Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend E3 for the first time since before Half-life 2 was released. Wow! What an improvement! I had so much fun even though I was flying solo. Actually I think that’s the best way to roll at E3. Before I even showed my badge, or should I say my friend’s badge,  I got a free copy of Battlefield 1943 and a T-Shirt. Score.

I hit the showroom floor and wandered about absorbing the lights, sounds and booth babes for about 15 minutes, then spent some time on a game available through Steam called Merchants of Brooklynn. They were demoing the expansion pack, Drug Wars, which doesn’t really have anything to do with the text based game we’ve all come to love. Paleo Entertainment‘s take on Drug Wars is a multiplayer FPS using the CryEngine 2.0. Teams must race to drug stacks, retrieve them, regroup and then defend the stash. It’s a pretty fun new multiplayer gametype that could easily be incorportaed into any FPS. It sort of reminds me of a mobile “territories”. The developers were definitely going easy on me.

A few booths away was GamersFirst.  I spent some time playing War Rock, another FPS, this one taking place entirely in NYC and running Unreal 3. I wouldn’t say I was extremely impressed but you get what you pay for, and this game is free, so I’d say you’re getting a lot. Perhaps something other than a traditional Team Deathmatch gameplay would have carried my interest longer.

I reached the Bungie booth and saw a long line leading into an enclosed area created from foldable walls and decorated Halo style. Instinctually, I got in line. Soon I learned I was waiting to play Halo:ODST; a huge smile came across my face and my loins warmed. I chatted it up with the people around me a bit, mostly the creator of StuffWeLike.com. He was a cool guy so I had to give him a little plug, not that anyone is reading. Bungie had 2 matches going simultaneously of “Firefight”, a new cooperative gametype where players are pinned down to a (fairly) large location and must share a set amount of lives as they defend against wave after wave of a Covenant assault. It was a lot of fun, and I thought I was kicking ass but Post Game Carnage Report proved otherwise. The setup was awesome, each player had their own huge LCD and a nice comfy chair with a headset. The Bungie guys were super cool, as I expected they would be, and it was probably the best 10 minutes of the show. Well, the presentation on ODST I saw later was pretty tight too.

I always like to hit the sides and back of conventions because you see so much cool stuff from businesses that can’t pay the big bucks to be front and center. I found an interesting title from Epicenter Studios for the Wii, Real Heroes: Firefighter. Firefighter is an interesting idea, a FPS where you play the role of a rookie firefighter. In this game you, obviously, use the wiimote to shoot things with a fire hose, and other fun features like chopping down doors, prying things open with the jaws of life and whatever you’d imagine Figthers doing, but probably not saving kittens from trees. What I’d like to see is a full featured deathmatch where you blast each other with firehoses, but something tells me that isn’t coming. I bet this game will do well and can even move to other markets with a simple translation because lets face it, what kid doesn’t love a big red fire engine?

After that I wondered about some. A lot of it is a blur. I was quite surprised with what THQ had to offer, considering I thought they were doomed. Homefront, a recently unveiled title by Kaos Studios, was particularly impressive, and had a particularly impressive booth babe as well. In Homefront you play the role of a resistance fighter during a North Korean occupation of the United States set 20 years in the future. The world is im the midst of an energy crises and fuel is scarce. The protaganist is important somehow, and that’s all we really know except that this game plans to keep you on the edge of your seat. It looks and sounds beautiful, the enviornment is rich with detail and the characters are believable and compelling. If the gameplay is there its going to be an instant winner.

Nintendo also has some promising offerings for the future… finally. And it’s no surprise they also have a lot of crap coming out like Wii MotionPlus, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, and Wii Virtual Sensor. Pretty much anything branded with Wii is destined to suck and be a big ripoff in my opinion. As a huge fan of the Metroid series I’m really excited for Other M, but the colaboration with Team Ninja has me scared. Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be hot and Nintendo also has a Wii incarnation of New Super Mario Bros where gamers get to play through levels reminiscent of the Super Mario Brothers we all grew up on but with new twists and power-ups, and this time it can be done 4 players simultanesouly. I also found one obscure title for the DS called Scribblenauts where you play the role of a kid solving puzzles by typing nouns on a vitural keyboard. After you type a noun, it falls on the screen and you can use it to help solve the puzzle. I didn’t get to play but the kid in front of me tested the games knowledge with “Leviathon“, “Barbarian” and “Demon Slayer”; All 3 showed up. I don’t know what they do, or how they could help, but god damn that’s impressive. Picross 3D will be a nice time killer too.

This blog can’t be complete until I comment on Project Natal. This video is really cool. I can believe it, I just hope Microsoft doesn’t become annoying like Nintendo did and puts a little more effort and innovation into their games.

Now this one on the other hand…

Yeah Right! I just don’t see any of that happening the way it is portrayed in the promotional video. Good luck Microsoft, I’ll be looking forward to seeing you pull this one out because you got a lot of people excited.