Introducing Koniesis! \o/ No, wait,... /o\ Those idiots called it Kinect. Then again, what can you expect from a company that named a video game console "360"...

I haven't seen much yet, but my colleague tells me that all of the Kinect demos are weak casual games (which seems true based on the first demo I saw, a completely stupid use of the peripheral if you ask me).

I am told that Nintendo's only offering is the 3DS, which may or may not be cool, but I don't know.

I am excited to see what Sony has to show (on top of Portal 2 and Steam for the PS3).

Define "weak". I don't play them, but it's where the market is right now, like it or not. And by casual game standards, they look pretty strong to me, price aside.

Still not going to play them though.

Probably the Move. Casuals win again!

It's E3. I highly doubt casual gamers are showing up to it (that would be somewhat of a contradiction). This was essentially the first real taste of Kinect and I'm sure the audience was full of hardcore 360 gamers. Instead of seeing something they would like, they saw a guy allegedly manipulating some flashy "cursor" to ... I don't even know what. It was such a casual game I couldn't even figure out WTF it was. You couldn't even really gauge how well the technology worked because the guy controlling it was in the dark and the screen was all just flashy, casual blah.

How is Move casual? My colleague said that Sony is demonstrating more hardcore games with Move. Allegedly Dead Space (update) and Dead Space 2, for example, will support the Move (though to my knowledge they were not shown at E3). Unlike Microsoft, however, Sony is apparently supporting both controller-based play and Move, so if you prefer the SIXAXIS or Dual Shock 3 then you can still use them (allegedly, BD makes this possible). My colleague said that Microsoft is picking and choosing.

What does that have to do with anything? It's a press conference. This is what Microsoft is working on. This is there next big push. What else would they show? A bunch of stuff they're NOT working on? To not hype their "next big thing" would be suicidal ...

Honestly, I don't know that much about Move. It just screams "Wii wannabe" to me from the few videos I've seen. I'm open to being corrected on that.

Firstly, the Move doesn't need to want to be Wii. It's better. Way better. Nintendo never really delivered on the motion controller front. The Wiimote kind of works, but it doesn't work at all well. Even with the Wii MotionPlus extension, I've heard that it's not good enough to make you feel like you're in control.

Secondly, PlayStation is a hardcore platform (with support for casual gamers). Here's a demo featuring a "street fighting" game and SOCOM 4.

I see the whole point of the 'casual' entry point is to attract non-gamers, which the wii has shown to be a big earner. You can see this by the move from the 'no-frills' interface of the original 360 to the 3D and Avatar based system and now onto the 360 slim with wireless.

Once you have a captive market with the novelty games you then move onto the 'proper' games.

Microsoft have always been embrace and extend, never to innovate.

Okay, granted I watched that with the sound off, but all I saw was Wii Boxing with better graphics, and some guy who plays SOCOM on the PS3 remarkably like I play Metroid on the Wii. I'll grant that the fighting might have better motion response than its Wii counterpart, but I live with a black belt and most of my friends train in martial arts, so all these games are casual to me.

EDIT: Had to be done.

{"name":"903426984_Tg2it-L.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/e\/aea7e076145bcab86b99885378156ffd.jpg","w":800,"h":401,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/e\/aea7e076145bcab86b99885378156ffd"}

This entire post brought to you by Kool-Aid™.

I'm kind of excited. For the first time in my life I have been fortunate enough to own all the latest generation consoles. I'm stoked for the new game lineup coming from Nintendo, I can't wait for Move and Portal 2 (although I may get Portal 2 on PC) and the whole Kinect thing will probably turn out to be pretty neat too.

Pricing wise for motion control, Kinect Wins ($150 for four players), Wii is second (Wii mote+plus $50 + Nunchuck $20 per player, so $70. Buying a new system only requires 3 more controllers sets) and the expected price for a complete Move thing for one player is $150... Not sure how much of that is the Eye, but if you just buy a PS3 now...

You know, the PS3 is for folk with money to burn. 360 only gets close because of the paid online service (which I think I hear PS3 is offering too, but what you have now is still free, you can just get more demos (or get them sooner) and discount on the store)

My choice of gaming makes both 360 and PS3 not worth the money to me. The games I want are normally either on the PC and/or Wii anyway.

Portal 2 looks sick. So does Metroid: Other M. I might have to buy a Wii just to play Metroid.

Portal 2 looks wonderful. A little disappointed we didn't see more from Valve (I was holding out for a Half-Life 2: Episode 3 announcement), though.

At least we now have game play footage of Portal 2. Might need a new video card...

Can someone explain to me why they feel the need to market this new display technology as "3d"? It's just confusing. It bothers me to the point where I've made it my agenda to intentionally confuse any mention of it with references to conventional 3d graphics in general, and make mocking and sarcastic comments about how they've finally gotten past Wolfenstein 3d.

Seems portal 2 is now a mainstream game and not a series of puzzles. I think I prefer the latter.

I was actually expectant of any news regarding Sonic 4. ^_^ Sega at least decided to actually delay this game for improving it!

EDIT: Anyone saw anything about MK9 other than the trailer?

According to Wikipedia, about USD$50 for the Move controller, USD$30 for the navigation controller, and IIRC I got my PlayStation Eye for a mere CAD$40 (probably two years ago, now). I'm sure the PlayStation Eye is shared by as many players as are supported so you should only need one of those. Besides, the PlayStation Move actually tracks your movements. It doesn't pretend to like the Wii. I'd be happy to pay extra for that, though I'm not convinced that you will be. Additionally, there are supposed to be kits to buy the whole package (and a game) for about USD$100.

The Wii is such a joke and always has been. The very first time I tried it I was bored of it within minutes. It doesn't track my movements and isn't fun.

Why are they advertising Shovelware for Kinetic? If they had shown it being used in something like Halo or GOW as an alternate control, it would've had a much better reception. It's not like "casual" audience are a synonym for crappy family games. Many "casual" people prefer playing games like GTA IV.

I'd say the answer to that is lag. Even a tiny bit of lag would totally kill it as a control scheme for an FPS. That's pure speculation based on videos I've seen of Kinect units in action.

There's a good reason two of Microsoft's Entertainment Division head execs were given the boot a few weeks ago, and I'd say Kinect is a large part of that. The rest being HP's giving Win 7 mobile the boot in favor of Palm's offering, and tepid responses for Zune HD and Kin.

Prices from Best Buy at this post time.

Let's see how much the hardware for playing consoles are. The targets are dumb cheap parents (*A*) who know nothing about games, so they'll buy the system, and if they need to, a game, then maybe get their kids a game at the times they would get their kids gifts.
The other is a gamer (*B*) who is cheap, and wants to avoid spending too much money.

So we'll start with both not having anything, and just want something to get started. In both cases, they may have to stick with the game they chose for a year, even if it's crappy. In the long run, they intend to buy everything needed to enjoy 4 players in all the ways you control the system. Price of games will not be included in the factor at all, as both targets would just buy from the $20 bin when they get a new game.

360: (with two games)

• Arcade $150

• Elite $250 if they want the hard drive and not have to worry about buying it later.^[1]

PS3: $300 + Game (Dumb cheap parents will not consider this option... Ever)
Wii: $200 (with 1.5 games)

A sees 360 Arcade as the best deal. B May know enough about the 360 to know the arcade is missing the HD, and the Elite is the perferred way to buy the 360. Money wise, he'll go with the Wii. The PS3 is out for the fact the cheapest system is the highest of the three, and doesn't come with a game.

Okay, so let's say, both targets wants to include all the stuff for four players locally. Let's see the extra prices (and the total they have to spend off the bat)

(Note: No 3rd party. We'll assume both have knowledge the 3rd controllers may not be as good as the 1st party ones)
360: +$40*3 = $120, +$50*3 = $150 wireless

• Arcade Total $270/$300

• Elite Total $370/$400

PS3: +$55*3 = $165, $465 total
Wii: WiiMote w/Plus +$50*3 = $150, Nuncuk +$20*3 = $60, $410 total

360 is a bit complex all of a sudden. 360 has both the wired and wireless option for more price points (4!).

360 is still winning. With the wireless (that only B will consider actually, because of where he might setup the system at may cause too many issues with wires) 360 Elite ALMOST match the Wii's price. A now has a reason to consider the 360 all of a sudden.

Now, for having all the ways to control the system now (Two sets of points, without the online 'only' stuff, and all, both 1 and 4 player pricing, online 'only' being 1 person only, also ignoring games require special controllers, like Rock Band for example)
360:

• Media Remote: $20

• Play and Charge: $20 (*4 = $80)

• Messenger Kit (online): $30 (Note: can't seem to get keypad alone...)

PS3:

• Remote: $25

• Eye: $40

• Bluetooth headset (online): $40

• Keypad (online): $40

Wii:

• Classic Controller: $20 (*4 = 80)

• Wii Speak (online): $30

360: (1p/online|4p/online)

• Arcade wired: $(310/340|370/400)

• Arcade wireless: $(340/370|400/430)

• Elite wired: $(410/440|470/500)

• Elite wireless: $(440/470|500/530)

PS3: $(530/610)
Wii: $(430/460|490/520)

... 360! DAMN YOU! (Damn you A.CC for scrolling this text window to the top of the post window when I inserted the smiley)
PS3 is really getting too high. NOTE: It doesn't add anything that requires the 4 player vs 1 player price point. But, it's lowest is 360's highest! Damn.
For B is suddenly the Wii is winning... Err... But like the last stage, it's close... For A, 360 still wins...

Let's clean this mess up. We'll take the highest price point, and add the stuff that's coming soon, using pricing we know about (bam as my source for PS3 stuff):

360: +$150 for Kinect (wired/wireless controllers)

• Arcade: ($550/$580)

• Elite: ($650/$680)

PS3: $50 for main controller, $30 for nav controller (1p/4p)
Eye now: ($690/$930)
Eye with Move ($100 bundle): ($700/$940)

Wii has NOTHING new for this stage. It wins. With the move Bundle, to be fair, even though it costs more, it DOES come with a game you would have to pay extra for without it. Actually, considering you have to pay extra for a game UNTIL the move bundle comes out, the PS3 is not for people who are cheap.

Note, there are factors I have left out that could swing the price in favor for some of the systems. A may end up getting the 3rd party controller for the 360 to knock that price down. Oh, and let's not talk about 3D TV's with the PS3.

A hell of a lot of game developers do show up to it though. And they want to make money off casual gamers.

The PS3 is such a joke and always has been. The very first time I tried it I was bored of it within minutes. It doesn't have characters with big googly heads and isn't fun.

See, it works both ways. Fun is an opinion thing. Personally, I don't find any consoles fun, but that doesn't make them a joke.

console wars on a.cc. They're all good. Pay for what you like, no one is shoving it down your throat and forcing you to buy it.

Someone asked about the new Mortal Kombat: some footage is floating around from ScrewAttack of the fatalities in the game, I've seen it, and damn they made me cringe, they're going as realistic as possible, unlike the last few MK games. Each character has their own individually modeled internal organs and skeletons which are actually present inside the characters during the fight, - and they can be broken/destroyed before the fight is even over. There are also some interviews with Ed Boon discussing the gameplay and such.

Is anybody else not thrilled by motion sensing systems? I'd prefer not to have a workout when I want to relax, playing a video game.

Yea, seriously. It looks to me like a cheap gimmick, not an actual revolution in gameplay (like they make it out to be). It's just going to make you look goofy and feel silly.

Some time ago I've said that if I was going to buy a console it'd be Wii. It certainly is intriguing way to control a game. But since then I was able to see people playing it and was offered a chance to play DDR. I must say that these control schemes, while intriguing are totally gimmicky. I'd rather take out my bike then making a jerk of myself in front of the TV.

Where do you get that impression? The videos I've seen show standard Portal-style puzzles. There will perhaps be a few more story-centric segments, but that's about it.

I think he meant that Portal is now "cool" and "mainstream," and no longer has the appearance of being the small kid on the block.

I disagree with that, though.

Nice! Thanks for that! It's nice to see MK going back to be as goofy and gross as it was.

Shock. One thing you left out is that anyone that wants to watch Blu-Ray movies (likely anyone with an HDTV, which seems to be most people that I know) will need to buy a dedicated Blu-Ray player if they only get a Wii or 360. With a PS3, they can kill two birds with one stone. That's a savings of easily $100 (for a cheap model that probably can't be updated) to $200 or $300+ for a better model.

You're absolutely right that the Wii and 360 look like the better system to cheap people, but that's quite irrelevant to me, a hardcore gamer interested in getting the best system. The PS3 wins that hands down. It took some time for all of the cheap people of the world to see through the cheap gimmicks of the Wii and 360, but they've begun to. The PS3 is the better system. There's no doubt about that. It costs a little bit of money, but you get what you pay for. The 360 and Wii are cheaper because they're inferior. The PS3 is more powerful, more functional, and built much better. It's a far more pleasant experience.

The only thing the PS3 has really come up short on from a gamer's perspective is friends-based networking. That should improve with the paid-for networking service. That's probably going to be a killer for 360, unless Kinect is really as good as Microsoft wants us to believe. I still have my doubts.

Most PS3 games should allow you to choose whether you want to use the motion controller or the regular controller. Some of them are apparently specific to the motion controller, but many or most should support traditional controls as well. I've heard that won't be the case for the 360, though I haven't even seen Microsoft demonstrate how you would play a 3rd person shooter with the Kinect, so maybe that'll just be limited to casual games anyway.

I wonder if maybe it will be good for gamers to get the exercise. Remember this thread? We already have the reflexes of a fighter jet pilot. Now we just need the bodies of one. I imagine that the exercise will be good for us, particular our hearts and lungs. Personally, my body is tuned for little physical exertion, which means that it doesn't take much to get me out of breath. Which is sad because I don't look out of shape. I'm pretty thin. It's probably from a lack of working my cardiovascular system.

Have you seen the SOCOM 4 demo? That actually looks quite cool. Assuming the navigation controller is easy to hold and use, it should make for a completely new gaming experience. And the fighting looks like it will be quite fun also. I'm also looking forward to sword fighting and archery and other ideas that have been demonstrated by Sony. There's a lot of potential there. Nintendo and Microsoft have been using it as a gimmick. Sony seems to be actually delivering on what we imagined it would be.

I think that's a good thing. I loved the story segments. The commentary from GLaDOS made that game so awesome. The puzzles were OK, but I think there's a lot more potential. Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be awesome.

Portal is mainstream. I think it always was. I don't see what's wrong with that...

It came as a little addon game in a pack of 4 other monster games - HL2, HL2:EP1, HL2:EP2, and Team Fortress. Now it's all growed up. That's all I think he was pointing out.

That did look kinda fun...

I'm looking forward to kirby on the wii. The style reminds me somewhat of paper mario.

Why the name "/Epic/ Yard" though? Couldn't they have pick a somewhat less boastful name? Then there's Epic Mickey. Considering the character and the vault of characters to use, that could justify the use of Epic in the title, but still.

Maybe Yard Kirby is like Paper Mario? We might see a series based on yard in the long run.

A wild, grand story bordering on the unbelievable was once referred to as an "epic yarn". Hence, the title. That particular usage of the word "yarn" has fallen into relative disuse these days.

Perhaps Fabric Zelda and Glitter Metroid are next?

Haha Wii vs PS3 argument all over again. Bambam never fails to deliver.

First of all, I don't see how Kinect is a bad name. It's no stupider than Natal was.

Wa-wa-wa-wa-wait. I thought you fanboys always touted free online gameplay as a superiority of the PS3. Now you condone paying for it?

I also find it amusing that you, as expected, think that Sony's version is superior. Everything I've read has written off Move as being an "hd version of the Wii." This time around, Kinect is truly innovative - not requiring special controllers and what not.

I personally own all three systems. I rarely ever use the Wii (online play is a pain in the ass, and Wii is only fun for party gaming IMO), luckily other family members do so it wasn't a total waste. Other than that, I don't see too many differences between the 360 and the PS3 when it comes to actually playing the games. The XBox is louder, and has a superior controller layout, and the PS3 can play online for free and play blu-ray. Otherwise, the gaming experience on the two systems is pretty much the same.

Yet you talk down on Kinect, which tracks you as well. Only you don't have to hold some silly glowing controller.

Which cheap gimmick does the 360 have? I haven't been utilizing it, apparently...

Sony said jump, the fanboys said how high.

That's not a good defense.

Basic functionality is still free. You can still play games and do everything you ever could. The paid-for service adds more things to that, which will probably be developed with the revenue from the subscriptions.

You can still play online for free with PlayStation! The stuff that it hasn't done well, like allowing you to communicate with friends across games, etc., are what is lacking and that I'm happy to pay for. Someone that doesn't need any of that though can just use the free service, which works plenty well for most everything else.

We haven't actually seen the Kinect work. Not precisely. We've seen Microsoft demonstrate it, but everything they've shown can easily be done with camera tricks. I found it interesting that they were demonstrating casual games instead of more interesting game ideas. I honestly don't think controlling things with your body is going to be as fun as people imagine it to be. I think it'll more than likely prove to be poor at tracking people or easily confused and don't really expect Kinect to live up to anyone's expectations. We'll still have to wait and see though.

It allegedly tracks you. We'll have to wait and see. The Move is apparently responsive in less than a frame (has the same latency as the SIXAXIS/Dual Shock 3 controllers). I wonder what the Kinect will have.

Well, the 360 for one. How many people had to send them away? Something like 40%? Many had to send them away multiple times! And they were still failing 3 years after launch! I don't even know if they've finally fixed that problem.

There's also Halo and Gears of War and.... These are not good games, IMHO. They're actually pretty watered down and crappy. Yet they're toted as huge games and the 360 gamers think they're the greatest ever...

It's where the market's been heading ever since FarmVille matched World of Warcraft in userbase. I'd be shocked if they hadn't. Get with the times.

Not to praise any system over another, but I still don't see what that SOCOM game is doing that any random old Wii shooter doesn't. Honestly, give me specifics. I see NO difference.

As a matter of fact, I remember there being a skiing game available on PlayStation years ago. It was either PlayStation 3 with the PlayStation Eye or it was PlayStation 2 with the EyeToy. Microsoft isn't exactly the first to do it. They might be the first to do it well, but that has yet to be seen. I'm pretty sure the EyePet game is based on tracking players with the camera (without Move) so PlayStation is capable of it too. I would expect Microsoft's camera to be more technically capable (better resolution and speed) though because their entire system is based on it and to play decent games in real-time it'll need to be (and they're releasing it years later).

That's irrelevant. Those games can already be made with the Wii. That's what the Wii is good at. You don't need precise tracking for that audience. I want to see if the Kinect actually compares to the Move.

Firstly, it's rated teen. Secondly, it precisely tracks your movements. It isn't pretending to.

That Kinect thing must be awesome, its webpage even manages to crash Opera

Other than that, I'm only interested in the 3DS, which looks amazing.

bam, why do you insist on quoting and putting the url manually? Your first quote confused me, like you were talking to yourself, but 23 saying that? Unless you actually used the <quote> feature alone and it was just a bug.

I'm pretty sure Kinect could benefit itself if it actually tried to let people do what they can't do in real life since there are risks. Well done fighting games are an option for example. Beating the crap out of somebody by making good moves in a game can be fun, as there's no risk of you actually getting your ass kicked and being hurt.

Also, IIRC, we've been able to point a gun to the screen and fire from a long time ago.

{"name":"zapper_nes.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/5\/f55bc1719a8eee14699aca2311eff2a6.jpg","w":400,"h":292,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/5\/f55bc1719a8eee14699aca2311eff2a6"}

My manual quoting is more reliable than Allegro.cc's automatic quoting. I do occasionally make mistakes. I use my own JavaScript "library" (see sig) to save me effort and make it more reliable, but it still requires a little bit of manual editing at the moment which introduces human error. Usually, it requires me to copy the opening quote tag that is generated once so that multiple quotes from the same post work. Occasionally, I also have to rearrange the order if I appended them out of order. On rare occasion I screw it up.

I think they did fix that, but my roommate still went through about four used Xboxes and is now paranoid of even laying game cases on top of his current one. Yes, it's a major problem with the 360. But, and here's the bit that makes my point still stand, it is not a "cheap gimmick". It's a design flaw.

That happening with the original release model is a design flaw. It happening for 3+ years before Microsoft fixed it (if they fixed it) suggests to me that the 360 is cheap and nothing more than a gimmick.

I thought I read that the Xbox 360 failures were the result of the lead free solder growing "spines" upon thermal cycling, causing short circuits. There was a thread about it.

Um, that's irrelevant. The market is going casual and anyone not on board is losing out on money, period. Saying the games can be made on the Wii is like saying Microsoft doesn't need to make money because Nintendo does that already. Microsoft would like money. Hence, casual games. I suppose the Wii didn't even need to make casual games because FaceBook does that already, but if they took that strategy they wouldn't be making the money they are, either.

This is usually a point against in my experience. If the system has to hide behind a rating then stop saying they're innovating. Just say "It's like Wii, but with some dirty language, guns, and occasional side-boob." That would be more honest.

The fact that the Wii took three years to get it right is pretty embarrassing, I think we can all agree on that. But it tracks your movements now and that video is still showing me the same gameplay experience the Wii has been delivering for three years. Saying it's different is like saying the PlayStation is better because it runs on chocolate. I'm not seeing that translated into a superior player experience. I asked you for specifics as far as these supposed innovations go, because all I see is just another FPS married to three-year-old technology. I'm sure it's a fine game, but let's keep some perspective here.

Gimmick: A clever ploy or strategy. A trick or device to reach some end.

Unless Microsoft set out to deliberately piss off thousands of their own customers, the Xbox 360's failure is not a gimmick.

Now, can we agree to your poor word choice and go on to the part where I don't disagree that the Xbox 360's failure is a terrible mark against the system?

I haven't personally used the MotionPlus yet, but I've heard professional reviewers say that it still wasn't tracking their movements perfectly. It was better than a raw Wiimote, but barely.

See above. On top of that, I find the Wiimote to be very blocky (it reminds me of the original NES controller, which for its day was awesome, but nowadays it feels so horribly uncomfortable). I'm expecting the Move and corresponding navigation controller to be much more pleasant to use. And I expect there to be a lot more adult titles for the PlayStation obviously, which is good for me; an adult. You have fun though with Mario and Zelda.

Except that their customers aren't pissed off. That's the clever part. Those idiots don't even mind!

I've also heard that MS was planning to embrace and extinguish the console platforms, so every game would run on Windows. This doesn't jive with the failures though, but MS is known for shooting themselves in the foot.

I've had occasion to play Wii now and then, and it works fine, so I guess I'm looking for something more than "so and so said it wasn't so there" before some video from their competition convinces me it's doing something they're not.

I would if I had any of them. It's all academic to me; very few modern games impress me much to be honest. I have access to my roommate's Wii and XBox 360, but I hardly ever play them. All I know is Sony doing nothing innovative, and this is itself nothing new.

So how exactly is this clever? How is it a cheap little gimmick and what is the purpose of said gimmick?

What really bothers me, though, is that I'm not disagreeing with your point, I'm just arguing semantics with you. But you won't even admit to poor word choice.

Kinect, from what I hear from the devs (though, granted, this info is back from when Natal was still under NDA) doesn't work very well at all.

The way it works is with an infrared depth camera. At the time of research and development, they were investigating two options.
Option 1 worked by sending out a beam of light for a very small amount of time then, when it bounced back, cutting off the signal midway and measuring the length of the light at individual points.
Option 2 basically projected a grid and used the distance between the reflected intersections to generated depth.

Now, Option 1 was buggy, only works at very specific ranges, has high resolution, a lot of noise, and was expensive.
Option 2 had a lower resolution, but worked from a much broader range of distances and had very little noise in the output. Not to mention it was cheaper.

The devs recommended Option 2, the obvious choice I'd say, however, Microsoft went with option 1.

So, Kinect has some lag from all the processing on the depth image necessary due to the background noise and does make some errors, and good luck using it if you aren't ~5-12 feet from the tv screen.

Though, this is all from back when Kinect was still under R&D, so it may have changed since, but I doubt it.

Zelda: Skyward Sword is cell shaded, probably adds nothing to the series, and will fall short of being great... Just like all the other cell shaded games.

Oh, Nintendo! No matter how many times you let me down, I just keep coming back for more disappointment.

(Another Ocarina release? They beat that title to hell.)

Dario: Here's a high quality version of the new Mortal Kombat in action, just found this: http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6266626/

Looks quite fun

My gripe is I prefer not to use those stupid skins and the motion plus is so badly designed it's got lumps and bumps sticking out and it makes holding it so uncomfortable that you're almost forced to wear the skin. Not only does it feel wrong but it makes charging a pain in the arse.

So, what picked your interest on the E3 this year?

Here's a little roundup on the stuff I liked. They're mostly sequels or remakes:
Marvel Vs Capcom 3 - FTW(Fate of Two Worlds ). Gameplay videos!

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Mortal Kombat 9 Demo

Portal 2 Demo
Part 1, look for the other parts by yourself.

Did you notice that almost all the games are remakes? Not that that's a bad thing. It seems that the companies are starting to make sequels that the gamers actually want; Mortal Kombat has the blood and gore and 2d gameplay.

3rd person 3D gameplay doesn't seem to be easy to pull off. Perhaps it only works well for certain types of games.

I hadn't seen the Portal parts 2 and 3.... wow... holy holy wow... that looks so badass. I can't. fucking. wait.

I'm a little bummed about the DK game. It has a lot of gameplay elements that I was putting into my platform game so now they won't seem as original.

The gaming industry needs a reboot like that. I've noticed that new videogames are REALLY bloated, and now they're working on simple things that work well.

Maybe 3D games will work well the day we got real 3D screens.

I noticed that too. Perhaps the "casual gaming" craze that the industry has been going through has forced game designers to really clean up the playability. We have more graphics and processing speed than before, but that doesn't mean the games need to do more.

I like the look of some of the new games that James Rolfe previewed at E3. Though it kinda looks like a few of them are copies of each other.. Epic Mickey and Epic Yarn to name a couple. Not that they don't look neat... But they even share the same prefix, and similar game mechanic ideas (oh look, lets use some strange kind of material as the mechanics like yarn or paint).

Another thing that was of my interest on this E3 was Fallout: New Vegas. It's a shame it's built on the same engine as Failout 3, but Obsidian(formed by some old Black Isle employees) seem to have improved the game a lot. Damage Treshold, Strength Requirements for weapons, Improved FPS gameplay with iron-sights... That doesn't take out the idiotic VATS though. And I expect to see much better writing from Obsidian, F3's retarded plot made me cringe. But still... no shadows on the engine!

Haha, I love it when trends collide. I bet it comes from the trendy use of "Epic Win" and "Epic Fail".

Epic has become totally overused nowadays.

Last time I heard someone say "epic fail" it was for something stupid, like, dropping a spoon.

I happen to like Kinect.

And we've seen Move working, precisely, without the possibility for camera tricks?

It apparently tracks you, and does so without holding any silly looking goofball thingies. I'm not seeing the difference here, you take everything about Kinect with extreme skepticism (which is fine, I'm skeptical about it, but I'm also skeptical about Move), yet take everything Sony says about Move as cold hard truth.

Okay, so they had a problem. And they stood behind the product still, losing untold amounts of money. But yes, they have been fixed. Several recent chipsets have very low failure rates.

What do you consider good games then? I enjoyed Halo and Gears. I also think Forza 3 is far superior to Gran Turismo, at least from what I've seen in the demo.

What's the point in getting pissed off? Do you actually think Microsoft likes having to repair countless systems due to a design flaw? Believe me, it's in everybody's best interest to fix the problem. And from what I can tell, they have. They're down from a 16+% failure rate to below 4% (typical failure rate for any product is 3-5%).

Grammar fail. The technology that Move uses is tried and tested. It makes sense and there's really nothing surprising about it. There's no reason to doubt them. The only doubts I have are latency, since using my PlayStation Eye I can absolutely notice lag, but maybe the internal sensors make that a non-issue.

They didn't have a choice. It's been a while, but IIRC they were slow to respond at first (I think they even denied that there was a problem). Eventually, it became clear that it was such a big issue that not addressing it would have destroyed the "platform". It wouldn't have been long before the last 360 was ever sold. Spending the money they did was still less than they would have lost if they didn't. As usual, they screwed consumers and bit the bullet when held at gun point.

When I tried Halo I was extremely disappointed after all of the things I had heard about it. This was years ago, of course, but the experience of Halo was just so watered down compared to other games I had played. Halo 2 and 3 don't seem to have improved much at all, though I can't be bothered to play them either. It's still the same watered down bullshit. My colleague, who has a 360 and likes the series, agrees. After having defended Halo 3 when it was first released, he returned to admit that it was pretty crappy and that it even had some serious bug that almost prevented you from completing the game IIRC. The "universe" doesn't seem feasible to me and that ruins any fun I could possibly have. I don't mind some imagination. I mind contradictions and fallacies.

The Gears of War series is just ridiculous. The dimensions of the characters are STUPID and completely infeasible. And all of them are like that. The weapons are pretty stupid too. A chainsaw bayonet?! I can't even stand to play such bullshit. I want realistic games! Let me play a character that I can actually believe myself to be! The camera angle and controls were also bad.

I think Halo and Gears are completely overrated. I don't know anything about "Forza", but I know that the Gran Turismo series has been the leader in realistic racing for almost 15 years. It requires a lot of practice to enjoy the game because it's designed for race enthusiasts who enjoy the realism. The only thing it's lacked is realistic crashes/damage. I'm hoping GT5 has that, but that's really not what the game is about anyway (if you're doing it right you shouldn't crash).

If I had to deal with the hassle of shipping my console off (due to a pretty major flaw in the system experienced by many) I would be pissed off. You shouldn't have to. That should have been caught during testing of the original product. I honestly can't believe it wasn't. I wonder if it was actually cheaper to eat shipping and repair costs versus throwing away the already produced consoles and eating the cost of a redesign in the beginning. Who can really say though?

I know they don't have a choice.

According to the Internets, failure rates were more like 40%. Some said 30, others said 40, more still said 50%! Microsoft naturally denies this.

About Kinetic, while the camera can recognize any number of persons, it can only track the movements of two (the processing power of the Xbox 360 can't handle any more). Also, it has serious problems when you are seated, so even to handle the menu system you must be standing up. NeoGAF is bashing it pretty heavily.

{"name":"54r3l.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/c\/7c455ce82171cf3724503ebdf5313795.png","w":700,"h":532,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/c\/7c455ce82171cf3724503ebdf5313795"}

Finally, who won E3? Apparently, Apple.

After reading that article it seems like Macworld is the one who is "out of touch".

One word for all of them - gimmicks. While intriguing way of controlling a game, I'd rather have even the gamepad than this. That way I'd take a ride on my bike than waving my hands furiously in front of the TV. Not to mention I'm not getting a console any time soon.

Wait... so games that use Kinect must be downgraded? For example, something so power-hungry like GTA IV or Red Dead Redemption must be left out or otherwise it'll lag? I would've guessed Kinect had its own little CPU.

It used to, but to lower costs they decided to use the Xbox 360 CPU instead.

Tried and tested? It's about as tested as Kinect is. I don't see how you can think Move's premise is any more proven than Kinect's.

They did have a choice. They could have just given up and shut down the XBox division. I don't think they were too slow to respond. Maybe they denied it was a problem (as Sony or anyone else would do) but I'm pretty sure they were still handling warranty claims for it. I don't see how they screwed consumers...

There are many people, including me, who think Halo and Gears are great. As far as Forza, it's one of the top racing simulators - right up there with GT.

And "if you're doing it right" is a cheap cop-out for something that should have been there. It's like ignoring crashes in a flight simulator - "if you're doing it right, you shouldn't crash." In fact, realistic damage makes it all the more fun, but I wouldn't expect you to admit that.

They were continually redesigning it. Look at all the different chipsets they've pumped out, the latest of which have almost completely gotten rid of the problem. You get pissed off when MS tells you to pound salt, but when they're actively working to make it all expenses paid for you (most warranty claims require you to cover return shipping), and speedy (anyone I've heard talking about getting an RROD got theirs back within a week or so), there's not much more they can do.

As mentioned above, they do. They may have been legally bound to make it right, but they could have halted further support/sales/etc and shut down the XBox division, due to the hemmhoraging of money. But they kept pushing.

No. I looked up multiple sets of numbers. Those high numbers are affected consoles. Just because the console is affected by the problem doesn't mean it fails.

Not necessarily. Remember, the reason these games are so power-hungry has a lot to do with the graphics. The GPU is doing most of the work here, so adding some more load to the CPU isn't as huge of a deal.

[edit]
Courtesy of CGamesPlay:

{"name":"903426984_Tg2it-L.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/e\/aea7e076145bcab86b99885378156ffd.jpg","w":800,"h":401,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/e\/aea7e076145bcab86b99885378156ffd"}

ReyBrujo's link leads you to IGN. IGN seems concerned about the Kinect.

The PlayStation Move basically works by using a camera to track brightly colored spheres with known sizes, which can be used to determine angle and distance from the camera, which is enough to determine 3D coordinates. On top of that, I think it has internal sensors to detect movement to further enhance the accuracy. Nothing there is surprising though. Being able to identify and track a human's limbs is new, however.

They would have lost even more money doing that. That was even less of an option. Once you've invested that much money into something you have to try to cut your losses. Cutting and running would have made every expense a complete loss (probably many millions), not to mention the permanent stain on their name. That would have cut into Windows and Office sales. The repairs and shipping is probably expensive, but the profits they make from continuing sales (especially game sales, which is where consoles make most profit anyway) probably more than accounts for it.

Denying the faulty hardware wasn't to avoid warranty claims. Obviously the systems that had failed during the warranty period were covered. They were trying to prevent people from not buying them, insisting that there was nothing really wrong with them when there clearly was (and I still can't imagine how nobody caught it before the launch date). Funnily enough, different iterations continued to suffer from the same problems! Come on, how hard is it to build a reliable system?! When you're trying to get sales based on a really cheap price apparently it's very hard. Obviously if the 360 had costed the same as the PS3 they never would have sold any.

Many more people think that FarmVille is great. That makes people stupid. It doesn't make the game good.

I was watching a demo of an IGN representative playing Forza with the Kinect. He was passing people every 3 seconds. I don't know if the game is dumbed down because of the inferior control scheme, or if they had them driving Ferarris against Volkswagens to make them feel good about themselves and the product, but it was certainly not realistic. He wasn't doing a good job, but he was making up spot after spot. That's no simulation. It was an arcade game.

I already admitted that. It would be fun to play around with. Causing big wrecks, etc. However, creating a realistic simulation that captures just the normal racing is a lot of work in itself. The extra stuff adds that much more time onto development. Whether or not its worth it, I can't say. I doubt it would make the game truly enjoyable to the non-enthusiast and the enthusiast probably won't waste too much time with it. I'd certainly like it to be there, but I can't fault the series for that considering everything they do so well.

Oh, well, that's my bad. I didn't know that they've finally almost completely gotten rid of the problem.

I've heard of it taking a month+ to get your 360 back. Probably not a problem in New York State. If Microsoft really wanted to take a hit for it they would have spent the money to redesign the system from day 120 when they admitted the problem and then sent replacements to all consumers. Sure, it would have cost them a lot of money, but at least they'd be owning up to their cheapness. Instead, they forced consumers to run their machine until it fried, ship it to Microsoft, wait for them to repair it and ship it back, and then run it again until it fried again. Way to go, Microsoft. Somebody give them an award or something.

Again, the real money comes from game and peripheral sales. The losses on the console repairs were nothing compared to the profits. Again, had they just outright fixed the problem and recalled the poorly designed machines, that might have cost them a lot, but instead they forced consumers to live with the problem. I wonder how many people had to stop playing when temperature rose above freezing for fear of frying their machine and having to wait a week to play again and then doing it all over again the week after that.

And the rest just stop playing when it heats up just in case?

The graphics are only part of it. There's also a lot of interactions that need to be processed every frame. The 360 is already limited for what it can do. It's been noted that it struggles with GTA IV, for example, and IIRC that MGS4 wouldn't even be able to run on it. It has limited processing power. Nobody doubts that except for you.

Wait... what? So the fact that some people find FarmVille (which I personally dislike) fun and addictive to play, makes them stupid? Just who the hell decides if a game is good, you? If they find a particular game fun, it doesn't mean they're stupid, it just means they find that particular game fun, and it's all the better for them, because they have something they like.

Seriously, what the hell?

You talk about the Wii being a gimmick yet it's almost identical stuff. Only the camera is mounted on the TV instead of on the controller. I'm not seeing where it is majorly different or more accurate.

That just makes them have different opinions. Obviously, FarmVille must be a great game, because many many people seem to love it. It is a great game for their target audience.

I know nothing about Forza 4. Forza 3 is very realistic, and I think it's better than GT. I played the demo of GT, and the physics didn't feel as real as they could be. And I was expecting to like GT more.

Causing wrecks is fun too, but realistic crashes, no matter how much you're denying it, are very much a part of a realistic simulation. Car wear happens. Stuff breaks. Crashes happen. To think wrecks aren't a real part of racing would be like real life racers not building any safety features into their vehicles ("you don't need them if you do it right").

It may have made more sense, may not have. I'm not going to pretend to know. But if the same thing happened with Sony, I doubt they'd just jump up and redesign, etc. Especially when you have other options. Being a professional software developer (at least I seem to think you are) you should know that you always go with the low cost/low risk options first.

Or the conditions just weren't right. Think about safety recalls with vehicles, etc. Just because there are lots of affected units doesn't mean a majority, let alone all, of them will actually experience the problem.

I'm not doubting that. I'm just going on the report I read that stated essentially what I said -- that the CPU overhead isn't a huge deal because its when the CPU would typically be idle anyhow.

@bamccaig: AFAIK you don't have to pay to play FarmVille (granted, certain elements can be gained faster, or stuff like that), and you don't have to let yourself be scammed. So yeah, that's not a good enough basis to call people who play FarmVille stupid in general. I know a ton of people who play it regularly, but only use what's freely available (and they don't install any kind of toolbars etc.).

The PS3 camera has more power to it. The Wii is nothing but an infrared camera that looks for some bright spots. Doesn't mean it's will be more accurate. With just one globe, it does NOT get the angle. With bad lighting, the camera only see the globe. It it just knows how far from the camera it is, and that's it. You could pretend you're rubbing some jail bars, and the controller won't pick it up because everything tracking it won't see much (if any) movement. Actually, the Wii remote works better as a pointer from what I can see...

Heh, you can't even call the wii's sensor a camera. Its a couple IR sensors, and three IR leds in the little plastic brick the wii comes with.

The sony idea may be more advanced, but it takes some serious cpu power to do proper motion detection on video.

For one thing, the Wii can't detect precise movement. Maybe it can with the MotionPlus or maybe it can't. I've heard it can't, but others say it can. I know for sure that the Wii itself is lacking in processing power far worse than the 360 is. At E3, Sony joked that gamers want to box with important body parts, like arms and necks.

The target audience is gullible people that are easily distracted by simple and repetitive actions that pretend to reward you. Add to that an advertising scam and you have yourself profit (and a crappy game). I can't believe you're defending FarmVille... Now it doesn't seem like such a stretch to defend Halo and Gears. When did consumers become more interested in retailers than themselves? Wii is good because it sells. FarmVille is good because it sells. Ugh.

I agree with that entirely. On the other hand, we're not professional racers and I think it would be a pretty deterring experience to have done nothing wrong, but have a shaft break and send you into a wall, making the past 60 minutes of your life fruitless. I don't think it's feasible to reach that level of complexity while still maintaining realistic track performance. As a general rule, though, if you crash your car in Gran Turismo, you're probably going to have no chance of recovering or at least you'll struggle (unless you're taking a super car to a beginner level race). Again, I would very much appreciate the realism of damage and car wrecks, etc. I can get a little bit of a taste from GTA IV though. From Gran Turismo, the racing physics are more important than how spectacular the wrecks are.

I'm a software developer, not a software salesman. I'm interested in getting it right. The money part of the deal is someone else' problem. In general, business tries to do it the cheap and "easy" way, but that usually ends up costing the user more time and money.

I don't like FarmVille. I'm only defending it against your ridiculous ultimatum that the game is the definition of suck. I'm pointing out that a) it is clearly subjective, and b) it is obviously a successful game.

It has to be done well in the game. Forza allows you to rewind the race at any point, so not only does it help you identify and block such an attack, but it also lets you keep retrying difficult corners, etc. so you can master them more easily.

Forza 3 is the first racing game I've ever played where, on simulation realism, you have to watch your tire wear and fuel consumption. For the short races, it doesn't come into play, but on endurance races, you have to keep up on tires and fill the fuel tank when you're getting low.

Yes, I'm interested in getting stuff done right at work too. But when you have pressure from overhead to fix something in production, you can't just delete it and start over (which is what you're suggesting they should have done with the 360). You have to take the option that makes most sense, looking at cost and risk. And immediately admitting a problem (before you even know what is going on - bad production run, flawed building techniques, etc) and starting from scratch is nowhere near as feasible as you make it out to be.

See my edit. When did consumers become more interested in retailers than themselves? It doesn't matter how much money the developer made. That doesn't define a good game... It defines a successful or profitable game.

Who said anything about attack? In Gran Turismo, you can't "attack" as that's against the rules. If you attempt to hit other cars you're penalized. The ability to rewind and try again would be quite useful during practice runs, but I don't think it should be available during actual races.

The original Gran Turismo on PlayStation had tire wear. I don't know for sure when it was introduced, but Gran Turismo 4 (2004-2005) definitely supported fuel as well.

Well if somebody was actually at fault for it then they never should have cut the corners they did. I don't see why the consumer should have to pay for their mistakes. If they didn't make mistakes then they shouldn't be concerned about addressing the problem. That wouldn't make for a very good company for anyone, employee nor consumer.

You should be able to tell management that you're not sure what's wrong and that you're going to do some testing to figure out if there is a flaw in the design. If Microsoft isn't willing to do that then I'm obviously completely right about them as a company. The alternative is that they did know what was wrong with the design and didn't want to admit it. Either way, bad for consumer (i.e., us you).

I don't see where you guys started talking about "good" games. This entire E3 is chasing the casual market, because that's where the money is. Nintendo is remaking all the games they always remake because it's worked for 20 years but now with more flailing, XBox 360 is trying to wow casuals over with shiny new technology, Sony is playing catchup (they're in 3rd place, right?) by ripping off the far-more-successful Wii and praying no one notices. Nothing that was shown was "good". Everything that was shown was profitable. The company I work for had staff at GDC, E3, etc. and everytime someone even mentions FarmVille, everyone's skin turns green, their voices drip with envy, and dollar signs pop out of their eyes. People want on that gravy wagon, my friends. Good? Screw good, just feed my pigs.

It is a good game. LOTS of people play it. If nobody thought it was a good game, nobody would play it. It may not seem like a good game to you, but I can guarantee that Gears of War, Gran Turismo, God of War, or even GTA fall into the 'good game' category in my grandmother's eyes (and she even happens to play FarmVille).

So owning up to the mistake isn't good enough now? A problem happened. Doesn't matter why or how, but it did. So of course they should address the problem and stand by their product. I'm not sure what you're arguing against.

It's not bad for me as the consumer BECAUSE I WASN'T LEFT WITH THE PRODUCT AND TOLD TO GO POUND SALT. I was left with something that may break, that had its original warranty TRIPLED just to reassure me that it would be fixed if it died. Sure I am inconvenienced, but you always take the risk of having problems whenever you buy anything. I've tried, and failed, to apply your thoughts of redesign to several other industries. Major recall on a vehicle? Scrap it, redesign it, and replace everyone's for free! Big security hole in a piece of software? Delete it and rewrite from scratch!

And how do you know what did or didn't happen with management regarding a flaw in the design? The bottom line is, they shipped consoles with a problem, and they now have to do damage control. Immediately scrapping the current design and starting over, without fully understanding the problems or attempting to address it with a lower cost, lower risk solution doesn't make sense. It appeals to the perfectionist in you, but it does not make good business sense.

If this is what happens at your work, then I wonder if you guys ever complete anything. There are always flaws in products. That doesn't mean you can constantly start over and never ship anything. That's called analysis paralysis, and when a business follows that model, things like Duke Nukem: Forever happen.

I wouldn't want to play any of those games. But if I had to, I probably would play FarmVille.

Exactly. It doesn't mean any of them aren't good games. They all have a large group of players who enjoy playing it, so that's good enough for me to call it good.

Any F1 simulator for PC has that (and other games of course, but I usually like more F1, indycar or similar types of races). And I'm particularly remembering a game that's already 12 years old, which also has dynamic weather, to name something, that neither Forza or GT (up to GT 5 that seems to have it) have. I think both games are extremely overrated, maybe because it's a genre not usually seen on consoles (racing games for consoles are usually arcade, or a mixture of arcade with simulation elements at best).

And about good/bad games, it's something really subjective. Thinking otherwise is stupid. I dislike GTA4, GT and GoW, go figure . Farmville is so much better than them.

[edit]
Several edits, here and there

ET for the Atari 800/2600 was crap, objectively.

I liked it though when I was 9.

I guess there are some extreme exceptions Like Command & Conquer 4

Personally, the Wii controller is simple, cheap and works. Most of the games don't use 1:1 because there are obstacles you cannot overcome. For example, if you are Kratos and swing your sword against a rock, you will gesture the full movement up down even though Kratos' sword bounces against the rock, thus losing the 1:1 accuracy (you expect the sword to be down when it is actually on top of the rock). Unless you give him a light saber (or make his sword so sharp he can kill anyone with a single stroke, which I hope we agree would be kind of dull), there are times when even if your controller can process 1:1 movement, it will be lost.

Nobody wants to have his Kratos beheaded because suddenly you answered the phone and with the movement the controller pointed at your head for a second.

Sony improved the Wii controller concept (while Microsoft changed it, personally players still want to hold onto something when playing to get physical rewards like sounds or vibration), however I doubt we will see games that couldn't have worked in a Wii (talking purely about the input method, and not the output like graphics, sounds, etc).

Bam, please consider how games you find "adult" may be made of material ideally suited for teenage boys. Many actual adults would find this content shamefully childish. There's nothing wrong with it, though, and you know it. Apply the same lack of judgment for playing video games that you hold for yourself to others.

Speak for yourself. If you don't want to be beheaded then you should have paused the game.

I think you're going to have to explain how anyone would find that "childish".

I don't call fastening a glowing ball at the end of the controller a significant improvement. I'd call that a major step backward, especially when one wants to play at night.