Regardless of what the Big Three had in store, this year's E3 was a true return to form for the year's greatest gaming event. This year's show was much bigger than last year's toned down show and much better than 2007's showing in a Santa Monica airplane hangar.
This year was games galore and even the return of booth babes! And who could forget the joy of watching Steve Wiebe fail at the Donkey Kong world record on national TV (that douche didn't deserve it anyway).Let's take a look at how each of the Big Three fared:
Microsoft- A
Microsoft was first this year, holding their press conference before the event even officially kicked off. And they brought the big guns. Though the Beatles Rock Band wasn't the greatest kickoff ever, things picked up slightly with a demo of Modern Warfare 2 (mountain climbing!) but it wasn't until Microsoft got to the exclusives that things really got interesting. Alan Wake lives, and it looks pretty decent! Crackdown 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 were both announced, which was pretty awesome. The illegitimate child of Contra and Metroid was revealed in Shadow Complex. FFXIII was demoed on the 360 and dated for 2010. Microsoft showed why Xbox Live continues to dominate by unleashing a slew of new features. ODST was demoed and dated for September 22nd. That got me excited. Probably the three biggest announcements for Microsoft were Halo Reach (!), Project Natal (!), and that they're finally taking away of Sony's final classic cornerstone of exclusivity with Metal Gear Rising and its Lightning Bolt Action! Overall, Microsoft pulled out all the stops this year for a stellar performance. They did everything right to build upon the momentum from last year and propel themselves forward with another stellar year of games.
Nintendo- A-
You know, Nintendo surprised me this year. When their press event began I thought it was just going to be another lackluster year for them, but they really stepped up this time. While their demos of Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus were boring, and the announcement that I can now take my pulse with my Wii left me baffled, Nintendo proved they still care about the hardcore gamer. They even showed a short montage of all their core games coming soon! They announced a new Golden Sun for the DS and Final Fantasy for the Wii and COP: The Recruit, though the name remains uninspired, looks like a great alternate to a full GTA experience on the DS. They had a whopping four Mario games to announce, the highlight being Mario Galaxy 2, but didn't stop at that. They went as far as to announce their collaboration with Team Ninja: Metroid: Other M, which pretty much made the show for me. Not only that, but they announced and showed off the first artwork of the next Zelda (not happy train time Zelda) behind closed doors. Though they dragged a little, they had enough major announcements to warrant a low A.
Sony- B+
I'm not hating on Sony for the sake of hating on Sony, but come on, guys, don't let all your major announcements leak before the big show! The PSP Go, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and The Last Guardian all leaked out before they were supposed to be officially announced. That took a lot of air out of Sony's balloons. The only other downside was that their event was significantly longer than all of the others. Naughty Dog earns Sony bonus points, however, for having a stellar demo of Uncharted 2- the best demo of the show, in my opinion. The demos of GoW3 and Assassin's Creed 2 were also impressive. Mod Nation Racer also looked very promising. Unfortunately, though Sony showed they still greatly support Home, it still looks depressing. Come to think of it, the PSP Go is a ripoff at $250. I could buy a Wii for that. Actually, I could buy a regular PSP for less. What's the appeal here, again? MAG was demoed in real time, which was impressive, but unfortunately the game looks pretty generic and boring. The two big announcements not leaked were the PS3 motion controller and FFXIV. The controller shows a lot of promise, but sill doesn't seem that different from the Wii remote. FFXIV was not expected. Too bad it's one of those crappy online titles.
So, there you have it. Looks like it was Microsoft's year once again. This post is sure to start a flame war, so go ahead and argue in the comments.
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