E3 – Sony Presser Mentionables

I feel like Sony has been the carrier of some of the best games during its PS1 and PS2 lifecycle.  When Xbox dropped in with Microsoft’s billions behind it, Sony was competing with an equal, so things have leveled out.  That has only made things better for the consumer, as they are constantly trying to one up eachother. 

Last year Microsoft stole Sony’s thunder by announcing Final Fantasy XIII would be coming to the Xbox 360.  That was a huge jab for Sony, because even though Sony has the superior Blu Ray technology for the discs, Square Enix was willing to totally overhaul the game to fit on a handful of DVD discs for Microsoft.  And the reason?  Sales, of course.  The Playstation 3’s install base, which has grown significantly, is still lagging behind Microsoft.  Square Enix wants to make as much money as they can with their product, so they make it available on multiple consoles to draw in more revenue.  Simple, really, yet I don’t understand why some developers still do console exclusives.  That’s neither here nor there.

This year Sony brought a few surprises out.  Most notably were the PSP Go! and their new motion controller technology.  They also delivered a shit-ton of video game montages to drive home the fact that they do have stuff worth playing on their system.  There weren’t any big game announcements other than a few exclusives on their PSP Go! and the trailer for FFXIV, the next MMO in the series.

The PSP Go! (with !, without !, who knows?) is not a PSP2.  It will be sold simultaneously with the current PSP 3000.  However, the Go has some major cosmetic differences.  Most notably is the slide screen, which makes this thing slighly larger than my iPhone when closed.  Very cool, IMO.  It slides up to reveal the controller buttons, with shoulder buttons on each side of the device behind the screen.  It also ditches the UMD slot and replaces it with a 16 GB hard drive.  This means the games will be digital download only from here on out, which is awesome to me, because I love the idea of carrying all of my games with me wherever I go.

The downside to the new Go is the price.  It’s $250.  That’s the cost of a Wii, and more than the cost of a 360 Arcade.  I’m having a hard time justifying this as a possible purchase, because I think of the portable genre as a bridge between events.  Travelling, waiting, having a shite, power’s out, on a plane, on a boat (motherfucker), etc.  These are the only times I would use a portable gaming system.  If I’m at home from work, I will be playing on the big screen, because those are my priorities.  So to spend that much on a bridge system just doesn’t make sense to me.  I’ll be watching it to see what it does, but I don’t see myself picking one up in the immediate future.

Sony’s motion controller interface looked pretty good, even though it’s only in the beginning stages of development.  It’s very accurate and looked like 1:1 motion recognition.  I don’t blame Sony for jumping on the motion controller bandwagon.  However, it looks to me like it’s a more functional and accurate version of the Wii remote.  I guess time will tell what innovations they can come up with that are more than just “waggle this” and point-and-shoot.  I think that a combination of Sony’s and Microsoft’s Natal would make for some fun gameplay.  Natal took a big leap by putting you as the controller, but you still need some buttons in there.  Even if you could make a little glove with a couple of buttons, I think that would open up the floodgates for all kinds of games — FPS, racing, fighting, you name it.

Other than the announcement of an MGS direct sequel for the PSP and a few other PSP exclusives, the only standout game announcement was that of FFXIV Online.  This will be coming in 2010, and they had a nice CG trailer to show off.  I’m done with MMO games, however, so this doesn’t really appeal to me, but I’ll go out on a limb and say Final Fantasy has the most consecutive numbered games in all of gaming history.  Sony did tout that the game was exclusive to PS3, which is probably a statement to try and take the sting off of the now multiplat FFXIII.  And then Square went and ruined this the next day by saying that they are open to all possibilities of distribution of this game.  Burn again Sony!

Sony did not announce one major leak, which was the PS3 Slim.  Snapshots of this showed up a few weeks ago and were immediately hit with the Cease & Desist letters by Taiwanese lawyers.  This may have validated their existence, but Sony didn’t bring it up at E3. 

They also didn’t speak word one about a price drop.  If the Slim is real, I want to see it side-by-side with the PS3 so I can decide which to buy.  However, Dell.com always has great discounts on PS3 bundles, so I may just pick up the fat box when I can.

E3 – Nintendo Presser Mentionables

In 2008, Nintendo completely ignored the “hardcore” gamers by announcing a bunch of crap, which then went on to sell a shitload to casual gamers (i.e. old folks).  Mini games and fitness peripherals were Nintendo’s big thing in 2008, which seemed to pigeonhole them into a specific market of low production “shovelware” and a handful of titles that made you waggle til you sweat. 

So this would be the perfect year to redeem themselves, right?  Now is the time to announce new games from their huge IPs that the hardcore gamer in us all would absolutely die for.  And they didn’t exactly hit the nail on the head, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.  The two big announcements (IMO) were Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M. 

SMG2 (or U R MR GAY) is the first direct sequel to a 3D Mario game on a single console in Nintendo’s history, so they say.  And it looks like a lot more of the same; in fact, it’s 90% of the same, with 10% of the levels being copied from the first game.  Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either.  There are a couple of new additions to this one, the first of which is Yoshi.  They showed him off a good bit in the trailer, and he uses his tongue as a sort of grapple to pull the player from platform to platform, and he can also fly with Mario when shooting yourself from the launch stars.  The other new thing is a drill you can use to maneuver through levels, and even entire mini planets for certain boss fights.  It looks identical to the first from the trailer, with new planets and puzzles to work through.  Maybe they’re going for a 10 year life cycle on the Wii?

Metroid: Other M, which is oddly named, is being developed by Team Ninja of Ninja Gaiden fame.  That tells me it should have some style as well as very bouncy boobs on Samus.  It looks to have both third person and first person aspects to it, which doesn’t seem too bad.  I enjoyed the Metroid Prime trilogy, and I think Metroid is my favorite IP from Nintendo, mostly due to the sci-fi angle.

Nintendo later released a few tiny pieces of info, most notably the absense of a Wii-specific Zelda title, but it was admitted that it’s being worked on for next year’s E3.  They also dropped some photos of a slick, black Wii that will be available in Japan this summer. 

And in the “WTF is this?!” news category, Nintendo also unveiled the Wii Vitality Sensor, which monitors things like heart rate and . . . well, heart rate I guess.  Not many details have been spilled about it, but supposedly it can be used to help stress levels while playing games, and if your heart rate goes up too much the game will change difficulty and dispatch a nurse to your couch immediately.  Supposedly Suda 51, developing No More Heroes 2, plans on tapping into the Vitality Sensor somehow in the game.  Since that game is awesome and has practically demolished the 4th wall, I can only imagine the kick ass stuff they could dream up with it.  Nontheless, the livebloggers at Kotaku were as confused as I was when the new peripheral was announced, which made me chuckle.

So Nintendo did get somewhat on track with the core audience.  I mean, Mario games are fun and all that, but his yippee yelling gets old pretty quick.  Galaxy was a good time even though I never finished it.  I’m psyched about Team Ninja helming the new Metroid game, because Ninja Gaiden was both fun and challenging.  I can’t wait to see what they have in store for Samus’s blaster. 

Some things that Nintendo got wrong, however, were the complete lack of online play in their New Super Mario Bros for Wii and the huge focus on fitness games.  New SMB Wii is a 4-player co-op game, local only.  It’s like NES days, back when I was playing Contra at my neighbor’s house — we had no idea online play would ever exist.  But to release a co-op game in 2009 with no online play?  That’s like giving me a cell phone that only works in my own house.  Makes no sense, and their excuse is even worse; they said the game uses almost all of the Wii’s processing power, which sounds like a complete crock.  Whatever.  And fitness games?  Please give it a rest.  I’m sure there’s a sliver of the gaming population that still uses Wii Fit — they use the balance board as a cutting board at the least — but I’d be willing to bet that most gamers who actually “game” aren’t wanting to sweat while doing it.  I play games to relax and be lazy and not pay attention to anything else.  It’s escape, pure and simple.  Throwing physical motion in for exercise purposes does not jive with me.  Motion controlling a game?  That’s different, if we’re talking about slicing someone up or shooting a weapon, using your hands to zoom in on a battlefield and order troops, etc.  This makes sense to me, but using a game console to lose weight is a gimmick that I hope dies soon.