David Emery Online

The Game Continues

17 May 2005

So I think we’ve had all the major news from this years E3 – it’s been quite a good one, all things considered. Below is a quick roundup of the highlights:

Playstation 3: I’m not too keen on the design; if I had seen it before the day I would have dismissed it as a bad fake. It does look a bit better in both black and white (it comes in 3 colours, these 2 and silver, pictured above), but it comes across as being excessively bulky, and the curved top means it will have to go on the top of the next-gen console pile (maybe that’s the point?). Also, the controllers look hideous – hopefully they will be ok, and hopefully they will have better analogue sticks then the current, limp dual-shocks.

However, the game demos/pre-rendered footage (depending on your current cynicism level) is pretty darn mind blowing – particularly the MotorStorm clip; the eric/unreal demo (but only the bit when he stops the footage and moves the camera about) and also the “duck” demo (all these clips are worth tracking down). Hopefully these graphics will transfer into some decent games.

Also – I hate the font they are using for the Playstation 3 logo; It looks like the same font used for the Spiderman movie, and it looks seriously amateur – Not only because they are reusing a distinctive font used famously elsewhere, but also because it’s a pretty tacky, cheaply “futuristic” font.

All in all, Sony get a “must try harder” on the design front, and a “looks very very promising” on the games front (you know, the bit that actually matters).

Xbox 360: The MTV thing just stunk – even worse here in the uk as was edited down into half an hour, and they bits they cut out were the bits about the Xbox (i.e. the bits people actually wanted to watch) leaving us with a show that was essentially a Killers (rubbish, arrogant twats)/Snow Patrol (would like to be Coldplay) live show, with Xbox 360 adverts.

However, they did get some things right: The machine itself looks pretty good, with a nice clean design; I like the new controllers (everyone has gone wireless, which is nice) and the semi-freeness of the Xbox Live is nice. Also, the pervasiveness of the OS is an interesting move – apparently you can go back to the OS at the touch of a button, from whatever you are doing – and may mean that the multiple functions that the XB360 has, such as IM, DVD playing, possible music and movie downloads as well as games, may be a lot more accessible (most of this stuff could have been done this gen, but lacked the UI to do so).

The main problem with the XB360 is the most important bit, however: The games. Or rather: The lack of games. XB360, unlike the PS3 and the Nintendo Revolution, is coming out this year, and as yet has not one game announced that I’m interested in. Project Gotham 3 looks ok; but not much different from the previous incarnations other then the graphics. Perfect Dark 0 is getting a lot of hype, but Rare haven’t done a good game since the original on the N64, so I don’t hold out much hope.
I think the biggest problem with XB360 is that it just looks like an improved Xbox – slightly better graphics, slightly better physics, HD support (so? No-one in this county has HDTV – I’m certainly not going to for a while, anyway…) but nothing really “new” – certainly not the true generational leap that the PS3 seems to provide.

Nintendo: Now, I’ve named this section “Nintendo” and not “Revolution” for two reasons: 1) It probably won’t be called that anyway and 2) They really didn’t talk about it much.

I have to say though, the stuff they showed was pretty cool. The design mockup is easily the nicest of the 3 new machines – I was a bit worried as Nintendo went from the design high of the GBA SP to the pits-of-dispair with the nasty DS, but they are now really back on form with both the Revolution and the new GB Mini Micro.

However, that’s it. Other then a few uninteresting DS/GC games and another new Zelda clip, they showed nothing else, and the tidbits they released about the Revolution – other then a possible NES/SNES/N64 download-able games service – were mostly uninteresting.

Hopefully they’ve got some tricks up their sleeve – I don’t want them turning into the next Sega…