E3 motherfuckers.

[Vendetta]

Do people serious believe that the oil is the only enemy in the game?

Even if there are more enemies later on, this is what they're trying to sell the game on, and it's uninspiring. Seriously, this is the biggest videogame press event of the year, you are supposed to bring your A game, not your blobs of shit game. I know they only did the derivative sequel, but 2K Marin should have learned at least something from Bioshock. Remember the first videos for that? Big Daddy, front and centre. Take the most iconic thing you have for your product, make it the focus of your PR.

[weemadando]

Given that it's being made by the SWAT 4 guys, I'm confident that we'll get a pretty good tactical orders system and non-moronic AI companions.

And really - if they end up making SWAT 4 with aliens and a NOLF vibe, then that's fine by me.

[Stark]

Except you're just doing their job for them and playing 'imagine a good game'.

Marketing is about making people interested. Like people say, shit enemies and not talking about your play flow (or even plot) or any mechanics is stupid. If all people know is 'you shoot blobs' that's bad marketing.

[Punarbhava]

So apparently Valve's "surprise" is Portal 2 will be coming to the PS3 with some exclusive Steam integration features. Probably exciting for PS3 owners, but nowhere near worth the hype to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_GwmYMbPd8

[Artemas]

The marketing side of things has been super shitty so far. And it doesn't look that interesting.

Which is too bad, because a 1950s, McCarthy-esque, detective-style game about alien (mexican!) infiltration, body-snatching and impersonating people would be really fun. Building up dossiers on people, and trying to narrow your list of suspects would be great. Busting down the door prematurely of a suspicious person, just to find that she is just the crazy neighberhood cat lady would be a good way to make the neighbours uncooperative, and unwilling to tell you important things. Sending agents to conduct interviews or whatever,would lighten your personal workload, but there is a chance that they get attacked, maybe you can get there on time to save them, or maybe get more clues on their modus operandi. Maybe one of your agents gets infected or whatever, and is sabotaging your efforts, directing you to take out innocent people. Maybe talking to people while holding your giant fucking raygun scares the shit out of them, forcing you to run back to the car to pickup some more firepower when things go to hell.

But from the general impression given, that is unlikely to be the case, except in its most water-down form.

[Vendetta]

So apparently Valve's "surprise" is Portal 2 will be coming to the PS3 with some exclusive Steam integration features. Probably exciting for PS3 owners, but nowhere near worth the hype to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_GwmYMbPd8

Gabe Newell opening his pie hole and not dissing the PS3 is rather a surprise, yes.

[CaptHawkeye]

Well, i'm going to go out on a limb here and say this year's E3 was absolute shit. Not a single game or motion control gadget I found interesting. Most console developers seemed to be spending as much time as possible NOT talking about new games and just zooommggggg 3DZZZZ. Sony took the prize in E3 idiocy yet again. Announcing yet more stolen ideas and expensive super tech that no one wants to buy.

Of course Microsoft wasn't one to sit out of that party, and proudly displayed how unimpressive Kinect was and how little i'll be sure to care about its 5 minute disposable tech-demo games.

Oh Nintendo, still selling last years games yet again? I'll say this for them, they're persistent. Hell, they're so set in selling gamers what they already bought AGAIN they're even going to exhume GoldenEye's corpse.

As for everyone else, nothing special. None of the 3rd party developers had anything to offer beyond Call of Duty rip-offs and bad marketing.

At least we got to see some veeeeery short GoW 3 gameplay.

[Losonti Tokash]

On the whole I agree with you, but going "oh well none of the 3rd parties had anything remotely special" is a bit silly. Not even a month ago people were mostly saying "welp music games can't have anything more added to them, it's a dead genre," and then Harmonix pretty much blows the whole thing wide open again. Reach is taking Firefight from a mediocre Horde ripoff to something with an assload of customization, and Beast mode in Gizza looks pretty sweet too.

[adam_grif]

Microsoft's conference was horrendous, Sony's was decent and Nintendo's was awesome. The 3DS looks fucking sick with GC graphics in 3D and millions of games already announced for it. Most recent news coming from Nikei is that it lets you install your entire 3DS library on it to play at your convenience. Fuck yeah!

From third parties, we had the pretty cool Assasin's Creed expansion, Future Soldier (which looks pretty good) and Deadspace 2.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Aside from MTV Games/Harmonix, if you didn't have a Media badge, you got to see jackshit. Or you had to wait 2 hours or more in line for something like the Nintendo 3DS. I was lucky enough to be handed a Bioware VIP card by a developer on the floor so I got to play some SWTOR.

[General Zod]

I don't care what anyone else thinks, but Lords of Shadow looks pretty fucking awesome.

[Ghost Rider]

I don't care what anyone else thinks, but Lords of Shadow looks pretty fucking awesome.

Very shiny. I want Dracs to be a 50 meter Liberace.

[Covenant]

I don't care what anyone else thinks, but Lords of Shadow looks pretty fucking awesome.

Very shiny. I want Dracs to be a 50 meter Liberace.

Wait wait, the new Castlevania will erase the entire original storyline? Oh god. Yes. YES. I love Castlevania but the plotline/storyline of it is abominable, and erasing that will in no way damage the legacy of the franchise. To be able to free up all the great characters, environment inspiration, music and classic elements in a reboot without all that shitty magic-and-modern-day crap in the modern handheld versions will be very good for the franchise.

Monsters look great, action looks fun (like some of the cherry-picked best parts of modern God of War style games), interesting environments and apparently an epic environment to traverse. It's got the Castlevania name, it's got a Belmont in the lead, and we've got some lurking Vampiric horrors. While I'd love to see Dracula and Death make an appearence I am totally okay with this being a Belmont Origin Story and not having him figure in until they get their sea legs in this game.

I don't know why I'm excited about this classic remake and not about XCOM, but the voice actors are great and they are showing my gameplay that'd be fun no matter what name is on it, but calling it Castlevania does make me hope for the best. The N64 ones were bad, but I dunno, this looks fun. If they'd called it Slayer instead, and not had the Belmont name in there, I still think I'd like the looks of this.

Oh, and I saw some Baba Yaga in there too. Now that'll be an interesting character! So many more interesting things to stab to death.

[Ghost Rider]

That's because this Castlevania looks to be kicking ass and chewing bubblegum but with decent 3D mechanics. To be honest, it is how more E3 previews should be. Look cool, give a taste of the game and have the fanbase of said game wait for it.

Sure the final product may make you regret the cash...but the preview made ya happy .

[adam_grif]

Reportedly the stage demos for Natal were faked.





...

Not that anybody cares.

[PeZook]

Given that it's being made by the SWAT 4 guys, I'm confident that we'll get a pretty good tactical orders system and non-moronic AI companions.

And really - if they end up making SWAT 4 with aliens and a NOLF vibe, then that's fine by me.

SWAT 4 had non-moronic AI team mates?

I couldn't tell, between them exposing themselves when throwing flashbangs, getting stuck on tables in the middle of large rooms and getting killed one by one by suspects standing in the open...

[weemadando]

I said non-moronic. Not smart. Compared to most other AI team-mates in games at that time, they were fucking amazing.

*edit*

Because let's face it. They might be telling you to get out of their way, but there's a reason for that. Because you are in their way usually. And it's a damn sight better than them merely grinding against you silently. And as for exposing themselves to flashes etc - I never encountered that. Unlike the shitty, shitty AI in things like Raven Shield.

[PeZook]

I said non-moronic. Not smart. Compared to most other AI team-mates in games at that time, they were fucking amazing.

Talk about damning with faint praise

The main problems were the aforementioned "I STAND EXPOSED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OPEN DOOR AND SLOWLY TOSS A FLASHBANG IN WHILE PEOPLE SHOOT AT ME" syndrome they had (not with every door, though: mostly when there was little space around the door frame, they'd stand in the door rather than some distance back), the problem of them not being able to properly navigate around obstacles set in the middle of the room and of course the fact they'll just keep coming at a suspect hidden around the corner and get shot one after another.

I gave up on trying to keep my teammates standing after a while. It was still massive frustrating, because if something went wrong, there were few options to save your guys (like a "TAKE COVER" command, for example). Add the broken gunplay (Oh I moved at a snail's pace or turned two degrees, now I can't hit anything), and the game was mostly an excercise of "Use optiwand, carefully throw gas/flashbang, hope your guys can subdue the shithead before he kills them".

Oh, also: it would have been nice to be able to tell the goddamned snipers to fire on their own.

I liked the mood, though. It had a few moments, like when a crazy woman screams "I WILL KILL YOU ALL!!!" and you wonder if you should even bother yelling at her to get down

*edit*

Because let's face it. They might be telling you to get out of their way, but there's a reason for that. Because you are in their way usually. And it's a damn sight better than them merely grinding against you silently. And as for exposing themselves to flashes etc - I never encountered that. Unlike the shitty, shitty AI in things like Raven Shield.

Raven Shield didn't have an AI. Your guys were completely unable to do anything themselves (except shoot people. sometimes ), all they had was your plan and that was it

Oh, you moved that flashbang waypoint half a metre behind the door? Yeah, we'll just walk through it, turn around and toss the 'bang outside. That will show 'em!

[weemadando]

I said non-moronic. Not smart. Compared to most other AI team-mates in games at that time, they were fucking amazing.

Talk about damning with faint praise

The main problems were the aforementioned "I STAND EXPOSED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OPEN DOOR AND SLOWLY TOSS A FLASHBANG IN WHILE PEOPLE SHOOT AT ME" syndrome they had (not with every door, though: mostly when there was little space around the door frame, they'd stand in the door rather than some distance back), the problem of them not being able to properly navigate around obstacles set in the middle of the room and of course the fact they'll just keep coming at a suspect hidden around the corner and get shot one after another.

I never experienced that. My guys would always open a door, peek or throw a nade from a wall press or one side of the door. I never had them do a Raven Shield (stand directly in front of door, place breaching charge, detonate breaching charge, get out another charge, get out primary weapon, get out flash bang, through flash bang, get out another flash, get out primary weapon and THEN clear the room - and they'd be damn lucky to live past the third step - in which case the next guy would step up and start to repeat it only to die, etc etc), instead, they'd usually assign team responsibilities (one man opens door, the other throws flash, then the first guy goes in right behind it) and not get themselves fucking killed in the process.

[PeZook]

You can see all of that and more at the same time if you try going through the A-Bomb Club. There's an odd room in the top floor that looks like two L shaped rooms connected together, there's a billards table right inside one door and a wall in front of the other (that gives your guys pause, too ) and the only two entrances are both narrow corridors on top of a stairway.

Now, it would've been difficult to do in real life, too, but the things your guys do there are just ridiculous. I've had the entire team massacred by one suspect who hid behind the bar. They just couldn't navigate the room at all.

[Zac Naloen]

Reportedly the stage demos for Natal were faked.





...

Not that anybody cares.

Of course that was fake, it's from a heavily choreographed cirque soleil show not a tech demo.

[adam_grif]

Of course that was fake, it's from a heavily choreographed cirque soleil show not a tech demo.

God, I want my 30 minutes back. I didn't know that, all I saw were the gifs and threads complaining about it. Fuck that was a terrible "event".

[weemadando]

The new Spec Ops: The Line trailer, combined with the really positive talk about it on the GiantBombcast gives me hope that it'll live up to it's ambitions of being a 3PS modern Heart of Darkness plotted game. I like the design of it that I've seen so far and given some of the things that they were talking about on the Bombcast regarding the characters and how over the course of hte game, depending on actions taken, they'll animate differently (the example given is melee attacks, where if you start to go off the rails, apparently the melee attacks get a little psychotic) and the voice acting hits all the right notes. I remain somewhat sceptical, but quietly hopeful.

[Zac Naloen]

Of course that was fake, it's from a heavily choreographed cirque soleil show not a tech demo.

God, I want my 30 minutes back. I didn't know that, all I saw were the gifs and threads complaining about it. Fuck that was a terrible "event".

Man those people are idiots. I'm not convinced by the espn demostration but I wouldn't be surprised if everything else at the press conference was for real.

[Gramzamber]

Even if it was real, Natal looks like a terrible idea to me.
If I want to be a motion capture actor I'll get a job as such and at least get paid for it. If not I'd rather sit my lazy ass on a chair and play that way, at least until they invent the holodeck.