the screen is rather hard to see as a Berzerker.
The outsides of the screen are completely blurred and become clearer as you focus towards the center of the screen. This proves as an annoyance at first but once you get used to it, you'll be able to spot COGs a mile away. To keep things balanced, the blindness effect prevents the Berzerkers from telling the difference between a real COG and a fake one so you will often run into exploding dummies not knowing if they were a real COG or not until it's too late. So far, everything looks great in Gears of War 3 and I can't wait to get my hands on Beast Mode again. Gears of War 3 will be released on Xbox 360 on September 20th (of this year).
Sonic the Hedgehog has been a classic staple in the game industry for decades
Up until just recently, SEGA hasn't been producing games that live up to the name 'Sonic'. In fact, it's safe to say that he's been treated pretty poorly!
A thin ray of hope began to shine on the Sonic Hedgehog series of games when SEGA released Sonic Colors and Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (which was great but was brutally bashed by many so-called 'reviewers' out there). I got to spend some time with Sonic Generations at the SEGA booth. We saw a glimpse of this title just a short while before E3 where a modern day Sonic was racing head to head with a retro Sonic. It turns out that Sonic Generations is going to be a melding of the two, or at least two new games together; one being a modern Sonic adventure and the other being a classic remake adventure.
First I tried the modern part of the PS3 demo. I took control of modern Sonic and blazed through a huge 3D re-imagination of the lighthearted, classic Green Hill Zone. It was all speed, speed, speed and felt much like Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. It even sparked up a little nostalgia. The 3D modeled Green Hill Zone level looked great and easily does justice to the old school Sonic feel being riddled with springpods, loops, classic looking bug-like enemies and lots and lots of shiny gold rings.
It's a vibrantly colored dream! It was a little hard to control Sonic with the analog stick but was significantly easier with the D-Pad. Next I gave the classic version a shot. Sure enough, the classic version is another re-imagination of Green Hill Zone, not a remake. Only this time, although it was all 3D, it maintained the side-scrolling camera view. The classic version animations were cute and delightful to watch. Both modern and classic parts of the demo were playable in stereoscopic 3D with Sony's 3D shutter glasses.
However, I noticed a significant decrease in frame-rate when playing the game with the 3D effects enabled. Once I turned off the 3D, everything became a little easier to see. The frame-rate was still a little choppy but the SEGA rep on hand assured me that the game is still in development and will be smoothed out in time for the game's release. Sonic Generations will be released for PS3, Xbox 360 and the Nintendo 3DS this November.
Share This
Hands-On: Ninja Gaiden 3
Saturday 11 June 2011 - 02:45AM
Peter Rizkalla
The latest in a series that has made many gamers insane with it's ridiculous difficulty.
Ninja Gaiden 3 was playable all over the show floor at E3. So far, it looks like typical Ninja Gaiden fare which is a very good thing. Main protagonist Ryu Hayabusa still retains an arsenal of insane attacks with wildly dynamic animations. Enemies in the demo ranged from human soldiers to giant mechanized, insect-like tanks.
In true form, Ninja Gaiden 3 still moves at an exceptionally smooth 60 frames per second which is an impressive feat considering how fast and dynamic the animations are. The playable demo was set in a dark and rainy city street and navigating through the city was done by acrobatic, Parkour style stunts like flips, wall runs and wall jumps.
Stunning looking fire, blood and particle effects are also strewn throughout the game especially when Ryu charges up his sword for a heavy attack. It's looking great and it's feeling just as difficult as any Ninja Gaiden title.
When I heard that Majesco was making a new BloodRayne title, I couldn't care less.
But when I heard that it was being developed by WayForward, I couldn't care more. This company is know for turning anything it touches into gold. WayForward is known for fabulous titles such as Shantae: Risky's Revenge, A Boy and His Blob and Contra 4. They are also known for outstanding quality art and animation. Much like A Boy and His Blob, BloodRayne: Betrayal is all hand drawn, 2D animation. However unlike A Boy and His Blob where the animation was hand drawn on paper and then scanned in (WayForward is oldschool like that), WayForward Level Designer Mike Herbster let me know that all of the art in BloodRayne: Betrayal was drawn in digitally on tablets.
The art is like something out of an anime. However, it keeps true to the feel of the franchise and doesn't really go as over-the-top as animes tend to do. The animation is fluid and readable; the main character Rayne has an arsenal of acrobatic and forceful attacks. Plenty of detail went into every bit of the animation from the attacks to the stance animation to the idle animation. The environments tend to revolve around three colors; red black and white. The color scheme is fitting to the game but is not so limited as to completely omit splashes of many other colors here and there.
The gameplay system is balanced with there being melee, projectile and grab attacks. It kind of feels like Shank with a little bit of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time thrown in. BloodRayne: Betrayal will be available later this year on Xbox LIVE Arcade and PSN which actually marks the company's first foray onto the Xbox 360 and PS3
Share This
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Friday 10 June 2011 - 20:25PM
Peter Rizkalla
Well, here's something new! Capcom must have enjoyed some serious success with the Resident Evil 5 Mercenaries versus mode because now they are releasing an entire Resident Evil third-person shooter title called Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. At first I was afraid; I still have a bad taste in my mouth for Capcom's third-person shooters ever since the release of the Lost Planet games.
However, Operation Raccoon City was actually very enjoyable. I played through a squad based, team-vs-team demo where not only was one heavily armed team fighting against another heavily armed team but, being that this is a Resident Evil title, zombies were everywhere! Taking down your opponents is just as important as surviving against hoards of zombies. The gameplay is deliciously satisfying and the visuals are a dream. A very bad dream! I'm not saying that the visuals were poor, I'm saying that they were actually gorgeous. But, of course, the subject matter of any RE title is like a nightmare. Dark corridors alleys, mutilated zombies, menacing looking opponents, explosions; it's down right scary (as well it should be). It was a perfect combination of satisfying gameplay and the typical dark, horrifying visuals that the Resident Evil series is known for.
It all made sense once I learned who put together the gameplay mechanics. Slant Six, known for working on the SOCOM shooter series for Sony, is developing Operation Raccoon City and explains why the shooting mechanic is so satisfying compared to other Capcom shooters that were developed in-house. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City will be available on PS3, 360 and PC hopefully by the holiday season of this year.
Share This
Hands-On @ E3: Nintendo Wii U
Friday 10 June 2011 - 20:01PM
Peter Rizkalla
Some guys at the Los Angeles Convention Center spent their entire day, 8 solid hours, waiting in line just to check out the Wii U, Nintendo's newest home console. The two largest features of Nintendo's newest home system are the introduction of HD graphics, which is a first for the Big N, and their revolutionary new controller. It's funny how everything Nintendo produces really does warrant the use of the word 'revolutionary'.
Nintendo assured us that the demos that we played were, in fact, not actual announcements of games that will be coming out for the console but rather just tech demonstrations of what the system can do. First the videos; on hand were the same in-game style HD tech demo videos of the bird in the Japanese garden and the Legend of Zelda video whom both were shown at the Nintendo press conference. You could control the camera placement in both of these demos to really get a good look at the graphical detail of everything and, I do say, they were sublime. Next up was a series of actual, playable games (which I'm sure Nintendo will, in fact, release as a part of a bundle such as how Wii Sports was released for the Wii at launch). The first playable demo was Chase Mii; a sort of Pac-Man style game where the player with the new Wii U controller runs away from the other four players using Wii Remotes.
The player holding the Wii U controller can see where all the other players are on his screen while the other four can only see where they are going. Next was a demo called Wii Battle; a lighthearted shooter where, again, four players using Wii Remotes are pitted against the one player with the Wii U controller. The players with Wii Remotes were characters on foot attempting to shoot down a flying saucer which is, of course, controlled by the player with the Wii U controller. Lastly, a demo of a New Super Mario Bros. title for the Wii U was available to play. The purpose of this was to show how gorgeous the screen on the controller can be if, let's just say, you were playing and someone wanted to watch TV and so you would have to play the rest of your game on the Wii U controller's screen. I will admit, the screen on the controller was amazingly gorgeous.
My thoughts overall were very optimistic for the Wii U. I'm very happy to see HD finally come to Nintendo products as well as a system that can handle a much higher polygon count. I was surprised at how light the Wii U controller felt in my hands. I thought that with the added screen that the Wii U controller would feel pretty heavy, but it didn't and that makes me pretty happy. Although my enthusiasm is going to have to be put on hold for a while as Nintendo as said that this new system isn't going to see the light of day for at least another year.
Share This
Supergiant Games' Bastion
Friday 10 June 2011 - 17:27PM
Peter Rizkalla
One of the more impressive indie titles at E3 was Bastion. It's a top-down, action / RPG made by small time developers Supergiant Games. What really drew me to this title was the gorgeous, anime-ish visuals. It reminded me heavily of the kind of beautifully rendered 2D art that is found in Vanilla Ware games like Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. The lushly colored environments and top-down, fixed camera was a solid indication that this was all put together in 2D.
However, the character and enemies all animated like the were rendered in 3D. This combination of 2D environments and 3D characters is actually not that uncommon in game development. Either way, I was very interested in how this was made. I got to chat with Supergiant Games artist Jen Zee about how the animation was put together.
Turns out that it's not a combination of 2D and 3D; the main character and enemies were created, colored and animated in 3D and then the animations were exported into a series of PNG image files. The PNG files were then sequenced together into the game engine to create the animations. Any color adjustments that had to be made meant that they would have to go back into the 3D base, re-export the PNG files and re-implement them into the game. The reason why they went this route was to keep the whole game running within a 2D engine and to avoid developing the game with a 3D engine which often proves to be a gigantic chore for game developers that don't have an incredibly huge staff.
After playing the game and ogling the visuals, I'd have to say that Bastion is probably one of the best things I've seen come out of this year's E3. Bastion will be available this summer on Xbox LIVE as a part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade and then later on PC.
I attended the Capcom theater at E3 for one purpose; to check out Capcom's very interesting looking new action / adventure title called Asura's Wrath. Sure enough, they showed off a trailer featuring gameplay footage. The art style, regardless of the fact that it was developed by Japanese developer CyberConnect2, actually has a Chinese look to it. The main character Asura even looks much like a mythological Chinese figure. The idea is that Asura is a very rageful character; he can have both his arms torn off and he will still be able to fight fueled on pure rage.
In fact, the Capcom rep presenting the demonstration let us know that Asura can become so rageful that he grows four more arms to fight with. That brings Asura's minimum and maximum 'arm' count from 0 to 6, which makes no sense whatsoever, I know. I don't think that the intention of the game was to be funny but damned if that's not how it comes off. Don't get me wrong; the art looks great and the gameplay looks like it could easily be satisfying but, for crying out loud, the main character can fight with no arms! When I saw that all I could think of was the scene with the Black Knight from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'.
They also showed off some stuff for Street Fighter x Tekken and their two upcoming Resident Evil titles but I already had some hands on time with those so no need to go into too much detail. As the presentation came to a close, Capcom had one last ace up it's sleeve. A gameplay trailer for their newest Devil May Cry title simply called DMC. This one came out of left field. Capcom announced this a while back but it's been pretty quiet since then up until now. So far it's looking fantastic (otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it). This title is actually a prequel which explains the origins of Dante which also explains why his hair is black instead of white. The environmental art style looks a lot like the city streets of Florence Italy; old and rustic with gorgeous arching architecture and just a hint of that Catholic / Vatican feel to it. Check out the trailer below to get a glimpse of DMC for yourself.
Speaking of comedy, Capcom also showed footage of Dead Rising 2: Off the Record which showed original Dead Rising star Frank West on vacation in a zombie riddled carnival. This time around, Frank doesn't care. He's killing zombies in the most comical way and when he's not killing them, he's taking hilarious photos with them!
Share This
Hands-On: PlayStation Vita
Thursday 09 June 2011 - 23:50PM
Peter Rizkalla
Sony's successor to the PlayStation Portable, the PlayStation Vita, feels very, very expensive in your hands but fortunately it won't be when it is released. The three demos that I was lucky enough to spend some time with were Wipeout 2048, Ruin and Uncharted: Golden Abyss. As a matter of fact, I checked them out in that order so let's start with Wipeout.
The Wipeout series has always been a beloved futuristic racing series to many gamers out there, including myself, hence why I went for this one first. I chatted with the game's designer Stuart Tilley from development house SCE Studio Liverpool. Great detail went into this planned Vita launch title; before I even started playing, Stuart Tilley tells me that the races in this Wipeout are not set in tracks but rather on city streets. This instantly perked my attention.
As I played through the first race, I noticed incredibly fine crafted detail as the race took me shooting up the side of a skyscraper, across a glass road high above the city showing off the awesome view, back down the building and then through what looked like a shopping mall full of onlooking people. Keep in mind, this is a futuristic racer so everything looks super streamlined. Afterwords I got to race against Stuart where he lead me to think that I was winning at one point and then inevitably gave me a right proper spanking.
Next up was Ruin which is planned to release on both PS3 and Vita. This Diablo-esque dungeon crawler looked like a slightly more serious Torchlight, but a Torchlight it is absolutely not! Not much can be said of any game that is still in development but, quite honestly, neither Ruin's gameplay nor visuals succeeded to 'wow' me so I spent little time on it and moved on. Last up is Uncharted: Golden Abyss. I tried out all of the features that were shown at the Sony press conference such as swiping across obstacles to navigate Nathan Drake through them and picking up items and executing stealth kills by touching icons on the screen.
I can't say enough about the quality of the visuals in this handheld. It's damn-near PS3 quality! Thankfully the stealth kill, reload and other action icons appear on the right side of the screen next to the face buttons in addition to appearing in the middle of the screen. I don't like the idea of blocking my own view with my fingers to touch icons right in the middle of the screen. Hopefully there will be an option to remove those mid-screen icons entirely. Aside from that slight annoyance, Uncharted on Vita looks incredibly promising.
Plenty of fun exhibits were shown off this year in the concourse foyer of the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Into the Pixel has now become a staple in E3, this year showing off work from games like God of War 3, Uncharted 3, Mass Effect 3 and... Kinectimals? Some indie titles even enjoyed some new art in the hallowed halls of the Into the Pixel showcase such as art based on Orcs Must Die. Scroll down to see some of the art on hand; some rockin' images. The details and captions are thru in the link at the bottom of the page.
One of my absolute favorite Gamecube titles is back.
Luigi's Mansion 2 is a full blown sequel and will be released for the Nintendo 3DS. Luigi is now venturing through multiple mansions vanquishing tons more ghosts with his Ghostbusters-ish vacuum. Amazingly, this portable title features incredible lighting. Eerie, flickering lanterns and flashes of lighting displaying long, stretched shadows is common place.
Also, Luigi's flashlight pulls of some dynamic looking lighting which is insane for an handheld system. Of course, no Nintendo title would be a true Nintendo title without some humorous animations. Luigi and the ghosts you encounter are always in the midst of some slapstick animation.
The game played very well; similar to the slow moving style of the original. However, I expected some control issues considering how the 3DS setup is not as sophisticated as the Gamecube controller setup but I was surprised to find that the game controlled very well without even a hiccup. It's great to know that this title is actually going to see the light of day rather than remain a dream in many gamer's hearts.
Share This
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Thursday 09 June 2011 - 02:29AM
Peter Rizkalla
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim features a new animation engine, a new character generator, a new combat system, a new everything, basically!
Bethesda started working on this title immediately after the last Fallout. The first thing anyone notices from this is the level of detail that goes into Skyrim. Everything looks amazing which is even more impressive when you consider that the Skyrim world was too huge for the devs to script and detail every part of it so they programmed behaviors to affect the environments when the situation calls such as snow in the mountains and burning terrain when a fire breaks out.
Normally these circumstantial behaviors come out looking canned, but in Skyrim they're not half bad. Also things like fur and blood are amazingly good looking. Players can choose to play in either first person or third person. Also classes are gone; you just go out there and choose the abilities you want. If you want a barbarian that can cast spells that slow down time, you just simply do it. I assume that this is balanced through the spending of limited experience points.
The name of the game in Skyrim is dragons. There are tons of dragons in Skyrim with varying sizes, abilities and toughness. Taking down a dragon will allow you to absorb it's soul which gives you it's abilities. The dragons look incredible; the animations are down right menacing. I don't know how they did it but Bethesda basically just gave us an insight into how a dragon would really move had they really existed. Skyrim will be released for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on November 11, 2011.
The Street Fighter x Tekken is Capcom's star attraction this year.
The playable demo of Street Fighter x Tekken featured seven characters from each franchise; Ken, Ryu, Chun Li, Guile, Abel, Cammy and Sagat from team Street Fighter and Kazuya, Nina, King, Bob, Craig Marduk, Julia and Hwoarang from team Tekken. The art style is based on the same style that was found in Street Fighter 4. As if the SF4 style wasn't stylized enough, in SFxT the graphics are pushed even further. The animations are also pushed even more over the top. Slams seem much more impactful, projectiles come out much more intensely and even some of the voice work has been re-sampled to be more forceful and intense.
The gameplay feels kind of like a mix between... well... Street Fighter and Tekken! typical combos and cancels "a la Street Fighter" are present as well as incredibly long strings of punches and kicks from the Tekken side. Slightly similar to the original Street Fighter Alpha is the ability to string punch and kicks in succession going from light to medium to hard. Add to that the ability to finish off a string with a launcher / tag attack and your partner character comes out to give you the opportunity to continue the combo and juggle your opponent in the air. It all looks extremely dramatic. I know that in previous gameplay trailers for SFxT we saw tag team supers where both characters dish out pain simultaneously but I wasn't able to pull any of them off. What's even more alarming is that I also wasn't able to pull off any super maneuvers. I'm a little worried that the only available supers in this game will be the team-up ones. We'll just have to wait and see when this suckers is released which should be sometime in 2012. Hopefully early 2012.
A choir and orchestra singing the Zelda theme song opened the festivities for Nintendo's press event.
The reason for said choir and concert is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series. In commemoration of this milestone moment, Nintendo is showing the fans their appreciation by giving away free downloads of the original Zelda adventure for Gameboy, Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, for free through Nintendo's recently launched DSi online service, eShop. Also, Nintendo will be giving away free downloads of Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords as a gift to the fans later this fall. The purpose of the orchestra is to announce that Nintendo is launching a concert tour where the music of Zelda will be featured through the harmony of a live orchestra. Nintendo must be feeling incredibly generous because they have also announced two soundtrack CDs featuring the orchestrated Zelda music and the soundtrack to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D's revamped music also completely free by various means. Not so free is another announcement that a gold colored Wii remote will be a promotional item that most likely will be available to those who pre-order the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii.
Satoru Iwata now comes out simply to torture us. He makes mention of Nintendo's new home console but does not go into greater detail. He promises more details before the end of the event. My anger subsided slightly as he instead reveals that three huge Nintendo franchises will see new titles released for the 3DS; Luigi's Mansion 2, Mario Kart 3DS and the new Mario title which was mentioned back at this year's GDC. This time they made due on the hint that they dropped at GDC by actually showing footage of Mario donning his Racoon suit of yesteryear's Super Mario Bros. 3.
Reggie Fils-Aime now takes the stage. He makes more mention of the 3DS titles that Iwata introduced and then mentions how Nintendo is giving away ever more content! Nintendo is giving away free downloads of 3D Classic Excitebike as well as content called Pokedex 3D for Pokemon players. I swear, if Nintendo could, they would probably give their customers a hug with each purchase! Reggie finally satisfies our appetite by announcing Nintendo's newest home console, the Wii U. This marks Nintendo's first foray into HD, high end graphics. A tech demo was shown to prove just how hardcore the graphics can get on this new system. The tech demo featured a bird flying through a cherry blossom garden with insane looking dynamic lighting, fog effects as well as very impressive water effects with koi fish jumping out of the water. Interestingly, the textures of the koi fish featured some impressive looking anisotropic filtering. Nintendo also showed a tech demo of what a new Zelda title would look like on Wii U. Needless to say, it looks superb.
Nintendo is always known for innovation and this new system may be the most innovative yet. The controller of the Wii U looks like a hybrid between a Wacom tablet and a PlayStation controller. It features traditional controls such as a familiar button layout and dual analog sticks but the defining characteristic of this controller is the 6.2 inch touch screen right in the middle of it. Nintendo expounded on the possibilities for this new controller by showing a trailer with some amazing features such as augmented reality, the ability to play on the controller's screen instead of on the TV and so much more. It looks amazing. The Wii U controller features a front facing camera and gyroscopes for motion control amongst other things. Various famous developers all appeared in a video having them express how excited they were to work with Nintendo's new console such as Ken Levine from Irrational Games (creators of Bioshock), and EA Sports president Peter Moore. To top it all off, Nintendo hinted at many popular game franchises will see releases for the Wii U such as Assassin's Creed, Tekken, a new Smash Bros., Batman Arkham City and Ninja Gaiden 3. My final thought was "Will this new system suffer the horrible online functionality of it's predecessor?", EA's John Riccitiello shows up to dispel my fears as he announces that the Wii U will feature a full blown online service that features beloved perks like leaderboards and an easier matchmaking system. I think I speak for the entire world when I say "Thank you, Nintendo!"
Share This
Ubisoft @ E3
Wednesday 08 June 2011 - 01:17AM
Peter Rizkalla
Ubisoft is celebrating their 25th birthday this year at E3, so naturally they have a slew of games to show off.
Of the many titles shown, here are the highlights. We start off very lighthearted with Rayman Origins. This hilarious 2D platformer has some very dynamic, slapstick animations. Rayman goes on his adventure with the help of a blue friend whom I could swear was named Globox but the devs kept on referring to him as the "Blue Fiend". Either way, the game features a variety of platforming, swimming and flying levels as well as four player co-op play to keep things interesting.
A trailer for Farcry 3 stirred up new interest in me for the series. A first-person scene shown through the perspective of the un-named main character has him tied to a block as the block is pushed into a waterfall by a psychopath who just ranted to him about the 'definition of insanity'. As the main character sinks to the bottom of the riverbed, he passes by the bodies of other poor men and women that this antagonist has delivered the same fate to. The main character frees himself and proceeds to resurface, picks up a gun and starts getting some payback. The whole thing looked outstanding and the facial animations of the psychopath were genuinely frightening.
Gearbox's Randy Pitchford then took the stage to announce a brand new take on World War II shooters called Brothers in Arms: Furious 4. It stars four unique, gung-ho characters who play an important role in WWII by getting the proverbial 'job done'. There's no question that the setting is very World War 2-ish and although the main four characters are a little over the top, they fit right in with the rest of the game's art style and direction. I for one, have very high hopes for this one. Later, more footage of Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Future Soldier was shown but was no different than what we saw at the Microsoft press event.
The last and most impressive highlight was Assassin's Creed Revalations. Like the last two Assassin's Creeds, this also stars Ezio Auditore da Firenze. This time, Ezio is looking for clues that link his history to that of legendary assassin Altair who was the protagonist of the first Assassin's Creed. If there is one word to describe this trailer, it's decorative. Very decorative! Set in 15th century Constantinople, everything is painstakingly detailed. Enemy soldiers are garbed in a variety of outfits with varying color schemes. The markets and bazaars feature incredible looking props such as sculptures and colorful tapestries. As Ezio gets closer to the docks, he comes across ships whose designs rival that of the ones found in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Even Ezio's armor features various plates all with decorative inscriptions and designs. Ubisoft has always been a leader for great design and the art at this year's show proves there's no question about that.
The EA press conference was pretty generic at some points, but it was not without it's shining jewels; rather impressive shining jewels, at that!
First off is Mass Effect 3, which showed off an amazing trailer featuring a combat scene with a gigantic mechanized monster called a Reaper. We saw some very fast paced action and animation which is very uncommon of the slower paced Mass Effect series. The Need for Speed titles always shows off extremely polished automotive modeling.
However, this year EA revealed that the new NFS title, Need for Speed Run, will feature areas in the game where the driver gets out of the car and takes off on foot. The on-foot scene that was shown was fully controlled by quicktime button pressing events and the character models, although fitting for the game, could be a lot better looking. Mind you, this game is still in development so my hope is that we see more polish from Need for Speed Run sometime down the road.
Another insane looking trailer from the Bioware team shows off Star Wars Old Republic once again this year. The trailer brought in clips from previous trailers as well as new footage. The room then filled with smoke from pipe machines in an attempt to give the audience the feel of a misty mountaintop. The reason why this happened was to set the stage for the trailer for EA's newest SSX snowboarding title. SSX has always been about over-the-top stunt animations and this trailer is full of just that.
Wild jumps and tricks teased our appetite for this beloved franchise. President of EA Sports, Peter Moore, stepped on stage to sing the praises of SSX stating that the mountain ranges found in the game are actually modeled after major mountain ranges all over the world from NASA satellite pictures.
Curt Schilling, former American baseball player and current founder of 38 Studios introduced the trailer for a gorgeous new action RPG called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. This open world RPG is based on the same gameplay mechanics that made the Elder Scrolls series a success and features design by renowned artist and creator of Spawn, Todd McFarlane. Before we got to the game everyone was waiting for, Battlefield 3, EA pulled an ace out of their sleeve.
Insomniac Games, known for their PS3 exclusives, have been working on a multi-platform title called Overstrike. This multiplayer, shooter / combat title spotlights design and visuals that look very similar to Team Fortress 2. It even features the same comedy and different character classes like Team Fortress 2. So far, the animations are funny and dynamic and character designs, although similar to TF2, are uniquely interesting. Now we come to Battlefield 3. Everyone in the crowd expected a gorgeous looking trailer with a chaotic and beautiful firefight including random, destructive environments being blown to bits but that wasn't what we got. Instead we were given a gameplay demo of a tank scene which seemed to drone on forever. It's a shame because Battlefield 3 is absolutely gorgeous, a much more interesting trailer could have been featured instead.
Sony unveiled its latest sci-fi western combat video game, Starhawk, at E3 and Imaginary Forces created the trailer for the piece!
The director Grant Lau and VFX Supervisor Alex Frisch and their hard working crew created a futuristic world filled with spaceships, ATV's, robotic fighters, and massive explosions entirely in CG.
Here is the trailer embedded for your viewing pleasure. Elements based on the game assets were given a cinematic feel as the viewer is introduced to the lead character and his story. More coming as the show progresses.
Sony has taken the route of luring in the hardcore crowd.
This is in stark contrast to Microsoft's ravenous attempt to win over the casual and family market. First trailer shown was Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception. As usual with any Uncharted title. Gorgeous lighting, fantastic texture choices, gorgeous looking water animation, the works. The scene was set on a sinking ship in the middle of a storm. Drake does a lot more sneaking in this Uncharted. An early beta for Uncharted 3 will be released this month and the full game will be released on November 1st, 2011. Insomniac was next to show gameplay footage of Resistance 3. Honestly, the modeling and environments look great but the animation doesn't look right at some points. Sure this is an early build and could use some polish but I hope that the animations are pushed a whole lot further. From what I saw in the Resistance 3 demo, human animations are fairly generic and huge monsters move too fast for their size. A very interesting title that was shown is Starhawk. It's like a futuristic, space, western. It's being developed by Sony Santa Monica and it looks great. The character design looks reminiscent of Too Human; only western instead of viking.
A couple announcements that made a lot of people happy were the announcements of two collections coming to the PS3. God of War Origins collection compiles both of the GoW PSP titles on to a single blu-ray disc for PS3. What's even more exciting to most gamers is the remake and compilation of the PS2 classics ICO and Show of the Colossus in one set for PS3.
Veering over to the tech side of things, Sony has announced the production of a Playstation branded 3D monitor. This 24 inch, wide-screen monitor not only features 3D but will also allow players wearing 3D glasses to see totally different images on the screen instead of playing split-screen. This monitor will be bundled with a copy of Resistance 3, a PlayStation Move set-up and the gun attachment for the PS Move for $500.
Of course, Sony can't forget to include promos for the PlayStation Move set-up at this event. Sony and 2K announced Move support for two 2K titles; Bioshock Infinite and NBA 2K12. In fact, Los Angeles Lakers veteran and champion Kobe Bryant was on hand to demo the Move on NBA 2K12. Going back to Bioshock, Irrational Games' Ken Levine (who at one point bashed the PlayStation Move) steps on stage to announce that not only will Bioshock Infinite have Move support but that also they are working on a title for Sony's new portable console, the NGP.
Speaking of Sony's mysterious new portable system, the NGP has been officially named the PlayStation Vita. Here's where it get's really interesting... The PlayStation Vita, which features a touch screen, dual analog sticks, a rear touch pad, six-axis motion control and amazing looking graphics capability has now been promised to release just in time for this year's holiday season. Not only that, but there will be two models of the PSV; a Wi-Fi only model much like the PSP and a 3G + Wi-Fi model that allow for constant connection to the internet. Now, when I first saw this thing and saw the specs, I instantly felt a horrible pain in my wallet. I though "This insane piece of hardware is going to cost a fortune! 350 or 400 American dollars minimum!". Well Sony really surprised me today when they said that the Wifi and 3G versions would only cost $250 and $300 respectively! The crowed roared with delight at those price tags! That $250 price tag for the base model is actually cheaper than what the original PSP first released at, which was $300 American. Not only that but consider the fact that Nintendo's newest portable, The 3DS, costs just as much as a PSV, $250, and it seems that Sony is out for some Nintendo blood!
We finish off the event with some news about games for the PSV. We didn't think much was going on when Sony announced that they would obviously be releasing their typical standard fare first-party franchises on PSV such as LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers. However, the whole crowd was floored to hear directly from the mouth of Capcom's Yoshinori Ono that Street Fighter X Tekken would be released on PSV! Not only that but the star of Sony's inFamous franchise, Cole McGrath, would be featured as a playable fighter. This was insane! No one had ever even played this game yet! Well that changed very quickly; Sony then invited the crowd to get some hands on time with many of their upcoming titles including Street Fighter X Tekken on the PlayStation 3 which I will be posting about in the next coming days.
The first day of the E3 week kicks off with the Microsoft press conference.
Microsoft's main focus this year was on promoting the Kinect. Not a lot of hardcore titles with the exception of the ones we already know about. We started with a trailer showing gameplay footage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 where a squad of soldiers scuba dive in to execute an attack on an enemy submarine. Not much has changed in this CoD when compared to the others. It looks like it plays just like every other CoD out there but you can't argue that it still looks outstanding. Modern Warfare 3 will release on November third of this year.
What looks even more amazing is the Tomb Raider demo that was shown by Crystal Dynamics. Judging by the demo, this Tomb Raider is turning out to be very visceral; within the first minute of the demo, Laura Croft suffers a puncture wound. The fire effects look especially amazing. Tomb Raider promises an open environment and survival based puzzles. Another of the more impressive highlights at the Xbox event is Mass Effect 3 by Bioware. New gameplay footage was shown featuring voice commands; a Kinect feature for the 360 version of Mass Effect 3. Interesting but I'll wager that not many gamers are really going to want to bark orders at their console when a push of a button will do the same thing. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier was up next. We saw this title at last year's show but it's looking a lot more polished this time around. The third person, over-the-shoulder gameplay and animation looks very reminiscent of the Gears of War 2 animation style. A new mode called Gunsmith allows players to mix and match gun components to create their own customized gun in Future Soldier. A total of over 20 million gun combinations are possible. Gunsmith mode can be completely controlled with the Kinect through gestures and and voice commands. Ubisoft co-founder of Yves Guillemot was on hand praising Future Soldier's Kinect features and was quoted saying that using Kinect to control Gunsmith mode is something that "can't be done with a controller". To be honest, there are plenty of shooters out there that allow you to customize your gun and doing so with a controller has worked out just fine.
Microsoft announced a slew of services like Bing, YouTube, UFC and a new interface which are all to be released on the Xbox 360 soon. Just more attempts to situate the Xbox 360 among the casual and family crowds as an all-in-one home entertainment system all with Kinect support.
I know I might be coming down on the Kinect a little hard right now but, really, there isn't much quality out there for it. However, Microsoft did release a trailer today for a title called Ryse which is exclusively for the Kinect that looks like it might have some promise. It's a "spartan" style first-person, action / adventure title featuring sword fights set in feudal Rome. Another promising looking Kinect title is the Star Wars title. A demo was shown on how it plays using nothing but motion control. It looks interesting and the art style is actually kind of Fable-ish. Speaking of Fable, Lionhead Studios is releasing a Fable title called Fable the Journey. It looks like a rail shooter much like Link's Crossbow Training for the Wii. It might be good but keep in mind that it's definitely not a full blown Fable title.
Microsoft is really pushing to win over the "family friendly" crowd. Case in point, the entire Disneyland theme park is being recreated as a virtual amusement park on the Xbox 360. All the rides in the virtual park will be games that kids can play through motion control with Kinect. Surprisingly, Tim Schafer at Double Fine is also getting in on the act. They're putting together a kid friendly Sesame Street game for the Kinect. To top it all off for the family friendly crowd, Dance Central 2 was announced; the sequel the the incredibly popular dancing game for Kinect. In Dance Central 2, multiple players will now be able to dance together simultaneously.
To finish things off for the Microsoft event, we go back to the hardcore crowd. A teaser was shown for Forza Motorsport 4. Not too much detail revealed other than it will have support for... you guessed it... Kinect. Gameplay footage was shown for Gears of War 3; thankfully, no support for Kinect has been announced for that. Just before letting us go, Microsoft shows off one final teaser trailer. No one could tell what it was for at first as it was extremely vague. However, the trailer then gave us a glimpse into a very action heavy scene featuring Master Cheif. Sure enough, this was a trailer announcing the development of Halo 4!
