E3 2005 - Electronic Entertainment Expo
What a great week for nerds!!! Video games and Star Wars all at once! I went to E3 this week and was bombarded with lights, babes and video games. Being equipped with a keen eye for B.S. I'm here to cut through all the flash and sizzle and summarize the best and worst of E3. Before I begin, let me warn anyone out there who uses Sony digital camera memory sticks to not use the Lexar brand with an A-B switch. Yes, half of my pictures were lost due to a format error. When I went online to investigate I read many similar sad stories of people losing vacation photos, etc... Crap media for my crap pictures. 
Additionally, let me make clear that I am not a professional photographer. You get what you get from me. Yeah, the pictures are kind of crappy - but they are good enough. Buy a magazine if you want better photos.
Also, the LA Convention center traffic sucks. I'm amazed that such a big event does not have better traffic management. The parking is equally suck-ass. I ended up spending 50.00 just so that I could actually get out of my vehicle and get to the show before sundown. Retardulous.
Now that we've got that baby crying stuff out of the way...
E3 was great! Everyone is asking, "Who do you think 'won' at E3 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo? MS, Sony or 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 - Doh!" The answer is that the GAMERS are the big winners. XBox came out swinging early prompting the others to take it up a notch. It's amazing what a little healthy competition can do for an industry. In the coming year we are going to have what looks to be three kick ass systems to pick from. Each has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Here's the lowdown411:
XBox 360 
Big hype early on, but these guys reminded me once again that they are new to this arena. They gave a valiant effort but really could not compete with the Sony PR machine. I am personally really looking forward to the new XBox and was disappointed that MS played ALL of it's cards so early. I was hoping to be wowed at the E3 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo.I think the new XBox live is going to be even better. I don't think either Sony or Nintendo will have an online community that comes close. MS was "keepin' it real' by showing what they really had in the works. The dev kits are still alpha - we've only seen approximately 20% of the system's full power and potential. This to me is very exciting. It will kick ass - I just wish we have more exciting footage to check out. Gears of war, Battlefield 2, Project Gotham Racing 3, Call of Duty 2 and Need For Speed running on XB360 all looked phenomenal! Unfortunately, a number of other titles shown (still in early development) looked good, but not much different from the current XB generation (Dead or Alive4, Kameo). I mean, we've all seen what the XB1 can do with games like Doom3, Riddick and Halo2. XB360 needs to really blow our socks off. The tech specs are impressive - we just haven't seen enough of it in action. Where was that amazing War Devil footage???? 
Additionally, MS (as well as Sony) is pushing 'convergence' in the living room. Entertainment, photos, music, etc... Interaction with Windows. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, kind of cool, but where are my bitching nextgen games???? And if I hear one more thing about fu%#ing 'micro-transactions' I'm going to vomit. Do a Google search - I don't feel like going into it here.
If MS is guilty of anything, it would be honesty. They showed what they have, what it can eventually do (hopefully by November), and where they expect to go. I think the Xbox 360 will be a great system with a long life.
There were lots of promising titles still scheduled for release on the existing Xbox. Some of my favorites were Conflict: Global Terror, Half-Life2, 007 From Russia with Love, Burnout 4, Stubbs the Zombie and Far Cry. 
Sony Sony PS3 
Okay, so you know how I painted the XB360 presentation as honest? Well Sony had the Sith dark side presentation. Strategically, this was brilliant. Here's MS cutting deeply into their market share, coming out earlier, more innovative, better online. So what is Sony to do? They don't have a final product anywhere close to ready. Aaaahhh, the magic of computer animation! The PS3 has a new Cell processor. Very powerful. What Sony did was brilliant. Cute tech demos any stooge can watch and immediately understand the power of the new processor. “Look, lots of rubber duckies falling in the perty water…” These guys know how to pimp their stuff. Fantastic demonstrations of lighting, textures and mass objects on screen. Then there was the Killzone2 trailer. I’ll be happy to go on record as saying that I do not for one second believe that the movie showed actual In-Game footage. It was an amazing CG Movie. “Killzone2: The Spirits Within Sony’s Ass”. Before I go on let me tell you that every last person I spoke to at E3 regarding the PS3 presentation told me that they did not believe they saw in game footage. Smoke and mirrors – pretty shiny mirrors. Lots of buzz – Like I said, Sony knows how to pimp their stuff. They’ve got about a year to backup these claims. I think they will not be able to deliver on these heat of the moment promises (can you say GT4 online?). Still it was a brilliant strategic move. Everyone was talking… for the first 2 days. If the final system is even half as good as what we saw we will be lucky gamers! Let's cross our fingers!
Sony PSPWhat surprised me was that there was not much love for the PSP. I played Death Jr. and it was pretty good - but not the great platformer I was expecting. There were plenty of other demos as well that I thought were good. When I talked with random attendees at the show about PSP the response was luke warm at best. The unit is beautiful, I hope they can pull it together.
Nintendo Revolution 
The unveiling of Nintendo’s nextgen Revolution console seemed forced by the E3 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo lineup. Having its gaming dominance emasculated by Sony years ago, Nintendo has struggled in recent efforts to gain back market share. Time and time again Nintendo stresses that they are interested in producing a gaming machine (although this time with DVD player). Focus will be on high quality games (usually meaning 10 releases per year) as well as backwards compatibility with all previous Nintendo home consoles. Sorry dude, the VirtualBoy was not a home console. The older games will somehow be downloaded into the system. There is a yet unveiled controller rumored to be touch sensitive and fully customizable which would make sense if needed to support all previous consoles. The timing sucks for Nintendo fanboys since it appears that the GameCube catalogue will die off after the new Zelda game comes out later this year – which looks great by the way. There will be a long wait until Revolution comes out.
Nintendo Game-Boy-Advance-Micro-Mini-Supa-Tiny 
Let me see, I bought a GBA and it was good. Then came the GBA SP and it was better with the much overdue back light and rechargeable battery pack. Then I bought the DS with it’s miniscule catalogue. Now Nintendo has shrunk the GBA to the size of a pack of gum and they want me to buy it again. No other new features, just smaller. Should you get this? Heck yeah! I’ll be getting this. Hook it up to your key chain. It’s pretty cool! Okay, it doesn’t really make any sense, but for some reason I’m looking forward to this. The screen is nice even though tiny.
Nintendo DS
Well, it looks like there are finally going to be some titles released. Nintendogs is a perverted game where you stroke your dog. Animal Crossing (over rated alert) is supposed to be playable online. Mario this and that, blah, blah, blah…
NGage 
Who is funding this crap???? The booth was huge! There was this circular arena with dozens of NGage handhelds setup for net play. No one cared. They hired some guy to be a “cool skateboard dude” and try to get the crowd all excited. No one cared. He would get up in your face and say, “Isn’t this fun!”. No one cared. When do you cut your losses? The games look like crap.
Gizmondo
where do I begin. British rap stars. Fancy Car on display. Fine young women in checkered hot pants. There were some games somewhere. They gave out a 10 pound pamphlet with cover art throughout. Did I mention that they had some really hot babes there?
Babes at the Show
Since I brought it up… Yes, there were babes at the show. Pretty girls who don’t know a thing about gaming surrounded by ultra-nerds… how interesting. I saw a lot of guys in rectangular frame glasses wearing turtle necks (2005 nerd uniform) getting their picture taken with babes. Hulk babes, Conan babes, Gizmondo babes, Singles2 babes, Destroy all Humans babes, THQ babes and Namco babes. But the best babes hands down were the chicks over at the Pac-Man booth! Really, is there anything sexier than a fine young lady with a yellow Pac-Man on her head? Waka-waka!!!In ClosingSo, all in all it was a great show for gamers. MS showed perserverance, Sony showed muscle and Nintendo showed some defiance. I can't wait to spend money on these products!
*** special note of thanks to the Japanese guy developing the XBox tango dancing game for letting me make fun of his product openly. But seriously dude, you should be able to step on that girls feet and grab her ass. That would be awesome!!!*** Additional thanks to all of the developers who answered my questions. And to that guy who accidently let me into the Microsoft Xbox Meeting room. Thanks MS for the free water. The E3 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo was getting hot!
