The entertainment expo has gone and passed for another year. With many enjoying the possibilities that E3 2011 would hold prior to the expo, many gamers coming out of it- felt dirty, relentless and quite underwhelmed. For while the expo offered some great new items, many where more of the same and others where just bland.
For the most part, Sony and Microsoft stuck with their strategies which they have been pushing for the past few years. With no major console in the future from either of the companies (expect Sony with its new portable), it seemed like quite a dry year. With what fans will call the big kicks from Microsoft been the next generation Halo trilogy starting, and from Sony- their new portable the Sony Vita. None of them offered anything to really write home about, with the extensive range been especially with the Vita, a portable PS3- which while might be good for some, for others shows the same old repeated, dumbed down- to a portable if you will.
This isn’t just “competition bashing” because I’m a Nintendo fanboy, oh no. Nintendo was also guilty of providing a mediocre response this year. The winner of this E3, would have to be the Nintendo Wii U, the companies brand new system. However it isn’t a victory- more of a white flag, compilation prize. With the systems controller, after rumours providing gamers exactly what it was before the conference, when it came time for the revel, many already new exactly what was going to happen. The controller isn’t something gamers can hype themselves up for the experience to play, unlike the Wii Remote before it, and the 3DS only recently. With the 3DS sales, especially with the horrible launch primary driven by curious gamers wanting to experience the joys of 3D.
Speaking about 3D, it seems that whole direction has turned out to be a waste of time. While the PS3 offers some 3D experience, it seems that’s primary been forgotten- and other companies are not willing to bring the experience to the big consoles no more. Even Nintendo’s Wii U, lacks 3D in anyway- especially with the tablet screen, it could have provided gamers with a 3D experience right there in the hands.
But the lack of 3D expanding isn’t a concern, mainly because it is really at the end of a day a horrible gimmick. No what is a concern is the E3 line up consisting of more than the same. While there where new IPs at E3, they seemed to have been buried, with the best new IP offering probably been from Ubisoft for the Wii U. With Killer Freaks from Outer Space, however the game is primarily still quite newly developed, and more than likely will change over the coming year/s into either something to be proud of, or something which just creates a niche following like the original Red Steel. E3 also had some amazing reboots of series gone by, however most reboots where of games which have seen the light of day only recently, which created a stale enjoyable stench from them.
The 3DS, had some great offerings as well, this year Nintendo started showing off what is new to the 3DS, instead of remakes from the 64. Which really complete the 3DS line up into the next few years, titles such as Luigis Mansion 2, Super Mario 3DS and much more. The system had a solid line up which no doubt after the batch of ports, will breathe fresh air into the system, especially with gamers upset about the amount of ports the system was receiving.
For me however, the shows winner wasn’t a game, or one of the brand new consoles shown. It was the tech demo for Zelda HD. It doesn’t amount for any future game at this stage, however if the past Zelda tech demos for the Gamecube and N64 are to be believed, what we see next on the Wii U when it comes to a Zelda game will be a technology marvel for the system. With previous tech demos highlighting current limitations, but only by the developers- with especially the Zelda tech demos becoming an amazing console experience with much more enhanced graphics than before. If you think the tech demo showed something amazing and worth playing, then my god you will wet your pants when Nintendo accuracy puts some resources together to make a game.