This is my first year at E3, and I find myself with nothing to do at midnight on Wednesday night. I would just drift off to sleep, but I have two roommates off at various shindigs, and two stumbling home as we speak. So how about some random E3 stuff? Sound good? No? Too bad!
I’m going to drop some quick impressions of things I’ve gotten to try. I will upload lots of random pictures at some point, but currently my net connection is a random AP by the name of “KANG”. I’m going to assume it’s a super cool guy with a TMNT fetish in this hotel letting me steal some net juice. Thank you random person!
Day 1-2 Game Impressions
Fat Princess
Swung by the Sony booth and tried Fat Princess. The game is a marvel, utterly approachable with a great visual direction. I dropped in with zero instruction or real direction (Granted I had seen some coverage on Co-Op), and I was able to pick up the gameplay in about 15 seconds. The various hats keep the action varied, and let almost everyone play the way that they want, be it collecting cake to fatten up your caged hostage princess, or taking the battle to the front lines with a large, and sharp, polearm.
I have a friend who bought a PS3 strictly for this game, and it’s not hard to see why.
Battlefield 1943
If you liked 1942, you’ll love this. I went back and played 1943 at least four times. I’m not sure what it is that I love about DICE’s take on WW2, but I always find myself captivated by their direction in these games. Most other companies get an instant yawn from me when they introduce yet another world war 2 game, but DICE has yet to let me down in this arena. I can’t wait for the release.
I also have to doff my cap to whoever came up with the idea to have the third map unlock after 43,000,000 community kills. That was brilliant.
God of War 3
Looks incredible. I can’t wait to have this game running on my 1080p screen at home. The action is fierce and the art direction is as strong as ever with some of the most impressive battle animations this side of FFXIII.
The closeups during gameplay are in need of special mention. They are unlike anything you’ve seen in a game this fast paced… phenomenal detail, it’s unreal. Forget that backroom footage you saw around the time of GDC, the real game is solid and amazing. I wish the demo was a little shorter so the line cycled a bit faster… 1.5-2 hours to play is a bit much.
Pixeljunk Shooter
Pixeljunk is gold, and the guy at PSN who signed Pixeljunk needs to be given a bonus and/or a raise. Game plays great, the art and animation flow perfectly. Gameplay is everything you come to expect from a PJ game; simple and intuitive.
While I still think the title they chose is garbage, the game is outstanding. Hopefully I can finish getting all of the Eden Trophies before they release this gem.
MySims Agents
I was hoping from all the talk that Jeff Green was doing with regard to this title that it might be a little more skewed toward something I might want to play. Sadly this feels like a buy for the young kid in my life, and not one to add to my library… sad thing, that… I love adventure/puzzle games.
I did get a chance to talk with Jeff Green at length about some of the bits of the game. Jeff’s a great guy, very nice to meet him. He talks the game up, and it sounds fun, and some of the design ideas I find interesting… but yea… I’m not in this demographic.
Brutal Legend.
Day one buy. Confirmed. I was worried about this game not living up to how fun the previews were looking. I was so relieved when I picked it up and started playing. The first 20 minutes are very solid, and I hope that continues on through the rest of the game. Super fun.
I was hoping for places where you would be called on to pull off some Rock Bandesque riffs in order to proceed, but they don’t quite do that. They do something more along the lines of Ocarina of Time on a very rare basis, but there was no indication of any support for anything like a RB2 guitar.
Dragon Age
I snuck in and checked out the dragon age presentation and demo. The demo highlighted some really amazing interpersonal relationships systems that they have in place. They chose to tease a potential story branch that leads to an encounter of a sexual nature with one of the female characters, however engaging in said encounter lost the demo runner points with the other girl in the party (who happened to be loosely tied to the character you play), and as she got depressed over losing you, she lost battle effectiveness. As you do things that either jive or anger the members of your party they become more or less effective, and if you anger them enough they might try to interfere with battles or choices you are making… maybe to the point of leaving the party. Sounds amazing.
But, finding out if that system is as cool as it sounds will have to wait till later. While the presentation spent a lot of time talking about it, the demo was just dropping a few characters into a random dungeon where you had a few random encounters with generic villains. Game looks good to be sure, but I’m going to wait and see where they take it from here.
Muramasa
Super fun WiiWare game that has no business looking as smooth and crisp as it does. The game is a blast to play, and I wouldn’t put it past my wife to be able to pick this one up and have fun with it. If you played Odin Sphere (I didn’t, it’s currently in my stack of shame) I’m told that you’ll love this, as it’s a vast improvement.
Left 4 Dead 2
It’s great. The visual style they chose for the followup is striking… I imagine there will be some people who complain about the amount of color present in the game, but I like having varied visual pallets. The map I played was during a bright, sunny day outdoors in an environment that felt a lot less channeled than the original L4D maps. I’m hoping to get another crack at it tomorrow, my go was pretty short.
Batman Arkham Asylum
The first Batman game I’ve been interested in since the original NES batman. The game plays really smoothly, and I get the impression that a lot of work has go into making the title stand on it’s own, independent of the newer films. It plays well as a stealth game, and has been one of the first titles (albeit I don’t jump at picking up stealth games since most developers can’t seem to figure it out) where stealth felt like it was honestly the best option. I’m still not a fan of the direction that they chose to take with some of the characters, but overall it doesn’t feel wrong, just different. I will keep an open mind and hope that different means good, this time.
New Super Mario Brothers Wii
Looks like: New Super Mario Brothers for DS; Plays like: Four Swords for Gamecube. Since neither of those things are bad, and are in fact awesome, this game should go over well. I always get a little sad with Wii co-op games, as most of my Wii friends are of the long distance variety, and dealing with Nintendo’s online quagmire is an utterly disheartening experience.
Rock Band: The Beatles
Day one buy. It’s perfect. Everything you want it to be.
I really want that Bass, but I think my wife will throw things at me if I buy yet another plastic guitar…
Tomorrow I’m going to try and hit all the stuff I missed, as well as take a ton of pictures. Hopefully I’ll find some more internet for which to upload those pictures, but I’m not very optimistic.
(Disclaimer: EA is my employer, but EA does not pay me for PR, BizDev, journalism, game coverage, viral marketing, or even to show up at this conference. As such, the opinions expressed are my own and are in no way endorsed or sanctioned by EA, etc, etc.)





