E3 2010 Wishes

JudoChinX

May 24, 2010

It's just about that time again. E3 is on the horizon. I've never been much into sports, but I've always loved video games. Some people get excited about the Super Bowl, but not me. E3 is the closest thing to a Super Bowl I have, and boy do I love it. I spent E3 of 2009 (which happened to be on my birthday) sitting in my room and watching Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony give their keynotes. Sure, it's a little on the loser side of things to do, but I had the best birthday ever. Much of the fun comes with the spectacle of various developers and publishers doing their best to impress, while even more fun comes with the Big Three's keynote speeches. Though we can only speculate as to what we'll see in respect to secret announcements, we do have a pretty good idea of many games and technologies that we'll see this year. Here are the top five things I'm looking forward to:

E3Thumb (2K) Little Big Planet 2--Sure, there might have been complaints about certain aspects of the first game. The controls were a little floaty for many people's tastes and level creation could have been a little more intuitive, but even with those issues, Little Big Planet succeeded in providing players the ability to create and share levels in a quick and straightforward manner. 2 million levels have since been created, most of which are supposed to be compatible with Little Big Planet 2. The sequel is touted as no longer being a platform game, but instead, a platform for games. I'm not really the creative type when it comes to these sorts of things, but I am certainly existed to see what the community does with this level of customization. It just means more fun for me. We all win.

Call of Duty: Black Ops--This isn't an Infinity Ward release (not that there's much left of them anyways), but I loved Call of Duty: World at War. Somehow, it made the tired World War II genre interesting. That's quite a feat after all this time. Treyarch's next entry in the series takes place, at least for some of the title, during the Cold War era. Finally, they're doing a setting that hasn't been done a million times before. Besides having a fresh setting for the game's events, Treyarch is also paying fan service. Dedicated server support for PC players, something that was a sore area when left out of Modern Warfare 2, is returning and we might even get us some zombie Viet Cong or something.

Nintendo 3DS--For many hardcare gamers, Nintendo has been walking a dangerous line between the loyal fanbase and casual gamers. Ok, let's be honest. They've gleefully leaped into the casuals' arms. Yes, they've seemingly abandoned many of us, but still, I'm willing to give Nintendo a chance to impress me with their new 3DS. 3D is all the rage today. Some find themselves apprehensive about trying gaming in 3D for reasons including price and equipment needed that may not be comfortable (like 3D glasses). Hopefully, Nintendo has found a solution with the tech found in the 3DS. They claim that this will be a relatively inexpensive handheld with 3D effects not requiring any special equipment at all. The claims are lofty, but if Nintendo can pull it off, I'm interested. Most of all, the technology needs to justify its purpose. I want games that take advantage of 3D in a way that changes my experience on a deeper level than neat visual effects. Just like some games wouldn't work well without the Wiimote, I'd like something that wouldn't work without 3D. Make it happen Nintendo.

Killzone 3--Killzone 2 was great looking and had solid gameplay. I wasn't too intrigued with the story, but still, the game was pretty good. Killzone 3 has been officially announced, and one of the features that is being talked about those most is support for 3D. Granted, few people have 3D capable televisions, and even fewer also have a PS3. The audience for this particular feature isn't big, but this could change all of that. If Sony can give its customers a compelling reason to upgrade to a 3D display, then they could have a new hold on the market, and what better way to do that than with a great looking first person shooter?

New Silent Hill--I was sad to hear that Climax would not be in charge of development for the new PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Silent Hill game. Instead of the more natural choice for the development studio, Vatra Games, a nobody in the videogame world was chosen for the task. We don't know what to expect at this point, and no details have yet been given, but I sincerely hope that they can pull it off. Let's get the Silent Hill series back into the lime light. Remind me why I love the series so much. We're counting on you Vatra.

As we get closer and closer to E3 each year, we learn more and more about what we're going to see. It's fun to see games with few details be fleshed out, but even more fun than that is seeing the onslaught of announcements that we could have never predicted. I'll be watching and hope you do too. Tune into E3 on June 15th.

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