E3 2010 Day 2: Nintendo and Sony (Plus a Tiny Ubisoft Recap)

Today started out as one of the worst days of my life, but quickly became one of the Top 10 Greatest Days Ever. Capitalization WARRANTED.

Before we get to the brilliance and excitement that was Day 2 of E3 2010, let us backtrack to yesterday and talk briefly about Ubisoft's conference. It was not too thrilling, save for some surprises (new Rayman AND new Raving Rabbids, MICHAEL JACKSON SINGING/DANCING GAME!). My favorite games were Children of Eden, Project Dust, and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, which I will never play, most likely, but will champion regardless. I also enjoyed Innergy, which is a silly name for a silly game but also too cute for me to pass up. The conference was hosted by Joel McHale from The Soup and that enjoyable but soon to be overrated sitcom, Community. He hosted last year, too, but I think he was much funnier last year. There were a lot of great, mean-spirited quips, especially at the pink-haired guy who demoed Innergy. God, I really hope that's how it's spelled, or I'm making myself look like an idiot.

Now onto today's conferences!

 Nintendo Press Conference: June 15th, 2010, 9 AM Pacific. 

Usually, people are advised to save the best for last. For Nintendo, this was not the case. Not only was this the single greatest Nintendo conference I've ever seen, but it was one of the best conferences in E3 history. It was definitely the best one out of the Big Three (um, spoiler?). Being a going on 10-year-long Nintendo fangirl, I probably was going to be a little biased from the start, but this seriously was excellent. I know a good press conference, people! Trust me.

Not only was this show amazing, but they showed their single most hyped up game FIRST. That would be The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, a title whose presentation came completely out of left-field. When this title showed up on screen, the crowd went wild; it was insane. It was MADNESS. (But it was not Sparta, that comes up in the next conference.) At first you thought that the game was just going to be shown by our guy from Treehouse Bill Trinen, who I love (I love ALL Nintendo people, though), because Shigeru Miyamoto, a man who needs no introduction EVER, was on a screen in some pre-recorded video. But then Shiggy jumps out of a screen. HE JUMPED OUT OF A SCREEN, GUYS. It was excellent.

From IGN. Obviously. THANKS IGN :) Don't get mad at me for stealing your bandwidth!

He proceeded to demo the game. It looked fun, and this is coming from someone who usually cries just from thinking about Zelda (well, specifically Twilight Princess...and Majora's Mask...). The graphical style was lighthearted in a pseudo-realistic kind of way. The game will rely heavily on MotionPlus usage, with players having to move the Wiimote like it's an actual sword; the Nunchuk simulates the sword. While Shiggs said that the game would have 1:1 control, the live demo did not seem to be so responsive. This was probably because there was interference in the crowd (Bill started yelling at people to "TURN OFF DAT WIRELESSSSS." Hilarious); play previews posted online said that the game really was amazingly close to 1:1. Overall, the game looks great. The release date is still ambiguous but my man Miyamoto said it would come out sometime next year. I don't know if I'll pick it up, but it looks good. 

Now, remember: this is only the beginning. Already, Ninty had showed off what many considered to be their biggest game of the show. Man, they were wrong. The biggest game was coming up next...MARIO SPORTS MIX! :D Haha, no. But Mario Sports Mix did look pretty grand. Reggie -- you know, Reggie, the guy, one of the greatest Nintendo dudes -- announced it while talking about the sports games coming to the Wii. This is an arcade-style medley of sports: volleyball (YESSS), hockey, something that looked like dodgeball that could have not been dodgeball (no wait, it was dodgeball), basketball (YAYYY), and others to be announced. It looked really, really fun. I'm excited. I love the Mario Sports games. Especially Mario Tennis. But not Power Tennis. That crud was dreck. Or is it "that dreck was crud"? Either way.

After that, they talked about some more casual games. Now, the previous two years, casual games were the main focus. However, it was surprising that, right after they were done making a big deal out of the previously-announced Wii Party, an unnecessary Mario Party successor, and Just Dance 2, yet another dancing game I can't play with my friend Matt Damon, they just went straight into Golden Sun. Everyone was going nuts. Me? When Reggie announced that the subtitle would be Dark Dawn, I spent much of the trailer pondering the logic behind that name. I mean, how can the dawn be dark, guys? HOW CAN THE DAWN BE DARK? The game looks pretty good, though. It's coming out this holiday season. It's not my top priority, but we'll see. 

Then they went into something that would have been really exciting had IGN not spoiled it for everyone yesterday: a Goldeneye 007 remake, exclusively for the Wii! I really enjoyed how excited everyone got. I've never played it, but everything I've ever heard about the original has been really positive, and I'd be happy if something nostalgic from my past was being remade for me to enjoy all over again. The graphics were questionable but I'm sure it'll be really, really fun, at the least. It's also coming this holiday. It'll be one bizzzay season.

After that came a lot of Epic Mickey footage! It was so cool. They showed an animated cutscene from the game that was STUNNING. GORGEOUS. BEAUTIFUL. I wanted the game ten times more than I had wanted it before after that and the rest of the demo, and I already wanted it a ton. It looks like just a really classic, fun platformer. One thing I love about Nintendo and their consoles is how friendly they are to games that are designed for all-ages. They're not concerned with being "mature" (although most developers just equate maturity with blood and gore), they simply want to have as many fun games available on their systems as possible. This looks to be one such game! It should be great. September, guys! 

After that came probably the most left-field surprise: A NEW HOME CONSOLE KIRBY GAME. OH YOUR STINKING DEITY OF CHOICE. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. It was the cutest game I've ever seen, ever. Think of the cutest game you know. This game is about twelve times cuter. It was brilliant, innovative, had amazing style, and just looked to be really, really, really, really, really CUTE. It's coming out in fall, like every other amazing game that I want, it seems. I need it. I need this game. It's called Kirby's Epic Yarn, which is a...questionable title, but it doesn't matter! You play as a yarn version of Kirby who can use his yarn powers to stretch things and just generally be adorable and make you want to throw money at him. Geez, man. GEEZ. Kirby, I will thrown money at you any time you want. Name the amount.

SO CUTE.

Next segment was boring. Reggie made reference to some random Treehouse worker named Chico (a girl) who played Dragon Quest IX for 140 hours. Shouldn't you be working, Chico? Not just playing games? AND DON'T GIVE ME THAT "I work at a game company" CRUD. BAD CHICO. So, yes Dragon Quest IX is coming in July (26 days from today). After that we saw a cool new Metroid: Other M trailer with lots of gameplay. Looked good. Comes out August 31. 

Donkey Kong Country Returns was next. It's the first new DK platformer in a good stinkin' long time. It's made by Retro, who did Metroid Prime and stuff. It looked really, really good. I think it comes out next year. Not sure if they said. I really enjoyed the trailer...too bad it wasn't a surprise to me. The Internet spoils EVERYTHING! (Hey, does anyone remember that DK Country TV show from the early 00s? It was...uh. I watched it a lot, but I'm not sure that I would say that that time was not wasted.) 

After that was the big guns. The 3DS! SO MUCH STUFF happened during it, I can't even explain it all. The system looks EXCELLENT. It's a big bulky, but it kind of has to be. The lineup is FANTASTIC. It might just be the greatest game system of all time. I'll post the whole video(s) for you to see for yourself, because it's just way more than my words can explain right now.

Sorry the videos are sized differently. I WANTED THINGS TO BE UNIFORM. Sad face. Well, anyway, doesn't that look AWESOME? So great. It was so EXCITING. System of forever, right there. I wasn't expecting much from the 3DS, but I was completely blown away. Just look at that line-up! It's awesome. Satoru Iwata, you are definitely my guy. You rule. You...you all are the greatest people to have ever LIVED.

Nintendo's conference was so gosh darn good, it's going to be hard for me to talk about Sony at all. I'll try.

Sony Press Conference: June 15th, 2010, 12:00 PM Pacific

Sony is known for their cool montages. There were a lot of them. They were mostly enjoyable, but by the 4th minute of the 3rd one, I started to get a little bored. Regardless, the opening was nice. Jack Tretton hosted, and he made lots of fun digs at Kinect and their Cirque du Soleil promotional event the night before E3 started. Um. Also, the stage was really cool looking. Soon Kaz Hirai came out. I love that guy. Too bad he was stuck rambling about 3D for 10 minutes. It was hard for me to pay attention, especially since I knew now that, well, Nintendo had come up with my ideal 3D solution. But he tried. Then he started talking about system updates that will allow games to be in 3D, and I was fuming something vicious. I HATE SYSTEM UPDATES. They take too darn long!

Moving on. Killzone 3 was shown. Audience excitement level - high. Mine - low-ish. Pretty tired of FPSes, myself. It was demoed by a German named Herman, which I find far too funny for my own good. Before he left, Herman the German said that the game would be out next February. Good. Now let's stop talking about it.

Then there was a make.believe thing. I still don't understand what that is supposed to be. Some sort of multimedia...thing? I wasn't paying attention until I saw a red panda, followed by a polar bear! Red pandas and polar bears are so cute! Thanks, Sony! This, by the way, was the second cool montage of the night. It was followed by another montage. In said montage was The Sly Cooper Collection, which I'm really excited for despite hating every minute of Sly Cooper that I ever played. All 12 of them! But I love fun, gore-free action/adventure games, which the PS3 is sadly lacking. They did announce a really cool PlayStation Move (their new motion controller that they prattled on about) game called Heroes on the Move, starting Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, and the Sly Cooper gang. It looks...ugly. But fun! Really fun. I love Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, so even though I probably won't get the Move, I'll keep my eye on the game.

So the PS Move was touted around for the longest time during the show. It was tiring. I like the previous name better, the Wand. I think it's been called the Move for a year now, but oh well. There were some cool games showed for it...well, other than Heroes, I liked Sorcery. The crowd seemed to really like it, too. It looked really, really fun. But not fun enough to convince me to spend $50 plus extra costs on another motion controller.

The best part was when VP of Cool Things Kevin Butler came on stage to make an amazing "inspirational" speech about gaming. God, that man is funny. People were screaming "I LOVE YOU" from the crowd. The crowd was filled primarily with large, sweaty men, mind you. It was fun. Here's Kev's speech below.

He is HILARIOUS. Love the Kinect dig in the beginning. So mean, those Sony guys. I mean, this was mainly just more Move promotion, but it was FUNNY. So, thanks, Kevin. Later, they also showed some new PSP commercials in the vein of the Kevin ones starring that Bobb'e kid who's all over the place. Y'know, the go-to smart mouthed African-American kid? That's him! He plays Marcus Rivers in the new PSP commercials. Very, very funny. Hopefully we'll see them on TV soon.

LittleBigPlanet 2 was demoed. That game looks awesome. I've talked about it before, and not that much else was revealed. Release date? Um...I'm not sure if they said one. Or if they did, I missed it. I think it's out next year, though? I want it. A lot. After that they had to bring the mood down by announcing the not-at-all-surprising PSN Plus service, which will be $50 for a year or $30~ for three months.Wait, that doesn't sound right. Oh well. It's so stupid - you get "100s of dollars worth of free content!" The thing is, that free content only remains free for you to play as long as your subscription lasts. I find that pretty lame, especially since they're giving away PSN games that people will probably want to play for a long time. I guess that's so they can get people to subscribe for longer. Thankfully, all of the currently free services will remain free, so I'm largely unaffected. I still find this service irritatingly XBox Live-ish, though.

There was then a surprise announcement that Portal 2 will be on the PS3, and will be the "best console version." Cool stuff. They showed a trailer. Nice. Gabe Newell is a funny guy, I guess, although I really do not like him at all. Oh, then there was a beautiful FFXIV trailer that made me want the game even more. Too bad it's a stinking MMO. URGH! I don't want to play an MMO. But I do want to play you, FFXIV. So badly...so badly. We'll see. I don't think I ever will play you, but we'll see. ...Um. Oh, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 was shown briefly in yet another montage. Everyone cheered, including me. Then some time was spent showing a trailer for inFamous 2, which looks GREAT. I like the first one a lot, so I'm excited for the new one. I think Cole got a new voice, too. And hair!

The end of the conference saw the unnecessary return of one of the creepiest games ever, Twisted Metal. I was frightened so much that I couldn't look at the screen. What a horrible way to end the conference...I didn't think the series was that beloved. It was kind of random. I wish they hadn't shown that at the end, or at all. It was really, really creepy. Too many clowns.

All-in-all, this conference was better than Microsoft's, but far worse than Nintendo's. It was pretty dull, and definitely not as good as last year's. At least it was better than Sony 2006, but it's pretty hard to be worse than that.

This day was excellent, if mostly because of Nintendo. Tomorrow will be some third-party conferences, including Konami and I believe Square Enix. Those conferences will not be televised, so I'll just try to post some news highlights. Either way, E3 is still on until Thursday, so more awesome exciting fun times are on the way, I'm sure.

(Now I'm going to go watch DBZ Kai, which features yet another horrible English literal translation of a Japanese song. Bleh.)

E3 2010 Day 1: Microsoft and a Little Bit of EA

So, whoops. I thought E3 started tomorrow! Guess how shocked I was when I came home today to find that Microsoft had just started their media briefing (answer: I was screaming)!

For what may be the first time ever, Microsoft's conference was shown live on TV exclusively on Spike. Surprise #2 of the day. GameTrailers TV/Gametrailers.com must have won exclusive coverage of it (although I checked G4 after and their Pre-EA conference show was all about Microsoft's briefing, so). It was strange.

Let's get to the actual conference, though!

Microsoft Media Briefing: June 14th, 2010, 10:30 AM Pacific.

The big M took the majority of their hour-and-a-half-long conference to showcase their new Minority Report-esque peripheral, Kinect (formerly known as Project Natal to us cool kids who have been following it since last year). The Kinect is...I'm not sure what to call it, really. It's not a controller, please make that distinction. If you don't, Microsoft will send someone to your house to set you straight. Painfully. Kinect allows you to control your games and the XBox interface with your body and your hands. It's basically this little camera thing that tracks you and your movements 1:1 with the game/menus.

The Kinect. Coming November 4th, 2010.

Microsoft wanted us to really get that, yes, your body is the controller, guys! It's totally cool because you can't lose it in the dark and you can move things WITH YOUR HANDS. You're totally in the game, guys! Totally! Except, Microsoft, you're no more in the stinking game with this stupid, poorly named camera than you are with a camera. God darnit.

I mean, I guess some of the Kinect games were sort of cool. Kinectimals (WHAT A HORRIBLE NAME THOUGH UGH) was pretty adorable. It was actually pretty hilarious, because there was literally no segue whatsoever into the demo. You just saw this little girl (Asian, like a LOT of the demo-ing people. Actually, almost all of them were minorities. I felt like it was to clear up that rumor from last year started by N'Gai Croal that it couldn't recognize black people) walk up to the screen and just start saying, "SKITTLES! YO, SKITTLES! WHERE YOU AT, BOY?" ...Okay, she didn't say that, but that would have been the bomb. She just started taking to her pet TIGER, SKITTLES. Because that makes more sense. This went on for a long stinking time. But it was cuter than my very cute pants, so it's okay.

Another cool Kinect game was one by Harmonix, a poorly-named dance game called Dance Central. Personally, I think the game will either flop or be the best-selling game for this stupid camera thing. You do these insane dance moves to these classic songs (one of which is Bell Biv DeVoe's "Poison," which was demoed by a Japanese woman so wonderfully; THAT GIRL IS POI-SOOON) - you ACTUALLY do them. The thing is, though, I find it impossible for someone like me, for example, or my bro Matt Damon, to be able to play this game at all without failing out immediately. Regardless, it's a cool concept.

Some other funny Kinect-related moments: my much-maligned Kudo Tsunoda came on stage and acted pretentious, per-usual. He was dealt massive damage when one of the greatest people who has ever lived came on stage to demo the dreadful Kinect Adventures game called him Lorenzo Lamas in a great deadpan voice. Sheer hilarity. He also then referred to his "BFF Oscar." It was fantastic. 

Let's see...what else? That was pretty much it on the Kinect front. There was a cool Star Wars trailer, but that was about it after the other stuff. There were lots of other games shown, but none of them seemed to have much potential or appeal to a more "hardcore" audience. It was pretty disappointing. Not that I was expecting much, anyway. Kind of a 360 hater here.

The rest of the conference was dedicated to letting us watch other people play the games that WE want to play, which was boring and unfair. Plus, the majority of the games (save for one by Crytek, whom I do not care for one bit) were ones we had already known about, which was a completely snooze. The one cool part, for me, was the gameplay footage from Metal Gear Solid: Rising, the ONLY Japanese game in the whole lot. I'm not very interesting in the MGS series, but I do find it quite interesting. Also, Rising did look fun in a completely grotesque way. It's much more blatantly action-y than the other games, and I think a lot of people will get excited for it. Dude, Raiden's power is CUTTING PEOPLE IN HALF. If I wasn't so squeamish I would want that game something awful.

The last part of the briefing was the absolute WORST. They announced one of the worst-kept secrets of the show to be real, the new model of the 360, affectionately (?) dubbed the Slim. It's incredibly ugly.

LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT ITS UGLINESS. P.S. Thanks for the pic, Kotaku, love ya, xoxo

And you know what they decided to do, those stupid rich jerkfaces, right after they announced that this baby was coming out on Friday? THEY DECIDED TO GIVE ONE TO EVERY SINGLE STUPID PERSON IN THE STINKING AUDIENCE. What a gip. A TON of people are mad about that on the Internet. Seriously, that is not cool. People gave our guy a standing ovation after that, but who wouldn't? It was still lame.

So, that was basically it. All-in-all, it was an incredibly boring press conference. I was still glued to my seat, of course, but it was kind of a disappointing start. People have already made comparisons to the two worst conferences of recent history: Nintendo '08 and Sony '06. While I'm not sure this was THAT bad, it surely wasn't much better. Hopefully Nintendo and Sony will clean Microsoft up tomorrow.

The EA conference came on later, shown live on G4 where it rightfully belongs. While it's not one of the Big Three, it may still be worth discussing briefly.

EA Press Conference: June 14th, 2010, 2:00 PM Pacific. 

Quick highlights:  

• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit did actually have a very cool trailer. I actually really like the concept, even though at first it just seemed like the most stupidly dramatic racing game ever.

• The Sims 3 for consoles had a presentation that waxed philosophical (am I using that correctly?) very weirdly. He started blabbering on and on about life and death. Strange. But the game looks cool. I want it. The Kris Allen song in the trailer was...strange, though, to say the least. 

• I enjoyed the enthusiasm of the audience during the Dead Space 2 and Medal of Honor segments. 

• 3D Crysis 2 would have been cool if 1. I cared about Crysis 2 and 2. I could see the evidence of it being 3D on my TV. Oh, but it was funny when the background character kept screaming "STOP! SHE'S RIGHT HERE! WAIT!! STOP!!" Haha.  

•  Not from the show itself but on Kotaku's liveblog, Mike Fahey called Cliffy B (Cliff Blezinski for you common folk) Clifford the Big Red Dog, hahaha. 

• That Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer was pretty intense. Not that interested in the game. 

So, that was about it. Today was not that great; I'm more looking forward to tomorrow, where both Nintendo and Sony will have their conferences. Really excited for those -- they're supposed to be promising. VERY promising INDEED. I'll make sure to give you the recap manana. Ta-ta!  

ETA: URGH, Ubisoft is having a conference at 5:00 Pacific, but I don't think I'm going to cover it. I'll give you any major news tomorrow. (Stupid, stupid finals to study for.) 

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #2

Me cosplaying as Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now. LOLOLOL (That's not funny, is it?)

It seems like every time I want to write these things, I'm watching something on MTV. This time, it's True Life: I Hate My Face. Ladies, don't worry, you're not alone; I hate your faces too!

So, that aside:

• MTV Movie Awards: I saw them yesterday, and then again today (not by choice the second time!) They weren't that good, at all. Predictably, Twilight swept everything. Pretty lame. Trying to think of funny moments right now and failing really hard. Oh, actually, no, Aziz Ansari was surprisingly funny; I liked his Human Giant skit and the one with Zach Galifianakis. He was teaching Zachy G. how to have "swagga." It was as funny as it sounds. The opening with Les Grossman (from the stinking 2-year-old Tropic Thunder, I mean, come on guys, he's funny, but why are you bringing him back now? So random) was pretty funny. Michael Cera bookends. Yep.
• Apocalypse Now: Just saw the end today. It was a pretty excellent movie, aside from the fact that I had no clue what was going on half the time. But that's what happens when you watch it over a period of a week. You know. "THE HORROR, THE HORROR!" Why is "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" such a popular line? Really. But I did love that character, even though he really wasn't that important in the long run. And --spoiler-- who ever thought that Lance would be the only one in Martin Sheen's party left? NOT I STEVE CARELL
• The Hard Times of RJ Berger hatred: Okay. So. You should probably know me well enough to know that I kind of HATE a lot of things. Sometimes I just make assumptions. Usually, though, my assumptions are OVER 9000% CORRECT. This is one of those times. RJ Berger is some little demon that reared its ugly little head in some MTV/Viacom office saying "PUT ME ON TELEVISION OR I WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU AND MAYBE ALL OF YOUR SHETLAND PONIES TOO." We all know how much Viacom employees love their complimentary Viacom Corp. Shetland ponies, so they, begrudgingly, obeyed Mr. Berger's commands and gave him his horrible show. Okay, so, back to the assumption thing: I kind of haven't seen the whole show yet. But really, if you saw the commercials, you'd know - it's not necessary for me to see it to know that it sucks. I MEAN. COME ON. RJ is supposed to be 15 and HE LOOKS CORY MONTEITH-AGED. Man, it's just not okay. After it premiered on Sunday, I checked the Internetz and saw that most people above the age of 14 called it crud. I also found out that it was a lot more...um...yeah, just read this: http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hard-times-of-rj-berger-pilot,41841/
• Old video game commercials: Okay, these aren't that old, but remember now: I'm young and stuff. There's the Kirby! Nightmare in Dreamland one that has that song that everyone who was worth my time (oh snizz oh snizz) knew all the words to back in, like, fourth grade; then there's the Super Smash Bros. one from all the way back in the 90s. That one's one of the GREATEST. EVER. It's even greater than my cat. And my cat is pretty darn great. (ETA: Upon further consideration, I have decided that my cat is still greater than this commercial.) Oh! Then there's the Pokemon Red and Blue commercial. Guess who's in it? DRAKE BELL. Gasp! Giggle! Squee! Here's another one that's actually really depressing for a commercial trying to sell you two really expensive kids' games. Man, Nintendo had the best commercials back in the day. Now? Meh.
• E3 excitement: OH MY GOD IT STARTS NEXT TUESDAY GAIZ. I am SOSOSOSOSOSO excited. I think this year's going to be AWESOME BEYOND BELIEF LIKE TOTALLY FERRLZ. I probably shouldn't hype it so much BUT IT'S HARD NOT TO, MAN! Last year it was really early, and I had Study Hall 9th period so I left school early to go watch the press conferences. Now it's during my Finals week, so I come home even EARLIER! :D ...but then I have to study. But PSH THAT CAN WAIT. Plus, on the last day I don't have any tests. I might have to be resuscitated, guys. Be on hand.
• Glee season finale: This season was insanely long. Insanely. Scarily, even. The thing is, it wasn't really any longer than the average season, number of episodes-wise. It just lasted the ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR. It was crazed. This episode had a lot of problems; it felt completely like a different show. Refer to this annoyingly positive but still pretty on-the-nose review: http://www.avclub.com/articles/journey,41944/ Here's the single-greatest moment from not just the episode, but also probably the season (next to Kurt's "Rose's Turn" and that sweet moment with him and his dad and Finn); it's Jonathan Groff singing "Bohemian Rhapsody!"