E3 2k4: the Thread* (Misc gaming related)

Team Ninja just has to give us a butt-shot. :?
Ok, ok, Maybe I'm just over-sentitive with the "bouncing babes in skimpys" dev team.

 

Wow Altered Beast looks really really really bad.. like Nightshade-level bad

 

The caption for the third pic should "The latest snowboarding game from Tecmo."


Seriously though, isn't DOA:Online an online version of DOA2 or has that changed?

 

that has changed ... there is no more "DOA Online" .. it is now "DOA Ultimate" ...

 

It is still called DOA Online in Japan.

 

Raise your hands if you think lens flare is overdone nowadays...

 

At least it's overdone on the pre release Tecmo devkit pics.
Don't remember if the actual games have so much lf, but I remember that the first xb DOA and DOA volleyball game pics also had lens flare overdose.

 

That is what happens when I don't look at the name in the pic...

 

Bloody hell, IGN got fast lately... Remember when it took ages to download a 10MB video... Havent visited the site for ages...

 

Onwards with impressions of titles I had a chance to play.

Pikimin2: This one is a lot of fun. I played the VS mode with a buddy and we spent an hour or so attempting to capture each others base objects. At one point, I rallied 30 or so Pikimin behind me as we rushed the opposing base only to have a heated clash at a choke point. He also had an army of Pikimin behind him and proceeded with tossing his army my way. I strategically positioned my midget vegetables so that they surrounded the opposing force and my manic cackle grew louder as my team fearlessly assimilated his cavalry. It was a sight to behold. I advanced to his base will little resistance and captured the object of desire for the victory.

Starfox: This game reminds me a lot of it's N64 ancestor. The engine seems to be updated from the early builds that were shown last year. From what I saw, the single player mode looks pretty nice. The battles in space are beautiful with lots of objects on screen and everything moved at a rapid frame rate. Ground battles also looked nice and moved quit fast. I had a go with the 4 player battle and it reminded me of the battle mode in the N64 version. The frame rate here was extremely nice, I don't believe it ever dropped. This rendition seems like a faithful update to the N64 classic and I'm sure fans who enjoyed that will welcome this with open arms.

RE4: Damn. That's what I said while playing the demo. The graphics are very nice and everything moves at a brisk pace. The control felt a bit stiff at first but was easy to adjust to. I found it was easier to turn full-circle since they anchored this feature to a button. During my first run, I generally focused on nailing the villagers on different locations on their body. I sort of got addicted to their head area - especially while wielding the shotgun - but overall, their various damage and death animations were fun. The AI was pretty good, at one point I was on the 2nd floor of a house and the damn villagers decided it would be fun to throw a ladder up and attack me from all angles. Probably due to the quicker pace, the tension feels much higher. I constantly felt like the villagers wanted to eat me alive and they would stop at nothing to see me on the menu. The demo was pretty short but already people behind me were itching to play so I stepped off and bid farewell.

Doom3: Badass. The graphics are a sight to behold (compared to other console games at the show) and the lighting was fantastic. From what I played, the game definitely encourages a slower pace. Foolishly, during my one and only run with the game, I shot out the lights in the first demo room and ran around in the dark like an idiot. After finally finding my way around, I lobbed a grenade towards an enemy but it bounced off a wall, over a bin, landing 5ft away from my leg, and took me out 2 seconds later. My demo ended. Damn. It was a hell of a lot of fun while it lasted. I stood around and watched much more capable people venture through the game and the rest of it looks very exciting as well.

Other games I saw but didn't get a chance to play were MP2 (seems very cool and a lot like the first which should bode well for fans of the original), Fable (seems rough), Jade Empire (seems pretty awesome), SC:Ghost (the Xbox version looks great, PS2 version was very rough, didn't see the GC one), Conker (looks hilarious but the fur rendering on his tail is odd looking), Guild Wars (I'll be downloading the beta for this one 'cause it looks like a crap load of fun), and some others that I can't recall at the moment. This year's E3 is indeed one of the greatest.

 

is the release date for pikmin2 in the US still august? does anyone know of a release date for the UK?

I've been waiting for that game for ages and if it doesn't get released to the uk soon, I'm probably going to import it from the US(once it's released of course)

Nice impressions by the way, sounds like a helluva lot of fun.

 

IGN has Pikimin's release date pegged for August 30th. Nothing firm regarding UK release date however.

 

Well, the Link model I think looks similar(not nearly as antialiased now though), but you could always say the gc's graphics chip was 25% faster then and had less to render. But yeah, gc can't do it in real time.(at least not 60 fps realtime) I bet r420 and geforce 6800 could do it though.

BTW, conker's fur looks to be the same as fox's, except for they made the effect much more pronounced and it doesn't look so good now.

I heard Metal Gear Solid: ACID is going to be some kind of tactical strategy game.

 

A model can be antialiased now? :?

What i was talking about was the extensive use of bump mapping, much higer poly counts and better textures in the demo. All things that are not to be seen in this Zelda. And yes, promises were made.

 

Lond-boy, where are these promises you speak of? I'd be interested to see quotes.

 

Nothing on ICO2 or NICO on E3 ?
Or even REZ "sequel" ?