Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Sunday, July 15, 2007

E3 summaries ...

Good stuff on the E3 front, even for all of the complaints about it being a "mini" event.

A couple of good recap resources:

I was Best Manning it in Houston for the latter half of the conference, so while I was following the blow-by-blows on my mobile, I've held off posting my own thoughts. I may do a recap or impressions or two this week, but I have some other, more important columns I want to get out first.

Labels: E3 2007

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Nintendo and Sony E3 press conferences ...

I'm on my way to Houston, so I can't do a blow-by-blow of the Nintendo and Sony press conferences like I did for the Microsoft conference.

Check out Kotaku.com for the Sony and Nintendo live blogging recaps.

Nintendo left me a little "mheh", from the recaps. But they're sitting pretty, and the just-announced Wii Fit concept looks very cool.

Sony's tossing down the gauntlet (ostensibly to Microsoft), with some of the big stuff being a new PSP this September (smaller, slimmer, lighter, with better battery and video output).

Oh, and Haze and Metal Gear Solid 4 are PS3 exclusives (the former at least probably just time-bound).

As far as partnerships, according to Kotaku, "Very soon [NCsoft] will be bringing there expertise to the PS3 exclusively. The games will be based on both new and current IP." They will be the Sony MMO dawgs. That's a big deal, and interesting. Both NCsoft and Sony Studios Austin are in (wait for it!) Austin.

More on the PS3 front, Folk Lore continues to intrigue me, as does the (I'm sure) deceptively simple brilliance of LittleBigPlanet. And the just-announced Echochrome looks phenomenal. Honestly, these last two games, to me, speak volumes to Sony's innovation.

And Killzone 2 might be the title to beat next year, but it should be, given how long we've waited since E3 2005.

Labels: announcements, companies, console updates, E3 2007, Epic Games, Nintendo, PlayStation3, previews, Unreal Engine 3

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Microsoft E3 2007 press conference ...

A lot of stuff came out of tonight's E3 press conference from Microsoft.

You can catch live blogs over at Kotaku.com and Joystiq.com, and I'm sure more coherent summaries and analyses are on the way soon.

After frustrating efforts to get online, with Xbox.com / G4 (never connected); Gamespot.com (never advanced past commercial); and GameTap (un-usable audio and video) all striking out, 1Up.com came through (after a several repeated efforts).

And, honestly, I'm amazingly stoked that Golden Axe from SEGA is downloadable right now from Xbox Live Arcade (remember my XBLA list?). And I am amazingly pissed my Xbox is still in a service center somewhere in Southern Texas.

Anyway, Naruta is an exclusive to the 360, which was a surprise, and the video shown has got me hyped for the game.

And some live gameplay of Call of Duty 4 (prefaced with an unfortunately unintended double entendre) looks more stealthish than previous entries. But the big news is there's going to be an Xbox 360 exclusive beta. Go to www.charlieoscardelta.com/ for details. The site is traffic (carpet) bombed right now, so good luck. And there are not details yet.

On the other surprise, big-guns exclusives front, it sounds like the new Splinter Cell is hitting the 360 first, and possibly by a big spread. On the Grand Theft Auto front, there will be two new episodes for GTA IV exclusive to the 360 in spring 2008 (though this has been discussed before).

It sounded like they said Virtua Fighter 5 is only online on Xbox 360. That's surprising to me, so I need to verify.

I'm curious as to whether Capcom's 360 / zombie love is going to make Resident Evil 5 an at least timed exclusive (it's the one game shown tonight that's post this holiday season).

Assassin's Creed look and plays stunningly. It was showcased by Ubisoft producer Jade Raymond, who (while also stunning) makes me want to slap game geeks and tell them to grow up. But I'm the sure the game will rock. Y'know, because she's pretty.

And despite the Rah-rah, Games for Windows has been struggling, and creating kiosks and store fronts is a far cry from creating market share. But the announcement of new partners (SEGA, Eidos, etc.) gives the efforts wings, but nowhere near as much as the (badly kept secret) announcement of Gears of War for Windows Live (XP and Vista), which will include 5 new single player chapters, and new multiplayer maps (and at least one new gametype). No word on crossplay between Windows and Xbox 360.

People, of course, want Halo news. And we got a few of neat versions of it.

First, there was the unexpected live action short from Neill Blomkamp, with props from Studio Weta. Think a teaser trailer that hints at a "we're-taking-on-the-Deathstar" army preparation.

Second, in addition to Halo 3, September will see the release of a Halo 3-themed Xbox 360 and related accessories. How much trouble will I get in if I buy that one? Y'know, after I buy one of the 100 Simpsons limited editions off of eBay? (I think the green and the yellow will go nicely together.)

Then there was new Halo 3 campaign video and gameplay. It looks like the Arbiter is back, but is he playable (I'm OK with "no"; make him an AI squadmate, if you must)? And was that Brute wearing a jetpack before he got sniped? Can I do that (wear and jetpack; and probably get sniped)? Please?

E3 is a weird beast, and even weirder in its stripped down, more industry-internal focused state. But some of the big announcements seem to have been lightly received, which has got to be maddening for Microsoft.

Take, for example, that Disney (all studios -- Miramax, etc.) are making their films available in Hi-Def on Xbox Live Marketplace as of right now. Content is King, and if Sony isn't soiling themselves right now, it's probably because they hired someone to do it for them (I don't know what that means, either). But they have a huge library as well (especially from the MGM acquisition), so if they can get out from behind the eight ball, and the E3 PlayStation Service outage heralds something big (and not just a big screw up), they could be fine.

The second huge announcement is Games for Windows functionality will be built into the Unreal Engine 3 technology. That's right, now it's even easier for devs to make their code work on that platform, when they use the middleware that everyone and they're grandma is using (I mean that in a good way).

That's the brief skinny. Fallout should be hitting soon, and it's only 10.5 hours to Nintendo's press conference, and 12.5 until Sony's.

Labels: announcements, E3 2007, Microsoft, previews, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Pre-E3 videos

Courtesy of Joystiq.com, there's a round up of 10 of the E3 videos released so far.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Dead or Alive: Deformed
Dungeon Hero
NHL '08
Fury
Need for Speed ProStreet
SpaceForce: RU
European Street Racing
TimeShift
Legendary: The Box

Interesting -- 10 vids, and 3 are from Austin upstart "we-don't-need-the-stinkin'-man" publisher GameCock Media.

My favorite video?

Probably GameCock's Legendary: The Box. I've said it before: "Anything mythology. Anything."

And Dungeon Hero. Because I likes my dungeon crawling.

Oh, and "like-a-phoenix-from-the-ashes" TimeShift.

Labels: E3 2007, previews, video game violence

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Pre-E3 coverage ...

Next week is E3, and even though it's a scaled-down, arguably insiders affair, the pre-coverage is pretty hefty, and pretty exciting.

GameSpot.com now has their E3 microsite up, and is tracking a wealth of E3, and tertiarilly E3 happenings, as is IGN.com.

Also, Eurogamer has (an at least current for now) list of the games of E3.

Not everything at E3 will be playable, but I'm looking forward to the playable, new announcements (a la Electronic Arts), and if anything anecdotally interesting comes out of the parties (mostly because I like the slant alliteration of the phrase "anecdotally interesting").

So what am I excited about? (List scalped from Kotaku.com, who scalped it from Eurogamer, who really should have just pointed to IGN.com.)

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3, Xbox 360) -- CoD is a stellar franchise, and I want to see what they do to the modern world.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Battlefield, but with a cooler mythos. Hope it runs better than Quake IV.
Spiderman: Friend or Foe -- Anything comic book related for me. Anything.
The Witcher (PC) -- Dark, twisted, adult-themed RPG with moral ambiguity? Sounds like my toy job!
Fallout 3 -- Middlingly. I'm a big Fallout franchise fan, but this one's a ways out.
Devil May Cry 4 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- You seriously don't need me to explain, do you?
Rocketmen: Axis of Evil (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- "The game is a top-down action title that is something of a mix of an old-school stage crawler with Robotron controls.... you advance through levels while plowing through countless numbers of unnamed soldiers."
Talisman (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- I think online board games are the New Hotness. Or the new flash-in-the-pan. Which still makes them hot. And this one is a fantasy-themed boardgame with 4-way play.
Cliver Barker's Jericho (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Cliver Barker's Undying has some of the best audio on a game to date. And it had good gameplay. And Clive Barker's a talented storyteller. Twisted, but talented.
Rise of the Argonauts (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Like comic books, anything mythology related. Please don't suck.
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- In this alternate history FPS, the cab that hit Winston Churchill kills him, and the Nazis take over Europe. Now, it's 1952, and they're invading America.
Age of Conan (PC, Xbox 360) -- Bloody good fun.
Hellgate: London (PC) -- Just because I still like the premise, have been rooting for it for a long time, and want to see how the free-versus-subscribtion thing works out for them (and us).
Medal of Honor Airborne (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Gameplay videos have been me excited about the franchise again.
The Simpsons (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS) -- Hey, Matt Groening is the final boss!
Dungeon Hero (PC, Xbox 360) -- I have this unnatural attachment to all things GameCock (even if they don't return my Emails). But this is a dungeon crawler without the boredom. Sign me up!
Fury (PC) -- MMO without the grinding? PvP? Maybe I'll see you in the demo this weekend.
Hail to the Chimp (PS3, Xbox 360) -- Love this game. Man crush on Wideload and Alexander Seropian. 'Nuff said.
Mushroom Men (Wii, DS) -- Oddworld aesthetic. 'Shrooms. Need I go on?
Two unannounced titles from GameCock (One's probably Section 8)
Metal Gear Solid 4 -- I'd love an Xbox 360 announcement on this next week, but the game alone, with its hopefully challenging moral mechanics and deep storytelling, has got my attention.
Fracture -- This "terra-deforming-as-weapon" from LucasArts has be sweaty palmed. No new news on The Force Unleashed, though?
Kengo: Legend of the 9 (Xbox 360) -- I think this is Majesco's first next-gen game (it's at least their first 360 game). Looking for more info, but looks like a Dynasty Warriors-esque take with 9 historical Japanese figures.
Blue Dragon (Xbox 360) -- Really want to play this bad boy ...
Fable 2 (xbox 360) -- The single-player RPG to beat on the original Xbox, let's see what the former Lionheads do under Microsoft's watch.
Halo 3 (Xbox 360) -- You think this wouldn't make the list?
Halo Wars (Xbox 360) -- Just for the trailer. Fortunately, leaks about the RTS gameplay have been positive. But they have to go up against Tom Clancy's Endwar.
Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360) -- Gorgeous. Just brutal and gorgeous. "We are the Knights Who Say Ne -- Oh SWEET MOTHER! MY EYES! MY EYES!" [*gushing blood*]
Mass Effect (Xbox 360) -- RPG of the century? Mayhap.
Unannounced XBLA titles (Xbox 360) -- Knock my socks off. You keep dissing my proposals, but you keep giving me stuff I like. So we're good.
John Woo's Stranglehold (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- I'm excited about this. More I see, I'm excited.
Unreal Tournament 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Unreal Championship II was under-appreciated, maybe because it was a gamers game. This looks to be that and more.
Beautiful Katamari (Xbox 360) -- We've suffered long enough without beauty, thank you very much.
Dynasty Warriors: GUNDAM (PS3) -- Honestly, I just want to see if they can take this Artichoke and jelly mix and make it work.
AION (PC) -- An MMO without grinding, and a leveling system "not like you'd expect"? Demons versus angels (ish)? Wings for both factions (no @#$%^&! earning mounts crap)?
Dungeon Runners (PC) -- I'm playing the free version of this MMO from NCsoft, and really enjoying it.
Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa (PC) -- He gets to put his name on it. I want to support that.
Condemned 2 (PS3, Xbox 360) -- Sequel to the early Xbox 360 sleeper hit, now bloodier, with a revamped combat system and (wait for it!) multiplayer!
Gas Powered Games' RPG (PC) -- I respect GPG, so I'm waiting to see this.
Iron Man -- Anything. Comic book. Related. (Anything.)
TimeShift (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Rescued from ~~the steaming pile of crap~~ not being all it could be, the revamp looks to wow.
Heavenly Sword (PS3) -- This could be a console seller for Sony. Hey, it got teased on Heroes.
Killzone 2 (PS3) -- C'mon, show me something to wash the tast of the lied about "not-prerendered" debacle.
LittleBigPlanet (PS3) -- Have you seen the videos? How fun is this?
The Agency -- An MMO from Sony that's not fantasy-themed, and not half-baked sci-fi license. Just don't be stealing from the DC MMO talent pool, kids.
BioShock (PC, Xbox 360) -- I want to play this game. And struggle with the choices I've made.
De Blob -- THQ is a savvy publisher. And I really like the art aesthetic.
Assassin's Creed (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- I think they're hiding the full awesomeness that is this game.
FEAR sequel (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- The first made me almost soil myself. Raise the bar, Warner.

This is just the stuff we know about. I'm hoping we get some surprises from folks not yet announced. Certain Affinity. Junction Point. More GameCock than you can shake a stick at. And so on.

Labels: action, announcements, BioWare, brawlers, companies, E3 2007, Epic Games, events, Halo, PC, PlayStation3, previews, RPG, RTS, SEGA, shooters, Unreal Engine 3, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.