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Games, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox

E3 2010 Conference Review

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It’s E3 again! That means broken promises, broken hearts, betrayal, disappointment, and that’s just when there’s a World Cup match on. For reference, check out my report cards for 2007, 2008 and 2009.

So without further ado, in chronological order…

Microsoft

To be honest, I got exactly what I expected from Microsoft. We all knew that there was going to be a huge focus on Natal Kinect and that was borne out. It’s undeniably technically impressive, but the lineup doesn’t interest me in the slightest so far. My antipathy towards the Wii is no real secret, and so it’s going to take something special, likely from an established developer known for great ‘normal’ games, but for the time being I’m happy to be an observer. I can see people who are in the intended audience being really impressed by it.

If we’re talking stuff outside hardcore games, ESPN was the most impressive thing. It’s almost certainly not coming here, but it’s potentially the definitive way to watch sports, and it’s included in an existing Xbox Live subscription. I’m a football fan, and having a library of classic matches as well as HD streaming live stuff with all those community features would be fantastic. Imagine getting a similar thing with the BBC iPlayer, for example.

As for the real games, there weren’t really any surprises for the most part, but what I saw impressed me. Gears 3 looked like Gears 3, and Halo: Reach really looked like a proper next-gen Halo game. Crytek is apparently making a God of War game as well, and MGS: Rising looked decent, albeit like it’s reviving something that should now be finished with. That interests me still, as even if it’s part of a genre that I don’t often get on with, those cutting mechanics look incredibly cool. Could be some real potential there.

Echoes of Sega’s E3 1995 Saturn announcement with the unveiling of the new machine, which perhaps isn’t the kind of memories to be dredging up, but you can’t deny the effectiveness of showing off the reduced size of your redesign by having it on stage inside the old one the whole time. It’s been much-needed on the technical side for a while, and I’ll certainly be tempted to upgrade at the next price drop. I’m liking the look of it, actually.

But the overall impression was underwhelming. Halo: Reach was the only game that really got me excited, and that’s… well, Halo. A Halo game that was announced over a year ago and that most of us have already played, in fact. I’m writing this section on Monday night before either of the other two conferences so I could be proven completely wrong here, but I expect Nintendo and Sony to blow away the paltry number of new announcements to appeal to gamers, and they’ll almost certainly be exclusives, which Call of Duty and Metal Gear Solid aren’t. There was a lot of flash there for really not that many new games for 2010 and 2011.

So a fairly unimpressive line-up of new games with some intriguing but unproven technology means that this conference scores a…

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Best of 2009, Games, GOTY, Nintendo, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

2009’s Honourable Mentions

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For every one that made it, many more didn’t, but some came closer than others…

  • F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin – I deliberated whether this or Killzone was more deserving of the final spot for a while, but it was Killzone’s technical advances as well as its fantastic multiplayer that swayed it. Even so, F.E.A.R. 2 impressed me back at the beginning of the year with its intense action and clever storytelling – not so much on the story itself, mind – and it actually had a less intrusive version of that game’s weighty-feeling gameplay, so it deserves at least a little recognition.
  • Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City – This was in there right until the end, and it was only the facts that (a) I don’t actually own a copy of this exact game – I downloaded both individual episodes – and (b) I decided that a full game was more worthy than a glorified expansion pack that swayed it. Nonetheless, this is as good as GTA IV – maybe better in the case of the phenomenal Lost and Damned – and gives us more of an adventure in Rockstar’s still-stunning Liberty City. It’s still unparalleled as a gaming environment and it’s going to take something special to top it for me.
  • Left 4 Dead 2 – I have no doubt that L4D2 justifies its status as a sequel rather than DLC; I just didn’t get enough chance to play it. Its proximity to Modern Warfare 2 and the perception that a worthy sequel couldn’t be produced in such a short period of time meant that very few of my usual gaming crowd bought it, and Left 4 Dead is something that you can’t completely enjoy with random people on Live. I think that Valve has the game where it wants it, though, and should it follow the game’s release with a steady stream of good content in 2010, I’ll be sure to give it the credit it deserves.
  • inFamous – This game suffered by not being Crackdown, which remains one of my favourites of this generation so far. Although it was technically far more impressive, this didn’t have the same sense of fun and took itself far too seriously for the ultimately silly subject matter. I enjoyed it – don’t get me wrong – but bolting more stuff onto an existing simple and perfectly good framework isn’t always a recipe for success. inFamous is still great, though, and I hope that Sucker Punch can build on this foundation, whether it’s in inFamous 2 or a returning Sly Racoon.
  • Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story – Believe it or not, this was actually the first Mario & Luigi game that I’ve been there at the beginning for, which is strange considering how much I’ve loved the previous ones. It kept me going for a good ten hours solid when I was in transit from the States and it’s everything you can expect from the series: the brilliant, self-aware humour and writing; some of the best animation around; and a way of gently ribbing those well-loved characters without taking away from them. It’s still very much new Nintendo, from the same box of games that would have never happened in the NES and SNES era as Smash Bros, and it’s even more insane than its precursors. Imagine all the gags that can come from being inside Bowser – the title is only the beginning, believe me – and they’ll pretty much all be there. Except that, you dirty bugger.
  • Trials HD – I deliberated for a long time whether this or Shadow Complex deserved a spot more, and the fact that Trials HD was left out shouldn’t take away from it. I knew it was going to be good when I first stumbled across it on PartnerNet and found that anyone who saw it was instantly enthralled, and so it proved because I still see people playing it today and the developer seems blown away by the reception and the boost in profile that its once-niche PC title has received. Proof that retro gameplay – and the insane difficulty that goes with it – isn’t dead. It just got pretty.

As happens every year, there were plenty of big hitters that I just didn’t get to play – Assassin’s Creed II and Dragon Age: Origins to name two – and that’s unfortunate, because I think that at least some of them would have had a good chance. Maybe if some of them had been delayed until early 2010… Oh…

Games, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox

E3 2009 Conference Review

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Hard to believe that it’s been the best part of a year since Final Fantasy XIII went multiplatform and Nintendo stunned the world by reaching new levels of mediocrity, but E3 has been restored to its former glory and with it came three conferences from the console manufacturers infused with announcements and yes, bitter tears. Same format as 2007 and 2008, in chronological order:

The first was Microsoft, which started us off with a strong showing. We knew some of what was going to be there, but there were no complete leaks like last year’s NXE unveiling, and most of what we knew was in name only. It’s fairly normal at this point to go into E3 without much knowledge of what we’ll be playing on our 360s at the end of the year, and we can now see a strong line-up taking shape: Halo 3: ODST, Left 4 Dead 2, Crackdown 2, Forza 3, and the re-emergence of a fantastic-looking Splinter Cell: Conviction, which has got me all hot and bothered for the series again. Modern Warfare 2’s footage wasn’t as mind-blowing as COD4’s from two years ago, but my preorder’s in.

The headlines will undoubtedly be grabbed by two unveilings, though. The first is Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which is a huge PR coup for Microsoft but isn’t a mainline Metal Gear and so isn’t quite the shock of last year’s FFXIII reveal; still, I like MGS4’s Raiden, so colour me interested. Secondly, we’ve got Project Natal, which I don’t expect to work nearly as well as the video suggested, but if it does it’s certainly an incredible technical achievement. Expect much talk about that over the coming months.

Plus Microsoft got the fucking Beatles to show up. God knows how much that cost…

Criticisms? As a closet fan of the Halo novels I’d like to have seen more than a teaser of Halo: Reach, but I understand that ODST is the one that they want you to care about for now. But mainly, where was Rare? The token Killer Instinct and Blast Corps rumours of course didn’t come true, but no new Perfect Dark? Not even another Viva Piñata? Hello?

But that aside, Microsoft did what it had to do with aplomb. The 360 has a great selection of games for this year and we now know that stuff like Alan Wake is finally coming in 2010, and MS is even showing signs of making a serious attempt at coming out from the bald space marine niche where it’s been happy to exist. This one gets a solid A.

Nintendo had simultaneously the most and the least to prove going into E3, sitting comfortably at the top of the sales charts but also leaving much of its traditional audience – or at least the ones who can’t convince themselves that Smash Bros is a good game – underwhelmed, exemplified by last year’s showing.

Super Mario Galaxy 2, Team Ninja’s Metroid, and Golden Sun DS. That pretty much summed up what we got that I’m interested in, and I really am gagging for a go on Metroid. It’s better than last year’s and the first two are undoubtedly AAA titles, although it still had a depressing emphasis on games that our demographic probably doesn’t care about. No great DSiWare content? No Virtual Console for DSi? Nothing entirely new for the hardcore audience? Instead, we get something to monitor your pulse and more Wii Fit.

I can’t in good conscience slate a conference that unveiled both a proper new Mario and Metroid, so I’m going to give this one a B-.

Sony‘s was a show of two halves for me. It started off with Uncharted 2, which looks spectacular, and if it’s nearly as good as the first game – there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be – it’ll be a certain purchase. MAG didn’t demonstrate particularly well because it’s a bit slow and complicated for this context, and I’m not convinced that the headset-free PSN is the best place for such a co-op game, but I love my multiplayer shooters and I’m intrigued.

It’s good to see renewed support for the PSP, even if I won’t be buying a PSP Go, and maybe this commitment from Sony coupled with reduced development costs will see a renaissance in the system. I hope so, because I’m a fan.

Final Fantasy XIV was a surprise, to say the least, but I’d love to hear the difference in cheers between when it was announced and when everyone saw the little ‘Online’ under the title. Not the megaton announcement that XIII was last year, and the slight disappointment was compounded by what came next. The tech demo for the Wii Remote waggle wand lost some of its impact coming after Microsoft’s controller-free controls and a further demonstration of Wii Motion Plus and just went on for far too long, particularly when there wasn’t actually a game to come with it. The same goes for ModNation Racers, which wasn’t even that impressive and seemed to last for an eternity – I wanted to kill myself when he promised to create a track “in less than five minutes”. I was reminded of the endless demonstration of Gran Turismo HD from the infamous E3 2005 showing.

It ended very strongly with Gran Turismo 5, which I don’t really care about as I’m not exactly a fan of realistic racers, and the holy duo of The Last Guardian and God of War III. It goes without saying that both of those are must-haves, and I’m just disappointed that it looks like we’ll have to wait until 2010 for both of them.

Much like the Microsoft one it showed a host of great games, and it only really suffered from the slack middle section. That doesn’t stop it getting an A as well, though.

Overall, then, a far better show than last year’s, and fans of all platforms will have come away with something worthwhile even if this year’s show has pretty much confirmed motion controls as the way of the future. And hey, no sales graphs either. Gaming needs to make a song and dance about itself like this once in a while, so let’s enjoy the rest of the show.

Until next year…

Editorials, Games, Nintendo

This is Why Nintendo Fans Don’t Get Nice Things

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I had to shake my head when I saw that MadWorld didn’t even manage to chart in the latest NPDs, although it wasn’t exactly an unexpected event given the underperformance of No More Heroes, which seems aimed at a similar – apparently non-existent – demographic. Sad, but like I said, not unexpected. You can make your game as violent and funny as you like, but some are just too artsy for their own good.

What should be worrying for fans of more traditional games on Nintendo platforms, however, is how Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars appears to have flopped massively, selling 89,000 units against analysts’ predictions of anywhere from 200,000 to several million. If a game with a score of 94 on Metacritic and, oh yeah, a title containing the little-known words Grand Theft Auto can sell that badly, it doesn’t bode well for more mature titles on the platform. As much as I love my Ouendan and Phoenix Wright, I’m only human and would like to deal some heroin on my lunch break when that itch needs scratching.

Some blame piracy, and anecdotally I know of a lot of people who downloaded it, but R4 carts can’t be that prevalent. The fact is that Nintendo hasn’t been what it used to be for a lot of fans, myself included, since the disappointment of the GameCube, and I know many for whom the great library on the DS is the only thing keeping Nintendo from being written off as a lost cause. If that dries up completely you can see why Nintendo domination is a scary thought for some.

I’m not one of those who’s ready to cut Nintendo adrift, because I still see flashes of brilliance in games like Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3 to make me forgive Wii Music or Wii Play, but if decent adult games aren’t going to do anything on the Nintendo platforms I think it’s time to admit that, as some have suspected since the GameCube, Nintendo machines are for Nintendo games. The Wii is a great secondary console to play that odd gem that won’t show up anywhere else, but I think most hardcore gamers will agree when I say that the lion’s share of modern gaming will be done on the HD options.

And if you own Nintendo’s consoles and haven’t bought MadWorld or Chinatown Wars, congratulations. You’ve forfeited the right to complain when all Nintendo gives you at E3 is crushing disappointment.

Games, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox

E3 2008 Conference Review

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Same format as last year, but with added bitter fanboy tears. In chronological order:

  • Microsoft – I wasn’t blown away, to be honest. Seeing live gameplay of Resident Evil 5 was initially my highlight, in the same way that the Call of Duty 4 was a gem in a pile of (mostly) shit last year. Gears 2 and Fable II both look good and are certain purchases that it’s nice to have dates for, but things like avatars do nothing for me and the occasional cool feature and probable gem do not a great conference make. No Alan Wake (the new Duke Nukem Forever?), no big new IP announcements, a new interface that I’m not convinced about. Just the warm feeling from the fact that there was no motion controller announcement… yet.
     
    But then Square dropped the bomb. As last words go, FFXIII on 360 put most of Steve Jobs’ infamous “and one more thing” reveals to shame. Not even a rumbling of this news before the show, which is remarkable in itself, and it dealt a big blow to Sony early on. With the possible exception of Gran Turismo, this has been Sony’s trump card since FFVII in 1997, and it was the one third-party PS3 exclusive that I thought untouchable. Make no mistake; that announcement was huge.
     
    It doesn’t change the fact that the rest of it was relatively lacklustre, but it feels like it was all a ruse to lead up to that. For the biggest E3 megaton – something that I thought was becoming a lost art – since “five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars”, this one gets a…
     
    B     
  • Nintendo – If you ever need reason why so many hardcore gamers seem to have abandoned Nintendo to focus on the fight for second place, this is why. Last year’s Wii Fit reveal was a disappointment and in that respect this at least had something that vaguely interests me in Animal Crossing, but it’s still basically the same thing as Nintendo brought out on N64, GameCube, and DS. It might have more online functions, but all I’m going to be thinking about is how much better it could be done on Live and PSN.
     
    Add another mini-game compilation, another peripheral, and, in Wii Music, one of the most pathetic ideas I’ve ever seen (I can’t help but think of the musical chairs game in The Simpsons when Bart was put into the remedial class). Someone summed it up for me on a forum post when they said: “At least now that Nintendo has show that it hates hardcore gamers we won’t have to pretend to like the Wii any more.”
     
    Thanks for the good times back in the day, Nintendo, but I’ll take an insular industry that makes games that I enjoy over this popular tripe.
     
    D-     
  • Sony – Sony really didn’t deviate too much from what was largely a successful formula last year. The embarrassing Home jokes were gone, and no baffling cameo from Chewbacca, and we just got games. It deserves credit for making the most entertaining Powerpoint presentation in history. LittleBigPlanet can make anything interesting.
     
    On the games front, Resistance 2 looked good but early, and while stuff like God of War III and MAG sound promising, didn’t Sony learn anything about showing CG trailers a couple of years ago? When your big reveals are CG and your lead game is one that pretty much everyone who cares enough to watch a conference has finished at least once since it came out a month ago, it doesn’t make it look like there’s a lot of content.
     
    C 

This E3 will go down in history for the Final Fantasy XIII announcement, which put the Microsoft conference ahead on entertainment value alone. Other than that, very disappointing in my opinion. No big new game announcements (so far), no proper price drops or anything, and the bitter taste in my mouth that the mainstream press is going to be fawning over Nintendo finding a way to charge you to play air guitar.

Games, Impressions, Nintendo

I Don’t Get Smash Bros.

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Continuing on from a previous theme, the Super Smash Bros series, though obscenely popular and capable of selling millions, is a series that I just can’t seem to get on the right wavelength to enjoy.

Though I’ve been known to, I’m not going to get on that high horse about how it’s not a proper fighting game and the world would be much better off if everyone would master the intricacies of Street Fighter III or Mark of the Wolves. It would, but the point is that Smash Bros is as much a party game and a Nintendo museum as it is a fighting game. It’s all very tongue-in-cheek; a snakes and ladders to Street Fighter’s chess. I’ll just leave that argument there since I’m sure you can find several theses’ worth of fanboys clashing over it.

Super Smash Bros Brawl

I have my copy of Brawl, just like I had Melee and the original game before it, and yet the huge appeal still eludes me. Subspace Emissary, the bizarrely titled adventure mode, is a painful slog that’s totally at odds with the classic mode and that had me bored senseless after an hour. I’m not opposed to a story mode in this – indeed, the FMV scenes and the ludicrous contrivances that bring Mario, Sonic, and Solid Snake together in one universe can be pretty brilliant – but the platforming just doesn’t do it for me. How about wrapping the story around the normal fighting engine?

Regardless, the basic fighting has a certain charm, and when played online (when that decides to work – Nintendo WFC makes PSN seem reliable) or in local multiplayer it’s a blast. The arenas also never fail to impress me, from the schizophrenic Wario Ware stage to the quite beautiful [insert ‘for a Wii game’ disclaimer here] Twilight Princess one, all with their own little idiosyncrasies and gimmicks. Coupled with the fact that the game’s basically one big fan-wank – hundreds of music tracks, even more obscure characters to unlock in the form of trophies and stickers – I can see the appeal, but to me the underlying game is just incredibly overrated.

Still, credit for Nintendo for really going all out with this game. The fact that it allows you to create maps and save screenshots (the above one is mine) and replays to be shared on SD card or – get this – traded online, shows that if they can move on from the friend code rubbish (mine’s 2621-2435-6589, incidentally), Nintendo might not be completely left behind when community features like those in Halo 3 and LittleBigPlanet become commonplace. God knows what they’re going to put in there for the next version. Every Nintendo character ever playable?