Geek Swagger.
Archive for July 12, 2008
E3 Anticipation
Jul 12th
Remember back when the real E3 was in May? Back when we'd have all of this news by now? That's why it seems really weird that E3 is finally coming around this week. Before it shows up I wanted to make a post talking a little bit about what I'm looking forward to seeing or, more realistically, not seeing depending on how things go. It's actually a surprisingly short list (and yet this post ended up being crazy long), but let's delve right in!
First off, I want to see that is on target. I've seen some videos of this game lately and the DirectX 10 visual effects are just amazing. That coupled with the story and the atmosphere which made me fall in love with the first game and I think this will be a big hit. I'm just hoping it's not a sleeper like the first was because this is a franchise that could really get PC gamers excited again. It hits me in a sweet spot, both because the game's subject matter (the deserted areas around Chernobyl during/after the time of the disaster) and its unique gameplay. I've already talked a lot about this game in previous posts though so I'll just throw up the latest trailer and move on:
Next up my interest moves to the consoles I own. I have to say I'm not really that interested in much from Microsoft this time around. It seems that the biggest news (these things always leak early, right?) is that there will be a for the 20GB version of the console. That's cool for people who are new to the 360 but it obviously doesn't interest me that much. There's also rumors of a new of the console which would take the current Premium 20GB version's place. How that would work with the price drop I'm not sure, unless the price drop is just to clear inventory. None of this is confirmed of course so it all might be false, we'll see.
I have to say that I really hope this whole thing blows over. The reason I like the 360 is because it's a place I can go and still get some classic quality controller games, if I wanted motion controls I would have picked up a Wii! It seems like another way to segment the audience (the first way being releasing a version of the console without a hard drive) and it just doesn't seem like that great of an idea. How can Microsoft expect to topple the Wii at this point? I'm sure they're looking at it the same way they looked at the iPod when they launched their Zune, i.e. if they can take just a small share of the market then they'll be happy.
I will say that I'm hoping they maybe give us a sneak peak at what will hopefully be a huge Fall update for the dashboard. I'd like to see a lot of reworked and some functionality added since paying $50 a year is beginning to see a little overkill for what I'm getting. PSN is starting to catch up in a lot of areas and it's free so I think Microsoft has to keep finding ways to keep Xbox Live subscribers interested. Hopefully that means a UI refresh. There's also a rumor that they're introducing a new feature called which will be very similar to the Nintendo Wii's "Mii" functionality.
Finally is Sony. Sony's press conference is the one I'm most looking forward to from a few different perspectives. First, it seems like they're making the most moves by introducing different services to expand their online offering. From the recent 2.41 update which I blogged about to the confirmation of a , Sony is bringing out a lot of new stuff. There's also the constantly delayed which will hopefully go into beta sometime soon...basically there's a lot of potential for new software to enhance the overall experience. I always keep in mind that Sony is pretty new to the whole online gaming scene and tends to be a little behind/slow to market...what that means is I'm not exactly expecting miracles. I'm just glad that they're working on it.
I'm also interested in Sony games though. If there's one complaint I have about my PS3 is that there aren't enough exclusive titles for it. After playing I've realized that the PS3 has so much potential that a 1st-party developer could capitalize on. The good news is that there are some exclusive titles coming later this year. The most notable among these are , a puzzle-platformer based heavily on user-generated content, , and Killzone 2. Resistance 2 is a follow-up to the PS3 launch title which I still haven't played (I'm waiting for the version). Resistance, much like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., has a very intriguing story so for that alone I'm looking forward to playing both games. They've also boasted an impressive online offering of cohesive 60-player multiplayer plus a separate co-op campaign that focuses on the story. Sounds good!
There's also Killzone 2 which has had a pretty sordid past. I remember seeing the original CG trailer for the game and calling , but the game is really shaping up. It doesn't look as good as that trailer did lo those many E3's ago but it's still the prettiest shooter I've seen. I'm a sucker for epic large-scale battles and that's exactly what the latest (real) trailer shows:
These games are more examples of how amazing Sony exclusives can be so I'd love to see some new ones announced. The last thing I'm truly excited for is a rumored Playstation 2 store on PSN. There was released on a forum not too long ago showing PS2 downloadable games on PSN. The most notable game that was shown was , but what I really want is since I never got to play that. As I've lamented many times before I never owned a Playstation 2 so there are many other games that I'd like to play and, since I have the 40GB version of the PS3, I don't have access to backwards compatibility so game downloads are the only way that'll happen.
To be fair I suppose I should comment on Nintendo too, but since I only own a Nintendo DS that's kind of hard to do. There are rumors that Nintendo will show a new revision of their DS console which sounds reasonable at this point. There's also the fact that they really need to address the issue of storage on the Wii because many gamers are complaining about running out of space for their games. Hopefully they'll sort that out and hell, maybe they'll show a new version of the Wii? Expect a post sometime next week on what actually happened at E3 instead of all of this speculation!
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