This might not be the E3 but it looks like there are some things worth checking out.
I followed the EA conference live, here's a debrief:
The Sims Medieval looks elaborate, great animations and graphics for the genre. Not a fan of the games so that's all I'll say, except that the game strained their demo machine at times... Doesn't bode well for the average Sims player. Game will be out in March 2011. Footage here.
They had some impressive new Dead Space 2 footage that showed Isaac in various a Zero-G environments. Very cool visually and more promising to me than the E3 trailer. Isaac's voice sounded a bit... mismatched to me, but other than that it was great. Footage here.
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is about all Cops vs Criminals and the multiplayer will be the same. I'm not big into NFS but the footage looked very fun. Footage here.
Medal of Honor had no real footage to show (will be at the Sony conference) but they had interviews with their consultants, ex-Spec Ops soldiers or whatever. It was promising since they're apparently striving to make the game as realistic as possible. I think it might stand a chance despite Modern Warfare's popularity. Footage here.
There was a Harry Potter game using Kinect controls, but to be honest I didn't pay attention to it. See the footage here if you care.
Next were the Bioware announcements. They talked a bit about The Old Republic but nothing noteworthy, then moved to a special Mass Effect announcement. I was half-excited but it turns out it's Mass Effect 2 coming out on the PS3 in January 2011. Cool for those who've only got a PS3 but boring for everyone else, and since there's no word about ME1 coming out on PS3 (was co-developed with Microsoft Studios so I'm not even sure it's possible) I'm not sure it's all that interesting even for PS3 owners. Then they showed a Dragon Age 2 trailer, pretty but no gameplay, so useless. Trailer here.
After that was the best part of the conference along with Dead Space 2 to me, that is the presentation of Crysis 2's multiplayer. Showed a 6 vs 6 battle on top of a few buildings and it looked awesome. I'm waiting for the game even more now. Apparently you'll be able to customize your nanosuit according to your playstyle in addition to the standard suit powers. Footage here.
Following Crysis was Bulletstorm, which I have to say looks fun as far as the weapons and kills go, but the constant corny and overacted chatter between the characters annoyed me enough that I'm still uninterested in the game. Footage here.
Last came Peter Moore to talk about EA Sports, but there was nothing particularly worthy of attention. They've got David Beckham working on their fitness game and they showed some FIFA 11 footage (a demo will be available on September 16) but that's about it. Footage here.
Microsoft conference:
http://www.ageofempiresonline.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/
Some stuff not from the conference:
Might & Magic Heroes VI
Red Faction Armageddon pitch & footage
Rage (from Quakecon)
Bioshock Infinite debut trailer
One of the original creators of X-Com talking about making a turn-based Tactical-RPG on the Nintendo 3DS:
I followed the EA conference live, here's a debrief:
The Sims Medieval looks elaborate, great animations and graphics for the genre. Not a fan of the games so that's all I'll say, except that the game strained their demo machine at times... Doesn't bode well for the average Sims player. Game will be out in March 2011. Footage here.
They had some impressive new Dead Space 2 footage that showed Isaac in various a Zero-G environments. Very cool visually and more promising to me than the E3 trailer. Isaac's voice sounded a bit... mismatched to me, but other than that it was great. Footage here.
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is about all Cops vs Criminals and the multiplayer will be the same. I'm not big into NFS but the footage looked very fun. Footage here.
Medal of Honor had no real footage to show (will be at the Sony conference) but they had interviews with their consultants, ex-Spec Ops soldiers or whatever. It was promising since they're apparently striving to make the game as realistic as possible. I think it might stand a chance despite Modern Warfare's popularity. Footage here.
There was a Harry Potter game using Kinect controls, but to be honest I didn't pay attention to it. See the footage here if you care.
Next were the Bioware announcements. They talked a bit about The Old Republic but nothing noteworthy, then moved to a special Mass Effect announcement. I was half-excited but it turns out it's Mass Effect 2 coming out on the PS3 in January 2011. Cool for those who've only got a PS3 but boring for everyone else, and since there's no word about ME1 coming out on PS3 (was co-developed with Microsoft Studios so I'm not even sure it's possible) I'm not sure it's all that interesting even for PS3 owners. Then they showed a Dragon Age 2 trailer, pretty but no gameplay, so useless. Trailer here.
After that was the best part of the conference along with Dead Space 2 to me, that is the presentation of Crysis 2's multiplayer. Showed a 6 vs 6 battle on top of a few buildings and it looked awesome. I'm waiting for the game even more now. Apparently you'll be able to customize your nanosuit according to your playstyle in addition to the standard suit powers. Footage here.
Following Crysis was Bulletstorm, which I have to say looks fun as far as the weapons and kills go, but the constant corny and overacted chatter between the characters annoyed me enough that I'm still uninterested in the game. Footage here.
Last came Peter Moore to talk about EA Sports, but there was nothing particularly worthy of attention. They've got David Beckham working on their fitness game and they showed some FIFA 11 footage (a demo will be available on September 16) but that's about it. Footage here.
Microsoft conference:
http://www.ageofempiresonline.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/
Some stuff not from the conference:
Might & Magic Heroes VI
Red Faction Armageddon pitch & footage
Rage (from Quakecon)
Bioshock Infinite debut trailer
One of the original creators of X-Com talking about making a turn-based Tactical-RPG on the Nintendo 3DS:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/5987/putting_the_xcom_in_xcom.php#comment61000 said:Publishers run a mile from anything with turn-based mechanics - it is regarded as too niche. RTS games pretty much killed off turn-based strategy games in the mid-90s - but now even RTS games are regarded as niche. So all my experience working turn-based games from 1983-1997 is now somewhat obsolete, despite the success of X-Com. However, I am now working on a turn-based tactical RPG which will be a 3DS launch title. Thanks to 'Advance Wars', 'Fire Emblem' and 'Final Fantasy Tactics' it seems turn-based games are not totally dead - at least for Nintendo handhelds. I would also argue that Pokemon has a lot of parallels with X-Com in its game system, despite being classified as an 'RPG'. The core of Pokemon is a turn-based tactical battle enriched by a sophisticated higher level meta-game that allows players to experiment with many game elements and combinations of forces - and Pokemon is the second most successful game franchise in the world. If done right, would an X-Com game with a turn-based combat system be successful? Absolutely!