Magic Three at E3: Wii, PS3, 360 - Features

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Magic Three at E3: Wii, PS3, 360

I’ve been told that the most exciting E3s are the ones where they unveil the new consoles. Last year, that wasn’t entirely true - Microsoft had just unveiled the Xbox 360 a week or two earlier, and all they had were choppy demos running on beta development kits. While the 360 launch turned out just fine (at least, from a software standpoint), it was really too early for Microsoft to show off much back then.

Now the other two big guys have entered the fold, with Sony finally opening the doors on the Playstation 3 and Nintendo seeking to rejuvenate the industry with the Wii. So how did these guys stack up?

Bioware's Mass Effect is looking like another hit (left); blowing up things in Crackdown.

Microsoft:

Without any huge hardware surprises, Microsoft could focus on the games, and their showing was much better than the previous year. Some of it’s bigger titles – like Blue Dragon and Gears of War – were unfortunately only shown behind closed doors (why they could put a huge banner of Gears of War outside the LA Convention Center and only show it to a limited amount of people is beyond me), but I was able to see Bioware’s Mass Effect, which looked brilliant. Imagine crossing the action-RPG gameplay of Deus Ex with the huge universe of Star Control 2, then add in the good/evil alignments from Knights of the Old Republic , and you’ve got a good idea about how amazing this game currently looks. Then add in some third-person shooting action mixed with tactical combat for your allies, and you’ve got a game that sounds almost too good to be true. Hopefully it won’t collapse underneath its ambitions.

The games on the floor were more of a mixed bag. Shadowrun was only showing off multiplayer, and seemed to be just another deathmatch-style game in slightly different clothing. Considering the potential – fans have been dreaming of a game similar to System Shock – they definitely seem to be squandering the opportunity.

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Silicon Knight’s Too Human looked to be a fun action game, but the extremely erratic frame kept it from being too impressive. Crackdown looked like yet another GTA-clone, except with a lot more style, showing off bright neon graphics mixed with characters that seemed to be cel-shaded. Rare, having completed the tortuous developments of Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero, were free to show off its light hearted (and gorgeous) kid friendly simulator Viva Piñata, which is looking to capture the same audience that Animal Crossing discovered.

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Even though the Xbox Live Arcade got off to a good start with Geometry Wars, there hasn’t been too much since. There were a few more announcements, most notable a version of Lumines, as well as several Konami arcade games, like Time Pilot, Frogger and Contra. It’s a good start, but seeing more support would’ve been nice.

Oddly enough, the best games for the 360 were found at Capcom’s booth. Lost Planet was a decent action game, but the real star was Dead Rising. While it’s nothing special from a gameplay standpoint, the concept – a mall full of zombies – is just brilliant. You’re a photojournalist, and with 72 hours, you need to get as many scoops – and save as many lives – before you evacuate. The goofy sense of humor is even more ridiculous than Resident Evil, since you can walk into a toy store, pick up a Servbot head (the little smiling robots from Mega Man Legends), and stick them on a zombie’s head, leaving them to stumble around aimlessly. Or change clothes in a children’s store and watch your main character parade out in stupidly tiny outfit. Or run into a music store and toss CDs at the undead interlopers. As far as playable games on the floor, Dead Rising is definitely one of the best.

Sony:

Sony’s press conference was pretty much a disaster, mostly because it was hard to take them seriously. They’re asking $599US, and one of their big games to show off was Genji 2, an unimpressive looking sequel to a game barely anyone cared about in the first place? Or showing off more generic first person shooters and action games? Or trying to use PSP connectivity in the same way that Nintendo did with the GBA, and failed? Can anyone actually look at the new Hot Shots Golf and be comfortable in saying that, yes, this is the next gen, and I’m willing to shell out even more money for this? And all of this was topped by the controller, which is practically the same as the Dual Shock but with tilt functionality designed to combat the Wii’s motion sensor. Was Sony actually getting that desperate?

Metal Gear Solid 4 (left); Gran Turismo HD (right)

For as awful as all of this sounded, the Playstation 3 showing really wasn’t that bad. The problem is, none of what they showed looked any better than any Xbox 360 game. Some of the trailers were decent, sure – Metal Gear Solid 4 dropped jaws once again, but how far away is that? And looking at the trailers for Assassin’s Creed and Final Fantasy XIII, how much of those were just prerendered?

The playable games were okay. Cross platform titles like Sonic the Hedgehog and Madden 07 looked identical to the competiting versions. Gran Turismo HD was just Gran Turismo 4 running in HD - and since the PS2 version ran in 1080i, that’s really not that impressive. Resistance: Fall of Man was a pretty decent game, looking to be kinda like Call of Duty with aliens, but it doesn’t stop the fact that the Dual Shock controller just isn’t good for first person shooters. Why didn’t change the position of the analog sticks, or tight them up? It’s still not nearly as nice as the Xbox/360 controllers. Heavenly Sword was meant to be the heir apparent to God of War, and while the character models and animation was impressive, it seems like most of the effort was put into making it shiny. Because that’s what you’re $600 will get you, lots of shiny.

So the most enjoyable game I played was Warhawk. Visually, it looks about the same as Crimsons Skies on the Xbox (thought with a bit more visual flair), but the amount of airplanes in the sky was impressive, and controlling your helicoper with the tilt sensor is pretty fun, definitely much better than the analog sticks. The only potential problem is that the full game will, apparently, not always take place in the skies, as there are several foot-based missions as well. You think they’d learn from Nintendo and the disaster that was Starfox Assault.

The PS2 showing was relatively impressive, at least compared to Microsoft (who had no original Xbox titles whatsoever) and Nintendo (who has a few Gamecube titles coming up, like Super Paper Mario, but didn’t show any.) The Playstation 2 has God of War 2, Disgaea 2, Yakuza, Rogue Galaxy, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, Persona 3 and several other games due out through most of the year. Granted, most of those are RPGs, but gamers needn’t abandon their PS2s just yet.

Nintendo:

All of Nintendo’s juicy stuff was enclosed in it’s own section, which led to the now-legendary line that required many attendees wait in line for up to four hours. Considering Sony didn’t have this exclusion for any of their games - plus they allowed third parties to demo Playstation 3 games at their own booths - Nintendo’s attempts to limit how many people could see the Wii was more than a little frustrating. Once you got in, though, there was an excellent showing.

The first game I tried was Zelda, which was oddly enough the most disappointing. If Twilight Princess was indeed delayed to coincide with the Wii’s release, it was a massive waste, because all the new controller offers is a pointer for various tasks, and some easier ways to aim arrows and boomerangs. I was hoping maybe it run at a better framerate or look a little bit nicer - but it doesn’t. The only improvement will be true widescreen support. This may work against Nintendo when come release day - if people see that both versions of Twilight Princess are exactly the same, except for the confusing new controller, why bother upgrading to the Wii? Hopefully the final version will show a bit more improvements.

On that same note, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption looked exactly the same as it’s Gamecube predecessors, except it put the Wii remote to much better use. Freed from the shackles of the original controller, moving, aiming and jumping came naturally within a few minutes. There were a few gimmicks, like tossing the nunchaku forward in order to activate the grappling beam, but it was pretty fun. Apparently this in confirmed for launch, and since Metroid has always been a killer-app for me, this alone guarantees I’ll be there for the Wii on launch date.

For as much as Nintendo and Ubi-Soft hyped up Red Steel, it was pretty much your standard generic first person shooter but using the remote to move and aim. It works well, but there still isn’t anything really interesting about the game. The sword fighting was also clunky and unresponsive - the game doesn’t precisely tracks the movement of the remote, so you swing to the left, and a split second later, your onscreen persona actually takes a swipe.

Kurt does some hand modeling to show off the Wii remote (left); Sam Fisher looks like he's having the mother of all bad days in Splinter Cell: Double Agent.

Oddly enough, one of the most fun titles was Excite Truck. Essentially a combination of Burnout and off-road racing, Excite Truck technically isn’t too interesting but made excellent use of the remote. By holding it horizontally, it acts as a steering wheel, which makes the movement much more precise than a mere analog stick. Unless the PS3's gyro sensor works out really well, the Wii is definitely going to be the place to go for fun racing games.

Then there was Super Mario Galaxy. While jumping from planet to planet seemed fun, the Wii remote functions seemed tacked on. In a press conference earlier that day, Miyamoto talked about how many gamers never really made the transition from 2D to 3D, because it was just too difficult to control. Nintendo wanted to make the way so that movement would be easier for people not accustomed to analog sticks and such. The specific instance he used was saying that people could just point at a spot on the screen, click, and watch Mario go. This didn’t really sound right to me. Super Mario Galaxy is a complete contradiction to these statements - you still move with the analog stick, and simply use the remote to pick up little gems that swirl around, or to stun bad guys. I’d venture to say that it’s even more difficult to control than the other 3D Mario games. It looks like it’ll turn out great, but it still doesn’t make sense to me.

And finally, there was the new Wario Ware game. Much like the original, it goes fast - almost TOO fast, because there are at least twenty different orientations to hold the remote, which are shown quickly before the microgame begins. It’s definitely fast and frentic, and seemed to offer much more variety than the other Wario Ware games.

They had a lot of stuff in the Wii section, but time was limited, so I didn’t get to check out any of the other stuff like Sonic Wildfire or the Virtual Console. I was also a little disappointed that they didn’t show ANY Gamecube stuff, like the new Super Paper Mario or Baten Kaitos II. Nintendo may claim otherwise, but it’s definitely looking to be almost as much of a dead system as the Xbox.

Paris Hilton made an appearance at Gameloft's booth to promote a game. Some game. What the hell was it called? Whatever. She managed to clog the aisles.

Conclusion:

I’m not going to say there was a real winner at E3 this year, because it’s practically impossible to judge. I will say Sony’s showing was more than a little underwhelming, but Microsoft has some great software, and the Wii is showing off some impressive titles, even if not all of them are completely sure how to use the remote.

Gears of War commissioned a floor "painting" to create a very cool effect in the lobby of the South Hall (left); Playstation 3 behind glass. One thing: Where's my boomerang controller?

I’ll close with this thought - I believe that Sony’s tilt sensor in the PS3 controller is a great idea. Why? Sure, it causes Nintendo fanboys to scream “ripoff!!” at the ever devious Sony, but it lessens the gap between the two systems in many aspects. Because of this, people can concentrate on the software instead of peripherals. As much as I dig Excite Truck, it was pretty much just an okay game with an awesome control mechanism. Now since Sony can (theoretically) compete on the same grounds, the two can put more effort into creating better games, instead of just a normal game with new controls. This seems to be the ticket that Red Steel is riding on, although Sony’s controller definitely won’t be able to mimic the aiming controls for first person shooters.

About the only other negative is that most of these games are a long time off, especially all of the Playstation 3 and Wii stuff. Nintendo and Sony haven’t reported a concrete launch day line-up either, so most of the games won’t be out until 2007. So it’ll be a long, dry summer of waiting ahead of us.

- Kurt Kalata

(June 2, 2006)


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