May 22, 2005

E3 2005 Postmortem

Another E3, come and gone. For the 11th straight year (cripes), I made the trek out to Los Angeles to check out all the latest wares and, more importantly, catch up with scores of old friends. It's kind of funny -- each year, my interest shifts more toward the social aspects of E3 and further away from the actual game part, to the point that this year I quite literally only picked up a controller once the entire trip. Of course, I took a good look at everything I wanted to see, went to all the parties and press conferences and whatnot, but as far as actually playing stuff, I mostly just sat on the sidelines and watched. It's kind of nice, actually; it'll be great to play a new Zelda game without any previous hands-on experience for a change. Raw and pure, just how the developers intended. :)

I had a great time catching up with everyone, but the highlight of my trip was, without a doubt, hanging out with Eiji Aonuma at the Ziff party for over an hour on Wednesday night. Mark invited him and I got him in (along with Bill and Nate from NOA), and we talked about all sorts of stuff, from the creepiness (and sheer awesomeness) of Majora's Mask to rundown bars in Kichijoji. He gave me a few tidbits on DS Zelda, too, which sounds pretty exciting. Those of you who were expecting another Four Swords are going to be in for a nice surprise...

Anyway, now that I'm back (and jetlagged to kingdom come), let me point out a few brief thoughts and impressions from the show:

Xbox 360: The case design is sexy, the controller is fantastic, and the thing's got tons of potential. That said, MS had a pretty weak showing at E3, with very few "must-have" games on display, and nothing that really looked like true next-generation quality, aside from maybe Gears of War. I have high hopes for the machine, especially now that it's got some decent support from Japan (much of which hasn't been announced yet), but for now, I'll remain cautiously optimistic. Their half-assed approach to backwards compatibility bothers me a bit, but I suppose as long as I'll be able to play Halo 2 without any problems, I'll survive. My most-wanted title at the moment is probably Mistwalker's Lost Odyssey.

BTW, Microsoft gets the award for coolest E3 giveaway with their limited edition E3 2005 Xbox 360 faceplate, shown here hanging out with the old guard:

Doesn't look all that much smaller than the original Xbox, does it? At least it doesn't look like a tank anymore.

PlayStation 3: The next generation is Sony's to lose, and frankly, I don't see it happening. The tech demos they showed were out of this world, and while I understand most (not all -- but most) of them weren't running in real-time or on real hardware, it was nice to get a tangible idea of what next-generation games might look like. Unless Sony drops the ball big-time, I can't see them falling behind next round, in Japan or anywhere else. As for the actual case design, it's pretty nice-looking, though that hideous Spider-Man font has GOT to go, and the "conceptual" controller looks ridiculous.

Hopefully Sony'll wisen up and fix both these problems before the launch next spring.

Revolution: Hmm. I know I'm supposed to be excited about the Revolution, but so far I'm just not feeling it. The case design is indeed very small, but it's not very stylish IMO. It lacks character; it looks more like a DSL modem than a game console right now. Iwata did say the final console will be even smaller when it's done, so hopefully they'll inject some personality into it as well. Backwards compatibility with all previous Nintendo consoles is indeed a big plus, but I hope to God that's not their main selling point, because if it is, they're going to get crushed. I thought they were headed in the right direction when it was announced that Revolution would play DVDs (you know, acknowledging that people like to do other things besides play games and all that), but then they said you'd need an optional attachment to do so, which pretty much killed it. There's always a catch with Nintendo, isn't there? Seems like they never, ever get everything 100% right these days.

I used to be the biggest Nintendo fan in the world, but now I have a hard time even feigning optimism. Come on, Iwata, prove me wrong. I want to believe!

Game Boy Micro: I'm a sucker for handhelds and I'm a sucker for sexy gadgets, so you know I'll be all over this on day one, even though I have zero need for it. I'm extremely disappointed it doesn't come with Play-Yan functionality built-in (another big Nintendo gaffe, IMO), but even still, it looks so good I don't think I can resist. I hope they keep making decent GBA games, though...

Dragon Quest VIII: Wow, talk about a nice surprise! Not only did they completely revamp the menus and game interface to be more appealing to a US audience, but they added full voiceovers as well! I've been a huge DQ fan for almost 20 years, so I can totally appreciate the old-school Japanese style, but I really love the fact that they ditched it and re-did everything for the US version. Very forward-thinking of them. My only (minor) gripe is that they decided to use British English spelling for all the items and dialogue. British voices? No problem. Writing armor as "armour"? Uh...no. But whatever, the good far outweighs the bad, and I can't wait to get my hands on the final game this November.

DS vs. PSP: I'm surprised just how much better of a show DS had than PSP. It's almost as if Sony forgot the little thing even exists -- what's up with that? I can count the number of PSP games I'm looking forward to for the remainder of 2005 on one hand, which is a bit worrisome. :/

Sega's Next-Gen Stuff: Sega were showing some nice tech demos behind closed doors, and almost all of them looked surprisingly good. Virtua Fighter 5, After Burner, Chrome Hounds, Sonic...everything looked a heck of a lot better than what we've come to expect from them as of late. Could this be the beginning of a turnaround? Let's hope so.

Speaking of Sega, they had the coolest t-shirts of E3, by far:

I rarely collect gaming shirts these days, but I went out of my way to make sure I came home with that one. :)

Well, that about wraps things up. With E3 out of the way, I can finally get back to focusing on what's important -- sleep! And I think I'll get started on that right now. See you soon!

Posted by john tv at May 22, 2005 09:59 AM