electronic entertainment exposition
May. 14th, 2003 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashI went to E3 today. My feet hurt. I took some notes about what I saw. They're presented in the order I saw the games.
Ubisoft, GC: Beyond Good And Evil. You're a photographer who gets involved in uncovering a vast conspiracy that seems to control her entire world. She's trailed by a porcine creature who has to be shepherded through the levels; he may be able to help you out in some ways. Similar design sense to 'Rayman', which is never a bad thing.
Capcom, GC: P.N. 03. This game feels like it should be happening on a beat, with bonuses for making things blow up at the right point, and extra-powerful attacks for working with the rhythm track. But it isn't. It's just a lot of fan service. You're a girl in an assortment of form-fitting combat suits, with a tendency to strike sexy poses all the time, even when shooting things. Special attacks involve her doing little dances, then spraying lots of beams of death. She is cute, in a Bad Girl way, and does not have the huge breasts that mar most female lead designs in videogames.
Capcom, PS2: Chaos Legion. You, a sword, and lots and lots and lots of monsters to wade through. You may substitute a pair of handguns depending on which character you pick. Looks like a nice bit of hack-and-slash fun.
Capcom, GC: Killer 7. Watching this one on the big screen made me wet. Stark, limited palettes. Deep shadows. Huge slabs of solid color. There's one shot they showed of a corridor with everything rendered in white, black, and reds. SO LOVELY. Also ultra-violent, apparently. The lack of any playable demo is a bit worrisome for a game coming out this winter; I hope the stuff I saw isn't just the cinematics, with the rest looking more ordinary. If the whole game is this lovely, I will buy a Gamecube for it.
Capcom, GC: Viewtiful Joe. Looks like it does some interesting things with the old walk-to-the-right-and-beat-everyone-up formula, but it has one huge problem - the design and animation of the player character somehow manages to capture everything that is uncomfortably-homoerotic about superheros. The only thing that would make Joe more screamingly queer would be a pink triangle on his chest.
TDK, XBox: Spy Vs. Spy. Prohias is rolling in his grave.
Lucasarts has too damn many Star Wars games in the works.
While it was still on the loud side by normal standards, Nintendo's area was a veritable chill-out room compared to the rest of the show. Enclosed by ceiling-high white canvas, lit mostly with cool blues. They even had a live ambient techno act on a raised dais in the center of the area when I first wandered in.
Unfortunately, most of their stuff is just the latest installments in their franchises, none of which I've ever really connected to. There was a game called 'Geist', a first-person shooter where you're a disembodied spirit who possesses people to get things done. Every time someone does the possession schtick in a game, they always drop the 'transfer' sub-game that gave 'Paradroid', the first-ever possession game, its unique rhythm of gameplay.
Eidos, PS2: Whiplash. This one made me laugh. Two lab animals try to escape from a pointlessly-evil product testing lab. For no obvious reason, they're chained together. You're a weasel with wires coming out of its head, and your sidekick is a cute little fluffy bunny. Who you smash scientists insensible with. You get to set the bunny on fire temporarily to cause extra damage. The whole thing looks to be really entertainingly bad-natured, and is cartoony enough that it's funny, not horrible.
Ubisoft again, PS2: Ape Escape 2! I liked the original Ape Escape.
Ubisoft, PS2: Prince of Persia - Sands of Time. I wonder if Jordan Mechner is getting any money from/was involved in this. A major gameplay mechanic is a 'rewind' button - missed that tough jump and fell into the spikes? Hold down 'rewind' and back through the last five seconds or so of gameplay. Plus, you can run up walls like a swashbuckling Fred Astaire, and get to have lots of flashy cinematic swordplay moves.
Disney Interactive has renamed itself as Buena Vista Interactive. For no obvious reason, their logo prominently features the exact same symbol that adorns Mac power buttons. They had a tiny teaser for a 'Nightmare Before Christmas' game. Also, the idea of a skateboarding game featuring a huge assortment of Disney properties on skateboards is a complete and total abomination, so of course they were featuring that rather prominently.
I didn't look too much at sequels to games I enjoyed. Ratchet & Clank Go Commando looks to be exactly like the original R&C except for Ratchet's ugly new outfit; since R&C was a lot of fun this is fine with me. The new Legacy of Kain game seems to let you control both Raziel and Kain.
There were a lot of MMORPGs, too.
Finally, there were two contenders for 'Dubious License of the Year', but one clear winner. The runner-up is Konami's 'McFarlane's Evil Prophecy'. It seems to feature character design by him, and probably a story by him, too. How this man has made a career out of 'Put more spikes on it. Spikes are kool.' is beyond me.
Kemco, however, is the winner, with... 'Lobo'. Lobo?!? I thought Lobo went out of fashion in 1987 or something like that!
Ubisoft, GC: Beyond Good And Evil. You're a photographer who gets involved in uncovering a vast conspiracy that seems to control her entire world. She's trailed by a porcine creature who has to be shepherded through the levels; he may be able to help you out in some ways. Similar design sense to 'Rayman', which is never a bad thing.
Capcom, GC: P.N. 03. This game feels like it should be happening on a beat, with bonuses for making things blow up at the right point, and extra-powerful attacks for working with the rhythm track. But it isn't. It's just a lot of fan service. You're a girl in an assortment of form-fitting combat suits, with a tendency to strike sexy poses all the time, even when shooting things. Special attacks involve her doing little dances, then spraying lots of beams of death. She is cute, in a Bad Girl way, and does not have the huge breasts that mar most female lead designs in videogames.
Capcom, PS2: Chaos Legion. You, a sword, and lots and lots and lots of monsters to wade through. You may substitute a pair of handguns depending on which character you pick. Looks like a nice bit of hack-and-slash fun.
Capcom, GC: Killer 7. Watching this one on the big screen made me wet. Stark, limited palettes. Deep shadows. Huge slabs of solid color. There's one shot they showed of a corridor with everything rendered in white, black, and reds. SO LOVELY. Also ultra-violent, apparently. The lack of any playable demo is a bit worrisome for a game coming out this winter; I hope the stuff I saw isn't just the cinematics, with the rest looking more ordinary. If the whole game is this lovely, I will buy a Gamecube for it.
Capcom, GC: Viewtiful Joe. Looks like it does some interesting things with the old walk-to-the-right-and-beat-everyone-up formula, but it has one huge problem - the design and animation of the player character somehow manages to capture everything that is uncomfortably-homoerotic about superheros. The only thing that would make Joe more screamingly queer would be a pink triangle on his chest.
TDK, XBox: Spy Vs. Spy. Prohias is rolling in his grave.
Lucasarts has too damn many Star Wars games in the works.
While it was still on the loud side by normal standards, Nintendo's area was a veritable chill-out room compared to the rest of the show. Enclosed by ceiling-high white canvas, lit mostly with cool blues. They even had a live ambient techno act on a raised dais in the center of the area when I first wandered in.
Unfortunately, most of their stuff is just the latest installments in their franchises, none of which I've ever really connected to. There was a game called 'Geist', a first-person shooter where you're a disembodied spirit who possesses people to get things done. Every time someone does the possession schtick in a game, they always drop the 'transfer' sub-game that gave 'Paradroid', the first-ever possession game, its unique rhythm of gameplay.
Eidos, PS2: Whiplash. This one made me laugh. Two lab animals try to escape from a pointlessly-evil product testing lab. For no obvious reason, they're chained together. You're a weasel with wires coming out of its head, and your sidekick is a cute little fluffy bunny. Who you smash scientists insensible with. You get to set the bunny on fire temporarily to cause extra damage. The whole thing looks to be really entertainingly bad-natured, and is cartoony enough that it's funny, not horrible.
Ubisoft again, PS2: Ape Escape 2! I liked the original Ape Escape.
Ubisoft, PS2: Prince of Persia - Sands of Time. I wonder if Jordan Mechner is getting any money from/was involved in this. A major gameplay mechanic is a 'rewind' button - missed that tough jump and fell into the spikes? Hold down 'rewind' and back through the last five seconds or so of gameplay. Plus, you can run up walls like a swashbuckling Fred Astaire, and get to have lots of flashy cinematic swordplay moves.
Disney Interactive has renamed itself as Buena Vista Interactive. For no obvious reason, their logo prominently features the exact same symbol that adorns Mac power buttons. They had a tiny teaser for a 'Nightmare Before Christmas' game. Also, the idea of a skateboarding game featuring a huge assortment of Disney properties on skateboards is a complete and total abomination, so of course they were featuring that rather prominently.
I didn't look too much at sequels to games I enjoyed. Ratchet & Clank Go Commando looks to be exactly like the original R&C except for Ratchet's ugly new outfit; since R&C was a lot of fun this is fine with me. The new Legacy of Kain game seems to let you control both Raziel and Kain.
There were a lot of MMORPGs, too.
Finally, there were two contenders for 'Dubious License of the Year', but one clear winner. The runner-up is Konami's 'McFarlane's Evil Prophecy'. It seems to feature character design by him, and probably a story by him, too. How this man has made a career out of 'Put more spikes on it. Spikes are kool.' is beyond me.
Kemco, however, is the winner, with... 'Lobo'. Lobo?!? I thought Lobo went out of fashion in 1987 or something like that!
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 10:26 pm (UTC)I couldn't go to E3 this year!
I've been to all the ones in L.A., except this one!
Argh!
Anyway, enough snivelling.
That Killer 7 game sounds really really cool.
As for dubious licenses, didn't Titus have anything goofy? They usually do.
Last year, they had Top Gun and Robocop.
(goes off to sulk in a corner)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 11:39 pm (UTC)