Mon, Jul 21, 2008 | 07:55 BST
The winners and losers of E3 2008, part two – the games and services
It’s over bar the shouting. E3 2008 is done. Yesterday we took you through the highs and lows of the annual dick-waving contest that is the E3 press conference spectacle, but what about the games and services? Which products are going to be headlining over the Christmas period, and which are destined for the bargain bin? Hit the link for the biggest hitters, the sorest losers, the teeth-quaking megatons and the borked announces that made up E3 2008. See if you can pick the biggest winner and worst loser before you do.
The Biggest Winner
FFXIII – The most talked-about game of the entire week, and for good reason. Final Fantasy XIII has now entered the “super” global console release category, along the lines of GTA IV and MGS4. Some expert timing with the 360 announce and an obvious unwillingness to flesh out details in the aftermath has kept everyone thrilled and confused while holding the game’s mystery intact. The hottest property of E3 2008.
The Winners
inFamous – Shown briefly in the Sony press conference, the Sucker Punch free-roaming action title sang quality. While not planned for release until 2009, the game – feared as “just another one” – raised plenty of eyebrows with highly polished footage. One to watch.
Resistance 2 – Yep, it was pushed heavily in the Sony conference, but only the most churlish would turn a nose up. Giant bosses, giant environments, giant thrills for the shooter-hungry. It’s toe-to-toe with Gears 2 and the only winner is the punter. Brilliant stuff.
Gears of War 2 – It’s a 360 headliner because it looks amazing. End of. The Epic actioner has more of everything for its sequel: more plot, more detail and a massively bumped multiplayer aspect. The final admission that four-way co-op won’t make the cut is a negative, but the game’s conference showing was spectacular. Winner.
Wii Music – It may have had one of the most embarrassing reveals in gaming history, but Wii Music is likely to be just as successful as anything else Miyamoto and Iwata have dreamed up for the ludicrously popular console. It’s “Rock Band for your mum,” and nothing will stop it selling millions. The “core” don’t care, but when you’re drowning in money what do pimply games journalists matter? Win win win.
Wolfenstein – The game Return to Castle Wolfenstein fans had dared to hope for – a generic shooter. It’s Wolfenstein turned up to 11, with more Nazis, smoking graphics cards, green lighting effects and stupid guns than QuakeCon on overtime. A triumph for the hardcore, and one badly wanted by the FPS massive.
Fallout 3 – The Bethesda action-RPG surprised many that saw it for the first time with its level of violence (“It’s not exactly The Road, is it?”), but the post-apocalyptic quest for justice has to be high on the list of most “men” for the end of the year. Hard to believe this will go wrong, given both the heritage and a good showing in the MS conference.
Resident Evil 5 – Again, a no-brainer, and a game that looks to be actively living up to the hype. It shared centre billing in the MS conference with Fallout 3 and Gears 2, showing online co-op for the first time and wowing the faithful. It may be a 2009 release, but a PS3-360 split ensures sales success for the hi-fi Capcom zombie-masher. This did not lose.
Xbox Experience – It takes some balls to ditch your entire UI, but Microsoft’s first showing of Xbox Experience – the new Xbox 360 dashboard – was a near-flawless affair. Obviously borrowing from Vista functionality thinking, the new set-up includes Avatars, Netflix for the US and party features for Friends. And it’s hitting this year. Win.
PS3 Movie Store – This really did look good, and a solid presentation of the PS Movie Store’s features – one of which was highly welcome streaming viewing – was backed up with an announcement of an instant release. Sony said it was going to do it, it did it, and it did it well. Good work.
Rage – The star of the EA press conference, id shooter Rage managed to get through the show with not a bad word thrown in its direction. It’s a great relief to see the project end up with such a big publisher, especially given a nebulous unveiling at QuakeCon last year, and a new movie showed Carmack hasn’t lost his touch. Winzor.
God of War III – The next game in PlayStation’s favourite action franchise won simply by turning up. A teaser in Sony’s press conference showed little aside from Kratos shouting about “chaos,” but it didn’t need much else. A full reveal would have been welcome in an otherwise dry event, but it was better than nothing.
Prince of Persia – “Wow” summed up the reaction to a long gameplay demo of Ubisoft Montreal’s Prince of Persia at E3, and a widely-reported off-screen movie showed why. The third-person action-adventure looks stunning, and appears to pack in as many new design elements as it can without overload. We won’t know until we play it, obviously, and there’s no guarantee of commercial success here, but PoP could make a easy stab at being labeled “Game of the Show”. An top-drawer debut.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts – This has “quality” stamped all over it, and given the lack of “core” Nintendo games for the rest of this year, fans of the more cartoony side of gaming aren’t likely to be looking beyond Rare’s latest Banjo title this Christmas. Along with a good showing for Viva 2, it looks as though the British developers’ worm has well and truly turned. For the win.
Flower – Despite the fact that no one appears to have a blind clue what it actually is, the PSN title was precisely everywhere at E3. It probably just goes to show how homogenized the rest of the conference was that some CGI of swirling petals can create such interest. Winner.
The Losers
Motorstorm 2 – Evolution’s racer sequel looks fantastic and the original’s one of the biggest selling PS3 games to date: so where the hell was it? Everyone expected a major showing in the Sony conference, but nothing happened. We sincerely hope this doesn’t bode ill for release this year. Regrettably, it’s a loser.
Wii Sports Resort – We don’t care if it sells 50 billion copies. Throwing a Frisbee for a dog is not acceptable. It’s 2008. If you can’t come up with anything better than that, Nintendo, you may as well end it all, probably by drowning in money. Loser.
Fable II – Of all the “big” 360 conference games, Fable II looked the least convincing. Molyneux proclaimed the RPG as “finished,” but compared to the blockbusting of Gears 2 and Fallout 3 the demo was just too flat. With news that the main story is 12 hours long emerging later in the show, the question must surely be whether or not the title can hold its own among some very serious company at the end of the year. Thumbs down.
Home – It’s just getting dull now. There was no release date for Home from Sony at E3, merely a promise from Jack Tretton that it’s going to be worth the wait. The Home beta is scheduled for public launch at the end of the year, and while a new movie showed users launching games from the service, news of region-locking from later in the show and a lack of firm details was a low blow. There is, quite literally, no place like Home.
Halo – How do you fuck up a Halo reveal? You don’t, right? Wrong. Bungie’s new game was supposed to be shown at E3, but Microsoft stopped the entire thing at the eleventh hour. Bungie issued a letter to the fans saying it was “gutted” at the move, and a loose-lipped Don Mattrick revealed the title to be a Halo game in an MTV interview. Really, truthfully, badly done. Lose.
WipEout HD – It just wasn’t there. SCEE’s been sketchy on a release date all year, and the latest was that we were going to see the future-racer this summer, but David Reeves confirmed it’s been pushed back to the end of the year. Hopefully. Big disappointment.
MAG – Sony’s “big thing” in its conference, Zipper’s Massive Action Game really did fail to capture the imagination of the masses. Offline talk after the event was one giant “meh.” Technically it looked superb, but chatter swirled on the validity of 256-player shooter matches and the “greyness” of the entire spectacle. Far more questions than answers with this at the moment.
Borderlands – Gearbox’s third-person post-apocalypse effort has been well-hyped, especially in the financial media, due to its billing as a top-line Take-Two product, but a first proper showing failed to impress en bloc. The screens lacked sparkle, there were some outlandish statements made in the Take-Two conference, and we’re still no closer to a solid release date. Might have been better to stay away, frankly.
Tomb Raider: Underworld – It looks brilliant, so why didn’t anyone push it forward? It’s Lara, right? The first movie everyone saw was a terrible YouTube grab, and while a decent teaser did come later in the week, surely this could have been handled better? What could have been one of E3 2008′s biggest games, to be blunt, fell flat on its arse. Another missed opportunity by Sony – a demo would have perked its conference right up.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – Again, a knock-out trailer just before the show, then nothing. This has to be one of the highest profile third-person action games on the imminent horizon, so where was it? Lucas pushed Fracture harder during the event itself, or so it seemed press-side. Just weird.
You’re in the Movies – Just no. We’re sure the game will be fun, but the presentation was the lowest point of the entire 360 conference. We’re not quite sure why this was pushed up so high in the showing, but surely there are more impressive “party” games on the way for 360? Evidently not.
The Worst Loser
E3 itself – Sort it out ESA, for Christ’s sake. Rick Perry? Who? The entire industry’s questioning the validity of E3 on a real level after the past week. We love the show. We always have. But some of the comments made in private about the event since Monday aren’t fit for publication. A selection that are:
“No one needs to go to E3 any more.”
“The show’s like a graveyard. I’m never going again.”
“I’m pretty sure I just spent £3,000 to do something I could have done on an internet connection anywhere in the world.”
“Really, what’s the point?”
“The only things that matter are the conferences, and two of those were shit.”
Honestly. It’s been like this all week. Find a proper meaning for it, ESA, because if one of the Big Three back out, it really is curtains.
Read the first part of our winner and losers of E3 feature – focusing on the platform holder press conferences – right here.
36 comments
#1
Psychotext
18/07/08, 1:05 pm
Look, if “You’re in the Movies” really does have the ability to make busty women toss off bottles then I’m all for it. Who are you to argue?
#2
patlike
18/07/08, 1:12 pm
#3
Blerk
18/07/08, 1:14 pm
I wouldn’t have put Banjo or God of War (the I Am Alive CGI was more interesting) in the top bit and I wasn’t quite as bummed out about Fable as you, but otherwise that’s a pretty good list.
Mirror’s Edge has been one of the big ‘hmm’ games for me, I’m really not feeling that like some people are. And the gameplay footage of The Last Guy was a major disappointment for me this morning – not what I was expecting at all.
On the flip side, I’m a bit more interested in Dead Space than I was before, and my Fallout 3 interest is also much improved. And I liked the Star Ocean video, which nobody else appears to have even watched.
#4
Blerk
18/07/08, 1:14 pm
Wait! You put Wii Music in the top bit too. I didn’t notice that before. You mentalist.
#5
morriss
18/07/08, 1:17 pm
Fable II is just disgracefully wrong. The trailer gave me goosebumps, and the orbs around the map showing where your friends are in the game was brilliant.
Peter Molyneux is also my dad so I of course take it all very personally.
#6
patlike
18/07/08, 1:19 pm
I thought about Wii Music a lot, and I reckon calling it a “loser” would be insane. Despite the fact it made me want to jump out of the window, obviously
#7
Blerk
18/07/08, 1:26 pm
Perhaps we could compromise and just call the guys who were playing it on-stage “losers”?
#8
morriss
18/07/08, 1:27 pm
Calling Miyamoto a loser is a bit…you know…”wrong”
#9
patlike
18/07/08, 1:27 pm
*shakes on it*
#10
Robo_1
18/07/08, 1:34 pm
A fair summery.
For a game that’s due in spring, I expected to see some in game footage of MAG, but there does seem a fair amount of cynicism regarding the game, even though it’s hard to fault its ambition.
R2 went beyond expectation though, and I like the attitude of “between this and Gears, consumers win”, rather than people squinting at texture resolution so they can label one the “winner”.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a fan of the series, but the whole FF thing seems to have been overblown. Sony have kept exclusivity of the game in the market it not only sells best, but would have done MS most good, and in this day and age, I think third party exclusives are becoming a thing of the past anyway.
I was very happy to hear that you’ll soon be able to rip 360 games to hard drive, as that will not only remove much of the hideous din the machine makes, but save the disc drive.
Sony announcing a movie store that was available (if only in the US) that evening was quite special, but why on earth they held back details on stuff like Tears of Blood, Heavy Rain and chose not to showcase the rather awesome looking Motorstorm 2 is beyond me.
It was certainly the strangest E3 I’ve ever seen, which desperately lacked exciting new game reveals, and Nintendo’s presentation felt more like a surreal stand up routine than anything else.
E3 has had a different vibe to it since it was neutered last year, roll on TGS
#11
Blerk
18/07/08, 1:38 pm
I wasn’t that disappointed in Borderlands either, tbh. Mainly because I had no expectations of liking it in the first place. It didn’t turn out to be quite what I was expecting, so it actually went up a little in my estimations.
Rise of the Argonauts didn’t look too bad. Velvet Assassin was sort of interesting but had a completed retarded ‘I’m in a little bit of shadow therefore I’m entirely invisible even if this guys looking right at me’ sneak mechanic. Ghostbusters looked a bit meh. Lego Batman looks cool. Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon wins the award for ‘crappiest-looking next-gen game I ever saw’. Sonic looked… like Sonic. LittleBigPlanet looked great. I actually watched the whole of 1Up’s Gears 2 presentation – very sharp. Resistance 2 looked good.
I’m sure I’ll think of some more in minute.
#12
Bertie
18/07/08, 1:39 pm
PS3 movie store a winner? The one that Europe won’t get this year you mean?
#13
Blerk
18/07/08, 1:40 pm
Oh yeah – Silent Hill 5. Oh dear.
#14
SplatteredHouse
18/07/08, 1:44 pm
“Tomb Raider: Underworld – It looks brilliant, so why didn’t anyone push it forward?”
QFT. Mystified about it how was left to the gaming media to present coverage of this one. I agree, that it deserves more of a fuss made about it. The game is standing tall, in its own right, and is really looking great. Would have easily been a plus, to either of the non-Nintendo conferences.
I think, that Sony, in particular though, were very silly not to include it, given the strong association the series has with the Playstation platform.
#15
Blerk
18/07/08, 1:53 pm
They might be slightly shirty with Eidos for not doing PS3 versions of several of its recent games, including the last two Tomb Raiders. Weren’t Eidos quite vocal about not supporting the PS3 in its early days too?
Actually, does anyone know which version of Underworld they were showing on the show floor? 360? PS3? PC? What?
#16
DrDamn
18/07/08, 2:23 pm
Loser – Fable 2 – where you thought the Fallout 3 demo was better? At least Fable 2 showed some nice and unique features rather than a step by step demonstration of each “cool” weapon with no reference to the meat of what is actually an RPG.
#17
SplatteredHouse
18/07/08, 2:37 pm
I’m not sure at all about Fallout 3.
It was an ok showing.
I wish someone would explain the value, and method about the VATS system, where the camera zooms in on the foe, and percentage values start appearing across them. I’m concerned that something like that will take all challenge out of the thing. It also reminds me too much of Oblivion; and I recall that as being a disappointing experience, after the superior Morrowind. FO3 looked to be lacking in substance.
@Robo – I think Motorstorm 2 would show better at Leipzig. Given the expectations, it might have been difficult for them to have accrued a big enough buzz from its unfinished state to warrant its inclusion in Sony’s pc. We already knew it was on the way, and they’ve shown enough gameplay in the past.
I liked the demo that was given of Fable 2. That’s residing in “not at all bad” territory. The main positive being the orbs that represent someone on your friends list playing, from where you can bring them in to your game. That’s good.
#18
Blerk
18/07/08, 2:58 pm
My understanding of the VATS thing is that you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to – you can play it as a straight shooter if you wish. If you don’t want to, you can use it to queue up particular shots by activating it via a button-press. The percentages show your chance of actually making the shot.
#19
Whizzo
18/07/08, 3:00 pm
The demo was rigged in such a way that it was pretty much insta-death for any hits anyway so it wasn’t such a good demonstration of how VATS works. The E3 demo is possibly the best example of badly showing off a game in some time, it looked like a post-nuclear shooter when it’s not.
#20
Hero of Canton
18/07/08, 3:54 pm
It’s a shame you didn’t widen this to include companies as well as games, because Konami and Capcom would land on the bottom of the ‘losers’ section with a dull thud.
Capcom spent half an hour talking about Lost Planet: The Movie, and Konami’s demonstration of Rock Revolution was so bad, it made the earlier GameFAQs walkthrough of one of Silent Hill: Homecoming’s levels (“meat sacks”) look like the FFXIII reveal.
My two-pennorth about Fallout 3 – it’s definitely missing something. And that something is probably ‘charm’. I’ve seen it already, and the problem with first-person combat in an RPG is that it’s not going to compare well with your average shooter. And you might not think that’s an entirely fair comparison, but your brain will make it anyway. VATS looks interesting, but needs to be balanced perfectly so as not to make things too easy. I quite liked Oblivion, but I don’t necessarily think swapping swords for guns works that well in this case.
#21
Hero of Canton
18/07/08, 3:56 pm
I also think you’re right to have Wii Music in the winners. Because I bet a few people play this at Christmas with their families – possibly after a few sherries – and realise that it is actually great. As long as you’re not watching a group of fortysomething developers playing it, that is.
#22
Blerk
18/07/08, 4:01 pm
Did Sega show Alpha Protocol? I was expecting to see that, but I don’t seem to have heard anything about it.
#23
patlike
18/07/08, 4:17 pm
HoC – Not a bad suggestion, that. Maybe do it for Leipzig.
#24
patlike
18/07/08, 4:20 pm
Blerk – I’m not sure if it was there, but there deffo was an asset drop this week.
#25
Blerk
18/07/08, 4:25 pm
I’ll keep an eye out, then. Quite interested in that one.
#26
whoelse
18/07/08, 6:10 pm
I agree that overall, E3 was a little disappointing because there were little announcements. What happened to these motion controllers and stuff?
#27
sweetasman01
18/07/08, 6:46 pm
Motorstorm, killzone, LBP, Heavy Rain will most likely be pimped at lepzig later this month since they are being developed by european teams European trade show = European games
#28
Psychotext
18/07/08, 6:48 pm
Leipzig is this month? Cool!
#29
morriss
18/07/08, 6:55 pm
“European trade show = European games”
Not really, no. But good logic.
#30
ecu
18/07/08, 6:55 pm
Leipzig is next month. August 20th, to be specific.
#31
wz
18/07/08, 7:08 pm
You sure need to sell and wear some VG247 shirts so I can identify you lot on conferences
#32
Psychotext
18/07/08, 7:27 pm
Aww.
#33
morriss
18/07/08, 8:11 pm
You’ll be able to tell who we are quite easily, wz. Just look for two blokes who look like they haven’t slept or washed for a few days with steam coming out of their keyboards!
#34
absolutezero
18/07/08, 8:40 pm
I pretty much agree on everything apart from Fallout which seems to be trundling along on good will alone.
Everyone wants it to be a fantastic game, but to me that small demo was bloody terrible, the environment was horrible, the fighting crap and disconnected. I don’t care if I zoom in a half mile to shoot something in the toe.
#35
deanimate
19/07/08, 1:02 am
its worth watching all the other fallout 3 videos that are out there as the E3 one is generally considered one of the poorer ones. hit up nma-fallout.com and look through all their news posts to find all videos and writeups so far.
im personally looking forward to it a lot
#36
jrnolasco44
21/07/08, 10:19 am
i think a REALLY big winner not mentioned has to be Little Big Planet. User creation in this game is simply amazing. If any dissapointed Nintendo fanboy were to get a “cartoony” game to fit their desires, it would undoubtedly have to be this game.