Thursday, June 7, 2012

E3: The Good, The Bad, and The Lame



E3 2012 is rounding down today. It has certainly been one of the crappier E3 shows of the past ten years, but some cool news emerged and you have to take the good with the bad in life. I miss the crazy days of E3 like when Sega announced in 1994 that the Saturn was going on sale that day at your local Toys R Us completely out of freakin' nowhere (ultimately this was part of their own undoing as customers were like "WTF is the $400 Saturn?" but at least it was entertaining!) Anyway, enough of my senseless ramblings, here is the good, the bad, and the lame of E3 2012...

The Good
  • Pikmin 3 looked amazingly good. Miyamoto once again proved he is the king of Nintendo game design.
  • Beyond looked very impressive. I am biased though ( I think Ellen Paige is cute.)
  • Watch Dog was easily the game of the show. Bravo Ubisoft.
  • Jet Grind Radio has made it's glorious return. Also it is on Vita, woohoo.
  • Fire Emblem 3DS was confirmed for US release.
  • Unchained Blades looks cool and caught me completely offguard.

The Bad
  • The Wii U did not impress anyone with it's weird controller or it's bad line up of 3rd party games that already exist on other consoles. 
  • The 3DS showcase neglected to mention Fire Emblem (even though Reggie randomly told a Kotaku writer it is getting localized.) They also showed no new games in their 3DS showcase and announced some video crap called Threediots. Yes, it looks as shitty as it sounds.
  • Too many Mario games...where the hell is a new Metroid or Star Fox when a guy needs it?
  • Sony barely mentioned the Vita. "Good job" supporting your loyal fan base...ugh.
  • The Wonderbook and Microsoft glass thingy (can't remember it's name) both looked like a waste of money.
  • Sega shows off an English demo of Hatsune Miku for Vita at it's both but says it is only at E3 to gauge player's interested. What?! (email Sega and tell them your two cents)
The Lame
  • Sony focused more on the Wonderbook than the Vita. Are 5 year old kids the new target audience? I must admit it was kinda funny when the big woman messed up during the demo.
  • Games not shown or talked about at all: The Last Guardian, Dragon's Crown, an English version of Final Fantasy Type 0, Animal Crossing 3DS, Monster Hunter for Vita or 3DS, an English version of Tokyo Jungle and Bioshock Vita. Basically all of the games I wanted to hear were coming along just fine.
  • Original Persona 4 voice actors are being replaced in the Vita remake. 
  • Scripted performances by Nintendo business men that sorely needed better writing and acting to seem believable were boring and me feel a little dirty.
  • No Mega Man...really Capcom?
  • No new console announcements. 

No comments: