Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Random E3 Thoughts...



Yeah, yeah, some of these are goofy or short enough to be tweets, but I'm old school (and low tech, as I'm still a poor bastard). In no particular order: AND after the jump, hah!

On Saint's Row The 3rd: I wasn't interested in this until I saw this year's demo. That damn VTOL sold me. Still, I wonder if it's got an ejection seat and cool parachute animation from when you're "forced" to exit from high enough up. That would be cool (and a nice nod to the Just Cause series).

Memo to Volition and THQ. Some of STILL want Summoner III, dammit. You HAVE a great engine already. Get with the writing and game design already.

Kingdoms of Amalur. Yes, I was skeptical, but it's looking VERY nice. Nice enough to make me want to dive in and see if it's solid and fun to play. And deep. lets' not forget deep...

E3 in general has that tried and true dynamic of being thrilling to watch if you're a super-core fan of all things gaming. On the other hand, the aural assault and way certain games blur together after a while doesn't help when trying to explain it to a non-gamer much.

Twisted Metal's hour-long boss battle... Holy crap. Jaffee and his team are nuts alright. But the game looks so damn good that I predict the stopwatches come out as people try and whittle that time down significantly.

The Sims Social... it's a time-waster of the highest order, which means it'll do amazingly well. Maybe politicians of all parties can use this instead of actual photos in their internet flirty foolishness. Idiots.

Who says NO good games come out around E3 time or during summer? Infamous 2, Duke Nukem Forever Finally, Red Faction Armageddon, EDFIA, Bastion (although I'd prefer it in a box, on PC, but hey...) and so forth and so on.

I still think publishers NEED to wider the release window and lower the big box-office expectations on games. The hobby NEEDS less push as a MAKE MONEY NOW stream of income and allow word of mouth and longer time for editors to actually finish games completely as possible. Blowing through anything to the ending and claiming it's "too short" has hurt some otherwise great experiences with more actual depth.

Ubisoft's conference was packed with cool stuff, but Rayman Origins was the game that had me as soon as I saw it in action. Of course, the chances of it shipping as it should (in a retail box on multiple platforms) are slim, but I hope people jump on it and experience that beautiful exuberance...

Are people slowly (and finally) getting tired of micro-transactions? I'm noticing more grumbling about certain "premium" services recently introduced...

EA' Origin is more or less a combination of YouTube and a "press site" for gamers it seems. I guess that's fine, but we'll see if the gamers buy into it.

Nintendo's Cafe isn't a NEXT-generation system... they're FINALLY catching up with THIS generation visually. The controller will be "Next-Gen", though... and expensive, I bet. Some parents will be hurtin' at the cash register, but I can't see them NOT getting a second (or third, or fourth) controller if there's a big enough family unit.

The Skyrim demo. This game will possibly lead to the demise a few people who get into it so deep that they never come up for air. By the way, that's a good enough recommendation, I'd say. Todd Howard says 300 hours - I say add 200 if the game is as packed with content as I'm thinking (and that's without DLC).

Vita. I want one... I don't want an AT & T contract though.

So far, the Vita lineup looks cool, but I really HOPE we don't see the usual suspect launch window losers and quickie shovelware show up as full-priced content.

more later. Still tinkering away on Sony impressions. Nintendo's conference is in an hour, so I need to find something to wake me up before that...

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