Blaine's 6/14 impressions

First off, props to me. I went through nearly 11 hours of E3 coverage today AND worked a full day AND took care of a sick wife AND played with my son AND handled the letdown of the Microsoft presser like a man.

Tony, in the prior post, correctly conveyed the MS presser was essentially a turd, though he is excited about the ESPN thing because he is Costanza-like in his thriftiness. The Kinect Star Wars footage looks neat, but also reaks of vaporware.

I thought Gears 3 looked fantastic, as expected. Fable 3, like its two predescesors, never shows well, but will be a solid game.

I kept waiting for that annual Xbox surprise, and it ... never ... came. They poured all their effort into Kinect, which seems like a neato device with no actual games. Bad choice. This is now the year the 360 cedes this console generation to Sony.

EA, on the other hand, had their shit together. They swooped in, showed 5-6 solid titles with some random crap thrown in, showed signs of some kind of irritation with Microsoft & much love for Sony, then closed with a bang. Need For Speed, Dead Space 2, Medal of Honor, Madden, & Star Wars: the Old Republic all looked very promising. Nicely done.

Oh, and before I forget, it was GREAT to see the Witcher 2 show a quick demo on G4TV. It looks VERY dated visually, but the party interaction, dialogue, and combat all look fantastic.

The Ubi show was one I could've skipped, but still see every year. I don't know why. The laser tag was kinda neat.

In closing, my biggest shock was how little Microsoft seemed to care. They have a very comfortable approach at E3 now, and with Peter Moore gone as long as he's been, they seem to go through the motions with the actual games, and then let Kudo lose all the street cred for them. Good thing all the press members received free 360 slims this year, or someone other than Morgan Webb might actually call them out.

I am very, very curious to see how Nintendo and Sony respond to Microsoft's newfound indifference to gaming tomorrow.

-Blaine