Welly well well it’s that time of the year again when Santa “Pixel-Bump mapped” Claus shows us what he has in store for the good and bad bunch of children during the holiday season and beyond, but it seems The Grinch has finally managed to steal this delirious occasion from us and give its latest offerings to that bunch of people who hold Ex-Cloosive passes, whilst you and I sit in front of our screens and let our connections scream out their lungs for dollops of information over the furor created about an universe which is an extension of the world that we live in.
Tons of major gaming sites have been invited for the show and have already begun their respective Pre-E3 coverage, and there are others who have loved to speculate over the things that are going to occur on show, but even the speculation has become so predictable it isn’t fun anymore, so here is a rollout of unique gestures that might occur on the floor, so press play on those customized wish lists as I roll this piece out into the street. Err…I think the caffeine is getting to me.
Microsoft has had somewhat of a mixed year till now; its baby is still riding high on the success of an EPIC titled Gears Of war (word has that the P.C version is coming out this year), XBLA and LIVE also seems to be doing fine, given that they have managed to rake up 6 million customers, Microsoft is aiming at a show where it shall continue to dominate the scene, besides the showcasing of the immensely anticipated Halo 3 single player campaign and Mass effect, Microsoft needs a couple of aces to show this war is already over , am betting on Rare speaking out loud and going beyond Banjo Kazooie 3, to actually showcase their might and potential as a first party developer on Microsoft’s platform, Halo needs a successor and Rare is the only one qualified to take up the job of creating a rock solid IP for Microsoft, and there is the rest of the course for everyone to devour including Halo wars, Fable 2, Mass effect, Too Human, Fable 2, Sakaguchi’s Blue Dragon and his recently announced MMO-RPG, served along with the regular slew of Multi-platform titles. My sixth sense tells Alan wake is going to leave a humungous impact and leave everyone A-WAKE for quite a bit, hero turned convict Fisher is also rumored to be blending in with the huge mass of media floating around Santa Monica.
Microsoft’s show stopper this year around is going to be its handheld version of the X-box, yes its coming all right and is going to be cross between the Zune, iPhone coupled with the mighty processing power of the original X-box, expect to see a couple of handheld titles/tech demos also being showcased along with the glorious piece of hardware.
Sony well has had a real awkward start to its console, and am frankly tired about hearing about the exorbitant price tag attached to its console and the severe dearth of games on its platform, but this holiday season all this is going to change once and for all, and E3 is the place where it all begins, a price drop is imminent and its right from the chairman’s mouth ,who claims there are no such plans, but given Sony’s horrible denial rate expect this to false, just like they claimed a project like Home never existed. Metal Gear solid 4 and Killzone 2 will finally be playable on the show floor coupled with hands on time with their other exclusives starting off with Naughty Dog’s version of Indiana Jones and Lara croft’s Bastard child called Drake and his Mayan adventures, followed by a dark version of a hybrid Pokemon game called “Folklore”, our dear old Ratchet and much awaited Heavenly sword are also going to make a huge splash also with the people in the “Agency” and Little big planet on HOME calling the shots online. The next iteration of the Getaway is also coming to this years E3 giving Grand theft auto a wild chase, I sit to wonder who’ll win this race. The icing lies in FFXIII that is bound to send majority of the audience into a bucket of tears….
Sony PSP2 is also on its way, which basically a redesigned version of the original PSP, maybe it will be portable as it was initially touted, with a 4-8 GB built in storage and a camera feature. I have this strange knot in my stomach which keeps telling my brain that this is somewhat like the N-gage revision Nokia announced a couple of years ago,…but this is Sony we are talking about again ,a veteran in the Industry…a leader in videogames…A…..yawn!!! Kratos makes his presence felt both on the cellular format as well as on the new PSP system.
Nintendo Wii have been raving about it, since its launch and much information is not available about Nintendo’s lineup this time around, guess they are as pissed as us for not letting a public showing of Electronic Entertainment Expo, but expect to see the following which are dead confirmed, A playable English version of Phantom Hourglass, hands on with Metroid Prime 3 which sadly won’t be online, a couple of trailers form their Uber fighter Super smash brothers Brawl along with Mario’s space adventures, Sega, Suda 51 and E.A.’s exclusive Wii-outings at “NiGht(S)” will be wild wild “Olympic” party thrown by famed superhero Assassin “Jack Travis”, expect everyone to “Boogie” all night long, with the spotlight being on “Spyro” the pink angry little dragon who had been once abandoned by their masters at Sony and Naughty dog ,the best part are the Kart races organized by Mario and company.
The Multiplatform seems to be the buzzword this season, it all began with the devil hunter hacking and slashing onto the 360, Capcom had to fend itself off from quite a bit of ire from Sony fanboys for its adultery and if the crystal ball of veteran Journo’s prevails then Snake shall also come onto the 360 with a simultaneous Ps3 launch, this snippet was found on
IGN’s E3 prediction page.
“After Kojima’s recent comments that the game was able to run on 360 hardware, would suggest that Kojima Productions is experimenting with the hardware.”
Well the chances this prediction occurring according to them is close to 80%, this also means there is a 20% chance this will not occur, Buuttt… their PS3 page claims that MGS4 sticking on the PS3 is 25% and it is titled under a “long shot” prediction, so there you have it Metal gear will come out onto the 360 for sure now, Sony has only bought a window of exclusitivity which is soon expected to expire. Wii might also get some Metal gear goodness in a entirely new format, watch out this space for more. This leads us to Bioshock, the game is already in track for the 360 and P.C. well PS3 owners will rejoice to hear that a special version is being developed to satiate their thirst for the Horrific submerged city, the only disappointing bit is that they shall take the curtains off this project once the game has been launched. Horror also reminds me of three immensely anticipated games- Resident evil 5 from Capcom, Condemned 2 from Sega and Manhunt 2 from our very own Rockstar, well the former two can be expected to be seen in some form or the other, but would be interesting if Rockstar puts up a playable version of Manhunt 2 to dig deep into the recent Hullabaloo surrounding it.
Assassin’s creed is another major title to be looking forward to, this slick 16th century action/adventure/sandbox game has everyone piqued enough and its bout time they let some of our itching hands onto this, a hands on version from Ubisoft is definitely on its cards, post talk about ConViction. Lucasarts aims at fulfilling two things one to strap everyone into the shoes of a terrain deforming expert in Fracture and saving the universe from a bunch of aliens and giving everyone a tantalizing power of the force in Force unleashed, both games are unique in their own right and are a path away from the regular slew of genres we have become accustomed to.GTA4’s coming ,no hands on gameplay will be shown off, they’ll release their third and final trailer which they have been touting about post “Things shall be different” along with a bunch of never see before screens, THQ shall also given a sneak peak into Saint’s Row 2, I kind of liked the first one a bit, hopefully they’ll fix all the bugs that were there in the original game and introduce something new, I pray it does not end up like the True Crime Franchise, the genre of sandbox games seems to be limitless, Pandemic’s Mercenaries world in flames also seems to be raking in a lot of hype, hands on with the game is expected at E3 2007.
John Woo’s Stranglehold seems like Max Payne In Hong Kong, the game does have tons of potential, but could be marred by its length, either way its about time the game saw the light at the end of the tunnel, this year’s showcase at E3 will let everyone know whether the game will actually live up to the hype that it once had.
Unreal and Half Life have been at each other since ages, UT III is supposed to have 3-4 dozen multiplayer maps and Half life Ep 2 is slated to have 3 completely different games bundled into one might pack, speaking on the lines on First person shooters Crysis is going to leave a bloody hell of a crater on the P.C allright, be warned for this strike shall leave many dizzy…The slew of shooters seem already on their way in a major way, and Haze is all set to redefine what the term War means all together, the developers (Free radical) seem to be working really hard on this one like the Timesplitters series, which by the way is getting a Next Gen sequel, coming back to Haze the game seems to have an unique blend between FPS and Morality and is aiming to be the spiritual successor of Metal Gear Solid in terms of the philosophical atmosphere which comes Via the Morality system.
Halo lovers Need not dread about the completion of the Epic series, Section 8 by Kuju entertainment promises to fill in the void ASAP and the trailer did look a bit impressive, expect to see more of this on the show, speaking of Shooters F.E.A.R is getting a sequel with a new name, the first game rocked everybody in their chairs expect more goodness to flow from Monolith’s stables at E3 2007.
While we are at the whole Multiplatform bit veteran gaming blog Kotaku predicts a group hug b/w Reggie, Phil and Moore to take place post event. Well isn’t that sweet, I think it’s Gay, but it’s Kotaku they love to see men hugging, a handshake would have sufficed but I really don’t know what they were thinking.
There are still a ton of games that need to covered and spoken about, the one fact all you out there will notice is the dearth of RPG’s in the entire article, Square does have the Last Remnant on show but I rather scourge into the action /shooters/strategy right now, will get all the info on handhelds and RPG right from the show floor, don’t forget the show starts on 9th and goes on till the 11th .Will keep everyone updated till then.
–Neelesh Mukherjee