E3 2010 conferences – Freaking weak sauce
I hope there’s a lot more being announced outside of the press conferences, because the press conferences were overall not very good. Microsoft was a disaster, Sony was snooze-worthy, and Nintendo had a lot of rehashes of old stuff.
Microsoft
Terrible conference. I’m already not a fan of Xbox franchises (Halo, Gears of War), but then they made a huge deal out of Kinect. Kinect took up most of the conference even though it already had its own press event the night before!
Good
- ESPN for Xbox Live, free – I don’t even like sports, but I can see how their target audience has a lot of overlap with video games. I also wouldn’t mind checking out some poker tournaments. I’m a little surprised there’s no subscription fees with this.
- Call of Duty Black Ops – It still looked pretty good, despite not being an Infinity Ward game.
- Metal Gear Solid Rising – I’m not even sure if I should include this since I’ll probably get this for PS3. Looks incredibly violent, but also incredibly awesome. I <3 Raiden even if he looks like a cyborg girl.
(bleh, not sure how to make these stupid GameTrailers.com videos smaller.)
Bad
- Anything Kinect related AKA 70% of the conference – God. GOD. Kinect Sports? I already have this game for the Wii!
Okay, to be honest, I actually kind of liked the Your Shape: Fitness Evolved demo. I like the idea of making fitness more fun with video games, and the Kinect technology actually looked interesting in this game. Everything else was pretty much a disaster. All the fake enthusiasm was making me cringe. I feel bad for the folks forced to demo these Kinect products.
I’m sure these games are a lot more enjoyable in your living room than on an arena stage.
Nintendo
They’re really going for the nostalgia, these guys. I personally feel they had the best showing, in terms of new game content. But everything they introduced is based off an already existing IP. Even the only new game, Epic Mickey, has strong nostalgia tied to it due to everyone’s familiarity with Disney. I was hoping for more original stuff, but I’ll settle for fun-looking, if derived, games.
Good
- Epic Mickey – Looks great and love the art style. Warren Spector is in charge, and it’s got Mickey.
- Nintendo 3DS – Originally wasn’t sold on this, but after seeing the list of 3rd party support, I’ve changed my mind. A new Layton and MGS? Yep, sold.
Bad
- GoldenEye – I never played the original, though I understand its importance. But DAMN, that game really shows the limitation of the Wii’s graphics capability. Yuck!
- Kirby Yarn – I actually think the game is cute, and the gameplay looks fun (and reminiscent of Paper Mario). But couldn’t they tie a new character to this? I like Kirby and all, but what does he have to do with yarn or fabric? They lost an opportunity to create a new Nintendo original and instead milked an old character in the process.
- No mention of Pikmin 3 – WHY?
I thought Metroid: Other M still looked pretty good, but it’s coming out in a couple months and isn’t new information. I didn’t really grow up with Nintendo, so all the new games of familiar Nintendo IPs (Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kid Icarus) don’t excite me as much as they would others. Still, everything looked fun, jaggies or no.
Sony
Aside from Kevin Butler’s speech, not very impressive. I like the Move demos, and like the 3DS, I’m more sold on it now than before. I’m just not sure if it’s something I’d drop money for. Everything else wasn’t worth sitting around for.
Good
- Kevin Butler – Sony marketing is genius. To come up with a fake executive solely for the purpose of advertising their products… just genius. We’ve seen what crappy drones real executives are when they speak during these press conferences. Kevin Butler’s speech was awesome and full of truth. I just hope people heard the message (basically: gaming is for everyone).
- Move/Sorcery – Of all the gimmicky stuff, I liked the Sorcery demo. Especially when the ball changed colors. Oooh, colors.
Bad
- Lack of Last Guardian – WTF? This was the only thing I wanted to have mentioned in this entire show. I would have also settled for an HD remake of Shadow of the Colossus.
- Marcus Rivers – Sony scored with Kevin Butler. Now they’re bringing in some annoying snot-nosed kid to promote PSP? Um, why would a disrespectful child who thinks he knows everything make me want to play anything? He’s probably not even old enough to play half the games I’d want to play… according to the ESRB anyway.
Sony has the best presentation skills out of the three, but nothing they showed was a must-buy to me. (Well, except Gran Turismo 5 because Kelvin wants to drive his RSX in a video game.)
Let’s hope for some more interesting announcements in the next couple days.
New thing I learned today: Kevin Butler is played by actor Jerry Lambert, who was in the short-lived ABC sitcom Sons and Daughters.
In his speech, he says gaming is “girls who know that way to a man’s heart is through a melee attack”. Amen.
Related posts:
Be sure to watch the Konami conference when that gets uploaded to GameTrailers, etc. The Konami show was so funny I was practically crying. Best conference of the show!
1Dance Central: The game that lets you dance like Elaine Benes.
2I realize DDR’s not the most masculine game in the world… but it looks like freakin’ Gears of War compared to that. Yikes.
3