E3 2009 Impressions

June 9th, 2009

metroid-other-m-saus

I’m a bit behind the ball, but here’s how I feel about this year’s show. I missed a few of announcements like Golden Sun’s resurrection, Social media of Xbox 360 and GT5.

Microsoft

E3 can bring out the worst in my fanboy bias against Microsoft, after all this is the convention where game companies drop bombs and I’m clearly rooting for Nintendo and Sony, I want them to “win”. I guess it would be a good compliment on Microsoft’s part to say that the company’s strong showing made be quiver with fanboy trepidation. Take all that away though, and as a player I was hardly excited by what they had on offer.

Most of this is reflected by their lack of exclusive content that wasn’t already jacked up with testosterone. Halo:ODST and Outreach are really starting to wear thin, I mean, how much longer is the industry going to evangelize these soulless franchise? Forza 3, Crackdown 2 and Left for Dead 2 are great assets. Like many people I’m surprised and slightly irked that Valve decided to sequalize L4D so quickly. The other two though don’t particularly interest me much, not a fan of racing sims and the open-world, sand-box genre feels kinda tight at the moment. I’m not too fussed about L4D 2 either, since I rarely play games online. Still, for others is probably a big coo.

Splinter Cell: Conviction, Shadow Complex and their 3rd party content were impressive. Splinter Cell looks to have some cool mechanics such as slapping objectives as text on the walls as well that rapid fire technique which has supposedly been a part of the series for a while now – still cool IMO. Shadow Complex is perhaps the only title I feel particularly envious about. A downloadable Metroidvania game is genius, perfectly suited to the services, you would have thought that Konami would have jumped on this earlier. The game seems more appropriate to the PSN though, since it’s more of a full length feature.

shadow-complex

Microsoft also deserve kudos for their selection of celebrity sponsorships Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Tony Hawk and Steven Spielberg are all likely to grab them some air time from the major press. Each celebrity was attached to games that didn’t use a regular controller too, which is interesting.

As for Natal, I think that there are too many problem that they’ll have to overcome. I personally foresee that it’ll be too tiring for the player (try holding your hands out in front of you for more than 5 minutes and you’ll get the point). The – premium tech – hardware is likely to be rather expensive as well. I also doubt that Microsoft has the talent to design for such a device, like almost everything they’ve ever done, they crib from the competition, this time though, they are walking alone. I discussed this with Richard over at Critical Gaming who thought that the lack of tactile feedback would also be problematic. I just don’t think that they can do it, and if they did, I don’t think that I’d want to play it.

It has to be said that Microsoft is still attempting to fool players with the fake casual gaming pretense and I don’t think it’ll ever work for them because their hearts aren’t in the right place – their products reflect that.

Nintendo

Talk about a hokey presentation – boring one minute, rapturous the next. Discarding the performance itself, the company had an improved showing over last year. I couldn’t believe the fangasm they dished out with Metroid: Other M. My brother and I let out a disrespectful laugh when Reggie said that he reads the blogs – no doubt we should have, the presentation was unimpressive up to that point – but he delivered and the peasants rejoiced.

The two new Mario titles are interesting because instead of reinventing the franchise they concentrate on expanding previous designs. It’s definitely a wise move as it allows Nintendo to be creative within an established template.

mario-galaxy-2

Like a lot of people, I was confused by Mr Iwata’s annual editorial on company philosophy. His speech wandered around in circles and didn’t have a clear direction. The Wii Vitality Sensor was similarly lost in the muddle, a curious non-announcement at best.

I liked Bill Trinen more when I saw his name in the credits of my favourite games instead of seeing him on stage. He’s just not quite that good a presenter, really irritating. The Wii Sports Resort demo still caught my attention. I like how they’re truly making this game for everyone with added bite for the hardcore players. I agree with Trinen that the sky diving intro really sets the scene for the game, seems very Pilotwings-esque. The demo just looked fun and that’s all it needs to be.

Sony

The leaks really hurt Sony I think, but they recovered better than I anticipated. There was less of a focus on PSN and more concentration of the big announcements for their two primary devices. I thought that they could have stressed the extent of 3rd party support for the PSP stronger as it really is unprecedented. Just a series of logos on screen would have been enough. I don’t like Hiraz so much, he clashes with Tretton’s softer presentation style and comes off too cock-sure in comparison.

It’s interesting to observe how the Uncharted franchise has gone from semi-blockbuster accused of borrowing too liberally from its competition to E3 show-stopper. And so it should be regarded that way. Everything about this title looks fresh and lively. Drake’s dialogue is slick, the interface clean and the graphics lush. The game has what so many current generation games are lacking; colour. This title, paired with God of War III (which I was admittedly less impressed with) represent the start of the visible technical divide between the current two generation platforms.

Many people have criticized the PSP Go over the price. As said by Michael Pachter, the cost of a 16gb harddrive is considerably less than a UMD drive, Sony are already making good profit on the PSP 3000, there is no reason to hike the price up an additional $100. I need to buy a PSP for myself, so I’m being cautious over my decision as I want to be able to play my old UMD games on the new hardware and so far the “good will” alternative remains sketchy at best. Let’s hope they find a proper solution fast.

Both of the Metal Gear Solid announcements bothered me. The series has run it’s course, let’s not beat it into the ground, please. I’m more interested in MGS: Peace Walker as it’s fleshing out a patchy part of the backstory, a part that MGS:Portable Ops left open. MGS: Rising on the other hand, I’m not convinced. Raiden is not a likable character and his backstory isn’t an important part of the series timeline. I’m expecting MGS: Rising to tell the story of how Raiden reclaimed Sunny from the Patriots. Also, I think that there’s something up with his suit as the torso protrudes awkwardly protrudes outwards, perhaps his in a Gundam or something. I like how Peace Walker will be treated as a proper franchise entry, with the MGS4 crew and Hideo himself personally working on the product.

raiden-mgs-rising

The Final Fantasy XIV and Rockstar (Agent) announcements proved that Sony still yields power over 3rd parties. Both announcements could have been delivered better though. Tretton ought to have first shown the Final Fantasy XIV trailer before blurting out the name as it sounded downright ridiculous – the crowd’s disbelieving laughs highlighted this. I think that it’s inevitable that this title will arrive on the Xbox 360, the three versions will likely all launch at the same time too. Agent on the other hand remains to be a PS3 exclusive, Sony really should have hired Take 2 boss Ben Feder to do the boasting, with quotes like this, you can’t lose;

“The game, like anything from Rockstar North, is going to be very, very cool. It’s going to push the edge, it’s going to be genre-defining and it’s going to be a whole new way of experiencing videogames that we haven’t really seen before,”

Similar to the way they introduced FF XIV, Sony mad a mess in introducing the motion controller. Firstly they shouldn’t give the device the same label as the Wii-mote, this makes you look fraudulent. The two engineers started out on wonky ground (better than the GT Mobile guy, looked like he was being tortured on stage) but once the demonstrations were rolling they found their groove and impressed. The technology clearly isn’t the problem, the positioning is. It’s difficult to see where this will fit on the PS3 and I think the same applies for Natal as well. All three systems have their own proprietary motion sensing technology, no developer is going to develop for all three, Natal seems to have too many design hurdles, the PS3 wand device is only a peripheral really, Wii now has Motion Plus and the largest possible audience, plus it’s cheaper to developer for – which would you choose?

Wrapping up, Modnation Racers looks cool. Sony should have referenced Syphon Filter Combat Ops in the Play.Create.Share propaganda me thinks – might have seen a sales spike. Otherwise their conference was well done, they presented more exclusive content, further along in development and this ultimately was their key strength. The conference would have been huge if the leaks hadn’t sprung and the presentation was tidied up a little, but it’s all the same really. I’m very enthused for some Playstation, the best out of the three I’d say.

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E3 2009 Predictions

May 31st, 2009

e3-2008-psp-go

Yearly predictions, managed to scrape this one in on time. Phew!

I still don’t understand the pessimism leveled at last year’s E3. True, it was less of a spectacle and Nintendo had a rather lite showing and all, but if you cared enough, you’d realize that were plenty of interesting games on offer, as the past 12 months have proven. This year E3 is undergoing a glorious resurrection, returning from the ashes like a phoenix. Of course, I think people will still wage their cynicism over the show, and I’ll still probably love it. So onto my predictions;

Microsoft’s Conference

If I could watch only one of the three conferences, I’d probably choose this one. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, I guess. It’s no secret that I have a great distaste in the way Microsoft has co-ordinated themselves this generation with the Xbox 360 Even though I personally dislike the way they go about business, no one can deny that Microsoft have made many a smart move this generation to constantly undercut the competition. It’s not PS3 fanboy fury, I just don’t like cooperate Microsoft, but more importantly the exclusive games on the system are generically western orientated in a way that purely disinterest me.

This year I think Microsoft will gear the conference to the same tune as 2008; consolidating their key assets of services, internally produced games and a few key, bought exclusives to deliver a persuasive presentation. I think that they’ll roll out the next phase of the Xbox experience which will attempt to match the approachable aesthetic with a more workable environment, creating a more cohesive package and probably rolling out some surprise new features which accentuate the tweaks. I guess one of those will be to give avatars a purpose.

Their main line up of games will include Splinter Cell: Conviction, Mass Effect 2, the new Molyneux title, Alan Wake, one or two new internally developed games, possibly a shared release with next Valve game and Metal Gear Solid 5 . The latter of which will be another show stopper for Microsoft. As much as it pains me to say, all the evidence in the teaser site points to the 360 conference. I’m guessing that the new title will have some new twist such as being a series of downloadable episodes filling in the gaps of the series. I think it’s a stupid idea to drag the series on like this, but they’ll do it, I just hope they remove Hideo Kojima for good this time. He’ll be there to spruik the new game, so I doubt it. Microsoft will also use their timely advantage to premier videos and announcements for top-tier multiplatform releases like Assassin’s Creed II. The video has already been leaked supposedly.

mass-effect-2-xbox-360

I don’t think that there will be many new IPs in their casual gaming sector, resulting in less time with the daffy performances that degrade the very sector they’re trying to market towards. A large part of this year’s casual gaming effort will be iterative of previous attempts, including Lips 2, a repackaged 1 Vs 100 and anything else that got left on the cutting room floor from last time.

The big news will be Microsoft trumpeting their MGS5 victory (it’ll be multiplatform) as well as dropping a bomb on services and wooing fans with with video footage for the new games. Honestly, any video of Halo:ODST will grab headlines, no matter how uninteresting, but that’s their strategy; to steal the thunder from the competition by igniting the noise of their inflated fan community. Overall, it’ll be a well rounded success. Maybe they’ll mention Xbox Live Arcade or the neglected Community Game and Games for Windows.

I cant shake an itch that Final Fantasy XIII and MGS5 will eventually expose teething weaknesses in the Xbox 360 hardware. Kojima Productions last year finished producing a mammoth 4-year project for the Playstation 3, filling up a 50gb dual-layered Blu-ray disc and now they are producing a sequel to that game on a technically inferior system with discs that hold less than a 1/3 that size. The same with FF XIII, Square-Enix is producing the game ground up for the PS3 and then once its done, will port it across. I’d be cautious here.

Sony Conference

This year Sony’s conference will continue to ascend in quality after last year’s good presentation. The justification remaining the same; games. Last year Sony delivered a solid conference, sporting a series of top-tier 1st and 3rd party titles for all their systems and PSN. This year, the number of those titles is set to increase and with the PS2 out of the equation, they can now concentrate on the products which need it.

The PSP Go! which has already been legitimately leaked, will be announced. They’ll have to work around the leak somehow, I suspect they won’t do it very well. Everything else about the system is already known, go out and read about it! This is a huge announcement that will create only rather small impact since it was already a given, no real surprises there. What will surprise though are the number of big brand titles coming for the system. The following should all be due in before this time next year, no doubt they’ll feature in a montage;

Soul Calibur Broken Destiny
LittleBigPlanet
Assassin’s Creed PSP
Dissidia Final Fantasy
Rock Band Unplugged
MotorStorm Arctic Edge
Tekken 6
Metal Gear Solid
Final Fantasy Agito XIII
Gran Turismo
Jak and Daxter
Lunar remake
3rd Birthday (Parasite Eve 3)

Video for all of these games will be shown, I suspect most will be playable. They’ll all be due in the next year or so, bolstered by a strong marketing campaign for Christmas time. These titles should also plunger another hole for the PSP Go! that is, with no UMD drive, how will players access games? Sony will combat this by announcing that all future PSP titles (including all of the games just listed) will arrive on the Playstation Network for download in time with UMD release or earlier. They’ll also likely reiterate their push to back-catalogue older PSP titles. This will then be coupled by announcing a slew of new PSone games for the service, including support by developers Capcom, Namco and Square-Enix. Capcom already began their push early this week with Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, I think the other games will be arriving shortly, starting June.

They will then talk about managing the two systems and prove their case by reiterating previously announced bundles for the second half of the year including the FF Dissidia and Hannah Montana packs. The latter represents a push towards the tween market, maybe they’ll mention that too.

From there they’ll probably discuss either the PS3 Slim or a price cut, hopefully both. It would be wiser for them to announce the price cut later, but doing it at E3 will only aid in Sony in their tussle for the headline with Microsoft. They’ll probably lose the attention seeking battle overall, but have more interesting content in greater quantity, as was the case last year.

They’ll then likely unveil new PSN games and DLC at the same time they discuss the PSone classics. The next Jenova Chen game and Fat Princess are to be expected. Some mild surprises here, hopefully no more Pain add-ons.

rockband-psp-unplugged

In the PS3 discussion Sony will focus on their key 1st and 2nd part titles including Uncharted 2, God of War III, Heavy Rain, MAG and the new Rachet and Clank. They’ll probably talk about this purposed LittleBigPlanet web portal and announce some new titles such as Sly Cooper and something else. Sony are meant to dropping bombs too this year, but I’m not so sure. I suspect that more PS3 games will be downloadable through PSN as they begin their push into that territory. In fact I think all of their game announcements regarding PSN will in combination cause quite a stir. This presentation will prove that the service is coming into it’s own, in an unique way with lots of original content.

As for the headlines? Everything I just mentioned can more or less be assumed.The big announcements really depend on which 3rd parties Sony reel into the conference. Microsoft are ace are pulling together developers from all over the place to legitimize their argument, in contrast Sony often boast the work of their internal studios. I think they need to open up if they want to take the show. They have drummed up plenty of great PSP support, if they can do the same for the PS3 and then get developers on stage for a song and dance then victory to them. PSN will be the defining point of their conference, prove why it matters with 3rd party friends. I suspect that their guests will link into their big announcement. I also hope that they discuss PS3-PSP compatibility with their newly acquired 3rd party PSP titles. Soul Calibur, Assasian’s Creed II, Tekken, Final Fantasy, GT…lots of potential.

Nintendo Conference

I’m out of predictions for Nintendo. Honestly. Iwata has mentioned key titles for the end of the year which he expects will see Wii sales spike again. I suspect that one of those is a previously existing franchise, I’d hedge my bets on Pikmin 3 as it makes sense with the recent Wii re-releases. The other will be a mass market title on the same scale as Wii Fit. They will again highlight 3rd parties on Wii. Ubisoft will be invited back in the conference to express their enthusiasm for the new Red Steel 2, Rabbids and hopefully show off the Assassin’s Creed II for the Wii. Yes, very odd that last one. EA Sports will be present as a supporting act for Wii Sports Resort and the Motion Plus, they’d be on for a winner if they invited Peter Moore on stage as he loves the device. Sega would be another good third party to invite.

Zelda: Spirit Trackers will spearhead the DS line up, followed by some curious new titles and the healthy combination of games from Square-Enix and other 3rd party regulars. The montages of video for new Wii, DS, WiiShop and DSiShop titles will feature plenty of neat games that’ll all brush by too quickly. They’d be wise to remind the audience about the Metroid Prime Trilogy and indie darlings such as Night Game, Bit Trip Beat Core, Meat Boy and Cave Story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO0hliWO7Kg

Nintendo won’t announce a new blockbuster franchise. They’d be stupid to as whatever they have under wraps won’t see a release until Christmas next year. I say wait until early next year for a teaser and then next E3 for the unveiling.

Nintendo is the only safe bet here. I think they’ll have a solid showing, and the truth is, Nintendo’s selection of games is just as good as the competition. Their new titles for the end of the year will grab the headlines, although I think they’ll become too bogged down in speeches, product demonstrations and sales reports. I’m curious to why Mr Miyamoto will be absent from the conference and whatever Mr Iwata has to say about company culture. At this stage though, I’m more distracted with the Microsoft-Sony punch up.

Conclusion

Although I’ve just posted another super long post, I think that there will be a number of key surprises from out in left field from every company that no one would be able to predict. I’m not sure if I should continue posting next week as I’m sure you’ll all be busy with E3 news, me included. No worries, I’ll keep chugging and you can all touch base once the shows over.

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Satoru Iwata is the Only One With His Head Screwed On

July 25th, 2008

satoru iwata nintendo president

Despite the overall pessimistic view surrounding E3 2008 and the games industry in general it does seem that many people were unanimously most disappointed with Nintendo’s conference of the big three. I can understand this in some ways, as the scripted acting between Reggie and Cammie Dunaway was awful at best.

Ignoring the silly banter by the Nintendo America PR folk, Satoru Iwata’s speech about paradigm shifting really took a hold over me and then later substantiated itself with the presentation of Wii Music. Of all the conferences I watched, I saw Nintendo’s last and it was in Mr Iwata’s words that made the most sense out of anything else on display.

Even though I completely loved the show and almost everything on display, there were a few underlying issues which troubled me. Almost all of the gameplay demonstrations reeked of stale gameplay mechanics, while naturally expected, the lack of nothing truly groundbreaking was disheartening.

Resident Evil 5 appears to be a derivative rip off of the franchise’s former entry, right down to story premises and character animation. FallOut 3 and Farcry 2 both sang choruses of tired gaming buzzwords with heavy emphasis on ‘choices’ and ‘expansive, ‘free roaming’ environments. With FallOut 3 submitting to the ever popular glamorous parade of glorified death which presenter Todd Howard was keen to highlight.

Resistance 2 sadly opted to participate in the “mine is bigger than yours” pissing match between Gears of War which was disappointing to see. Even more so was Mirror Edge, which abandoned the idea of a truly pacifist first person experience, awkwardly taking up arms in the process. Prince of Persia developers also failed to show inspiration in some regards, reusing the ‘Sands of Time’ gameplay mechanic (real time rewinds) and wrapping it in the form of a female side kick who also allows for high flying, over the top acrobatics, something that makes no sense within the history of the franchise.

While most of these games will undoubtedly go on to be fairly successful titles (and it goes without saying that I am greatly anticipating each), the fact of the matter is that they are all reliant on a mostly dated way of thinking. They all fall victim to not being as forward thinking as their graphical make up may suggest. This isn’t necessary bad or makes them inferior but within the context of what this generation can bring, we’re sticking pretty close to convention, aren’t we? Developers are dragging their feet when it comes to new game design, so I ask; How long is it going to be before we see games that:

-deal with difficult issues without the aid of bullets
-engage us with culturally enriching experiences
-teach us the consequences for our actions
-capture us emotionally through stories directed through gameplay

Just to name a few examples of what we should be expecting out of this medium.

It is here where I segue into Mr Iwata’s idea of paradigm shifting. In contrast to all of these games providing familiar experiences, staying within a set boundary, I think that Wii Music is a game which upholds these ideals of change that he discussed. Perfectly relevant with all of this Guitar Hero/Rock Band rivalry going on.

Instead of sticking to conventional rules of combining button presses with fixed timing to create a tune which demands great reflex and dexterity of the player, Wii Music removes it all to provide something that has never been done before; an open ended music performance. It sounds ridiculous, right? I mean, it’s a fair assumption that after watching the presentation most people would have questioned the legitimacy of this title. This is expected, because Wii Music is by no means a typical game and which, is what Mr Iwata was basically discussing.

Much like the other titles of this series (Wii Sport, Play…), Wii Music is challenging the very definition of video games. While it may not be shooting for the 4 examples I listed above, what Wii Music and all of these other games are trying to do is perhaps even greater and for this it should be commended as one of the only upcoming games that is actually pushing our industry forwards (save for Little Big Planet and some interesting PSN stuff).

e3 2008 wii music presentation

Obviously the simplified graphics, “casually” branded gameplay and embarrassing presentation don’t really work in favour to an audience that is still warming into this massive change. I don’t blame people for feeling uncomfortable about these games, this is fine. What bothers me considerably is how these games are not being understood for their intent. I’m not trying to negate whether Wii Music’s mechanics will or will work, instead focusing on whether the design message is being realized by consumers.

As Stephen Totilo pointed out, Nintendo isn’t 100% innocent here but the case still stands, “hardcore” gamers (seriously, this term should not exist, there is no such thing!) and a good part of the gaming press seemingly lack the open mindedness to appreciate the favour that Nintendo is doing for the industry. Not only are they breathing new life into our industry, increasing our position on the global stage, but they are also stretching the limited definition of video games. Yet we hate them for it?

Furthermore the whole concept of the Wii and DS are themselves still greatly unrealized and under appreciated. Namely because there are not enough developers prioritizing the technology to make ground breaking products. This perception problem could easily be solved if the new technology is adapted more adaquetly to a more “hardcore” playing style. Games like Metroid Prime 3, and Kirby Canvas Curse are both games that thrive on the new hardware as with 3rd party titles like Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword and Zack and Wiki. These games are appealing to the hardcore, are they not? With a greater influx of these games, maybe then Iwata’s message will be realized.

My point in writing all of this is that, much like everything else Nintendo is doing (besides the obviously rubbish Pokemon cash ins) they are doing it for a reason and a very important one at that. While the décor is radically different, can we really be so critical on something that many of us still fail to completely understand? Nintendo are running their own race, leaving the competition behind, in pursuit of a greater glory, one that we’d be fools to be shortsighted on. Nintendo don’t want to exclude their dedicated audience, but considering how this is playing about (once again, in reference to Stephen Totilo’s article), Nintendo are in essence making a huge sacrifice and I wish them well with their message.

NB: Just to reinstate, I don’t intend to speak badly of these other games, I just want to put the ideals that Nintendo are pushing for into perspective.[Conference Image: Press the Buttons]

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