A Green Mushroom

Wow.  This was my favorite announcement to come out of E3 .  With a 3D screen that doesn't need glasses and a hardware upgrade making this as powerful - if not more powerful - than the N64, I can't wait to get my hands on this thing. Want to know what really sold me on the 3DS?  This screenshot from Joystiq . 3D Starfox 64.  That's all I needed to buy a 3DS.  In some ways I'm an easy sell.  On top of it are Kingdom Hearts, Super Street Fighter IV 3D, Mario Kart, Paper Mario, Pilotwings Resort, and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  By far the best Zelda game ever made is coming to the 3DS.  Where do I pay and when can I hold one?  I bet my wife will want one too when she finds out that we can kick each others' asses in 3D while playing Super Street Fighter IV.  And those are only a few of the games that have been announced for the system. I still can't get over the fact that they're doing 3D without glasses.  I wonder how muc...

The hardest part of this E3 was not being able to get my hands on all the new technology .  Without a framework in mind for how these new peripherals play I have no way to know if any of the Kinect or Move games are worth paying attention too.  I can hope that flailing in front of a camera will make for good games but I won't know until I actually give the games a try. At least in the past if I saw a preview of gameplay I could contextualize it in my head.  I could make a decent guess about the way the game would play on a standard controller.  Now that's been thrown out the window. It isn't just the motion sensing technology either.  The same thing goes for 3D.  Everyone seemed to be showing off 3D but I've been watching the videos and news on a 2D monitor.  Not only am I not seeing their previews in 3D, but I can guarantee I won't spend the thousands of dollars necessary to set up 3D in my household.  It isn't worth the cost, especially wit...

I didn't have a chance to keep up with E3 news yesterday so I caught up this morning.  Playstation Move falls somewhere between the Kinect and the Wiimote.  It has potential but it's another thing I'm filing under wait and see.  The 3DS sounds awesome, but until I get one in my hands how am I supposed to judge it?  I really can't.  Although, I am excited to see a 3D screen without having to stupid 3D glasses.  Zelda looks like Zelda... nothing new there.  I think I was most excited by the Portal 2 teaser trailer.  I'm hoping that some hands on impressions of SWTOR emerge today.

Much less impressed by the EA and Ubisoft press conferences than I was by the Microsoft one. EA showed off a bunch of shooters.  Same old same old.  Bulletstorm at least had a gimick: kicking enemies away and pulling enemies close.  It looked like different kills awarded different points.  Whatever, it might be fun... maybe.  EA also showed off mixed martial arts stuff which holds zero interest for me.  Madden goes in that category too.  Sports are not my thing.  There was nothing really impressive about the EA conference except for the new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer.  It had no info on the gameplay but it got me excited for the game.  Again, I'm letting my Star Wars fanboyness shine through.  At least I'll admit it. Ubisoft has me interested in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.  I liked AC1 and loved AC2.  It looks to be the story of AC2's main character many years later once he has an entire brotherhood of assas...

I've always wanted to go to E3, but since I'm not a professional game journalist I'll have to make do with blogs and livestreams of events as they happen this week.  I spent the morning watching the Microsoft press conference online and was impressed with the Natal which is now called the Kinect. The cameras see everything... everything. Control over my console without a controller?  Yes, please.  I hope the voice command pause/play works for all types of media and not just when in the Zune store.  I stream videos stored on my PC hard drive to my 360 almost every day.  If I can control those with my voice or hand motions I'll be very happy.  If the functionality is confined to only a few applications within the 360 I'll be sorely disappointed.  Time will tell. Video chatting via Xbox is pretty cool.  The camera automatically following me as I move around the room is pretty creepy.  So there's some balance I guess. They kicked off the...

E3 kicks off Tuesday which is always interesting.  Expect a deluge of information on all things gaming to start on Monday.  I'll probably do a lot of news posts next week because of E3 so be prepared for that.  In anticipation of the event a lot of companies are leaking information and trailers to hype up their games early.  I just ran across this The Force Unleashed II trailer and felt that I should share it. I love Star Wars.  I'm a geek, but I'm not afraid to admit it.  I love the expanded universe books and I've probably tried every Star Wars game out there.  I thought The Force Unleashed was a good game with a lot of great ideas that could become an amazing game if given more development time or a sequel.  I hope my prediction comes true.