E3 was awesome!
E3 2006 has come and gone and it was a great experience. The Nintendo conference was a ton of fun with Super Mario Galaxy being the highlight of the entire show for me. Anyway, here are my E3 thoughts (pulled from an AMN article):
E3 2006 was a great time to be covering the Nintendo DS. I thought that last year was big for the handheld, but this year easily surpassed it in quality and quantity of titles on the floor. The DS lineup at E3 had every genre covered in both video and playable form and usually each genre sported several titles.
My personal favorites for the DS included: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Yoshi’s Island 2, Final Fantasy III, Mario Hoops 3-on-3, Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, Contact, Lunar Knights, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Big Brain Academy, Starfox, Kirby, and Elite Beat Agents. Each one of these games are solid day-one purchases for me with a handful of others being strong candidates as well. Never have I seen a single system exhibit such a high amount of must-have software at E3. It was easy for me to claim that the Nintendo DS had the strongest showing at E3.
Konami's newest Castlevania looked (and played) incredible at E3 2006
Aside from the DS lineup, there was plenty to get excited about on all fronts at E3 this year. The Xbox 360 has some huge titles coming soon and a few of them looked great on the floor. Gears of War wasn’t playable, but it sure looked great. I was impressed with Mass Effect, BioShock, Lost Planet, and Rainbow Six: Vegas. The lineup going into the holiday season is really strong for the 360 and the future looks bright with Halo 3 somewhere on the distant horizon. After E3, my most anticipated Xbox 360 is definitely Lost Planet. Make sure to download the demo from Live Marketplace if you have a 360.
The PSP had a pretty good showing at E3, but it just didn’t grab me like some of the other systems did. I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed, but I only managed to get truly excited over a couple of demos. The Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins demo was easily my favorite that the PSP had to offer and it’s probably my most anticipated release on the PSP.
The PlayStation 2 proved it wasn’t dead with Final Fantasy XII, Okami, God of War 2, and Guitar Hero 2 all on the horizon. My personal favorite for the PlayStation 2 is Capcom’s Okami; the game is fine art fused with rockin’ gameplay.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 had a few highs and lows on the floor with Warhawk being my favorite demo. Many of the demos seemed to fall really short of the trailers we had seen previously while some titles shown last year in video form were absent from this year’s exhibition (see: Killzone). Overall the software on the PS3 just didn’t look like it was completely ready to be shown, but hopefully with the final development kits (shipping in June) things will be noticeably improved by November’s launch.
The Xbox and GameCube were pretty much worthless as far as stuff on the floor goes, but Super Paper Mario looks to be absolutely stunning as well as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The most in demand item at E3 was Nintendo’s Wii, and for good reason. The line to get into Nintendo’s Wii demo area was insanely long, but it seemed to satisfy the majority of those that got a chance to play the demos, especially Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Sports. The Wii launch lineup looks like it’s going to be big and well-rounded. If most of the titles that were demoed at E3 make launch, I’m looking to pick up around 6 or 7 titles on day one, with my previous high being 4. The Wii also produced my personal favorite demo at E3, Super Mario Galaxy.
All in all it was a wonderful E3. I had a wonderful time with the demos, news bits, and working with the great guys here at AMN. I’d rather not get into anything that I disliked about E3 since the good outweighed anything bad by such a large margin (like getting Miyamoto’s autograph on my DS and meeting Satoru Iwata). Here’s looking forward to a great year of game releases and console launches!
How do you make a cool system cooler? Get Shigeru Miyamoto to sign it.
(NOT FOR SALE!)
E3 2006 was a great time to be covering the Nintendo DS. I thought that last year was big for the handheld, but this year easily surpassed it in quality and quantity of titles on the floor. The DS lineup at E3 had every genre covered in both video and playable form and usually each genre sported several titles.
My personal favorites for the DS included: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Yoshi’s Island 2, Final Fantasy III, Mario Hoops 3-on-3, Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, Contact, Lunar Knights, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Big Brain Academy, Starfox, Kirby, and Elite Beat Agents. Each one of these games are solid day-one purchases for me with a handful of others being strong candidates as well. Never have I seen a single system exhibit such a high amount of must-have software at E3. It was easy for me to claim that the Nintendo DS had the strongest showing at E3.
Konami's newest Castlevania looked (and played) incredible at E3 2006
Aside from the DS lineup, there was plenty to get excited about on all fronts at E3 this year. The Xbox 360 has some huge titles coming soon and a few of them looked great on the floor. Gears of War wasn’t playable, but it sure looked great. I was impressed with Mass Effect, BioShock, Lost Planet, and Rainbow Six: Vegas. The lineup going into the holiday season is really strong for the 360 and the future looks bright with Halo 3 somewhere on the distant horizon. After E3, my most anticipated Xbox 360 is definitely Lost Planet. Make sure to download the demo from Live Marketplace if you have a 360.
The PSP had a pretty good showing at E3, but it just didn’t grab me like some of the other systems did. I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed, but I only managed to get truly excited over a couple of demos. The Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins demo was easily my favorite that the PSP had to offer and it’s probably my most anticipated release on the PSP.
The PlayStation 2 proved it wasn’t dead with Final Fantasy XII, Okami, God of War 2, and Guitar Hero 2 all on the horizon. My personal favorite for the PlayStation 2 is Capcom’s Okami; the game is fine art fused with rockin’ gameplay.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 had a few highs and lows on the floor with Warhawk being my favorite demo. Many of the demos seemed to fall really short of the trailers we had seen previously while some titles shown last year in video form were absent from this year’s exhibition (see: Killzone). Overall the software on the PS3 just didn’t look like it was completely ready to be shown, but hopefully with the final development kits (shipping in June) things will be noticeably improved by November’s launch.
The Xbox and GameCube were pretty much worthless as far as stuff on the floor goes, but Super Paper Mario looks to be absolutely stunning as well as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The most in demand item at E3 was Nintendo’s Wii, and for good reason. The line to get into Nintendo’s Wii demo area was insanely long, but it seemed to satisfy the majority of those that got a chance to play the demos, especially Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Sports. The Wii launch lineup looks like it’s going to be big and well-rounded. If most of the titles that were demoed at E3 make launch, I’m looking to pick up around 6 or 7 titles on day one, with my previous high being 4. The Wii also produced my personal favorite demo at E3, Super Mario Galaxy.
All in all it was a wonderful E3. I had a wonderful time with the demos, news bits, and working with the great guys here at AMN. I’d rather not get into anything that I disliked about E3 since the good outweighed anything bad by such a large margin (like getting Miyamoto’s autograph on my DS and meeting Satoru Iwata). Here’s looking forward to a great year of game releases and console launches!
How do you make a cool system cooler? Get Shigeru Miyamoto to sign it.
(NOT FOR SALE!)
posted by Jeff Rivera at 8:44 PM
2 comments
