Geek on Stun

The Good E3 Report

I'm back from Los Angeles and E3. I didn't play Doom 3, Half Life 2, the Nintendo DS or the Sony PSP, but I did play some very good, decidedly fun games. One of the difficulties of playing a game at E3 is that you generally have about 10 minutes worth of playtime before you start pissing off the guy behind you, which doesn't leave you with much time to familiarize yourself with the control scheme and get some good impressions of what a game has to offer. Playing Silent Hill 4 at the show was a fruitless endevour, quite the opposite of playing Gradius V.

Since I don't have media giant access to a bunch of great videos (that's what Gamespot is for), I'll just tell you what I had fun with at E3:

• Gradius V - Spot-on control, simply beautiful graphics and classic Gradius gameplay, plus two-player simultaneous play made Gradius V one of my favorite experiences at the show. Also, it has a mid-range price ($29.99 at EB). Well done, Konami!


• Katamari Damacy - The Namco booth was filled with yawn-inducing sequels (Tekken 5) and me-too gameplay (Death By Degrees), but this previously mentioned title was playable and extremely fun. A simple, tank-style control scheme and cute, stylized graphics made this a must-have (for me anyway), but the camera could definitely use some tweaking.


• Blood Will Tell - Known as Dororo in Japan, and based upon the manga of the same name, this Sega game was surprisingly fun to play despite being one of the 3rd-person action/adventure games that seem to be glutting the market. Again, the camera was troublesome in spots, but the control scheme was easy to pick up and the action was fast and furious.


• Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - Clapping your hands and smacking conga drums are the only way to control Donkey Kong in this musical platformer. Again, simple controls made this another reason to pick up the finely crafted conga drum controllers for the Gamecube.


• Killzone - First, let me just tell you how much I dislike playing first-person shooters on a console: I dislike it a lot. Now, let me tell you how much.. fuck it, I loved playing Killzone. Excellent graphics (for the PS2) and intense gameplay combined with a smooth frame rate, plus free beer from SCEA made this the game of the Sony Meeting Room.


• Burnout 3 - Not only were the developers extremely nice, they made a kick ass game that kicks ass. I couldn't be more tired of racing games, but when the objective is to smash the crap out of your car and run your opponents into the walls, I get giddy. Easy to pick up, a joy to play, Burnout 3 takes all the pain out of a racing game and leaves only fun.


• Astro Boy - This Playstation 2 game, while, at times, difficult to control, made for an enjoyable experience. I was definitely put off by some of the camera difficulties, but the game still has potential. Hopefully, Sonic Team will take the few remaining months it has left to tweak the control scheme and camera issues and make Astro Boy into a day-one purchase.


• Transformers - It may already be out at retail, but this was my first chance to pick it up. Reviews have only been above average so far, but my 15 minutes with the game was a hell of a lot of fun. The transforming aspect was extremely cool, the control was tight, and the license was handled well. Thank God we're beyond Beast Wars!


• Half-Life 2 - No, I didn't play it, but the 30 minutes worth of demo that Valve presented got me more excited than any other game at the entire expo. It was just plain fun to watch. The announcement that Counter-Strike (and the original Half-Life) had been ported to Source, the Half-Life 2 engine, was pants-wettingly exciting.

Other games that I didn't get to play, but spent a good deal of time watching were Final Fantasy XII (which smacks so much of Vagrant Story I will have to pick it up), Resident Evil 4 (which looks to breathe new life into the series) and Doom III (which actually looked pretty damn good on the Xbox).

I also had fun outside of E3, including a trip to the Getty, a facility so beautiful it warrants a Counter-Strike map and, following day 2 of the event, we took a ride over to the Little Temple bar in Santa Monica for a night of video game inspired performances. We were treated to an informal Street Fighter II tournament (I lost twice as Dhalsim, then won six matches as E. Honda) and a set from the honorable Daedelus.

Good times. Good, extremely nerdy times.

Look for The Bad E3 Report and some photos of the event soon.

Posted by geek