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E3: Huge Game Wrap Up

npuleo — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:07:51 +0000

Well this will end my E3 coverage here on the Blog. I had a really great time, met some really awesome people and played a ton of incredible games.

To help ease the pain of wading through all the coverage I’ve compiled a huge list of all the games I played as well as a sentence or two of impressions with a final recommendation for the game.

The full list is available after the break.

Also, I wanted to point out this link to all the audio recordings I did during E3. There are lots of goodies there including an interview with Peter Moore and a demo of Mass Effect.

You can also hear my radio interviews Post-E3 with In-Game Chat as well as Evil Avatar Radio Episode 65 (once it’s posted).
Next up on the ol’ ba-schedule is PAX in Seattle at the end of August. I’m not sure how much I’m going to “work the show” but I’ll still be posting stuff about it. I mean, how much can a game change in 6 weeks?

Game Name	Platforms	Impressions	Recommendation
Assassin’s Creed	360, PS3	Splinter Cell meets Kingdom of Heaven in a richly detailed crusades era game. Rich graphics, unique controls and lots of variety will keep this game interesting.	Instant Purchase
Blacksite: Area 51	360, PS3	Part Half-Life, Part Doom, Blacksite: Area 51 is a mindless shooter that offers plenty of “big” moments. Graphics, controls and audio are all solid.	Wait for Reviews
Burnout: Paradise	360, PS3	It’s all about crashes and driving fast, and the latest Burnout delivers both in gorgeous glory. If you own a VisionCam/Eyetoy the game will snap a pic of you at the moment of impact. Sweet.	Instant Purchase.
Call of Duty 4	360, PS3, PC	Infinity Ward is back, and they made a game that’s not set in WWII. And the game is fucking awesome. Shit blows up, bullets fly, and the graphics will make your eyeballs bleed.	Instant Purchase
Crysis	PC	Your PC will cry when you put the disc in, but if you have the gears to run it you’ll be treated with some of the most impressive visuals to date. And it’s not just about the looks, as the gameplay features a few new tricks added to the FPS genre.	Instant Purchase (with a new PC)
Devil May Cry 4	PC, PS3, 360	From the few minutes I played DMC4 it seemed fairly straightforward. Nothing groundbreaking here, and graphically it was a mixed bag.	Wait For Reviews
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars	360, PC	A prequel to the Quake franchise, ET:QW tells the story of the Strogg invasion in a classic multiplayer setting. Solid graphics with a unique mission system may make this multiplayer only title worth checking out. But I can’t help feel I’ve done this all before.	Wait for Reviews
Eye of Judgment	PS3	A card game that requires cards and a $600 piece of electronics plus a $50 accessory kit? Top that all off with a game that has very limited depth and mediocre graphics. Very disappointed in this one as I had high hopes.	Wait and see.
Fable 2	360	Fable 1 may have failed to live up to expectations, but Peter Molyneaux hopes to correct that with Fable 2 by catering to both hardcore and casual gamers with the hint of online co-op.	Wait for Reviews
Fallout 3	360, PS3, PC	The game is still a year away, and I may just lock myself in a Vault while I wait for it. I need this game now.	Instant Purchase
Ghost Squad	Wii	Using the Wii Zapper I was able to take back a hostage filled ranch. Boooya. I miss the big machine gun of the arcade, but the WiiZapper worked well.	Rental.
Guitar Hero 3	360, PS3, Wii	It’s Guitar Hero…but with more master track based songs and a brand new battle mode. Still…something wasn’t quite…right.	Purchase for Fans
Halo 3	360	It’s Halo. The fans will love it. The haters will hate it. That said, the single player experience looks darker, grittier and more squad based. And yes the graphics do look better.	Instant Purchase for Fans.
Halo Wars	360	An RTS designed for a console, set in the Halo universe with incredible graphics and lots of action.	Purchase
Heavenly Sword	PS3	A visual masterpiece in both looks and animation. The game is fast, fluid and fun. God of War be damned, this sets the new standard.	Instant Purchase (with a PS3 if need be)
Lair	PS3	The long awaited dragon game will finally hit PS3 soon. Unfortunately the graphics fall short of expectations, and the controls and gameplay are simply uninspired.	Bargain bin…maybe.
Little Big Planet	PS3	A game that has absolutely no point, yet provides hours of enjoyment? That’s LBP. Sharp graphics, simple controls and realistic physics make this game a blast.	Instant Purchase
Lost Odyssey	360	Your standard JRPG with a bit of action flare, it looks good and throws some twists into a proven formula.	JRPG Fans Only
Madden 08	Everything	It’s Madden. It looks good on Next-Gen Platforms. Doesn’t feel all that different.	Sports fans will buy anyway.
Mario Galaxy	Wii	This is the Mario game we’ve been waiting for. Graphics are vibrant and you’ll be feeling vertigo in no time jumping from planet to planet.	Instant Purchase
Mass Effect	360	An RPG by the RPG gods at Bioware, the graphics are nothing short of jaw dropping while the character dialog and emotion are something rarely achieved in a video game.	Instant Purchase
NiGHTS	Wii	A revival of the classic Saturn franchise, NiGHTS looks to mix things up with some platforming elements and unique puzzle style boss battles. It has a long way to go but it is starting to shape up nicely.	Wait for Reviews
Postal 3	360, PC	Still a bit off, but using the Source engine Postal 3 looks to keep the over the top brutality and humor evident. Lets just say one of the weapons is a rabid animal and an addicting internet song.	Wait and see
Project Gotham Racing 4	360	PGR now with Motorcycles and weather effects fail to impress all but the hardcore PGR fans.	Wait and See
Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles	Wii	Using the new Wii Zapper I successfully shot Zombies in the head. Over and over and over again. And the bastards didn’t die. And if they did die I couldn’t tell if they did because it was a muddy mess.	Rental if you won’t he gun
Rock Band	360, PS3	Take Guitar Hero, add drums and vocals and weekly album updates and you’ve got Rock Band. The funny thing is, this game feels more like Guitar Hero than Guitar Hero 3 does.	Instant Purchase
Stranglehold	360, PC, PS3	This is the true successor to Max Payne. Destructible environments, lots of cover, sliding on railings and 360 spin moves with doves make this an absolute blast to play.	Instant Purchase
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune	PS3	Drake has a treasure chest full of photo realistic graphics and lush jungle environments. The controls could use some work, but the game is shaping up to be a solid 3rd person action/adventure.	Wait for Reviews
WiiFit	Wii	Time to work off that beer belly and do some Yoga. The WiiBoard (used with WiiFit) is solid, but a bit uncomfortable for those with larger feet. The demos they showed didn’t really sell me on the need for the WiiBoard.	Wait for Price
World in Conflict	PC	The most detailed RTS you can find to date, laser guided missiles, napalm bombs and nukes make this an explosive title. Another title that may make your PC cry.	Instant Purchase (with the new PC you bought for Crysis)
Virtua Fighter 5	360	Looking sharper than the PS3 counterpart and sporting an online mode as well as an option for the arcade stick makes this the best VF game to date.	Instant purchase for fans.
Zelda: Phantom Hourglass	DS	Incredibly deep Zelda game with plenty to do. Stylus only controls can make it difficult to play in certain situations.	Instant Purchase

Under Pressure and Melting Faces

npuleo — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:26:11 +0000

So during E3 I managed to find an extra 20 minutes to sneak into the Loews hotel arcade that Microsoft had set up. After chatting it up a bit with Chris, John and Tony from the The Gamerscore Blog I decided to try my hand at the only song that matters to me on Guitar Hero 3, Muse’s Knights of Cyndonia. I not so confidently chose the hard difficulty setting, I mean…I didn’t want to look like a whimp, right?

Well…then things got worse. A lot worse. A nice TV Crew decided to start filming my face melting rock and roll. That put me a bit under pressure.

You can see the video here of me melting faces. I’m about 15-20 seconds in.

E3: Day 3

npuleo — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 18:01:26 +0000

And….it’s over! The last day at the show wasn’t so bad actually, and I managed to squeeze in some time with a few titles I missed out on.

Lets see I saw:
Project Gotham Racing 4
Halo Wars
Mass Effect
Fable 2
Lost Odyssey
Assassin’s Creed
Lair

Then I hopped on over to Barker Hangar and got a bunch of playtime with various titles. Guitar Hero 3, Blacksite: Area 51, NiGHTS, Virtua Fighter 5, Burnout: Paradise, Madden 08, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, WiiFit, Mario Galaxy, Crysis, World in Conflict and a few other misc titles.

Overall it was a great day. I got to meet Hironobu Sakaguchi at the Lost Odyssey Event. He really had this very confident aura about him, yet he spoke very humbly. I also got to talk to Peter Molyneaux a bit more. I rode an elevator at Loews with Reggie. So all in all it was a pretty cool day.

I’m glad the show is over though, as I’m just completely wiped. I’m running on about 3 hours of sleep right now and I think I’m just about to crash. I’ll probably just go watch a movie or something, but I’d like to get some more content up if possible.

Day 3 pics can be seen here.

E3: Day 2

npuleo — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:32:15 +0000

Well day 2 has ended. It’s day 3 and I’m sitting in the entrance way to Microsoft’s fortress…err hotel. Day 2 was interesting as it was a lot of intimate meetings. Lets see…here is what I got to see:

Call of Duty 4 (360)
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (360 and PC)
Guitar Hero 3 (360, PS3)
Fallout 3 (360, PS3, PC)
Postal 3 (360, PC)
Stranglehold (360, PC, PS3)
Heavenly Sword (PS3)
Little Big Planet (PS3)
Eye of Judgement (PS3)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune (PS3)
Halo 3 (360)
A few Gamecock titles

It was a busy day as I was up at 4:30 AM to take the wife to the airport. I never went back to bed either so by the end of the day (11:30PM) I was out. What really sucked was at one point I had about a 90 minute break so I figured I’d head back to the hotel and just chill for a bit. No such luck though as my shuttle ended up taking over an hour and fifteen minutes to arrive (instead of 30).

Then last night I attended the MS Community Event. Before the event I was given the opportunity to interview 8 Microsoft execs for 4 minutes each. It was a nerveracking kind of thing, but it was fun and the responses I got (and gave) I think were unexpected. Overall it felt very natural and not very canned.

After the interviews it was party time where I met up with CheapyD from Cheap Ass Gamer as well as a few other people like the Angry Video Game Nerd and Screw Attack folks.

Pics can be seen here, though there isn’t many as the batteries died early on for me.

E3: Day 1

npuleo — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:48:09 +0000

Day 1 is done. Actually right now it’s the morning of Day 2, and I’m trying to catch up on my posts and news and such. I gotta say, it’s even harder than I imagined to do this show as a 1 man gig. There is very little time, and more so, very little space to step aside and get some work done.

I had a great day yesterday hitting up both Nintendo and Sony’s press briefings. Sony’s by far outshone Nintendo’s. Not only was the presentation better, but they had stuff going on before (food), and stuff going on after (games and food). It was the first time I ever got to visit a movie studio as well, so that was hella cool.

After all the crap from that, it was time to get back to the hotels, but being 25 minutes away via a shuttle it was impossible to make my 1PM meeting with id. DAMN IT. I almost missed my 1:30 as well, but Mr. Joseph Olin of the AIAS was kind enough to still sit down with me. I had a great chat with him, and as soon as I get Odeo working I’ll link it up for you guys to listen to.

A few more press conferences followed, mostly boring. Though Activision tried to spruce things up by having Jamie Kennedy host it. While he wasn’t necessarily funny, it was a welcome break from big wig excecs spewing numbers. Plus they had a ton of special guests there like Slash from Guns N Roses, Tony Hawk, and Stan Lee.

Finally the night ended with two parties. First up was the Games for Windows party where I got to see some graphical hotness in the form of Crysis. Me want…bad. Gears was looking fantastic on PC as well, and a few other titles like World in Conflict were also standouts. I’m sure glad I have an 8800GTX. Most of the time there was spent talking to fellow Pennsylvannian Chris Grant from Joystiq. Chris rocks, and if you don’t read Joystiq you should.

Finally we hit up the Age of Conan party. I believe it was at a strip club. At least…there were strippers there. No boobies though. Pretty damn close. Oh…and there was a snake. A big white snake.

E3: The Night Before

npuleo — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:29:57 +0000

I’m sitting in my hotel room in the little beach town of Avila, CA. I’m trying to catch up on my gaming news from the past 2 days as I’ve been out of the loop. So Sony drops the PS3 price huh? And then releases a new model, which really isn’t a new model, and that comes out at the old price? Wha? Man they just can’t catch a break of good PR. They really made this elephant seal mad!

The wife and I have been driving down the coast. It’s been a gorgeous trip with some crazy sites to see. I’ve uploaded the photos to my now pro Flickr account.

Monterey
Highway 1 and the Coast
Avila Beach, CA

Tomorrow starts E3 with the MS Press Conference. It’s going to be a wild ride!

E3: And I’m off…

npuleo — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:31:03 +0000

The final preparations are being made. I’m all packed, the calendar is “complete”, and the dog is at the kennel

A month and a half of work is finally ready to come to fruition.

Holy shit I’m scared.

E3: Nintendo = We are in!

npuleo — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:31:24 +0000

Looks good folks. We are in the Nintendo Press Event now.

We’ll be broadcasting it LIVE via the EvAv E3 Page along with the other 2 conferences.

Microsoft’s starts 8:30 PM Pacific on Tuesday.
Nintendo’s starts 9:00 AM Pacific on Wednesday.
Sony’s starts 11:30 AM Pacific on Wednesday.

E3: Crunch Time

npuleo — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 01:17:38 +0000

Crunch time is upon us. I’m scheduling last minute appointments. Things are looking up as well, I think we might have an invite to the Nintendo Press Conference.

I’ve been doing research, getting notes together and writing up lists of shit I need. I can’t believe I leave in 3 days.

Holy Fuck.

E3: More Appointments..not much room left!

npuleo — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:19:37 +0000

A few more appointments have been made including Konami, Running with Scissors, Commodore, Sony Online Entertainment and probably a few others I’m forgetting.

Needless to say..there ain’t much room left on the calendar!

Remember…all these appointments are in different hotels, and different rooms in those hotels! AAAAAAH!