Are you game?

This years Electronic Entertainment Expo was the new condensed version announced last year, and was apparently five times smaller than previous shows. That said, I think the show was in a need of a bit of deflating.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo were still out in force. Unfortunately, there were no real earth-shattering announcements to compete with last years platform launches. Instead the big three focused on impending software releases (or in Nintendos case, peripheral launches…….but more of that later).

Sony probably made the biggest splash of all, with more never-before-seen game clips and exclusive title announcements. Sony debuted the first real-time clips of its upcoming Killzone 2 game, converting critics (myself included) who believed that the actual game could never live up to the quality of the original FMV demonstration (shown at E3 two years ago). It may not have been as spectacular as the FMV, but it was darn close and DAMN impressive.

They also released yet another video from the final game in the Metal Gear Solid series. The quality of the graphics and the realism of the animation was impressive, but the dense storyline (which carries on from the previous three MSG games) was totally lost on me!

Like Portal a few years back (which incidentally, still hasn’t been released!), one of the games that really impressed me for the PS3 was a very simple looking puzzle game called "Echochrome" (which will be available as a download purchase from the PlayStation Network service). A description of the game would be impossible, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so I urge people to check out the vid for it on youtube. It’s very clever and looks quite addictive!

Microsofts line-up was a little more anaemic, but they did manage to blow everyone away with their Halo 3 video, which revealed how the single player game was going to look and play for the first time (a little late considering its impending release!)

Of course I took a greater interest in Nintendo’s offering, since the Wii is the only current generation console I own!

The Big N tried to distract everyone from their lack of heavy hitting titles by announcing a few new peripherals. The first was the “Wii Balance Board” (packaged with the game “Wii-fit”), a wireless step-aerobic pad that monitors your mass, centre of gravity and footwork. This for me is just a little too gimmicky. Also announced were a wireless steering wheel (self explanatory) and a “Wii Zapper”, an attachment that essentially turns the Wii-mote and nunchuck into a gun.

These peripherals are all well and good, but they do nothing to remedy the fact that there is a severe lack of triple A titles on the Wii. Apart from Zelda (which was available from day one), there have been no killer titles for the Wii. Granted, both Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 were present at E3, looking fantastic and promised a release by the end of the year, but what comes after that? The future of gaming on the Wii looks like it will be nothing more than novelty titles, movie licensed titles and lacklustre cross-platform ports. Innovative titles like “Blocks”, demonstrated by EA, were few and far between.

Of course Nintendo is always going to be secure falling back on its tried and trusted stock of familiar characters and brands (Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Donkey Kong etc), but I was eager to see some active 3rd party support for the Wii at this years E3, and it just wasn’t there.

The game that got me most excited was Ubisofts “Assassins Creed”, coming soon to the 360 and PS3. The game looks stunning and the gameplay mechanics were astounding. Seeing it in motion is an absolute must! :D