Zark’s E3 Roundup and Best of Show

Ok, I’m saturated with E3 2010 news, and ready to throw down the final verdict.  It’s a long one, so grab some popcorn and adult libation (or beverage of choice) and read on…

Games Played in 2009

I tend to buy more games than I play, and play more games than I finish, so I though this year I’d make a list of games played, with an * next to ones I’ve finished.  I’m sure this list will miss a lot, but here’s a go at it.

• Age of Booty (XBLA) *
• Animal Crossing: City Fold (Wii)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)
• The Beatles: Rock Band (Xbox 360) *
• Bejeweled Blitz (web & iPod touch)
• Beneath a Steel Sky Remastered (iPod Touch)
• Beyond Good And Evil (Gamecube)
• Chrono Trigger (DS)
• Deadly Creatures (Wii)
• Dead Space (PS3)
• Dragon Age: Origins (XBLA)
• Dragon’s Lair (iPod Touch)
• Dungeon Hunter (iPod Touch)
• Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard (DS)
• Fable II (Xbox 360)
• Farmville (web)
• Flower (PSN) *
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2) *
• Gears of War (Xbox 360) *
• Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) *
• God of War (PS2)
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)
• Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox) *
• Halo 2 (Xbox)
• House of the Dead: Overkill (Wii) *
• Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (Wii)
• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
• Legends of Zork (web)
• LEGO Rock Band (Xbox 360) *
• Metroid Prime (Gamecube)
• Moon (DS)
• New Super Mario Bros Wii (Wii)
• NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (Wiiware)
• Pac-Man Championship Edition (XBLA & iPod Touch)
• Peggle (iPod Touch)
• Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360) *
• Resistance 2 (PS3) *
• Rock Band (iPod Touch)
• The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition (XBLA & iPod Touch)
• Shadow Complex (XBLA) *
• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii)
• Sims 3 (Mac)
• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
• Tales of Monkey Island Part 1 (Wiiware)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Reshelled (XBLA)
• Toki Tori (Wiiware)
• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3) *
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) *
• Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (Mac) *
• Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Mac)

Not a bad list.  I actually finished more than I expected. Sadly, there are no PSP games on that list.  Not a good year for the PSP, even outside the PSP Go fiasco.  The Playstation 3, the console I have the least amount of games for, actually had a very good showing this year.

For those that just have to know, my Game of the Year, without a shred of doubt, is Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

PSP Go is a No Go Proposition

This week Sony is releasing their newest handheld: the PSP Go.  It’s the fourth iteration of the PlayStation Portable, and the first to differ significantly from its predecessors.  The console is smaller than previous versions, with a slide-up screen and controls located underneath.  The screen is slightly smaller, and overall the whole thing is smaller and lighter.  The biggest change is that the PSP Go does not feature a UMD drive for playing games and movies.  Instead, it has 16GB of internal flash storage, and all games playable on it must be downloaded from the PlayStation Store.

I was cautiously excited for it when the PSP Go was announced at E3 this year.  As the release drew near, I became less and less enthusiastic about it.  Since it comes out in a few days, I figured the time was right to outline why I think that the PSP Go is another misstep by Sony Computer Entertainment.

Zark’s Most Anticipated PSP Games of 2009

The PSP deserves less ports and more original content.  Will it be getting it in 2009?

PSP Skin

Here’s the second of the gadget skins I bought, this time for my PSP 2.0.  The skin from DecalGirl.com is called the PS9000.  Obviously it’s a play on Hal 9000 from Arthur C. Clark’s Space Odyssey series.  It also has a little twist of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in it, with the words Sirius Cybernetics Corporation on the back.

The final decals shown above turned out to be slightly different than what was pictured on the DecalGirl.com website, but not enough to make much of a difference.  I found the circular bits hard to apply, even moreso than on my iPod skin.  It came with a skin for the silver ring on the back of the PSP, but I had trouble lining it all up and thought it looked just as good (if not better) without it, so I left it off so you can see the actual silver ring.

Overall I’m rather happy with it.  I really like the skins they offer that come with a matching electronic wallpaper for the screen, so the screen and the skin around it blend together.

I have one more skin to apply, which I will probably debut sometime next week.

2008 Sony E3 Press Conference Thoughts

Last but not least, the Sony press conference.  My thoughts….

2008 is the Year of the PS3.  Hmmm.

Talking about their 10 year plan and how it’s all going according to plan.  Sounds like a bunch of spin on a disappointing console to date.

Blu-ray won the format war.  Very true.  Metal Gear Solid is only possible on PS3 because of Blu-ray.  Really??  Hmmm.

Recapping software in 2008.  Grand Turismo 5 Prologue. Grand Theft Auto IV.  Metal Gear Solid 4.  “This is why you buy a PS3.”

“Exclusive downloadable content is nice.  Exclusive games are what make up consumers minds and drive the business.”  Shot at Microsoft.  Kind of weak, considering they have good exclusive games too, plus some high profile exclusive DLC.

Resistance 2.  Looks decent, although it uses that some annoying brown gray palette that game designers seem to love these days for FPS.  Maybe a little more color.  Seems more Gears-ish.  I tried the demo of Resistance 1 and didn’t really like it, so this doesn’t get me excited.

Little Big Planet.  Still looks good.  I don’t know why I would want to design something in LBP, but they say you can download other people’s levels.  If they add a sorting method to separate the good user levels from the crap, it would be good.

Talking about gaming industry revenue.  Seems like a distraction from Sony’s less than stellar numbers.  They sold 1.8 million PS3’s in 2008, and 1.5 million PS2’s in the US.  Doesn’t sound like people are embracing Sony’s version of “next gen” like they would wish.  Touting Playstation and Playstation 2 numbers.

Greatest Hits for PS3 for $29.99.  The only one I might go for is Ninja Gaiden.  I already have Rainbow Six Vegas, Assassin’s Creed, and Oblivion on the 360, and don’t want the rest.  No Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.  I was so-so on the demo but thought I might buy it at a lesser price, so I was hoping it’d be a GH title.  Glad they’ve started the GH program though.

130 titles coming to PS2 in 2008.  EA Sports games.  Star Wars Force Unleased.  Singstar.  Yakuza 2.  Madden of course.  Mercenaries 2.  Interesting how much they tout the PS2.  It’s being supported by developers because of the hugely slow start of the PS3.  New PS2 bundle!  What about PS3 other than Resistance 2?

All Playstation network users will have a single logon.  I guess I didn’t realize that wasn’t the case.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty.  Seems like a bastardized version of a full Ratchet and Clank game for $14.99.  Why?  So you can get another R&C game out and have something for the Playstation store?

Other PSN download games:  Crash Commando (reminds me of Undertow on the 360), Fat Princess, Pixel Junk, Pain: Amusement Park, Flower, Siren: Blood Curse, Ragdoll Kung Fu.  I think I’d buy Siren.  The rest… meh.

Grand Turismo TV?  Not a big fan of car racing games.  Or TV shows.  It loks the the Speed network on the PS3.  Meh.

Talking about trophies (cough: Achievements).

Playstation Home.  “Your patience will be more than rewarded.”  No announcement of the release STILL??  Not even a generic “later in 2008”??

Playstation Network video delivery service.  Finally.  Rental and purchase.  Standard and Hi-Def.  Portable to PSP.  That’s very cool.  Other than that, it’s playing catch-up with Microsoft.

PSP talk.  New “family friendly” bundle.

Resistance: Retribution for PSP.  Looks pretty decent.  Not squad-based like the PS3 Resistance games.  Spring of 2009.  If I was more into Resistance, I might pick it up immediately.

PSP software highlights.  Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.  Nice.  Madden 09.  Meh.  Not a Madden fan.  LocoRoco 2.  Looks decent.  NBA 09.  Meh.  Super Stardust Portable.  Looks very good.  LEGO Batman. Wow, looks awesome.  Patapon 2.  More of the same.  Buzz.  Who cares?  Valkyria Chronicles.  Might be good.

Life With Playstation. Not quite sure I get it.  Coming within the month.

DC Universe Online.  MMO from Sony Online Entertainment.  Trailer looked interesting… I wonder how it will be implemented.  Free on PSN with disc purchase with no monthly fee?  They didn’t say.

80GB PS3 that “has the same functionality of the 40GB PS3” for $399 in September.  Another SKU?  Maybe they are trying to make it “the SKU.”

PS3 2008 titles.  Little Big Planet.  Motorstorm: Pacific Rift.  MGS4, Quantum of Solstace, SOCOM Confrontation, Soul Calibur 4, Resistance 2, The Agency, Naratu, Mirror’s Edge, Resident Evil 5, Singstar, Guitar Hero World Tour, NBA 09: The Inside, Buzz! Quiz TV, Killzone 2, Eternal Sonata.

God of War III announcement.  Trailer with no gameplay footage.  Not until Spring of 2009 though.  Probably a must buy.

Infamous.  Looks like Star Wars The Force Unleashed meets The Darkness.  Meh.

Massive action online game.  256 human players.  Eight-man squads fighting each other.  Meh.  Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.

Well that’s it.  Overall I’m disappointed.  I don’t think they hit it out of the park like they needed to.  Maybe I’m just not a fan of the types of games they are focusing on, like Resistance, Gran Turismo, and so on.  Not excited about much on the PS3 that I can’t get on the 360 except maybe Little Big Planet, maybe DC Universe Online, and God of War III, which doesn’t come until next year. On the PSP, LEGO Batman looks really sweet, as does Super Stardust Portable.  And the video tranfer from PS3 to PSP is nice, although I generally prefer to own media on disc over downloading it.  Didn’t see anything that my wife or kids would get excited about at all.

Too tired to add hyperlinks.  I’ll do a press conference wrrap-up tomorrow after I’ve had time to digest it all.