Your E3 Highlights and Most Exciting News

So by this time, the Expo has practically come and gone, along with the influx of media and information. (Besides the random couple of trailers that for some reason get unreleased for half a year) We have obtained a basic list of all the games that will be coming out this year/fiscal year. And now I ask you; What were your favorite titles shown among the list of all the games. What made it stand out for you? Is there something that disappointed you? If so, why?

Mario and Luigi 2 shocked me. Not only was it completely unexpected, but it was also a garunteed good RPG for the DS. If you haven't heard, Mario and Luigi this time are going back in time to save Princess Peach, but on the way bump into their young selves along with other young versions of the characters we know and love. Battles take place primarily on the bottom screen, and just by looking at the videos and what I already know about M&L's battle system, the stylus is going to make battles pretty extreme. The only thing I don't like 100% is how the map is shown. I don't want the whole area to be shown on the top screen. I only want the area that I have yet to explore.

New Super Mario Bros is something I have been crossing my fingers for for a long time. There isn't much to say about this besides that the world is both 2d and 3d, and will employ Mario's M64 and SMSS moves. The 2D and 3D thing is a bit wierd though. It looks great and all, but for some reason it makes the enviornments seem lacking. Maybe if the developers could smooth out the edges of the 3D objects it would be a little better.

My biggest disappointment was that FFXII wasn't shown. They've spent Halo 2 amount of time devolping this! Seriously! Square-Enix did comment that it might be shown PLAYABLE in their own press event in the end of July.

Hmm, not that many really interesting ones, actually... I only have a GC, and there wasn't that much stuff for it. Yeah, yeah, except for the Zelda etc.

But I gotta mention a game called Okami. Ever since I first heard about this game, I've been very interested in it. It seems almost as innovative as Viewtiful Joe. The way you "draw" things to solve puzzles and battle enemies looks very cool (I wonder what it'd be like on the DS), not to mention the art style. The only bad thing I can think of is the "voice acting", which sounds... just horrible. Plus, it's PS2-exclusive, as far as I know, so I won't be able to play it anyway. Gah.

Originally Posted by Gezmok

Hmm, not that many really interesting ones, actually... I only have a GC, and there wasn't that much stuff for it. Yeah, yeah, except for the Zelda etc.

But I gotta mention a game called Okami. Ever since I first heard about this game, I've been very interested in it. It seems almost as innovative as Viewtiful Joe. The way you "draw" things to solve puzzles and battle enemies looks very cool (I wonder what it'd be like on the DS), not to mention the art style. The only bad thing I can think of is the "voice acting", which sounds... just horrible. Plus, it's PS2-exclusive, as far as I know, so I won't be able to play it anyway. Gah.

I saw Okami too. All I can say is Capcom is stupid. Why would they release such a great game for the PS2 only, when it would work even better on the DS? They wouldn't even need to pause the game for you to paint! It would just flash sephia and let you use the stylus! It seems very ironic.

I was kind of bored at the 360 showing and ALL the demos I saw had atleast one glitch in graphics. I was awed by the PS3 graphics, but the main thing of my interest was the Revolution... I actually felt like I was going to pee my pants when they talked about it.

For me it was definatley Twilight Princess and Revolution. But one of the things I liked that almost no one is talking about is the new True Crime game. The little bit they showed got me excited. You can check out the trailer at truecrime2005.com. I think its going to be New York.

Twilight Princess. I've known about all the other systems and a few of the games for a while now, so they didn't really get me pumped. I knew not much about the new Zelda game other than it's in the making. I swear seeing that trailer I almost cried. I immediately began playing through my LOZ again, actually just now as I post beat it. Starting on AoL now.

1. Revolution- Simply seeing it and learning all of the absolutely amazing aspects of it was awesome for me

2. Twilight's Princess- Seeing more of this highly anticipated epic, and witnessing only a piece of what this game will be, it's like nothing I've ever experienced in gaming history.

3. Dawn of Sorrow- Being a recent, and big fan now of the Castlevania series, I adored the trailers and clips of this. Great music, amazing sprites, and what looks to be one of the most entertaining Castlevania titles to date. I'm really excited for the face off between this and X-Box's/PS2's Curse of Darkness. It already seems that this sequel to Aria of Sorrow will be superior.

1. Twilight Princess- I really need to stop spoiling this game for myself. Horseback fighting looks like it will be incredibly fun and challenging, and I love the NPCs in this game. The pregnant lady, Colin and Ilia already seem like they will be very endearing characters.

2. Revolution- Cool look, and complete backwards compatibility! Now I'll be able to play Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario and all the other great games I missed. The setting in the Metroid clip looked extremely sci-fi. I'm hoping that wasn't just a test sort of area, and the game's actual setting will be like that.

3. Peter Jackson's King Kong- Looks incredible so far. I can't wait to see how the Beyond Good & Evil team will handle this game. (But alas, there was no BG&E 2 this year... maybe next year... )

Ds: M&L 2. The first was great, thopugh I never beat it.
Super Mario Brothers DS: Seels great.
The Eglish-Japanese dictionary. I want to learn Japanese.

Da Cube: Twilight Princess
Geist
Mario Party 7

Twilight Princess, for sure. The trailer for that one blew me away. Plus, as someone who adored the title since it was deemed a fake/rumor, I was quite pleased to see that it was the actual title.

I was happy to see a trailer for the new Kirby game, too. I always love to see new Kirby platformers. This one looks like it'll be combining the powers and varied attack style of the newer games with some elements of the older games, such as the ability to create a teammate by sacrificing your ability. Should be fun.

Metal Gear Solid 4. Granted, there was no real game footage in the trailer, but aside from being quite humorous, it provided fans with hints as to who you would play in the story as well as informing everyone that Kojima would be staying with the series. Which is, of course, wonderful news. I remember hearing something about a Zone of the Enders game, too, which is also awesome news.

The release of the Playstation 3 is something I'm really looking forward too, as well. Not just for those mind-blowingly gorgeous graphics they showcased, but for the killer lineup it already has slated for the launch. Hopefully, the PS3 will have the fantastic library of wonderful third-party RPG's that the PS2 had.

I haven't looked into much of the E3 news yet, but those are what stand out to me as the best things from what I've seen and read.

Okami should be for the DS. It'd be perfect for it. It's almost like they were making it for the Ds than someone said "How about we make it for ps2 instead".

The good:
Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess
New Super Mario Bros
Sonic Rush
Sonic 360
Shadow The Hedgehog
Kirby's Adventure
Metal Gear Solid 4

The bad:
No Mario 128
Game Boy Micro
No Revolution Info

We've had announcements, trailers, news, and impressions, and everything associated with E3. I know that my list of most anticipated games has been shaken up quite a bit, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

This is not necessarily in order, by the way.


Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Need I even say more? This one goes without saying, so you'll forgive me if I don't spend any more time on it


Spore
Ah, this game again. I was extremely intrigued a few months back, when I first heard about it. Then it kinda slipped under the radar, until IGN's newest article on it popped up. I think IGN says it best: "Will Wright is a mad genius of gaming." (For those who don't know, this is the guy responsible for the Sims, and Sim City, and other innovative, and good, games (The Sims sucks ass at this point, but that's due to EA whoring it to death, not Wright). You start the game as a microscopic creature, and then gradually you have to grow and evolve yourself. It is similar to E.V.O. in that respect, for those who remember it. Once you reach a point where you are ready to evolve a brain, the game switches to a SimCity/RTS type thing - you suddenly have a culture to design and grow. You can continue with this until you've conquered the world, or dominate it through politics, because yes, there are other intelligent lifeforms evolving as well. Once you reach a certain point, you can take to the stars, and start inter-planetary travel. A bit later, inter-solar system. Eventually, you'll have your entire galaxy, with hundreds upon hundreds of planets at your disposal.

All of this is cool, but nothing that great. We've had evolution games before, and several games that have you nurturing primitive cultures to high-tech ones. But I haven't even touched on what makes the game so revolutionary - rather then pre-designing a bunch of set options and events, the developers have instead coded a complex system of rules and ways your creatures adapt. By doing this, you can design and alter your creatures as they evolve in any way you see fit, and no matter what you do, it should work out. If you have a tentacled monstrosity walking around on land, the game will animate it based on the design, and choose which apendages to use for walking and which for picking up things, etc., etc.

On top of that, due to the way this is coded, it doesn't need to store actual 3D models, just some specifications and whatnot. Which means that creatures designs can be transferred between games very easily, even on the worst connections. So they'll set up a big free online system which automatically transfers these designs. So not only will you have completely new creatures of your own, but, on other planets in your galaxy, the game will use designs from other players, giving endless variation in both your creatures and your enemies.

My descriptions don't really do the game, or the revolutionary concepts, justice - I suggest you read the first link, and then the IGN link. If this all works how they say it works and as well as they say it works, I see the potential for the entire development process in many games to be revolutionized and made more streamlined.

This game is easily as ambitious as Fable was, but, unlike Fable, I think it might actually be able to live up to it's ambitions. I can't wait.


Magna Carta: Tears of Blood
Actually, as far as I know, this was totally ignored at E3. But I got interested right before the show started, and still am. I actually posted a thread on it, but it kinda got ignored in the E3 craze, so I'll just quote it here:

"They recently announced that a US version of this game will be released later this year, under the name "Magna Carta: Tears of Blood". I preferred Crimson Stigmata, but hey, I'm to grateful for the US release to complain.

For those who are unaware, this is a Korean RPG for the PS2 (and PC in Korea, I think). It's been out for awhile in Korea and, I believe, Japan, and I had lost hope of ever seeing a US release awhile back. It's developed by Softmax, the same guys who made War of Genesis 3 (now that's another game I wished they'd translated), and published by Atlus.

The thing that originally brought War of Genesis and Magna Carta to my attention were the character art, by Hyung-Tae Kim. It's all very good, and he's the only individual artist I liked enough to pay much attention too. You can see some of his art here: http://hyung-taekim.org/

A lot of his art is... exaggerated, and I hope you don't mind a bunch of really effeminate men, heh. He occasionally goes extremely overboard in the breasts department too. But the rest of the art and the very cool character designs are enough to make me overlook these minor details.

And there's great music, too, from Sung-Woon Jang. I've had the OST from the Korean release for quite some time, and it's one of the best ones out there. Better then most, even better then a lot of Sakuraba and Uematsu's works.

From a gameplay standpoint... to be honest, I hardly know a thing. The battle system looks very interesting and unique from the few minutes of footage I've seen of it, but it also looks like it has the potential to become very tiresome. You'll see some of it in the trailer I've linked to at the bottom of the post, but it's not a very good representation of it... I've seen other footage with better stuff, though I don't have a link anymore.

The story is another area where I don't know any details, aside from the fact that is is supposed to be very good.

All in all, though it may change as more details emerge, this is one of my most anticipated games of the year.

You can find the trailer here: http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=680"


Super Smash Bros 3
We haven't seen a single screenshot, heard of a single new character, or even seen the controller this will be played with, but I already know that I want it, and very, very badly Super Smash Bros Melee was my favorite game of this generation of consoles, and I expect it's sequel to hold a high position in the next.


Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
This is the Gamecube Fire Emblem game that's known, up until now, as "Trail of the Blue Flame." Ever since Rekka no Ken was released in English and became my favorite RPG for the GBA and this generation in general, I've been looking forward to another Fire Emblem game. Sacred Stones is bein released ina few months, but from everything I hear, it's just filler - this is the real deal. It looks extremely good.


Those are the big ones on my list, but I'm also anticipating...

The new Super Mario Bros game for the DS
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness
Mario and Luigi 2
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Ninja Gaiden 2
Mario Kart DS
Okami
Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones
Kid Icarus (revolution)
Ages of Empires 3
Civilization 4
Kirby: Canvas Curse

of course Zelda, but the biggest is Super Smash Bro.s for the Revolution... when it comes out.

I would like to buy a lot of games in this next year, and I will try as far as money allows.

My favorites are:

Zelda: The Twilight Princess
Mario Kart DS
Guild Wars It's new for Europe and I'm getting it tomorrow
Super Mario Bros 3 ofcourse
World of Warcraft: coming updates

These are the main ones, although I'm gonna try buying a lot more

I'm most anticipated about,well,the NR,so I can actually play TP when it comes out,instead of drooling all my life.

Originally Posted by linkN64

I'm most anticipated about,well,the NR,so I can actually play TP when it comes out,instead of drooling all my life.

It's coming out for GCN.

I am anticipating of course Twilight Princess and DDR Mario Mix. Also Super Princess Peach and Katamari damacy 2.

Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess
New Super Mario Bros
Sonic Rush
Sonic 360
Shadow The Hedgehog
Kirby's Adventure
Metal Gear Solid 4

In no particular order

Mario Kart DS- Playing a good-graphics Mario Kart anywhere I go? Ohh my the fun...

Mario and Luigi 2- Back once more, and with all the silliness.

Super Mario Bros DS- Nostalgia city, and it looks just plain fun.

Fire Emblem GC- Simply amazing. This is exactly what Gamecube needs, and what I and many fans will enjoy. Great graphics, what looks to be a fun battle system, and an apparently epic storyline.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow- I cannot wait for this to come out. The gameplay looks better than any other Castlevania game, and the sprites and backgrounds are amazing. Amazing tunes, and all the fun of playing as Soma Cruz back again has gotten me hyped.

Twilight's Princess- Do I need to say it? :razz: