Category Archives: E3 2010

Albert Penello, director of platform marketing for Xbox, has said Microsoft doesn’t want Kinect games to be “shovelware.”

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Crytek’s Cevat Yerli has said when it comes to 3D, he’s heard Crysis 2 offers players a “more pleasing experience” than Killzone 3.

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With the exception of a certain single most popular subscription-based fantasy MMO in the entire world, radical genre reinventions and videogames have something of a checkered past. In the eyes of many, it’s like tracking mud all over holy ground, lighting a national flag on fire, or saying Firefly was overrated. In other words, a criminal offense of the highest order.

That, however, did nothing to dissuade 2K from taking the reigns to XCOM and steering it in an entirely new direction. Bye bye, turn-based strategy game. Hello, first-person shooter. 2K just painted a big red target on its back, angered a bull, then allowed itself to be chased into a minefield full of hornets’ nests. But was it worth it?

Creative director Jonathan Pelling sure seems to think so. We had a chance to sit down with him during E3, and – while we’re not entirely convinced just yet – he spoke with the kind of conviction that only plenty of thought and a determined, consistent direction can produce. From the sound of things, XCOM is in good hands. But enough from us. Pelling’s words speak for themselves. Click past the break to hear his thoughts on why XCOM may be truer to the franchise than the original X-Com, what the deal is with those blob aliens, what 2K’s doing to create a strategic first-person shooter, and tons more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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SEGA’s Mike Hayes has said in a recent interview that he’s very excited about 3D technology, although he points out that it has its bad points too.

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Capcom’s Kenji Inafune has said that gaming’s becoming largely a western market, which is why Capcom is “fighting the good fight,” in order to get its games to work.

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Microsoft’s senior regional director for Northern Europe, Neil Thompson, has said bringing BBC iPlayer to Xbox 360 is not a top priority.

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Peter Molyneux has said that he feels Sony’s Move and Nintendo’s Wii are essentially the same product.

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Civilization V is to come with mod and editing tools, as well as having the ability to import maps from Civilization IV.

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Civilization V producer Dennis Shirk has said the game will have “basic” multiplayer modes “out of the gate,” although he promised three more will follow.

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Designer Warren Spector, the man behind Deus Ex and Epic Mickey, has been blogging his heart out regarding his love for 3DS.

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Kinect creative director Kudo Tsunoda says the Microsoft motion device is just like Mario Bros. – and that’s what makes it so much fun.

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Castlevania: Harmony of Despair could eventually be released on PSN should the title sell well on Xbox Live, according to Konami’s Koji “IGA” Igarashi.

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BioWare believes developing games on PC is “less restrictive” than consoles, and according to Daniel Erickson, it will remain the firm’s “lead” development platform.

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Hiromichi Tanaka has said that Final Fantasy XIV Online skipping an Xbox 360 release was due to the console’s “closed” online environment.

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Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada has said that every game the company develops in the future will incorporate “some element of multiplayer or social gaming”.

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Retailers are suggesting 3DS will be released in February, with a price tag of around £200.

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Hiromichi Tanaka, vice president of software at Square Enix, has said that it’s possible to bring an MMO to PSP and DS.

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THQ’s core boss, Danny Bilson, has said the company is more concerned with drawing talent into the collaboration fold than acquiring development studios.

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This won’t end well.

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E3 isn’t exactly “normal,” but only one interview properly blew me away. I’d arrived at THQ’s booth for a meeting about “unannounced game” I made with UK PR weeks before, to be confronted with a screen showing the Devil’s Third logo, Valhalla legend Tomonobu Itagaki and THQ Core boss Danny Bilson, who was finishing off a phone interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Our chat, which saw Itagaki remove his trademark sunglasses and featured some genuinely touching comments from two genuinely sincere men, ended with the most surreal moment of my entire show. I stood up to leave and both Bilson and Itagaki went to shake my hand at the same time. I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed both their hands simultaneously. For a second we all stood there, in the middle of THQ’s E3 booth, holding hands.

I have no idea if it was the “right” thing to do or not, but it seemed fitting. Bilson and Itagaki are two men on a journey. Bilson is trying to build THQ’s core output by signing the best in the business, and Itagaki was talking about his first project since his very public falling-out with Tecmo and his departure from Team Ninja. There was passion, not arrogance, in the room. There was no cynicism or question-dodging; just a desire to make amazing videogames.

See for yourself.

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