Did you know that I like
video games?
Yep. I’ve been following them closely since my
indoctrination via the Sega Genesis. I’m
certainly older (and marginally wiser) than I was back then, so it’s hard to
say whether my admiration of the hobby will last until my final moments on my
death bed. If I am still a gamer, I’d
like to think I’d tell my family to screw off while I tried to unlock the final
bonus stage in Elite Beat Agents…which
would beg the question of why I’d be carrying decades-old technology, but
whatever. I’d be a wizened old man at
46, tranquilly accepting my end and proud to know I beat Sin and Punishment 2, if nothing else.
And in less than a
month, the event that any gamer worth his arcade stick knows about will be upon
us. The Electronic Entertainment Expo,
better known as E3. It’s a moment of
celebration and wide-eyed anticipation for gamers everywhere; developers set up
booths that sprawl as far and wide as the average house. Notables from the industry assemble en masse,
bringing with them no shortage of celebrities.
Technology and games that can potentially change the world are showcased
with reckless abandon, all for the sake of ensuring the loyalty of fans already
hanging off the word of every presentation, and staving off the need for food,
water, blinking, and attention to family members for the sake of experiencing
the action.
E3 is almost upon us
again. And I look forward to it with
equal parts excitement and fear.
But in spite of those
faults, it’s still a company that delivers with almost frightening
reliability. In a world where brown and
gray dominate, Nintendo gives us colorful areas by the hundreds to
explore. In a world where shooters can
have the same universal controls and skillsets, Nintendo has games challenging
players and developers to use the technology -- the hardware, not just graphics
-- to interact in new ways. In a world
where the price of development would leave NASA bigwigs with hurting wallets, Nintendo
has offered a bastion for cheaper venues, ones that sacrifice graphical power
for expression in other ways. Style,
gameplay, story…it’s not a canvas that always gets tapped well, but when it
does there’s more than enough masterpieces on the DS and Wii.
The upcoming Wii U may
have a lot of unknowns to it right now, but overall I’m not too worried. It’s not like we’re going to have another
Virtual Boy on our hands here; given that it’s the successor to the Wii, I can
only assume that Nintendo will take the original’s strengths and weaknesses to
heart and act accordingly. Barring that,
all they need to do is show footage of a next-gen (or quasi-next-gen) Zelda game, and we’ll be seeing the
infamous “It prints money!” image macro all over again. And given that they’re slated to show off a
new Mario as well as -- finally! -- a
new Pikmin game…well…
With Sony and Microsoft…well,
who’s to say what they’re up to? Reports
suggest that they’re not going to announce new consoles anytime soon, and even
if they do they’re both a ways off (compared to the proposed Holiday ’12 release
of the Wii U). So what have they got
left to show this year? Well, one would
think it would be about the games instead of trying to make you fall in love
with what’s essentially six-year-old tech.
But that makes me wonder just what games they have in store.
Let’s look at Sony for
a minute. It’s feasible that they’ll
show off some content for God of War:
Ascension and Playstation All-Stars,
but what else? Suffice to say they’ll
have their fair share of surprises, but what that extends to I can’t rightly
say. Bioshock
Infinite and Tomb Raider have
both been announced and delayed (and they’re multiplatform). Rayman
Legends is also in the works. Right
now, the games that most people are itching to get their hands on have already
been revealed thanks to the internet, games journalists, and the companies
themselves. You could argue that Sony
still has console-exclusive franchises to fall back on, but I wonder if it’s
the right time for them to make their appearance.
We just had Uncharted 3 (and to a lesser extent, Uncharted: Golden Abyss),
Killzone 3, and Resistance 3; one would think that the narratives therein
deserve a break, especially since I’d assume Killzone is largely wrapped up.
The same could be argued for God
of War, but…well, money. Crash
Bandicoot, Spyro, and Jak haven’t been relevant in ages, and while I’m glad
there’s a new Sly Cooper on the way,
the fact that we already KNOW there’s a new Sly
Cooper on the way takes some wind out of Sony’s E3 sails. Maybe they’ll announce a new IP? Possible, but given the general insistence
that IPs in this day and age on hefty HD platforms aren’t the safest gesture, I
don’t have very high hopes. Maybe we’ll
see a few, standing alongside The Last of
Us (already announced…); maybe we’ll finally get to see some more of The Last Guardian (already announced,
though who knows what’s going on with that one?). I’ll remain optimistic, but I won’t be surprised
if we just get another sequel to a sequel.
One day...
The obvious answer,
then, is for Sony to support its up-and-comers: the Vita and the Move. Given how much hype the Vita received before
its release, you’d think that Sony would show its dedication to making it
viable by throwing a few games at it.
Games that only the Vita can create, mind you -- not just ports of
already-released games, or compressed versions of console titles. In the same sense that the DS wasn’t just a
mini-GameCube and offered its own unique library, Sony needs to establish that
the Vita can do things that no other handheld has done before. Basically, if the Vita can offer its version
of The World Ends with You, it’ll be
much better off.
The Move, on the other
hand…boy, I think that one needs some work.
I am seriously hard-pressed to
think of any game that serves as the Move’s killer app. Granted it’s only been…what, a year since it
came out? Surely it has to go through
that awkward period where it has to find itself. And by the time it grows out of it, we’ll
have moved on, and all their efforts will be for naught. (You’d think that if Sony was going to ape
the Wii, they’d duplicate all its successes WITHOUT duplicating its faults
thanks to some six years of hindsight.)
Sony needs to show why the Move matters -- and this E3 might be their
best chance to do it. Just…don’t spend
half an hour trying to sell it.
Speaking of overselling motion controls, let’s shift to Microsoft.
Regrettably, this happened.
Microsoft is reliable
like Nintendo, but in a different capacity.
They’re sitting pretty with a bevy of first- and third-party titles. They’re decidedly modern and connected, and
tend to NOT get fatally hacked (though as I understand it, it could
happen). The Xbox is the go-to system
for games…though if Microsoft has its way it’ll be a hub for all your
entertainment needs -- advertising included, grimly enough.
But I digress. It still suffers from the same problems that
Sony has; we know most of the games coming out for it -- chief among them, Halo 4.
What else can they possibly announce to get gamers tight in the
trousers? We need another Gears of War like a shot in the
pancreas; Fable looks primed to be
competent, but fail to deliver on its delivery of platinum eggs; Assassin’s Creed III is as multiplatform
as it is posed to deliver stabbings by the dozen. What the hell is left? More footage of Call of Duty, knowing full well that people are already selling
their souls for early copies? Don’t tell
me Microsoft’s going to try and break into the handheld market.
Hopefully, it won’t be
another Kinect-fest like last time. I’m
not opposed to motion controls, or the games related to them, and I’d like to
see at least one game that makes me wish I’d plunked down the money for
one. What I DO have a problem with is
brain-dead gimmicks like this:
Seriously, guys. We’re not babies. We’re your target audience that is willing to
sit through more than ninety minutes of junk just to get to a thirty-second
teaser trailer. Don’t make those ninety
minutes impossibly painful for us, or we’ll be mocking you for years to
come. You would think that a simple,
no-nonsense yet semi-casual event like this would be easy to nail. And yet…
And now let’s have a
serious discussion.
You know what? This is between you and me, but I hope --
really, really hope -- that the new Sony/Microsoft consoles aren’t announced
until next year at the earliest, and even then don’t hit shelves until a year
or two later. I don’t have anything
against technology, but if this generation has shown us anything (as Nintendo
prophesized), it’s that more power =/= better games. What have better graphics given us in the six
years since their arrival? Railroaded
design laden with set pieces? Eschewing color
and design for the same bland palette and style? The near-deaths of several franchises,
companies, and even genres? Focusing
solely on horsepower at the expense of everything else? Look , I know it’s inevitable for technology
and visuals to get better. I get
that. I respect it, too; none of the
games I like today would be possible if not for the advances made from the days
when the Genesis walked the earth. And even today, in this era that makes cynics
out of the most idealistic gamers (barring myself, because I don’t know any
better), we still get games like Skyrim
and Xenoblade Chronicles that taps
the tech for our benefit. There’s a lot
to hate, but there’s still a whole lot more to love.
With that said, the
next generation of games scares me shitless. With talk of a new Unreal engine and new
motion capture and rendering technology and physics engines, I can’t help but
fret. The last time I checked, games
cost twenty to forty million dollars to make; how much more are they going to
cost if those new systems are put into practice? And to what end? So we can walk down the world’s most
realistically rendered halls? So we can
have more cookie-cutter characters while the developers tout a “cinematic
experience”? So we can have more Michael
Bay clones loaded into our console trays?
We stand at a
crossroads. Where we’re headed --
towards stability, prosperity, or ruin -- has yet to be seen. But whatever the case, this E3, like all the
E3s before it, will remain important. It’s
the great decider. It’s going to be a
proving ground, the likes of which, in spite of reports and speculation we may be unprepared for.
Get your bodies ready,
folks. Anything could happen.
At a competitive price, I hope.
(I wouldn't mind seeing Persona 5, though...just sayin'.)
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