E3 Overview0

This past week in the United States was the Electronic Entertainment Expo or as it’s most commonly known E3. E3 is the biggest event in the gaming calendar, it’s when all the major video game developers come together to present, unveil and boast about all their new wares. So this is going to be a heavy gaming article with a few of the highlights so lets jump right in.

First up is Nintendo, who over the last couple of years has dominated the conference and from what I can see the same has happened this year. Okay not entirely true, but they gave us a look at probably the biggest new product to be unveiled at the expo. The next Nintendo home console is (drumroll) the Wii U. Just when you thought they couldn’t come up with a name dumber then the Wii, we now have the Wii U. So what’s different about it? The most stupidly obvious answer is of course the chunk-tastic new controller. Imagine iPad violently raped a Wii remote, who in-turn had to give up the baby, that’s this remote. It has all the usual Nintendo buttons as well as dual analogue sticks, a front facing camera and right in the middle is a 6.2” touch screen (kind of hard to miss). As awkward and bizarre as it looks I’ve got to give nintendo the benefit of the doubt. They are a company that knows what they are doing. So many people bashed the Wii before it came out, which as we know completely demolished its competitors in both sales and broad appeal. Nintendo always tries to be innovative and with this new console they seem to be taking the appeal of things like the iPad/IPod platform and doing something different with it. Along with the new controller this is a HD system which means it’ll have the power to run a lot more hardcore games like Batman Arkham City, Assassins Creed, Ninja Gaiden, Ghost recon, Dark Siders 2, etc. But also it’s backwards compatible so all the current Wii games, controller and other peripherals will play on the new system. Not to mention all new HD titles from the classic Nintendo range, like Mario, Zelda, Super Smash Bros and all the other ones they release on every console. As Nintendo only had a new console come out a few months ago, there are plenty of new titles being announced for the 3DS. All the usual suspects Mario 3DS, Mario Kart, Kid Icarus and even Luigi’s Mansion 2. But enough of that, have a look at some of the features of the WiiU… still funny:

So what was Sony’s big surprise? An apology for the Sony network being hacked? No of course that was no surprise to anybody. But they have now finally revealed their new portable gaming device the PS Vita. Another strange name for a gaming platform, Vita is Italian for life, but all I can think of is Aqua-vita the bottle water brand. The successor to the PSP and looking nearly identical, the PS Vita so packed with features I’m concerned it may weigh as much as a small cinderblock. It has dual analogue sticks (finally), dual touch pads, dual cameras, 5” multitouch OLED screen, six-axis motion sensor, a quad-core processor, GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities. Plus with the powerhouse that is the PS Vita, it is going to be easy to port PS3 games to the new device. The best part about that is the ability to upload game data using Cloud technology between the handheld and your PS3. What does that mean, well you will be able to continue playing a PS3 game where ever you are on the new device (in theory). That is pretty cool. It really does seem to have loads of stuff and as long has it has the games to back it up it should do well in the hardcore market. I think Sony has also learn from their previous mistakes and aren’t going to charge a astronomical amount for the device. It looks like it will be a similar price as the 3DS (depending if you want 3G), which is great. But as Sony was there at E3 to prove something they brought a lot more to the table. They also had lots of games, including Uncharted 3 which is awesome (Best PS3 exclusive franchise ever). Also some new Move stuff which no one gives a shit about. But as always Sony has to keep cramming 3D down our throats. They previewed a new 24” 3D TV targeted specially at gamers. Considering Sony already has four 3D TV’s on the market who cares. Although there is a cool feature with this TV which will be great for multiplayer games. Instead of split screen you can put on 3D glasses and be able to see two completely separate images, very handy. But the more they try telling everyone it’s the future of gaming and push 3D gaming on the consumer the more people resist. Nobody likes wearing those awful glasses especially when they are one hundred bucks a pop. Anyway have a look and the shiny new PS Vita.

What’s new for Microsoft? The last of the big three console holders. Apparently not much. No new hardware at least. But having said that they did release the Kenect last year and they are running with it. Running full pelt into a crowd of Xbox fans who are still unsure what to make of the gesture control peripheral. Now they are just expanding on the Kenect’s catalogue of games, with just about every new title coming out having some kind of Kenect support. Included in that is a lot of hardcore games like Ghost Recon. Even Mass Effect 3 (which could be one of the best RPG’s of all time) will have Kenect vocal commands if you want to use it. They will have a Kenect Star Wars game which could be cool if you want to geek out like a Jedi and swing a light-saber while using the force. But saying that, no one has yet to make a good motion control Star Wars game. There is a new Dance Central, which is still probably the main thing that Kenect can do that the other consoles can’t. Other then Kenect, Microsoft had a few other strong titles, and was lucky enough to be the ones to announce Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This is a huge title that couldn’t have been far away and is basically a license to print money. They also showed a new Tomb Raider game to reboot the adventures of Lara Croft. Oh and did I mention Halo 4! Hell yeah. The Master Chief is back in the fourth installment which will launch an entire second trilogy of the massive franchise. This was meant to be a big surprise but unfortunately it was leaked shortly before the conference. I’m betting it was Sony.

So that wraps up my look at this years Electronic Entertainment Expo. There was lots of games from all the other developers but this article is already way too long. Hopefully this is a nice glimpse into the world of gaming for 2012 and beyond. Till next week.

Rowan

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