Our Big Surprise...Our Big Megatron is Here

Sorry this is two days late but I couldnt get on the internet from last night after 6pm (I could get on PSN and XBL but not IE, Safari or Firefox)

Anyways, E3 is now done, all over, finished, completed, finieto (Unless you stay up all night watching the live stage shows on Gamespot or IGN in which case, it aint). And that means we can at long last tell you what we have been planning for the past 2 months. We've put in our very hard work onto this project, perfecting it to its nook and cranny but as of 2 weeks ago, it was finished and we can at long last unveil it to you...or rather, tell you about it as it aint gonna come JUST yet but as you'll find out, it's very, very, VERY near.

I said that if there was no massive surprises from the big 3, we would provide one at least so that we could make sure this E3 went off with at least one surprise. However, of course, nothing can top Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 on Monday but I think after Tuesday's performances with the good yet lacklustre Sony conference and the boring as hell Nintendo, this maybe the 2nd biggest announcement of E3.

So...here we go. We've split this into three surprises in the one surprise (If you can catch the point) as although they are connected, they seperately big in their own right as they concern a massive change in the site so lets begin with Surprise No. 1, shall we folks?

1 - And this is what we have been working on for the past 2 months. The Wordpress verison is all done and ready to go. We've worked very hard on this night and day but finally, we can confirm that we have finished it and we can also confirm that all our posts from the original site that we had before we switched over to the E3 blog will be at the site so we dont have to look like noobs only starting out, we're starting again where we left off on July 6th.

2 - We can also confirm a launch date for the this new verison of Gamzsone V3 (Gamzsone V3.5 if you wanna put it like that) and after working on it for a such while, we wanted this out as soon as possible so that you could enjoy the site as much as we would + it'll be less likely for the memory message to come up if you use the PS3 to look at the site. We can confirm the date of this site to be Monday July 21st 2008 (Thats this Monday) so we hope you can join us for that.

3 - And finally, after 3 long years service, we are giving the Gamzsone name a retirement. No more Gamzsone V3 and infact, no more Gamzsone at all for that matter, Farewell our good old friend, you have served us well, enjoy your retirement as you throughly deserve it.

So...what is the name t hat is gonna replace it? Good question...except...you've been staring at it the entire time you've either been visiting the main site, here or the E3 blog. Still dont get it, do you? *sigh* Okay, I'll tell you. Our brand new name for the site is the subtitle we have been using this entire time for Gamzsone V3. It is called...

GOONL!NE



That...is the banner that will greet you on the WordPress site as of Monday morning. Also, there are a couple of questions to answer concerning this name-change? What about the videos that were branded Gamzsone V3 on the YouTube [age as well as the videos tagged GamzsoneV3 + the layout of the Gamzsone V3 page on YouTube?

All Gamzsone V3 videos on the YouTube page with branding (Including the last video with the branding on it which was the E308 trailer of Final Fantasy XIII) will stay on the site as planned but everything else will change bar them videos (and maybe the username)

Also, something to point out. All the post's we've made on the E3 blog will be going to the new site from Sunday morning before we launch everything on Monday morning. As for the Member's Blo, that wont be there...at least for now. It will be there at some point but we have decided that for now, we wont doing such a thing but it will be back before the end of the year.

Finally, as in reference to future events this year, Leipzig Games Convention or Tokyo Games Show, we'd like to clear up what we are doing about them events. Everything that comes out of Leipzig will be put into stories on the main site, there will be no blog on it but should there be any major press conference's from either Sony or Microsoft at Leipzig next month we we think there will be especially at hints throw around by David Reves concerning PlayStation Home as well as a next-gen Singstar according to Eurogamer.

And as for Tokyo Games Show, we are talking it through to decide as to if we will have a dedicated blog for such a thing despite the fact that we dont even know who the keynote speaker is for this year's Tokyo Games Show (In 2005, it was Satoru Iwata who unveiled the Wiimote. In 2006, it was Ken Kutaragi who did a pre-launch PS3 price cut and last year, it was Kaz Hirai who...did nothing...well, there was the unveil of the DualShock 3.)but once we decide on a outcome for it, we will let you know.

So there ya have it, our plans have been layed out on the table for you and on Saturday, as a parting gift to Blogger, our Best of E3 awards will be posted in the E3 blog as our farewell to Blogger.

So we hope you'll be around to see that and we hope you'll be around on Monday to see a brand new era in this site's history.

Jonathan Cullen
Managing Editor, Gamzsone V3/GOONL!NE

E3 2008: So Who Really Won E3 2008?

Pretty easy to decide who won E3. One had a Nuclear Bomb of an announcement, the other had a very good conference but surprising stuff to show and the other was very short, very boring and nothing to show for the Hardcore gamer.

So, who won it? Of course, it was Microsoft. It started off very well with a promo trailer of Fallout 3 before showing the game in public for the very first time. Also, Resident Evil 5 been shown for the first time in public as well as getting a date of Friday the 13th of March 2009.

Fable 2 was also shown off and confirmed to be finished. And of course, Gears of War 2 had its 5 minutes of glory by showing a live demo of the game along with a worldwide release date of Wednesday November 7th 2008.

But after that, it got a little downhill for Microsoft. Yeah, a new Dash, it looks good but Avatars look horrid. But a couple of XBLA games showed that optimisim in the service yet with Geometry Wars 2 as well as a new South Park game coming but the biggest XBLA announcement went to Portal: Still Alive which is coming to Xbox Live Arcade from this Autumn.

But even then, it seemed to go into freefall with embrassing demos of stuff like Your in the Movies as well as Lips (Duffy was there to sing her own fucking song, what the fuck!).

It then went up a little bit with the music rythym game war between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. First up was Guitar Hero IV: World Tour. It was confirmed that Metalica's new album would be exclusive to Gutar Hero by being released on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock as well as World Tour among others.

Then came Rock Band 2. Harmonix released the full tracklist of the game including Interpol's PDA to name but a few. But the big announcement concerning Rock Band 2 was that AC/DC would be coming to Rock Band 2 as well as Guns & Roses new album, Chinese Democracy coming to Rock Band 2 the day it is released.

Soon after that, Yuichi Wada, President of Square Enix, came on stage to talk about the 3 RPG exclusives coming to Xbox 360. Star Ocean, Infinite Discovery and the timed 360 exclusive which will go to the PS3 soon after, The Last Remnant. All 3 got release dates with Infinite Discovery coming out in September worldwide with The Last Remnant coming this November 20th and Star Ocean coming in March 2009.

So that ended Microsoft's E3 Press Conference...or you'd think it was. It was wrapping up until Wada-san came back out on the stage and said he had one more big announcement.

Most of Microsoft's big announcements such as a new dash and Avatars as well as Lips all leaked beforehand and well, we all though it was going to be a conference full of stuff we already knew of...until..."that".

A video was been shown of airships, a fantasy world been shown with magic and then by the end of it, only two words and one number in roman numerals was showing with its logo.

It's name?

Final. Fantasy. XIII.

The once exclusive PlayStation 3 exclusive was shown in all its glory at the conference and was announced that it'd be coming out on the Xbox 360 the same date and day it will be on the PlayStation 3 in North America and Europe (It still remains a PS3 exclusive in Japan)

Overall: Up until that megatron FFXIII announcement, Microsoft were putting on a very smug and casual conference. Before it though, it did show some great stuff like Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5 and Gears of War 2 before decending into a bit of a smug conference with Don Matterick being very smug throughout (Even Sony 2 years ago, no matter how much of a cock-up that happened that day, werent THAT cocky and smug)

Then with the big FFXIII announcement, it signifgently turned the conference on it's head.

So what would have happened if Final Fantasy XIII wasnt shown on Monday? I'm gonna give this two scores, one with FFXIII, one without.

With FFXIII: 9/10
Without FFXIII: 7/10

So, up next yesterday was Nintendo and Sony, who must have still been reeling from what happened the night before.

First up of the day, it was Nintendo and simply put, it was as boring as you could put it. We had Kammie Dunaway, one of the many new execs in Nintendo talking about her personal experience of snowboarding and breaking her wrist...quite frankly, the way she was going, I think alot of people wanted to break her wrist.

There was quite frankly, consolewise (Bar maybe Animal Crossing for the Wii), nothing there for the hardcore gamer. And even then, the only exciting announcement to come out was there would be a new Grand Theft Auto for the Nintendo DS.

Finally, we had WiiMusic shown to us and it was OK but nothing I'd be interested in.

Overall: Too boring, too short...mind you, come next E3, thats what I'll expect from them.

4/10

Finally, it was Sony. It started off with a great montage of games on the PS3 following a couple of jokes from Jack Tretton (One which was funny but distasteful xD)

He then started proceedings with a live demo of Resistance 2 by Ted Price followed then by the E3 trailer. And then...we had to hear about sales figures...except with a twist!!! It was done in LittleBigPlanet.

It was quirky but cute otherwise. It showed that not only there was real potental there with Little Big Planet but also some hope for the "Year of PlayStation" after that stunning FFXIII announcement.

Next was the PlayStation 2 showing that there was still some support for the PS2 by announcing a new bundle for Lego Batman at $149 as well as showing that Yakuza 2 will be coming to the PS2 while shown in a montage.

Afterwards, it was the PlayStation Network with some new games shown such as Ragdoll Kung Fu, a old game from Media Molocue before the days of LittleBigPlanet as well as Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty.

We then seen the PS Video Store which had support from a couple of the major movie studios like FOX, Sony, Warner Brothers and Paranmount before announcing it would be available after the press conference.

Back to the PlayStation 3 then with a motnage of games coming out for the PS3 (Including Metal Gear Solid 4 which is already out) before their biggest game of the night was unveiled...God of War III.

It was shown off with Kratos craving for chaos and destruction...and we'll see it from him next year. inFamous after it and then, a new game from Zipper Interactive, the studio behind SOCOM: US Navy Seals, a game called MAG.

The game will hold 256 players in the game with 8 man squads taking part in proxy battles instead of everyone getting together and looking for the nearest person to kill, something similar to Resistance 2.

Overall: It wasnt like the conference from last year and while there was stuff we already knew of (Bar MAG), it was still a strong showing from Sony. Nothing went right for them but nothing went wrong for them neither, it was stuff we knew of but it was stil a decent showing from them.

8/10

So, just based on Final Fantasy XIII, Microsoft win. Without Final Fantasy XIII, it would have been Sony, this proves that on a swing of a game, everything could just as easily change.

Then after it was moved onto the PSP with a new spin off to Resistance coming in Spring 2009

My Two Cents: Square Enix, Your a Bitch and Yet I Still Love You!

Square you bitch! You motherfucking bitch!!! You go off to a slag like the Xbox 360 and take our kid over to see them?

Well...that must be what the Sony fanboys are thinking of right now if you wanna put into that context.

It comes after the best kept and biggest secret gaming was finally told to the world last night at Microsoft's E3 Press Conference. While there were rumors and projects leaking out of Microsoft left, right
and centre, this was one which they managed to successfully hold onto until gotime and of all the rumors which could have leaked, they couldn't have got ahold of this.

And that is why it was so successful in surprising every gamer on the planet, wherever that being a sad Sony gamer losing their biggest exclusive of 2009, a 360 gamer who was jumping up in down after realising he can now spend the money he was saving for a PS3 on a HDTV or a neutral who was astonished at what happened before him.

Yes...of course...I am referring to...Final Fantasy XIII finally going to the Xbox 360 on the same date and day it launches on the PlayStation 3 next year.


Announcement


Trailer

With all due respect to Sony and the fantastic start to the year they have had so far with Metal Gear Solid 4, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue and Grand Theft Auto IV among a couple to name, this really was a big fat cock up of the worst kind. They said that FFXIII was exclusive to the console and it has been until last night so why didnt Sony lock down the exclusivity of the game?

And as for Microsoft you can help but wonder, after the $50 Million they paid for in DLC for Grand Theft Auto IV, how much they paid Square Enix for this little coup de twae, it could be roughly in the estimates of $100 - $150 Million (Based on how much the game's exclusivity would be)

Finally, the main culprit, Square Enix. While many of the Xbox 360 owner's would love to go to Japan right now and praise SE for doing this, many PS3 owners are cursing them under their breath (Despite the fact that Final Fantasy XIII stays exclusive in Japan while Versus XIII stays exclusive altogeher to the PlayStation 3)

As a gamer, I think we had a win-win situation last night. Anybody who own's a PS3 and Xbox 360 are the main winners here. So, Sony lost the exclusivity, that was a big cock up the jaw but at least they still get to keep the game.

I was personally ecstatic when I seen it last night, I was shaking and nearly cried tears of happyness last night (Despite the fact I own a PS3), it was such a great joy to see.

Overall, if your a PS3 or 360 owner, please stop bitching about Sony getting owned or Square Enix must die for giving the game to the Xbox 360. For anybody who has a 360 or PS3, everyone has won.

Quick Mention

Just a quick note here to say that our big massive surprise is all but ready for you.

But like I have been saying, you aint gonna get it till after E3. Instead, what I'll do for you is announce it DURING E3 but you'll get AFTER E3. When will I announce it? Tuesday July 15th 10:00pm, straight after our liveblog of the Sony E3 Press Conference.

And trust me, this one has been in the works for a very long time so look out for it.