[E3 2010] Truthiness in E3 Predictions : Multiplatform

You can check out my first-party predictions, as well as my third-party/multi-platform predictions to refresh your memory. To see my other Truthiness posts, check out the Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft posts to see how I fared. To do this, I'm color-coding each entry to correspond to my prediction: Green is spot-on, Orange is half-right, and Red is Fail.


Most Likely:

• The Music Force (Guitar Hero 6 and Rock Band 3) : Keytars and shitty story elements galore.
• Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 Unvealed (story prediction at Joystiq as a comment) : Nothing at all, but remember, it was delayed into 2011.
• The Force Unleashed II Full reveal : With it's wicked awesome gameplay
• Dead Space 2 Unvealed : At Microsoft's conference.
• LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Revealed :
• Red Faction: Armageddon Demoed :
• Call of Duty: Black Ops is the biggest thing on the show floor (if Halo Reach isn't there) : First thing at Microsoft's conference with a brand new trailer, and Mark Lamia gave a live demo of a jungle level, plus showing off the controllable Hind-D level; buddy flies, you shoot.
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 gets hyped up for it's release in a few weeks : Yup
• FEAR 3 inexplicably shown off (with an explanation on the '3' in the middle of the title)
• Rage engine and game shown off : Oh yea, and it's gorgeous
• Rockstar Trifecta (Max Payne 3, LA Noire, Agent) : Guess I didn't catch the memo that they weren't even showing up.
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood makes it's debut, showing everything : Totally. At Ubisoft's conference (with Joel McHale, again), it was the second thing shown. Taking place in 1503, a few, short years after ACII's ending, you're back in Rome, the coup de grâce locale in ACII, starring as Ezio, and showing that he's not the only assassin in the luxurious Italian city (facts we already know). Launch date is November 16 (predicted!). Monteriggioni was attacked by Cesare Borgia, Rodrigo Borgia's son (the main antagonist from the previous game) in 1499, and the game starts you off escaping by word of Mario, your uncle (who, sadly, is killed by Cesare later on in the level, who is holding a Piece of Eden, too). There is more emphasis on horseback riding, as well as the ability to fire canons (this is shown during the defense of Monteriggioni). Sorry, but this seems to be more than just a simple "milk it for what it's worth" sequel, guys. Get used to it.

[E3 2010] Truthiness in E3 Predictions : First-Party

There was a lot that went down, so I'm separating Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony into three posts to help with ease-of-use, then giving the entire third-party post it's own. You can check out my first-party predictions, as well as my third-party/multi-platform predictions to refresh your memory. To see my other Truthiness posts, check out the Microsoft, Sony and Third-Party posts to see how I fared. To do this properly, I'm color-coding each entry to correspond to my prediction: Green is spot-on, Orange is half-right, and Red is fail.

I apologize for the horrible formatting, but Blogger seriously fucked up all of my prediction posts' formatting, so were you think there should be spaces, there are, but they're just not being rendered properly. And yes, the HTML code is right.

WILD CARD: Shigeru announces Ocarina of Time remake

Most Likely:

• The Legend of Zelda XVI Unveiled : Oh yea. Subtitled Skyward Sword, out next year.
• Golden Sun DS Unveiled : Subtitle is Dark Dawn, and comes out later this year.
• Retro's New Game : Yup. They're back, and guess with who? (go ahead, guess. wanna hint? look below)
• Donkey Kong is Back! (DKC4 or Jungle Beat 2) : DK's back, and he's rollin' with Retro. Yea. Retro. And it's of the Country variety.
• 3DS Unveiled : Definitely. And a TON of third-party support.

Sony Conference Round-Up

The Sony media briefing took place on June 15, 2010, at 3:00 PM EST. Television broadcast was made available (and commercial-free, thank god) by G4, which I watched the entire hour-and-a-half thing (I'm starting to get used to this).  

Jack Tretton is up, and joked at Kinect and the ponchos. He said that bringing Kevin Butler on stage was a serious thought after everyone had suggested it, but, sadly, he won't be appearing today. Damn.

Killzone 3 is up, and what they're seeing is gameplay footage, and in 3D. Oh, and Move support, too.

A lot of games with 3D support (Ghost Recon, Shawn White Snowboarding, Mortal Kombat), and The Sly Collection announced in the spirit of the God of War Collection. One final 3D video: a giant sampling of various 3D supported titles. Motorstorm: Apocalypse, EyePet, MLB 10 The Show, The Fight, Killzone 3, Tumble, Crysis 2, Mortal Kombat, Gran Turismo 5 and The Sly Collection.

Now they're onto the Move. They're showing developers reactions to the controller.

Nintendo Conference Round-Up

The Nintendo media briefing took place on June 15, 2010, at 12:00 PM EST. Television broadcast was made available (and commercial-free, thank god) by G4, which I watched the entire hour-and-a-half thing (I'm starting to get used to this). 

Reggie's on stage. He doesn't sound like a robot like Don Mattrick or Joel McHale did yesterday. Simply put, I love listening to him talk.

ZELDA!!! Great way to start off the show. New short teaser, artwork seems less gritty than Wind Waker, but it's still TP-esque Zelda. Showing Link on horseback in the clouds, then Majora's Mask, then Wind Waker Link in the King of Red Lions, but no Twilight Princess references (MM and WW are down the same timeline, so they are connected; perhaps this is a sequel to Majora's Mask) Titled The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Miyamoto is explaining, via video, how the design came about. English dubbed over his Japanese. I'd rather listen to Kojima again. MotionPlus support for sword mechanics, nunchuck is the shield, just like in Twilight Princess. Miyamoto is on stage now, complete with English. He explains that you actually have to hold the controller combination like a sword and shield. The sword really looks like 1:1 control. It looks like he's having trouble with controls. The Sword Beam is back! 1:1 sword play seems to play into enemies, as the Deku Baba needs to be killed by slicing it in the way it's mouth is opened, a door with an eye needs to be confused, as the eye is focused on the end of the sword; rotate it in a circle over and over and you can approach is safely and kill it. Shield Bash rocks back at Octoroks to kill them. Holy shit, you can dash now! Having Bill translate Miyamoto while he's still talking is confusing as shit. Miyamoto having some problems taking out some Skulltullas on a vine with the slingshot (you no longer point at the screen, just move the Wiimote). Different mechanics for the bombs; overhead and underhand tosses. Wii Remote is acting up, and they're asking to turn on their wireless devices (HA! Apple...), but there's still some issues using the Bow. They gave up, and moved on to a remote-controlled beetle. Skyward Sword will not come out this year, but next year (sadly, not making history by having the three flagship series, Zelda, Mario and Metroid, have new entries in the same year). They're off, but a gameplay trailer is up, showing many uses for the already shown items. Awesome.

Microsoft Conference Round-Up

The Microsoft media briefing took place on June 14, 2010, at 1:30 PM EST. Television broadcast was made available (and commercial-free, thank god) by Spike, which I watched the entire hour-and-a-half thing (I'm starting to get used to this).

Don Mattrick unveils a multi-year agreement with Activision that all map packs for the next three years for Call of Duty will launch first on the 360. Damn.

Hideo Kojima showed up to unveil Metal Gear Solid: Rising, but passed the unveiling off to Rising's producer, because, let's be honest, Hideo's English isn't all that hot, so he would feel highly uncomfortable to keep talking in a language he isn't familiar with. It was mainly a gameplay trailer, and it looks to play just like Devil May Cry. Watermelon cutting never looked so cool.

Cliff Blezinski came on stage, and gave a demo of a 4-player co-op campaign story chapter from Gears of War 3. It showed off the new lambent-infused enemies. Dismemberment galore. New melee kills (bayonet on your Lancer? yes, please). Weapon swapping, omni-directional damage indicator, and those new lambent enemies are shown to be tough as shit (it took all 4 of them to take them down, so teamwork is a must). They even send out baddies; the bigger the tentacles, the bigger the enemies that spawn from them, Berserker included, and a nice little Hammer of Dawn kill at the end. A new mode was hinted at, called "Beast." Uh-oh.

Peter Molyneux was there for Fable III, which takes place 50 years after Fable II, and to be honest, I couldn't care less.

Microsoft Games Studio's new, exclusive partner, Crytek (really?), with the game, codenamed Kingdoms. Looks very medieval.

Here's were Halo Reach comes in, and Bungie's creative director, Marcus Lehto, with a campaign level reveal. Looks like Elites have Spartan tech (Armor Lock, specifically). Seems like Rockets can lock on again (judging by the targeting reticule).

Things I'm Looking Forward To At E3, Part 2

If you caught the original version of this, it was an amalgamated mess of text, with the only signifying parts are games in bold. I've changed this into a single, solitary list for each company, hopefully making things easier on the eye.

Here's a twofer for you: the multiplatform candidates. Here is where the other half of E3 comes, and it should be a hell of a show:

Most Likely:

• The Music Force (Guitar Hero 6 and Rock Band 3)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 Unvealed (story prediction at Joystiq as a comment)
• The Force Unleashed II Full reveal
• Dead Space 2 Unvealed
• LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Revealed
• Red Faction: Armageddon Demoed
• Call of Duty: Black Ops is the biggest thing on the show floor (if Halo Reach isn't there)
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 gets hyped up for it's release in a few weeks
• FEAR 3 inexplicably shown off (with an explanation on the '3' in the middle of the title)
• Rage engine and game shown off
• Rockstar Trifecta (Max Payne 3, LA Noire, Agent)
• Assassin's Creed Brotherhood makes it's debut, showing everything 

Probably:

• Metal Gear Solid: Rising better be there (BONUS: Raiden cosplayer actually looks/acts like Raiden, is pure ninja, and is seen all throughout the show floor)
• Left 4 Dead 3 (skepticism: Vegas)
• Condemned 3 makes it's debut
• Mortal Kombat shown off (MK9, not Rebirth)
• Mirror's Edge 2 (finally)
• Doom 4 shows up, doesn't take place on Mars
• Assassin's Creed III debuts, taking place Egypt, and you take on a whole new assassin

Things I'm Looking Forward To At E3

If you caught the original version of this, it was an amalgamated mess of text, with the only signifying parts are games in bold. I've changed this into a single, solitary list for each company, hopefully making things easier on the eye.

E3 is a mere week away, and after giving hardware impressions not too long ago, I want to share what I'm looking forward to - and expecting - at E3. I will be listing things as an overall "things to expect," or in other words, "predictions." Some are an absolute given, others are a bit wonky. This isn't limited to the conferences, but the show floor as well. If there are third-party game mentions, they are exclusive to each company. For a winger, I'll have a "Wild Card" for each company; something so out there that you would never expect in...ever.

Nintendo

WILD CARD: Shigeru announces Ocarina of Time remake

Most Likely:

• The Legend of Zelda XVI Unveiled
• Golden Sun DS Unveiled
• Retro's New Game
• Donkey Kong is Back! (DKC4 or Jungle Beat 2)
• 3DS Unveiled

Probably:

• Square Shows Final Fantasy V/VI DS Remakes
• Konami shows up with new Castlevania
• Wii Remote with MotionPlus built-in

Unlikely:

• n-Space shows up with their new game (not Geist 2)
• Kid Icarus Returns
• StarFox! 
• Easier Transfers of Digital Content between systems (WiiWare/Virtual Console/DSiWare)
• Further social integration (Facebook, YouTube)
• Virtual Console for DS announced, GameBoy support 

What Are You Thinking:

• Metroid Dread for DS Revealed
• Dennis Dyack unveils Eternal Darkness 2 (BONUS: MotionPlus and Vitality Sensor support)
• Vitality Sensor main use: horror games
• Wireless Nunchuck
• No More Friend Codes!
• Netflix Channel
• Club Nintendo Stars-to-Points Conversion

E3 '10 Predictions : Hardware : 9 Weeks To Go

As foreshadowed in my previous post on the Xbox 360 Slim, here are my predictions for E3 hardware. I'm not doing software here - I may do that later - but right now, I'm focusing on the three major companies and what they'll be bringing to the table.