E3 thoughts so far

Bombarded. And pleasantly confused. Like an old man at a Playboy hottub party who can’t remember his name. That’s my overall feeling seeing the all the news, videos and screenshots being disgorged from the overstuffed bowels of E3.

Lots of “game changing”, “new paradigms” and “future of entertainment” – the usual PR-speak nonsense. Ignoring all that guff, there are really only a handful of things that have piques my interest, and a couple that left me feeling very disappointed:

+1 Nintendo 3DS – WANT. ONE. The technology looks amazing from the hands-on videos I’ve seen (e.g. Eurogamer) and the list of games they are lining up, with a nice selection of brand new plus updated N64 titles sounds fantastic!

+1 Playstation Move – Wasn’t really bothered by either Natal/Kinect or Move, but there’s something about the solidity and responsiveness of Sony’s version of motion control that just tingles me better.

-1 Kinect – Ignoring the name that sounds like a stapler tumbling down a flight of stairs, the evident lag is a concern as are the games shown. This seems to be much more of a ‘Wii copy’ than Move and I get tired enough waving the Nunchuck and Remote about let alone my whole body. Will still be cool to navigate menus with – hey, there’s an XBLA game idea: “Menu Revenge!” Copyright me. 🙂

-1 Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Sigh. I love the Zelda games, but this was shown off way too early. I understand it’s a big title for them and they want to explain how the Motionplus is integrated, but the main draw of the games for me is the story, the characters and the world they create. All we saw was what amounted to a training video featuring the usual line-up of enemies in some rather basic environments. They should have kept this back for GDC or later – the 3DS would have been enough.