E3 2006 Wrap Up
Posted by: kmikeym | From: May 15, 2006
I don't like the term "Casual Gamer". Casual gaming seems to be all the rage in the gaming industry, thankfully mostly focused on the waste of energy that is mobile games. But how is anyone supposed to get excited about, as wikipedia says, "games targeted at the mass audience, which are peculiar for their simple rules, engaging game design, require no time commitment or special skills from an end user." Hits can come out of this format, like Tetris, but overall it seems like game as distraction as opposed to game as experience. I don't want to be distracted.
Casual Games seemed to be everywhere at E3. Kentia Hall, the ugly stepchild of the main exhibit halls (filled with the many small international companies), was full of cheap kiosks selling casual games. Normally Kentia Hall is where you can count on finding a few gems of really creative (or at the very least amusing) games, but it seemed dominated by so many multi-player dragon battle quests and the tiny screens and simple gameplay of cell phones. Kentia Hall, other than the classic games display, was a disappointment.
We all loved the Wii. Nintendo created the first game system I have owned since the PS1 with the DS, and now they have done it again with the Wii. As we lined up to enter on the first day of the show, there was a huge crowd outside the doors and it seemed that literally everyone was talking about Nintendo. Before the doors opened we walked by the other main hall and there was no one lining up to see Microsoft or the big developers. Everyone wanted the Wii.
And it completely lived up to the hype. As we entered the Wii area there was a rotating pedestal showing off people playing the games. Hands waving, jumping, moving, pointing and clearly having a great time. Then we got to play. We got to play WarioWare. I think WarioWare proves the concept of the Wii better than any game.
But then I had a scary thought, "Is this casual gaming? Because I don't like casual games!"
The Wii, with it's unannounced but expected price range of $200, and its less gory and more "fun" titles (for the most part) seem like it's designed for calling your friends over and having fun. Even your non-gaming friends. Even, dare I say it, Jessica. And that seems like what "casual gaming" is all about at first. Except that when you start to play the Wii, and this is by far the first system where the word play is the best description of what you are doing, it's clearly an experience and not some distraction to kill time.
The Wii was the reason to go to E3. Well, that and laughs at the expense of the Playstation 3, or what I like to call SpiderPlayManSation. The PS3 is pretty easy to grasp, just imagine a giant sized PS2 that has better graphics. Yeah... that's about it. Oh wait, one more thing. The price of the PS3 is $600.00. You can buy a Wii, plus one for your friend and then an extra one in case you want to set up a give-away with a sweet prize package!
The graphics were freakishly good, but I have never heard a person complain about the realism of the look of a game. Better looking versions of the same old games just isn't that exciting unless you love your Madden franchise. The PS3, or SpiderPlayManStation, is just an expensive delivery vehicle for the same old XBOX games and a few exclusive graphics. It's like instead of selling your VW Rabbit and buying a new car you just put the glossy frame of an SUV over it. In a lot of ways it's not actually an improvement of the previous version.
One of my favorite parts of E3 is the booths that are not selling games, but whole countries. We call these booths the "Countries Pimping Their Development Potential" and they include the pretty decent UK booth and Canada booths, the very entertaining and wacky Korea booth (highlighting such games as Diet Queen and Coinstack), and the mind-boggling dull Scotland booth, which consisted of a large booth of old women reading magazines and maybe a brochure or two set out.
The entire XBOX 360 booth/section was a strange mild redesign of previous years and seemed to even have the same games. This is probably because all the games for XBOX seem to be a sequel or clone of another game. Refreshingly, the game Viva Pinata looked quite compelling, but was not a playable demo and seemed to be designed for the kids. I was interested in a GTA3-like clone which was multiplayer and also superhero based. And I think the lead character in Dead Rising is a photographer, though I'm sure he gets to shoot a lot of people too.
I didn't get close enough to see what console it was on, but I did see a giant Garfield banner which seemed to be a game based on the direct-to-video sequel to one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was probably just a cell phone game. It seems there is big money in cell phone games, which is too bad as they are all terrible. I played a round of Pac-Man Bowling and scored an easy 189, but any thrill in my score was diminished by my complete boredom. Paris Hilton made on appearance on the day after we were there to promote copies of her new cell phone game. There are almost too many jokes I could make about that, so I'll just leave it alone. And one of Cabel's favorite games was the game "Coinstack" in the Korea booth, where you have to stack coins as high as possible.
Speaking of cell phone games, I can't believe that Nokia and N-Gage were back for another year of abuse. They have now transitioned the N-Gage from hardware into software that allows you play games on Nokia phones. Sort of their gaming platform for mobile phones. The only conclusion we could come up with is that N-Gage must be some high level Nokia executive's pet project because common sense would tell you to stop wasting money on this project.
Probably the most confusing game of the entire show was Desperate Housewives, which seemed to operate like The Sims and also have some plot elements in it. It seems like someone didn't do their demographics homework on this one. Not to say that all games should appeal to twelve year old boys, but will the people who watch Desperate Housewives be interested in a videogame version? Will the game draw in new viewers from gamers? It doesn't seem likely. But, at the same time, I do sort of want to play it.
The other games I am excited about playing are all on different machines. On the Wii, where every game is fun to play, I am excited about Music Orchestra, where you get to be the conductor. I have my fingers crossed that this is not just a DDR style rhythm game, but one where your actions actually control the sounds the orchestra makes.
On the PSP of all places there is the game WTF, which stands for Work Time Fun (working title) and is a series of mini-games like sorting chickens and chopping wood. It's funny, repetitive, and business based. This might be the only game for PSP I ever buy (and no, I do not own a PSP).
Yakuza, with a title that ensures it will sell to angry tweens, sold me when I saw it has a crane game aspect! It looks a lot like my old favorite Shenmue, which many considered a snooze-fest. Walking around, collecting weird things, asking people about sailors, and letting the game slowly unfold in painfully slow near-real time.
Overall this was a very exciting E3. Initially it seemed like the Hollywood invasion of videogames was crushing out the fun innovative titles, but that is just the perception because the giant game companies have giant booths. There will always be amazing crazy games being made and sometimes they will become a huge success (Katamari) and sometimes they will fail (Odama), but you do have to seek them out. Thankfully the Wii is going to make every game fun and innovative and crazy. I'm really excited about the future of video games.
See my E3 photos here.
I keep hearing about how 'no really, THIS game you'll totally love!!!' and then I don't, so I'm fairly skeptical. I did like Katamari for maybe 6 times but then I got bored.
Posted by: freddy at May 15, 2006 3:35 PM