This blog is now closed. Please vist http://blogs.palgn.com.au for our new blogging system.

Lahiru left a few hours ago to catch his plane back to Australia and I leave tomorrow night.

I just want to thank a few people for the work they've done for E3.

Firstly thanks to Lahiru for a) coming to E3 and b) putting up with me being stressed out & tired for a whole week. I'm looking foward to reading some of the articles he'll write from his hands on time with games I didn't get to see (particularly a lot of the Wii games).

Secondly thanks to all the PALGN staff who did an awesome job covering all the E3 news - not to mention writing up articles based on my crappy notes. Particular thanks go to Luke for helping arrange a lot of the E3 meetings and to David for the astounding number of articles he wrote.

Finally thanks to all the PR, developers and assorted gaming professionals who took time to chat with me at E3. The best part of E3 for me was just being able to meet a whole bunch of people I'd only ever conversed with via email as well as listening to developers demonstrate their games.

However don't stop reading yet. Over the past few days I think I've picked up enough information to last for a whole year of previews. I'm just completing a preview / interview peice on Eye of Judgement that will go up soon. Once I get back to Aus I finish typing up my E3 notes, then I'll write up a few more features based on what I saw.

I've been wanting to do a little shopping ever since I got here, but it was only today that we actually managed to gather enough time. I really cannot fathom just how cheap games are around here. I went into EB wanting Guitar Hero and ended up with all of this.

All up that cost me US$271.60 (or $351 of real money).

Guitar Hero just and I mean just fits inside of my suitcase. The box was much larger than I though it was and I was getting a bit worried carrying it back to our. Luckily it worked out.

Well 3 days full of meetings does have one benefit; lots of swag. Most places I went gave me something. Here's some pics from the collection of everything I brought back from the show. No DS styluses unfortunately I don't think anyone was giving them out.

Too tired to write more tonight. Will do a big update tomorrow.

Eye of Judgement in game - MPEG4 (2:18 min - 21.2 MB)
Eye of Judgement interaction - MPEG4 (2:25 min - 22.4 MB)
PS3 interface - MPEG4 (1:03 min - 9.94 MB)
Heavy Rain - MPEG4 (0:23 min - 3.94 MB) - This is a PS3 title from quantic dream! I don't know any details about it.

Ugh, I'm not looking forward to this...

I'll keep updating once I complete writing up the notes for each game

God of War 2
The E3 demo had essentially exactly the same gameplay as the original game
The combat system appears to be an exact replica of the original
That really isn't a bad thing, considering how great it was to begin with

Still contains those morbid overtones:
- Use a corpse to hold down a switch as opposed to a crate

Violent beyond reason, grab and reaction attacks are especially brutal
Reactions (moves excecuted through single button commands):
- Tear off one of the cerberus' head with your bare hands and use it to pimp slap the other head. Comedy gold.
- Take down a cyclops by using your blades to climb your way up to its head then plunge your arm into it's eye socket and tear out its eye in a shower of blood. Ewww doesn't do that justice...
Grabs:
- grabs an enemy and impale it with your blade, and swings it around into another enemy
- slams an enemy face first into the ground and stomp down violently onto its head

Looks to continue with the mythological references:
In order to pass through a door with a medusa's face carved into it, you need to collect the 'Golden Fleece' in order to deflect the doors stoner gaze. Stoner as in it turns you into stone.

Now that Kratos is a God, his power is well represented:
- Kratos deals with an enemy that throws bombs at your from atop a massive stone pillar by tipping the pillar from side to side with his bare hands (this is done by repeatedly tapping the O button)
- Kratos upturns a enormous stone stage-like area into a bog so he can use it as a bridge to reach the Golden Fleece (also achieved by tapping the O button)
- He launches his blades in a huge tree and uproots it to use it as a bridge (circle button again)

Presentation is as epic as ever.
There's an illusion of massive enviornments, but the play area is still relatively small and very linear.
Similiar score to the original game, orchestral
Graphics are stunning, even in light of the next generation offerings a few meters away

Mass Effect
The game has huge scope
You can explore the entire universe, from the universe, galaxy, solar system and planets.
Yet there's plenty of attention to the smaller details:
The beggining of the game

Conversations have been given a more real time feel to them:
Conversation options show up during the actual dialogue so you can make you mind up on what to ask during before they finish talking
It works well, and is more realistic
Conversations are presented in a cinematic style:
Close ups, over the shoulder shots, 2 shots

We've just got back from the final day of e3 and are now just chilling back at our hotel room. It's been a crazy couple of days and part of me is relieved (my legs), while the other part is somewhat remorseful.

That remorse mostly comes down to the fact that I've had my first taste of... wait, let me rephrase that. That mostly comes down to me having spent some quality time with the Wii. Yeah, that's slightly better...

They said at their conference that 'playing = believing'. You have no idea how true that is. It may have taken me some getting used to but once I got into the groove of things, the hype level was through the roof. The anticipation and excitement I felt when lining up for another Wii game pretty much sums it up. Even right now as I write this, I'm thinking about how much I want another round of Excite Truck, or face a couple more fast balls in Wii Sports Baseball. AAAARGH! I'm going to go insane.

There where 27 games in total, and I got to play 11 of them during my 5 hours in heaven.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Got to love VIP access! I got bumped to the front of the 60+ minute wait queue. Thank you NOA!
Tony Hawk Downhill Jam - I didn't get much time with this, but from what I did play, it was pretty promising (and just downright pretty).
Excite Truck - I am SO buying this. It's burnout with the Wii controller. Fucking awesome. This was the one game I wanted to keep coming back to, but I needed to try as many games as possible.
Necro Nesia - Um, yeah... It was kinda... not good.
Elebits - I'm buying this too! Great twist on the FPS formula. Actually, it's not so much a first person shooter as it is a first person crazy Japanese game (FPCJG) that involves flinging stuff around the room and zapping up little pikmin looking things. Very addictive (think katamari) and incredibly clever (think katamari). I see this game doing very well.
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves - you all might be a bit wary of the series by now, but this is seriously great fun. The Wii-mote was made for this game! The actions you saw in the trailer is basically how you have to play this game. Awesome fun.
Wii Sports:
-Golf - sinking a putt from 23 feet has never been so satisfying!
-Baseball - i wasn't holding a controller in my hand, it was a baseball bat. Getting the 'Out of the park!' rating is oh so sweet.
-Airplane - bodes well for a pilotwings game.
-Tennis - I only had one game of this and had my ass handed to me. It was still quite realistic (hence the ass-handing), but I needed more time with it to get the swings right. Once this tech demo turns into a fully fleshed out game, it will become a system seller.
Red Steel - I liked it. The sword control was a tiny bit underwhelming, mainly due to the fact it wasn't freefrom and was a little delayed, but the gun play was fantastic. Don't worry though, the sword fighting is still good fun and there's still more time before this game ship out. The game looks awesome too.

I really regret not being able to play Mario Galaxy, but it was either spend my entire time in the Nintendo booth waiting to play that, or try out tonnes of other games and buy Galaxy when it's released. What would you have done?

One noticeable omission from Nintendo's lineup was 'Rayman: Raging Rabbids'. I personally think the game uses some form of augmented reality (check the trailer, Rayman shows up inside the living room, plus they were showing short 10 second trailers on the show floor showing the 'rabbids' in the real world, like in a bath and on a frying pan) so they might have held it back because they didn't want that to steal the show or something. I don't know if I'm just being a raving loon (again), but I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't show it in at least some form on the show floor. Cryptic trailers don't count.

I took a few videos of some of the games in action, but the damn things won't be live till tomorrow. Upload speeds are a bitch. I'll be writing up an article with my proper impression of every game I tried at Nintendo's booth, so keep an eye out for that soon.

Right now though, I'm pretty damn hungry. I think I'll head downstairs and get me a bowl of good old American style chille.

Stay tuned for those videos. They are a must see.

Mario Galaxy.... (drool)

EDIT: Hmm, I noticed this post is completely devoid of any pictures and looks a bit barren...

Ahhh, that's better.

EDIT (again):
Here come the vidoes;
Downhill Jam - MPEG4 (1:04 min - 8.90 MB)
Elebits - MPEG4 (0:46 min - 6.46 MB)
Excite Trucks - MPEG4 (1:05 min - 8.86 MB)
Iwata and Kaplin - MPEG4 (0:16 min - 2.50 MB)
Project Hammer - MPEG4 (4:26 min - 35.2 MB)
Super Mario Galaxy - MPEG4 (3:25 min - 27.2 MB)