E3 2010 Recap/Predictions

I decided to make a quit recap/predictions post right before E3 pops up so that I’ll be able to show how I felt about last E3 and how the big 3 delivered. I’ll admit this article is oozing with my own personal opinion so please go yell at my editor if you disagree with me since I think that will be funnier. You’ll notice I wrote a lot more for Nintendo than anyone else and that’s because I felt the strongest for them during their E3 conference and they’re the only ones who actually had more than 2 of the games they showed come out.

Gears of War 3: They showed some gameplay for this and hype was built up. We’ll see how the game turns out later this year.

Halo Reach: I was pretty excited for this since they were pretty much hyping it up to be Halo: CE but better. Ultimately it was Halo 3 4.0 and was a pretty damn good game.

Kinect: Microsoft decided to enter the casual market and it fucking worked like a charm. Everyone who saw their E3 conference realized how much of a joke Kinect looked and how limited many games are going to be (you got your Gears game buddies, an on-rails shooter one) but the marketing geniuses at Microsoft somehow managed to make it an instant success when it launched. I always have to give major props when somebody takes a stupidly awful idea and makes millions off it, just look at the guy who made those animal rubber bands kids are wearing.

Codename Kingdoms: Looks like a hack/slash game, might have decent graphics because of Crytek, wait till next E3.

360 Slim: The 360 was in a desperate need of a new model to fix the RROD issue that plagued the system for years and we finally got it. Such a shame that the way they reveal it is by bribing every single journalist in the crowd with a brand spanking new 360 Slim. Nonetheless failure rates shot down pretty far with the Slim

Fable 3: Oh hey Molyneux told us we could do everything again in this game, but for sure this time! Nobody was surprised when Fable 3 turned out to be as mediocre as the other Fable games (guess actual journalists disagree with me on that) with a few neat features. I found it to be shorter than it should be and the gameplay lacking substance, but hey that’s just my opinion.

Bonus: Well I guess I could mention how they have another exclusive deal with Activision for early access to the $15 Call of Duty map packs. I don’t mind that much since I’d never pay $15 for a map pack, but it still bothers me how they fuck over the PC crowd as well with this. Oh yea, and they had the trailer to the *multiplatform* game Metal Gear Rising.

Overall: Gears, Reach, Kinect, & bribes. C-/D+ show, with a delivery of the same score.

Killzone 3: I was pretty excited for this when this was revealed but for some reason my hype meter slowly started dropping the closer to release we got, maybe it was because of MVC3. I felt the campaign felt way too much like the developers were trying to copy Call of Duty and I really didn’t like the upgrade system while playing online. Nonetheless Killzone 3 delivered a polished package that played great, had split-screen multiplayer/co-op which is nice, and it looked damn good too.

Resistance 3: Too early to tell how the game will be, but if what they say is true then we can expect a return to what made the first game great which is fantastic news. I’m just hoping they ignore everything they did with Resistance 2, except co-op. That shit was tight.

Infamous 2: Releases in just a few days and it’s miles ahead of the first game.

PS Move: When they revealed this everyone pretty much laughed off the idea since it basically sounded like a Wii ripoff, and we were right. The only thing we didn’t realize is that it was incredibly accurate and controls incredibly well with shooters. I’ve always been wary of shooters on the Wii because the controls just felt really off for some reason, but after playing Killzone 3 and SOCOM 4 on the Move I’m pretty excited for what else we might get. Sony showed us that Wizard game and the potential for a great game was in there, it’s just up to Sony to follow the recipe correctly. So far we haven’t seen anything big hit the PS Move as a Move specific title so I’m hopeful that Sony pumps out some Move specific games to actually make me consider buying it.

PSP Games: Sony kills off the PSP the same way they did with the PS2, with a God of War game. Expect some NGP action this E3.

LittleBigPlanet 2: I loved LBP but felt it didn’t really live up to the whole “infinite replayability” they promised since the best levels were hard to find (if there were any at all), all of them were basically the same, and many times the good levels got deleted for some reason. LBP2 fixed most of these problems (as well as gameplay problems) but I still felt the game’s online function felt weak in terms of variety of levels. Instead of everything being a platformer all I saw were platformers, cheap racing games, space invader clones, and cheap FPS games.

PS+: For $50 a year you can get a free PSN game, free PS1 game, a few themes, avatars, and discounts on games each week. Oh yea and full trials of games such as Assassin’s Creed. It’s a pretty good deal for people who like free stuff and buy a lot of items on the store to justify the money you save from the $50 you spend a year. The only annoying thing is that PSN games are deactivated once you stop having PS+ (I think everything else stays though) which is a bit annoying, but it was free so no complaining I suppose.

Gran Turismo 5: It actually came out, I think it sucks because I hate driving simulators but I can see why people love the game. It looks gorgeous on an HD 3D TV. Personally I can’t tell whether it lived to the hype since the reviews are quite positive, but being a racing simulator it’s audience is split in an already small genre.

Twisted Metal: David Jaffe finally delivered gameplay of the sequel to the classic car-combat series. We’ll see how it plays later this year, but so far I’m not that interested in it because I was never very big in the car-combat genre. Maybe this will be the game to convince me otherwise.

Bonus: Sony scored some exclusive content from their new friend EA with limited editions of Dead Space 2, Medal of Honor, and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Portal 2 gets Steamworks for the PS3 as well as giving a free PC copy.

Overall: Sony had a pretty weak show, but they did show games and the few that came out did deliver. I’d say a B-/C+ show with a B delivery.

Metroid Other M: I was never a huge Metroid fan like one of my friends but I did play a few of the 2D Metroid games and Prime so I could say I knew quite a bit of the series already and enjoyed it. When Nintendo revealed Metroid Other M at E3 I got pretty hyped because the idea of Team Ninja making it intrigued me. Cut to August and the game is released to pretty mediocre reviews and some pretty angry fans. That friend of mine who loves the Metroid series to death invited me over to his house to play the game in one sitting the day it came out. After we got done playing it we simply sat there confused and disappointed at the same time. We were simply amazed at how awkward the controls were and how somebody could allow Team Ninja to turn Samus into a whiney little girl. Not only did the game get a bit of hate from fans but it also sold well under Nintendo’s expectations.

Kirby Epic Yarn: I fucking loved Kirby Super Star when it came out and have played pretty much all the other Kirby games, so don’t blame me when I say I was super hyped up for this. Nintendo promised a classic Kirby game with a fantastically unique art-style. What we got was an average Kirby game made for children with the mentality of a snail. I was pretty upset that not only was the game pretty easy, but you simply could not die. Instead of dying you’d just lose a few gems which isn’t a big deal since only a minority of players who bought Epic Yarn cared about their highscore. At least the game was great to look at right?

Donkey Kong Country Returns: Donkey Kong Country was one of my first videogames ever and the fact that Retro came and made this game hard as diamonds yet so addictive made me very happy en mis pantalones. Retro totally delivered with this game in every way imaginable, but it’s the soundtrack that completely blew me away.

3DS: Everyone got pretty excited for this when they showed it off, and it’s not just because they were being held by sexy women. Glasses-free 3D is a pretty interesting feature but I don’t think it lived up to its hype so far. With a pretty underwhelming library of launch games and lower than expected sales I’m sure Nintendo is surprised, but I can help once again with my genius advice. The reason this sold like shit is because Nintendo isn’t marketing it like it’s the successor to the DS. Nintendo has released so many versions of the DS that people think the 3DS is just a DS with 3D and that isn’t worth noticing until Christmas time when their kids will probably ask for it. Nintendo really needed to push out the fact that this is a totally new machine that people should totally buy. You can bet your ass off that when Sony releases the NGP their totally not completely useless and shit marketing team will go around calling it the PSP2 and shove the fact that it’s the successor to the PSP in people’s faces. The other reason it’s selling like shit is that many people still don’t believe in the whole glasses-free 3D gimmick and aren’t going to be bothered enough to head down to their local Gamestop to try the 3DS out. Personally I played SSF4 and that Ghost Recon game and couldn’t see any 3D effect, and yes the 3D switch was all the way up. Maybe my eyes are just fucked up.

Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword: Besides the embarrassingly hilarious goof-up during their presentation I have nothing to say about this game since it’s not out yet, but fuck it I’ll give a prediction anyway. This game is probably going to end up as generic and re-hashed as the last Zelda games. The game will be split between the people who love it to death because they’re somehow blind to how stale the series is getting and the people who hate it because it’s the new Zelda game and they always hate the new one that comes out and say the previous one was a master piece. Will if you make me review this game I swear I’ll give it a 2/10 just because it means it’ll actually give me a reason to turn on my Wii.

Epic Mickey: Well would you look at that, looks like I just found my reason. All I can say about Epic Mickey is “One of the best games of 2010” and “OH MAN THAT HEARTBREAKING ENDING I SWORE I WOULDN’T CRY MAN”. I grew up watching each movie Disney popped out of their majestic, and perfectly proportioned, heads so I had to give Epic Mickey some huge bias when I saw the trailer, but as I saw the interviews I realized Warren Spectre loved the subject matter as much as I always did and I saw how genius this game was going to be. The game was full of charm, great writing, and choices that actually had me second guessing myself on whether I should’ve done that or not. Personally I had no issue with the camera, maybe the journalists reviewing it are idiots when it comes to holding a controller with their gorilla hands, but I digress. Is hard Disney nostalgia clouding my judgment a little bit? Hell no, this game was amazing fuck your opinion. This is my article and I’ll write what I damn well want.

Goldeneye 007:As any kid who grew up in the ‘90s we had ‘that kid’ on the block who owned an N64 with Goldeneye where we would all go and play. Nintendo then decides it’s time for a remake, but instead of remaking it they just injected the game with a vial of Call of Duty. The controls felt exactly like the COD games on the Wii and the game had obviously taken a more action packed/scripted set piece moment type flair. It was a pretty good game with great graphics for a Wii shooter, decent online options, and multiple game modes, but it had two major problems that really turned me off. The erratic framerate made me think Michael J Fox was trapped in my Wii and the online connection was pretty rubbish with tons of lag. If those problems had been addressed I’d be frank enough to call it one of the, if not the, best shooter on the Wii right now, but I just can’t forgive a game that has me firing an entire clip into an enemy only for them to headshot me like it was nothing.

Golden Sun Dark Dawn: Honestly I never played any of the Golden Sun games so I went to go ask my friend what he thought about this. He told me that the GS series was fantastic and people had good reason to be excited, but the game ultimately failed to deliver to him. He said it’s still a great game (and according to reviews it’s pretty decently good) but it just didn’t feel like they tried hard enough to make it a great game. The difficulty was laughable and ultimately left him wishing for more, but still a good game nonetheless.

Overall: Nintendo basically hyped us up then let us down when most of their games ended up being pretty average. A conference, C- delivery.

I’ve got your E3 ’11 list right here guys.

Modern Warfare 3 & other multiplatform games
Each year MS likes to swing around their ego stick acting like all these multiplatform games are exclusive to the 360 to make up for their serious lack of first-party titles. Seems they haven’t gotten the point that most people are going to buy a game on their console of choice and a month delayed DLC won’t change much minds.
Gears of War 3
We all know this will take up a good portion of MS’s conference.
Halo CE remake
We heard rumors that it’s coming this fall so of course they’re going to want to show it to us here. Next up: Halo 2 remade in the Reach engine in 2012 and then Halo 3 remade in the Halo Wars engine in 2013!
New Crytek game
Codename: Kingdoms is what they’re calling their totally not a hack/slash game. We’ll know more in June. Apparently it’s going to be a Kinect game.
KINECT KINECT KINECT
You think river rafting was it? Fuck no you piece of shit MS is pumping out Kinect Football motherfucker, fuck yea you wanted that sort of shit right? Hot damn you thought a goddamn tiger was badass enough to cuddle with? Now you get a fucking bear, holy shit those things are vicious watch the fuck out bro.
Possibly a new game
Maybe they’ll reveal a new IP or two. Maybe it won’t will most likely will be another shooter.
More bribes
You thought MS was going to stop bribing you idiots with a 360 last E3? Hell no, MS knows that you journalists have no dignity so now you all get a new 360 with a Kinect camera directly installed into it so you don’t need two separate devices. Am I mildly upset that MS would never bother wasting their time trying to bribe me? Yea a little, but fuck them anyway.

Skyward Sword
Calling it right now, it’s going to be TP but with sprint and a few extra gimmicks.
Next Retro game?
I’m pretty excited if this is true. Betting on this being a huge title launch game for the next console.
Maybe a new exclusive or two
I’m betting on Nintendo to pull out one or two last big Wii exclusives before the Wii2 comes out.
Wii 2 (Cafe)
We already know this is being shown this E3 with a 2012 release so we’re definitely going to see a few games being shown for it.

NGP Price
I’m betting on this being around $250, maybe $300. Honestly, if Sony wants to really blow the 3DS out of the water they’re going to have to match price for once.
Third party developer exclusives
Sony is going to continue with this like last year so we can probably expect something from EA and possibly an exclusive for Batman Arkham City.
NGP
Killzone, Uncharted, Wipeout, & more shit for the PSP 2. Yes Sony, we know it’s going to be called the PSP2, stop being pretentious and calling it Next Gen Portable or PS Vita.
The 2 or 3 new IPs they’re going to reveal
We already know they have a few hidden IPs that they want to show, maybe this time they won’t be cancelled like tons of their other games.
Move games
Well that wizard game looked sweet I guess.
Last Guardian
Release date for this.
Warhawk sequel
This better be in the future like I’m hoping. I want to stomp on tiny soldiers in a big mech. *Edit* I was going to put this out closer to E3 and Sony goes and reveals Starhawk already.
Agent?
Maybe? Maybe GTA5? Probably not though.

2 MILLION TROOPS
ARE YOU KIDDING ME, 2 MILLION? HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET 1 MILLION IN THE FIRST PLACE KONAMI YOU DAH BEST MAH GAWD I’M SO SO SO EXCITE!

Overall the E3 winner will be the person with the GTA5 trailer or Konami by default.