E3 Nintendo "Spotlight"

With day 2 starting, we have the headliners back to back. Nintendo and Sony. First to bat, Nintendo with all the new information on the 3DS and Zelda.

• The Legend of Zelda, Skyward Sword - Coming right out of the starting lane with the one everyone has been looking forward to, Zelda for the Wii. We are shown a short trailer for the game and then a live demo. Nintendo had a few problems with the controllers doing what they wanted to. We see that Nintendo is going full force with the Motion Plus, now your Wii Remote and Nun-chuck are your sword and shield in the game for Link. The showed off the new slingshot skills, the use of a whip and a beetle that scope out ahead of you and pick up items. It's still in early development. I wouldn't expect to see this released until Holiday season of 2011.

• NBA Jam - Not much but a blurb was said about this game. Not sure if it's going to be a revamp of the original or a new one altogether.

• Mario Sports Mix - Mario is venturing to more sports this Spring 2011 with volleyball, dodgeball, basketball, hockey.

• Wii Party - New party game that uses your Miis. Basically this looks a lot like a Mario party game but for the Miis. With over 70 games you will be able 

• Just Dance 2 - New moves, new music and up to 8 players. The sequel to the successful dancing game for the Wii. 

• Golden Sun, Dark Dawn- After many years of nothing, the Golden Sun story is back and for the Nintendo DS. Game play looks beautiful and fully uses both screens to tell this story of the fan favorite RPG.

• Goldeneye - A revamped version of Goldeneye for the Wii. Something to really look forward too, coming out this November.

• Disney's Epic Mickey - You play in Wasteland, a land of forgotten theme park rides and characters. The main game mechanic is derived from erasing and creating, using paint and paint thinner. Players change the game world and doing so changes the game play. Characters talk to you differently on how you play, whether you defeat an enemy or change them to good. A mix of platform, adventure and RPG game style. The live demo plays through the world of Steam Boat Willie, which is the episode short that introduced Mickey to the world. The art of the movie scenes looks gorgeous in this game.

• Kirby Epic Yarn - An adorable game that uses a similar side scrolling style that we saw in Paper Mario. You use the world around Kirby to zipper, pull and string your way through levels. This game has a release date of this fall.

• Dragon Quest Live -  Already released in Japan, this wildly popular game is going to our shores in 26 days, July 11th, with online play and the game goes on after you shut your DS. They did a shout-out to a player in Japan who had logged over 150 hours already in the game.

• Metroid Other M - Another Metroid game to be released for the Wii and created by Ninja Team, who brought us Ninja Gaiden. Samus returns on August 31st. 

• Donkey Kong Country Returns - A new Donkey is coming out this Holiday and it looks to be a keeper. The game is back to it's roots, being an awesome side scrolling, rail riding, banana catching game. Music sounds amazing and true to the game.

• Nintendo 3DS - Finally, what we have been waiting for, Nintendo DS using 3D technology without the use of the glasses. A technology that's been around for a short time but hasn't been used. You'll be able to choose the degree of 3D power that the hand held puts out, all the way to turning it off altogether. Suprisingly, the DS has been out for 6 years, with 4 different DS styles. The DS, DS lite, DSi and DS XL and now the 3DS. The new hand held has a sliding circular analog pad above the D-Pad. The 3DS will have camera functionality, the DS will have two camera lenses on the outside which is suppose to be able to take 3D pictures. The DS demos will be showing off 3D movies on the DS, but this might not turn out to be an actual function for the released system. The new DS will have a different way of talking to other DSs. Being able to somehow communicate even when you change games. 

• Kid Icarus, Uprising - A game designed specifically for the 3D function of the new DS. Kid Icarus is back in this beautiful 3D game. With a release of Coming Soon. 

• Nintendogs & Cats - The DS will now have it's crazily popular game released again for the 3D function and bringing along furry cats for the party.

So with that, about a hundred models entered the floor with strapped on N3DSs and went out to show everyone the new technology. Something to look forward to, I wish there was a release date. That's this years Nintendo Press Conference, I think they took the cake with this one. Sony has a lot to stand up to now.

E3 Ubisoft | Games You Can Feel

The room goes dark and we watch 10 minutes of a man playing a trippy game for the Xbox using the Kinect. G4 then screwed it up for a bit (no wonder Microsoft jumped the ship with Spike TV), I'm guessing the game is called Child of Eden though. Then I was happy to see Joel McHale (of The Soup) hosting the Ubisoft Press conference.  After that we were back on track with game demos!

• Assassins Creed, Brotherhood- With a November 16th release date, we are ready for another Assassins Creed game. A beautiful trailer showcasing what you would expect for this game. Auditore is back and is still quite the ladies man. The demo shows your Villa under attack and you escaping on horseback through your crumbling village. Switching over to a cannon attack, you try to hold your villa. The game looks beautiful with far off detail of the land around you. Then before you know if you are in sword to sword combat all in a matter of a few minutes of game play. This game boasts many different game mechanics and even more interesting ways to assassinate your enemies.   

• Shaun White Skateboarding- Move over Tony Hawk, Shaun White is back again this year to show off his new game, and he's moving into your turf. Skateboarding.  Shaun White's third game takes to the streets to show off all the new moves. The demo begins with a slightly creepy dead and void black and white world. As you skate through town, you bring color to the world. Though, I thought this game was already made... Super Mario Sunshine or even The Blob. Ignoring that, you add life back to the dead world and transform the world around you. Creating rails, skating down through the subways, making trees become full and colorful with life. I find it a strange way of playing, the idea of building the rails and ramps as you go through and ride on them. 

• Battle Tag - Something different than anything else I've seen today, a new laser tag type game that you play with your friends that updates to your computer. You can play against each other with up to 4 Vs 4 or play using targets. Seems pretty neat, I guess price point will really be what makes this game. The game comes with two guns, two harnesses and targets and bases. 

• Innergy-  The creator with quite red hair, had Joel McHale put on a finger sensor and then went through a breathing exercise on the computer. The sensor followed his breathing pattern. The game is basically a relaxing tool in a game form. Could be cool, but looked to be in it's beginning stages, may be something to watch out for.

• Rayman Raving Rabbits, Travel In Time- This series is back again and this time back IN time. The trailer shows the rabbits going back to the stone age, pyramid building Egypt and to the pulling of the sword in the stone. Only for the Wii.

• Ghost Recon, Future Solider - A demo is shown of this new Tom Clancy game. The game looks gorgeous with sneak kills and invisible armor allowing you to get to the enemy unnoticed. The demo shows the player sneaking through an enemy beach and slowly approaching and finishing off each opponent that stands in your way through stealthy moves.

• Driver, San Fransisco - Another game in the Driver series. The trailer shows us the main character, John Tanner, a detective taking down the crime-lord Jericho. Going back to the roots, in beautiful California's San Fransisco, amazing car chases, the game goes for the 70's car chase movie feel, as it's original game was based off of.  New feature is the ability to shift from vehicle to vehicle to chase on the over 200 miles of roads. 

• Project Dust- The start of this trailer states that all of the video is made of actual in game footage. Very short video, not really giving to much information about the game other than it is a working title.

• Rayman Origins - The Rayman series is back and without the Raving Rabbits! A side scrolling flat 2D with beautiful artwork . The trailer shows that it used many different artists work to create the world you play through. Gorgeous landscapes paint the background of this game. 

• Mania Planet - This new computer game allows you to play through user made worlds of FPS, RPG and Racing.  You'll be able to play by yourself or with others in this community made gaming world.

So with this I bid everyone good night and will see you tomorrow for more updates as they happen. 

E3 EA Press Conference

Everyone was handed 3D glasses and the show began.

• Need For Speed- "Taken Back To It's Roots" Exotic cars, epic drives, hot pursuit. You can choose a career as a cop or racer. Two players show us the cop and chase mechanism to the game during this hot pursuit where the cop eventually rolls the chase car ending with a "BUSTED". Game looks like an interesting style of race game with lots of ways to compete with friends and anyone online.

• Dead Space 2-  The demo begins with the player walking through a church before a massive creature knocks the player to it's feet. As you would expect from this series, the game has creepy as hell monsters, this demo showing us hordes of tiny naked baby like creature trying to eat your face off.  With a cliffhanger ending, we are told we will know what happens at the Sony show.

• Medal Of Honor- A staggering number of players are brought on stage to play this game all together, showing off it's multi-player gaming.  October 12, 2010 release date. Beta being released June 21st.

• EA Gun Club- An online rewards club to early access to betas and exclusive guns for games. GunClub.EA.com

• Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam- An expansion pack for Battlefield Bad Company 2, to be released this holiday season.

• EA Sports MMA- EA Sports brings us a new ring fighting game with many different fighting styles from all over the world. Said to be intuitive and based off of timing rather than multi-button skills. Online play and ranking system. The game also uses a new "Live Broadcast" system, which seems to be a YouTube for the EA Sports players. Seems to be a really strange idea that is sure to bring hilarious movies. I'm not sure why anyone would actually want to see a bunch of people crap talking each other and then play a video game. Not to sure about this one EA. Some how you are supposed to get noticed and they'll have commentators talk about your smack talking game play and you can win prizes.

• EA Sports, Active 2- I'm surprised that EA is already releasing another ones of these so soon, as far as I know, it didn't do that well. But either way here's what it is. The press conference shows the game for the Wii, PS3 and Xbox. The Wii showed how it uses the wii remote controllers, the PS3 had bands to wear to see the player and the Xbox uses the kinect. Biking, boxing and lighting hand weights were shown off.

• Madden 11- We know what to expect with this game. They say it'll be easier to play and more fun. I'm not sure why this matters, because the people who play it don't want it to be easier to play, people just want updates rosters and for the game to be up to date year to year.

• Sims 3 - They want to bring Sims 3 to the consoles and stretch the world of Sims further than before. They spoke of the randomness of the lives and then played a music video following the love and loss of the Sim families. Basically the whole show was the hype up the game on consoles, which I've always hated. That's not a game that will ever work on a console. 

• Crysis 2- Though no one but the people at NASA had computers that could play the first Crysis, the sequel will not make this same mistake. Being released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, the game takes place in NY and you have to save the city from an crazy... well.... Crisis. The game looks beautiful and the game play looks entertaining. The game will also had 3D capabilities, this is one to watch for.

• Bullet Storm- I'm not sure about this game. I couldn't really get past the weird comments constantly being thrown out like "Last train out of blast town". G4 hosts have been talking this one up, so it makes me wonder if it's going to be any good or if they are just getting paid a lot to hawk it.

• Star Wars, The Old Republic- The long awaited MMORPG of the Star Wars world, chose between good and evil in this expansive world. My complaint is that, I really want to see game play for this, rather than more trailers. Still, the trailer was beautiful and gave me and my roommates lots of Ooh and Ahh moments.  Though the Lucas Arts rep stated that there would be hands on play of the game on the showroom floor. So hopefully we will see some of that coming about.

E3 Microsoft

Spike TV had full and uninterrupted Microsoft coverage for E3. This is what you may have missed.

• Call Of Duty, Black Ops- Helicopter fighting, crawling through rodent infested dirt tunnels, the game looks like not much to be excited about in my opinions. Graphics are nothing to write home about and let's face it, it's not by the main COD company that brings out the games that we love. Xbox will have early rights to the expansion DLC for the new COD game. 

• Metal Gear Solid, Rising- A new game from Kojima Productions, brings us a new game to the Metal Gear Series. Very little was actual discussed about the new game, but the trailer shows a Raiden like character slicing and dicing his way through enemies in a unique and new way. Then ending with this character slowly and precisely slicing a watermelon. Too early and too little shown to really make a decision about this game, but just by the look of it, the game looks to be something to watch for.

• Gears of War 3- We were shown a 4 player co-op play of the new Gears of War 3 game. The four gamers played through a short level, defeating a boss and getting to a safe zone. Game looks pretty decent.

• Fable 3- As my roommates and I joked, not much can really be said about this trailer as it will all be taken with a grain of salt. We are quite used to empty promises from the makers of the Fable series. Graphics look about the same as Fable 2.

• Halo Reach- Bungie bragged about it's billion hours of online play and called Reach it's biggest game yet. September Release Date as most of us already know. Trailer of the game was shown.

• Kinect- Even though the Kinect (Previously named Project Natal) actual press show happened last night (Sunday) the TV airing of it will not happen until Tuesday night on MTVs 30 minute coverage of the showcase. Microsoft did cover Kinect in their press show. Viewers are shown that Kinect reconizes the player and that with a literal Wave to the xbox, Kinect instantly knows who is waving to it and logs that player in. With another wave Kinect goes to a menu showing Facebook, Zune ,Last FM, and Netflix. The young man (Ron) showing off Kinect says the comand "Xbox" as if to wake it up and make it listen, then "Zune" to tell the Xbox to go into the Zune. Once there Ron uses his hands to choose the movie he wants and he starts to play Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. All without the touch of a controller. The person shows off how with the command "Xbox Pause" he can immediately pause the game and as simply "Xbox Play" one can start the movie again. Then with the command "Xbox Play Music" the Xbox goes through his Zune music selections. Of course a joke about a middle age black man listening to Justin Beiber is made. 

• Video Kinect- This program uses the Kinect to video chat with anyone who is using a Windows Messanger or has a Kinect sensor. The Kinect sensor can detect your body moving and tilts and adjusts to keep you in the screen. The user showed how she could call her sister across the world (who also had a sensor) and watch a movie with her.

• ESPN On Xbox Live- If I was into sports, this would something cool. Free with a gold membership, ESPN on Xbox allows you to watch your favorite sports games in HD and answer Trivia, watch all the stats on ESPN.com and root for your favorite team. All of this without a controller, used with the kinect.

• Kinetimals- An ADORABLE little girl came out on stage and played with her cute tiger pup named Skittles. She showed off how he can play dead, jump and how searched for her when she went hiding. She rubbed him all over and played with his toys. 

• Kinect Sports- Voice commands sports and getting the crowd rowdy. When they actual got to showing of the actual game, two players jumped hurdles and raced together. Running in space and jumping. You can play such sports as Soccer, Bowling, Track & Field, Ping Pong, Boxing, and Volley Ball.

• Kinect Joy Ride- Holding an imaginary steering wheel in her hands, the player pumps her hands forward to boost her car and race through the track. Using her whole body to show the kinect sensor when to drift through turns and when she physically turned her body in a circle, her car did a 360 turn trick on a ramp.

• Kinect Adventures! - A simple game of moving your body to hit the coins and avoid the obstacles. A second person comes into the view of the sensor and the game automatically splits the screen and brings in the second gamer. While the two gamers were playing the game took fun action shots of their jumps and manuvers. Another set of gamers came on the screen to show off a boating through the rivers game where once again they were trying to reach as many coins through the path as possible. Jumping and riding on clouds, they both looked like they were getting quite the workout. You can then post these crazy photos taken instantly to Facebook.

• Your Shape, Fitness Evolved - Ubsioft brings us a work out game using the Kinect powers to move and work your way to a better you.  A gamer is brought out to try out the game. The game recognizes her removing her sweater as it watches every part of her body. The game scans her body and shows her height and the game uses this scan to make the work out fit her. You can choose a personal trainer, work out in martial arts or do gym activities. The young women begins doing knee ups with a coach, the game watches her body and places a scan of her on screen to see how her movements compare to the coaches. The game keeps a counter of how many calories you burn while playing. She then goes through a slow Tai-Chi workout, where the game tells her to concentrate on her breathing while moving through the slow movements.  I'm personally excited about this game. 

• Dance Central - Harmonix's new dance game. A dancer enter the stage and begins dancing along to the music with the in screen dancers. Where DDR used to have four arrows to move through, the screen shows a wide variety of dance moves to roll through, showing on the right side of the screen the upcoming moves. The release this holiday season. 600 moves and 90 routines. Break it down mode is shown, where the user learns the dance moves. Okay... This game I'm REALLY excited about.

• November 4th Release date in America for Kinect with 15 titles at launch. 
• Star Wars - Lucas Arts will be releasing next year a star wars game using the kinect sensor. Users will wield a light saber and fight their way through droids and fighting their favorite villains from the movies.

• 10- Another, less gimicky racing game for the Xbox. Using the kinect, you can physically walk around and check out your car, looking at the front, back, and wheels. Open up the car and look at the engine, get inside and drive off. Racing, your put your hands at 10 and 2 and go. 

• Slim Xbox 360- 250 GB HD, build in wifi and Kinect ready.  ALL FOR 299$. GOING TO BE IN STORES THIS WEEK. I'm already doing the math to figure out how I can afford to buy it as soon as it comes out.

E3 Pre-Post

Just to make sure everyone is aware, tomorrow is the first day of E3 being aired. The first live broadcast will begin at 3PM on G4 and it will live. G4, however, will not have either of the two Microsoft "Spotlights". The Project Natal preview will be on MTV and the actual Microsoft "Spotlight" will be airing on Spike TV. So make sure you are all set on times and dates for each. G4/G4.com will have complete coverage of everything else.

I've got everything on DVR and plan on watching as much as humanly possible live with my roommates. Check back for my full coverage of everything E3.

E3 Excitement

I don't know about any of you out there, but I'm extremely excited about E3 2010 this year. But let's face it, I'm known for getting excited about a lot of things (like getting mail that isn't bills or my dog doing her business in the first few minutes of walking her in the mornings). With this years E3 in less than a week, my DVR is set for both Spike and G4's coverage, and I'm ready.

The one thing I'm craving more of and have been since it's reveal at E3 2009, is Project Natal. I have a sad, sickening feeling that once released, it'll feel gimmicky and not work as well as advertised, but I really hope it proves me wrong and turns out to be just as cool as it seems. I'll admit it. I LOVED Hey, You Pikachu!. When I bought that game, I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. And that was only voice recognition, and not even done that well!  I wanna feel that way about Project Natal. I was never impressed with the Sony's "Eye", having tried it on both the PS2 and PS3 for various games. I'm pleased that, rather than staying with the typical 5 year life expectancy of a gaming console, Microsoft has stated that they intend to keep with the 360 into 2015 and Project Natal is a big key in that. Project Natal is supposedly capable of identifying individual fingers. INDIVIDUAL FINGERS! Having heard so little about Project Natal through 2009, Microsoft sent out STD fliers (that's Save The Date) for the "World Premiere 'Project Natal' for the Xbox 360 Experience" on Sunday, June 13. I can't wait. Please don't let me down, Microsoft.

Some other topics I look forward to seeing;

• Nintendo's 3D DS (N3DS)
• Sony Motion Senser
• Playstation Network + (Paid Subscription PSN)

 So who is going to take the show this year? What else do these companies and others have under their sleeves this year? What is going to make me foam and the mouth and squeal? I can't wait to find out.