E3 came and went this year, and it grabbed a surprisingly small amount of attention from the mainstream press. That's because it was shockingly weak. Everyone lost. I'm not kidding, there were no winners.
Microsoft lost E3 because the lid had already been blown off the Xbox360, and everyone ceased to be impressed by the new games they saw. Even the high-profile Rare games, which were shown mostly behind closed doors, failed to capture the hearts of the gaming press. Kameo is a generations-old work in progress that will amaze the world if it's any good, and Perfect Dark Zero was in too rough a state to sell anyone with good gameplay. The only good thing MS had going for them was Gears of War, Epic's first third-person game. It was about the only next-gen game at E3 that was in fully playable form, and it looks very promising.
Sony lost E3 by pulling out lots of mirrors and smoke. They've all but refused to admit that all this amazing game footage is CGI. The official line is it's a high-end PC and a pair of SLI video cards. BS. Even Nvidia's next-gen card running in SLI with a P4 3.6 EE just *can't* run the amazing-looking Killzone 'demo' in realtime. All the while, Ken Kutaragi, who's about as believable as a man who worships tiny purple elephants, has promised that the PS3 will revolutionize living room entertainment - all the while bashing MS for building an appliance that doesn't focus on games.
Nintendo lost E3 by showing nothing at all. Revolution will be awesome, except Nintendo's first-party development has been sub-par for the last 5 years, it has no third-party support except for the studios owned by the big N, and it'll be backwards compatible all the way back to the NES. Way to cash in on your old hits, N. At least on the Gamecube you were willing to update your old franchises. I doubt a controller alone will change the way we see things, so Nintendo has pretty much gotten the kiss of death for this system, which will leave them with the Game Boy before they sink 10 years from now and return the console wars to a two-party system.
The PC industry lost by being too damn good last year. Every high-profile developer for the PC released a game just last year, leaving them in a slump. And with everyone's jaws on the floor as a result of Sony's outrageous 'gameplay' videos, everyone unfairly lost their faith in the PC for the years to come.
That said, there is some good news. Here's 5 games you should keep your eyes on:
1. Halo 3 - Microsoft will release it the day Sony releases the PS3, and it will *work* like gangbusters since Sony won't have a game library on launch day, PS3s will be in short supply, and Xbox360's will be widely available with a plethora of games available - and Halo 3 discs can't possibly undergo shortages.
2. Gears of War - The Epic launch game for the 360 will drop jaws and it'll most likely be the heavy seller for the system's launch window. And given that it's a promising game from a very well-established studio, and it'll have online deathmatch and co-op, it'll sell by the millions.
3. Spore - Will Wright's newest creation is freakin'
sweet. It won't have the 10-million-copies mass appeal of The Sims, but it does look very promising for fans of simulation and strategy games. And it'll generate some controversy once the Christians decry a highly appealing, non-violent, non-pornographic game that builds its premise around the "theory" of evolution.
4. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Splash Damage, developers of the awesome Enemy Territory game based on Return to Castle Wolfenstein, are going retail with id's support on a similar game that'll be a spin-off of Quake4.
5. Call of Duty 2 - In a world that's *still* getting more and more overpopulated with WWII-era games, 2015 is coming back strong with a true sequel to the best WWII game of them all. This one ought to be good, if it keeps up the constant tension of the first game.
