E3 day 1 update

[Acehigh]

Before I get into all the info here all of this can be backed up by hitting g4.com and I'm sure ign, gamespot, and all the other sights that cover this sort of thing will be all over this stuff. 

E3 just got under way and so far there's some very interesting material from all sides.  This could be the first E3 that I've seen lately where there's a genuine buzz from all three sides.  So I'll show things in the order they were on TV. 

MICROSOFT

Bill Gates on Co opened up their press conference with a bang.  The very first thing they showed off was a teaser vid for Halo 3.  This looked amazing and looks like this will be the huge battle we had hoped would happen at the end of Halo 2.  The very end of the video hints that this will be "The Final Battle...........This is how the world ends"

The other big news item from microsoft on the first day was that they plan to release a HD-DVD drive attachment with USB connection in the very near future.  With is announcment I believe that these two news items were the biggest of the day out of the xbox camp. 

Notable game trailers shown:  Forza 2, Too Human, Mass Effect all for the 360

SONY

The biggest news out of sony was that the PS3 will release on Nov 17, 2006 with two configurations.  The first config is the PS3 console with a 20 gb HDD for $499.  The second is the PS3 hardware with a 60 gb HDD for $599.

The second biggest news item from this camp was an actual ingame engine trailer for MGS 4.  This also looked amazing (not my cup of tea but lots of people like this franchise).  And another curious hint that this franchise could also be coming to it's end as the very last frame showed Snake with a gun in his mouth.........

*a curious thing from sony was the controller.  the good thing is that this looks like the loveable dual shock from the PS2.  a questionable move is their "6 degrees of freedom" motion tracking idea.  you can move the controller around in your hand and have it affect the screen.  this idea sounds a bit "Nintendo" to me......*

Noteable Games:  Heavenly Sword, Final Fantasy XIII

NINTENDO

The Wii made it's debut and actually looked more impressive than I had first thought when I heard the design idea.  A couple of demos where shown with the developers playing a sword fighting game, golf, tennis, and baseball.  All of these games seemed to function very well with the "Wiimote".  But all were shown being played by the dev teams....so later in the week we should have more actual feedback from the common gamer.  They also showed off a shooting game (red steel) and had Sessler demo it.............. but the game worked well and Sessler caught on very quickly..........

Notable Games:  Mario Galaxies, Red Steel, and a sword fighting game set in fuedal Japan

*this begs the question though......with all of the movements required to interact with these games, will a players stamina effect gameplay?  This system should quiet all those who say gaming isn't an aerobic activity lol.*

PC

Not alot of things were said about the PC gaming front, but two games received alot of attention.  The first was called Spore.  This game looks really kewl.  Basically you create your own universe from germs on up lol.  Yes you start out microscopic and "evolve" your creatures into intelligent beings.  And the kewlest part is that you can make all your own creatures with the games very own creature editor.  As Will Wright said you can "do in a few mouse clicks what could take a design team a week or longer".  So after you set up your creatures you have to train them how to behave.  They can be passive, aggressive, war like, farmers, architechs ect.  Your goal is to make them a galaxy exploring race.  And if you don't like what you've created....there is a "God complex" mode where you can take a ufo and simply blow them up.  Online is a curious thing with this title too.  The game is single player but you can go online and have your creatures and planets show up on other people's systems.  And they will behave exactly as you have trained them on your system.  Wright said this is "burned" into the game.  That's alot of info and I'm sure I left out some details as this is a very complex, sandbox style game, but also seems very intuitive.  The G4 kids that demoed it caught on very quickly. 

The other PC game that got some air time in the form of a trailer was a shooter called Hell Gates of London.  Not alot of info was talked about here so hopefully more will come up later in the week.  And hopefully some more pc news as well.