E3 08: Sony Press Conference

By Tyler Barber


On the same stage that Jack Palance did his famous one-armed push-ups at the 1992 Oscars, we saw the comic-book artist Jim Lee do the same. Touché Jim, and touché Sony. Last year's E3 was really a bad year for everyone. Each of the big three press conferences had at least one major embarrassing moment, but this year Sony and Microsoft managed to save face 100 percent (read my write-up on Nintendo's press conference to get the dish on their embarrassing moment. Here's a hint: it was the entire show). And while I would say that Microsoft stole the show, Sony wasn't far behind. Their main shortcoming: not showing enough new games, gameplay, and the lack of surprising announcements (also don't forget that little blight called Home).

Sony's Jack Trentton did an excellent job hosting the event and set the tone at the start by basically saying, "every PlayStation console takes a few years to hit its stride, so forgive us for not blowing you away this year." Which is true, historically. If you look at the PS1 and PS2, it wasn't until year four or five that we saw games like Final Fantasy XII, Grand Theft Auto III, and Metal Gear Solid. So with that out of the way, they continued to show a line-up of expected, but exciting titles.

First was what most people are calling game of the show: Little Big Planet. Last year I gushed about this game, and now my enthusiasm has intensified. This year, they used Little Big Planet as a Power Point presentation. That's right, they presented their sales numbers and projections in-game, in a custom-created Little Big Planet level. I've never heard such a long applause for sales numbers in my life. Youtube it.

Later, they went on to to show a few games, mostly trailers, and even brought exclusive developer Insomniac Games on-stage to demo Resistance 2. If you're unfamiliar, this is basically Sony's Halo. That's terribly reductionist, but very telling, in a nutshell. I was none impressed by their showing. The demo was the most removed from visceral that I can imagine a AAA first-person-shooter being. The stage they showed had this giant enemy (like Godzilla-giant) playing cat and mouse with the player through the roof-tops of downtown Chicago. Everything about the demo was bland, and my actual hands-on with the game later in the day didn't reassure me.

Sony also showed a few new upgrades to the PlayStation Network (PSN) where you can now rent movies directly on your PS3, which would be news if Microsoft hadn't done it already a year ago. But we did get a brief look into some exclusive downloadable titles that are nothing like what you'll find on the Xbox 360's Live Arcade line-up. Fat Princess and Flower were the show-stealers. Fat Princess looks like a Gauntlet-esque, online-versus game that has a story-book art style with over-the-top violence. It's cute meets cruel with unique character classes adding to the complexity. Flower, another "Game-of-the-Show" for a lot of E3-goers, is the next game by the creator of Flow. To hear it from the creator is to fully grasp what it is: a visual poem, telling the tale of a flower's dream. Seriously, that's how he describes it. You control the petal of a flower, guiding it through the wind while trying to pollinate and spring to life various plat-life in fields and gardens. If it's a little confusing, Flower is supposed to be metaphorical in design and presentation, understood when you play/feel the game.

And in what I would describe as a bad Thanksgiving family moment where your meth-addict cousin is noticeably absent, and your aunt and uncle assure you they're doing good in rehab -- Sony showed a little Home in a quick and nervous manner. All we saw was a short trailer of Sony's grand virtual-community feature in its latest state, which looks just like it did two years ago. Seriously, I think they could can this project and no one would care.

Sony concluded with a trailer of the next big thing by Zipper Interactive (the guys that make Socom) which was universally recognized as the worst game name ever: M.A.G. (Massive Action Game). M.A.G.'s claim to fame is that it's a 250 player online shooter with persistent character building similar to Call of Duty 4's online component.

At the end of it, I wasn't rushing to play any Sony games; they really didn't show many. But, I wasn't down on them either. If history is to repeat itself, then we will see a giant library of excellent games that you can only find on the PS3. But, what wasn't a factor 10 years ago is the growing monster that is Microsoft's Xbox 360. And what history really shows is that it's the games, not the hardware, that sets the competition apart.

E3 08: Nintendo Press Conference

By Tyler Barber

Zzzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzzz. No, seriously: Zzzzzzzzzzz. I slept through Nintendo's press conference. Or as I like to say: "Min-tendo," because all they make now are minigames. I know that there's already a ton of backlash from Nintendo's showing at E3, and for that I almost feel like I should be the contrary voice. Even after the conference, when the show-floor opened up, I walked into Nintendo's booth to give them a chance, and walked right back out. There was nothing there for me. Of everything they announced -- known quantities like Animal Crossing City Folk, Shaun White's Snowboarding (using the Wii Fit balance board), and the actually good looking first-person-shooter The Conduit -- nothing spoke to me. It's clear that Nintendo is abandoning the "hardcore" gamer for the more lucrative alpha-mom and "casual gamer."

I don't intend to sound like a whining gaming nerd, but when their biggest announcement, Wii Music, was shown I almost puked and swallowed in my mouth. That game looks re-fucking-dick-ulous. It's basically a pantomime music game (DO NOT think: Guitar Hero, Rock Band) that emits horrible atonal music while the player flails around with imaginary instruments. They did say that this game was a hit in the office for four- to six-year-olds, but seriously, if you want to get that audience don't waste my time at 8:30 a.m. I spent the previous night hanging out with grown-up gamers playing grown-up games. Wii Music easily wins the most embarrassing moment of E3 '08.

Echoing the success of Wii Play (the collection of minigames bundled with a Wiimote), Nintendo announced its new controller cash-in with their new one-to-one Motion Plus controller add-on. The Motion Plus allows developers to make games that track the full 3D movement of the Wiimote, instead of what we have now which is up/down, side-to-side (including diagonals) and acceleration inputs. This is great for that Lightsaber game we all want, but it comes at the cost of splitting the market with those who have the add-on and those who don't. The Motion Plus controller will ship with Wii Sports Resort, which will use the add-on in minigames like Fencing and Jet-Skiing.

All I can say is Nintendo is the ubiquitous game maker. It's just a shame they're not making games for those who made them so.

E3 08: Microsoft Press Conference

By Tyler Barber



Peace, freedom, and bacon and eggs: the opening line from Bethesda's new (and hilarious) Fallout 3 trailer cued the Pavlovian-salivation response that remained high (for the most part) throughout Microsoft's E3 press conference. Last year, in Santa Monica, Microsoft came on stage and reassured gamers that '07 was the year of Microsoft. They were hyping up surefire games like Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, and Mass Effect, but what we saw then were mostly trailers, not gameplay. So, to my surprise, Microsoft followed the excellent Fallout 3 demo with on-stage demonstrations of three more AAA games. Maybe you've heard of them: Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2, and Fable 2? All of the games demoed great, and the hype was high for all.

After the heavy-hitters, they followed up with what was, for me, the most impressive line-up of games for E3: the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) downloadable titles (yes, the Playstation Network games are in that category too -- more on them later). First, we saw Geometry Wars 2, which instantly reminded me how bad-ass Geometry Wars Evolved was. In GW2, you now have not only new single player modes, but also 16 mutliplayer modes with both inventive verses and co-operative play. Next we saw something no one anticipated, Glaga Legions, developed by the same Namco-Bandia team that created the excellent Pac-Man Championship Edition. The mid-conference low followed after that with two cock-teases: Portal Still Alive (extra downloadable stages sans GLaDOS) and a strange flash of a screen for the South Park XBLA game.

Where Microsoft did slip, and slip, and slip was in the already-leaked section of their conference. Leading up the event, a marketing firm, Intellisponse, had a flood of information pulled off their site which contained the images of the new Avatars, the karaoke game called Lips and references to the new 3D interface for the Xbox 360 Dashboard. While it wasn't the stuff core gamers salivate over, I couldn't help but wonder if this slew of new features beat Playstation 3's Home to the punch (which was practically absent at Sony's press event). What was exciting was the announcement of a Microsoft/Netflix partnership that allows Netflix and Xbox Live Gold subscribers to stream any movie from the Netflix database. You'll be able to watch these movies along with your friends (who also have the appropriate services) over Xbox Live with full voice-chat functionality. And before amping up again, they showed the audience more "casual" titles, which are a response to the success of the Nintendo Wii. We're in the Movies came off as sort of embarrassing, but later when I actually played it, turned out to be fun.

To wrap up the show, Square Enix took the stage to showcase three role-playing-games that they've been working on for the Xbox 360: The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean: The Last Hope. They all looked great, and just as Microsoft was ending the press conference, they pulled a Steve-Jobs-one-more-thing stunt: Final Fantasy XIII coming to the Xbox 360 in North America and Europe. No release date, or new footage, but enough to get everyone talking.

Of the big three, Microsoft's press conference came out ahead. Sure they had the luxury of going first, but neither Sony nor Nintendo showed as much gameplay, nor did they have the amount of surprises that Microsoft did. And yes, I am partial to the Xbox 360, so maybe that influenced my outlook, but I think anyone would have a hard time making a case for the other two as victors in the media blitz that is E3.