E3 Part 2: Games and hardware that intrigue me

There were a fair number of games discussed at E3 that while I'm not necessarily excited to play them, I am intrigued by them.

Monkey Island - I won't deny it. I miss old computer games. I miss Hugo's House of Horrors and Day of the Tentacle. I am awesome at clicking the mouse on random items. News of a renewal of the Monkey Island franchise has made my ears perk up. It's just going to have to be a wait-and-see situation for me.

ModNation Racers - From what I saw, it has all the appeal of a Mario Kart where you can build your own tracks. And the build system they should could not have been easier. So while in games like The Sims, I don't mind spending hours perfecting their houses, if I'm making a track in a racing game, I want the time between creation and actually playing on it to be as short as possible. It just all looked so smooth.

Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - I still haven't finished Phantom Hourglass. I have yet to play Twilight Princess. And I just downloaded Majora's Mask and have barely gotten into that. So this game is on my radar, but I've got a fair number of games ahead of it. I like the style that the Zelda games have taken of late.

I guess that's about it in terms of games that have really piqued my interest without being games I'm really excited about. My list of games that I really want to play is devastatingly long, causing this list to be shorter than I had anticipated.

EDIT: I was going save all the motion stuff for a separate post, but I think it will fit in here just fine.

Everyone has jumped on the motion control bandwagon. Not surprising; when done right, it can be really fun. One of the benefits of being in the business was that I was able to watch most of the big three keynotes streaming live while at work. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all had motion demonstrations, and all of them brought something a little different.

Nintendo - Wii Motion Plus - I have to say, this is a huge disappointment. It seems to me that they want to sell me another periferal that will make games operate in the way they promised the Wii would work in the first place. I think this is especially apparent in the fact that one of the release games for this new technology is Red Steel 2. The first Red Steel game was supposed to be so awesome, since it would be like you were really swinging a sword. We were pumped. This was the wave of the future. I mean, come on, if you're swinging a virtual sword, how long could it be before you're swinging a virtual lightsaber. Geeks of the world, REJOICE.... until any of us actually played the game. It was "cool", but certainly not the revolution in gaming that we had all anticipated. So I really find I have no option with this new tech but to be wary.

Sony - Playstation Eye - This tech is clearly still in the early stages of development, but it seems to be based off the same principles as the Wii motion controls. You've got a couple of wands and you use those as placeholders for whatever your character is weilding in the game. The demonstration that had reminded me of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Not that it's a bad thing. It was really kind of cool seeing the image of the guy doing the demonstration holding cartooney weapons. Having a controller means that, yes, you will have to buy extra controllers if others want to play, but it also solves problems that I worry Microsoft might run in to. That being said...

Microsoft - Project Natal - I don't think that anyone at Microsoft doubted that the demonstration for their new baby would make people talk. And it most certainly did. I'll admit, I'm probably not as skeptical about it as I should be, but I want it to be awesome. One of the facts that gives me hope is that Johnny Chung Lee, the guy who put together the Wii head tracking 3d thing, worked on this project. This dude does cool things. My only concern is that while peripherals will be supported, game developers may be too willing to jump whole-heartedly into the motion sensing that they won't include them when needed. This would become especially a problem in terms of UI. Now, if I have a UI bar along the side and I can just virtually press buttons like in the movies, that'd be just fine with me. But if I have to pat my head and rub my tummy while standing on one leg to bring up the multiplayer menu, that would be a problem. Example: I love Okami. I have it for the Wii. It's tons of fun. But I haven't finished it. And I haven't played it in a while. I'm going to have to start over because I don't remember what any of the motions are. I just don't want an entire library of games that I'm going to have to remember a separate set of motions for.

That covers most of what I have to say about E3. I do want to cover a few major disappointments, then I can be satisfied that I have had my say.

So help me, I'm blogging.

Alright, here we go. An hour for lunch and I'm going to try and cram in most of what I've wanted to write about for the last two weeks...

First off, I am so very excited that yesterday was the beginning of COMMISSIONATHLON 2009. For those of you not in the know, Obsidian of Commissioned Comic has this mad plan to do one commissioned piece of art a day for the next month. All of this is to fund his trip up from Colombia to Conneticon at the end of July. O's first piece was Scott Johnson's WoW character Gerp and his tiger pet Henry. It looks awesome. It may be my favorite of the WoW character drawings I've watched O do so far. I was fortunate enough to get to see the whole thing, and I am not so much more excited for the commission that I have coming. Brian and my piece is scheduled for next Tuesday, June 9th. I'll be sure to tweet about it when it's happening and I'll put the finished piece up here when I get it.

Along those lines, I got a wedding invitation from two of my good friends, and their wedding is on the first of August. This is squarely in the middle of Conneticon, solving my on-going questioning as to whether I was going or not. I'm sad I won't get to go see O, but maybe the 'con means that more awesome stuff will be going on sale in his store.

E3... It deserves it's own post, but I want to at least get my initial impressions out in case I don't get another chance to write. The big news: I'm going to have to buy a PS3. I don't really want to. But I must. Team Ico announced The Last Guardian, which I have been waiting for years to hear about. It's nice to have an actual trailer (even if it is only a teaser) rather than whisperings, hopes, and the occasional blurry screen shot. Shadow of the Colossus is very likely my favorite game ever, and now I'm trying to get my hands on Ico. Along with Little Big Planet, that I've wanted since it came out, and God of War 3, Brian and I just can't fight it much longer.

I'm sure my WoW characters have been weeping uncontrollably at my absence. I miss them, too. Daniora is working on getting her last Champion city, Orgrimmar. She's also gathering up enough Champion seals to get her hippogryph. Amelinda of Earthen Ring is leveling... slowly. She's still in the Ghostlands, but I have got to tell you, I am loving AIE. It's really nice after a hard day at work to be able to surround yourself with a wall of friendly green text. I think people have the impression that there are so many jerks on the internet because all the nice people are tied up playing in the guild.

Scott Johnson's got a new podcast, this time pairing up with Eric, otherwise known as SkyHawk. It's called AppSlappy and covers apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Very nice. I can't officially review it here until there are at least 5 episodes, but expect something soon.

Brian Dunnaway of Mission Deep, ELR, and Comics Coast-to-Coast has said he's been working on a few new things for the site. I can't wait for that!

Phew. That was quite the linkfest. Hopefully I'll be able to get more regular and less insane posts out in the near future.

Also, I'd like to give a big internet shout out to Beth, the greatest office manager any company could hope for.