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[May. 20th, 2005|05:41 pm]
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| [ | mood |
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It's the last day of E3 and man are my feet tired. The show got off to a rough start (for me at least), but it's become a very enjoyable experience, far better than last year. Aside from not having site troubles this year (please, please don't jinx us), the overall floor show has been much more promising. NIS is bringing out some amazing things, Atlus has a ton of cool stuff, NCSoft is still my online hero, and there's much, much more.
Let's start with a few titles I came to see.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. What can I say? The game looks amazing. I didn't get to play it (the line was a 2-hour or more wait), but what I saw was nothing short of mouth-watering goodness. It's very, very pretty, and promises to be the elvish goth story we enjoyed with A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. Link looks better than ever, and I don't just mean that as a soundbyte. I honestly feel this is the single best representation of the long-eared hero I've ever seen. I'm very stoked about this title.
Looks like pure awesome on a disc.
Fire Emblem for the GameCube. Here's what I've been waiting for for years. A 3D Fire Emblem. It reminds me of Shining Force 3 in many ways, only much, much better. The controls are incredibly smooth, the battle animations are extremely detailed with tons of small touches which make the game feel very hand-crafted, and seeing the art in such crisp, clear detail is a definite treat. The world graphics are a bit bland due to the realistic pallet, but I think that's mostly due to the bright character art.
Happy, happy SRPGs.
Now for Phatasy Star Universe. This is one title that's left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, it's spot on a sequel to Phantasy Star Online. It's a natural upgrade and fixes a lot of what I disliked about PSO. Sprawling environments, the ability to swap between short/long range weapons by hitting a button (R2), and it's very, very pretty. On the other hand, it's really not anything must-have in my book. If you liked the PSO experience and want more, only better, this is the game for you. If you're looking for inventiveness, it's not going to blow you away.
Good, not great.
On to Kingdom Hearts 2. KH2 is definitely an improvement over KH1 at least as far as the camera goes. The targeting system is much more intuitive than it was in KH1, and the camera follows Sora a whole lot more smoothly. I also like how the cutscenes are being done. I only got to see Mulan's scenario, but it definitely felt more like its film counterpart than some of the first game's references. There's also a lot more in the way of environment interaction. Fighting one boss on Mulan's stage requires that you ride the wind for instance, and you'll see pockets of wind that you can leap into by hitting triangle. Sora also looks much better, at least to me. But everyone saw that coming I'm sure.
Definitely something to look for.
Tabula Rasa's next. All I have to say is: Wow. The TR team's really improved the game since their showing last year. It's a whole new game really, although there are core elements that remain the same. The story hasn't changed, but the entire graphical flair is different. It's much more metallic and Starcraft-ish, but what really attracted me were two words: Movement matters. That's right, movement matters. Damage and all that is still dependant on your stats, so it's not an action game, but an enemy can miss you when you physically move your character. There are movement costs for firing weapons. You can strafe with a pistol, but you might want to stand still with a rocket launcher. And the enemies have all sorts of tactics associated with them. You can't just hack and slash at them, sometimes you need to attack from the rear, other times you need to use a specific weapon. It's what I've been looking for in an MMORPG, and I can't wait.
Sheer awesomeness.
(PS: I met Richard Garriot. Lord British himself. My life as a gamer is complete.)
Other remarkable titles include Makai Kingdom, Trauma Centre: Under the Knife, Magna Carta, Guild Wars (which I have now determined is definitely on my to-buy list), Auto Assault, Oblivion, PopoloCrois, and Lost in Blue. Also, the new Castlevania games look quite excellent.
Aside from the RPG's front... There's just one game I really have to mention for kicks. 3Feel. The first cybersex online game. It's like the Sims, but with porn. They couldn't show me anything explicit, but what I saw was pretty "Wow, this makes Playboy: The Mansion look so conservative".
E3 has been goooood. |
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| Two thirds of E3 |
[May. 19th, 2005|07:18 pm]
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| [ | mood |
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Two days down, one to go. What the crap have I seen? What the crap have I played? Well I'll tell ya.
Just so y'all know, the experience itself has been ridiculous. There were power outages, last-minute interviews, and wonderful wonderful things. So far, my two best experiences were my interviews with NIS America and Bandai, respectively. I met the creator of .hack! That was hot. For specific information on what I learned, go to RPGFan.com and read the updates on .hack//G.U. and NIS America.
Also, we ran a story on the 'Fan that said that Lunar Genesis (the DS Lunar game) would be a REAL TIME STRATEGY. This was stated because the Nintendo games catalog said so. I had a chance to speak with the head of PR and marketing for Lunar DS over at UbiSoft, and SHE said (off the record) that "it's news to me" and "I'm not sure I believe it." I for one would like to believe that it was just a typo, or someone writing for Nintendo's catalog that doesn't know the meaning of the words "real time". It might be a turn-based strategy, or Action-based battles within a traditional RPG setting. The few screenshots revealed would make one think it's not an RTS. The lady at UbiSoft said she would contact me once she can confirm or deny Nintendo's statement about the upcoming Lunar game.
I, for one, don't believe it's an RTS game at all. That would suck anyway.
Okay, that aside, let's talk about the game's I've played and seen. Starting with games I've played:
I PLAYED THE FOLLOWING GAMES
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SQUARE ENIX
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Kingdom Hearts II - same as Kingdom Hearts I, but better graphics, and innovative boss battles. Instead of just hacking and slashing at a target, some events can occur based on what's happening with a boss, where you're forced to press buttons at the proper time, and if you don't, you get destroyed. This is similar to how fighting worked in Shenmue, but it works a lot better and looks a lot cooler in KHII. Also, the Mulan world (which is where most of the demo took place) is a lot more fun than the Mulan movie. I actually like the characters more now. :)
Radiata Stories - Uhhh...not nearly as good as I thought it would be. It'll be a "neat" RPG I'm sure, but the fact that I'm relying on AI to fight most of my own party's battle properly is not cool. The music, of course, is still awesome, thanks to Iwadare-san. Hopefully the game is a lot more fun long-term than it was for the five minutes I played it.
Romancing SaGa - Look, it lost the subtitle "Minstrel Song" in America, since we don't need to know that it is a remake. Alright, I really hate the battle system on this one, probably because I didn't have the time to learn it. Basically, you don't tell your team what to do...they just go up and fight. Whatever I was fighting, I lost quickly. The demo was in Japanese, so that didn't help matters much.
Dragon Quest VIII - I have systematically avoided every Dragon Quest to date because I don't have the time to give to it...but I will probably beat Dragon Quest VIII when it comes to the US, because it is really looking *that* good. There's just something charming about the whole system.
NOKIA N-GAGE
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X-Men Legends 2 - I played X-Men Legends 2. It was unwieldy. I didn't like it. The person on-staff teaching me how to play it was really pushy too. He made me feel like a moron, which I'm not (I don't think).
FUN NOT-RPG-GAMES
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Bandai Games - Bandai had a promotional deal where you would play all eight of their games on display, get a card stamped for playing each one, and then dropping it in a box and then you hope to win some rare crap. I played all eight of them. They were:
One Piece
Gundam something something
Gundam something else
DICE
Digimon World 4
Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex (PSP)
Zatch Bell
and something else, can't remember...
None were RPGs. The Zatch Bell fighting game was out-and-out the most fun. The others weren't much fun to me. I really liked the Zatch Bell fighting system, I thought it was innovative.
Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix - This is the GameCube DDR, featuring Mario-Party-esque mini-games and music from beloved Nintendo games. Frankly, I loved this. I've tried to get good at DDR, but I have to admit, I'll never be a true expert. Because of this, I have to say that this game is perfect for the early-to-mid-level DDR player, and is a lot of fun. There's a lot of diversity going on in this game.
Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 - Good song selection, but again, home pads are terrible. Absolutely terrible. They make no sense to me. Konami had the opportunity to set these home pads up to their absolute best for players, and I was still getting non-functioning button presses. That was annoying.
Halo 2 (additional maps) - the new maps for Halo 2 are just getting better and better. I don't know the name of the maps I played, but they were friggin' gorgeous, and big, and fun to kill people on. Go Halo 2!
Soul Calibur III - The playable demo allowed you to play as Mitsurugi and a new character, whose name keeps evading my memory (Tira? I think that's it). It's just more of the same, but better. I think I will like this game a lot.
XTango - A Korean-developed game that I hope comes to America. You enter buttons quickly on an Xbox, and you Tango with your dance partner. You can play this single player (with a CPU partner) or two players, with one player leading and the other following. Entering buttons within a short amount of time is much like doing tricks in Tony Hawk games. The system seems very complex, and it looks like the "Lead" dancer has the harder job. I was only the "Follow" dancer, and I had tons of fun. I could've played it for hours, but I only had 3 minutes. I really hope this game comes to America as a $30 title. It's really a lot of fun IMO.
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There were other games I played, but they aren't sticking in my memory. Oh, FIRE EMBLEM for GameCube. It seems to play really slowly, I prefer the 2D to the 3D for sure. Oh well.
Alright, now for games and other things I've seen:
SQUARE ENIX
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Compilation of Final Fantasy VII - The four titles surrounding the story and events of FFVII. The exclusive "insider" movie (that you had to get a ticket to see) showed off these titles, and they were certainly the most awesome things I saw today.
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Before Crisis: FFVII - This is the cell phone title that's already out in Japan...though it comes in installments. I think, if I were to ever get a cell phone, this would be required for me to own. It isn't out yet in America, and won't be for awhile.
Crisis Core: FFVII - Announced as a title for the PSP, all that was shown was a bunch of awesome anime cutscenes. It seems to be an elongated explanation of Cloud, Zack, and Sephiroth (and the Nibelheim incident). According to Damian, at the developer's conference they explained that there is a game to go with these anime scenes, but they weren't ready to be shown yet. It looked awesome...but not as awesome as...
FFVII Advent Children - The movie that has been talked about for so long is finally coming, Sept. 14!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! The trailer I saw was the absolute best thing in the whole freaking world. Just seeing (and hearing) your favorite characters with up-to-date graphics and such was the coolest thing in the whole world. Really, it was amazing. I'm flipping out about this. You will love it.
Dirge of Cerberus FFVII - The "shooter/action" RPG featuring Vincent Valentine. The movie cutscenes from this game are just as good as the scenes from Advent Children, but it's all original stuff, since it takes place a year after Advent Children. Whatever the plot, it's gonna be awesome. I'm flipping out about it already. Before this game comes out, I will need to play through FFVII again to regain my fanboy-ish love of the title.
Alright, that's FFVII Compilation.
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Final Fantasy XII - I'm most excited about the use of the world of Ivalice (from FF Tactics). The plot seems to be stolen from the first half of FFIX - kingdoms taking one another over. Oh boy. I don't care about those plots very much anymore. But this title is going to be so well-executed and so beautiful, you will die from its awesomeness.
Kingdom Hearts II - The plot to this looks amazing. Amazing. Amazing. I love the ideas behind this game. And there were Pirates of the Caribbean characters. Hmmm...
Code Age Commanders - New idea, new game series, from Square Enix. I love it. I think it looks like a ton of fun. I can't explain it. Learn about it yourself other places.
OTHER CRAP
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3Feel - Korean developed cybersex / sex simulation game. Definitely the most morally degrading idea ever. It looks like it plays like the Sims, but it's all sex. You say "do this" and your "partner" follows suit. I didn't pay too much attention to this one, and I could rant for days about how our world is going to hell in a hand basket, but then again, this is all quite indulgent, isn't it.
MagPan (sp?) - Korean-developed MMORPG featuring pet simulation. It's small time. I hate MMOs but I love Koreans and I love the idea behind this game. I will continue to watch it.
Tactica Online - Read the story from RPGFan.com by John McCarroll. I got to go to the interview with him, and it seems fairly interesting. It's a great looking Australian-developed TACTICAL Online game, NOT an MMO. It's a turn-based strategy. It could turn out to be really awesome. Betas start in a month, game should be released Fall '05.
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Y'know, I KNOW I've seen and played so much else. This has been a media overload. I don't know what else to tell you. I'm having a great time. The 'Fan staff is hip too. Alright, keep readin' up on the fun we're all having this week! WOO!
Patrick (Ramza) Gann |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 19th, 2005|07:58 pm]
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There is so much to say about the first day of the show that keeping it brief will be tough. The day started out with the media room losing power for 4 hours or so. Because of that, Mark spent from 10 - 1 trying to get a media badge & holder. Fortunately, the Bethesda mini-theater still had power, so John and I got to see one of the most amazingly beautiful games ever - Oblivion. Words cannot convey the impossibly, immeasurably beautiful environments, but know that they beat anything out there right now AND they beat anything else I saw yesterday at the show.
With the free time I did have (not that much, mind you) I visited two of the Main Halls: South Hall and West Hall. Of the companies I saw there, Namco had a really impressive showing, with We Love Katamari, Tales of Legendia, and yes, even Hello Kitty Roller Rescue (don't laugh). Konami's pavilion was really rocking with Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrows (which had a nice anime trailer showing with it; possible Castlevania anime?), and a hilarious Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer which had Solid Snake as Hideo Kojima doing really silly things.
Oh, and my new favorite DS game is Under the Knife, a virtual surgery game from Atlus which uses the DS's touch features to great effect.
High points in inteview land include talking to tri-Ace regarding Radiata Stories and having them surprised/thankful that someone interviewing them knew about Star Ocean, and talking to the guy who basically CREATED Konami Sound, Mr. Sasaki. Did you know that Miki Hagashino went to school with Sasaki's sister, and that's how she got brought on to do Suikoden music? She apparently left Konami for another company but was dragged back to do Suikoden 4... and oh yes, she's married. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 19th, 2005|03:51 pm]
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Quick lull in my news stories, so a quick post on random games:
PSOniverse: PSO, but pretty. Really. Just saw the multiplayer, though.
Magna Carta: looks cool, should be interesting
DDS2: Mmmm. DDS2licious.
Rifts N-Gage: HOLY SHIT. I was expecting this game to suck total ass, but I was blown away like 10x as much as I was than when I played Pocket Kingdom. Pocket Kingdom was a good game on a bad system, Rifts is a great SRPG on the N-Gage. James and I also managed to get Rifts books, limited editions, signed by the team. Awesome.
Oblivion: FUCKING SWEET. The most beautiful game at the show. UT 2k7 has better character models, but the environments in Oblivion blow 2k7 away.
Non-RPGs:
Trauma Center - one of the best DS games out there, period. It's sweet.
If there's anything you want to know about in-depth, post here. I'll be free on the floor the last 2 hours of today and I can do what people want.
-John |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 19th, 2005|02:33 pm]
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Well so far so good I suppose. Yesterday was a little stressful with the power outage and the insane heat but today everything has been nice. Just taking a break from doing updates so I figured I'd do something else that's productive. The Nokia interview was really damn good, to be honest I was pretty much thinking "I had to get up at 7 for this!?" but I'm quite happy that I went, got to talk to the creator of the Rifts PnP game, and the N-Gage game looks nice, especially for something on the N-gage. Another pretty sweet thing was we both got the Rifts RPG Collector's Edition core book signed by the entire team that worked on the game.
Got to try out Shining Force Neo, the best thing I can say about it is that it seemed to realize I was bored and shut itself off for me, which I thought was pretty considerate.
Hellgate: London was awesome to try out, but I'm going back later today to really give it a shot.
Booth Babes are cool, but once you walk up to them, most just try to get you to go to crappy places that you don't want to go, but because they're hot you really don't want to say no. You still do, but the thought of saying "no" to someone that hot is just against a man's nature.
I'll update more later after I get a chance to really look around. |
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| Whee!@ |
[May. 19th, 2005|10:47 am]
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The site's still up and the media room has power.. today is slated to be good.
James and I will be at Nokia for the first hour, and the hour after that I'll be at Atlus, but I will try to update with experiences from both today and yesterday around 12PM or 1PM.
-John |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 18th, 2005|07:51 pm]
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THE GUMBY GAME ROCKS OUT. BUT NOT AS MUCH AS THE CURIOUS GEORGE GAME!
-John |
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| My impressions from Tuesday |
[May. 18th, 2005|07:45 pm]
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Nintendo- Nintendo began the conference by blowing smoke, and that was a reoccurring theme. What do I mean by smoke? I mean the outrageous claims that they made regarding sales numbers that were so much spin, I thought I was watching a Dreidel. Their big marketing strategy is pulling in hardcore gamers, casual gamers, and people who aren't gamers at all. Expanding your market demographic? Get right out of town! You win the award for NOT FUCKING ORIGINAL BUSINESS STRATEGY! Still, they showed off some nifty things, and promised some more. For example, the GB Micro - a GBA about the size of an iPod Mini, with a better backlight. This is meant to attract the fashion-conscious gamers. Yes, both of them.
They also showed off the prototype of the Revolution. They made it very small, and it comes in pretty colors, or will when it's released. They were so vague about the system that speculation will run rampant. I doubt it's because they want to create speculation, but rather they didn't have enough ready to show. What I DO know is that it will be wi-fi capable, have 512 MB flash memory, and have wireless controllers. It will also be backwards compatible... really backwards compatible. You'll be able to purchase and download almost every nintendo title ever, whether it be NES, SNES, or N64. So it's a super-emulator. It will also apparently be the easiest system for developers to create on, and will save developers money. And Squeenix is also working on a Crystal Chronicles game for the system that will take advantage of the wifi capabilities. Yata!
Nintendo was all over the place this year. They had some interesting titles to show, specifically Nintendogs which is a big hit in Japan, and is now coming to the US. You can raise a doggie and wash it and call it George. I think Miyamoto's dog had sex with the G4 TV girl's dog. That was funny.
There was also Animal Crossing DS, Advanced Wars Duel Strike, Mario Kart DS, and a very strange title which Nintendo is not quite billing as a "Game," but more of an interactive creation experience. It's called Electroplankton, and it has you use the stylus to guide mini plankton to make sounds. As you create sounds, you can combine the sounds to make music. In fact, the DJ at the conference did his whole electronica presentation using only two DS systems running Electro Plankton. It looks like a game that could either be a sensational revolution in gaming, or just really really lame. TWT.
Oh yes, and did I mention Link? Yeah, he gets to be werewolf. The new Zelda title, Twilight Princess, is a very dark telling of a Zelda tale. It's obvious that Link explores his darker nature, as we see him bloodily ripping apart his foes as a werewolf, being ridden by a strange cat-like goblin creature, and generally being not so nice. But the game looks fantastic, and from what I saw, the gameplay was magnifique! Thankfully the press kits Nintendo gave us had a copy of the trailer, but unfortunately it is on DS format, so we may be SOL for showing it to the readers of RPGFan.
Speaking of RPGs, Nintendo has a new Pokemon title in the works, called Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness scheduled for Cube. Unlike previous Cube incarnations, GoD promises to be a full-fledged RPG, and compatible with other Pokemon titles through link-up to the GC. It's supposed to be a "dark" game, reinforcing Nintendo's current philosophy that its games aren't just for kids. But basically, I think it's just that they like keeping us all in the dark.
Summing up my impressions of the big-N's press conference, I have two words: Work HARDER! Next year, I'd like to see a little more substance and a little less smoke and mirrors. |
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| Problems! |
[May. 18th, 2005|01:02 pm]
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Quick update -- Oblivion is the freaking most gorgeous game I have ever seen, ever.
The media room at the LA Convention center is without power, so there will probably be no other updates today.
Catch you tomorrow (or whenever the power is up!) |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 17th, 2005|07:29 pm]
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I can't believe how crazy this E3 is, when it hasn't even started yet. The Xbox looks cool, the games are pretty (except Perfect Dark; I thought 12 years in development, it may look better than a Dreamcast game), then came the PS3 and things like that FFVII demo, which floored me. Specs and tech demos mean nothing to me in the long run, since the PS2's rubber ducky demo didn't show me a game I'd actually want to play... but damn if that thing doesn't have a lot of power under the hood.
The Revolution is, I think, the prettiest of the bunch because I'm a sucker for blue LEDs, but I also have always preferred Nintendo's "fun over horsepower" stance. I figure the specs aren't comparable to the other two, which is why they didn't reveal them. It doesn't mean the games will be bad, but knowing the press and the public, if they saw lower specs, it would seriously hurt their image and cause a lot of negativity. I think they were smart in not showing that, which also further enforced they're about games, not just who can do more.
But none of that mattered once I watched the new Zelda trailer. I think, perhaps ironically, the last game I wanted this bad was Wind Waker. Unlike WW though, I'm not the last bit skeptical about this one. If Twilight Princess does NOT end up being the best game on the GameCube, I'll seriously be surprised, because it looks all kinds of incredible.
Now I really wish I had gone for the full show instead of just Friday. It's gonna be a long 2 days. |
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