.jpg) By Jeremy Azevedo | I’m sure many people were expecting to see Microsoft debut a 1st party motion controller today, due to the week long speculation surrounding the lightsaber-esque peripheral known as the “Darwin”. |
Despite the fact that this turned out to be untrue, that didn’t stop Nintendo from making an official announcement the day before their actual press conference regarding a new controller add-on that promises to provide the Wiimote with absolutely accurate 1:1 virtual response. Wait, what?
I don’t know about you, but I already shelled out 40 bucks apiece for the goddamn Wiimotes and 20 bucks more for the nunchuck, which already pisses me off. Factor in the Wii charging stations and you’ve got the world’s most needlessly expensive controller. So why in the hell would I want to pay another 20-30 dollars for another add-on designed to make my Wiimote do what it was supposed to already do in the first place? Go fuck yourself Nintendo. You better show me a new Kid Icarus or something equally rad tomorrow or we’re not friends anymore.
So what did Microsoft debut today? There were a couple of presentations for eagerly awaited multi-platform games like Resident Evil 5, fallout 3, Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 (more on those later). Exclusive titles Fable 2 and Gears of War 2 were also shown, although I always felt Gears was sort of the poor man’s Halo, so I couldn’t get that excited about it. I am super pumped about Fable 2 though, the original was one of my favorite games of the last generation, and I expect more of the same from the sequel.
The big news from Microsoft was that Final Fantasy XIII would be exclusive to the 360, which is a big surprise due to the fact that Final Fantasy has long been exclusive to Sony (and before that, Nintendo). Microsoft seems to be serious about developing an RPG following on their machine, something that has long been the Playstation’s secret weapon in the hardcore gaming market. But you know what game I was most excited about? Lips. Feel free to throw away your crappy Singstar collection, as Lips will allow you to upload and sing to any song in your personal collection. Sounds too rad to be true but that’s their claim. Ama-shizzle-azing.
Finally, Microsoft officially announced the partnership everybody already knew was coming with Netflix. In the very near future, Netflix users will be able to download and watch movies directly to their Xbox360 with the push of a couple of buttons. Instant entertainment just took an evolutionary leap forward. Oh, and Microsoft Live will have a stylish new interface to go along with it.
Guitar Hero World Tour Didn’t reveal too much that we don’t already know, other than that Van Halen and The Eagles would be exclusive, and that Metallica’s new album, “Death Magnetic” will be available in full as DLC. What does Rock Band 2 have to say about that?
Quite a bit, actually, as the entire Rock Band 2 set list was revealed today, and it’s impressive. You can view the entire list HERE if you so desire, but I’ll point out a couple of the more noteworthy ones here. AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock” marks the band’s first appearance in a rhythm action game, as does Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue”. For those of you that still don’t believe Chinese Democracy is coming soon, word is that a new Guns N’ Roses song off that album, “Shackler’s Revenge” is going to be included as well. A few other exciting newcomers to the Rock Band world are the Steve Miller Band, beck, Devo, Testament, Jethro Tull, Foo Fighters, Elvis Costello, Modest Mouse, The Who and The Guess Who.
At the EA press conference, I had a strange experience in which I truly felt for the first time in years that the advances in gameplay were finally catching up to the advances in technology. Spore, in particular, made quite an impact by truly allowing you to “play god” in such a way that’s never been fully realized in any game, ever. I know you have read this a thousand times already in regard to Spore, but Will Wright has constructed something that may even go so far as to challenge your beliefs in regards to creationism and/or evolution, as well as man’s place in the universe. Very meta.
Sim Animals was also revealed, cute but kind of nonsensical, very appealing in a Pixar sort of way, could be a big hit with kids and girls and hippies. Sims 3 was also shown, and drew murmurs of displeasure when it was revealed later that many in-game objects would be available for purchase in micro-transactions, something that EA’s online development branch assures us will become a part of our life going forward. I scoped the numbers in their power point presentation and it looks like crappy little Sim items may cost as much as 10 real world dollars apiece! If that’s the case, critics of the Sims emphasis on spending virtual money to purchase “happiness” for their digital selves will have a field day when that habit evolves into the spending of real American dollars.
Dead Space looked awesome in an “Event Horizon” hell-in-space sort of way. I jumped in my seat during the gameplay and trailer presentation, no shit! Could be the next Silent Hill in terms of atmospheric thrills. Bioware showed Dragon Age: Origins, which I totally thought was an LOTR game but wasn’t, and Valve showed Left For Dead, which seemed kinda unimpressive compared to the rest. The technology was impressive: an AI “Director” that would change the game based on how you were playing, but in the end, I don’t see how you could get emotionally invested in what essentially boils down to an FPS dungeon crawl. Id Software has partnered with EA on a new project entitled “Rage” (they do love those one-word titles), which looks kind of like Mad Max: The Videogame. Could be cool, but there wasn’t much to see just yet.
Peter Moore (you remember him, the guy with all the bad Microsoft tattoos?) was on hand to talk about something potentially awesome for (and also potentially fatal to) the EA Sports stable of franchises: Dynamic DNA. What Dynamic DNA does essentially is collect data each and every day in regard to the way each and every player in the NBA is playing, and makes adjustments in-game accordingly. If a player is traded, injured, not getting along with another teammate, favoring the left side of the court, shooting inside more than out, or any number of behaviors, all these things are recorded and updated live. Totally awesome, but potentially damaging to a game franchise built upon yearly releases. Does the games stop updating at the end of the season? If not, will there really be any reason to pick up NBA Live ’10? We’ll have to wait and see on that one.
Best for last, I saw footage and gameplay from Mirror’s Edge, a game I wasn’t even all that excited about before the show and probably couldn’t even have remembered the name of if you put a gun to my head. Do you remember that movie “Strange Days” where you could but on this device and not only just see, but actually experience events from another person’s life that had been recorded to a disk? Mirror’s Edge is like that. Why have we been waiting so long to take the “S” out of FPS and experience true freedom? Main protagonist Faith leaps over rooftops, burst through doors, slides under vents and leaps over fences, expertly disarms gun-wielding baddies and even escapes a rooftop battle by catching a ride on a passing helicopter. It sounds crazy, but seeing it looks so real you won’t believe it. I’m told that the coinciding story is equally impressive! I just hope it doesn’t give me vertigo!
That’s it for today, check back tomorrow for more E3 press coverage!
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