@bluesforbuddha Shit I forgot about Layton, but being two games behind on that franchise, I got time.

As for the advancement “level” of iOS gaming, I’m not so sure about that. The problem is exposure: the shit that makes it to the top of the charts is like Angry Birds – small, quick fix, and $1 or less. If you go digging around there are actually a ton of RPGs and strategy games on iOS. They may be low-budget, but the gameplay is probably there. But yeah, when I look at all the unfinished RPGs on my shelf of DS games, I’m quickly reminded of how much “deep” gaming there is to be done on the go.

Overall, E3 has honestly changed almost nothing about my plans for the latter half of this year. I’m still deciding on whether to get a Wii U (the launch lineup actually has four or five games I would want to play), but otherwise E3 showings didn’t definitively “sell” me on anything other than maybe Watch_Dogs, whenever the hell that comes out. A crapload of stuff is on my rental list though.

Happy birthday in advance @bowlisimo

Watch Dogs was a pretty excellent surprise. Im glad that this far into the current console generation we can see a game that looks that good, and appears that fresh. I am a little worried about the GTA like open world environments. The scene played out amazingly in a scripted way, but if you open things up you might get less tight more random experiences that wont seem nearly as compelling. I would like to see more of the direction they are taking this game. Ubisoft Montreal definitely has some talented people. I can pretty much tell this will be worth playing. I am digging that hacking mechanics are making a comeback from the deus ex days. Watch Dogs kind of makes me wish Syndicate had been closer to it in terms of pacing/tone. There were moments where I saw the Syndicate game I wanted suddenly appear in my minds eye as I was watching the trailer.

The Last of Us of course has that level of polish and cinematic flair we all loved in Uncharted. There are subtle similarities I noticed in the way the characters point out things in the environment the way that Drake did in those games, but I have to give Naughty Dog credit for not relying on the old monkey man mechanics again (as far as I can tell). The game seems a lot more tense. A lot more brutal. Importantly the zombie like theme of the original trailer has been completely downplayed. There seems to be a lot going on in terms of the interaction between the two main characters. I wonder what triggers the combo attacks we have seen. How that works.

One thing about both these games did exceptionally well was provide seamless and realistic animation. Not just in cutscenes, but in gameplay. Beyond also looks spectacular of course, and I am sure it will be similar. But the level of animation in these games is certainly pushing things forward leaps and bounds above where most of the industry is at currently. I imagine that as graphics hit a temporary plateau animation will be the new ‘oooooh’ factor.

@scribl I’m just impressed they got in like 10 minutes of actual gameplay before he even pulled out a gun. That by itself shows that the game involves a lot more than just shooting people. You know what else I liked? You could tell the demonstrator was in full control of the character the entire time, not doing some cinematic QTE shit, but actually playing a goddamn game.

I find it kind of sad that I didn’t really see anything I was interested in playing until Ubisoft’s conference. Even then, Far Cry 3 didn’t show me anything I didn’t already know about (except, well, boobs) and neither did Assassin’s Creed III really. Both were just predictably good. Watch_Dogs so far has been the only really fresh thing unless you count Beyond and Last of Us.

@bowlisimo Last of Us looks like some kind of cross between Uncharted and a survival game. The emphasis on management looks like it’s there with non-regenerating health, scarce ammo, and resource crafting, but it seems to still be set on a linear path. It’s not the exploration and survival of an environment like the older Resident Evil games for instance.

Overall, I’m kind of depending on Nintendo now to provide us with the “real” games.

@scribl Kind of felt the same way, otherwise that Watch Dogs demo was a pleasant surprise.

Then I stayed tuned for Sony which showed gameplay from The Last of Us. Man, it looks like they nailed the sheer brutality, but watching that, it feels like they don’t quiiiite get the genre. Basically the protagonists rolled up and got into an unnecessary shootout, wasted a bunch of bullets and killed everyone. What the hell is that? Where’s the tension of having a handful of precious bullets and holding on to them at all costs until you’re forced to kill someone or be killed? Meeting other people should be one of the scariest things, but just shooting them all dead undercuts that aspect. Too bad I Am Alive wasn’t great, it looks like that game was on the right track in that regard.

I yelled at my TV when he pulled out a gun in Watch_Dogs. Because there aren’t enough shooters already…

@beige had it right:

Molyneux on Kinect: “We know about Kinect, absolutely. I don’t want Kinect to be some trivial throwaway thing in Fable. I want it to be a real thing.”

Translation: Buy a dog, because treasure is SUPER important. You can’t get used condoms just anywhere!

http://www.destructoid.com/e3-10-kinect-support-for-fable-iii-sounds-like-a-possibility-176900.phtml

@feenwager I won’t lie, I have the latest “old style” console (the modern warfare version) but I’m still a little jealous. There’s some pretty slick looking lines on that, and the fact that it will NEVER RRoD again (I know, I know…) are pretty appealing.

Take lots of pictures and video! Or…just play with it.

I suppose I should have noted that the enormo-recession might also be responsible for fewer high-budget, high-risk games. The crisis started in 2007, which is around when developers would have started games that could have been releasing this year.

Sad news. Amazon and Walmart have priced Kinect at $149. Although, I guess in the long run, this isn’t that bad. I forget what the numbers are, but it’s comparable to Move.

http://tinyurl.com/35h9576

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Project-Natal-Xbox-360-Xbox-360/13378144

I’m quite fond of this one:

http://i47.tinypic.com/if8olv.gif

@scribl et al. Not sure if you guys listen to the “Totally Rad Show” (I really hate that name) but they brought up a really good point. E3 is a great opportunity for developers to throw out one or two “Wow” moments, but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. The biggest point? Red Dead Redemption barely made a splash at E3 and that game was (in my opinion) phenomenal!

I do agree that it does seem like the game industry is getting a bit stale, but I think that can be said about the entertainment industry as a whole. Movies are nothing but sequels and remakes nowadays. “Pop” music is absolute garbarge full of things that appear to be brought back from 20 years ago. Hell, about the only thing that is bringing out any originiality is television, and even that is starting to fill up with nothing but vampire shows, reality TV and remakes of shows from 10 years ago. Thank God for cable programming on channels like Discovery, History and the like.

But I don’t think that we should completely discount this current crop of games. Blur, Red Dead, Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted (1 and 2) are games that are making a lot of progress in the “industry”. We’ve always had periods in a system’s life where there was a ton of shovelware peppered with a handful of great games. It just seems like things have gotten worse, in my opinion, because more people (and more mainstream people) are playing games today than ever before.

Most of this doesn’t actually make sense to me after going back and reading it, but that’s what I get for a 6:30am stream of consciousness.

Is it just me, or is this generation stumbling a bit? We’re about to hit the 5-year mark, and I feel like we’re running out of gas. It’s looking like this will be the longest console generation yet, and it seems like developers don’t quite know how to handle it.

At this point in the last cycle, the industry had really hit its stride and was turning out some of the best games of the generation, not unlike today.

2004 was bottom-heavy, while most of 2005′s big releases were grouped into Q1. So we got this tremendous eight-month period of—pardon my language—megaton after megaton. A lot of these games became cherished classics.

From September 2004 to April 2005, we got Burnout 3, Fable, Katamari Damacy, San Andreas, Ratchet: UYA, Halo 2, Snake Eater, KOTOR2 (end 2004), Resident Evil 4, Gran Turismo 4, God of War, Chaos Theory, and finally, Psychonauts. This isn’t even including PC titles like Half-Life 2. Talk about a golden era.

October gave us Shadow of the Colossus, but most of the fall season was taken up by mediocre 360 launch titles and, uh, Shadow the Hedgehog, I guess.

The 360 forced everyone forward, but it also got developers to take chances on new IPs. Dead Rising came to be because someone at Capcom said, “Hey, we can get A LOT of enemies on screen now. That would be awesome for a zombie game, but it doesn’t fit Resident Evil’s tone.” We got Crackdown because someone at Realtime Worlds said, “Look at the crazy draw distances we can get on this thing!”

OK, I’m making this up, and I’m sure there were more and better reasons (I hope) for those games to exist, but you can see how the new tech gave developers a chance to tell new stories with unfamiliar characters. Instead of KOTOR3, BioWare made Mass Effect. Instead of Unreal 3 (at first), Epic made Gears of War. Ken Levine somehow talked Take Two into BioShock, Naughty Dog was allowed to work on something other than Crash or Jak, and they blew our brains halfway out the back of our skulls. This is what new console generations do.

So, while I’m really excited that developers have the time to learn the ins and outs of our current systems, I’m concerned that, without the kick in the ass that a new gen would be providing right about now, we’re just going to continue toiling in the same tired franchises for years to come.

What have we seen at E3? COD Black Ops, Halo Reach, Fable 3, Gears 3, MGS Rising. These are dead or dying franchises, though I’m sure their respective owners will squeeze them to the very last drop. Mass Effect 3 is coming. Uncharted 3 is inevitable. Most everything else is just in the endless franchise sequel/reboot undead shamble: Forza, GT, Prince of Persia, Twisted Metal, Mortal Kombat, GRAW… I’m sure there are more. Even Assassin’s Creed looks like it’s revving up for a good annual milking.

There are lots of small developers doing crazy stuff. With XBLA, PSN, and Steam, it’s never been a better time for those guys. But I feel like there’s an absence of well-funded developers trying new things. New settings, new mechanics, new perspectives, new anything.

Maybe I’m just going through my annual “E3 is nothing but sequels” phase of jaded disappointment.

@feenwager @A.J. that’s how I’ve been catching up. The ironic part is that I follow most of E3 while I’m at work, but completely lose track when I get home. Thanks to you guys, I don’t miss a beat.

@feenwager Check out yesterday’s EBP and the one that I’ll be putting up in an hour or so.

More importantly, Steam on PS3. What does that even mean?

So, if you buy that augmented-reality game for the PSP, will Sony invade your home and plant cocaine in your kitchen?

Kevin Butler fandom: So. Awkward.

Sony loves montages.

Yeah. It can’t cost more than the Wii, right?

And to Nintendo’s credit, they showed GAMES! Lots of ‘em! New stuff that hadn’t been announced already too.

I’m kind of disappointed that Retro’s working on the new DKC. They did this totally crazy first-person Metroid thing and somehow managed to pull it off. Now they’re rewarded with… a remake of 2D Donkey Kong? Um, OK.

@zegolf Yeah, especially after torturing myself with Ubisoft’s conference. Everytime I was about to leave Joel McHale said something funny, and I was like, “Well, maybe there’ll be more of that.”

@scribl That’s a real good point. I think yesterday was a bit of a disappointment in general. I am a bit more excited about Kinect, but nothing really blew me away yesterday. May have been searching for anything today.

I feel like I might not have gotten as excited at Nintendo’s if Microsoft’s conference hadn’t been so mediocre.

Gotta run to a 2 o’clock meeting hopefully I won’t miss to much of the Sony conference.

@rocgaude What exactly did you not like?

I’d give Nintendo’s presser a solid A-. I think the only thing that really mis-fired was their first mini-game collection whose name I can’t even remember and Goldeneye (although I suspect it’ll still sell tons).

3DS looks surprisingly good, and I’m please with Epic Mickey, The Kirby game, and the new Zelda.

No date, guess it is 2011

@AJ They have to do something like that. Maybe Toys R Us’s? Seeing it in person is the only way to sell these things.

Nintendo busting out the booth babes?

Please put demo units in gamestops or something.

It prints money! Er… Coins.

Star Fox on 3DS confirmed?

I wonder if those 3d cameras can shoot video?

@captcarnage Doubt it. My guess is April 2011.

I bought the original Icarus at a flea market in Pennsylvania. I might have been 6 or 7 years old. That game kicked. my. ass.

Hopefully this one will be better. That’s IF I get a 3DS, that is.

Kingdom Hearts on 3DS. I hope Mike is still alive.

The vagueness of content leads me to believe we’ll be waiting a while for 3DS.

Yeah, I mean, the new game looks great. No complaints there. I just don’t get why people are obsessed with the brand.

Ok I’m sold on the 3DS, day one purchase. The graphics quality is prob on par with the PSP.

Wonder if it will have firmware updates, the DLC stuff could also be anti-pirate measures.

Viral spreading of dlc. Interesting.

I still don’t understand the obsession with Kid Icarus. I watched a YouTube of the old game. Looked pretty crappy. Yet the core have been dying for a new game for years.

Fuck yes. nintendo is easily winning so far. Sony is going to have their work cut out for them.

I wonder if the 3DS version of 3D will work for me?

Everyone happy now?

I don’t think anyone was expecting movies for the 3DS. Pretty cool.

It’s a friggin 3d camera!? Wow.

@rocgaude What are you talking about? They’re hitting it out of the park. Guys, back me up.

Adjustable effect. I like that.

Here’s comes Iwata to kill the momentum.

Here we go. Let’s see what the 3DS has to offer.

Silhouettes are the new lens flare.