E3 2010: Winners, Losers, And Motion Control Overload
Hai thar everyone, it's MT, and thanks to the wonderful thing called the internet, I can watch E3 without being at E3, so a lot more of my time is wasted in style. Anyways, here's what I saw, and the good, the bad, and the ugly.
We'll go in order, so MICROSOFT is first:
The Good: Halo, Halo, Halo, Halo...and more Halo. Even though there was only one campaign trailer(no multiplayer sadly), we do know that there will something amazing: SPACE COMBAT!!! Also, even though I absolutely hate Kenetic(Natal for those of you who didn't get the renaming memo), it did look pretty cool in the new Star Wars game...maybe they'll finally make a good one of those. Gears of War 3 looked good for those of you who often mistake blood for ketchup, and a new Call of Duty once again opened the show.
The Bad: Motion Control, motion control, and motion control. It was bad enough as it is, but the fact that they had to remind you about it every ten seconds didn't help either. To prove the point, 32% of voters said that if Gears of War 3 used Kenetic(aka motion control), they would stick a chainsaw through their bedroom door. In fact, Kenetic only got a 25% approval rating after it was showed. Microsoft, you are going in the wrong direction.
The Ugly: X-Box Live...failed horribly. After reminding the audience at least a dozen times that they have 25 million players(and that they want your money), they went on to say that ESPN is now available free of charge for gold subscribers. Except that it's also on your TV, unless you're too poor to afford cable, in which case you're probably nowhere near rich enough to afford a gold subscription. Nice logic there team X-Box.
NINTENDO:
The Good: Metroid, was, as always, amazing. Looked very reminiscent of the old Metroids, but the lack of Prime reference is starting to annoy me. Also a new Zelda(Skyward Sword) is going to be hitting stores in 2011, and it looks decent. 3DS made a great appearance with Kid Icarus. Also probably the biggest surprise was the new "Wii Party," a Mario type game with Mii characters.
The Bad: One day, Nintendo will realize that they don't have to stick Mario on every single game they produce. That day is not today. Mario Volleyball, Dodgeball, Hockey....good lord this is starting to hurt my eyes. Anyways, if you want another sports failure reminiscent of the Olympic Games error, then pick this up. Otherwise...go for that new Metroid or Wii Party thing. But hey, at least they left Sonic out of this one. Sega, your name is not completely disgraced.
The Ugly: Advertising...when will Nintendo finally realize that WE DON'T CARE HOW MANY WII'S/DS'S PEOPLE HAVE BOUGHT. Probably around the same time as the aforementioned one...but still, we can hope. Also, it seemed like every single demonstration they did had some sort of bug. And taking a jab at Steve Jobs is a big no no when no one in the crowd even slightly laughs.
SONY:
The Good: Sequels, sequels, and more sequels. Portal 2. Probably the strongest showing of the event. Glados' ruins looked cool. Also Dead Space 2 and Infamous 2 look nice as well. Props for Sony's attempt to bring the PSP back to dominance by admitting their "past mistakes" and announcing release dates for over 70 new titles for the station of portable playness.
The Bad: While there was nothing quite as bad as the PSP GO this time around, it kind of felt like a bunch of the games they were advertising really shouldn't have gotten that much attention, especially Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011. I know you're trying to demonstrate how the those Wands work, but c'mon, learn to pick an advertising model. Also it just sort of felt like the Move was completely forgotten at the end of the show, because it was barely mentioned at all in the 2nd half of it.
The Funny: Sony doesn't get an "ugly," because their spokesperson (Kevin Butler) was absolutely hilarious(and, unlike Nintendo, most of the people in the audience got his jokes).
Anyways, with that said, I still think Nintendo did the best job of presenting, mainly because that so many of the games they advertised looked amazing(Other M, Skyward Sword, new Kid Icarus). And then there was the 3Ds (insert drooling here).
-MT
Please remove the double comment (comment 18) before republishing this entry. Thanks! -Nukaya
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