E3 2011 part one

Starting a video game blog 2 weeks after the biggest industry show has ended is probably one of the biggest examples of procrastination there is on the internet. Since people use the interwebs for news as it happens, why bother commenting on an event that has been picked apart by all of the major gaming sites? Because my opinion matters, dammit… and because it was super slow in the office today. Can’t be seen on camera taking a nap on company time…

So every year after E3, the gaming news outlets have the grand debate: “Who ‘won’ E3?”  These opinions cause the fanboys of the world to go into a frothing, nerdrage, frenzy.  So in the hopes of driving possible traffic (negative or otherwise) to my corner of the 'net, I'm going to weigh in on each of the Big 3’s press conferences and declare my own winner.  I’m wearing my flame proof undies as I write this.

I’ll start with Microsoft: right off the bat, I’m going to say that M$’s problem is the same problem they’ve had since getting into the console biz – a lack of 1^st party exclusives. They started their conference with a presentation for Modern Warfare 3.  The game looked amazing (and I’m not a big FPS fan), but the simple fact is you can play this game elsewhere. I don’t care if the DLC will be on the 360 first, I don’t have to buy an Xbox to play this game.

We also saw a preview for the Tomb Raider reboot. This game looks interesting, and seems to be heavily “inspired” by Resident Evil 4. But, as above, you’ll be able to play this on competing consoles, so big whoop.

Peter Moore came out and talked about EA Sports – whose games will also come out for other consoles. EA also showed Mass Effect 3 and its Kinect functionality.  It seems like Kinect will only be used for the voice recognition - you can choose your character's dialogue as well as issue commands to your team verbally.  Kinect won't be required to play, but they do have the option which is nice.

Kinect got the hard sell during this show. Every game on display had some implementation of the hardware. Ubisoft showed Ghost Recon; Lionhead unveiled Fable: The Journey. We also were “treated” to Kinect Disneyland Adventures and Kinect Star Wars.

My personal opinion about Kinect: I like the concept. Voice recognition in games could open up some game play innovations. Issuing commands to AI controlled team members instead of slogging thru menus or button presses seems like a natural move forward. Motion controls also have the potential for that extra feeling of immersion. What we saw on display during the Kinect portion of the show makes it apparent that the effective execution of this concept is still a long way away.

I know that most of these games are not in completed form, so maybe I’m being a bit unfair, but all of the Kinect-centric games displayed just seemed slow and tedious. I’m a fan of the Fable series, and when Molyneux came out with the logo behind him, I was jacked for the unveiling of the next title: what I got was what appeared to be an on-rails shooter with sluggish motion controls. While the Fable series has never been quite as epic as promised, it is decidedly less epic when the game is watered down to what is essentially a House of the Dead clone where I wave at the screen in exaggerated motions to chuck fireballs.

Star Wars also looked disappointing. The light saber movement seemed to be on almost a full second delay from the demo guy’s arm motion. The enemies also seemed dumber than dirt to make up for the slow, unintuitive controls.

Speaking of unintuitive motions – Ghost Recon has you doing what looks like a kung-fu palm strike to fire your weapon. I don’t care if I can verbally tell the game to optimize my load out for certain combat situations, or put my weapons together mid air like I’m in Tony Stark’s lab – if I have to do a half-assed Ryu from Street Fighter impression every time I want to fire my gun, I’ll pass.

Another Let’s Dance game was shown, and was easily the best Kinect title on display.

Cliffy B came out to show off Gears 3 with Ice-T. Gears looked pretty intense. This, at least, is an exclusive. Ice-T said that his rock band, Body Count, would provide a song from the game – the crowd went mild at this announcement. Probably because most of gaming press present were in kindergarten the last time Body Count released an album.

It’s apparently the 10^th anniversary of Halo, so Microsoft also announced Halo: Anniversary – an HD remake of the original game. Yawn. Played the original – don’t need to play the same game with a new coat of paint. If I want to play that game again, I’ll drag it out of the storage bin, blow the dust off of it and play it.

There was a presentation about how Microsoft is planning to basically replace your cable or sattellite provider in terms of set-top entertainment.

After a re-cap, Microsoft brought their show to a close stating that they were announcing the start of a new trilogy. The video that followed was a teaser trailer for Halo 4.

Overall, I felt Microsoft’s presser was weak. Outside of Gears 3 and the Halo 4 announcement, there were no top tier games shown that you would absolutely need to play on their machine. The games on display for Kinect were underwhelming – the best implementation being by mini-game collections like Kinect Sports. With laggy, sluggish controls – none of the Kinect exclusives are a must buy for me.  I actually felt that the highlight of their show (despite not mentioning above) was their partnerships with media providers - in a nutshell, Microsoft is partnering up with various media outlets to provide you the same content you get thru your cable or sattellite provider.  If they can deliver on this, I may have a reason to drop my cable company.

Grading on a curve, I give the Microsoft press conference a C.

Come back tomorrow for my thoughts on Nintendo's press conference.  Or maybe I'll write about Sony!  Look at me - teasing an upcoming post like people are actually reading...