Thumbs up, soldier!

Last week, as I was juggling my time with appointments to cram in as much quality time with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, an old familiar face was busy working his way into the Guiness Book of World Records. Based on the random discussions I overheard at the Capcom booth, it was pretty clear that Justin Wong’s competition wasn’t aware they what they were up against. “Some asian guy…” was the most generic description I overheard from a few who got peaced out in the casual challenge Justin extended to E3 attendees who endeavored to defeat him in Street Fighter IV.

While it’s safe to assume there were some pretty close calls, Justin went on to net an impressive record of 300 wins and 0 losses. Though what made this even more memorable was the fact he engaged challenges for three days straight non-stop at the Evil Controllers booth. Of course, I am sure a brief intermission was allowed by Tim Rogers, who was also present to officiate the event, for bathroom breaks and meals. Contrary to popular belief, the guy is human after all.

If you didn’t have a chance to take on Justin in person, there’s always Evo 2009 being held this year once again in Las Vegas. Make sure you’ve registered because time is running out.

Always giving what the fans demand.

We kept missing the video of KOEI’s newest upcoming game, Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll,  displayed on the giant screen hanging over KOEI’s sizable booth.  As a series well known Japan but not so familiar in the west, they’ve set this new installment as a prequel, and discarded menu based combat for a visceral, Diablo-style RPG.  Coming to the Playstation 3, Trinity features three very different heroes in the warrior, wizard, and assassin, all fighting on the field at once.  The player can level them up, gear them up, and freely switch between them, setting up some powerful combo attacks, such as having the wizard freezing enemies before the warrior smashes them to bits.  With Omega Force behind it, I’m hoping for a game that will spark the same joy as the massively underrated Crimson Sea series.

Warriors Orochi 2 PSP needed no introduction.  After nearly a hundred hours logged in the 360 version, I knew this clash of Dynasty and Samurai Warriors well, though I still hadn’t leveled, or even used, every warrior, or finished every level.  Now the PSP version will top the already insane content with ninety six total fighters and a dozen new dream missions.  Nothing has sacrificed to make this happen.  KOEI have been putting their legendary series on the PSP for a while now, and it’s reached the point where the gameplay is just as fast, fluid, and fun as the console brothers.  Two player co-op and versus is still here, including the Soul Calibur like three on three brawler.  With the entirely new fighters of Gyuki, Dodomeki, San Zang and Benkei, even the most hardcore of the hardcore Dynasty fans have something to sink their teeth into this August 25th.

Monster Racers for the DS was new to me, though it’s clear it takes its lead from a clever combination of Pokemon’s monster capturing and training, and a side scrolling race inspired by the versus mode of Sonic 2.  The result offers a surprising amount of depth.  With the variety of race terrain and increasingly more difficult challenges and tournaments, trainers need to hunt down the best monsters for the right events, training them up and then taking direct control of a side-scrolling race that can be played either against the AI or up to three friends.  The racing itself is a lot more than just getting to the other side.  Levels are littered with obstacles to trip you up, and power-ups to knock the wind out of a speedy opponent.  Playing it myself, a race in Monster Racers isn’t settled until one beast crosses the finish line.  Skilled play can recover from early mistakes, and take home the gold starting August 25th.

Confluence is French for Convergence.

It opened with the usual quick flash of their upcoming games, set to too loud music.  With the mix of realtime and CG footage, it felt cribbed from EA’s conference last year, though they did spring for a MC to soften some of the lulls.  He did his best, but there’s a reason there’s no legendary videogame comedians, aside from Kaz.

Confluence was the buzz word that Ubisoft attempted to etch in the minds of the audience, with the promise of joining different mediums, mainly games and films, with the power of their newly purchased FX studio and a major online destination Uplay.  All of their end of the year games will support it, providing the ability of trading screenshots, bragging over your achievements, and snagging the DLC.  It’s not a bad idea, but a tad optimistic considering this ‘confluence’ has never worked well in the past.

Thunderous applause greeted the arrival of James Cameron, under the logo for Avatar: the Game.  He talked and talked and talked about his upcoming movie, and to a lesser extent about the game that was being made in concert.  I’m sure both will be visually astounding, but the plot about innocent natives being encroached upon by a more technological and morally empty race.  Made worse by these endless explanations without even a single screenshot of either the movie or the game.  Keeping something under wraps when the movie hits in seven months and the game is going to be on the show floor seems a little lame.

The appearance of Red Steel 2 brought the house back up with a slashing use of wii motion plus.  Whole new setting and a whole new main character, but no faces.  For some reason, every is masked or garbed or scarved, spewing menace as they attempt to smash the slash this graphic novel style cowboy.  The game is built around the idea that hitting things with a stick is fun, so I guess slashing them to pieces it better.  Wii motion plus, so the sword matches one to one your movement.  I was a little disappointed block was mapped to a button instead as a gesture, since the pace of the game could support it, but I guess that might be a little to hard on more casual players.  At least the harder you slash, the more damage you can pull off, switching seamlessly from swords to guns with the fluid grace only 60FPS can provide.  Visuals are actually pretty sharp for a Wii game, and coming bundled with the wii motion plus will be a boost for both.

Then they brought on stage a true legend, a god of the sport of soccer, Pele.  Pity it wasn’t to promote a better game.  He spoke much of the importance of educating children through sports, to learn fair play and teamwork, but Academy of Champions looked like something emerging out of focus group hell.  Hogwarts mixed with characters designs from the Incredibles, with the plot of the Karate Kid.  It’s hard to judge the game from a CG trailer, but it looked like the weakest effort of the conference.

Flipping back to the hardcore, they brought out Splinter Cell: Conviction.  The presentation was nearly identical to the one they held at the Microsoft Conference, emphasizing that Sam Fisher is now out of the system and looking for revenge, moving as a powerful predator without forcing stealth.  The mini-sandbox for each level is very much like the Hitman series, though they had the unique idea of projecting your objectives and other info directly on the walls instead of some popup box.  There’s also no more shadow meter, but instead the screen dithers to black and white while you’re hidden, using color to show off enemies and other important items.  The effect was far better done here than Saboteur.  Other things like complete environment interaction and seamless transition of areas was promised.  We’ll see how it goes.

After a months old trailer for RUSE, they dipped into the casual section with a guy boasting about how their Imagine series was one of the largest selling brands around.  They proudly posted the numbers, and then said it’s all about making the best games.  Seemed a little contradictory to me.  Tween 2.0… two horrible buzzwords with a little digging at EA thrown in.  This confluence involves a magazine, online game, and ability to make art and upload it to share with their friends.  Petz nursery is for raising animals to then transfer to other games, training your animals into animal superstars.  Looked a bit nicer than EA’s similar offering, honestly.  Then came the rival to Charm Club, Style Lab.  Girls can take pictures of themselves to cover it with makeup and styled hair, or make jewelry they can actually buy.

Then Ubisoft dove into their own fitness segment with Your Shape.  Trying to do EA one better, they promised it would be completely hands free by using a custom camera for the Wii.  This will act as the eye of a personal trainer, allowing people to use their own fitness equipment and set up their own training regime, though I was disappointed to see you have to use the wiimote to set this all up, making it not so hand’s free.

As if sensing a lull, Ubisoft raised the roof again with the zany Rabbids Go Home.  At least these inventive characters are free from crushing mini-games to go on a level by level adventure in a shopping cart, collecting everything in sight to build up their tower to the moon.  It’s a bit Katamari and a bit Tony Hawk in the way you have to wield the cart through the environments, avoiding enemies and collecting up the big stuff.  The whole feel was like something out of a Disney 3D movie with its exaggerated personality, including a rabbid lurking in the wiimote that can be amused, abused, and used in the game.

Relatively brief was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash up, on the 25th anniversary of the franchise.  Gamearts, the people behind the latest Smash Brothers, is behind it, and it really shows.  From what they showed, it seemed like a straight up clone with TMNT skins on the characters, but nothing too wrong with that.

The closer was an entirely CG movie for Assassin’s Creed 2.  Aside from the Renaissance Italy setting, it seemed completely generic, with the brooding anti-hero sneaking and leaping around, and the sneering villain promising to have his way with the man’s mother just before he’s killed off.  If this is the result of the confluence with Hollywood, they can keep it.

A solid lineup with zero surprises.

EA opened with the loud and bloody CG trailer of Dante’s Inferno, narrated by the wicked witch of the west.  With all the hacking and slashing, it just seemed like God of War with a scythe, but there’s a chance there might be something interesting gameplay wise.

Another blip that came and gone was Sims 3, probably because EA knows the game and the inevitable expansions will sell like crazy.  To a not big fan of Sims, it looked no different from 2.  Same ho-hum visuals with exaggerated expressions out of my nightmares.

Then comes the casual explosion with Littlest Pet Shop, coming to country, city, and the beach, naturally to the DS and the Wii.  Another big tween plush push comes with Littlest Pet Shop Online.  Buy a stuffed animal that comes with a code to use that same animal online, where mostly young girls can customize and create their own pets with friends among dozens of mini-games.

From the petshop to the girlshop with Charm Girl’s Club, already coming with three games to the DS and a Pajama Party on the Wii.  Play mini-games to win charms to decorate a clearly Bratz inspired quartet of cool gurlz, such as teasing hair to where the tallest hair wins the new charm to decorate their character.

For a complete change of tone, EA hit the audience with the hard driving Need for Speed: Shift.  Everything you have come to expect from racing games is here, from fast cars to the cockpit view.  Hard to judge from video if its better looking than Forza 3, though it promises to convey the ‘pure physical power of racing at top speed.’  Though their way of pulling this off is grabbing the kudos system from Phantom Gotham Racing, and tweaking it for the ADD generation.  You’re constantly rewarded when you race, no matter how you race.  Assuming the popups aren’t as relentless as they are in the demonstration, it could actually be a lot of fun.

Dragon Age: Origins promised to reinvent the fantasy genre, though the footage they showed was an almost short for shot rendition of the Lord of the Rings movies, spliced with implied sex scenes.  You have the throwaway villains called the dark spawn versus the multicultural legendary warriors.  Even though they claim ‘new shit,’ seems like the Witcher already did it better.

Mass Effect 2 was also mentioned, though they didn’t do much more than show a trailer that’s been on the web for a month or more.  Hopefully, they’ll show more at the show.

A big chunk of the show was dedicated to EA Sports, beginning with Fight Night 4.  Tyson and Ali were ducking and weaving, sending out splashes of sweat with each meaty hit.  This time it’ll run at 60FPS, promising big time physics with strategic control, where the height and reach of the boxer will matter.  They also promised a Mixed Martial Arts franchise coming 2010, but were short on details, slipping into their new online website, coming with a browser version of Tiger Woods Golf.  They’ll also be a detailed team building option for NCAA Football 10, designing logos and choosing your field on the PC, then loading it into your console game with a few clicks.  Franchise mode in the next Madden will be handled much the same way, where you can do trades and compare stats right from your iphone.

Then came the bragging about their WiiFit clone, EA Sports Active.  It sold 600k copies in a short time, but not so surprising considering just how many millions WiiFit sold.  It makes me wonder how people even exercised before the Wii.  It must have taken some witchcraft to accomplish this impossible feat.  To finish up the sports lineup there was Grand Slam Tennis for the Wii, supporting the upcoming motion plus.  This did look like a solid tennis title, but during the demonstration the players were still flicking their wrists with small motions, rather than doing serves and lobs, making the motion plus feel just a little pointless.

The Saboteur started with a CG trailer that presented a nice sense of style for Nazi occupied Paris.  For the gameplay, they borrowed the visual identity of Schindler’s List, black and white with shades of red, to mark areas still under the Nazi control.  Though they left in so much color it actually felt tacky, like a half-colorized movie.  The rich feel of black and white is lost when you have dozens of windows filled with gleaming golden lights and a bright blue car by the roadside.  The actual gameplay looked solid, probably because most of it was borrowed from the Hitman franchise.  Sneak up to a guy, kill him to use his uniform as a disguise, commit your deed, and run like hell.  How fun it is will likely depend just on how varied these missions are.

It’s a shame for anything to be tainted by Jack Black, but Brutal Legend is definitely metal with these guest stars.  You have Lemmy from Motorhead as a mysterious motorcycle mystic name the Killmaster, Lita Ford in a little bit of nothing as a barbarian babe, Ozzie as the guardian of metal, and Rob Halford in not one but two crazy roles.  Not much of the gameplay was shown, but it seems to involve a lot of driving, ass kicking, and just plain rocking.

In the spirit of EA Partners, Realtime Worlds showed a bit of APB.  After a flash of what seemed like a pretty deep character customization, they slipped into a trailer that promises a online city teaming with AI life, where a hundred human players can come in, either as criminals or cops, and seek to achieve fame and fortune by either committing crimes or stopping them in progress.  Looked like an upgraded version of the Crackdown engine with plenty of explosions and mayhem to warm my jaded heart.

Then comes the big geek moment with the Imperial March filling the theater and jedi filling the stage.  This was all to set up a gorgeous CG trailer for the Knights of the Old Republic where the Sith storm a jedi enclave by crashing a ship into it, and unleashing the dark side of lightsaber wirefu.  It was a seriously impressive opening, almost worth seeing a movie of the stuff, but I have serious doubts the actual game, which wasn’t at all shown, will be anything like it.  They’re promising a story-driven MMO where each class will be a new experience, but I have reservations this will conflict with the group aspect that MMOs do best.  Still, it was a pretty classy/nerdy way to bring their conference to a close.

No show yet but a busy start anyway.

While E3 starts tomorrow (or technically a handful of hours as I write this) it unofficially kicked in today with a handful of press conferences.  Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft all had things to announce, some more impressive than others.

Microsoft kicked off the day with a press conference so incredibly exciting that Nick, Travis, Aaron and I all gave up simultaneously and went to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles instead.  From a personal perspective there were two things that caught my eye, namely Crackdown 2 and Shadow Complex.  The latter especially looks like it has a lot of potential, thanks to its unashamed Metroid/Castlevania influences.  Crackdown 2 didn’t have enough shown to get by on anything other than brand-name, though.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Microsoft’s camera control, Project Natal.  This looks more than a little silly, and not very fun at all.  Why would I want to move menus around with arm gestures when a few pokes at a controller does the same thing?  Why would I want my dashboard avatar to mimick my body movements?  Do we really need virtual friends like Milo?  And finally, do I really want to flail around my apartment in the fashion necessary to have full control of whatever games may come out for it?  I’m not feeling the optimism at the moment.

EA and Ubisoft both fared much better.  EA specifically was focused on games, games, and nothing but games, making a refreshing change from Microsoft’s social netowork integration and Ubisoft’s bizarre belief that the Hollywood skillset somehow makes for better gaming.

Take Brutal Legend, for example.  If Jack Black wasn’t involved this would still look like a complete blast.  There’s no Hollywood at all in Saboteur and it looks like a wonderfully fun stealth action game, especially seeing as it adds large explosions to the genre.  What movies have to offer games is endless experience in visual storytelling and the talent to present it, but that’s only one part of the overall gaming experience.

Still, it’s not like Ubisoft didn’t have a few goodies to show off.  None of them were Beyond Good & Evil 2, unfortunately, but Rabbids Go Home looks funny as hell so that’s ok.  A real surprise was Red Steel 2, which looks like it has the potential to make up for the pain caused by its predecessor.  I’m already sold on the Rabbids so may not devote much time to them on the show floor, but Red Steel 2’s improved style and more integrated swordplay makes it look like it might become the game Red Steel 1 wanted to be.

While all three companies had much more to say and show off, this is what stuck with me today.  The endless river of info has started flowing and it’s only possible to soak in a certain amount at one time.  In 6.5 hours the Nintendo conference begins, and then it’s off to the show floor for complete gaming submersion.  It’s going to be a very busy day.