Wednesday, May 25, 2005
On Expositions Entertaining and Electronic.
E3 has been and gone for another year. As far as they go, this one was high on speculation and hype, and a little less on substance worthy of satiating one's gaming appetite. As far as gaming goes, there are a few gems that I'm looking forward to, notably Shadow of the Colossus, Spore and Prince of Persia 3, among others. Hopefully at least a few of these will be good, and we'll have yet another holiday game release frenzy that is totally awesome, yet mind-boggling in its enormity.
Still, all the focus for this E3 was on the new consoles. Microsoft has clearly decided to grab the bull by both the horns AND the balls, whole-handedly, with an iron gauntlet. They were the only ones with a console worth showing, and with software representative of what this new console will be doing. Sony managed to try and get some hype going with their picture of what the new PlayStation will look like, and that whole Killzone 2 attempt was nice, but totally lame once it got out that the video was pre-rendered. Nintendo managed to mumble something about revolutions and old games off to themselves in the corner, but nobody much took anything they did that didn't start with a Z- and end with -elda too seriously. (Oh, there was something about Nintendogs, but... no. Just no.)
It might sound like I'm firmly in the Microsoft camp when it comes to the new generation of games, and that probably sounds about right. They will be the first out the gate, and they have the best offering to date. Essentially, the ludicrously-named Xbox 360 will be a bizarre media PC/console hybrid, like the strange lovechild results of tech-geek slashfic. I mean, wireless internet, movies, music (with a nice light synthesizer) AND both new and backwards-compatible games? You sir, have something worthy of praise.
Sony's trumpeting about their teraflops is a concept too nebulous for me to grasp, not knowing quite what a single flop is, let alone a trillion of them. They're just now saying that they too will be a media center like the Xbox, but I see this as a last-ditch effort to scream out "Hey don't forget me! I made gaming cool back in the day!"
Nintendo is essentially not even an option for me. Yes, their backcatalogue of games for download sounds good, but I barely have time for the new games, let alone the ones from the days of yore that were either not good enough to catch my attention the first time, or that I have already played. That bit about the revolutionary open development thing, equally conductive to big developers or indies with only a big idea? That hope has been dashed on the rocks, thanks to a re-assessment of the vibe at the press conference, as well as a sober look at the N's past history with 3rd party developers.
So. Until something new comes out to blast Bill's box from the sky, Red Baron-style, I am firmly a Microserf when it comes to the next-generation games. Yes, I am most definitely perpetuating the downward, stagnating spiral that is threatening to choke the life out of the gaming industry, but I don't much care. If a revolution happens to videogames, it will come on the PC, riding like Gandalf at the end of the Two Towers, iridescent light shimmering from the horizon, but that's most definitely a wholely different rant. ¶ 6:09 p.m.
E3 has been and gone for another year. As far as they go, this one was high on speculation and hype, and a little less on substance worthy of satiating one's gaming appetite. As far as gaming goes, there are a few gems that I'm looking forward to, notably Shadow of the Colossus, Spore and Prince of Persia 3, among others. Hopefully at least a few of these will be good, and we'll have yet another holiday game release frenzy that is totally awesome, yet mind-boggling in its enormity.
Still, all the focus for this E3 was on the new consoles. Microsoft has clearly decided to grab the bull by both the horns AND the balls, whole-handedly, with an iron gauntlet. They were the only ones with a console worth showing, and with software representative of what this new console will be doing. Sony managed to try and get some hype going with their picture of what the new PlayStation will look like, and that whole Killzone 2 attempt was nice, but totally lame once it got out that the video was pre-rendered. Nintendo managed to mumble something about revolutions and old games off to themselves in the corner, but nobody much took anything they did that didn't start with a Z- and end with -elda too seriously. (Oh, there was something about Nintendogs, but... no. Just no.)
It might sound like I'm firmly in the Microsoft camp when it comes to the new generation of games, and that probably sounds about right. They will be the first out the gate, and they have the best offering to date. Essentially, the ludicrously-named Xbox 360 will be a bizarre media PC/console hybrid, like the strange lovechild results of tech-geek slashfic. I mean, wireless internet, movies, music (with a nice light synthesizer) AND both new and backwards-compatible games? You sir, have something worthy of praise.
Sony's trumpeting about their teraflops is a concept too nebulous for me to grasp, not knowing quite what a single flop is, let alone a trillion of them. They're just now saying that they too will be a media center like the Xbox, but I see this as a last-ditch effort to scream out "Hey don't forget me! I made gaming cool back in the day!"
Nintendo is essentially not even an option for me. Yes, their backcatalogue of games for download sounds good, but I barely have time for the new games, let alone the ones from the days of yore that were either not good enough to catch my attention the first time, or that I have already played. That bit about the revolutionary open development thing, equally conductive to big developers or indies with only a big idea? That hope has been dashed on the rocks, thanks to a re-assessment of the vibe at the press conference, as well as a sober look at the N's past history with 3rd party developers.
So. Until something new comes out to blast Bill's box from the sky, Red Baron-style, I am firmly a Microserf when it comes to the next-generation games. Yes, I am most definitely perpetuating the downward, stagnating spiral that is threatening to choke the life out of the gaming industry, but I don't much care. If a revolution happens to videogames, it will come on the PC, riding like Gandalf at the end of the Two Towers, iridescent light shimmering from the horizon, but that's most definitely a wholely different rant. ¶ 6:09 p.m.
