E3 2007: Bursting the Bubble
This is another article I wrote for Deeko. If you’ve been talking to me lately or seen my comments on others’ blogs you probably have an idea as to the gist of it, but its essentially a critique on the state of the industry at the moment, and the overall lack of “wow” factor at this year’s E3.
“So E3 2007 has come and gone, and most websites and blogs seem to be trying to figure out who “won” the show out of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. This is made a bit difficult by the popular criticism that none of these three companies really showed us a whole lot we didn’t already know about before. All we really saw in the end was more footage of Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, and Metal Gear Solid 4. People are criticizing Killzone 2 for only having graphics to display, without showing any actual gameplay features, but the truth is few of these games were much better off.”
…to continue reading, click the top image.
beautiful and negative = Entertaining for sure. Great article!! Very funny
Your assment on the Wii is spot on.. i mean..when do you think people will start to see through the ” ‘O my god, I can’t belive if I move my arms the controller on the screen moves too!!” effect? or is it already starting to happen already?
Sega!
mmm, boobies. I’m gonna recreate every level from Super Mario World in Little Big Planet.
I’ll read your article later. I gotta do something real quick with Ivy.
I think the most interesting aspect of E3 was to count how many times slo-mo bullet time was used in each game trailer. It’s become the ‘In a world…’-like cliche of the industry!
Great article, by the way!
It’s been said so many times before but Nintendo’s conference was the absolute worst. The others were pretty bad too, but Nintendo definitely took the cake.
Unfortunately I don’t have time to read the article now, but I will later.
What a depressing article, but unfortunately a very accurate one. I have to say, though, that things are looking a lot better for the portable market these days. At the very least, we’re getting a new Zelda on the DS…
Great article, one of the best I’ve read in a while, actually. It’s a little sad that, when you look at the top games this year, most of them are shooters, but at least a few, like Mass Effect, try to break the mold, and are closer to huge, epic, multi-genre games than your average run-and-gun mediocre piece of crap.
And you know, even though the Wii is selling like crazy, and the 360 is still doing very well in sales, you’re right, nobody really is winning “The Console War”. Not even the gamers, actually, at least not with the high prices, unreliable hardware, and gimmicky third-party games.
I was a little disappointed with this year’s E3. I liked the idea of focusing more on business, but then you cut off all of the little sites, and with separate press conferences held in hotel rooms strewn across the place, it’s hard for journalists to get everywhere unless they’ve got everything scheduled, right down to the second.
- Cody
Disdainful. I do believe I’ve used that word to describe your writings before. Nothing new there. Alas, nothing new anywhere. Wow, I can just feel the miasma of hatred emanating from your article. Nice wrap-up, summation of all the problems of the big 3. If you’re not stoked about playing Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros later this year, then I don’t know what would impress you. Then again, you didn’t give a damn about Ocarina of Time either. But yeah, you’re right, there were no fucking magical moments in E3 this year, no big bangs, no shift to 4D. Shit. Fuck E3. Nothing worth looking forward to. I’ll just be playing Lair, Bioshock, Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime, Smash Bros., Mass Effect, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Ratchet and Clank, Little Big Planet, Army of Two, and others this year. Shit. Dammit.
Thanks for the article. Seriously. You’re a good writer. A pro.
FATAL Error! That’s not a picture of online multi-player! I’m going to immediately contact Mike so he may correct this oversight.
Good overall, though.
Smashbro, your excited about Lair, Bioshock, Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime, Smash Bros., Mass Effect, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Ratchet and Clank, Little Big Planet and Army of Two??? . . . . . You’re so fucking lame! Didn’t you hear.. E3 sucked… get with the program.
Sega!
You know what the paradox is? The games they were showcasing may make up the strongest fall lineup I’ve ever seen. Why couldn’t the show be better?
Great read. Couldn’t agree more with the FPS and God of War style games flooding the market for awhile, but with stuff like Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata, Mass Effect, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Contra 4, I think you tend to forget there’s a lot more stuff that was NOT shown at E3, a show that now scaled down in size does not begin to represent gaming as a whole. And good for that!
I need to make a bigger effort to check out Pete and Matt’s neato website more often. All of youse guys writing for it are top notch!
I dunno if the real problem was what they had to show, but what they actually showed. There were lots of great titles flying under the radar at E3 that got pushed aside. I think the issue is that the big 3 are a little unsure on how the market is going. So many new types of gamers have entered the market this year and they want to make sure that they keep buying stuff. Can’t entirely blame them for that, as it’s all about makin’ $$$ for them.
Love,
Naked BoB
Nice article!
very nice…humorous…
I was wondering how long it would take people to start generating anti-Wii sentences. For the first six months all I heard was Wii this, Wii that, Wii sports pwns ur god and t bags ur mom, Wii60 is the future, Wii is life, Wii is better than Weed, Wii…
If you didn’t know…I was getting sick of it.
Did I tell you my xbox elite broke? The harddrive failed…they replaced it…but I lost all of my saves.
Isn’t that Ironic? Especially if you knew that I bought my ps3 first, stayed with ps3 til the release of the elite, and bought it to prove the ps3 was better, liked the xbox games more, played the xbox more, and then watched it die. It was quite saddening, stupid microsoft…I was trying to prove not all of their consoles broke…
And my ps3…running smoothly as always…looking prettier than the xbox…making prettier sounds…its elegance pwns the xbox..and what is it doing right now… its folding at home…all day long…seven days a week…pausing to watch a dvd from blockbuster…restarting folding at home…waiting…waiting….maybe a good game will come out? No motorstorm was lame…waiting…no I dont want rainbow six for two consoles thats idiotic…waiting…hoping lair won’t get pushed back…waiting…endlessly…
so yea…pretty much…I agree…rather disappointing. And yet…I am excited…because…people are complaining. Its always a good sign. Because…when people complain a lot…sales go down…when sales go down…stockholders get edgy…when they get edgy…developers and console makers get edgy…and then things change. With all luck.
Great article. Honestly; I’m at a point in my life where I’m a little glad that nothing big was announced. I can’t keep up as it is.
zumafire – It’s sad because the games on Wii don’t really have to be such gimmick novelties…the developers just haven’t stepped up to the plate yet. I blame Nintendo most of all; they should be leading by example, but even titles like Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess leave a lot to be desired, at least for me.
mediacircus – Haha, that’s a very good point. I don’t remember personally seeing a lot of bullet time outside of that one John Woo (for a sec I typoed and put John Wii) game, but I’m sure its there. If you ask me, the sooner games leave Matrix nostalgia behind, the better.
retroyoshi – That’s very true. Unfortunately, I just can’t bring myself to buy a portable yet. It’s great that old school-style games have found a place in the modern gaming world, but as far as I can tell they haven’t evolved much in the portable world beyond getting face lifts and stylus functionality. It’s basically like you’re getting a hand-held ROM.
TheNintendoTheory - Yeah, I think the new format may be partially to blame for E3’s underwhelming show. There wasn’t space to show everything so some of the better stuff got swept under the rug.
Smashbro – Ok you asked for it :p
Lair: entry-level flight simulator with dragon paint-job
Bioshock: I agree the game has promise, but demo videos have been available since at least February. Plus, whether its theories work in practice remains to be proven.
Mario Galaxy – Mario Sunshine with more polygons and motion controls
Metroid Prime 3 - This could be the one that I can actually tolerate due to the Wiimote making mouse/keyboard style control possible. We’ll see though; you may just yet be stuck using 1 strafe buttons to circle locked-on targets for the whole game.
Smash Bros – I liked the N64 version, but something was lost in translation and I find the GC version pretty much impossible to get the hang of. I can rarely ever actually see where my character is, much less execute the moves I want (all of which I could do easily on N64). My GF and I played marathon sessions trying to improve, and I still didn’t get anywhere. As such my interest is pretty much nil for the Wii version.
Mass Effect – We’ll see, the setting looks cool, but the battle system looks flimsy. We won’t know if the story is any good till we play it.
Halo 3 - It will probably be a fun mindless romp through campaign, but having spent so much time modding the gameplay of Halo 1 and 2 I think it’s pretty much impossible for the game to meet my expectations.
Call of Duty 4 - Again, might be some amusing simple fun, but as a realistic tactical shooter, it’s not going to match Armed Assault. I expect COD2 with M16’s and AK-47’s.
Ratchet and Clank - never played an R&C game. The graphics look nice and the tram rail-grinding scene was pretty impressive, but the franchise has never particularly intrigued me.
Little Big Planet - Like I said in my article, without any traps or enemies, it will be likely be like Yoshi’s Island/Story; really nice to look at but incredibly easy and mindless to play.
Army of Two - Might be mindless fun, but we’ll see if the promises on AI get delivered and if the weapon customization surpasses mere cosmetics.
toxicwaste21 - Thanks. I was wondering why there were no lifebars in that picture.
Littlebuster - Thanks!
Feenwager - The world may never know…
Dropkick-Robbie - Yeah, I’m hoping some new stuff that missed E3 turns up in the coming months. Oh yeah, and Milkman says Blue Dragon sucks.
Naked BoB - Yeah that’s what me and Nintendo Theory were saying; they flashed the wrong stuff and let the good stuff go overlooked. Thanks!
Bahamut - Sorry to hear about your Elite but that’s good to know. Some people thought the Elite would be built stronger to be problem free, but no such luck I guess.
Slappy - Heh heh, speak for yourself!
Great article, but hopefully I said that already.Great to have you on board.
Yoshi’s ISLAND?!? I agree on Yoshi’s Story, but I thought Yoshi’s Island was fucking hard…