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
No comments:
Post a Comment