E3

 

A few gems came out of last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo and I figured I would touch on a few of them and offer some thoughts.

One of the biggest announcements of E3 was Project Natal, A motion sensing camera that uses your body as a controller instead of actually providing one for you.

See this chick? She is flailing around trying to hit flying balls down a long corridor. The video of this was absolutely priceless. The only reason why you don’t see said video is I cant find one that completely omits Kudo Tsunoda. His presence onstage during this event reminded me of a wedding singer trying desperately to get the crowd in on his act. And Failing.

Project Natal looks beautiful from an interface standpoint. A small bit of pre-recorded ad-style footage showed off Natal’s ability to recognize players immediately through facial recognition technology and immediately bring their Xbox User Account up. The voice recognition tech allowed for a fairly interesting online Game Show style presentation. All in all it doesn't seem like something that would be incorporated into every title in the Xbox Library, but it does seem interesting for individual applications and interesting new tech.

Nintendo came out of the gate with a stunner. A title in their ever-popular Metroid franchise is being developed by Team Ninja, the development house responsible for Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. Metroid: Other M looks to be something of a 2D/3D hybrid platformer-shooter with a interesting emphasis on storyline.

 

And Finally Sony made a push to introduce quite a few new things to the crowd at their press conference. Sony actually managed to introduce a new Final Fantasy title before the currently developed one is even on Shelves. Final Fantasy XIV Online is a follow up of sorts to Final Fantasy XI Online. The current main Final Fantasy due out next year is Final Fantasy XIII – which also has another two spinoff games. Certainly Square-Enix faces no shortage of titles to work on in this tough economic climate. There is another new Metal Gear title, because the last one is never the last one. God of War 3 looks impressive, and so does White Knight Chronicles. There is still that ever present price barrier to contend with. Most of the PS3 content looks great, but when people are looking to save money more now than ever, having a $400 Console on the market just doesn't pull consumers into the fold. I expected a price drop from Sony during this event, especially after hearing their recent finance numbers.

All in all it was a decent E3, not a blockbuster, but enough to wet the appetites of the hardcore and casual gamer alike. As i find more things to push around ill post, because trailers for the games announced are starting to find their way online.