Oceania E3 2004...

Not a fan of car games?

cos Forza Motorsport for the xbox is a pretty big deal.

 

I just watched the trailer for the new Zelda and i you'll excuse me I just have to change my shorts.

 

I'm so exited, I just bought an IGN subscription

 

luigi, for the record, the only games worse than car games are sports games.

and secondly for the record, remember: You can't spell ignorant without IGN.



As Xbox games... we all knew that Halo " was going to be their big draw card, as well as a little bit of Doom3 on the side. There have been a few interesting anouncements - like the first screen of the new Far Cry game on Xbox. But in the general scheme of things, car games don't tend to draw big hype. And unless Forza Motorsport can do something that Gran Turismo 4 can't do, it's not going to do much more than make a few small ripples here and there.

 

I disagree, Gran Turismo is a huge draw for Playstation and attracts allot of people to the system. If Microsoft can beat Sony in the car game stakes it should mean a significant increase in their market share.

It's true that you probably wont hear as much hype for Forza than something like Halo 2. Car games aren't exactly at the top of the list for your hardcore gamer but there are a great deal of gamers out there that are in it for the car games and ignorant of almost everything else (after all Gran Turismo is the most successful series Sony has ever had).

And Forza can do alot of things that Gran Turismo can't do.

Oh and For the record I seldom agree with what IGN has to say (there review of Double Dash was a travesty), I'm in it for the files.

 

Well I'm happy. Two new Zelda games to look forward to, Metroid Prime 2 and Resident Evil 4 look great, and Paper Mario 2 will be out sooner then I thought. And while I'm not all that interested in the DS as yet, the first lot of shots and video do look promising. I just hope it's supported well enough for it to survive longer then the virtual boy.

But other then Nintendo and Sony's PSP, there isn't really anything else to talk about. Yes, there are plenty of new games we already knew were coming (none more so then what I've already mentioned from Nintendo, along with FFXII, GTA SA, Halo 2 and Doom3), a few small surprises (though I expected another Splinter Cell sequel anyway), but other then that, there isn't much to talk about. I do play racing games, and Gran Turismo 4 should be interesting, but another rip-off aka Sega GT doesn't impress me one bit.

I am looking forward to the future in handheld gaming. I just hope the price point for the PSP won't be too high.

 

Sega GT was awful but have you seen Forza?
It's no Sega GT, it does a hell of a lot more than both Sega GT and Gran Turismo.

You can watch the Forza trailer at the official xbox sight, trust me it's worth it.

 

Don't get your hopes too high, Kartanym... if Sony's track record is anything to go by then I'd expect to have to pay through the nose for the PSP.

Most sites I've been tracking over the last few days are guessing that the PSP will cost around $300... that $300 American, not Australian. The same sites are saying that the DS will likely go for $100... now regardless of the fact that I'm a raving Nintendo fanboy, and only own a PS2 for the Square/Square-Enix games, I know how much money I'd rather be spending. Plus, I don't really find the PSP games all that interesting. Nintendo has the exclusive titles that are more to my taste. I grew up playing Metroid and Mario, maybe if Sony could create games as good as those I'd be interested, in the mean time though...

And luigi, I'm not going to try and discuss car games in too much detail, since I don't play them and clearly you do, but I am going to say that the stuff I've heard about GT4 is amazing. If Forza is anything like that I might actually end up picking it up (I'm going to have to go and read some previews now )

Microsoft need an "awesome" racer for the Xbox, they've already delayed Halo 2 'til September to compete with not only GT4, but also Half-Life 2 and Doom 3... which of course is totally stupid (H-L 2 will come out on top).

Oh, and I didn't think that you'd actually sign up for the great reviews at IGN, but the Insider stuff is certainly worth it.

 

Sadly Halo 2 is set for November 9th now

I just finished watching the Nintendo Press Conference and WOW! The DS looks incredible (and should be substantially cheaper than the PSP) and Zelda has me drooling. Nintendo seemed to have done everything right this year.

Gran Turismo 4 does look very cool and we wont really know what game will be better (GT4 or Forza) until we play them, but from an aesthetic point of view Forza Motorsport looks much better. As much as the Sony fan boys will disagree with me, the Xbox is just a far more powerful machine.

 

Yeah, Syrix, that's what I was afraid of. Paying that much for a handheld system is nuts, so I think I'll wait it out for the DS.

It is good to see Nintendo bringing some of the big name titles back. I'm also glad both Advance Wars and Fire Emblem are getting the GC treatment, that should be great. It's just a pitty a majority of 3rd party publishers are walking out on the system, when it's obvious it has much more going for it. At least Capcom are sticking around with RE4, and hopefully Sega will continue to support it aswell.

 

Yes, it is a pity to see the lack of support for the GCN, and whilst most of it has to do with Activision being total asshats, I think Nintendo itself has to share part of the blame. The marketing guys in Nintendo of Australia are just about as bad as the SEGA marketing guys (which is "damn terrible"). The Cube is doing fairly well overseas, in Japan and the States. Sales in PAL regions are looking poor for two main reasons. The first is the long delays in converting the game from NTSC to PAL. That in itself seems redundant now, as 90% of PAL televisions also support the NTSC format. The second reason is the lack of advertisement. Games are taking nearly 6, and up to 9, months to go from NTSC to PAL release, and when they do, no-one knows about them.

On the up-side, at least the NDS has developers lining up around the block to make games for it. Many developers seem genuinely excited about making games for the DS, whereas I haven't heard very much in regard to the PSP except for Sony exec's telling up the system specs over and over like it's going to impress us.

 

The PSP, as far as I know, as just as many developers working on it as the NDS, including some big names. But I'm more interested in the games themselves, not whether the psp connects to a ps2, ps3, toaster or fridge!! Which is why the DS looks just that more impressive at the moment.

As for NOA, they haven't done a good job in terms of marketing in Australia. I think it all went downhill after they pulled the plug on the old Nintendo Australia magazine some years back (anyone remember that?). Since the Gamecube and GBA release, the only games that have been advertised to some degree have been Metroid Prime and Mario Kart along with the GBA SP and whatever markdowns they've made to the price of the consoles. Though to be fair to them, Sony and Microsoft haven't done much more in terms of tv advertising. Sponsorship of events makes up for most of that (I noticed Nintendo sponsored the Rip Curl Pro recently).

And the PAL issue has been going on for years now. I'll never understand why it takes so long for a game like Boktai or Animal Crossing to be released in Australia (some are over 8 months late!). It's a pitty it isn't like the PC market, where we get certain releases only a few weeks after its release in the US (sometimes even before).

 

Yeah the gamecube shelves are looking pretty dismal at the local EB and good luck finding a video store that actually rents gamecube games anymore (at least not in Brisbane).

Nintendo still manage to sell heaps of units of the really big name stuff here though, Mario Kart and Windwaker were big successes.

 

And by the looks of it, there will be plenty more to come. Viewtful Joe 2 is my pick (besides the new Zelda, of course) so far for the GC. Can't wait for that one. Speaking of which, I still can't find the original on sale anywhere in Perth.

 

It's just a pity that nintendo dumped Rare cos Conker and Kameo are looking amazing, boy am I glad I have an XBox

XBox and gamecube all the way, Sony doesn't interest me one bit.

 

I know what you mean...

My PS2 and all of the games are making a debut in the Trading Post.

 

good call, the only things PS2 have worth playing are on the other systems now anyway (GTA, MGS ect.)

 

Well...Syrix knows way more than me, and is a veritable genius at this kinda thing, so Ill listen to what he says.

I have a cube, and would only by the other consoles for one game a piece: Xbox for Crimson Skies: High road to Revenge (The first CS on PC is my favourite game of all time), And PS2 for Transformers (Ima BIG transformers groupie!). But I cant afford to buy other systems, so ill live without.

 

As Scream Man says, Syrix knows what he is talking about and knows his stuff pretty well.

Out of E3, I have to say Zelda, Res Evil 4, Star Fox, Advance Wars, LOTR:The Third Age, 007 Rogue Agent, and Nintendo DS has got my attention, just to name a few.

EA has some interesting titles. Goldeneye: Rogue Agent has an interesting twist to the 007 series.

The Battle for Middle Earth looks impressive and highly detailed worlds and characters/units, the gameplay would be interesting to see how it turns out.

The Third Age is a RPG set in Middle Earth, it runs parallel to the Fellowships journey but you take control of an original party and you can be either good or evil. GBA version looks really good as well.

The sequel to their BF42 and BF Vietnam, Battlefield 2 looks great and can have up to 100 players for a massive full scale war! expect new kits, vehicles and a new scoring system and Squad team for this modern warfare game.

 

OK, it's a wrap for another year. IMO, Nintendo totally owned E3 this year. With big-name "mature" games, like Metroid, Resident Evil and Zelda announced for the Cube and playable demos of the NDS on hand, they had it in the bag.

Nothing from either Sony or Microsoft has really rocked the boat in the same way, IMO. In fact, I was really quite surprised with Microsoft. Sure enough they showed off some new games, and gave a (more or less) concrete date for Halo 2, but there was nothing about the XNA (or at least nothing that hadn't already been said about a week or two previously).

For those not in the know, Microsoft is up to their old tricks again. The XNA is supposed to be a new system that Microsoft wants to develop as a cross-platform device, so that it will basically play Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft game - as long as the other two companies are willing to take part in it. I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised: Microsoft pushes a mediocre product out into a market, and then after a year or two, they try to buy out the competition so they can have a nice little monopoly.

"But wait!" I hear many say, "Wouldn't a system that plays all three console's games be cool?"

Yeah, it would... except of course that once Microsoft monopolises the market they can charge whatever they like for their system. Want to pay out $1000 for a console? How about if they double the price of games?
I'll go on record as saying that if the XNA goes ahead as a three-way console, I'll stop gaming.

But back to E3. Sony talked up the PSP, but honestly, it's no DS. And much like Microsoft, they showed a lot of pictures of a lot of games that we knew were coming anyway. We did get first screens of GTA: San Andreas courtesy of Rockstar. It'll likely be a big seller, but the GTA games bore me anyway, so I'm not fussed.

I'm still out to lunch on the whole New Zelda. It'll bring Nintendo whole new share of the market, and it'll probably shift consoles like nothing else, but I can't help but feel a little annoyed that the series has had to "sell out" like that.

 

I think you've got your wires crossed about XNA, it's simply new development tools for making xbox and windows games that will make it easier for designers to get the most out of the two platforms and port from one to another.

It was mis-reported in the press before E3 that it was for all platforms, even then they never claimed it was a device that would play all three consoles' games.

 

Have you seen the trailer for Zelda, it looks amazing!
I don't consider returning to a games roots 'selling out', it looks to be a more grown up version of Ocarina and I for one couldn't be happier.

And before you ask, I loved Wind Waker.

 

Here's all the details on XNA straight from the horse's mouth

www.microsoft.com/xna/

 

Thanks for the info. I did in fact read the EDGE article about a week before E3, and since all XNA-related news at E3 seemed to revolve around reshowings of the videos that I had already seen the screens from, I simply avoided them - after all, I had important Nintendo news to read.

I really should have known better than to trust a magazine article, even if it was EDGE. Most printed gaming media is good for nothing but a good laugh at a group of closed minded individuals who don't share my own point of view. Most online media pretty much falls into the same category, but at least they usually provide links.

As for the new Zelda...

I've seen the video, countless times. I've veiwed every screenshot and read every article. The Legend of Zelda is possibly my favourite game franchise ever. It's kinda hard to say, once we get into my top five or so they all pretty much blend into equal first.

Anyway, I want to make sure no-one's getting the wrong impression here. I am looking forward to the game. I think it's going to be awesome. But I'm a little annoyed that in order for a game to sell it has to not only have 3d models with enourmous polygon counts, but that for some strange reason it has to star an "adult" charcter - otherwise it's obviously a kid's game. About six months ago I was having an arguement with someone about The Wind Waker. They told me that they didn't like the game because the cel-shading made it too bright and chirpy - they wanted something dark and brooding like OoT, in both graphics and storyline.

Now as it turned out, this person hadn't played another of the games before OoT, and had only played a little bit of Majora's Mask. Now, I can't really fault anyone for not wanting to play MM through to the end - it was the biggest change in the Zelda franchise at the time. But I inquired as to what made OoT's story so dark. The answer: Ganondorf gets power and controls Hyrule.

It surprised me that he thought OoT was so dark, when in previous Zelda games Link faces more or less exactly the same problem, only he doesn't get the luxury of being 15 or 16 years old, he gets to be a 10 or 11 year old kid who faces off against a hoarde of evil that's overrun the land. I even put tWW into perspective: it's Link's birthday and his Sister gets kidnapped. He single-handedly (more or less) sails around his world trying to rescue her, only to discover that there's a whole other land sealed away beneath the waves that only the Hero of Time can save. Except that the Hero of Time hasn't shown up, so the job's been passed to him. I'm currently replaying tWW through, so a lot of the content is fresh in my mind again. Go back and read what the King of Red Lions has to say about him to Valoo (the dragon). Link's sitting in the boat when he basically says, "Yeah, he's not the one, but he's the best we've got, so I guess he'll have to do."

But that's ok, because tWW is cel-shaded and for kids and OoT is cool because you get to go into the future and be adult Link...</sarcasm>

And so it's because of that, that I kinda feel a bit like my childhood has been "sold out" to a bunch of snotty nosed brats who won't play a game unless it's got blood and violence, and can't beat a game unless they buy a handbook...

Still, there's not much I can do about it, except to look forward to the game myself and try and explain to as many kids as I can that they couldn't dream of playing the games I grew up on, because they didn't make handbooks back in the day (at least not anything as extensive or expensive as they do now) and if there was a hard part you just kept on trying and trying until you beat it.

 

I still play WW. I'm playing the 2nd Quest with the Tingle Tuner on and uncovering all these hidden secrets and bonuses. Very kool.

I read interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma regarding the Zelda series and they said that they did the cel shading look not just for the emotions, interactions artistic design and originality but to set the world through the eyes of young Link.
For the recently anounced one, they have to make a world that is suitable to a teenage/grown up Link and that is the direction that they are going.
Also try to remember that Nintendo is known for ther originality, quality and for their artistic approaches. The new one is based on the WW engine even though it doesn't look the same.

What I love about the Zelda series is the gameplay and the story behind it. The Characters are just great as well.