To continue: the Sony and Nintendo conferences were held today, the first day of the show, proper.
So let’s get into it….
Sony
God of War III is coming in March 2010. It looks like a painting come to life according to David Jaffe and I’m not going to argue with him, merely ask him not to visit goth art galleries anymore whilst inebriated. the fourth game in the trilogy 9(!) will close out the series (!).
PSP Go! was announced. People were shocked. People who woke up from coma’s were shocked anyway. Its a slimmer, UMD less PSP that will go on sale in a few months for US$250 alongside the current PSP-3000. PSP will finally see Gran Turismo portable, which seems to have taken a leaf out of Pokemon and Monster Hunter’s huge popularity in Japan by allowing trades over wifi. There’s a new Metal Gear portable game, Peacewalker or Pisstaker or something and this looks to be set a few years after Metal Gear 3. There’s the previously mentioned Little Big Planet PSP, Motorstorm and Assassin’s Creed PSP; as well as a newly announce PSP Resident Evi, PSP Infamous and PSP Soul Calibur.
On the PS3 front there’s the duel wand motion controller, currently unnamed and listed for release sometime in 2010. You can now get your waggle in three different flavours, depending on which system you own. As far as games go there weren’t many surprises, as most had been either announced, teased or leaked before the show. What games were shown mostly look pretty cool. Uncharted 2 looks to be fantastic, but we new that. MAG looks to be big and expansive but we knew that. The demo was nice in showing the strengths and weakness of the concept. Another quick look at the new Ratchet game in one of Sony’s many montages and a new Final Fantasy online game, FFXIV for release in 2010 on PS3 only.
But the exclusive that looks most intriguing is Agent, from Rock Star. Its set in the 70′s so I’m sure we’ll get that period completely inaccurate (you know early 70′s hippie fashions and giant afros with disco music). You’re an assassin. Its a Rock Star game so you’re never going to be handing out leaflets in a mall.
Assassin’s Creed 2, not shown on the Ubi conference, was demoed but as Jade Raymond was no where to be seen we’ll skip that. Just kidding. Can this game redeem the flaws of the original? Time will tell. PS3 is getting some exclusive DLC. Its called the PSP version and if you buy that, you get some extra weapons to use. Also shown is a cartoon racer where you can make and share tracks. Moving right along, there’s The Last Guardian, from the makers of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Even though the trailer showed up on the web a few days ago, its still nice to see.
Overall, better than last year but we knew 95% of the content previously so the surprise factor was lower. Personally, GoW III, Ratchet and Uncharted 2 are my must haves on PS3 out of what was shown here.
Nintendo
Well, if they could put the word Mario into any more products they would. They started by talking about mario’s evolution and how they want to take Mario into 4D. By this they mean a 4-player coop version of All New Super Mario Brothers for Wii. A 2D renaissance has taken place with this and Epic’s XBLA game announced yesterday, but hopefully this won’t merely be the DS game upscaled for Wii (though bets on that’s exactly what this is).
Of course there would be WiiFit 2. Nintendo may not be making the kewl games like they used to but your grandma needs something to do in between lawn bowls and writing angry letters to the newspaper. Motion Plus was pimped yet again, with what seemed to be a familiar montage of what you could do with it (deja vu circa the Wii’s2006 launch).
Wii Sports resort seems to be less of a tech demo and more of a “this is what we should have done all along” game.
Along the same vein, Red Steel 2 (Motion plus only, it seems) is going to try and fulfill the promises Ubi made in 2006 with the big selling but reviled original.
We have a Final Fantasy game for Wii, Crystal something. Open world gayness from SE. Weeeeee. A DS Kingdom HeartZzzzzzzzz. Mario and Luigi told from Bowser’s side. oh dear. Golden Sun. Oh well, some fanboys should be happy. But Women’s Murder Club? Cops: A recruit ?. I think my DS will be getting dustier and dustier.
Mario Vs Donkey Kong Mini’s March Again, is more puzzling action, this time with a level editor- buts its a DSi Ware game only. As is a Wario Ware title where you make your own games. I sometimes thing games where the idea is to make your own games is rather lazy on the part of developers.
There was a long build up to an announcement by Satoru Iwata (Nintendo Japan Head dude). The build up was to one of those cheap things you clip on your finger to monitor your heart-rate. The internet goes “huh?” The next announcement lead to believe its a joke at the expense of fanboys. Its Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii!
Also, making sense of the recent bundling of the three Metroid prime games on one disc is a new Metroid Game from Team Ninja. Its called Other M. And its semi side scrolling.
Controller1.com is not a news site, its a blog so rather than being your one stop shop for E3 news, we’ll just have some opinion. The show hasn’t opened yet but half the big publishers have already had conferences and briefings so I’m going to change my pants, recap my reactions to the news from MS, Activision, EA Ubisoft and others.
EA
Lego Rock Band and The Beatles Rock Band shows that EA and Harmonix can do the exact thing as Activision/ Neversoft- that is make a game once and then reskin 15 times. Brutal Legend was demoed and I still don’t know what the hell the game is about- apart from Jack Black being involved somehow. Is it a driving game? An action game? Saboteur from Pandemic has been on my radar for a while and hopefully its not just Mercenaries 2.5. Mass Effect 2 looks to have more awesome than an awesome star going supernova. Crysis 2 is coming and its on consoles as well. APB (from the makers of Crackdown) coming early in 2010 should be fun. I might need to get a gaming PC this year.
Dante’s Inferno seems to be another hellish God of War game but Bioware made a splash with the Old Republic trailer that made people who want Ewok porn care for Star Wars again.
Left 4 Dead 2!!! A Valve game where there’s been a yearly update. And it looks like it does everything Dead Rising didn’t do. I am looking forward to this in a way most Valve MP-focused games don’t ‘click’ for me.
Ubisoft
Red Steel 2 looks like Motion plus might actually be a worthwhile pickup for the Wii. But while Assassin’s Creed 2, if it fixes the flaws of the first game might be a great game, its Splinter Cell Conviction that looks to be THE Ubisoft game you buy at full price. The rest, you just wait for a few months to get it for a third of the launch price.
Activision
Wow, another Guitar Hero game. I could pass this year and just stick with Beatles Rock Band. Tony Hawk Ride, with its fancy controller, doesn’t appeal at all. But Modern Warfare 2 looks just as good as anything Infinity Ward have done to date. It will be a HUUUUGE game in 2009. Wolfenstein looks great, despite the fact the trailer tries to hide the fact its a WWII game.
Microsoft
Halo 3: ODST came and went which should be fun, but then Bungie and MS are doing Halo: Reach.
Buy ODST and you get a MP beta invite for Halo: Reach so things look interesting. Forza 3 for you hardcore racing fans will make the 360-owning revheads reaching for the tissues. Considering its likelihood to go up against GT5, it has better be impressive.
MS also showed off their new camera based controller. The thing is, it doesn’t use an actual controller. Natal looks to be goofy, Eyetoy-esque and fun for all the family. There needs to be more info. Peter Molyneux was there to talk about his new project with a boy called Milo. Its a virtual prisoner in a pit so the sadists should be satisfied. I’m still wondering why you would want to with Twitter and Facebook with your 360 but if it lets you do screenshots for sites like this, I’ll be interested. Alan Wake is coming early next year, and I continue to be intrigued but there’s Crackdown 2 from Ruffian games. Not only am I interested, but Cameron won’t be shutting the fuck up about this for the next year.
Oh and there’s a Metal Gear game on 360 featuring Raiden. To me, it sounds like a Ninja Gaiden style game but that’s just pure speculation.
And the show hasn’t even started yet.
E3 is almost on top of us. We previewed some of what we think will be there last week. Today, we’d like to look at some of the bat shit loco insane rumours that are doing the rounds. Wait a few days and we’ll see if its wrong or not. Hardware tweaks and updates, fanboy expectations rising and hype machines running amok destroying entire communities.
Rumour 1: PSP Go. A PSP with no UMD drive with a sliding screen like an LG cel phone (so that the gaming controls are hidden when watching a movie, for instance). Sony aren’t giving up on their handheld designs. It could be a very interesting device (I’d like one). Various spy shots are around the web so we think this one if fairly certain.
Rumour 2: Microsoft Zune that plays games. The Zune HD was just announced so take this one with a grain of salt.
Rumour 3: New colours for the Wii. Well, the hardware numbers for Wii have finally started to slow down so here come the alternate hues. This one is a goer
Rumour 4: PS3 Slim. Maybe. The spyshots are pretty dodgy but its the sort of thing Sony needs.
Rumour 5: Hideo Kojima’s new game. Probably Metal Gear related. Probably a PS3 only title. Almost certainly pretentious as a Frenchman at a Philosophers’ convention.
Rumour 6: Metal Gear 360. maybe.
Rumour 7: Cheaper MS peripherals for 360 (HDD and controllers). Would be interesting.
Rumour 8: Epic making a PS3 Exclusive title. Sure, why not?
Rumour 9: A new Wiifit. Sure Nintendo loves money and hates gamers.
Rumour 10: Valve showing off something. Current Rumour is Left 4 Dead 2 but it could be anything- Half Life 2 Episode Three (making a mockery of the episodic release concept), TF2 expansions, Portal 2. Anything.
What we aren’t likely to see at E3:
An Xbox 360 slim
Free Xbox Live Gold
A Wii game worth playing
A console port of a Valve multiplayer game that’s any good.
PS3 with 4 USB ports and Backwards compatibility
Apple home console
Ngage press conference that doesn’t get big laughs
E3 will be on us very shortly and Controller1.com would like to prognosticate one what you WON’T be reading about come the first week of June. This is not the result of rumor, heresay or the result of a dodgy phone camera shot of a Best Buy POS terminal. This is pure 100% bullshit. You do know how to spot bullshit, don’t you? It’s easy. Read on…
1- Nintendo will announce the Wii 2 HD console without Motion controllers, merely a redesigned N64 controller with more spikes. The Big N has listened to the whining whims of hard care gamers and is ditching the mass market with millions of easy sales of Wii fit and WiiPlay. Instead, they will focus on the shrinking marketshare that ‘core’ games that are currently divvied up between Sony and MS.
2- A Japanese game without hypersexualised pedo-bait female characters will be released. RE5 will offer new unlockable raincoat costumes for Shiva. DLC for X-Blades will include a petticoats and hoop-skirts. I do declare!Dead or Alive Extreme 3 will feature the ladies in a new environment- Open Cut Coke Mining.
3. EA will be bought by Midway
Take one company that’s big but losing a bit of money. Take another company that’s on its last knees. Midway buying EA would be like Quebec buying France. But that won’t stop Midway’s bat-shit loco insane management from giving it a go.
4. Microsoft announces a new model Xbox 360- The Bulletproof. This new model is guaranteed by Microsoft nit to break down in any way. It will never RROD or display an E74. It also has no DVD Drive, power supply, CPU, GPU or wireless receiver. It is not backwards compatible with Xbox 1 games, but its also not present-compatible with Xbox 360 games. But its not breakable.
5. Ubisoft announces a game produced by Jade Raymond that will not be demoed on stage by Ms Raymond, but by the games’ designer. Jade’s a talented lady but we’ve seen enough. Show us the dirty smelly bearded nerd.
6. Boothbabes who can stand up without developing lower back pain within 10 minutes.
7. A new Super Mario Bros game for the DS will be announced. Yes, Nintendo will actually make a second Mario platforming game on the DS. All New Super Mario Brothers will be more of the same. No Baby Mario, Wario or Yoshi. Just Mario and Luigi jumping on things.
8. a PlayStation 3 killer application. Yes, a reason for you fence sitters will be announced at E3. Unlike Heavenly Sword, Lair, Haze, MGS4, Little Big Planet or Killzone2, this will actually excite no PS3-owning gamers with two jobs to take the plunge.
9. A Twitter feed of a press conference without LOL, OMFG or Woot being used when sequel x91 is announced for mega-successful franchise y39 is announced.
10. Controller1.com’s game of show will be an MMO.
wat?
I got this email today. Why would I want to pay $12 a year to update my PSN trophy card?
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The Playstation 3 has now been cut to US$99 starting April 1. A new SKU has been released, the SCPH-10000. SCEA head Jack Tretton said “This price realignment has come about as our manufacturing processes have evolved. We can now produce a PS3 at a profit AND sell it a low low price. That’s what we’ve just realized. We were doing the ass backwards way before. No wonder we lost so much money.”
One feature return welcomed by many is the return of the ability to play PS2 games. Of course, as with previous cost-reduced versions of the PS3, some features have been omitted such as Six Axis controllers, wireless controllers, wifi abilities, HDMI, Hard Drives, Blu Ray support and online functionality. While the deleted features mean gamers won’t be able to play hot PS3 exclusive titles such as Lair, Heavenly Sword and Haze, there is an upside in that PS3 gamers won’t be able to play Lair, Heavenly Sword and Haze. Executive editor of Game Man magazine, Lasse Figstromme told controller1.com in a laggy Skype interview “Thank fuck, those games sucked more ass that rectal leaches in a Uwe Boll movie.”
Of course this is a crushing blow to Microsoft and its Xbox 360 because it means now there are dozens of exclusive game playable only on the new PS3 (and all PS2′s). Figstromme continued “Why would I want to play Mass Effect or Gears of War when I can now play Downhill Domination on my PS3?”
Why indeed.
GDC has thrown up some interesting and unusual bits of info. But funnily enough, nothing really to whet your appetite. Let’s have a quick squizz at what the net has been buzzing about.Bear in mind, I’m only reading this stuff from the same sources as you are but you came here for some controller1.com perspective and controller1.com perspective is what you’re going to get, whether you like it or not. What? they’ve gone. Oh well, for those of you still here, here’s something for both of you.
-Nintendo have announced a new Zelda game for the DS. In it, cel-shaded Link (a la Windwaker/ Phantom Hourglass) plays Casey Jones and rides a train. There’s a Rock and Roll Climbing game using a new peripheral, the Wii Ladder. The Wii can now take SDHC cards. Apparently the extra space is needed to store the new upgrade 128 digit friend codes.
-Controller1.com was not at GDC despite our employers saying they were sending no-one this year.
-Mainframe gaming returns with onlive, a new system to stream games from a central server in rea…l ti….me. Lag free. orly?
-Controller1.com did put in a request to go last November with an outline of the benefit the company would receive if we were in attendance. We even pointed out the discount on admission fees had we booked before Mid-December.
-Modern Warfare 2 was teased. No mention of Call of Duty in the title so far. Suspicious?
-Even though when we put in our application to attend, there were no sessions listed on the GDC website. They said the sessions would be up early November, but they still weren’t up in January.
Had these sessions been outlined earlier, we might have a stronger case to attend.
-At a panel discussion, a designer from Bethesda made a remark about setting of nukes in Japan in response to a Japanese developer on the panel talking about setting a game like Fallout 3 in Japan. And awkward silence was felt until someone lightened the mood by mentioning Pearl Harbour.
-Some people did actually attend, like Bob from Team Deathwish. Bob started at the company years after I did. Bob’s a bit of a brown-noser it seems.
-There was talk that God of War III would not feature any physics system and would run between 30 and 60 frames per second.
-I showed Bob the ropes when he started and that fucker gets to go to GDC. Who do you have to blow around here to get a ticket?
-Nintendo announced they will be bringing select Namco and Sega arcade games from the 80′s to Wii.
-I think Bob steals cutlery from the kitchenette.
-Microsoft have a new debug 360 with fancy metallic blue highlights and double the RAM of a standard 360 for debugging applications
-I hear, and this is just scuttlebutt from around the office, Bob may be doing drugs
That about wraps up today’s GDC coverage. We hope that you enjoyed it and that that asshole Bob dies in a fiery place crash.
Today, in this era of global economic tomfoolery, controller1.com wears its fiscal responsibility on its sleeves by publishing its financial results for the year ending March 2009.These costs are presented in the interests of transparency and fiduciary duty so that all visitors to this site know what goes where and comes from whose pocket where and how.
Our fixed expenses are many:
Webhosting: $60 a year
Domain name: $15 a year
Subscription to Edge: $170 a year. In order to get enough sass and cynicism, c1 reads Edge.
Writeoffs: 2 year subscription to EGM taken out 8 months before the magazine folded with those cock sucking parasites Ziff Davis not offering even a partial refund.
Review copies of HD games $1500 approx
Platform Breakdowns
PS3 Mirror’s Edge, Battlefield Bad Company, Army of Two, Burnout Paradise, Metal Gear Solid IV, Little Big Planet, Resistance 2, Killzone 2, Singstar Vol 2, Singstar ABBA
Xbox 360: Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, Stranglehold, Call of Juarez, Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars Force Unleashed, Prince of Persia, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, Gears of War 2, Fable II, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Guitar Hero World Tour, Lego Indiana Jones, Fallout 3
Wii: Boomblox (unopened)
PC: Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty World at War
PSP games: $L0L
DLC:
Marketplace: Duke Nukem 3D, Call of Duty 4 MW Variety Map Pack, Penny Arcade Episode 1, Poker Smash, Braid, Guitar Hero World Tour, Fallout 3 Operation Anchorage DLC,
PSN/ Singstore: Queen Songs.
PC Upgrades = $OS X
Wiifit= Blame
Dead Hardware write-offs: Xbox 360 PSP 1000
Income to the site is as following:
$0, jack,bupkiss, nada, zip, zilcho
In these uncertain economic times, even the formerly recession proof gaming industry has to adapt to protect itself. After the success of Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, many other publishers are attempting to get in on the act, cross pollinating genres and characters into new concepts. Below we have an example of three of the sort of games you’ll be playing in 2009.
Cooking Mama has been a big hit for minor publisher Majesco and now they are teaming up with Microsoft, fresh of taking Halo into the TRS genre with Halo Wars. One of MS’s stated aims is to broaden the 360′s audience so their first attempt should be looked at in much the same way we look at Web TV, Zune and Windows Vista.
Cooking Masterchief offers plays to not only coop cooking lessons, but enables you to compete in 16 player Multiplayer cook-offs on Xbox Live. Create your own recipes in the Forge and share them with other players.
Sony, not to be outdone has taken two of their iconic characters and put them together in a brand new title.
Snake and Kratos in the Modern Pentathlon sees some beloved characters compete in fencing, shooting, sneaking, loving wenches and codec quicktime events. With over 30 hours of cutscenes directed by Hideo Kojima, this is one game that could only be made on a Blu Ray disc.
and lastly, Madden NFL 09 may not be on PC but there is at last one new Madden title on PC. Madden Flight Simulator
Despite his mortal fear of flying, John Madden has put his full weight behind this project. Your job is to get John to the game by hook or by crook. In order to prepare himself for the possibility of flying, John attempted to board a flight to Las Vegas but his phobias got the better of him, causing an ‘incident’ onboard. Luckily the moment was captured and has become the cover image for this innovative title.
Activision have started the PR for what looks to be Infinity Ward’s next Call of Duty game. Whilst other companies seem to have learnt their lesson about yearly updates, Activision obviously haven’t. EA seemed to have stopped the annual release of Medal of Honor games, id aren’t churning out yearly updates to Quake and Doom. Halo, Gears, Resistance and Killzones aren’t being squeezed out every year. But Activision seem content to have a Call of Duty every year, as well as multiple versions of Guitar Hero annually. But curiously enough WoW is still the original with only two expansions in nearly four and a half years.
Iterating till doomsday has seen a lot of game series being ruined, but you can predict when this going happen very easily- People start referring to it as a franchise as if its a frozen yogurt stand in a mall. The more often you make the same game with only minor upgrades, the more likely you are to suffer from boredom and deja vu. With games like Madden, there’s evidence to suggest that many football fans buy the game every couple of years, rather than every installment. With Madden, there’s also no other choice if you want an NFL game.
With shooters, its perhaps more perilous because there is so much more choice. Call of Duty has to compete with Resistance and Killzone on PS3; Gears and Halo on 360; Tom Clancy shooters on all systems; Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress on PC as well as the ancient juggernauts of Counterstrike, Battlefield and Unreal games. Valve didn’t release TF3 a year after TF2, they added new content (free or not) but Activision took the success of Call of Duty 4 and threw it away by release the almost as successful Call of Duty World at War a year after. If there’s a new CoD game every year, how long before people get sick of it? You can argue that they sold a large number of CoD4 boxes and then a year later sold a large number of CoD WaW boxes. But they also had to devote two of their best teams to making a new title in two years, rather than smaller teams making expansions or DLC.
You can tell the tide of the Guitar Hero Rock Band style games has turned a little bit. People seem a little less enthusiastic about those games these days. Perhaps the lure of being a Rock Star fades after a while? Or the sight of fat geeks rocking out gets old after a while? You know how everyone groans about “another WWII game?” That’s because there was a time when you had Medal of Honor, Commandos, Brothers in Arms Wolfenstein, DoD, CoD, plus dozens of strategy titles and smaller PC games set in the same settings. There are dozens of SF or fantasy based games but the difference is they have freedom to make up new worlds whereas games based on actual events or settings (such as WWII or Modern Combat games) have to adhere to a certain aesthetic and conform to real world experience and expectations. You couldn’t have Gaz pull out a BFG and keep a straight face.
Look at Battlefield. First there was a WWII game and some expansions. Then there was Battlefield Vietnam a few years later, the Battlefield 2 with its mini expansions and console versions and then Battlefield 2142. The SF sequel fizzled pretty much and now the series is drifting backwards in time like some kind of ass-backwards Buck Rogers. Bad Company is back in current times and Battlefield Heroes and the new downloadable games are in WWII (ish) times. EA tried to iterate by innovating but really what they needed was space in between releases.
We’ve already mentioned Blizzard and WoW. But look at Starcraft. It was a huge hit in the late 90′ s but here we are, a decade and change later and we’re still waiting for the sequel (Just suppose EA had bought Blizzard in the past. We’ve have had Starcraft 2-5, Diablo 3, 4 and Origins and Warcraft 4-6 before EA shut them down). Of course, they are releasing SCII in three different versions. Kotick, you magnificent bastard! The clamouring for new SC is such that people will buy the three versions and not bitch too much about triple charged. WHy? Because Blizzard let the demand for a sequel build organically over time. Maybe 11-12 years is overkill, but its worked.
Personally, I am happy to have a new CoD game each year. But I know the series probably won’t be what it is if it starts fatiguing gamers to the point Activision mandate harmful changes in order to fix the malaise. “Have you guys considered adding giant robots?”
