Twisted Metal E3 Trailer

This looks like it will be all sorts of awesome. I'm drooling!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 E3 Trailer

While I'd have really preferred a trailer with some actual game play, this trailer really sets the mood for TFU2. Let's hope it delivers!

Gears of War E3 Game Play trailer

I am *really* excited for the 4 player co-op with Gears 3. The 2 player co-op in the prior Gears games is, in my opinion, the benchmark for online co-op play. So adding 2 more players to the mix? Sign me up!

(Ice-T being a part of the voice cast also adds a little bit of awesome to this mix, am i right?)

Tron for iPhone/iPod touch

Wow, does THIS bring back memories!

Kevin Butler. VP of.... E3?

This is why Sony rocked the E3 keynotes imo.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Here's the trailer for the next Zelda title for the Wii - Skyward Sword.



Excited yet? I know i am!

Sony E3 Keynote Digest

Sorry for the delay with this one, but here goes!

- High Def 3D is Sony's vision of the future. "What PlayStation did for Blu-ray, we're now going to do it for 3D as well." 20 native 3D titles are expected by March 2011.

- Killzone 3 was demo'ed, in 3D. This game is looking pretty sick!

- Many many big titles listed as supporting 3d, including Gran Turismo 5.

- Sly Cooper collection was announced (a la God of War Collection)

- Playstation Move had quite the showing - the fact that the entire Move setup will run you $30 less than Kinect, AND will include a game is pretty huge.

- A title called Sorcery was demo'ed with Move. The Move wand and the navigation stick were used to move the character around and cast spells. I wonder if the last Harry Potter games will support this?!

- Tiger Woods 11 w/ Move support - nothing shocking there.

- A new Move title - Heroes on the Move - includes a ton of 1st party characters (Rachet, Jak, etc)

- Kevin Butler gave an epic speech! "Because every gamer is a true gamer. Motion gamers. Sitting gamers. And even though we may pledge allegiance to different flags, we all serve one king, one master... and his name is gaming! Forever may he reign!"

- Move will hit retail September 19th in North America with many many options - $49.99 for the Move wand, $19.99 for the Navigation stick. $99.99 gets you the Sports Champion Bundle, which is a Move wand, and EyeSight camer, and the sports title they've been showing off. (Add the Navigation stick for the full move setup and you're looking at about $120 total)

- Time Crisis is a Move launch title!

- PSP was up next with God of War: Ghost of Sparta, inviZimals, EyePet and a new PSP spokesperson, Marcus. "We've got good kids playing bad games"

- Sony announced a replica of their E3 booth will be in Home (meh)

- Little Big Planet 2 was shown, nothing terribly surprising there.

- And at last as rumored - premium PSN. PlayStation Plus will cost $49.99 a year and provide early access to demos, dlc and betas. As a GAP member that last bit really chaps my ass. Sony is claiming hundreds of dollars worth of content will be provided to Plus members. Cross game chat also has been anounced - One plus member can have 3 other non-plus members within the group chat. Once all Plus members leave, the chat is disbanded. Kind of bittersweet.

- Exclusive Medal of Honor beta for the ps3 - July 21st.

- Dead Space 2 will support Move - the limited edition of the game will also include Dead Space Extraction previously on the Wii.

- Now this was sort of huge... Portal 2 was announced for the PS3. PLEASE PLEASE let this lead to more Valve games on the PS3! There is no reason to deny PS3 only gamers they joys of Valve games.

- Final Fantasy 14 Online was shown.

- Lots of exclusive DLC for the following PS3 titles: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Final Fantasy 14 Online, Mafia 2. AC Brotherhood multiplayer beta is a PS3 exclusive.

- Gran Turismo 5 has a release date at last! November 2nd 2010.

- inFamous 2 was shown in trailer form - new city, new ice powers

- And one last surprise.... TWISTED METAL!!!!!!!!!! I am wondering if this will be a disk release or PSN release. I'm leaning towards PSN.

Nintendo E3 Keynote Digest

That my friends, is how you do an E3 keynote!

There's a lot to get through, so let's run down the list real quick here:

- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
- NBA Jam
- Mario Sports Mix
- Wii Party
- Just Dance 2
- Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
- GOLDENEYE WII!!
- Epic Mickey
- Kirby's Epic Yarn
- Dragon Quest 9
- Metroid: Other M
- DONKEY KONG COUNTRY RETURNS!

and the big one... The Nintendo 3DS!

I am really blown away with the 3DS right now. Kid Icarus Uprising is a launch title and holy CRAP do those graphics looks awesome! We're talking Gamecube level here people! Nintendo has promised "ample game content at the outset", and has made it compatible with the DSi. 3 total cameras - 2 front facing for 3d pictures, and one player facing camera. 3.5in widescreen display on top, touch screen on the bottom. Motion sensor, gyro sensor and it can play 3D movies.

Nintendo also has something up their sleeves in terms of online functionality (more on that later once i dig around).

20 companies on board with the 3DS and some IMPRESSIVE names were tossed around for titles. Metal Gear Solid, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Saints Row, Kingdom Hearts, Madden...

This is crazy! I really hope this is a sign of the direction Nintendo is taking. With everyone else (so far) focused on the casual market, Nintendo has managed to knock one out of the park for the hard core gamer. Nintendo also apparently has 3DS units on the floor to "test drive"...

Simply Crazy!

Anyway, Sony's keynote is coming up in about an hour and a half. Expect another post ;)

E3 Keynotes

Today is the big day for both Nintendo and Sony.

Nintendo's E3 keynote should be kicking off in a little over an hour. New Zelda and the 3DS are expected, but what else does Nintendo have in store for us? There are some rumors on the 'net about something called the Wii Hifi - we shall know soon enough if they are true.

Sony's keynote will be later this afternoon and I'm guessing Move will be the main focus. From the Sony rumors dept. we've got chatter of a possible PSP2 - again, we'll know more soon enough. I really hope Sony has something special for the hard core gamers.

Metal Gear Solid Rising

Here is a link to some game play footage from Metal Gear Solid Rising:



Uhm, yes please?

Seriously, this looks flat out INSANE. For some reason, i've just never gotten the hang of the stealth based game play from the Metal Gear series... But this? Wow. I am officially hyped for this game.

Microsoft E3 Keynote digest

What the hell?

Did Microsoft seriously just show off a bunch of titles that are at best clones of Wii titles? Kinect Sports?! REALLY?!

Wow.

Well anyway, let's run through some points here:

- Call of Duty DLC for 2010, 2011, and 2012 will be available first on the Xbox. I guess this is also a bit of a backdoor announcement for COD 8 and 9.

- Metal Gear Solid Rising was shown. More hack and slash, less stealth is the impression i got.

- Gears of War 3 was shown - 4player co-op mode!

- Fable 3 shown, along with a teaser for a title codenamed "Kingdoms".

- Halo: Reach is hitting retail September 14th

- ESPN for Xbox 360. I was shocked that this feature will be free for Gold member of Live.

- And of course, Project Natal is now named Kinect. Kinect was the main focus of this keynote (as i was expecting). The software shown in my opinion boiled down to a lot of clones of existing Wii titles and franchises. Again - Kinect Sports? REALLY?! Your Shape: Fitness Evolved? Kinect Joy Ride looked like a Mario Kart clone. What exactly is MS' strategy here besides the usual "embrace and extend" philosophy? Also worth noting was a lack of an announced price for Kinect, just a street date of November 4th 2010 in North America. If this add-on hits retail for less than $150, i will be shocked.

- Harmonix was showing off Dance Central for Kinect.

- A Kinect Star Wars title was shown in trailer form... but really the gaming world has been teased with motion based Star Wars games since 2005/2006. Can we get one for real someday?

- Also to note was Forza for Kinect. It was not made clear to me if this was a new Forza title, or an add-on for Forza 3.

- A new rev of the 360 hardware was also shown - the only lingering question i have based on the slides - "did MS remove the ethernet port in favor of built in 802.11n networking?". New hardware will be available this week - everyone at the keynote however was given a system.

I've got to be honest, this was pretty much exactly how i expected this keynote to play out. It will be interesting to see the hardcore xbox fanboy reaction as they were none too kind towards the Wii when it was announced and shown.

Anyway, Nintendo and Sony tomorrow. I will be sorely disappointed if there is anything resembling Move Sports for the PS3.

It's Here at last!

It's E3 time everyone!

Microsoft's E3 Keynote is set to kick off around 1:30pm eastern time. I'm sure if you're read any gaming site in the past 48 hours you're aware of the xbox 360 "slim" and the project natal official name.

I'll check in with my reactions form ms' keynote as soon as it wraps.

(if anyone is interested, i'll be following the liveblog over at Engadget)

Sony and Nintendo's keynotes are tomorrow - don't be shocked when i post reactions from those ;)

Current Gaming and other items

Why hello everyone - sorry for the long delay in posting, but to be brutally honest I've reached the point of burnout with Final Fantasy 13. This has resulted in a short break from gaming.

HOWEVER!

Over the wonderful Memorial Day Weekend 2010 I found myself with an urge to play something completely different which served as a reminder that I had not cracked the seal on my copy of inFamous for the PS3. I picked this game up back in March when i was flush with Best Buy gift cards from my birthday - but i never got around to playing it due to FF13 soaking up the majority of my playtime.

So, after a weekend with inFamous I must say that I am kicking myself for not making this a day 1 purchase. The first point that makes this game a blast is that you're playing a superhero without hundreds of issues of back story to conform to or any sort of preconceived notions about the character (Cole). This of course allows the developers to write the rules as they go along. The second point that makes this game great is while playing it - and bear with me on this it's kind of hard to properly articulate this - it feels *easy* to move and play as a super hero. Running and jumping between buildings and latching on to them as you crawl along the sides will of course remind the player of a certain spider-related hero from the Marvel universe. There's really no escaping that comparison. But in my opinion, there has yet to be a game for that Marvel character that has felt so natural as inFamous.

inFamous is built around a karma system, which in itself is nothing new but it does provide an interesting twist to how you play the game (the karma system reminded me quite a bit of the system within Knights of the Old Republic) and how the NPCs will react to you. If you play as a good guy eventually the NPCs will cheer you on, take pictures of you and in some cases even aide you in taking out enemies (they'll throw rocks!). Play as a mean son of a bitch and the NPCs will fear you, run away, and sometimes throw rocks at YOU.

Graphically the game isn't anything groundbreaking for this generation, but the graphics engine will certainly get the job done and look pretty good while doing so. Like the bulk of PS3 titles it is a 720p native game.

In other news we're rapidly approaching this year's E3, which is looking like it'll be all about Natal and Move from MS and Sony respectively. I wonder if the 3DS will be the focus for Nintendo, or if they've got something else up their sleeves...