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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

E3 - First Day Shows Multitude Of New Games 91

Posted by simoniker from the system-overload dept.
Thanks to Eurogamer for its in-depth E3 coverage, as well as GameDaily's detailed write-ups and Ferrago's similarly wide-ranging coverage, as they add to previously-mentioned gaming websites covering the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. Highlights of the first day include hands-on impressions of Conker: Live and Reloaded for Xbox, a seriously in-depth Half-Life 2 interview, some first impressions of Myst IV, confirmation that Sega's signing of The Matrix Online was their 'big announcement', though Phantasy Star Universe was also announced, the list of songs for Donkey Konga, and a hands-on look at Final Fantasy XII. What other software are you most impressed by?
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E3 - First Day Shows Multitude Of New Games More

E3 - First Day Shows Multitude Of New Games

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  • But More importantly..... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suedehed ( 21718 ) <suedehedNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday May 13, 2004 @07:28AM (#9137948) Homepage
    Booth Babes!

    http://www.happypuppy.com/e3/photos.jsp [happypuppy.com]

    Sorry couldn't resist, since there are entire sites dedicated to the E3 Booth Babes :)

  • Seriously in depth are you kidding me? What the hell I want a HL2 release date so I can plan on buying my new machine. Or at least be able to tell what's coming out before doom3. Anyhoo if you have a few grand cash to gimmme let me know. I need a video card. ha.
    • Yeah really. I'm in the same boat as I'm sure a bunch of other folks are too. All waiting for doom 3 and HL2 to be out in the stores before they buy a new machine. I thought initially the beginning of the year, now its looking like late summer. Oh well, lets me save more.
    • "People are pretty enthused right now - around March 15th we hit our alpha date"

      that's kinda funny...since they blamed it on the "hacker" that leaked the source code. I guess he was telling the truth when he said that's all they had.

      that big smoking hole in their foot must hurt :|
      • "that's kinda funny...since they blamed it on the "hacker" that leaked the source code."

        Lies. On Sept. 29, 2003 Gabe straight out said that the leak did not cause the delay. It did cause A delay, but after they finally owned up to the delay on Sept. 23, they were very clear and honest after Sept. 30 that it wouldn't have been ready for Sept. 30 leak or no leak.

  • SEGA's "big announcement" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by buffer-overflowed ( 588867 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @07:43AM (#9138044) Journal
    Was just positively small and insignificant. Yay, another MMORPG. Wooo. Excitement. I was really hoping for another SEGA console(return of pure gaming companies!), but I knew it wasn't coming and I knew it was going to either be disappointing or it would piss me off(like MS buying out SEGA or something).

    Heck a lot of things were overshadowed by Sony and Nintendo. Some of the eyetoy stuff is just neat, wild new speculation about the PSP(will it manage to play games longer than it can play video[2.5 hours]!? Time will tell!), and the DS is confirmed as nifty.

    Watching the XBox fanboys tout some of the Halo 2 stuff is proving to be amusing though. I love how it's like most of them never played Marathon or any of the better PC FPSs to hear some of them talk about all the revolutionary new features. The game looks really good, but comeon now.

    Metroid Prime 2 looks like more of the same, only now with multiplayer. That's kinda neat I guess.

    The new Zelda looks like it'll be really cool, but that's not til 2005.

    Square-Enix once again moves the line between masculine and feminine with their FF character designs.

    I'm just all curmudgeony right now.

    • That's weird (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Watching the XBox fanboys tout some of the Halo 2 stuff is proving to be amusing though. I love how it's like most of them never played Marathon or any of the better PC FPSs to hear some of them talk about all the revolutionary new features. The game looks really good, but comeon now.

      Yeah, Microsoft is pretty lame for using hyberpole at E3. At least there are no Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, EA, Konami, Capcom, or Sega fanboys at E3. Whew, that would've been annoying.
      • Heh, the entire Media at E3 is basically there to be mindless sycophants to whichever one of the big 3 they're currently listening to.

        In fact, I think fanboy is a requirement to be sent to one of their media presentations, judging by the universal reaction to each. Even when they're disappointing they still try to highlight the positive(like Nintendo's performance last year).

        I wasn't attacking Microsoft, I was attacking some of what I've read on forums about people touting two gun mojo, destructable envi
        • I wasn't attacking Microsoft, I was attacking some of what I've read on forums about people touting two gun mojo, destructable environments/vehicles and online play as "new" things, when they aren't at all.

          I think you'll find that most of them agree with you. It's not that these are new to the genre or technology, it's that they are new to the game or platform itself.

          I quite clearly remember playing Red Faction and enjoying the destructable environments. I also remember griping about it, because they ha
    • Actually, Matrix Online isn't Sega's big announcement. Just wait until Friday, when Sega announces that they will be publishing Duke Nukem Forever for the Nintendo Gamecube. Now that's big news!
    • Was just positively small and insignificant.

      MTE. I even thought the announcement of PSU was bigger.

      I was really hoping for another SEGA console

      I wasn't; Sega's proven itself incapable of handling the hardware side of the industry. What I was expecting was an MMO version of one of Sega's non-Phantasy-Star franchises, like Sonic. I guess I was close.

      Rob
    • This is probably the most anti-climatic announcement ever. I mean it was billed as something really amazing, which for me really could only have been Shenmue 3 or Nights 2 or a new Panzer Dragoon or something.

      What made Sega think this was something that could be described as big exciting news? The return of Alex Kidd would have been more exciting I think...
    • You know, I don't get the animosity towards Halo. The fact is, Halo was a great FPS, even by PC standards, and it's only real suck point was the indoor level design, which was as repetative and meaningless as hell. If almost the entire game had been those outdoor sequences, and if the indoor ones had just taken out the repitition, it would been golden.

  • The Magical E3 Date Fairy (Score:5, Funny)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:02AM (#9138210) Homepage
    I like how at every E3, the Date Fairy suddenly dumps her (his?) magical bag of special date dust over everyone's game. In fact, E3 is just one huge calendar orgy.

    And then, come forth quarter, the Date Fairy's true magic is revealed: she used disappearing ink; dates that were so firm, so solid, so there suddenly disappear into vaporness, or instead they morph into the ancient puzzling runes "WHEN IT'S DONE."

  • Donkey Konga Price (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It will be interesting to see what they price Donkey Konga. A lot of games that license songs are slightly more expensive because of the RIAA tax. Konami omitted a lot of songs from DDR due to the licensing costs of songs in North America. It's one of the reasons why DDR2 is slightly more expensive then the regular games (without the dance pad), and PS2's Karoake Revolution is pricier as well. Mind you, the inclusion of the Donkey Konga drums may offset the cost as a total package.
  • There's been a ton of great games shown. But the one that has me the most interested (right now at least) is Donkey Kong Jungle Beat [ign.com]. The game just looks like a hoot to play. Talk about finding new ways to interact with games...

    Makes me wonder if someone will find a way to make a platformer work on sony's eyetoy

  • I would've thought that "Wipeout" was a sure contender for Donkey Konga... guess not :P

  • The gaming industry needs to grow up (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:31AM (#9138547)
    I'm already seeing comments appear along the lines of "they set release dates at E3 and then never keep them". These comments are, of course, factually correct in most cases and lead me on to my main point.

    The videogames industry is still behaving like it's stuck in the 80s. Release schedules for games are usually either wildly optimistic (and not met) or not even published at all, beyond "when it's done". With the amount of money involved in the games industry these days and the increasing involvement of big business, I just don't see how this amateurism can survive much longer.

    In the movie industry, the pattern these days seems to be for the big "blockbuster" products to be delivered on-time. Whatever you think of the quality of these films (most of them suck), you don't hear of these films being hyped to death for a sudden release and then, at the last moment, delayed until the next year or "until it's ready". Investors and shareholders just won't stand for this kind of thing; they need to know when they can expect a return on their investment and they know that the public will get cheesed off pretty quickly by successive delays.

    I remember reading an article in the mainstream press a couple of years ago, about the chain of disasters at Ion Storm that led, ultimately, to Daikatana; an underwhelming game with qite possibly the worst release publicity in history. I know this is an extreme case, but it does seem to point at much of what is wrong in the games industry; too many "hobbyists" involved, too little understanding of business realities and too little commitment to actually delivering a project on time and on budget.

    • Re:The gaming industry needs to grow up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DarkFencer ( 260473 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @10:18AM (#9139811)
      Not that I like delayed games, but your comparison doesn't work. When was the last time a movie had to go through Q&A testing? Had to be bugtested? Had to be balanced?

      Movies just have to have the filming finished, effects put in, and be edited. Overly simplistic, perhaps, but it is much different then video games.

      Certain games like Daikatana/Duke Nukem Never/etc are horrible examples that have no excuse whatsoever though

    • Re:The gaming industry needs to grow up (Score:5, Informative)

      by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @10:32AM (#9139997)
      In the movie industry, the pattern these days seems to be for the big "blockbuster" products to be delivered on-time.

      Oh, I don't know. doing a quick google "delayed movie releases" search turns up that the release of Blade was delayed. Against the Ropes (that Meg Ryan movie) was delayed quite a while before it was released. Apparently the new Miyazaki film is going to be delayed. Sky Captain is being delayed. And here's a whole list of films [go.com] from 1999 that had their release schedules changed (with a number of them including "behind schedule" in the reason).

      So, its a bit unfair to criticize the game industry for being amateurish, while denying it happens in the movie industry. Perhaps all of the Lord of the Rings films were released on schedule, but a quick search for a recent semi-blockbuster, Kill Bill 2, shows that it was initially scheduled to be released in February and was pushed back to April [everythingtarantino.com].

    • My first reaction... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 13, 2004 @10:48AM (#9140207)
      When I read about what I was most impressed by is the lack of original titles.

      I don't mean to turn this into a session of bashing E3, because I do think it's always fun and interesting to see what's being released--or at least, what people have on their minds.

      However, my reaction to E3 this year has been notably different. It seems that many of the titles are things I've heard about for a couple of years now, or are sequels. Many of the rest of the titles seem unoriginal in the sense of essentially being remakes, in actuality if not in name. So far I'm not aware of any titles that represent radically new game ideas or interesting new games that I've not heard of before. Generally, this is what I've come to expect from E3, and haven't seen it so far.

      There's still plenty of time and lots of games, though, so maybe more will surface as E3 continues. It takes awhile to filter through everything, and the most hyped games will invariably be sequels to well-known series from large publishers.

      My feelings about E3 intersect with your comments in a couple of ways, though:

      I think a better analogy to E3, rather than film, would be car shows. Some of the fun of E3, historically speaking, comes not from finding out when games are released, but to discover new games to salivate over and hope have some upcoming release date in the not-to-distant future. E3 is somewhat like a new car show in that there are invariably new games--like new car prototypes--that may never be released, or will be released in the distant future. The point is to get a peek at what developers are up to and thinking about, and will probably be coming in the future, not to find out what actual release dates are.

      In this regard, I think the lack of original, new content at E3 shifts the focus from new content to things like release dates. Because we don't have the new interesting ideas and developers as has sometimes been the case in the past, we find ourselves being concerned with release dates and stuff. To the extent that we can't say "Ooh, look at that title--very interesting idea", we have to say something like "Ooh, look, it's Monster Slayer IX--when is it coming out?"
    • Bear in mind that some of these studios are also privately owned. They can do whatever the hell they want.

      While it's possible to build a game on budget and on time, I wouldn't want to; there are too many things that can go wrong in the rigorous world of programming.

    • The videogaming industry is actually relatively young - only about 30 years old, really. By comparison the movie industry dates from the 1930s, and is a lot more mature.

    • Spoken like someone who hasn't written a line of code in their life.

  • Halflife 2 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wolf31o2 ( 778801 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @09:06AM (#9138949)

    It really is a shame that Valve is not more commited to Linux. As an avid Linux gamer, I find it disturbing that Valve can simply ignore the Linux market. I understand that we are a very small group, but as id and Epic have shown us, it really isn't that hard to write code that is fairly portable to begin with, then have a small team do the porting. I'm sure there are quite a few programmers out there that would do the work for peanuts, or even free.

    Maybe by the time Halflife 3 hits the shelves, Linux will have become a viable gaming market and we'll see the games being released for our favorite platform, too.

    • Re:Halflife 2 (Score:4, Informative)

      by delus10n0 ( 524126 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @01:44PM (#9142449)
      Linux market

      You mean the 20 people or so wanting to play games under Linux?

      but as id and Epic have shown us, it really isn't that hard to write code that is fairly portable to begin with

      There's the flaw; HL2's game engine is inherently built upon DirectX. "Simply porting it" to work on Linux would require quite a bit of work. You'd have to port the graphics elements to OpenGL, and then figure out what library to use to handle standard inputs, sound, etc. for multiple pieces of hardware -- all stuff which Linux is severely sucking at. Until Linux has a "DirectX" type layer, it will not get mainstream support from the game developers.

      You might hate Microsoft, or hate Windows, but at least they've got a pretty much unified way of communicating with the plethora of devices out there (controllers/video cards/audio cards/midi cards/network cards) with a single interface (DirectX.)
    • You Linux geeks exist to run our Counter-Strike dedicated servers, and nothing more. Get back in the kitchen/server cluster!

      (j/k, we love you dearly)

  • HL2 Interview (Score:4, Interesting)

    by orion024 ( 694922 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @09:52AM (#9139462)
    I found the HL2 interview a good fairly decent read. I've found most gaming interviews lack content, and decent thought out questions. "When will it be realeased? What sort of weapons will there be. What are the levels like. When will it be released? Tell us about the graphics/sound. When will it be released? What are the system specs?"

    Sure, many of these questions were addressed in the interview, but its the other questions that make it interesting. Like hearing about how the code leak affected them. Hearing about how excited the team got when they got to play the game through. Hearing about some of the design aspects, like the revolution/evolution of the AI. Good stuff.
  • Surprisingly, the guys at IGN are very very pleasantly surprised with this [ign.com].
    Who would had thought that?
  • I'm lookin at the screenshots. Is it just me or does every other Final Fantasy title released now feature a thin androgenous blonde-haired boy with a surfer haircut? It's like they're trying to recreate Cloud from FFVII.

    • Re:Final Fantasy XII. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Kataton ( 771896 )
      IMHO Final fantasy went downhill since FF7.
      The characters are N-sync clones, perfectly beautiful and cliched, and the story is ever stranger than the previous one.
      Remake FF5,6,7 with nowadays technology and you will win a customer here.
      • FF6 didn't have cliched characters? You must be joking. Either that, or you're one of the many people who remember FF6 as being much better than it was. And FF5's characters were just... bleh. Except for Gilgamesh, anyway, who was at least passable.

        As for FF7, a remake would be nice, but I'd rather see brand new games.

        Rob
    • Yep. Also, I wish Square would stop being console only. People want to play these games on the PC, too.. and not some piece of crap port.. I mean natively coded for a PC.

      FF7 and FF8 for the PC were horrible, horrible jokes. To this day I can't even complete them due to bugs.
      • Given the difference in market share between consoles and PC games, are you suprised they focus on consoles? The only reason FFXI is on PC is because it's a MMO, and thats almost exclusively a PC market. Personally, I'm amazed they did it at all.
  • I've been playing the free E3 Guild Wars demo for the last few nights. For this to be an alpha release, I am muy impressed. It definitely needs some work, but I am pretty sure I will purchase this.
    • I'm pretty sure you won't purchase the initial game. As has been stated, the game is free, playing is free, but content updates will cost money.
      • No monthly fee. The retail will more than likely cost the standard $50. However, no monthly fee for a MMO type game is very nice. I'll buy expansions occasionally instead of paying monthly hoping for new content.

        P.S. I'm playing the alpha as well, and I am amazed at the quality. Add some content and some interface features (trade for example) and I'd buy the game today. The engine and mechanics are solid already. They just have to flesh it out.
  • I'm so glad we've been given a hands-on preview by someone who's actually played the game. I can't wait to play it.

    While they don't mention it by name in the article, the battle system seems to work much like the one used in Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. I'm not a fan of real-time RPG battles, but the KOTOR system allows you to pause it at any time and issue new orders (to be executed when the game resumes). It's a great system and really keeps the flow of the game at an even pace. If like m
    • PSO had a complete single-player mode, much like the Diablo games. You didn't need the help of other geeks to play through it. Of course, the game was still online-focused, which made the story quality suffer somewhat.

      Rob
    • The impression I got was the battle system plays a lot like Star Ocean.
      • I've never played Star Ocean, would you mind explaining the battle system?
        • well after thinking about it more there is one major difference. It sounds like FF XII you never have the switch from overworld to the battle screen. Star Ocean let you move your characters freely around the battle field and let you issue attack/spell commands whenever you wanted.
  • If there is something absolutely freaking fvck1ngly impressive is this!!! [ign.com]
    Watch this trailer for the sake of god!!
    • I thought there already was a Resident Evil 4. Capcom always confuses the hell out of me when it comes to sequels...

      Rob
      • This game looks very different to classic Resident Evil. It has almost a Doom 3, arcade-like style. And the graphics are incredible.
        I never was interested in RE after RE2, but this has changed my mind. A LOT.

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