e3

Upon returning from the Electronic Entertainment Expo, my eyes had to readjust to not seeing projection monitors the size of a high school around every corner. The industry has been long without a big, loud proclamation of its growth and limitless future and this year’s E3 was exactly that. Plus, I saw Mini Me playing video games, which pleased me to no end. This was my first E3 and, by all accounts, it was a great one to be a part of. Every company had something remarkable to show and it became next to impossible to find a bad game on the show floor. That said, here’s my personal Top Five titles that I instantly pre-ordered from the expo.

1. BORDERLANDS

Life needs more people like Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford. The man stands behind his games and makes sure that you leave just as excited about them as he is, with an infectious, positive attitude for everything he does in his work. It also helps that the game he’s there to promote looks amazing, innovative, and fun as hell. Borderlands borrows from some of the best games of the past, like Fallout 3, Crackdown, Halo, and Diablo, to turn a post-apocalyptic wasteland into a freaky-deaky version of the wild west. At its core, the game’s a first-person shooter with role-playing elements, like leveling, buffs, and the all-too-fun loot drops. As you play through the game’s “concept-art” inspired world, you’ll fight against midgets, mutant dogs, and super-powered leader characters affectionately labeled as “badass.” Beating enemies gives you a plethora of loot, from the usual ammo and health, to procedurally-generated custom weapons that number in the hundreds of thousands, meaning no player will see the same gun as they play. Pitchford said that Borderlands contains more guns in the game than any other FPS across this generation’s console lineup and, after seeing his shock at picking up a revolver-based sniper rifle that shoots fire bullets, I’d believe him (staged or not). Combat is fast and fun, offering co-op play online and offline, and a sense of humor similar to the gallows jokery of Fallout. The plot is pretty basic, sticking close to the standard “fortune and glory” plotline, but when you can run around a wasteland, shooting fire bullets from a custom gun at badass midgets, does a plot matter? Not to me and not to Pitchford, whose giddy, infectious laughter at the end of the demo left us all applauding. The game drops in October and looks to be a total blast.

2. BRUTAL LEGEND

When the big, bald tattooed man handed me the controller, I asked him what he thought of Brutal Legend. He smiled, laughed and said, “Dude, you have no idea.” So when the game starts up and Eddie Riggs (voiced by Jack Black) electrocutes his first robed monk with a mystical electric guitar, you know you’re in for a metal-infused treat of a title and will probably see things you haven’t seen before on a console. These things include Riggs invoking an evil prayer full of hilarity to descend a skull pile, building a hot-rod to run over monks, meeting the Prince of Darkness (who is Ozzy Osbourne, in both voice and in-game avatar), escorting an ancient tour bus across an open-world made up of album-cover iconography, chased by demon bikers, and watching Riggs celebrate a boss-fight victory by screeching, “DECAPITATION!” in his best Dio-infused vocal. This was all in the first 20 minutes of the game, which showed a combination of axe-based brawling and driving combat. Add in earlier reports of a real-time strategy element to the game and you’ve got what is definitely the most unique, hilarious, and metal game at E3.



3. BEATLES ROCK BAND

Yeah, it’s Rock Band. It’s still a cascade of tiles representing notes that you plunk on a plastic guitar or scream into a microphone, usually poorly. But, man, it’s The Beatles. The design of the game is influenced by the band’s various phases in their career, from the black and white footage of screaming fans on Ed Sullivan to the trippy costumes where Paul was the Walrus. Before the song loads, you’re treated to some charming in-studio banter from the Fab Four and, after a small intro, you’re in The Beatles, man. While playing, you see all that great iconography, like the set from Ed Sullivan or the Walrus, wrapped around the classic Rock Band setup. Releasing alongside a complete set of Beatles remasters on Septembe 9th, we’ll all be bobbing our heads like Ringo soon.

4. BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM

You’d think a game based on a comic-book would be easy to pull off, with interesting enemies and big, bright heroes fighting in interesting places. This rarely happens, though. Most comic games end up being too simple, focusing on the physical aspects of the character, as opposed to the subtle nuances of the hero (like doing whatever a spider can). Batman: Arkham Asylum works off of everything cool about Batman, like the fighting, the detective work and the stealthy aspects of the caped crusader, while pitting him against every single one of his enemies in the creepy environs of Arkham Asylum. The game plays very well, switching between action and adventure-puzzler on the fly, and borrows liberally from both the comics and the animated series, even featuring Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and The Joker, respectively. Much like the film, The Dark Knight, Batman: Arkham Asylum shows respect to the character while delivering something new to the comic book-gaming genre. Success should repeat itself when the game comes out on August 25th.

5. SPLIT SECOND

Quick impression: I made an opponent crash by ordering a 747 to smash into his car. Before that, I set off bombs that changed the race course, powerslid into another racer as a helicopter dropped fire on us, watched a utility ladder crush a hapless car, and it all looked so freaking good. Split Second, at first blush, looks like a typical racer but ends up becoming a Michael Bay-esque trip into the wonderful world of environmental carnage, where racing well rewards you with the opportunity to affect other players with the aforementioned acts of damage. The cars handle well and your UI is positioned underneath the car; such a smart way to keep your eyes firmly planted dead-center on the action that you wonder why it hasn’t been seen in a car game before. It gets choppy in the big set pieces, but that should be tweaked by the time the game comes out early next year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

- Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction both take what has been bugging gamers about their respective franchises and polishes those spiky bits into shiny diamonds.

- Left 4 Dead 2 is still as fun as the original, as is the new God of War 3, further proving you don’t fix what isn’t broken.

- I like the PSP-Go a lot, if only for the advent of digital-only distribution of titles, but the price point for a smaller screen leaves me a bit reluctant to upgrade.

- Uncharted 2 was gorgeous, feature-film level entertainment. Looking forward to it.

- New Super Mario Bros. Wii made me curse loudly in the G-Rated confines of Nintendo’s booth, due to its competitive nature. I guess that’s an endorsement. I would rather have a big, huge 2D adventure similar to the classic Super Mario Bros. 3. Maybe it’ll coincide with the remake of “The Wizard.” Dare to dream, kids!

- DJ Hero was shown off and man, does it look complicated. I definitely prefer a learning curve out of a new peripheral-based game instead of more of the same, though.

- Tony Hawk: Ride was impressive and, most of all, a lot of unique fun. The demo was short, but effective, turning a lot of people on to the game that may have come in on the negative side.

- A note to Capcom: please provide more demo stations. Your games looked awesome, but the lines were a bit much.

Later on this week, our gaming group will look at 5 big trends coming out of E3, where we’ll talk about Project Natal, Scribblenauts, James Cameron, and how E3 has changed for the better. Also, we’ll be posting our newest issue of PLAYED, Denuo’s insight into the world of gaming, to the site early next week, covering everything we loved and loathed about the conference in a handy PDF format to share with your friends.

To close this out, courtesy of Kotaku, here’s a photo of Verne “Mini-Me” Troyer playing Tony Hawk: Ride, proving anyone can do it.

mini me

 

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