Getting the obvious out of the way:

Microsoft:
- Kinect is a stupid word.
- Gears of War 3 will be shown, I’m hoping it’s more like GoW1 and less like 2.
- Kinect / Natal still looks silly.
- Milo will be back and creepy as ever.
- Halo: Reach campaign will be shown, and will be awesome.

Nintendo:
- Zelda will totally be sweet and I might forgive Nintendo for 30 minutes of sales charts because of it.
- Pikmin 3 will rock.

Sony:
- Everyone in the media will instantly forget they ever played Wii Sports Resort and pretend like Move is something new.

Less obvious guesswork:

MS:
- MS will try to show some core games working with Nat…Kinect, using a controller while also tracking body lean and head movement.
- bunch of core game sizzle trailers to make us feel like us real gamers haven’t been forgotten.
- MGS Rising footage for the omgz the Xbox has MGS! Shock value
- Connect Fit, nuff said.

Nintendo:
- Wiimote pointer controlled Starfox.
- New Retro game (though IGN’s insisting that it’s a new Donkey Kong game, which wouldn’t have been my first guess…).
- Zelda Wii controls super awesomely and is very beautiful.
- 3DS totally owns PS3′s version of 3D for the sole reason that it doesn’t require stupid glasses and a screen that’s unviewable to anyone not wearing them (not needing to buy a whole new TV is a plus, too).

Sony:
- Going to try very very hard that Wii isn’t 300 times better than Move at FPS games.
- Another Play, Create, Share game? I dunno.
- PSP2 will have 2 analogue sticks… Probably…

Update: I’m pretty sure the 3DS will be able to play virtual console games (not sure if it’ll be the same store or separate, since it would require different emulators, hoping it would just be the same, like the PSP and PS3), but the 3DS SHOULD be able to play n64 games in 3d, since it’s emulating them, and there’s not all that many on the store, so it wouldn’t be hard to test them all.

Borne Games mini release, created by my cousin, Matt Borne, inspired by Wii Play: Tanks. You can contact by email from the game, or by posting below.

Kongregate version is live (if posting awesome scores to Kongregate is your thing).

On a more serious note, anyone play NyxQuest on WiiWare? Very excellent game, multitasking with Wii pointer controls just feels so natural and awesome on a 2D platformer.

Here’s the quote from IGN:

Q: Microsoft and Sony showed their motion controls. I would like to hear Mr. Miyamoto’s feedback.

A: Miyamoto says for Nintendo the strategy is to do development and get the hardware ready and have software ready and then make the announcements. Until this new technology reaches that level, it’s really impossible to make any judgement on it. “Of course, we’re working at R&D at Nintendo. The things that we’ve seen here are things we’ve seen before,” he says. He is in favor of motion controls and anything that gets players moving.

Think about that one for a moment. What would happen if Nintendo came out and showed off all of the new hardware that they have in R&D right now that’s just as unfinished as Microsoft’s and Sony’s motion controllers? They would be showing off TONS of stuff that might never make it to the market.

Thing is, Microsoft and Sony KNOW that they need to have motion controls hit the market, even though they’re still working with very early prototypes right now. Because of Nintendo and the Wii. Hmmm…

Btw, new Wii Zelda just confirmed as continuing the Twilight Princess art style (and maybe being WM+ exclusive) Sadly, that’s about all the new info that’s out there right now…

Okay, not really. But yeah, the conference was pretty boring. No Pikmin (yet?), no Zelda (except for Spirit Tracks, which does look hella fun), Wii Fit 2, Nintendo Heart Rate Monitor or something like that, and yay expanded audiences.

Here’s the thing, though, as my cousin pointed out, Nintendo doesn’t really show much in the way of 3rd party software at E3, so a ton of 3rd party stuff was announced, bragged about, and otherwise showed off yesterday or pretty recently. I was feeling pretty bummed after the conference, until I looked at the Wii videos section on IGN. WOW.

I’m going to have to break this post up cause this might get long…

Now, if Nintendo were anyone besides themselves, here’s what they would have shown off:

The Grinder

Looks gorgeous, and I’m a huge fan of straightforward first person shooting (TimeSplitters was one of my favorite series last gen), add 4 player online and offline co-op, and pixel perfect Wiimote aiming, and I’m sold.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

I’ve only seen enough of the first one to know that it’s nothing like this game. Be sure to watch all 3 parts, the last is absolutely stunning. The lighting in that game is phenomenal, and standing outside in heavy snow with your flashlight beam shining on and casting shadows from every object and every snowflake looks incredible. Alan Wake started looking just a tad less awesome…

Red Steel 2

I honestly really enjoyed the first Red Steel, despite the glitchy, unresponsive, downright broken controls. But this game looks to solve every single problem with the first one and marry great pointer gunplay and Wii Motion Plus swordplay. Oh yes. Also, it’s locked to 60 frames a second, which is great for pointer responsiveness.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

Um, co-op Indiana Jones with Indy and his dad. Do I really need to say any more than that?

Monado: Beginning of the World

I honestly know nothing more about this game than the fact that it looks great. Nintendo should have totally been showing off those graphics.

Tiger Woods 10

Nintendo SERIOUSLY needs to be bragging about that accuracy. Natal can’t do that. Sony’s thing might, though, once in comes out, heh.

Wii Motion Plus LiveMove2 tech demo

Nintendo would never show unfinished tech demos (Wii Sports is the closest thing, heh) to show off their technology, so Microsoft and Sony can get away with pretending that what they’re doing is new or novel in the least. Good going guys…

So there you go, Nintendo’s conference was absolute fail because of what they didn’t show, not because the material isn’t out there (like last year).

And here’s my problem with that Natal thing (pronounced Nay-tall? That’s not going to stop my neonatal or prenatal jokes, sorry). I play video games to control something, like the on screen character, a flashlight, yes, a tennis racket, golf club, frisbee, etc. Not to flail around at nothingness. There’s a difference between playing / controlling, and just raw interacting. I guess I’ll have to see if anyone ever makes a good control scheme or something, besides playing a racing game by pantomiming a steering wheel (HMM wonder where they got that one from?). Milo is creepy, btw.

And the biggest problem with Sony’s deal? There’s no pointer type functionality. The thing figures out where you’re pointing based on the gyroscopes, so it knows where you’re moving it up, down, left and right because of the camera, but there’s no pointing to a menu item, or cursor control in a 1st or 3rd person game. So it’s great for digitally writing on something, but not for, say, quickly whipping a pointer around a screen for great headshot justice.

So is that ironic that I’m bashing two new control schemes based on their lack of ‘backwards compatibility’ to existing game paradigms, while still being a huge believer in Wii Motion Plus and the Wiimote pointer? Meh.

And for the record, yes, you’re allowed to be the biggest fanboy of any sorts and still think that The Last Guardian has the most amazing trailer ever.

Even better:

In all seriousness, though, to actually compare this ‘Natal’ this to Wii Motion Plus, well, when I play games like Gears of War and Halo, I’m always thinking how much better they would be with Wii pointer controls, or how much better GTA4 minigames would be with Wii controls.

Could this thing even control an FPS or a precise minigame?

So I guess that right now I’m playing 360 pre-natal? Yeck.

And if anyone actually cares to see how it really looks (but what’s the fun in that?):

Moar GIFs! Full body waggle!

Okay okay, I promise that I’ll rag on Nintendo tomorrow if they unveil stupid things also. That would make me unbiased, right?

Anyways, looks like most of the 3rd party info has been spilling out over the last few days, especially for 3rd party Wii games, since no news is going to stand a chance amidst whatever Nintendo finally decides to unveil.

Any guesses on what we’ll be seeing? Sounds like a new Zelda and / or Mario title is almost a given, same with more info on Wii Sports Resort, and something called Wii Fit Plus (maybe it’ll come with sunlight and fresh air this time around? lawlz I kid I kid).

As for the less whispered about stuff, I’m still calling (begging for?) a new Star Fox game this year. Would be nice if we saw whatever Retro Studios was working on, maybe even see a New(er) Super Mario Bros. on DS? Pikmin 3? Though that one’s probably most likely…

Either way, looks like we’ll be getting a much better ‘real gamer’ focused E3 from Nintendo this year. At least we better, after how badly Nintendo messed up last year. Heck, they even issued an official apology for their show!

Showing off FPA at E3… *daydreams*

Yo yo yo, just thought I’d do a quick post (okay, well, not as quick as that Sonic one, but also far less depressing!).

Getting back into the swing of working on FPA again, I’ve begun thinking about game mechanics, and analyzing games that I’m playing even more so than usual.

So I’d like to know, what’s your favorite game mechanics? This post got quite a bit longer than I thought it would, so click below for my answer, and some musings on saving in games and game difficulty…

I’ve been playing Resident Evil 5 co-op split screen with Fairly (we just finished it last weekend), and Henry Hatsworth on the DS. Haven’t beaten it yet, but it’s definitely a great game. It definitely gets pretty hard near the end, which I really appreciate, but I always wonder how difficult I should actually make FPA games. I try to make the main game pretty easily beatable, while hoping that the side levels and challenges provide decent difficulty, but then players still decide that they just simply MUST get that headache badge on Kongregate.com, and thus are entitled to complain about how difficult I made World 2 in their comments :/

Anyways, I’m definitely digging some of the mechanics in Henry Hatsworth, like the balance of the puzzle on the bottom and the item system for the platformer on top, and beating up enemies after their dead is always fun (though I read a review on I believe IGN.com that thought Hatsworth was the only platformer out there that allowed you to continue to bet up on baddies after they’re dead, I was quite insulted! haha), and tossing bombs, then matching a few lines in the puzzle to power up those bombs is a pretty sweet mechanic.

So back to the question, my all-timer has got to be the suit system in Mario Bros. 3, which I’d also consider my favorite game ever, as I’ve probably written on this site more than a few times. I used to go back and play World 5 over again to rack on on Tanooki suits (this was the Super Mario All-Stars version, where you could actually save your game and go back to play the different worlds over), and try to go back to other levels and beat them without losing the suit. Did the same thing with the Hammer Bros. suit.

Which leads me to an interesting observation… I bought Mario 3 for GBA a little while ago, and when you beat every level in that game, everything opens up so you can just play levels over and over again. In the SNES version, it would save your open levels if you just quit the game, but if you select a different world, all of the levels would be locked again. You would have to beat those first few levels of World 5 to get to that Tanooki suit. In the GBA one, you could just go to that mushroom house over and over again, without really earning it. Once I did that, I didn’t really want to go back and play the game over again, though I did eventually start a new save file, heh.

What do you think? Does unlocking everything, like all levels, or infinite ammo in something like Resi4 or 5 ruin the replay value, rather than enhance it? Or am I just crazy since I play for the challenge, not just to spam the super attacks of the game? I think back to all the old GameBoy games that I have that I’ve played over and over again, going all the way back to the beginning of the game if I got a game over, and to this day still feeling like they have near infinite replay value, since it took me years to beat any of them when I was younger.

Maybe I am just crazy, and gamers nowadays just want to get to the end of a game and be done with it, heh.