Your Questions Finally Answered (+E3 Thoughts)

If you're wondering what took  so long, I originally planned to make a recorded audio response,  but it ended up being too much of a hassle, and my mic quality  is pretty bad, so we'll just have to settle for text. But before  I get to the questions, I'm going to post my thoughts on the E3  conferences.



Microsoft



Started off  by showing a bunch of third-party games. The only exclusives I can remember  were Fable 3, Halo: Reach, and Gears of War 3. Gears of War and  Halo have pretty big fan bases, so it's no doubt that they're going to  be huge hits, but personally I couldn't care less about any of those games.  Not to say the conference was going in a good direction, but after  this it took a major turn for the worse. As expected, the majority  of Microsoft's conference was spent showcasing Natal...or Kinect  or whatever the name of the thing is now. This year didn't change  my opinion of the thing at all. The games look completely goofy, and  they didn't give me any reason to want this technology over standard  controls. Or other motion controllers for that matter. Probably  not even over the Eyetoy. I could sit here and nitpick at all the  thing I don't like about Kinect, but I'd rather just move on to something  I actually want to talk about. It's safe to say Microsoft dropped  the ball at E3 this year.



Nintendo



Came as  no surprise that Zelda was the first thing we saw. At first the  new art style didn't sit well with me, but after a few days of  warming up to it, I'm liking the blend of Wind Waker and Twilight  Princess. It looks more appealing on the Wii when games don't try  to be too realistic looking, because the lack of detail is a lot  more forgiving. The gameplay is hard to comment on though. It was  pretty funny seeing Miyamoto struggle with it up there, and the  translation was horrible with them talking over each other. It  looks like it could be good, but I'll have to see more gameplay.  Funny thing is, as big as this game is, it kind of got buried by  the other things shown by Nintendo.



Then we  see some games like Wii Party, a Mario Sports compilation, Just Dance  2, and Golden Sun, which I have no idea what it is, but I no it's a  pretty big deal to some people. They then confirm the news which  I posted earlier in the week (I know, I know, I'm that good) about  a GoldenEye remake for Wii and DS. I'm not sure if GoldenEye will still be anything special in this day and age, but since the Wii  is lacking in the FPS department I'll glady welcome it to the console.  Now we see the return of Kirby on consoles. The game itself looks  like a pretty cool platformer...but that name. Lol, Kirby's Epic  Yarn. Now, I don't really care what they name it if it ends up  being good, but I have to say it's an awful name. The word epic  is being way overused lately, as seen with this and Epic Mickey.  And it just doesn't sound good. There was also a return of Donkey  Kong Country, which I have never been a huge fan of but it's nice  to see the two return at least. I might've liked a 3D game though.



Here we go, the 3DS. I originally wasn't  excited for this at all, because I have an original DS and never  play it, because I don't care for any of the games on it. But looking  at this line-up of games, there will already be more games I want  at launch than the DS has had in it's life-span. The new system itself  looks really cool, the 3D is a nice touch, the graphics look much  improved, it has a 3D camera, and it should be a lot more powerful for  online play. But those games. Let's take a look at some of them. Paper  Mario, Mario Kart, Kid Icarus Uprising, Star Fox 64 Remake, Metal Gear  Solid 3 Remake, Legend of Zelda: OoT Remake, Kingdom Hearts, Super Street  Fighter IV, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Professor Layton, and more. And that's just the beginning. I can't wait to get my hands on a 3D.

Nintendo had an impressive showing at this year's E3. I only had two complaints. A lot of these games are based on nostalgia, and as much as I love my nostalgia, I would have liked to see a new IP here and there. The second thing is, NO STAR FOX WII?!?!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING NINTENDO? Other than that, great show.

Sony

Sony was showing a lot of Move early on. They showed some Tiger Woods 11, which actually looked kind of bad because the guy was playing poorly. Not because Move didn't work, but it was making golf too realistic, which kind of takes away the point. If we were pros we would be out on the course, not playing a game. There were some other games that I'm not interested in, but that magic game caught my attention. Sorcery was it called? The accuracy in the movement of the wand looked pretty nice. I'm not sure if the game can be any good, but if something like this was done with a Harry Potter game (and they made it more like Chamber of Secrets) it could be special.
Some kind of game with Sly, Ratchet & Clank, and Jak & Daxter was shown. Not sure what it is, but I like seeing these characters. That reminds me, they announced HD releases of the Sly games for PS3 (like they did with the God of War games). Good news, I only played the first Sly and it was a great game. Then there was Kevin Butler taking the stage. No new games were shown, no big news revealed. But this was the best moment of E3 2010.

New PSP marketing is pretty cool. Speaking of PSP, not a lot here. God of War: Ghost of Sparta was shown just a tiny bit. More than 70 new PSP games will be out by December, but I can't honestly think of some that I care about. Moving on to the big console, LittleBigPlanet 2 was shown some more. You probably already know how I feel about this. It's not just a platformer anymore, but a platform for games. Playstation Plus is announced. A new optional service you can buy for $50 for a yearly subscription. You will get exclusive content such as betas and early demos, Qore, free content such as full games and minis each month (WipeOutHD, two minis, avatars,  DLC levels and map packs will all be available in the first month). I think I heard that the first 3 months would be offered for free. Actually sounds like a good deal to me.

EA announced some exclusive content for games on PS3. I don't remember what they were. They also announced Portal 2 would be on PS3, which I never knew it wasn't going to be. I guess since the first was, I assumed this would also be on PS3. Anyway, it's good to hear, and they also said that this would be the best version, so that's cool if true. But I guess the Valve surprise at E3 was not Half-Life 2: Episode Three, not Portal 2, but...... Portal 2! I bet you weren't expecting that. Gran Turismo 5, Killzone 3, and InFamous 2 are other highlights of the show. All games look like great sequels, especially GT5 which finally gets a release date.

They conclude with the announcement of a new Twisted Metal game, directed by none other than David Jaffe. Awesome, I'm not the biggest fan of the series, but a new Twisted Metal game on PS3 is good news. The gameplay looks really good, and I'm sure online play will be a blast. Oh and something else I forgot to work in here, I remember seeing the screen light up with NBA 2K11 and Michael Jordan when they were going through new upcoming games, so that's awesome.

Sony came really close to Nintendo. Their show was the most entertaining of the three, and a lot of fun to watch. They didn't exactly show a lot of new titles, but still showed a lot of promise for the years to come.


Now for your questions

@fishdalf : It just is something I got interested in when I had a profile over on another gaming website when I saw all of the other user reviews. I wanted to put my own 2 cents in, and it also makes me feel more accomplished to not just play games, but also write reviews. Little did I know it would eventually lead to me writing for a gaming website.

@AC55 : I listen to just about anything (well maybe not most pop, country, or gospel). Hip Hop is my favorite genre, definitely, but I'll listen to anything that sounds good to me, whether it's rock, R&B, movie/game soundtracks, etc. I'd love it if you wanted to recommend me some of your favorite artists.

I prefer dogs. Kittens are pretty cool, but full-grown cats are kind of annoying. Maybe because of my experience with strays.

What are you talking about? I am a King.

@Tanya : Hard to say. I might go with the 3DS because I'm really looking forward to those remakes like MGS3, Star Fox, LoZ: OoT, and I expect some great original titles for it also.

@Koshai : Hard to pick just one. Some of my favorites are Organized Konfusion, the whole Wu-Tang Clan, Madlib, Kanye West, Eminem, Outkast, Common, Lupe Fiasco, Mos Def, Kid Cudi, ah, too many to name.

@David_D : Finished it earlier today. I thought I finished it last night but apparently there was the main ending still lefty, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Great game, not sure how much I'll keep playing though. Probably won't go for 100% and I'm not a fan of the online.

@shaokid : Who should? Evan Turner. But I'm thinking Philly is going another direction, and maybe taking DeMarcus Cousins or Derrick Favors. And yes I'm glad to see you, lol.

@canana @sleven @Din5193 : Sorry I couldn't predict who was going to win. My original prediction would have been correct, I just thought the loss of Perkins was too much for Boston, but I was definitely pulling for the Celtics. I can't stand most of the Lakers team (except maybe Ron Artest and Adam Morrison, haha) well actually it's mostly just Kobe, but still I wish Boston would've won it. I'm really tired of seeing both teams to tell you the truth, it's someone elses turn to hold the trophy.

@canana : My favorite PS3 exclusive outside of MGS4 is probably LittleBigPlanet.

@Din5193 : Well there's the MGS3 remake, OoT remake, and Star Fox remake that I'm very excited about, and I'm looking forward to Metroid: Other M and Kid Icarus.