E3, or the Electronics Entertainment
Expo — not to be confused with EEE, or the sound everybody made
when Nintendo announced a new Duck Hunt — is
known to the common consumer as the point at which your children
decide what line at the shopping center they want their favorite
mythical character to stand in for the holiday season. Growing
up a casual-but-not-too-casual gamer, E3 was something I'd only
read about in magazines, & by the
time I got the internet I had already reverted back to "Hey do
you remember Mario 1?" So this year marked the first time I
paid a decent amount of attention to the expo while it was actually
going on, & what better time for Bill to pass the P-boi recapping
torch onto me than at the dawn of a new generation of consoles?
You know, the dawn that was supposed to happen at last
year's E3? Clearly the gaming
industry forgot to set their clocks back. That wasn't a joke
about this stuff taking a year to finally be unveiled. That's
a joke about how all three of the major companies' press
conferences started more than several minutes late. There's nothing
quite like the exhilirating feeling of sitting in front of my
computer screen, staring at TV color bars with generic techno
music playing in the background for FIFTY-THREE MINUTES while
I make sure with my friends via IM that it really is running
late & my internet connection didn't crap out.
Fifty-three minutes. That's how long Sony took to
get their conference started, & in retrospect, I think I have
an idea as to why...
The Sony Conference
KAZ HIRAI (President/CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment
America): Ken! Where have you been?! We're already running
half an hour late!
KEN KUTURAGI (President/CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment): I
was over gettin' the stuff, man! Let me tell you: it wasn't easy.
That weird lookin' guy with the French name has an evil stare
that could kill a man.
KAZ: Alright. You have plenty of time to slip it into the controller.
I can stall if I
KEN KUTURAGI (President/CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment): Oh
crap!
KAZ: What?
KEN: The controller! I left it back in my room!
KAZ: Well hurry up & go get it! The hotel's not far from here.
We're already late. We can make 'em wait a few more minutes if
you
KEN: No, that's not what I meant. I left
it back in my room.
In Tokyo.
KAZ: ....
I am going to kill you. In real time.
KEN: I have an idea. How long did you say you could stall them?
KAZ: Oh, 20 minutes, maybe?
KEN: Come on, Kaz. This is the Sony conference. Give yourself
a little more credit than that!
KAZ: Ok, ok. An hour.
KEN: That should be enough, I hope. Just keep talking about
numbers, oh, & stretch all the game demos to like five minutes
long each, & don't talk or explain anything while you're playing
them. The people just want to see the pretty graphics, anyway.
KAZ: Ok, gotcha. Do you need anything?
KEN: Um... I'll need a screwdriver, & maybe a spray can of
silver paint.
KAZ: You're not thinking
KEN: We don't have a lot of other options right now, Kaz! Get
out there & I don't know, fire up Powerpoint or something...
 
KAZ: Hiya, folks! Boy, does this Playstation 3 have bling to
it or what? But before I start getting into the details about
that, I'd like to take the next ten minutes of this already late
as a mother press briefing to remind you all how awesome the
PS2 has been selling!
Also, our PSP is a... uh... an unrivaled portable entertainment device!
As long as you don't rivals with more than one screen! This year,
we had the BRILLIANT and ORIGINAL idea to start marketing the
PSP to people who don't really play a lot of video games, but
can still benefit from its power as a multimedia device, by adding
such programs as NOT MAPQUEST! And a thing that'll turn your
PSP into that tape recorder thing from Home Alone
2! Trick your big sister & her boyfriend into thinking your parents
are home early!
 
And... uh... ok! Now, here's a pointless video about
how people all over the globe feel about Playstation & the upcoming
PS3! People just like you, who were picked randomly off the street,
all of whom just happen to be of the 18-34 age demographic by
coincidence! We swears it.
"Oh, man! Playstation? I remember that! The discs were
all blue & stuff!"
"What I love about the Playstation is the feel of the
controller in my hands... I get all Urrrrrr Pew pew pew pwooochhchchhch!
Man, you know what'd be awesome? If someone made a controller that'd
take advantage of that."
"When I play games, I become a monkey!"
SONY'S ADVANTAGE OVER THE
COMPETITION: Playstation 3 will turn you into a monkey.
KAZ: (Pssst, are you ready yet?)
KEN: (No! Have those Gran Turismo
guys come out & play every single track on their game
for like ten minutes.
Make sure they play the one track with
the annoying car horn
every three seconds. That'll make it as drawn
out & repetative as NASCAR is in real life! It'll feel like they're
actually there!
Oh, & make sure
everybody adds the words "high"
and "definition" in like every sentence.)
KAZ: Ok, everyone. I'd now like to demonstrate PSP's brand
new emulation feature that'll let you buy & download PSone games
right onto your portable console... and I bet you can't guess
what game I'm about to fire up!
Go on, guess!
Ok, fine. It's Ridge Racer!
RIIIIIIIIIIIDGE RACERRRRRRRR!
(Are you ready now?)
KEN: No! Uh... show them the Tiger Woods game!
KAZ: The PGA Tour '07 one?
KEN: No, the one where you make him just stand
there & say stuff.
KAZ: As you can see by this demo of Tiger Woods Stand There
N' Say Stuff 2K7, the PS3's hardware is so powerful, that we've
rendered every blemish & flaw on Tiger's face. It's like you're
actually Tiger Woods looking in a mirror in a public restroom
with fluorescent lights! This title is also significant in that
it's the only PS3 title that doesn't involve you being
in either a war or a car.
And here's Metal Gear Solid
4!
The console wars have changed.
KAZ: Complete with our brand new shaky camera technology!
It's not about nations, or ideologies.
It's not even about graphics, resources, or screen resolution.
It's about taking the gaming experience to new places.
It's about change.
KEN: What? What's everybody laughing
at?
We must not pass our sins on to the next generation of consoles.
 
PHIL HARRISON (Executive Vice President, Sony Computer Entertainment
Europe): Wow,
Ken! So when I move the PS3 controller with my hands, my player
on the screen moves with it as well? Amazing!
KEN: Yep! Thought of it all by myself
one night when I slipped & hit my head on the toilet.
The console wars have changed.
And yet, in some ways ... in too many ways, they remain the
same.
Hold up. Does that say 600 dollars? Oh, screw that.
The Nintendo Conference
Nintendo got off to great start by using the opening
credits from Look Who's Talking Too as a backdrop.
It was then revealed that Shigeru
Miyamoto is really bad at keeping time.
 
This was followed by Miyamoto turning around & doing
that bouncy move you see babies do & call it dancing, while two
Nintendo interns dressed in all black play games using the new
controller. It reminds me almost immediately of the very first
NES commercial from 1986, & Nintendo's approach to gaming this time
around is very similar, as evident by
Whoa, look out, J.R., here comes Reggie!
And he does not look happy, King!
REGGIE FILS-AIME (Sales/Marketing Vice President,
Nintendo of America): You came to L.A. this week to peak into the future, but if all
you want is 'next generation,' you're in the wrong place.
Do you know anyone who's never watched TV? Never seen a movie? Never
read a book? Of course not. Do you know someone, maybe even in
your own family, who's never played a video game? I bet you do.
How can this be?
This is Bob. Bob is the proud new owner of a Nintendo Wii!
Bob's new Wii has given him a BIG boost of confidence, & a very happy
missis at home. What's Wii's secret?
That's right, ladies. Your wish
has been heard, and your wish has been granted.
REGGIE: First, we want to thank everyone who wrote good things about
it the day you heard it...
Both of you.
Ok, apparently it's not just Miyamoto who can't
keep time. It's the entire Japanese
population.
So hey, remember when Super Mario Land came out for
the Game Boy, & then Super Mario World came out for the Super
NES? Did you have that one friend who used to feed you nonsense
about how a not so distant relative of his is on the inside at
Nintendo, & they're coming out with a BRAND NEW, TOTALLY AWESOME
system & launching it with Super Mario Galaxy, because it was the next
logical step up for Mario geographically? Then it came out &
it was just called Super Mario 64, & you weren't really friends
with him anymore at that point, but it just showed you in retrospect
how much of a compulsive liar he was?
Guess what. Turns out he was telling the truth the whole time.
Several other demos were shown, switching back & forth
between, for example, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, & then to
a guy jumping out from behind the sofa as he shoots the Wii remote
at the screen. I want to see some dork actually play the
game like that. Also notable was swinging the remote like a baseball
bat during a session of Wii Sports, & a girl shaking her arms
back & forth like she's running in place for a Track & Field
minigame in Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. That one reminded me of
running on the Power Pad in World Class Track Meet, so it's only
a matter of time before someone tries to cheat in Wario Ware
by attaching the remote to an egg beater.
One of the most talked about Wii games was Red Steel,
a third party title from Ubisoft, whose developers from Paris
demonstrated how they're taking full advantage of the Wii's
controller
 
Destinys2ndKid: the contro LAWWW
mike fireball 0: Weah weawwy vewy excited to be 'eeah
today
mike fireball 0: I think this is the guy who came up
with the name of the console.
mike fireball 0: Because it's also the sound of every
word he's said so far.
mike fireball 0: What's this guy's beef with
television? He keeps shooting them.
The Red Steel demonstration — which many on
the playing floor described as still needing a LOT of tweaking
in play control... let's hope this doesn't become a trend with
Wii's new technology — was followed by another recap of Nintendo's
goals with the Wii & the DS by the company's president, Satoru
Iwata.
Destinys2ndKid: "Satoru Iwata" is what an irate customer says when a
waitress brings him the wrong drink.
Iwata brought up two new standard features of the Wii that weren't
mentioned before.
- Wii Connect 24, which will keep your console running on low power
while you have it turned "off," thus allowing online users
to access your shared information & Animal Crossing villages,
& allowing a greater possibility of the Wii becoming self-aware
& killing you in your sleep.
- The addition of the Opera web browser. Oh boy, Opera. Boy, do I
love other people's web pages looking messed up because of
Mozilla's not-right-in-the-head cousin.
Nintendo's conference was wrapped up with a game of
doubles tennis on Wii Sports, pitting Iwata & Fils-Aime against Miyamoto
& the about-to-be-announced winner of a contest for the first "real
gamer" to get their hands on the Wii.
Destinys2ndKid: oh man, they had to have Revenge of the Nerds in attendance
as the "gamers" didn't they
Destinys2ndKid: the winner is
mike fireball 0 signed off.
mike fireball 0 signed on.
Destinys2ndKid: FATTY MC NO GIRL
mike fireball 0: He's so fat he knocked
me off the internet when he got up.
Destinys2ndKid: do a push up kid come on
mike fireball 0: Hey he's pretty good in the
game, what with being BLUE AND SKINNY
mike fireball 0: See kid you can move like
that too if you stopped eating butter & started composing theme songs for Intel chips
Going by the waiting
lines alone, Nintendo & the Wii clearly took the E3 victory, &
many would go as far as to say they won the press conference
stand-off as well, thanks to being the shortest & least delayed
of the three, & also thanks to featuring the most giddy laughter
by execs during gameplay.
The Microsoft Conference
In comparison with Nintendo's, the other two conferences featured
players giving little to no information as they played. Microsoft's,
in particular, started off with Epic Games Lead Designer Cliff Bleszinski
playing his new game, Gears Of War, for about five minutes in total
silence. And also hating
you.
 
Gears Of War is a revolutionary title in that it was
programmed using nothing but shades of the color gray. Except
for the blood. That looked like someone threw a cherry Gusher
at the monitor.
Microsoft's conference was led primarily by its
vice president for Interactive Entertainment Business, Peter
Moore, who appears to be the secret love child of Right Said
Fred & the
cover model for the children's novel, "My Teacher Is An Alien." It
wasn't even in the L.A. Convention Center like the other two
or the expo, itself, because Xbox 360 has been out for a year
& they don't roll with freshmen. Oh, you guys wanted a live internet
feed? Pfft, get lost, n00bs. We're talking about grown-up
business, here.
 
Grown up business like realizing Pac Man & Contra
the video games, available soon on Xbox Live Arcade! Boy, am
I looking forward to having my favorite arcade games from the
1980s take up less than a third of my TV screen! This looks
like Bizarro Super Game Boy.
One of Xbox Live Arcade's upcoming key features is
the allowing of independent game developeres to publish their
games online for Xbox users to download and... wait a minute.
Does that say UNO? That says UNO. Since when is Mattel's version
of Not Crazy Eights the card game an independent video game company?
Other new & exciting features of Xbox Live that were
announced include Luminous Live, which appears to just be Sideways
Tetris with Madonna hiding in the background. Is this supposed to be
Tetris for gay stereotypes? Is Mike O'Malley going to ask me what video
is playing in the background as I clear lines? Your puzzle games frighten
& confuse me, Microsoft. Show me something else.
 
Xbox Live Vision: an attempt to attract two new key audiences to the
world of online gaming: cam whores & pedophiles.
The Xbox HD-DVD Player: great for those lonely nights when your giant,
tacky power supply brick could use a little company.
And, of course, Peter Moore being too sexy for his shirt.
What does
he have up his sleeve?
Why, it's the tackiest (and probably not real) tattoo
I've ever seen, of course! Though the announcement of GTA IV being available
first on the Xbox 360 is another blow to Sony that makes their
ridiculously huge price tag look even worse.
 
Mr. Microsoft-with-a-dollar-sign-for-the-S-lol, himself, Bill Gates
eventually shows up to what we're told is his first E3 ever.
He's holding something in his hand. He doesn't explain
it or talk about it. It's just there, & I can't get a clear glimpse
of what it is. It looks to me like it could be a number of
things, including a tuning harmonica & a pack of candy cigarettes.
It might even be tiny cue cards, which would explain the
nervousness, sort of.
The primary function of Gates's apprearance was to
help introduce Microsoft's Live Anywhere, which will interconnect
the worlds of Xbox Live, the upcoming Windows Vista, & the Windows
Mobile system on which a large number of cell phones runs. Here's
how it works...
 
Let's invite Major Nelson to a game of Crysis. We're
running on an Xbox 360; the major is working on his computer.
The screen then cuts to Major Nelson's DESKTOP. Whew, & he appears
to have closed the browser window full of porno just in time!
Great. Live Anywhere will let you stalk your
friends & see what they're doing & how they're connected to
the internet. Finally, a friend tracker that really works! Guess you
guys can stop posting those bulletins on MySpace now.
Over on the left of the desktop,
the invite that was just sent from the Xbox appears. The cell
phones will come into play by allowing users to send & receive
power-ups, skins, & other such information for their games from
their phone. But the hottest thing about this whole demonstration?
Hey how do you guys like my new desktop wallpaper?
It's a close-up of grass! Eh? Eh?
The conference ends with Gates suggesting in his geeky
Kermit voice to Moore that "Actually, uh, I think there's uhhh one more
thing I think they'd like to see, heh heh, nudge nudge." Oh, gee, what
in the world could that possibly be?
hey guys hats going on in this conference
Which reminds me that there were actually games shown
in the middle of the ridiculous carnival that was E3. Here's
P-boi's own Bill with his thoughts on a few that caught his eye
that he probably wish didn't...
Blue Dragon (Xbox 360)
I wasn't really excited to see Blue Dragon, but I
was interested. It's the first title to come out of former Final
Fantasy director Hironobu Sakaguchi's new Mistwalker studio,
and one of the only Japanese RPGs for the 360 on the horizon.
A trailer for the game was shown during the "look we're trying in Japan
honest" segment of Microsoft's conference, and.. ugh.
First off, I don't know of anyone who isn't 12 years
old who actually likes Akira Toriyama's artwork. It can be passable,
as even looking directly at his production art for Chrono Trigger is
at least inoffensive. What I've seen of Dragon Quest 8 falls into that
same category. But this is full-on Goku Jr. shit, and I don't know if
I can take that for 50 hours. What made a bad trailer worse was that
it's trying to so hard to be serious and dramatic when
it is, in fact, a squatty, SD, Goemon-looking motherfucker flying
the Yellow Submarine towards an army of evil Gatos.
Tired of being your silver points
clown
Now motherfucker, I'ma take you down
DA da da DA
Dada DA da dadada DA
And it's sandwiched between the likes of Splinter
Cell and Man In Dark Hallways Shoots At Things 9,
making its pretend version of seriousness look even
more ridiculous. Just to cap it all off, the trailer
ends with a logo featuring a dragon giving a fucking
thumbs up, possibly while indicating that eating a healthy
breakfast is "bodacious."
I guess there's always Lost Odyssey.
* * * *
Heavy Rain (Multiplatform)
Most previewers are stepping rather lightly around
this title for some reason, which was shown in a slightly interactive
(i.e. watch it play but you can change the colors around at will to
prove it's real time) demo at E3. IGN called it "impressive", the word
Gamespot used, I believe, was "beguiling." Perhaps they're all willing
to give the game the benefit of the doubt until they see more (and actually
hear it, as apparently no one could over the din of the show
floor). But until then, I've got a different word: Hideous.
Now that's
a funny word to use, especially when you see what the game actually
looks like:
It might lead one to inquire what I, Willis, was specifically
speaking 'bout. But let me give you a different screenshot.
HAY GUYS
Yes, without question
some of the technical aspects of this trailer are amazing. The
background is well rendered, and the girl herself is very...
well, let's say she's very solid. She has more facial muscles
than most game models. I can't even go as far as to say she looks good,
because the first time I saw a picture from this trailer, it looked
like someone trying to execute
a mannequin at JC Penny's. Or, alternately, trouble with the Fuccon
family. Saying this trailer looks good is like saying a movie
looks good because it was filmed on high quality stock. The quality
of the actual content fluctuates pretty widely, with little of
it approaching great. Her upper lip is entirely paralyzed, her
lip sync is completely fucked, she makes broad, uncoordinated
movements like a Disney Audio-Animatronic, her eyes don't move
or focus on anything, and in general she acts like a retard. And I really
mean that, she moves like mentally handicapped people do. She's also
voiced by a French girl trying too hard to fake an American accent,
but we won't hold that against them.
If you don't believe me, watch
the trailer yourself. I'm not trying to be a shit about this
— I hope they improve it and make something really great out
of it. It has the potential. Just stop worrying about rendering
people's individual skin flakes and start working on more nuanced
animation, please.
* * * *
Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
BILL: Seeing as how we're still waiting to
see number 12, God only know how this and its 1500
cousins will turn out. This marks the first female main character
in the main series if you don't count Terra (FFVI didn't really have
any one lead), as well as a return to a more futuristic setting. The
trailer doesn't have much to go on regarding the story, but if you scrutinize
the battle sequence:
I'm not exactly sure what a Blizzrad is, but
I think you get it after beating Chill Penguin.
And finally, here are a few of my own... but first,
if you'll excuse me, I have to geek out for a bit.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
(Wii / Gamecube)
 
Ok, first thing's first. After seeing that fairy fly
around the screen as a cursor for a good two seconds, I hate
it. And I was never a big Navi hater, but let's just say I liked
Tatl a lot better in Majora's Mask. This, however, looks like
it might be truly annoying.
The big news is that this Zelda game will (a) be available
for both Wii & the Gamecube, & (b) be a launch title. Which means
they'd better let me specify that I want the preorder I've had
for like a year now thanks to a dozen delays needs to be the
Wii version, because JUST LOOK AT THIS GUY. If I have my choice
of Zeldas, of course I'm going to pick the one where I can aim
the controller like a bow & shoot things inside my television.
In conslusion, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Three.
* * * *
 
Ooh! Is this Ferngully: the Game? Finally!
Fable 2 (Xbox 360)
Oh.
Hey, alright! A game made up entirely of playing that
fortune-telling paper thing the girls used to make in second
grade! One, two, three, four, five... ok... B, L, U, E... haha,
you're a neeeerd!
* * * *
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
 
My favorite's the part where Mario's jeans
look hyper-realistic, & he's even got wrinkles in his shirt,
but his facial hair still looks like big hunks of rubber
from Mr. Potato Head's Bucket O' Parts. I know there's a point
in which you need to keep him looking cartoonish, but it's his
hair, yo.
The biggest news about this game is its inclusion
of new characters such as Wario, Pit from Kid Icarus, & even Solid
Snake... and judging from that screen shot, either Link has been
4 feet tall this whole time, or the part of Snake is being played
by Giant Gonzales.
* * * *
Untitled Naughty Dog Project (PS3)
Hey, alright. Just what I always wanted... Lester
the Slightly More Likely.
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