The Storm Begins
Blasts from the Past:
Today Kentia Hall was open at 9am, while the other halls were open at 11am. We usually go through Kentia Hall pretty quickly due to the fact that it is nothing more than small businesses and foriegn companies trying to make a few business contacts. Well we were pleasantly surprised to see that the middle of the hall had been turned into a museum of sorts, celebrating the early days of the videogame era. There were free coin-up machines allowing you to relive our delinquent pasts. However, the cherry on top was live music performed by 8-bit Weapon himself! 8BW specializes in making music using retro consoles like the Gameboy and C-64.
Back to the Future:
We went to the Square Enix booth first in South Hall and decided to go to the "movie," which has become an E3 standard, where Square debuts their new Final Fantasy titles. Afterwards we were of the unanimous opinion that Square has gone completely insane. They have 3 new games coming out that are all based on Final Fantasy 7. No, I'm not kidding. They showed what could only be called a "snippet" for Final Fantasy 12, which will be the nest new FF game to debut. However, they have 3 games based on the Final Fantasy 13 universe that will supposedly debut on PS3. They had another quick commercial for the Dragon Quest game for Nintendo's Wii, which showed someone using the controller to act out the on-screen sword swinging action. Sounds like fun right? Well too bad, because that was a snippet too. Instead we got full trailers for 3 games based on FF7, not too mention a long trailer for FF7: Advent Children, which has been in video stores for a few weeks already!?
This is Square's new motto: "Hey kids, remember that one Final Fantasy we made years ago that you all seemed to not hate? Well we are going to drown you with "sequels" to Final Fantasy 7 until you pray to God to end your misery."
It's so sad really. Not to mention that most FF titles nowadays are nothing more than a CGI orgy minus any plot or subtext. Oh well, at least we still have the Dragon Quest franchise.
Sony Hates Poor People:
Okay, maybe not hate, they just don't like them when they're breathing. But before we get to that, look at the mastodonic size of those PS3's! That is not a depth of field effect you're seeing in the picture. They really are that big compared to the people in the picture. Of all the games I could have photographed I chose Gran Turismo High Definition, because most if not all of you already know what a GT game is suppposed to look like. I must say that the game looked stunning and featured both cars and motorcycles (a la Tourist Trophy).
Before you ask- Yes, the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer was present on their jumbotron projection screen, and yes it was gorgeous. It is longer than the one we have seen online, and features more plot exposition than the online one. But above all, RAIDEN KICKS ASS! OMG, you will never believe the ninja acrobatics he performs in that game. He demolishes a couple of Metal Gear Ray's using the high frequency Tengu blade that Solid Snake taught him to use in MGS2. There is also an homage to Empire Strikes Back in the manner that he dispatches the Rays.
Back to discussing the PS3. The awful truth about Sony's lying has now been confirmed by me. Check out the link above and look at my picture from behind the PS3. Make the judgement for yourself. Is this the "cheaper" PS3 or has Sony been caught red-handed. I suggest the latter, but only time will tell.
Technically, the only real PS3's are the networked stacks that you see in the pictures below. As of this writing, this is the truest form of the PS3. One of my friends is working on a PS3 game for a major company and he made that observation for me. Thanks Danny! ;)
All in all, the best comment about Sony was made by this gentleman's shirt.
"How do you go from 1st to 3rd? $499.99/$599.99." Couldn't have said it better myself!
The PSP was also in full swing. I must say that it is a very impressive system. I played a Sonic and a SOCOM game on it. Both were quite amazing for a handheld. But again, that high price sticker looms overhead. Sony also showed a new camera add-on for the PSP, along with a headset.
Wii, I'm Not Standing in Line for 2 Hours!!!
Sadly, the Nintendo booth's main focus was making you stand in line for several hours to get to play the Wii. I had no energy left in me for that, I'll do it tomorrow. Instead, I played the new Mario game for the DS, yes it was cool, but since it's already on store shelves you pretty musch new that. I saw this guy holding a Wii (Revolution) and I snapped a few pics to show you the system's small stature.
Let's Go Out on a Musical Note:
One last pic. This is Martin Leung, the videogame pianist. If you don't know him, you have never been to Youtube, Google Video, or ebaum's world.
Finally, the celebrity sighting roll-call: Gilbert Gottfried, Jenny McCarthy, and Sinbad (he's at EVERY single E3 and always looks like he just got out of the gym).
Okay, gotta sleep. Will be up in a few hours to repeat this painful process.
Today Kentia Hall was open at 9am, while the other halls were open at 11am. We usually go through Kentia Hall pretty quickly due to the fact that it is nothing more than small businesses and foriegn companies trying to make a few business contacts. Well we were pleasantly surprised to see that the middle of the hall had been turned into a museum of sorts, celebrating the early days of the videogame era. There were free coin-up machines allowing you to relive our delinquent pasts. However, the cherry on top was live music performed by 8-bit Weapon himself! 8BW specializes in making music using retro consoles like the Gameboy and C-64.
Back to the Future:
We went to the Square Enix booth first in South Hall and decided to go to the "movie," which has become an E3 standard, where Square debuts their new Final Fantasy titles. Afterwards we were of the unanimous opinion that Square has gone completely insane. They have 3 new games coming out that are all based on Final Fantasy 7. No, I'm not kidding. They showed what could only be called a "snippet" for Final Fantasy 12, which will be the nest new FF game to debut. However, they have 3 games based on the Final Fantasy 13 universe that will supposedly debut on PS3. They had another quick commercial for the Dragon Quest game for Nintendo's Wii, which showed someone using the controller to act out the on-screen sword swinging action. Sounds like fun right? Well too bad, because that was a snippet too. Instead we got full trailers for 3 games based on FF7, not too mention a long trailer for FF7: Advent Children, which has been in video stores for a few weeks already!?
This is Square's new motto: "Hey kids, remember that one Final Fantasy we made years ago that you all seemed to not hate? Well we are going to drown you with "sequels" to Final Fantasy 7 until you pray to God to end your misery."
It's so sad really. Not to mention that most FF titles nowadays are nothing more than a CGI orgy minus any plot or subtext. Oh well, at least we still have the Dragon Quest franchise.
Sony Hates Poor People:
Okay, maybe not hate, they just don't like them when they're breathing. But before we get to that, look at the mastodonic size of those PS3's! That is not a depth of field effect you're seeing in the picture. They really are that big compared to the people in the picture. Of all the games I could have photographed I chose Gran Turismo High Definition, because most if not all of you already know what a GT game is suppposed to look like. I must say that the game looked stunning and featured both cars and motorcycles (a la Tourist Trophy).
Before you ask- Yes, the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer was present on their jumbotron projection screen, and yes it was gorgeous. It is longer than the one we have seen online, and features more plot exposition than the online one. But above all, RAIDEN KICKS ASS! OMG, you will never believe the ninja acrobatics he performs in that game. He demolishes a couple of Metal Gear Ray's using the high frequency Tengu blade that Solid Snake taught him to use in MGS2. There is also an homage to Empire Strikes Back in the manner that he dispatches the Rays.
Back to discussing the PS3. The awful truth about Sony's lying has now been confirmed by me. Check out the link above and look at my picture from behind the PS3. Make the judgement for yourself. Is this the "cheaper" PS3 or has Sony been caught red-handed. I suggest the latter, but only time will tell.
Technically, the only real PS3's are the networked stacks that you see in the pictures below. As of this writing, this is the truest form of the PS3. One of my friends is working on a PS3 game for a major company and he made that observation for me. Thanks Danny! ;)
All in all, the best comment about Sony was made by this gentleman's shirt.
"How do you go from 1st to 3rd? $499.99/$599.99." Couldn't have said it better myself!
The PSP was also in full swing. I must say that it is a very impressive system. I played a Sonic and a SOCOM game on it. Both were quite amazing for a handheld. But again, that high price sticker looms overhead. Sony also showed a new camera add-on for the PSP, along with a headset.
Wii, I'm Not Standing in Line for 2 Hours!!!
Sadly, the Nintendo booth's main focus was making you stand in line for several hours to get to play the Wii. I had no energy left in me for that, I'll do it tomorrow. Instead, I played the new Mario game for the DS, yes it was cool, but since it's already on store shelves you pretty musch new that. I saw this guy holding a Wii (Revolution) and I snapped a few pics to show you the system's small stature.
Let's Go Out on a Musical Note:
One last pic. This is Martin Leung, the videogame pianist. If you don't know him, you have never been to Youtube, Google Video, or ebaum's world.
Finally, the celebrity sighting roll-call: Gilbert Gottfried, Jenny McCarthy, and Sinbad (he's at EVERY single E3 and always looks like he just got out of the gym).
Okay, gotta sleep. Will be up in a few hours to repeat this painful process.
posted by Mehrdad at 10:14 PM
2 Comments:
Sheesh, that's like the tombstone of the mass grave of forgotten C List Celebs if I've ever heard one. I heard Lou Ferigno was bashing through walls someplace. Were these people just wandering around? I wonder if old pals Coolio and Weird Al Yankovich were hanging together at the 2K booth again?
It's a shame about SquEnix. I did like FF VII (although never had the gumption to actually finish it), and Advent Children was a fun long cinematic (which sounds like what the games have become), but either they should do a nextgen remake of VII or just leave it to rest. I guess maybe they're running out of ideas for new settings.
I think it's tough to keep blowing people away every year at E3, even though the media and the fans kind of expect it. I do believe that Nintendo's on the right track with taking risks, but at the same time, trying to garner a larger audience doesn't always work. The old saying of "you can't please everyone, all of the time" holds true-- I agree games should be at the bottom line, fun, but let's not lower to the common denominator. Also, on the graphics front, looks shouldn't be the end all be all, but you do need a certain level for people to feel attracted to it.
The word around E3 seems to be that Sony is dropping the ball. I think they have some financial hurdles with including BluRay, etc, but are they planning for too far in the future? Maybe their strategy is to reduce launch day shortages by putting it out of most people's price range. Most people I talk to online seem to think that it's best to wait until the PS3 comes down in price and more post launch games are in release. Sony is definitely enforcing this with the high price tag. I'm more apt to buy a Wii because it should be more price competitive and it's about doing what it's supposed to do: play games. That being said, I hope you get to try the Wii, Mehrdad-- I was watching a Gamespot broadcast and they said that even though it says the line is an hour, it actually turned out to be much less than that, although there didn't seem to be a way of monitoring people for when it was time to leave, so the place was packed out.
Without a doubt, MGS4 is the killer app for PS3. I've only seen the "short" trailer and can't wait to find out more about it. The MGS series is one of the most enjoyable, thought-provoking franchises in modern entertainment.
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