Sony E3 2009 Impressions

 

Sony started E3 with a big handicap because of the PSP Go being leaked, it was one of their major announcements and definitely stole some of their thunder. They didn't fret over it much, rather the conference was peppered with jokes about stuff not leaked. However Sony did have a few other aces up their sleeve.

After the initial number crunching stats the conference really started off with same game play demos. There was an excellent demo of Naught Dog's Uncharted 2 which was followed by an equally impressive demo of Assassins Creed 2. Both games looked sharp and more importantly the looked like sequels that would be actually worth playing.

Sony also demoed their motion controller which unfortunately was nothing special, but that was to be expected after Natal. Then is was the PSP Go's turn to be officially announced after a joke about naming it the worst kept secret in gaming history. The hardware finally gets rid of the UMD and is lighter and smaller the old PSP model. In addition to the hardware a lot of games were also announced for the PSP including Gran Turismo 5. It should do well assuming third party developers increase support for the platform.
To wrap it up Sony bought out the really big guns. First up was the shocking announcement of the next Final Fantasy game exclusive to the PS3. It was really odd considering that FF XIII is still nowhere near release.
The game play demo of the show was definitely God of War 3 - with the series' signature ultra violent game play in glorious HD no other game really had a chance.
Even though Microsoft has Natal and Alan Wake the best conference was definitely Sony.

Nintendo E3 2009 Impressions

 

People were really disappointed with Nintendo's conference last year. Unfortunately this year was no different, Ninty served up another veritable snooze fest. In fact it was so predictable that I was able to guess most of the stuff before hand. I remember reading a comment on Gamespot's live blog about how little has leaked from Nintendo's line up before E3 - well it turned out to be prophetic in a twisted way.

They started off with some boring statistics and promised a lot of surprises. The first new game displayed was another Mario game with 4 player Co-Op. Hardly anything new or exciting here but things got worse as they started praising Wii Fit next followed and up by showing off the imaginatively titled Wii Fit Plus.

Reggie then took the stage and revealed the Wii Motion you-guessed-it Plus and demoed some games. All this would have been slightly interesting if Natal hadn't been announced a day back. Then we're shown some new DS games which seem okay but nothing surprising here either.

The next segment was a really long speech about casual gamers from Iwata that could put  he Road Runner on a six pack of Red Bull to sleep. He then continues on to introduce Wii Vitality Sensor which should go on to become the best selling video game accessory in rest homes and hospitals.

The next segment was about actual gaming the next Resident Evil and Metroid games were revealed and they looked pretty good leaving the graphics aside. Even more interesting is the fact that Metroid Other M (yes that's the name of the game) is a collaboration with Team Ninja. It was a decent finishing touch, throwing a bone to the hard core gamers.

I wasn't expecting much from Nintendo being a hard core gamer rather than a casual one but the conference managed to underwhelm my meager expectations.
Image from Gamespot.

Microsoft E3 2009 Impressions

 

I watched a live stream of the Microsoft E3 press conference last night and was quite impressed at the stuff coming out in the next year or so. Luckily I missed the first few minutes due to streaming issues so did not have to sit through the Rock Band: Beatles part.

The highlights of the show were definitely Splinter Cell: Conviction, Alan Wake (finally!) and Project Natal. 

Conviction had a novel way of communicating mission details to the player with mission name and target appearing in game on the walls and the graphics and game play part wasn't half bad either.

Alan Wake was finally demonstrated with some nice game play which looked like a mixture of Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark. Graphically the game looks good and given the recent trend of survival horror games it might turn out to be a hit (over hyped as it is).

The center piece of the show was definitely Project Natal. A motion capturing, voice detecting control system demoed with a mixture of prerecorded videos and live action. The prerecorded part was amazing but the live action part needed a little work as can be expected. The Avatar in the live action demo was doing stuff that would shame a contortionist, nothing that a little rag doll modeling won't fix though. Peter Molyneux's studio also prepared a video showcasing the technology that seemed a little too good to be believable. The fact that it will only be shown behind closed doors to a selected audience only strengthens my suspicions.

The conference was nicely organized with the some big games shown up front and then an announcement was made saying that everything from that moment on would be exclusive. Other newsworthy items were ODST, Forza 3 and Kojima himself coming out to confirm that he next MGS was in development on the Xbox. Games for Windows was conspicuously missing from the conference, which is surprising considering the fact that some big third party games were released last year that supported it. Ah well, one more nail in the coffin for PC gaming.

Image from Gamespot.