E3 Cometh!
Well E3 has started it's kick off with the big 3 doing their respective conferences in these 2 days. Here are my thoughts so far on what they had to say (In the order of the conferences that were announced).
Sony PS3
Totally disappointed. I KNEW it was going to be $500+ No one beleived me, but that's not really the disapointing part. The real disapointment stems from their lack of awesome content and innovation. MG 4 is once again the only saving grace for the system. The game looks unbelievable, and the ending to the movie really makes you think. If you haven't watched it. http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/3565 do so now. It's worth it. The thing I hate the most about Sony right now is their cockiness. Yes they've been on top these last 2 generations, but man, Kataragi is seriously smoking crack. He talks shit about Nintendo's controller, calling it a gimmick, then they blantenly rip it off with their new Dual Shock 3(no where near as complete as the Wii's though). He complains about MS pricing structure, and they end up copying that too. And at least with MS structure, you still had the option to upgrade your system up to par, if not better. Sony's $500 system lacks wifi, memory card slots, and most importantly HDMI. For those of you who don't know what HDMI is, it's what's necessary to get HD tv's to run 100% So those amazing graphics their talking about, and that you see. You don't get 100% of that if you buy a gimped system. AND in order to get 100% you'll also need to get a HD TV. Just to add insult to injury, they interviewed Ken Kutaragi after the conference and he stated that they're selling PS3s for "too cheap." Talk about alienating the fans.
Nintendo Wii
This is it, this is the system that has promised to change the way we all look at video gaming. The speech itself was a bit dry, still better than Sony's and MS. There weren't any major surprises, which was farily disapointing. Games announced look great, nothing surprising though. The final secret the controller had wasn't as great as I hoped it would be, but it sounds interesting. For those of you who don't know what this secret is, it's a speaker on the controller itself. What that means is, say you're playing a Zelda game, when you fight another swordsman, you can hear your blade clang from the speaker. What this does in terms of gameplay is gives you a better sense of contact. Nothing grand. Nintendo did announce 27 playable games on the show floor though. And they're keeping their pricing a secret for now. I'm expecting $200, but they could do $250. I think they should go all out and set it in the $200 range, if they really wanted to smash the competition, then set it at $150. Overall a decent conference, they did a pretty good job, I still need to play the system. The concepts all sound great, and everyone that has played with the controller says it's great, but I don't want to hear about it, I want to experience it.
Microsoft 360
Halo 3, big surprise huh? Said some crap about how live will hook up to Windows Vista. We don't care that much. Showed off some movies. Dead or Alive: Extreme 2 has the best breast physics I have ever seen in a video game. Whether that is a compliment or an insult, I'll let you decide. They did a lot of speculating. At least they were more humble than Sony. They didn't trash talk the competition too much, even though Sony gave them lots of ammo to.
So overall, nothing that exciting, but I still wish I were there. Why? Because of the Wii of course! I've watched videos of the system being played and it truly looks fun. Games nowadays are become too time consuming, and lets face it, not as fun. Wii is the kick in the balls that the industry needs to wake up. People have doubts about it, but people had doubts about the DS too. Look where the DS is now. There is no arguing that the DS is kicking the PSPs ass left and right. My final thoughts: WHERE THE HELL IS SMASH BROTHERS 3!?
EDIT: Just 1 word: OUEDAN!!!!