E3 Press Conferences

Well, the big press conferences are done and I’m surprised to say I’m most impressed by Nintendo’s. The Sony and Microsoft ones were way too centered on their motion controls, something I can’t really get excited about.

I love the prospect of a new Zelda game, especially one that takes a more cartoony look, like Wind Waker did, which happens to be my favorite iteration. The new Kirby adventure game got me initially excited, but I don’t know if I will like the lasso instead of the inhale/copy mechanism. Donkey Kong Country will be another game I’ll probably get because Andrea really liked those games on SNES, so it’s something we’ll be able to play together for a couple days.

Kinect is something I can’t see myself using for playing games. Some of the other abilities, such as the video player and the voice recognition look neat, but there’s nothing stopping one of my young children mimicking me by yelling “Xbox off” while I’m in the middle of a game. Fable 3 didn’t show me anything to get me more excited about it. I still want to eventually buy it, but I won’t go out on release weekend to get it.

As for Sony, I do not own a PS3 so I paid the least attention to their software. None of the Move stuff made me want one, but the new Twisted Metal looks stellar. I have been considering going
out and buying a PS3, and I probably would have with the bonus I got last month if it hadn’t been for medical bills. There have been a number of games in the last couple months that I really want to play, and Twisted Metal put me over the edge. I now want to be a PS3 owner. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get one for Father’s day.

To me, the biggest disappointment was the absence of a new Pikmin game. The first two on Gamecube were huge successes and I just cannot fathom why Nintendo wouldn’t want to churn out another. At least we’re getting a new Professor Layton, that’s something I can rally behind.

E3 2010 Predictions

Things I think will be unveiled at E3 this year:

- Outside of God of War: Ghosts of Sparta, nothing else will be featured for the PSP.
- PSP 2 will NOT be unveiled.
- The Black Xbox 360 slim will feature WiFi, four USB ports, no internal hard drive and most importantly: no more red rings of death. It will also come with one 16 MB USB drive that fits into the back and will be mostly hidden.
- Nothing that hardcore gamers will want to play for PlayStation Move or Project Natal. This includes the new SOCOM and Fable 3. Both of them will feature Move and Natal support, but no hardcore gamers will want to play them that way.
- Project Natal will be renamed something that sounds stupider then "project natal". It definitely will not be renamed just "Natal"
- Nintendo will continue ignore online games.

Games Announced:
- A remake of Maniac Mansion, for Steam, Wii Shop, PlayStation Store and/or Xbox Live Arcade.
- HAWX 2
- Professor Layton 3
- Pikmin 3
- Bungie's new IP with Activision.
- Mario Party 9
- GTA 5