I’m a gamer.  I’ll admit, I love fragging geth or reapers, love swinging  lightsaber or sword or katana, or casting that AOE (area of effect, covering a large area) spell that will make my enemies cower before me like the digital goddess I am, doling out the hurt and the justice.  I’m actually nowhere near as cool in real life, but then most of us gamers really aren’t, which is part of why we play.  Nothing brings me closer to video game nirvana, however, than E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo.  I look forward to it every year, ever since G4 began broadcasting it live.  It’s always fun to see the new games and gaming gadgets there are to look forward to, and this year was no different.  My husband and I had to disconnect our Television from the satellite services, since we couldn’t afford it anymore, at least for a few more months, and so I watched what I could live over the net.  Here are my impressions of the presentations.  I’ll start with EA and Ubisoft, and then go into what the big 3, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, showed.

The E3 logo

EA’s presentation was possibly the barest of them all.  Not much on stage, no flashing lights or celebrity hosts.  They went for substance over style, which isn’t a bad thing.  Most people are there to see the upcoming games anyhow.  They started with a trailer for “Battlefield: Bad Company 2″‘s upcoming Vietnam war expansion.  There are nearly as many of those as there are WWII games, so I’ll leave off right there, not to mention I don’t have the hand-eye coordination to do very well at first person shooter games.  They tend to make me nauseous as well.  Some of the games I was interested in were “EA Sports Active 2″, which will be multiplatform, with 70 exercises, will use weights, has a heartrate monitor, and will be compatible with Kinect (Microsoft’s Project Natal’s final name).  The first one gave brutal workouts, so I might hold out on that until later.  Famous football player Joe  Montana introduced the latest Madden game (and heaven knows there are TONS of them out there)but it’s interesting because it’s been a yearly franchise for 22 years, even if I don’t like football one bit.  The “Sims 3″ coming out for consoles was very interesting to me, as I love playing 2, but don’t have the PC power to play 3 yet.  “Crysis 2″ is also coming out, for all platforms and in 3-d for those of us who have the televisions for it.  The first one’s another game I don’t have the computer power for.  What I’m just DYING to come out that EA talked about was “Star Wars The Old Republic” MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game.  I loved the PC games.  They announced that each player will get a starship, there will be PVP (player vs. player), and had a terrific trailer for it, set on Alderaan, a place we don’t often get to see.  The pathetically low amount of clapping at all this for “Old Republic” was really sad, though.  There were more cheers when Joe Montana came  out.  Overall, the 10 games they demonstrated and talked about were largely interesting, even if the set was kind of bare.

Ubisoft had a much fancier set with lights, multiple TVs, and more applause overall than EA’s presentation got.   The theme for the year for them was “Games you can feel,” and they never wasted an opportunity to mention it.  I got sick of hearing it by the end.   They opened with low lighting, and a really psychadelic shooter with new age/pop music as a soundtrack called “Child of Eden” that uses the Kinect (I will be saying Kinect a LOT.  Just deal with it).  It was beautiful and impressive.  They had Joel McHale, host of E!’s “The Soup”, as MC.  The next game was “Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.”  Set in 1503 Renaissance Rome, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, assassin and lady’s man, is back and the assassin’s are still fighting the templars.  Cesare Borgia, the son of Rodrigo Borgia (aka Pope Alexander VI and Ezio’s nemesis in “Assassin’s Creed 2″) will be the villain in this installment.  I’ve always liked the concept of “Assassin’s Creed”, and the fact that they use real places, historical figures, and scenes, along with the sci-fi background underneath it all.  This new installment will have horseback fighting, and better abilities to fight multiple opponents.  I may need to play this game franchise sometime soon.  I was sort of interested in “Battle Tag.”  It’s essentially lazer tag run on a console indoors and hooked to the net.  It will be able to be played by up to 8 people at once,  and will come with 2 guns, 2 harnesses and ammo bases, and the connector so the console can keep score.  It’s probably easier and cheaper to just find your local lazer tag arena and play there for an afternoon.  Lazer tag indoors around the house, JUST what a mother wants her kids doing.  It did look kind of fun, though.  The next game I found interesting really wasn’t a game at all.  “Innergy” is a stress reliever, with a finger sensor.  They showed some breathing exercises and claimed it gave a person an immunity boost for 6 hours.  I’d like to know where they got that stat from.  “Your Shape – Fitness Evolved” is yet another exercise game.  It uses Kinect to scan your entire body in, and design the workout just for your stats.  It does regular workouts, workout games, even yoga and basic martial arts combat training.  Because it scans your entire body in, it can give you feedback, such as if you’re off rhythm or need to raise an arm or leg more.  I think I might end up getting that one eventually.  “Project Dust” looked like a fascinating RPG (role playing game).  The ending was a bit confusing.  “Beat It” started to play, and the principle dancers from the gloved one’s  last movie “This Is It” came out and started to dance, while a digital picture of Michael Jackson came on the screen with his name.  Maybe Ubisoft figured it would be self explanatory, but it really didn’t tell me much of anything about the game.  Overall, though, Ubisoft did a pretty fair job with displaying most of their games to best advantage.

Nintendo, the name evokes such memories.  Sadly, they haven’t done well at E3 the last several years.  Their stage has been sort of plain and bland with all the white, and speakers are unenthusiastic, which trickles down to the quiet audience who does little more than clap politely.  They tried this year, with a “fun” presentation of the new Zelda game’s controls, but the result was still the same.  They just don’t do a very good job.  It really annoyed me when during the demo of Zelda’s control system the gentleman was speaking in Japanese, and there was another man on stage translating into English.  What was annoying was that at times they would overlap speaking and that made it hard to understand either one.  It seems like they’re trying to survive on their old properties, with nothing new in sight this year.  “Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword”, and “Metroid: Other M” were the only two games out of the entire presentation that I was even remotely interested.  A new Kirby’s coming out, along with a new “Donkey Kong Country” and “Kid Icarus” (which I’ve never heard of before) games.  They were also pushing the Nintendo 3DS  hard, which sort of made me sit up and take notice.  All 3 companies seemed to be pushing 3d this year.  What’s interesting is you don’t wear glasses with the 3DS.  It has a small window attached to the screen which you can move around and see the 3d with.  A novel idea.  They even announced plans to make 3d movies available to be watched on the system, such as “How to Train Your Dragon.”  That might get me buying eventually.  We’ll see.  The nice thing was that they brought up playing centers with the 3DS along with passing them around to the audience, so everyone in the audience got to play on it.  This was, to my mind, the saddest, most pathetic presentation of the entire expo.  You’d think a big , well established name like Nintendo would be doing better presentations.

Microsoft’s presentation had flash, with tons of lights, plenty of TV screens, and a small living room type setup, complete with rugs and couches, to demonstrate their new toy, the Kinect.  There was about as much applause as the Ubisoft presentation, and definitely more than Nintendo got at theirs.  They started off with a demonstration of the new “Gears of War” game, one of their hottest properties.  Definitely starting out with a bang.  Peter Molyneux came out and made a short speech.  He’s famous for bragging about his games by claiming features the games don’t end up getting, mostly because he’s overly optomistic, and what he wants to do isn’t feseable.  It would seem the company has FINALLY put the kibash on that, and he merely announced that “Fable 3″ was coming out later this year, set 50 years after “Fable 2,” and he then left the stage.  The next big game that caught my attention was “Halo: Reach”.  My husband likes “Halo.”  It’s Microsoft’s biggest property with 34 million of them sold, and Bungie announced that this was the last “Halo” game they would make.  What’s NOT big about that?  Then they switched into demos for Kinect, formerly known as Project Natal.  It’s a new peripheral that attaches to your 360, and scans you into the game your playing, allowing you to play without any controller other than your body and no buttons.  It kind of reminds me of the screens they talk about in Fahrenheit 451, which made me a tad unnerved.  Everything on Kinect is voice and hand activated, even just going through your music, videos and menus.  They demonstrated how it can be used to skype with family and friends, and how you can use voice controls to watch movies.  When you skype, it shows where each person is from in the top corners of the screen, along with the weather in each place.  The demonstration of “Kinectimals”, where you can have a virtual pet of a wild animal, such as a tiger, was adorable, with a 5 year old little girl playing with her tiger, Skittles, giving him treats, hiding from him, and playing with him with a squeaky toy and saying she loved him to make him “lick” her by licking the screen and purring.  ESPN had representatives there to announce they’d partnered with Microsoft so that you could watch live games and play trivia  on the Kinect.  They really caught my attention with a music game, “Dance Central,” which is basically “Guitar Hero” gone dancing for the Kinect.  They even have a break it down mode, which lets you practice the moves slowly until you get it right.  “Forza Motorsports” also has a new game coming out, and they unveiled the new 360.  It’s black, smaller than the original, has 250 gigs of memory space and wifi capabilities, for $299.  Not bad.  It’s also probably not prone to the “Red ring of death” syndrome that earlier models were prone to.  Microsoft gave a new 360 to each member of the audience for free.  How’s that for cool?  Overall a fine presentation, with a decent amount of cheering and clapping.

Finally, the pièce de résistance, Sony’s presentation.  I always look forward to Sony’s presentations.  Theirs tend to be the best at the show.  This year wasn’t any different, and I wasn’t disappointed.  Their opening was as flashy as could be, with rock music, flashing lights, and of course multiple TVs flashing scenes of various games.  The MC came out and commented that it was like being at a U2 concert.  They were, however, the only presentation NOT to acknowledge the audience watching at home and on the internet.  They announced that 3d is the future in movies and gaming, with 3d TVs already going into homes.  Great.  Another thing that by the time I can afford one, it will already be heading into obsolescence.  They also announced that PS3 is the only console that’s already ready to play 3d games on.  Their first game was the 3d game “Killzone 3″, which is also compatible with the new Playstation move.  One game they had, that my husband’s been waiting for for about 5-6 years is “Grand Tourismo 5,” a racing game.  Apparently it’s taken so long because the creator is such a perfectionist it’s a long time before he thought the game was ready.  This isn’t bad, other than the long wait my husband’s had.  The “Sly Cooper Collection”, all the “Sly Cooper” games remastered and put on one disc, also looked interesting.  Playstation’s been around for 15 years, and the PS2 has been here for 10.  Hard to believe they’re still making games for and selling the PS2, but they talked about this.  Sony then unveiled it’s new gadget that we’ve all been waiting for for a couple of years, the Playstation Move.  They even made a jab at Kinect by saying “We’ve got buttons.”    The next game they demoed for the Move was “Sorcery”  a RPG that looked really good.  you can use the Move to cast spells in the game.  This year’s “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” is also Move compatible.  My husband likes golf and likes the Tiger Woods games.  With luck, it may even help his swing.  “Heroes on the Move” is a crossover game with Sly Cooper, Jax, Daxter, Ratchet and Clank for the Move that looked absolutely adorable.  Finally, they announced that the Move would be out here in America on September 19th.  There are packages with just the move and the navigator, one with the move, navigator, eyetoy and a game, and a PS3 package with the move, accoutraments and a game.  They also announced that new games for the Move would be about $40.  In this economy, it’s great that sthey’re pulling prices down.  They had a cute ad for the Move showing various games being played, to a mix of the songs “I Like to Move it” and “Bust a Move.”  Then Kevin Butler came out.  He’s a fictional character who’s the fictional

Kevin Butler, played by Jerry Lambert.

VP of fictional divisions of Sony.  He’s the spokesperson that reads off letters from gamers in the “It only does everything” ad campaign.  People were cheering and chanting his name.  He gave an impassioned speech about loving games.  I really loved his quote,

“We all serve 1 master, 1 king, and his name is gaming!  FOREVER MAY HE REIGN!”

They then showed the new ad campaign, and the new spokesperson, a child named Marcus who will be the one answering letters.  Then came the PSP games.  A new “Metal Gear Solid” game was shown, and a new “God of War,”  and I don’t play such games, but the ads looked interesting.  “Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep” looked like something I’ll be getting.  It looked amazing.  There was an announcement that they would be doing auditions for “The Tester,” a show they had on PSNetwork for free.  I liked it.  I’ll probably watch the new season when it comes out.  Then they demoed “Little Big Planet 2,”  which I loved seeing.  This time around you’ll be able to create almost any game you want with it and share it online.  It looked great.  A subscription service was announced, which they’d already said before that they’d never do.  Interesting phrasing was that you would be able to have content on your PS3 “for the duration of your subscription.”  Sounds a bit iffy to me.  We’ll see what comes of it.  For war game lovers there is a new “Medal of Honor” coming, set in Afghanistan.  “Dead Space 2″ was also announced.  I hear they toned down the scares in it, since the first one was pretty terrifying.  “Crysis 2″ will also be available on the PS3, and in 3d.  A lot of clapping was heard, and a lot of fun was had.  They also did a good job of covering all the content they had to cover, and a good job showing off their games to best advantage.

Overall, it was a good E3, and a lot of good games and toys are coming out this year and next.  It doesn’t seem like the gaming industry’s been hurt by the recession at all, but then entertainment flourishes during a recession or depression.  People want to escape their everyday and be entertained more during such times.  Either way, long live video games!

EA – 3/5

Ubisoft – 3/5

Nintendo – 2/5

Microsoft – 3/5

Sony – 4/5

Overall  – 4/5