E3 so far.

So The big 3 all had press conferences yesterday or today, and I'm pretty satisfied. here would be some quick thoughts.

Sony:
I think the price for the PS3 is fair, especially if you consider the price of the Blu-Ray drive itself and the built in wireless LAN, cause if you think about it, adding the not as impressive and quite awkward external HD-DVD drive to an Xbox 360, as well the wireless adapter to a 360 like mine (the higher end one) with those additions would be well over the $599 price tag for a 60 gig PS3.

The PS3 controller, looking identical to two previous Playstation controllers, I think is a bit weak. I mean I agree if it ain't broke don't fix it, but it's sort of well known that Xbox controller S's and even more so the 360 controller are superior. Of course that could be my opinion. But the idea to "throw in" gyroscopic sensors with "6 degrees of freedom" in an obvious attempt to take some steam out of Nintendo's launch is pretty weak man.

As for games on the PS3 i was not impressed, the only game that got me excited was the new Hot Shots Golf, and frankly I would buy that if it was on PS2, so yeah, the games that were played in real time looked no better than 360 titles, honestly most times they looked worse. Which shocked me as much as the next guy.

Nnotable things were the Magic the Gathering style card game camera thingy they showed, where monsters would pop off the cards and fight eachother, As well as the game Eight Days and whatever that nameless Naughty Dog project is. Oh and Tekken 6 (damn straight Phil)

Nintendo:
No price or official launch date for the Wii except for a general 4th quarter of 06, which is cool, don't write something in stone unless you have to, fanboys get bitchy man.
I will say though that this conference was my favorite out of all 3, with Shigeru Miyamoto coming out to open it conducting a virtual Wii symphony playing the Zelda theme, it was fucking outstanding, I love that guy.

I've grown to like the name Wii and down right love the remote style controller. . I will admit the idea of playing a first person shooter with the controller makes me a little, let's say, leary. But once I saw the video of Warioware for the Wii I was fucking sold. And the fact is has a speaker which plays dynamic sounds that go from the controller to the T.V. man alive, I dig it.

As for games, I like Nintendo's style, and while they're not trying to show crazy graphics, they did show some things that are interesting, tons of things that will make strange uses of the new controller, but I can tell you, for me, as a parent, I will have a Wii, to play tennis with my son, or just sit and fish in Zelda, that system really has my interest. the idea of "next generation game play" as opposed to next generation graphics. I like the way they think.

Microsoft:
First of all, what the fuck is Bill Gates doin here? Well he was talking about how Windows Vista was going to change some things about PC gaming. and he was right. The idea of, and soon to be reality of playing games cross platform is long overdue. It may be a ways off and a little more complicated than they made it look, but being able to get Xbox Live messages on your phone or PC is excellent. But most of all just being able to play on a PC against console gamers is cool.


Peter (kind of a douchebag) Moore showed off the HD-DVD add on for the 360 that I mentioned earlier, which does about as much for me as gay midget porn. He talked a lot actually, and for the most part I tuned him out. One thing Satan...er I mean Peter showed that did catch my attention was the new wireless 360 headest, which better not just be a crappy wireless version of the current 360 headset which is garbage. But when he pulled up his non-Bungie-fucking-over-arm's sleave to reveal the logo of Grand Theft Auto 4, that got my attention good and proper. This will be the first time GTA is available cross platform on release day, which is awesome. Although it's totally like the fall of 07 that it's coming out, but I'm still pumped.

As for 360 games, I kind of came away with a 50/50 feeling about it, I mean I don't see Sony or Microsoft living up to the hype of last year, but Microsoft at least has the first batch of ass games out of the way. The Gears of War demo was OK, I'm not like trying to blow myself over it or anything, but it looked alright. It certainly looked better than Sony's crap demo FPS thing, what was that shit called again? See I can't remember, that's how shit it was. although not a 360 game the PC game Crysis by the guys that made Far Cry was shown, and that shit looked pretty good, the origianl Far Cry was excellent, and I'm not talking about the garbage Xbox ports, I mean the PC version.

I feel like I'm leaving out a lot of stuff, but I might as well get to the meat of the Microsoft conference which was of course the final trailer, Halo 3, the thing my dreams are made of. And while it looked like pre-rendered typical E3 smoke and mirrors, Frankie over at Bungie.net has assured us it's being run in real time by the Halo 3 engine, so I'll take him on his word for now, he's been good to us in the past. I can only hope that some how just hanging out with Peter Jackson rubs off on the guys at Bungie and it makes Halo 3 that much better. The fact it's being launched side by side with the movie is kind of unimportant to me, I just want them to make the best Halo they can considering what bull shit Peter Moore and Bill Gates put them through last time. But Halo 3 will be on my mind, in my conversations, on my blog and in my dreams for the next 15 months or so, but I suppose as such a huge Halo fan I can't really see things clearly. If it's to be the last, let's hope it's the best.

All in all, one hell of a two day span in the world of video games, it's a fucking great time to be a gamer (if we must call ourselves that.)

Also notable, and most likely not read by anyone that reads my blog since it's at the end of a giant E3 post, and most likely you've gotten bored and left by now, We have been OK'ed to move to Appleton whenever we want by the company that owns both our townhouse and our new place in Appleton, so look out bitches, I'm coming.

Peace