Holy Shit! Awesome E3 News!!

[Noyb]

It's been a bad 24 hours for my heart. Monkey Island, mind-blowing Brutal Legend footage, and the Last Guardian? Fucker's been beating like its life depends on it (ho ho).

You'll need to keep an eye on that blood pressure, Kroms. Just hold on until Nintendo releases the Vitality Sensor.

[gdf]

the trailer for The Last Guardian made people cry.

Lies. Nobody cried, they're just jumping on the old hat "Team Ico game provokes tears thus games are art and emotional" bandwagon because they failed to play the original.

That's not to say it doesn't look incredible.

Anyway, of all the stuff it's a great return to form, some huge announcements. Microsoft were runaway "winners" in my opinion.

And what the fuck is that Play.Create.Share. racing game? It looks awful! Another couple of these and I'll be wishing LittleBigPlanet never existed.

[SignorSuperdouche]

Lies. Nobody cried, they're just jumping on the old hat "Team Ico game provokes tears thus games are art and emotional" bandwagon

Truth ^

And what the fuck is that Play.Create.Share. racing game? It looks awful!

I thought that looked pretty fun actually.

[miffy495]

Yeah, I agree. I thought it looked like it could be fun for a bit, but probably wasn't my style. As someone who tried building a LBP level but got turned away by the complexity of it all though, the level creation looked absolutely fun for me. Probably still won't play it, as I've never been much for any non-Mario kart racing game, but it didn't look bad by any means.

[thorn]

As someone who gets most of his E3 news either from Engadget or here on the Thumb... I can be a little out of the loop on the finer details. Can someone please tell me about / provide a link to the Brutal Legend awesomeness that people seem to be impressed by?

[80's Bad Guy]

Goddamnit, me and my stupid mouth.

I stand by my statement. What I should have said instead is that Valve & Id don't give a shit to take the time to learn how to program for the PS3, and that makes them less awesome than everyone else gives them credit for. As if traditional PC programming will always be the best way its done, or even the best way to do it right now...bitch puleeease.

There, I feel better. Carry on.

[Thyroid]

As someone who gets most of his E3 news either from Engadget or here on the Thumb... I can be a little out of the loop on the finer details. Can someone please tell me about / provide a link to the Brutal Legend awesomeness that people seem to be impressed by?

The full thing should be up today, but here's a good minute of it.

[Nachimir]

I switched the Sony conference off because I was finding it excruciating, but a few of you guys told me in GTA that their motion controller was awesome. Indeed

[BooJaka]

I switched the Sony conference off because I was finding it excruciating, but a few of you guys told me in GTA that their motion controller was awesome. Indeed

Seriously? I'm not too blown away by it. That whole part of the conference was just like "Oh hey, here's a bunch of stuff the Wii can do but no one's really taking advantage of". If in the last 3 years people haven't done this kind of thing for the Wii why would they suddenly do it for the PS3?

[toblix]

This could mean that in the future, instead of tilting the controller when balancing a dude on a log, we fucking have to get up and lean to the sides. And instead of selecting stuff in a menu by moving the sticks, we reach out and "touch" it. Seriously, this is the kind of stupid shit that's bound to appear as developers struggle to "take advantage" of the new tech in a lot of games already in development. Especially since none of this stuff can be done cross-platform, so each version will have its own stupid little mini games where you have to prance around your living room like an idiot to perform some trivial task. So that's the minor down-side.

Of course, there's major up-side, which is that all this new technology has tons of unknown potential beyond the table tennis and shooting gallery, and some day some genius will uncover and make fantastic use of this. For example, combining the coming 1:1 motion mapping tech (Natal, MotionPlus and Sony's) with Johnny Chung Lee style 3d vision and the new 3d displays and making awesome first person ninja adventure games. Also, think of the Japanese porn games!

[Nachimir]

Seriously? I'm not too blown away by it. That whole part of the conference was just like "Oh hey, here's a bunch of stuff the Wii can do but no one's really taking advantage of". If in the last 3 years people haven't done this kind of thing for the Wii why would they suddenly do it for the PS3?

Standard Wii controllers can't do 1:1 motion capture. They're just IR pointing devices with accelerometers working like a bunch of vague switches that you push by waving it around. The new Wii peripheral can do 1:1, but it's going to be a hard sell since (*cough*) people think that what it does is what the Wii already does.

Also, these things aren't aimed at anyone who's comfortable with a controller. If you're feeling hate for the tech, go sit with the rest of the hardcore and have a flaccid wank while mumbling about how Nintendo doesn't love you anymore.

I'm excited about these things as interesting toys to take apart, program for and generally fuck around with. Couldn't be arsed whatsoever for gaming. Likewise Natal: I think it will be a great interface, because joypads absolutely suck as controllers for using menus, watching DVDs, listening to music, etc. I'm pretty certain I'd rather play games with a pad than mime them though.

[Cigol]

Before the whole E3 thing there was a thread about the potential unveiling of the wand at NeoGAF and someone linked to a bunch of videos from the PS2 EyeToy era;

FpNdkm9s8AY

So when this guy came out on stage holding that brightly coloured dildo, my first instinct was to cover my eyes in horror

Oh mah gawd... surely not... are they really that desperate?

Thankfully the tech had evolved into the Wii controller + EyeToy + PS3 hardware... but it was panning out differently in my head for a moment there

[Scrobbs]

I switched the Sony conference off because I was finding it excruciating, but a few of you guys told me in GTA that their motion controller was awesome. Indeed

Jesus. This is why they don't usually let engineers do presentations...and why didn't they get a flunky who had good co-ordination?

Nice tech though - the drawing looked good.

[Scrobbs]

I'm trying to keep my inner cynic in check, but I think I have to come to the acceptance that I've moved into a new demographic of existence. The core, big, testosterone games that some hype have little interest for me; but the overly casual stuff that others hype also don't appeal to me. I guess I'm in some weird middle space that tends to exist mostly with downloadables and indies now, and those just aren't hype worthy for such presentations. Oh well.

This generally, I agree with. Very few games keep me interested much now.

[brkl]

EDIT: It's about APB...

Oooh, it's not Massively Multiplayer? That's awesome. Could be great after all. Crackdown certainly rocked.

[Scrobbs]

By the way, has there been anything about 'The Outsider' from Braben and co.?

[twmac]

I'm excited about these things as interesting toys to take apart, program for and generally fuck around with. Couldn't be arsed whatsoever for gaming. Likewise Natal: I think it will be a great interface, because joypads absolutely suck as controllers for using menus, watching DVDs, listening to music, etc. I'm pretty certain I'd rather play games with a pad than mime them though.

I think that is what my problem is, its a toy that costs 200 dollars (apparently) that's a fair bit of money for something that marginally improves an interface with a menu. Also, is it locked to the X360 or could you use it on your PC?

That would hold some interest for me if it could be an interface for Photoshop or the like.

Anyways I'm a gamer and the rest of the concepts on display look like expensive gimicky bollocks

[n0wak]

Jesus. This is why they don't usually let engineers do presentations...and why didn't they get a flunky who had good co-ordination?

Nice tech though - the drawing looked good.

The tech itself isn't all that new. Ideas in this vein have existed for a while (see someone's similar interface for Flash in 2006 http://incomplet.gskinner.com/index2.html#camwriter2 )

The thing that Nintendo understood is that it's not the tech that's important, it's the interface. Microsoft made jokes at Nintendo for sitting on a sofa "waggling" (a premature jab at Sony too, it turns out) a controller, but the thing with the Wii is that it's consistent. You can move the controller and swing around... AND you can use it as a regular old NES pad, a simple controller that anyone can use. Microsoft's and Sony's devices aren't part of the overall designs of their systems; they're additions to it. You still get the more complex dual stick pads, but they're their own thing completely separate from everything else. Adding stuff like this mid-generation, for a system that wasn't designed for them, interface or otherwise, seems awkward to me.

It feels like they're rushed. They'd like to release these with new systems, but that's not reasonable in the current environment, so they're just tacked on. The tech is cool but what use is it if it's only going to be used for the two or five games that come out after it's available? How many games supported the EyeToy?

Plus, I have a friend who moves her arms around when she talks. If we were to watch a movie on an XBox with Natal, is it going to be paused and rewound and fast-forwarded randomly?

[Erkki]

Maybe you already saw this link at Mojo, but there's an interview with Tim and some ~15 mins of footage from the beginning of the game.

http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6211060/?tag=top_stories;title;5

[Salka]

http://www.vg247.com/2009/06/03/peter-molyneux-to-make-announcement-at-midnight-est/

He's coming out of the closet! Or wardrobe, or wherever children keep their clothes.

[Moosferatu]

Maybe you already saw this link at Mojo, but there's an interview with Tim and some ~15 mins of footage from the beginning of the game.

http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6211060/?tag=top_stories;title;5

Wow, that interviewer is terrible.

[Thrik]

Yes, that is seriously one of the most shit examples of interviewing I've ever seen. Footage looks ace though, much like the E3 trailer.

[Scrobbs]

He’s now creative director for Microsoft Games Studios, Europe.

[Thyroid]

Wow, that interviewer is terrible.

Very much so. But Schafer handled it with grace. I have to admit I was pretty impressed (apart from one or two obvious "WTF?" looks he gives, which were worth a snicker), but the video footage was worth it so I put it up.

[Nappi]

I guess Activision-Blizzard noticed that huge Brütal Legend E3 banner as well.