Lots of good demos or trailers were released or shown at E3, so I gathered a few of them below. This is not all the good ones... or even the best four. Consider this list a teaser for the library of quality video that emerged from E3.
Heavy Rain
Much of this looks to be in game footage, fairly impressive in game footage. This title looks interesting in a cult hit, not for everyone kind of way. I like games that are heavily story driven, and this appears to fit the bill. Intriguing. Gorgeous.
ModNation Racer
For me, this was one of the biggest surprises to come out of the Sony press conference. This game appears to take the concept of easy and fun level creation into whole new territory. This video is the unveiling of the title after which the developers create a new track live on stage. Fun, is the best word for this. There is nothing better than watching game developers having fun playing their own games.
The Last Guardian
You've probably seen this one already. It seems to be just about the most popular video to come out of E3. It isn't the best piece of cinematic work to be shown, not by a long shot. It is, however, a beautifully crafted piece.
Super Mario Bros Wii
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And there is nothing broken about the good old fashioned Mario platformers. And they aren't changing a thing except the graphics. This looks to be everything a Mario platform title should be, right down to the music. When you make your Christmas list, this will be near the top.
Showing posts with label E3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E3. Show all posts
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
E3: Much Ado About Dante
Many of us read the literary classic of Dante Alighieri in college. It is the story of a man who is lead through the circles of hell by Virgil. It is not a standalone work, though it is often read as one, but is part of The Divine Comedy. If you have not yet read the entire work, do so. This work deserves its place as a literary classic.
But this is a gaming blog, so enough with literature.
The Dante's Inferno that is drawing attention this week is a Visceral Games title to be published by EA. Basically, take God of War, set it in hell as imagined by Dante Alighieri, and crank the gore to eleven. Interestingly, it also drew protesters.
Yes, protesters. Somewhere EA executives and smacking themselves wondering why they didn't hire enough protesters to make this a bigger deal. As Grand Theft Auto has taught us, nothing sells a game like people sayings its bad.
But the controversy will come, and much of it will be literary. To say the developers took liberties with the story line of The Inferno when making this game is roughly the same as saying that vegetarians take liberties with the recipe for meatloaf when cooking one. From what I can tell from the trailers, if EA didn't tell us this game was based on The Inferno, we would never know. Going to hell certainly isn't a new concept in gaming. Diablo went there in extremely creepy fashion thirteen years ago, and gaming hasn't been the same since ***.
And yet, I'm not sure I can complain. Reviews from E3 seem fairly good. If the game had a different title, I don't think anyone would think twice about it. Besides, we all know by now that no story can survive unchanged from book to movie or from movie to game. Should it come as all that great a surprise that Dante's Inferno the game seems to have only a passing resemblance to Dante's Inferno the book?
What matters is that the flavor the original is kept. The book is an exploration of nature of man (please, literature majors, hold your fire: I'm trying to be brief here). If the game keeps that as its defining metric, I think it will deserve its title.
The horror should be palpable. I don't mean cheap slasher movie kind of horror. I mean Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker, Dante Alighieri horror. Action titles soaked in blood are a dime a dozen. Dante deserves better than that. Give me a title so disturbing I don't want to play, but so addicting I cannot stop. Give me raw despair in digital form, and this game will do its namesake justice. A high standard, but Dante's Inferno deserves no less.
***A related side note: fire up Diablo, the original, and play through it again. Notice the artwork... namely the naked and somewhat dismembered torsos contorted into horrible positions and bound with barbed wire. Could anyone get away with that callous and gratuitous a flogging of our senses in a game today? And is that a bad thing? Thats another topic, I think.
But this is a gaming blog, so enough with literature.
The Dante's Inferno that is drawing attention this week is a Visceral Games title to be published by EA. Basically, take God of War, set it in hell as imagined by Dante Alighieri, and crank the gore to eleven. Interestingly, it also drew protesters.
Yes, protesters. Somewhere EA executives and smacking themselves wondering why they didn't hire enough protesters to make this a bigger deal. As Grand Theft Auto has taught us, nothing sells a game like people sayings its bad.
But the controversy will come, and much of it will be literary. To say the developers took liberties with the story line of The Inferno when making this game is roughly the same as saying that vegetarians take liberties with the recipe for meatloaf when cooking one. From what I can tell from the trailers, if EA didn't tell us this game was based on The Inferno, we would never know. Going to hell certainly isn't a new concept in gaming. Diablo went there in extremely creepy fashion thirteen years ago, and gaming hasn't been the same since ***.
And yet, I'm not sure I can complain. Reviews from E3 seem fairly good. If the game had a different title, I don't think anyone would think twice about it. Besides, we all know by now that no story can survive unchanged from book to movie or from movie to game. Should it come as all that great a surprise that Dante's Inferno the game seems to have only a passing resemblance to Dante's Inferno the book?
What matters is that the flavor the original is kept. The book is an exploration of nature of man (please, literature majors, hold your fire: I'm trying to be brief here). If the game keeps that as its defining metric, I think it will deserve its title.
The horror should be palpable. I don't mean cheap slasher movie kind of horror. I mean Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker, Dante Alighieri horror. Action titles soaked in blood are a dime a dozen. Dante deserves better than that. Give me a title so disturbing I don't want to play, but so addicting I cannot stop. Give me raw despair in digital form, and this game will do its namesake justice. A high standard, but Dante's Inferno deserves no less.
***A related side note: fire up Diablo, the original, and play through it again. Notice the artwork... namely the naked and somewhat dismembered torsos contorted into horrible positions and bound with barbed wire. Could anyone get away with that callous and gratuitous a flogging of our senses in a game today? And is that a bad thing? Thats another topic, I think.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Future of Gaming? We'll See.
Project Natal. The Future of Gaming. The End of Controllers. The Biggest Revolution in Gaming Since Dice. You've seen the headlines, maybe watched the demos, and will no doubt see endless information on this system before it makes it to market.
For some genres, this system will be amazing. Wii will no longer be the unchallenged king of party games. It is possible that some sports titles will embrace it, but I am skeptical there for a number of reasons. Can it really detect the fine nuances that separate a curveball from a slider, or a good tee shot from a hook into the pond? Maybe, but it is hard to say as yet. Regardless, no doubt whole new styles of gameplay will emerge to take advantage of it.
And Natal will have no bearing on Fable 3 except, perhaps, as a way to look through menus and inventory screens.
You doubt me? Alright, lets try it out. Get a friend, one who is very familiar with Fable, fire up your XBox 360 and pop in Fable 2. Give your friend the controller and have him sit where he can see you but not the screen. You stand in front of your TV. And go play Fable. I wonder how far you'll advance your blacksmithing skill before your arm falls off. Or how badly your feet will hurt after walking in place that long.
Not a fair comparison you say? I agree. Your friend has much, much more processing capability than that whatever leftovers the XBox 360 will be able to throw at Natal. Your friend will be much better at recognizing your movements and guessing what you actually want to happen than any chunk of code that could be written. Natal cannot compare to the human brain. It isn't a fair comparison at all.
Feel free to come up with as many shortcuts and optimizations to help you play the game with the controller in your friend's hand and he unable to see the screen. Maybe you say "Walk" to walk instead of walking in place. That would certainly help the fatigue factor. Maybe you can call out the names of spells to be cast, or agree on particular hand motions for different spells. With a touch of patience, you can have your fully integrated totally motion controlled game play experience right now.
And no doubt you think I'm a lunatic of even suggesting you try something so absurd. We could improve this scenario greatly by a hybrid system. Place a small controller in one had that you can use for more onerous tasks, like walking or leveling your blacksmithing, and only use the motion capture system for stuff thats fun.
That's called a wiimote, and I know exactly 0 people who swing it like a lightsaber when playing Lego StarWars. If we don't swing our lightsabers, will we really act out changing a tire as part of a pit crew? More than once or twice anyway? I have my doubts. Who wants to play the first Natal equipped version of Madden, where you have to run in place to get down the field and jump to catch the pass? Who is sure enough they won't jump into their TV trying to block a field goal and cost themselves a couple grand in the process?
Natal is not the future of gaming. It is not the beginning of the end of the controller. It is not a revolution. It is an evolution, a logical progression, and nothing more. At the end of the day, motion capture controllers get in the way more than they add to the experience in most games. Eventually, I think all consoles and computers will have a hybrid of motion capture and controllers for gaming control. The future lies in linking them together in ways that add to games and does not distract from the very reasons we play in the first place. Because, at the end of the day, it is all about gameplay. Handing papers to virtual boy might be cool as a tech demo, but is the fun factor really all that significant for long term play? We'll see. Acting out the changing of a tire or fighting in an arena might be interesting as a tech demo, but will you choose to play that way over pressing a few buttons? We'll see.
It is much too early to draw any concrete conclusions. But, as it was with the wiimote before it, I think how we wind up using the device will turn out to be rather different than the original hype surrounding it.
For some genres, this system will be amazing. Wii will no longer be the unchallenged king of party games. It is possible that some sports titles will embrace it, but I am skeptical there for a number of reasons. Can it really detect the fine nuances that separate a curveball from a slider, or a good tee shot from a hook into the pond? Maybe, but it is hard to say as yet. Regardless, no doubt whole new styles of gameplay will emerge to take advantage of it.
And Natal will have no bearing on Fable 3 except, perhaps, as a way to look through menus and inventory screens.
You doubt me? Alright, lets try it out. Get a friend, one who is very familiar with Fable, fire up your XBox 360 and pop in Fable 2. Give your friend the controller and have him sit where he can see you but not the screen. You stand in front of your TV. And go play Fable. I wonder how far you'll advance your blacksmithing skill before your arm falls off. Or how badly your feet will hurt after walking in place that long.
Not a fair comparison you say? I agree. Your friend has much, much more processing capability than that whatever leftovers the XBox 360 will be able to throw at Natal. Your friend will be much better at recognizing your movements and guessing what you actually want to happen than any chunk of code that could be written. Natal cannot compare to the human brain. It isn't a fair comparison at all.
Feel free to come up with as many shortcuts and optimizations to help you play the game with the controller in your friend's hand and he unable to see the screen. Maybe you say "Walk" to walk instead of walking in place. That would certainly help the fatigue factor. Maybe you can call out the names of spells to be cast, or agree on particular hand motions for different spells. With a touch of patience, you can have your fully integrated totally motion controlled game play experience right now.
And no doubt you think I'm a lunatic of even suggesting you try something so absurd. We could improve this scenario greatly by a hybrid system. Place a small controller in one had that you can use for more onerous tasks, like walking or leveling your blacksmithing, and only use the motion capture system for stuff thats fun.
That's called a wiimote, and I know exactly 0 people who swing it like a lightsaber when playing Lego StarWars. If we don't swing our lightsabers, will we really act out changing a tire as part of a pit crew? More than once or twice anyway? I have my doubts. Who wants to play the first Natal equipped version of Madden, where you have to run in place to get down the field and jump to catch the pass? Who is sure enough they won't jump into their TV trying to block a field goal and cost themselves a couple grand in the process?
Natal is not the future of gaming. It is not the beginning of the end of the controller. It is not a revolution. It is an evolution, a logical progression, and nothing more. At the end of the day, motion capture controllers get in the way more than they add to the experience in most games. Eventually, I think all consoles and computers will have a hybrid of motion capture and controllers for gaming control. The future lies in linking them together in ways that add to games and does not distract from the very reasons we play in the first place. Because, at the end of the day, it is all about gameplay. Handing papers to virtual boy might be cool as a tech demo, but is the fun factor really all that significant for long term play? We'll see. Acting out the changing of a tire or fighting in an arena might be interesting as a tech demo, but will you choose to play that way over pressing a few buttons? We'll see.
It is much too early to draw any concrete conclusions. But, as it was with the wiimote before it, I think how we wind up using the device will turn out to be rather different than the original hype surrounding it.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Unsung Heroes
On the eve of the largest celebration of million dollar titles and billion dollar publishers, lets not forget the unpaid masses. Games today are often defined by what the community does after the game is released. WarCraft 3, like most strategy games these days, shipped with a map editor. One of the projects that emerged from the WC3 community thanks to that editor was a style of map call "Defense of the Ancients." Demigod, the recently released strategy title is of a similar style to that built and polished by the private coders who worked on the DotA maps. Demigod, then, becomes the latest in a list of major titles that are built on or heavily inspired by the work of private individuals who make maps for the fun of it. Counter Strike is likely the most famous of these mod-to-monetized title success stories, but CS and Demigod by no means stand alone. The mod programmers and map makers and addon developers that we often take for granted are major players in the world of modern gaming, and they cannot be given too much recognition.
Of course, as Bethesda Softworks can tell you, third party addons may not always be a good thing for games. Oblivion found itself re-rated by the ESRB, in part because of a mod put together by some in the community.
Now, regarding E3, I will not be on the floor this year. However, I'll be roaming the Internet looking for the best of E3 news, reviews, interviews, and so forth. The best information I can find I will link here at the Chuckwagon. Plenty of interesting rumors flying around about this years show; should be an interesting couple of days.
Of course, as Bethesda Softworks can tell you, third party addons may not always be a good thing for games. Oblivion found itself re-rated by the ESRB, in part because of a mod put together by some in the community.
Now, regarding E3, I will not be on the floor this year. However, I'll be roaming the Internet looking for the best of E3 news, reviews, interviews, and so forth. The best information I can find I will link here at the Chuckwagon. Plenty of interesting rumors flying around about this years show; should be an interesting couple of days.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Rumor mill: PS very P
Rampant speculation this morning that the long rumored, eagerly sought, and extremely predictable UMD-less PSP is coming soon to a massive trade show near you. This is a move that will surprise exactly no one. UMD died as a movie distribution format when Sony got the brilliant idea to make people pay for a movie twice if they wanted to watch it on their PSP. A version of the device that removes such essentially useless hardware is about as logical as an umbrella store in Seattle. With the advent of oodles of digital distribution systems for movies online, I don't think UMD will be all that badly missed by purchasers of the new and improved smaller PSP-Go.
No doubt you will also see reference to a newer, thinner, PS3 that could be making an appearance sometime in the next year. While it will not be seen at E3, so far as we know, hopefully it will have an impact there. The fabled thin-PS3, it is thought, will remain under lock and key until current supplies of the PS3 evaporate. How can Sony make that happen? Maybe... lower the price? While reasonable when compared to the price of production, the PS3 eats far too many Presidential portraits when compared to its current generation console brethren. Given the fairly impressive array of PS3 titles due out in the near future, this is a shame. Lower prices should equal greater market penetration, recession not withstanding. Hopefully with a rumored slimmed down PS3 on the way, the chunkier original will finally get that price break.
But that's merely wishful thinking at this point. The PlayStation very-Portable is on its way to E3. Now, if only Sony would give away free samples...
No doubt you will also see reference to a newer, thinner, PS3 that could be making an appearance sometime in the next year. While it will not be seen at E3, so far as we know, hopefully it will have an impact there. The fabled thin-PS3, it is thought, will remain under lock and key until current supplies of the PS3 evaporate. How can Sony make that happen? Maybe... lower the price? While reasonable when compared to the price of production, the PS3 eats far too many Presidential portraits when compared to its current generation console brethren. Given the fairly impressive array of PS3 titles due out in the near future, this is a shame. Lower prices should equal greater market penetration, recession not withstanding. Hopefully with a rumored slimmed down PS3 on the way, the chunkier original will finally get that price break.
But that's merely wishful thinking at this point. The PlayStation very-Portable is on its way to E3. Now, if only Sony would give away free samples...
Thursday, May 21, 2009
OnLive Skipping E3
Word comes out this morning that OnLive will not be attending E3. This is extremely disappointing. Even though I will not be at E3 in person (sadly), I was really looking forward to seeing this service displayed to the press. There are still a number or questions about OnLive, namely how they will manage to keep latency low enough to make games, particularly competitive online games, playable.
For those who missed it from prior trade shows, OnLive is a service that will stream modern PC and console games to your computer (OS X or Vista) via a browser plugin, or to your TV via a small box. The games will actually be running on OnLive servers. Only the visuals will be streamed to your screen. If you think of it as playing on an XBox with several miles of cable connecting your controller to the console and the console to the TV, you have the basic idea.
The list of vendors and publishers partnering with this company is impressive. Any company that can claim NVidia, Valve, Epic, Atari, EA and others as partners certainly seems to pass the credibility test. This system, if it works as promised at a competitive price, could have a greater effect on game distribution than Steam did. This is exactly the sort of technology that should be at E3. Even if they are only showing the same demos we have already seen, every new member of the press who gets hands on with this system will only build that much more anticipation for the eventual release. At the very least, I hope they will change their minds, book a hotel suite near the the convention center and let the skeptical press play a game or two on some off the shelf laptops through the OnLive system.
For those, like me, who cannot wait to see if this system can work as advertised, there are beta signups available on the OnLive site. Beta starts this summer.
For those who missed it from prior trade shows, OnLive is a service that will stream modern PC and console games to your computer (OS X or Vista) via a browser plugin, or to your TV via a small box. The games will actually be running on OnLive servers. Only the visuals will be streamed to your screen. If you think of it as playing on an XBox with several miles of cable connecting your controller to the console and the console to the TV, you have the basic idea.
The list of vendors and publishers partnering with this company is impressive. Any company that can claim NVidia, Valve, Epic, Atari, EA and others as partners certainly seems to pass the credibility test. This system, if it works as promised at a competitive price, could have a greater effect on game distribution than Steam did. This is exactly the sort of technology that should be at E3. Even if they are only showing the same demos we have already seen, every new member of the press who gets hands on with this system will only build that much more anticipation for the eventual release. At the very least, I hope they will change their minds, book a hotel suite near the the convention center and let the skeptical press play a game or two on some off the shelf laptops through the OnLive system.
For those, like me, who cannot wait to see if this system can work as advertised, there are beta signups available on the OnLive site. Beta starts this summer.
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