E3: Day Two

Yesterday was a bit mental.  But fun.  Lots of fun.  We’re up bright and early to sift through the overnight news and prepare for Day 2 of the expo.

You can read yesterday’s coverage here, if you want.

Right. Team Reso a-go-go!

Tuesday – 8:40AM
I awake to billions of emails from EA. The most interesting is the announcement that their crime-based MMO All Points Bulletin will be released at the start of next year, and looks like this. Oooooh! Swish, man. Really swish.

Tuesday – 11:22Am
Barry here, getting my head back together after one of the worst night’s sleep of my life. Not entirely sure what caused it. Maybe it was the unseasonal heat that’s baking Ireland to a crisp right now, or maybe it was the nightmares about Molyneux’s little electronic boy he showcased at the MS conference yesterday. I have seen the face of Skynet folks, and its name is Milo. Several outlets got some hands on time with the Project Natal tech after the conference, and Joystiq’s Christopher Grant has brief piece on his interactions with Milo. Confused by all this Natal nonsense? Alec Meer has a quick write up at Tech Radar trumpeting the salient points.

Tuesday 1:22PM
Barry out, Lewis in. Vaguely intrigued by this. Clearly not quite in-engine, given the Wii’s capabilities and the robustness of the trailer, but the art style is lovely, it appears genuinely quite funny, and there’s always room for silliness within sports games.  For those who can’t be bothered to follow the link: it’s Academy of Champions, a new cartoon-footy game from UbiSoft, announced this morning.

Tuesday 5:07PM
Updates from LA: Nintendo announce a new Super Mario Bros game.  With four-player co-op.  Will try grab some more info on this, as it might be potentially interesting. Updates from Leeds: it’s now cloudy but still far too fucking hot. Denby x

Tuesday 6:36PM
Christos here. Oh my God. Metroid M, developed by Nintendo and Team Ninja, and Samus speaks? My brain was leaking out my ears. Not to mention the other game that was announced: Super Mario Galaxy 2. Seems like more of the same, but considering I played Galaxy for around twenty-five hours solid, it can’t be a bad thing. I still can’t believe Nintendo’s Metroid announcement. Sony starts in less than half an hour now, it’ll be interesting to see what they pull out to top Nintendo and Microsoft, though I’ll admit after Natal yesterday, the Wii MotionPlus is looking a tad dated. Christos out for burritos and Sony watching.

Tuesday – 7:40PM
First footage of the new Alien vs N’Gai Croal here.

Tuesday – 9:13PM
Sony post-conference thoughts from Christos:

First off, I’m a little shocked at the pricing of the PSP Go! – note the lack of applause and cheering for almost twenty minutes after the disappointing €250/$250 price point. The amount of software coming to the PSP, however, looks fantastic, putting aside (unlike me, trust me) FFVII for a second. LBP PSP looks great, but most especially Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, which looks downright incredible, and if you’re able to see the trailer in the next few weeks, that was four snakes, and it was two of them in one box. Awesome sauce.

Secondly, very impressed by Sony’s counter to Microsoft’s Natal and the Nintendo Wii MotionPlus, even though it looked like a cross between a lightsaber and a neon-goth sex toy. It was impressive, and archery seems to be more Sony’s development forte than that of Nintendo. Not as impressive graphically as Natal, or in terms of sheer wonder, but still a solid display of hardware ingenuity from the PS3 lads.

Last but most definitely not least, the brilliant titles we saw, to note a few: Mod Nation Racers, which displayed some amazing customisability in the vein of LittleBigPlanet meets Mario Kart. God of War III was also a nice title to experience, if only for five minutes, though as the progenitor of QTEs, they were to be expected, however annoying.

PS: It’s a matter of time before someone (read: 4chan) hacks the home security network of Hannah Montana’s house, forcing her to beat their combined score on Brain Age to set the alarm. Not a big a challenge as some may think, but for her, sure. You’d think she’d have been there with the amount of games she’s in. Even Steven Speilberg and some of the Beatles appeared. Christos out.

Tuesday – 9:28PM
I can’t believe I forgot the biggest reveal in the entire conference, if not E3. Final Fantasy XIV. Exclusive to the PS3 and capable of making me talk complete gibberish for five minutes solid. It’s such an amazing looking game, and far more to my tastes: for me, the industrial era of the Final Fantasy franchise was done in VII, but XIII seems to be taking it one step further. XIV however, seems to be returning to the earlier fantasy roots of Final Fantasy I-VI, which is impressive. More later.

Thursday – 10:03PM
I’ve been a bit rubbish today – trying to juggle infinite amounts of work – and my ineptitude is now going to be compounded by this: E3 runs ’til the end of the week, right?  What’s left to go?

Tuesday – 10:05PM
Fuck’s sake. TUESDAY. Denby needs a holiday.

Tuesday – 10:23PM
So I guess I’ll attempt to be useful now.  Email drops into my inbox from dtp Entertainment’s E3 PR about new project 15 Days. It’s being dubbed by the marketing folk as “a sophisticated adventure game” and sounds decidedly interesting.  The game will follow a group of activists as they break into art galleries, steal famous paintings, and sell them, donating the profits to African charities.

“We unfold the narrative in two parallel storylines and let the action rotate quickly between four main characters. This makes 15 Days a fast-paced and very dynamic adventure game – both in terms of narrative and aesthetics”, says Martin Ganteföhr, Creative Director of developers House of Tales.

That the plot isn’t immediately exciting seems to be intriguing me most of all – although things do segue quickly into a murder case, apparently.  But take a look at this, one of two super-brand-new screenshots.  Does this game feature the smuggest bastard in the world?  You decide!

Tuesday – 11:19PM
Up and working extremely early tomorrow, so I’ll wrap up my feeble portion of commentary for today. Thanks for following us through the hectic opening days, and we’ll continue to discuss the conference ’til the end of the week. Hopefully the less relentless pace should allow for more meaningful analysis. Denby out!

Tuesday – 11:30PM
Again, I lie about going to bed, as Eurogamer have decent footage of New Super Mario Bros.