E3 in Review: Day Two

The E3 festivities continued today in full force, and I got to do and see a lot more. The knowledge I gained in this process is now passed on to you, the lucky reader! Let’s waste no time and get straight to the gaming goodness I discovered in this middle day of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Fallout: New Vegas

First of all, the moment I finished my demo of this game I saw Felicia Day. Awesome.

Anyway, it looks like the Fallout series, known for its desolate landscapes and bloody deaths, is going see some great improvements in the new game. A bunch of new weapons and enemies doesn’t hurt, of course. Combat was still easy to play and I quickly got accustomed to the game even though I haven’t played a Fallout game in quite some time. The plot will also now have four branches instead of the previous game’s two paths, good and evil. The Vegas strip looks fantastically creepy, and there’s more civilization to be discovered and immersed in than in previous games. People are actually surviving pretty well, so there’s less of a struggle, more sin. New Vegas won’t revolutionize the Fallout franchise or anything, but it will probably be the best so far.

Yakuza 4

The demo for Yakuza 4 was really just a series of fights with increasing amounts of bad guys. Or, if the Yakuza is after them, are they good guys? It’s complicated. Anyway, this is a button-masher for the ages. I spent most of the demo just running around kicking everyone in the face or punching them in the stomach. There really isn’t that much complexity to combat. That said, it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and the fact that there are so many objects you can pick up and wield as weapons leads to at least some variation in combat. Hopefully the demo was designed to be easy and simple so anyone could come up and play it, because a full-length game of that simplistic combat wouldn’t hold up.

Wipeout HD (3-D)

I had to try a 3-D game on a 3-D TV with 3-D glasses, and this is the one that was available. The game demo was nothing but racing around a loop over and over in a jet-powered hover-thingy. The 3-D was the point of the demo, and it was cool but nothing to gawk at. The glasses darkened the image far too much, and the forefront of the 3-D perspective was overly blurry. The driving was fun, though, and the game would probably be more enjoyable in 2-D, actually.

Halo: Reach

Sadly, there were no hands-on demos for this, but there was a 30 minute presentation by the game’s executive producer. The demo featured some simple ground combat in the campaign, but it also demonstrated space combat, new to this installment of Halo. Then three random audience members, none of whom were me, were invited up for a firefight, a game mode in which you try to defeat horde after horde of covenant enemies. The main highlight that was emphasized here was customization. You can choose exactly the enemies you want to fight, the guns, the amount of lives, everything. You can set it up so that you’re playing exactly the game you want to play. And with a ton of new weapons with crazy-powerful effects, including one that calls in an air strike, there will be some wonderfully odd game settings cooked up quickly when the game releases.

Disney: Epic Mickey

Nobody really saw this game coming, and now it’s becoming something of a phenomenon. The buzz surrounding it has exploded. In the game, you control Mickey Mouse as he travels the Wasteland, a universe full rejected and altered Disney characters. In other words, all the wasted Disney ideas (in the Wasteland. It’s clever). You are armed with a paintbrush, and the ability to use paint or thinner. Paint will augment things or create objects that can help you, or it can turn some enemies into your friends. Thinner will remove paint, including paint that you didn’t create.

In the demo, for example, a store-owner asked me to bring him some masks. So I brought him one, then was told I could actually go outside and use thinner on the back of his store, run in, take back the mask, and present it to him as though it were a new one.

And like most popular games, the choices you make have real consequences. If you play the game just destroying everything in your path, characters will see you as a scary, somewhat evil character. If you try to help everyone out and don’t just use thinner, people will love you and help you out.

This is a very cool game full of classic Disney characters and some others we never got the chance to see. It was pretty unknown until recently, but now it’s arguably one of the best at this year’s E3.

PlayStation Move: The Shoot and SOCOM 4

The Shoot

This was my first time using PlayStation Move. If you don’t know what it is, it uses a weird wand controller and the EyeToy to let you control things in games with your body motion. In The Shoot, you’re on a movie set shooting at a lot of bad guys while they somehow shoot back at you, despite being cardboard cutouts. It’s weird; but the game isn’t what’s important, it’s Move that matters. And it really just feels like the Wii.

This isn’t some revolution of gaming, it’s just Sony playing catch-up with Nintendo.

SOCOM 4

Having seen what Move was on a rather crappy title, I decided to try it on a better game. Again, it was like playing on the Wii, but here’s the thing: It was a great shooter with great graphics. You don’t get that on the Wii. This proves that there’s an actual point to this whole PlayStation Move thing. It leads to a much more immersive shooter experience.

Goldeneye 007

Yes, if you haven’t heard, there’s a new Goldeneye for the Wii. I got the chance to demo this game and I got my ass handed to me by a few complete strangers, but it was a lot of fun and it promises many more addicting hours of multiplayer. There’s not much to say here except that if you loved the original, which you did, then you’ll love this too.

The Nintendo 3DS

Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness gracious me, the 3DS is incredible and I want one now. I was expecting to like it, but I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I do. I got to play Ridge Racer, in which the 3-D graphics were great though not featured. I played a little demo of a cat riding a pogo stick that showed the difference between 2-D and 3-D and boy was it noticeable. There were movie trailers and game trailers, including one for Kid Icarus, which was fantastic, and outshone the 2-D version of the exact same trailer by a lot. I even took a 3-D picture of one of the Nintendo employees and it came out great. And with the 3-D slide, you can alter the level of the 3-D effect until it’s absolutely perfect for your vision and preferences. Also, the analog nub should be useful in a lot of games. This is the best thing at E3.

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