Friday, July 18, 2008

My E3 '08 Game Picks

This is a list of games at E3 '08 that caught my attention. Some of them I only found slightly interesting and don't plan to buy, but anyway here is the full list of games that caught my eye:

Warning: There are quite a lot of them.

Special Note: R******* E*** 5 is not mentioned directly anywhere in this post since it was covered in the post below this one. Anyone that visits this blog regulary knows my feelings for that game.



- Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse

Trailer
Interesting Japanese Commercial Videos

It really doesn't look to be anything new, but the Wii controls might be interesting. I'm still psyched for a new Fatal Frame though!

- Dark Void

Gameplay demonstration (13 minutes!)

I really like that jetpack and the freedom it appears to give the player gameplaywise. The shooting while climbing and flying upwards looks unique too.

- Prince of Persia

Trailer
Producer Interview

Flashy gameplay and platforming, breathtaking visuals, unique partner system... this is my pick of the show. I simply love the way the trailer was put together also.

- Bionic Commando

Trailer w/gameplay

G4 showed a walkthrough of a demo for this game but I can't find it at the moment. The gameplay mechanics involving the grapple look very awesome. Can't wait to try this one out this winter.

- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I'm not a big fan of Star Wars games at all, but this game really stunned me when I first saw it sometimes last year. The gameplay looks to incorporate a bit of Psi-Ops and God of War from what I have seen so far.

Force Powers
A whole bunch of other videos

- Dead Space

Too many videos available!

Every time I see this game it keeps looking better and better. The story appears to be interesting and the gameplay looks quite addicting, especially for a survival horror.

- Mirror's Edge

Trailer

This game is simply gorgeous both in immersiveness and style! View some more videos of it here.

- Far Cry 2

Gameplay demonstration
Trailer

The trailer doesn't look near as interesting as the actual gameplay if you ask me. The feral powers in Far Cry Instincts were the main draw to the game for me, but I have to admit that Far Cry 2 still looks like a really good single player experience. It still seems as if stealth is hard to maintain for extended periods however judging by that demo. In the first Far Cry, the enemies could see you so very easy, and it basically ruined any steal oppurtunities.

- God of War III

In the end...

there will be only chaos!

Yeah, it's only a teaser, but just the announcement of the game had me psyched during the Sony conference. At least they made mention of it this year.

- Mega Man 9

If you have not seen this in action yet then watch the trailer below before reading on.

Trailer

Honestly, only Mega Man and a few other franchises could have a game like this and get away with it. The way I see it, the game could go either way. It could be just as memorable as Mega Man 2 or 3 or it could be just another boring trudge through 8-bit Mega Man territory like Mega Man 4, 5 or 6. Even if it does turn out to be like the latter, 4, 5 and 6 were still fun to me.

- Street Fighter IV

Trailer

The gameplay looks quite awesome in this new Street Fighter, but some of the character models don't look that great from up close. I still have faith that I'll be happily enjoying it soon however.

- Sonic Unleashed

Trailer
Interview

It doesn't look bad from the previews. Were-hog Sonic though? Eh, you never know, it might actually be interesting. Hopefully this isn't just another Sonic that looks better on video that actual gameplay.

- Soul Calibur IV

Seong Mi-na vs. Nightmare Gameplay match

Sorry, had to pick a video with at least Seong Mi-na. Only about one and a half weeks left!

- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

No-no-no-no-no-no... don't leave my blog just yet-

Interview and Gameplay Demo

let me explain...

The idea of MK characters fighting DC characters is not very amusing to me, but I do like some of the flashy moves incorporated. Even though I feel that the characters shouldn't look like plastic dolls and they shouldn't remain so stiff in their normal stances on a next-gen system, this game sort of looks interesting, so I might try it out on launch. It might end up being another guilty pleasure for me.

- Silent Hill: Homecoming

G4 gameplay demo

In all honesty, this doesn't look anything like the Silent Hill that I usually play and that thought continues to grow as a I see more and more of this game. It incorporates tons of ideas of ideas from the movie and just doesn't look scary. The thought of having the plane shift to Otherworld in real time is really cool (much like it was in the movie) but Otherworld doesn't look near as creepy in this one. Also, I don't like the emphasis on action - looks much more like RE4. Eh, I'll probably still pick it up, but my expectations are low.

- Tomb Raider: Underworld

Developers Interview

I really don't get that excited about about a new Tomb Raider game until weeks before its launch or when I'm actually playing it. From what I've seen so far, the long underwater sequences in this game look awesome.

- Final Fantasy XIII

Trailer

I am still completely shocked that Microsoft managed to get this for a North American and Europe release. In all honesty, I probably won't like it as much as Final Fantasy XII from the looks of it, but I'll still be gladly picking it up when it releases.

- I Am Alive

Teaser/Trailer

We're not really shown anything apart from prerendered material, but the setup looks interesting here.

- Wii Remote MotionPlus

Hopefully some third party developers will make use of this within the coming months and I'd like to see if it makes the experience on any older Wii games any better. Really, I was completely disappointed with Nintendo's press conference except for this announcement. Didn't really care about the software showcasing this new enhancement either.

- Siren: Blood Curse

Trailer

This game looks to be like an absolutely fantastic survival horror game. The demo on PSN is really good but there is no sight-jacking available on that version, which I'd really like to try. I found the first Siren to have some very frustrating gameplay due to the stealth gameplay and sight-jacking but from what I have seen, this one looks to change all of that. It will be first be released on PSN next week (7/24).

- Banjo Kazooie

One of the developers announced that the original Banjo Kazooie would be released on Xbox LIVE Arcade shortly before the release of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. I honestly have never played the original but have always wanted to.

- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Gameplay Video

In all honesty, I don't really look forward to 2-D Castlevanias that much anymore. I would like another 3-D Castlevania actually. The character design looks much more stylish in this one than some of the previous handheld Castlevanias though.

- Dead Rising (Wii version)

This was not announced at E3, but I wanted to throw it in here anyway, since I'll more than likely pick it up with how much I enjoyed DR on Xbox 360. It's probably going to be toned down graphicswise somewhat for the Wii console but the Wii controls might make up for it.

THIA posted up some scans of it here and the release date is sometimes this winter.

I think it's awesome that Capcom keeps rereleasing games for the Wii (maybe not in the case of that Biohazard 0 version, but I haven't played it so I don't know what it's like). Sure they aren't very different, but I enjoy playing the game with different controls. I'm sure a bunch of Sony and Microsoft fanboys would strike me down for saying this but that game that I said that I wouldn't mention anywhere in this post is a very likely contender for a Wii release, even if it has to be watered down quite a bit for the console, and if it is released, the more the merrier. :D

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Well, that's it. Those are the games that caught my eye during E3 '08. I'm definitely not saying that I have plans to buy all of them (oh, hell no - I'm not that wealthy), but they did catch my attention in some form or another.

9 comments:

Brian said...

haha, nice. I followed your lead with my own post, though I may have gone a little overboard with the notes. I'm just about to head out of work though, so I'll comment more later :D I do agree that everyone should follow Capcom's multiplatform policy. In the end you make plenty of money especially with a wider audience; it only makes sense. I have no love for exclusivity whatsoever, unless it's technically infeasible without watering down the games. However, Capcom's shown with DMC that it's very possible to take a core codebase and move it over to both the PS3 and 360 with success (they did all the programming on PC specifically because they knew they were going multiplatform). The only thing I think that's not fair is giving delayed exclusives bonuses, like Bioshock and Eternal Sonata on PS3, which for some reason get bonus content as some sort of apology.

Berserker said...

Oh no, notes are really better than taking up lines with trailers and gameplay video links. It really took a while to scrounge up all those links. :\

I actually kind of like it when companies add extra bonuses for other consoles, but it would be good if they provided a rerelease or some type of download for the previous releases so the one that got the game first don't feel left out. I'm really happy with how some companies sometimes add bonus content to their value titles, like DMC3, Lost Planet, and Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution. I'd love to see more rereleases of good games like that.

Brian said...

Yeah, I can live with rereleases, but what I'm talking about is upgraded ports, or the plans for them. That, I think, is just kind of unfair. RE4 is an example, where first PS2 owners felt slighted by GC exclusivity, then suddenly the GC owners got mad because the PS2 release was better. Capcom kind of made things even with the Wii version but still, I think that in the case of a current-gen release, if at some point you intend for it to be multi-platform you should do so from the start. I understand the business side of it, though, so I don't think that there will be an end to "timed exclusives" for a long time.

Brian said...

Oh, and after about 3 hours of Gears play, I can definitely say it's one to pick up. I fear that it'll be as short as Lost Planet, but the action is even tighter than that, and the setting and presentation tell its own story (Not to mention Lost Planet was still awesome regardless of length. I actually played it for almost 6 hours without realizing it x_X). I love the characterization as well, it makes it believable that the war's been raging. And unlike Alone in the Dark, the swearing in this game makes sense, and is done naturally, not at a whim. Although the game is still relatively pricey used, it's worth a pick-up. The fact that all dodge/cover/run mechanics take a little getting used to but eventually you're be seamlessly jumping from wall to car to rubble. I'm really jazzed for Gears 2 now too.

Berserker said...

Thanks for the Gears update.

That RE4 predicament really left gamers feeling jipped no matter which version you got - at least in my eyes. You had your GC version with superior graphics and then your PS2 version with extras and inferior graphics. Of course, like you said, the Wii version came along to straighten that out.

The Wii version actually has some remanants of the PS2 version on it that only a person that has played both would recognize though, mainly in Seperate Ways (can't destroy candles and I think the cutscenes were still all prerendered). Leon's gangster model was still low-res also - if you haven't noticed, play with him and notice how they substitue his other model in for the in-game cutscenes in order to hide the low-res face of the gangster outfit.

With the release of Dead Rising on the Wii I have a very strong feeling that we'll see RE5 on the Wii along with a few extras a few months to a year after the PS3 and 360 release... and the same thing that happened to the RE4 version will happen yet again. That's just a theory though.

Brian said...

I'm curious about that too. I'm sure it's doable, but it'll depend on DR's success on the Wii, I think.

As for your comment about Wolf of the Battlefield, I'll be more than happy to try to help. Maybe tomorrow night; I'll just check if you're online when I'm free when I get the chance (tomorrow's my dad's birthday, though I should be free by the evening). It'll be a good test of my internet speed, though I have to warn you that I'm not the best at those kinds of top-down shooters.

::runs off to practice::

Berserker said...

Haha.

Tomorrow night would be great. Just message me when I'm online if you're ready. You haven't played co-op yet on WOTB yet, have you?

Three things to keep in mind:

1) Pick someone besides Fox, her life bar is incredibly low and we do share lives. We can play on the lowest difficulty and still get the co-op achievement though.

2) Don't get the flamethrower. It disguises enemy bullets in its flame stream.

3) I do not accept failure.*


Just keep those in mind and we should be fine. :)

* #3 is a joke.

Brian said...

Actually, I have done co-op with my sister. It was pretty bad :P However, I did beat the game on normal the first time today, playing the goatee'd guy. I managed to lose only one life a stage ^_^;; That rocket launcher is a beast :O

Berserker said...

Co-op is hard for me because of the sheer amount of bullets on the screen.

Yeah, that rocket launcher is good, but it kind of sucks in a single player game. Have you tried it on the last boss? It murders him!

Most of the achievements for that game are easier to get by yourself, except for the obvious two. Playing with Coyote makes the game easier also thanks to his big health bar, like you noticed. To me, that game is quite addicting once you learn the stages.

It's actually been a while since I've played. Need to brush up on it later today. :o