I managed to fully complete 16 games this year (same as last year) plus a lot of games I didn't get to finish. I was very surprised to see that I spent more time playing a downloadable DSi game more than any other game this year. And even though I didn't "complete" it, I definitely played it more than Super Mario Galaxy 2. Odd. Completed Game Played Most: Super Mario Galaxy 2 Not Completed Game Played Most: AlphaBounce Games Completed: Games Played (Not Completed): Games Played at E3:
1/22/11
2010 Games Played
7/24/07
Nintendo DS E3 Gems
I was initially quite disappointed with the E3 showing of the Nintendo DS (aside from Zelda of course), but after doing some searching around I have actually found two very impressive looking titles, not to mention Advance Wars DS 2 that was announced secretly. The first of these titles is a game version of the classic Looney Toons cartoon Duck Amuck and the second one I will be discussing tomorrrow.
The basis of the cartoon Duck Amuck was when an artist continued to erase and re-draw Daffy Duck. This new game, from the creators of the new Contra 4 game for the DS, is basically the same concept except you are the artist. You can erase certain parts of Daffy's body and draw new parts for various effects, record new voice-overs with the microphone, and when you close the DS Daffy will continue to talk to you while you press the L and R buttons to control his voice. These are exactly the types of crazy things the DS needs more of, unique uses for the unique device. Now how this will all make for a full game environment is still yet to be seen, but with these ideas could you really go wrong.
7/16/07
WiiFit To Drop Pounds, Not Price
According to EB Games and Gamestop, or at least the place-holders on their site, WiiFit is going to hold the retail price of $69.99. How do I know this is a place-holder price and not an official one you ask? Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, was quoted in saying the cost is still being evaluated for the Wii Balance Board so it's far too early to really know. He did state, however, he believes it will "cost more than your typical 50 dollar Wii game."
Considering I'm still waiting to be convinced this game is worth a purchase anyway it seems like quite the steep price. I would love to say Nintendo is too smart to have such a high price for a simple casual game but then I remember the full-priced Big Brain Academy and full-priced WiiPlay, both of which were not full-priced experiences (in my opinion). Ok, so WiiPlay came with a Wiimote that costs $40 on it's own, but I already had all the Wiimotes I needed and it still cost $50. If Brain Age and Big Brain were discounted games on the DS, why would basically the exact same game cost full-price for the Wii?
If the game costs the regular $50 price then I will most likely be purchasing the game if for no other reason but for the girlfiend and family to play, but $70 could very easily put me over the top.
When to Expect an Xbox 360 Price Drop
One of the main things that happened at the Microsoft Conference during E3 was actually something that didn't happen: a price drop. According to Microsoft execs the company needs to increase the number of games in Japan and decrease the price in America in order to be successful; but yet there was no price drop announced. Which leads me to the topic at hand, when will it happen?
Basically the rule of the game is patience. If you can hold off for about a month after the release of Halo 3, and a little longer after the release of GTA IV, then you should be able to pickup the great "little box that turns around" (Xbox 360 for the slow) at a discounted price. There's really no reason for Microsoft to drop the price of the system right before they're ensured to sell hundreds of thousands of systems with games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto. A price drop right before the huge holiday rush will get those "parents with no clue" more incentive to pick up the machine without losing all the potential revenue from the two biggest Xbox releases of the year.
After the most recent speculation on the PS3's price drop, as if no one saw it coming, perhaps Sony should take a que from Nintendo and learn how to properly do a price drop. And by that I mean actually drop the price, not just upgrade the system and tell people it's cheaper. And I don't mean to pick only on Sony here because if you recall, Microsoft just recently released the more expensive Xbox 360 Elite a few months ago. When will you guys realize you aren't Apple? You can't release a new version with one new feature and have people clamor over it. Video games are a much different beast than the portable music industry. And by the way, anything above $400 is way too much for a home video game console.
7/13/07
Disappointing E3, Did This Year Start a Trend?
A trend seems to have started at this year's, no (significant) new games were really announced. Aside from that Mario Kart Wii announcement, which wasn’t really all that surprising, there wasn’t a new game announced with any importance to us gamers. The new Wii Channel was promised by Miyamoto months ago and we finally get a name for it. How is this news? Release the channel, don't name it. That channel should honestly have launched this week, not been named. Nothing new came out of Microsoft or Sony's conference either, just a bunch of news about the upcoming holiday games that were all announced a few years ago. And maybe that’s what E3 is becoming, just final info and dates for already announced games. I certainly hope this isn't the case because that would be a real shame.
Looking around at various news sources, the two biggest pieces of news seem to be the "dropped" price of the PS3 and the new game announcement by Nintendo, WiiFit. As a gamer I'm not really all that excited for the game, if you can call it that, but moreso in the technology that could be used in a more traditional game. In the end this is a media event and the media craves new things, they crave what we like to call "news." They could honestly care less (at least the mainstream media) about slightly upgraded visuals in Game X, or how Army of Two uses aggro technology. They want new, and that is not at all what we got this year.
In the end, I was quite disappointed in this year's E3. Could the reason be the fact that games are so complex these days that it takes 3 years to make a game look decent? Could it be that last E3 was a major system launch year so they announced everything they had to show up the competition, leaving nothing new for this year? Whatever the reason, as a gamer, I wasn't all that satisfied.
7/12/07
E3 Sony Conference
Another decent show from the guys over at Sony. Nothing totally dramatic or surprising but some good games are certainly on the way, LittleBigPlanet for example. Basically Sony upheld the E3 '07 tradition by not really announcing anything new and simply showing better demonstrations of last E3's games. Let's hope this isn't the start to an awful trend.
Summary:
- Extensive Home demonstration showing off the features and functions
- Pets will soon be an available option for your Home location
- Singstar is shown, is downloads in the background (woot?)
- LittleBigPlannet looks great and is available in 2008
I would have to rate this conference the same score that I gave Microsoft and Nintendo, 6/10. They all have great games on the way this holiday season, and beyond, but nothing all that exciting in the "new" department.
7/11/07
Super Mario Galaxy: Return of the Suits
We're going to be able to dress Mario up in different suits again just like could in Super Mario 3 (personal favorite game of all time). Each suit, back in the day, gave Mario a unique ability that could be used in various ways. In other words, the suits are very similar to the hats in Supar Mario 64. I am basing this entirely on one of the newer screenshots released during this years E3 but still, look at the picture below and tell me Mario isn't wearing the Bumble Bee Suit. Tell me.
Or click here and see the original page.
Nintendo's E3 Conference
Nintendo's E3 Conference had a pretty decent list of games and announcements. One thing Nintendo's conference had over the Microsoft conference was at least one new piece of important information. Mario Kart Wii is coming out in the "first quarter of 2008." Also announced during the show was a new casual game called Wii Fit, and let me be honest, I'm not entirely convinced with the whole balancing mat that's required. But time will tell. There were a few other game demonstrations for games we already knew existed and a few official release dates for the big boys but all in all it was only a decent show.
- Super Smash Brothers Brawl will be released on Dec. 3
- Super Mario Galaxy will be released on Nov. 12
- The new Zapper controller was unveiled along with a 32 person multiplayer version of Medal of Honor.
- More than 5.6 million game downloads on Virtual Console so far
- Miyamoto's new Wii Channel gets a name: Check Mii Out
- Wii Fit was announced that has you balancing and kicking while on a mat; huh, this better not be replacing Wii Fitness
In the end, I would rate Nintendo's E3 Conference a 6/10. Nothing too ground breaking and one sweet game announcement in Mario Kart Wii.
Microsoft E3 Conference
Microsoft's E3 conference happened last night and there wasn't a ton that's worth mentioning today, live blog right here. There were a slew of Disney movies announced to release on the Xbox Live Marketplace, some new trailers for Resident Evil 5 and Halo 3, and a few gameplay snippets of Project Gotham Racing 4 and Assassin's Creed, but that's about it. Now don't get me wrong, there were some really sweet games shown and some great looking stuff to play later this year, but in regards to new announcements, there wasn't much.
Does an E3 conference need to have surprises to be interesting? Well no, as long as the rest of the presentation is good, but it does alert people to the news a little better. Let's say Microsoft announced an $80 price drop on all SKUs, rather than Viva Pinata: Party Animals, and you could imagine how much more interest there would be in the show.
If I were to rate the Microsoft Conference (which is what I'm doing right now) I would give it a 6/10. The game selection was just too darn good to give it any lower than that.
7/10/07
E3 Conference Schedule
Well here it is, the all-important E3 conference schedule. There are many other mini-conferences going on during the next three days but these are the bigger ones.
7/10/07: Times in Mountain Pacific
9:30pm - Microsoft Press Conference
7/11/07:
10:00am - Nintendo Press Conference
12:30am - Sony Press Conference
3:00pm - Electronic Arts conference
4:15pm - Activision conference
5:30pm - Midway conference
6:45pm - Konami conference
7/12/07:
9:00am - Take-Two conference
10:15am - THQ conference
11:30am - Ubisoft conference
2:00pm - Namco Bandai conference
4:30pm - Disney Interactive conference
7/6/07
E3 Predictions
There's always some big announcements at E3 and there are always all sorts of rumors to build up to the show. So I simply cannot let this E3 go by without me shooting you some of my rumors and predictions.
- DVD-enabled Wii will be announced and will be released before the end of this year.
- There will be no price drops from either Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo anounced during the show.
- Square-Enix makes an announcement that Final Fantasy will make it's way to Xbox 360
- Nintendo will launch a new Wii Channel during the show.
- Metal Gear Solid 4 will make it through the entire show with no announcement for an Xbox 360 version, because there isn't going to be one (at least not before '09).
- Sony announces plans for new hard drive only PSP2.
- Mario Kart Wii will be announced for an '08 release.
- The ICO team will demonstrate their new epic project, dragons will be involved.
- Peter Molyneux demonstrate Fable 2 and it will be an incredible presentation. We'll see if the final game turns out any good.
E3 From The Outside
The greatest 3 days of the year, at least they used to be, are just around the corner: E3. The Electronic Entertainment Expo has changed this year, for the worst as far as I'm concerned, so next week won't be quite as exciting as it was in the past. There will be a ton of announcements for new games, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will all attempt to prove the greatness that is their system, and you will have more news in three days then you usually get in three months. So why am I not as excited about this year's E3? Because this year, I'M NOT GOING!!!
The last four years my brother and I have attended the annual gaming convention with great success and happiness. After the first year, we successfully managed to bring a buddy of ours, and the next year we brought another, and this year we would have added a fifth to our group. But this year, they went ahead and changed the rules. Pretty much the way things are going now is only specifically invited media are allowed to go and they must be invited by a particular company. We were in the industry enough when it was more of an open event, but now we are merely viewers from the outside.
But one way or another, there will be huge announcements (my predictions later) and there will be plenty to keep you busy if you're interested in the gaming industry.