Chasing Coffee

E3 Comments

First off, let me say that the most impressive thing at the show was the guy at the PlayLogic[1] booth who was throwing t-shirts... while wearing a waist length helmet that weighed about 50lbs and rested on his shoulders (I saw two girls[2] helping him out of the helmet after the crowd had dispersed). If it had been me in that outfit I would've surely fallen over while attempting to throw shirts.

Overall, the show seems to be a bit more subdued this year. The poor economy and threat of SARS probably had a lot to do with that. Kentia hall seemed particularly hard hit (Kentia is sometimes referred to as the "gaming ghetto", and tends to feature a lot of strange products from Korea that you'll never see again).

Now some random games that stand out in my mind:

Gran Turismo 4
GT3 with more polish and network play. If you liked GT3 (I did) then you'll like GT4. I won a hat for beating three other people in a race. Too bad I don't wear hats, I would've preferred another run without having to wait in line.

P.N. 3
(Product Number 3) Beautifully animated, great art. My friends pulled me away before I could play the game, so I can't say anything about the controls. Looks good.

Kill Switch
Very nice. One of the few good things about having my project canceled is that we won't have to compete against this. I'm not entirely happy with the feel of the dive roll and the controls take a while to get used to, but the blend between action and strategy is spot on. Lots of action that rewards smart game play.

Ratchet and Clank 2
A couple of my friends are working on this. Nifty weapons, platforms, and explosions. I liked it. I especially liked that whirling disc weapon.

Wallace and Grommit
It's a GAAAAAME Grommit! The brief peek[3] I got looked good. The game looked to be consistent with Nick Park's artwork. Seems to be a platform/puzzle game.

Neopets game
Regardless of your opinion of neopets, their ability to sell to the lowest common denominator and remain in business is impressive. I talked with someone who refuses to work on flashy titles ever since he worked for 5 years on a game that sold 15k copies. The fishing game that he worked on recently (project length was between 6 months and a year) sold 400K copies and is still selling. The Neopets game is coming out for PS1 (no, not PS2, the venerable PS1). For a while I've been of the opinion that a $50 price point on games is a huge mistake, so it'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

Nokia's N-Gage
Neat concept. That $300 price point is a killer.

Spy Hunter 2
Um, please tell me those physics are going to be heavily revised before that game hits store shelves. For that matter, Midway's entire lineup is beyond disappointing[4]. Perhaps with a new CEO they'll start producing something that isn't crap.

Nintendo licensed products
(All the Mario/Wario/Zelda/etc stuff)
Everything looks polished, brightly colored, and highly addictive. It's kind of like a sitcom or an action movie: You'll have fun, just don't expect a profound experience.

Eye-Toy
A camera based controller. Neat! It's suprisingly satisfying to smash ninja by waving your hands.

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[1] Note to the people at PlayLogic (not that I expect any of them to see this entry): the windsurfer control scheme was neat, but please god, if you want to do a unique control scheme you should set up the HUD to prompt the user.

[2] E3 has a large number of very pretty girls in exotic costumes, generally they're dressed as one of the characters in the game. If some reporter talks about how one of them was doing something lewd he's lying and trying to impress his friends.

[3] Um, was I supposed to be able to get into that room upstairs?

[4] At least with no lines at the booth I didn't have to stand in line to be dissapointed by their products.

Posted by matt at May 17, 2003 10:21 PM