16 June 2010

E3 2010: Well, I'm here.

Proven Scientific Fact: It is not humanly possible for one person to process the scope of E3 2010.

For the past 48 hours, I have had controllers shoved into my hands, undersized 3-D glasses pushed onto my oversized head, and games--hundeds of wonderful, terrible games--crammed into my now-even-more-nearsighted eyes.

Metaphor for E3: OK, imagine that you go to a Pie Eating Contest and eat a lot of pies. Then you go to a Hot Dog Eating Contest and eat hot dogs galore. And then you go to a second Pie Eating Contest, only in the second Pie Eating Contest several of the pies may have been prepared with dog shit. That's E3.

I love videogames. I have loved them for almost four decades now. But as with anything worth loving, (even when it comes to yourself, which you should definitely try to love) there is also much to loathe about videogames. And all that I love--and loathe--is on full display this week.

Exhibit A: I saw a grown man clutching his chest and having what appeared to be a very painful and simultaneously very joyful heart attack while also ejaculating a tremendous amount of sperm into his trousers during the Nintendo press conference at the moment a new Kirby game was announced.

Now, I am glad that this grown man has found joy in the world. Good for you, sir. But for the love of god, man, get ahold of yourself. Jesus.

I haven't been especially jazzed by anything I've seen so far. Move? Kinect? 3DS? Man, I don't know. Bulletstorm seemed funny and self-aware and interesting to me. I definitely want the redesigned Xbox 360. Secretly, I want the new Harmonix game, Dance Central, because I don't know how to dance, and I've always kind of wish I did know how, instead of being the dick head at every party who has to pretend that he hates all things dance-related.

I still despise all of the exercise-related stuff. Is there ever a ton of it this year. All of it is designed to prey on out of shape people who are willing to part with their some of their fast-food money to purchase the promise of a healthier lifestyle when they could simply go outside and jump around for $0.00.

I don't want Kinectimals or Invizimals or Eyepet. I have real cats. Two of them. They are pains in my ass. They are in my apartment even as I type this, completely ruining all of my stuff and pissing into a box of sand. But they also really great, and are so much more fun to pet than fake animals that live in my gaming console. Plus, real cats can take naps with you. Top THAT, Skittles.

Need For Speed being developed by Criterion? OK, that looks fucking fun. But please, EA, do not outright kill off the Burnout franchise. I beg of you. Also, EA, while I have your ear: Banish this whole Gun Club idea. Put it into the same pretend-it-never-happened file that Nintendo put that Vitality Sensor bullshit into. Gun Club is an embarrassment. It is a debacle of epic proportions. It is in the poorest taste imaginable.

Speaking of Nintendo: I felt awful for Miyamoto. Nintendo made him burst through a paper banner like he was auditioning for the role of Smash Shigeru in season nine of Friday Night Lights, and then made him flail around with a broken Wii-Motion Plus controller. Maybe this was some sort of super secret, black ops-type payback for all of the jabbering Miyamoto has been accused of doing over the years, before Nintendo ordered him to keep his trap shut, and also to pedal a junky bike to work every day. Consider him adequately chagrinned, Nintendo.

Epic Mickey looks pretty cool--I love you, Warren Spector!!!!!!!--despite the unfortunate fact that Mickey appears to be spraying warm bodily fluids around the game world. (My friend John Teti and I promptly renamed the game "Mickey's Jizz-O-Rama." Yes, we are two very mature adults.)

Sony: Thank you for resurrecting Sly Cooper. It is about time. But no thanks for your gassy 2.5 hour press conference that was 89-percent commercials for your products. Also: Thanks for the splitting headache I got from playing Killzone 3 in 3-D in your booth. I'm sure this is not the last of my 3-D-induced headaches to come...

I am heading back to the show floor to do another tour of duty. More later.

6 comments:

  1. Scott Jones I'm so fucking glad i discovered your blog. I had to google you after i saw that bloodrayne 2 review you did on reviews on the run. looks like i'm already a loyal follower of your writing

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  2. With all due respect, are you sure that your cats are using the "box of sand"?...

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  3. I have cats Mr.Jones and they manage to be simultaneously amiable and aggravating. If it is possible they make me want to have children less but they are still worth it. Take that nuclear family!

    Although I am not lucky enough to be at E3 I have not seen anything to get excited about via the various articles/videos put forth by the VG websites either.

    3DS is decidedly underwhelming as is the entire Nintendo product line/presentation. Why is 3d exciting when I can get it via my eyeballs?

    Sony does not care its move controller looks like a colorful dildo and continues to deliver inferior games despite their hardware advantage. Why do the Japanese developers and companies have so many problems delivering a none jap RPG experience that is good in a NA market?

    Kinetic tries to bring in people who don't play video games with the fact they don't need a controller. Fascinating and not at all like the wii strategy. News flash Microsoft maybe we don't want these fools sputtering around in front of a screen in the first place so stop playing to their whims.It's bad enough I have to listen to these people go on about wii sports at the office.

    Peter Molyneux continues to be the epitome of delusion with his latest Fable 3 BEST GAME EVER fiasco.

    The list goes on and on. Oh one last one for the road: Ubisoft milks the what is left of the Assassins Creed franchise by going multi-player. Please deliver another ludicrous yet yawn inspiring story I cannot wait.

    Yet there are glimmers of hope. Castlevania is rebooted by a new developer(one in a long line of rehashed titles lately it seems.)Hopefully they do not Japanese the experience too much.

    Fallout New Vegas will hopefully be a story rich experience more akin to 1 and 2. The complaints about its graphics are irrelevant.

    Rage arrives 3 years too late (borderlands+fallout 3/NV etc. ) but could be good if we aren't tired of the post apocalyptic universe by then.

    No half life 3.

    Here's to E3 2011 + Mass Effect 3, Dragon age Origins 2, a non generic FPS shooter that is not solely devoted to multi-player+games that have good writing. We live in hope as always.

    So that was E3 2010 in a nutshell. The companies might as well have been muggers on the street asking demanding my wallet because this year they were transparent as hell.

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  4. The Gun Club thing is a ballsy bet on the part of EA that there won't be a school shooting in the next 18 months.

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