E3 2010

Now that E3 2010 is over, I find myself somewhat disappointed with what was announced. I suppose I had low expectations to begin with, but there remains little announced that I have any interest in. I couldn’t care less about 3D, so the PS3’s 3D support and the 3DS showings were lackluster, motion controls are terrible, so fuck the Move and Kinect announcements, and most of the big name games announced are IPs I don’t play. I’m not a Zelda person, Gears of War hates me, I avoid Treyarch Call of Duty games and so on. There were only a few of games out of the bunch that I have any interest in, although a couple of those I’m extremely excited for.

My most anticipated game, quite surprisingly, is Kirby’s Epic Yarn. I barely touch my Wii and had so little faith in Nintendo’s showings I skipped the Nintendo keynote live stream, but holy shit does this game look amazing. It’s a Nintendo platformer with a unique art style that integrates into the gameplay, sort of what Super Paper Mario was a couple years ago (which was also awesome). To quote Will Smith from Tested, “Kirby’s Epic Yarn, fuck yes, I would like to play that more than life”. (via)

As expected, Portal 2 also looks amazing. I still haven’t gotten very far into the first one (despite owning it on two platforms), so it probably won’t be a day one purchase, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. The big announcement for E3 was that it’s coming out on PS3 alongside the 360, PC and Mac, and with Steamworks support (including cloud saves). As a rule, if a game is out for multiple platforms including the 360, I’ll always get the 360 version; I like my achievements. In this case though, I think I’ll give up the Xbox achievements (it has Steam achievements) and get the PS3 version. The prospect of being able to share my save between my console and Mac is wonderful.

The Criterion developed Need for Speed Hot Pursuit sounds great on paper; Hot Pursuit 2 was one of the best Need for Speed games ever, and Criterion’s Burnout Paradise was amazing. Plus there’s the nostalgia factor, as Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 (for GameCube) was the first game I ever bought for myself, and the first I played through to completion other than Mario Kart. However, in watching the trailer, I’m much less excited for the game; there’s no damage modeling, something that’s assumed with Criterion working on it. I’m sure it’s the licensed cars at fault, but even Forza and Gran Turismo have managed much more damage than shown… It was a very disappointing trailer, to say the least. Regardless, I’ll continue to follow reveals for this game, in the hope that it gets better.

I’m not excited for it whatsoever, but I know I’ll buy Halo Reach when it comes out.

A Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam DLC expansion could be cool, but beyond saying it existed nothing further was said. I guess it’ll depend on if I’m still playing Bad Company 2 come its release this winter.

And that would be the entirety of the games I’m looking forward to from E3. Not many, considering the metric ton of games covered at the show. GiantBomb has a complete list of what was covered at E3 2010, if you didn’t follow it but care.