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

Biasism in Gaming: Is It Ruining an Otherwise Perfect Industry?

We'll always have fanboys for each console or each of the big 3. Xbots for the Xbox as well as fanboys for the Playstation and Nintendo.

Well, if you had have asked me about 3 years ago, I'd have been a total fanboy of the Playstation 2 but then again, who wasn't considering that Playstation 2 was, and actually is, the most successful console of all time (100,000,000 sales says it all really)

But I guess if you are a gamer for so long, you start to mature a bit as a gamer. On average now, people have up to 2 of the 3 current gen consoles with only a few (myself included) having all 3 with most people going for a 360 and Wii combo while others go for the PS3 and 360 combo.

Since the time of me looking forward in excitement at that time when I was a PS2 fanboy to the PSP which was due 4 months after the announcement and unveil of Playstation 3, the now defunct PSX entertainment system (If you know what that is click here) which if you thought was the PS3 at first, you'd be forgiving as it could have well been and of course, the Playstation 3 itself.

But since them 3 years, I have to admit I have mostly grown up as a gamer in all honesty...well, when I say mostly, I was still in love with getting the PS3 but had my 360 and Gears of War to do me then and I also thought the Wii was a novelty.

But while I experienced so much joy and great gaming with my PS2 (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater without a doubt the best game I've ever played on my PS2, what happened to The Boss brought a tear to my eye literally after what happened), I've run into even more joy and fantastic gaming, even more so at last by finally getting online last year (Sadly, no online right now but it should be back soon pending on 3rd party stuff ¬_¬) helped even further by experiencing fantastic games on the PS3 and 360 over the past year such as Gears of War's Multiplayer (Can not wait to play Gridlock in 2), Halo 3 (The story was just brillant, much better then Halo 2's. Level 7 is probably the most epic level in gaming and the multiplayer is the best in gaming right now) as well as The Orange Box (One hell of a great deal with Half Life 2: Episode Two being the finest episodic gaming I've ever played, Portal being the most innovitive game I've ever played and Team Fortress 2 being the most funny multiplayer I've ever played in my life) and of course...Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

As well as all that, the Playstation 3's free online service on the Playstation Network has sent me some great fun with Warhawk, Singstar, Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man as well as a great story mode in the PS3's best game yet (Which is a exclusive so GTA IV doesn't count), Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.

And despite the fact that I only got my Wii a few months ago, I am enjoying Super Mario Galaxy and when it eventually comes out, Super Smash Brothers Brawl should be amazing.

What it basiclly means (Hang tight, we'll get to the subject at hand) is that as long as your true to your beliefs, there shouldnt be biasism, not in this business anyways. Sadly, GameTrailers has seen fit to have money over values and beliefs.

Now, in all honesty, I'll try and keep the reviews as honest as I can be and all the reviews posted on the site so far have been to my true feelings of the game (But I do think now, having looked back on it, Motorstorm didnt deserve a 9.6. Deserves a 9...but not 9.6) and any other reviews that will be posted on the site by someone other then myself will be kept to their true thoughts of the game.

But what GameTrailers has done with it biasism for money from Microsoft has seen the sites moral values go out the windows and is quickly turning into something similar to the Gamespot controversy which if you remember saw Jeff Gerstmann fired from Gamespot over his review of Eidos' Kane & Lynch: Dead Men despite the massive advertisement boardings on the site.

Quite frankly, if Microsoft has been paying GameTrailers (and Eurogamer seems suspiciously bias towards the Xbox 360 as well, as probably evidenced by their GTA IV comparison on their site despite the fact several other sites labeled the PS3 verison the best, even we couldn't tell the difference on both), it may seem that they care about money more then the consumers compared to Sony and Nintendo.

Peter Moore, now at EA Sports, only issued a statement last year while he was at Microsoft just before the E3 conference for Microsoft extended the 3 year warranty on RROD effected Xbox 360's. At this time, it could have been thought at that time, despite his brash insults on PS3 and Wii, he was setting the rules at Redmond and doing it well.

2 weeks later, he was gone to EA.

And since then, while the quailty of games for the Xbox 360 hasnt dipped since then (Halo 3, Mass Effect, Project Gotham Racing 4 to name a few), the quailty of Microsoft has dipped with an announcement coming on Tuesday at Playstation Day that the Playstation 3 has overtaken the Xbox 360 in sales in Europe.

And they now know that sales of the PS3 are on the up while sales of the 360 are going down or steady with a possibillty that despite a year headstart on the Wii and PS3, the 360 COULD potentually end up 3rd in the console war.

And this is why there could be such cases of Microsoft paying sites to give 360 games the upperhand in Multiplatform games such as Assassins Creed, Grand Theft Auto IV and paying sites to give the Xbox 360 verison a better score then the PS3 verison (Could they have had a hand in the controversial review of Assassins Creed by IGN last year?)

TBH, we dont know what happens behind closed doors. I just hope that very soon all this of publishers, developers and even the big 3 paying off sites for great reviews of the game and would instead go back to the moral instinct of the gamer and of how he truly feels about the game...but in all honesty, it wont happen...not for now anyways.