Harmonix still commited to Rock Band franchise

The Guitar Hero franchise is no more and Harmonix was sold off for the paltry price of a new retail game, but the developer is reassuring fans of the Rock Band franchise that it's still alive and kicking. Speaking to Industry Gamers, Greg LoPiccolo said there's more Rockband to come with a big announcement at this years E3. "We think there's a lot of life left in the Rock Band franchise and there's a lot of creative directions to take that."

Whether the announcement is Rock Band related remains to be seen, but with music game sales falling flat recently, Harmonix really need to step up their game to bring back the audience that is pretty much tired of the plastic instrument music games.

Nintendo's Next Console Will Surprise

It's interesting to see someone from the Nintendo crew be the first one to talk about a new console. Metriod co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto spoke to 3DJuegos about a new console from Nintendo. The google translation gives us the following:

"At Nintendo we always have the obligation to surprise users with a new console. We have never done what others. We prefer to create something new that catches attention, and I think this will continue at this time. Surely the new Nintendo machine will leave you all with mouth open".
Some people speculated that a "Hi-res" Wii would be announced at E3, but that didn't happen. But was that due to not wanting to take the limelight asay from the 3DS? It's possible, but unlikely that the new console would be unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show. Not to mention the Wii is doing perfectly fine, even with the amount of shovelware that is being released. My bet is on E3 2011 and that this time Nintendo will be the first company to usher in the next generation of video game consoles.

E3: Sony Conference

Killzone 3 in 3D was the first game trailer to take the spotlight. The audience put on their 3D glasses to enjoy the arctic theme of the new game, along with jetpacks for some first-person platforming. Killzone fans won't be dissapointed.

The PlayStation Move was demoed with a new game called Sorcery. A third-person magic game basically. You cast spells with your Move and the Wand ingame follows your movements. One of the cool aspects of the game is the ability to combine your spells to create some real havok. The Move seemed to work really well. Another game shown had various characters from popular Sony games such as Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank and Sly Racoon in one game called Heroes on the Move. Use the Move as your weapon in this platformer. Looking good. The Move controller will cost $49.99, but that's if you already own the PlayStation Eye. So no, it's not cheap. Other Move titles announced include Time Crises: Raging Storm (yay!), SingStar Dance and Echochrome 2. All these titles will be $39.99 when launched.
EA came on stage to show off Medal of Honor. The trailer certainly doesn't dissapoint and the PS3 limited edition version will include a bonus game of Medal of Honor: Frontline. EA also showed off the new Tiger Woods game with the Move, again it seems to work really well. A patch update off PSN will add the Move functionality. Finally, with Dead Space 2, the PS3 version will also include a PS3 port of the Wii game, Dead Space Extraction.

This time their was no new hardware unveiled on the PSP front. Though with the 3DS being shown this year, you can bet Sony will be showing the PSP2 at E3 2011. A trailer with new games was shown, such as the exclusive God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Gravity Crash Portable, 3rd Birthday, EyePet and Invizimals. 70 new games for the PSP are coming this year.

LittleBigPlanet 2 gameplay was shown. It pretty much lets you create any kind of game you want instead of just a platformer. Very impressive showing.

A subscription based model for PSN known as PlayStation Plus was unveiled. for a $50USD a year fee, gamers can access exclusive content for the PS3, download some games for free that would normally incur a charge and get a discount on downloads. Apparently you can only keep the content as long as you are subscribed to the service. Not sure how this works.

Having bashed the PS3 console for a long time, it was a surprise to see Gabe Newell show up and announce that Portal 2 is coming to PS3 as well as Steam. Not only that, it's also going to be the best version apparently. For someone who once said the PS3 is a "waste of time", I found it quite amusing.

Next up was Final Fantasy XIV, the only MMO. The trailer didn't show much, it looks pretty sure and there will be exclusive content for the PS3. Speaking of exclusive content, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, will also have content for the PS3 only.

Gran Turismo 5...again. Yes, another trailer. But this time, finally, we get a release date. Set your calenders for November 2.

Now we have Infamous 2, Cole will have more powers, not just lightning and will be in a new city. More of the same, should be great.

After many denials David Jaffe shamelessly unveiled a new Twisted Metal game for PS3. A Sweet Tooth van rolled on the stage with Sweet Tooth himself leering at the crowd to much applause. Only a bit of the multiplayer game was shown, but it's looking to be quite a blast with 16 players battling it out. Graphics were still pretty rough for a PS3 game, but this should improve by them time the game is released in 2011. A nice way to end Sony's E3 showing and certainly made Microsoft's show the worst by far in comparison.

E3: Nintendo Conference

After a few years of lackluster showings, Nintendo came out all guns blazing with the best show at E3 2010. Something to make everyone happy was shown, with plenty of new games in everyone's favorite franchises.

Shigeru Miyamoto showed off Zelda Skyward Sword. The game looks really fun and requires you to use the Wiimote as your sword and shield. However, it was quite embarassing I'm sure, as the motion controls did not work on stage properly, apparently from interference. We were assured that the controls work perfectly fine when playing the game.Mario Sports Mix looks to continue the tradition of Wii Sports with Nintendo characters. Play a whole heap of different sports that Mario has not starred in before. These include Volleyball, Hockey, Dodgeball and Basketball. It looks okay and will surely appeal to the Wii Sports fans.

Next up was Wii Party. Basically a party game with over 70 mini-games using Mii characters. Another casual game.

Did you enjoy Just Dance? Well, you'll be happy to know the sequel was shown with more of the same. It contains over 40 songs and now 8 players can play the game.

After two Golden Sun games on the GBA, we're finally treated to a Golden Sun game on the DS. The trailer showed more of what Golden Sun fans know and love, except now with full 3D graphics. It's called Golden Sun: Dark Dawn and comes out this holiday season.

A sequel to an exclusive Goldeneye 007 game for the Wii was a surprising announcement. The style and gameplay of the game very much seems to mimic the N64 predecessor.

Disney showed off an interesting platformer starring Mickey Mouse. Epic Mickey allows you to paint or erase the game world to solve the puzzles and move forward in the game. It's exclusive to the Wii and looking great already.

Kirby is being brought back to life on the Wii console after being absent so many years. Kirby Epic Yarn looked like an interesting and unique 2D style platformer.

After being out a while in Japan and selling millions of copies, Dragon Quest IX is finally coming to the West on July 11th.

Another big surprise was the announcement of the return of Donkey Kong Country. Even though a 3D Donkey Kong game was released way back on the N64, this game retains the 2D gameplay of the SNES generation, but with 3D graphics of course. It's being developed by the same team that did the Metriod Trilogy on Gamecube and Wii and looks very promising.

Metroid M by Team Ninja was one of the coolest games shown. The view is no longer in first-person, but more traditional 2D and third-person style. This is one to look out for in August 31st.

The 3DS was shown and looks like an incredible piece of hardware. A 3.5" stereoscopic widescreen LCD handles the 3D without the need for glasses. The 3D effect can be controlled with a slider. How much depth you want is up to you. Nintendo claims that the screen did not work well as a touch screen, especially with the 3D. Therefore only the bottom screen will be touch sensitive, just like on the original DS. A cool feature is the two cameras on case which can take 3D photos. Unfortunately these are still only 0.3MP. There's also a camera on the front for DSi compatibility.

The system has improved Wi-Fi and communication with other 3DS devices and can also be used to watch 3D movies. An analog stick has been added to the controls and the system is compatible with all DS and DSi games. Not much more information was given. Battery life is still unknown, as is release date and price.

Many were pleased to hear the next announcment of Kid Icarus' return and to the newly unveiled 3DS, no less! The trailer showed a great looking action game with sword and shooting elements both on the ground and in flight. Graphics wise, the game was about Wii standards, but considering it's an early launch title, it may improve. Kid Icarus Uprising is coming soon.

Nintendo did an excellent job this year and many will agree they had the best show this year.

E3: Microsoft Conference

Microsoft started off the biggest gaming event on the planet for this year. The event is sure to bring some nice surprises and Microsoft had a few of their own. While, their conference wasn't bad, it was much to Kinect (Natal) focused. In a way it was a bit disappointing and I thought more exclusive titles would be revealed, but there was nothing really new on offer.
The opening game shown was Call of Duty: Black Ops. The trailer which we've seen before E3 was shown. Followed by actual gameplay, with a cool looking helicopter scene. Hopefully the single player experience is more fun than Modern Warfare 2's lackluster campaign. Microsoft announced an exclusive deal with Activision which gaurantees all Call of Duty downloadble content to be available on Xbox Live first for the next three years.

Hideo Kojima took the stage to show off Metal Gear Rising. It looked excellent, I have to admit. Being able to choose the trajectory of your sword swing in slow-motion to cut up your enemies or even cars in any way you see fit seems like a fun concept indeed. All exclusive were shown after this.

Cliff Bleszinski showed off 4-player co-op in Gears of War 3. Apart from the addition of two extra players in co-op, two female soldiers, new melee moves and some mutating Locust, it looks like more of the same. Hopefully it won't become repetitive as quickly as the second game.

Peter Molyneux showed a trailer of Fable III. Looked good, no ingame footage though.

A live-action trailer with a bloody gladiator was shown. Not much info except the name, Codename: Kingdoms and the Crytek logo at the end. It's piqued my curiosity.

Halo: Reach was shown next. A trailer of the campaign ingame and also included space combat. Looks good, but nothing really new.

Kinect received a lot of conference time. The camera which allows you to control your Xbox with your voice or gestures is a fairly cool idea. The games look extremely casual though. You can watch a movie or video chat using just your voice and hand movements, no controller required.

ESPN is coming to Xbox Live and it's free for gold members. Sports fans will be happy as long as they have a decent connection.

A girl played with a Tiger on screen using Kinect in a game called Kinectimals. Microsoft is definitely trying to gain the children and family market. Kinect Sports, a direct ripoff of Wii Sports was presented, followed by Kinect Adventures which has a whole host of mini games.

The Microsft equivelent of Wii Fit was up next, with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved by Ubisoft. Fitness fanatics will love it, gamers will probably avoid it.

Harmonix showed off a dancing game called Dance Central. The demo was impressive and it looks like a viable way of learning how to dance without the embarrassment of onlookers.

A Star Wars Kinect game trailer which may finally allow you to swing that imaginary light saber and see it on screen. Let's hope it plays as good as it looks.

A Forza type game was shown, again using Kinect, and allows you to drive with an imaginary steering wheel and move the ingame camera view by tilting your head. Interesting, but no substitute for a real steering wheel I say.

Finally, something really cool. A new black slim Xbox 360! It looks to be about 33% smaller and is whisper quiet. It comes with five USB ports. Comes with a 250GB HDD and the latest Wi-Fi built in, all for the same price of the current console at $299. The new power supply will be tiny in comparison to the old. Will be available as soon as next week!

A competent, but slightly lacking display. Hopefully Nintendo and Sony will drop some serious bombshells!

E3 Conference Summary Part 3 - Sony

Last but not least, in part 3 of the E3 conferences, I'll be writing about Sony's conference which was just under the two hour mark. It wasn't boring though and there were some surprises, especially in the PSP section. Prediction wise, I was pretty far off on the Sony conference, so make sure to read on to get the a summary of the whole presentation.

Sony started the presentation by spouting figures and making sure to let everyone know the PS2 is still going strong with 100 titles to be released this year. The rest isn't worth noting.

After a bit, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves gameplay was shown and as expected, it looks awesome and improves on the original in every way. There seems to be even more detail and one bit where Nathan stands up high overlooking a city was very impressive.



MAG was played with the full 256 players online. It seems to be the only redeeming feature of the game as it looked incredibly generic and failed to impress me. Maybe it will be fun to play, but it will depend on the objectives and reliability of the servers. Respawning seemed quick and the game is coming this fall.



Next, the worst kept secret was shown. It's called the PSP Go and features the same PSP hardware except a missing UMD drive, 16GB on-board flash memory and sliding screen as well as bluetooth. It was made clear that it won't be replacing the current PSP-3000 model and is for digital download fans. It will cost US$ 249, Euro 249 for each respective region and be released on October 1. Japane will recieve it one month later at a price of 26,800 Yen. Make no mistake, that's a hard price to swallow for this piece of equipment. I have this nagging voice screaming FAIL, but we shall see. It looks okay.



Big surprise next. Gran Turismo PSP announced to be launching with the PSP Go on October 1. Featuring 800 cars, 35 tracks and running at a constant 60fps, it's just freaking awesome. And here I was predicting it wouldn't show up this year either, what a pleasent surprise. Only a video trailer was shown, no gameplay footage, but the game was playable at E3.

Another Metal Gear Solid game was announced, titled Peace Walker and is set 10 years after Metal Gear Solid 3. Apparently the game will be a true sequel and not a spinoff title. Sounds good to me. This one has a 2010 release date and is looking quite good indeed.



Another surprising announcement. Resident Evil is coming to PSP. A whole new game, PSP exclusive. Along with LittleBigPlanet, Motorstorm Arctic Edge, Assassin's Creed, SOCOM FTB 3, Soul Calibur, Jak and Daxter and more, you can see the PSP is having a much needed revival. It's looking to be a bright future for the handheld.

Onto PS3 now, there will be a new IP from Rockstar exclusively for the PS3 known as "Agent". Expect a James Bond type game with GTA type gameplay. Nothing was shown, but I'm sure that's what it will be.

Assassin's Creed 2 for PS3 is played. It looks fantastic and the game seems to have been improved in every way. I'm really looking forward to this one.



A Final Fantasy XIII video was shown, nothing new here. This was followed by (surprise) an announcement of Final Fantasy XIV which will be released next year! It's an online only title and is a PS3 exclusive.



Not to be outdone by Microsoft, Sony showed a motion controller of their own, similar to a Wiimote, except it seemed to very accurate. Use it as a sword, bow and arrow, gun, it all seems to work well. Again, without any actual games, we'll see how well it works.



A game called ModNation Racers was shown. It's a Kart game, which takes it's cue from LBP for the ability to create levels and share them. The track editor was very impressive and easy to use. A decent track was created in five minutes. The game itself though, didn't look so interesting or good, but it's coming out next year so it might get a lot of improvements.



Team ICO showed off their next game titled The Last Guardian. Graphics looks fantastic and it's sure to be a good game.



A teaser trailer for Gran Turismo 5 was shown. No additional info or release date. I won't bother posting it, it's not worth watching.

Everyone was excited to see a demo of God of War 3 at the end. It looks good of course, but it's just more of the same. The presentation ended with many a "Awww' from the audience as they wanted to see more of the game.



Overall a great presentation with some surprises, especially on the PSP side of things and Gran Turismo PSP and Resident Evil PSP made me a fan of the PSP once more. Seriously, I thought the system was on the brink of death. That's all for this year, hope you enjoyed it!

E3 Conference Summary Part 2 - Nintendo

In part 2 of the E3 conferences, I'll be talking about Nintendo's conference which was shorter than the other two, but much better than last years presentation which was, well...crap. I was also much more on the moeny with my previous predictions on what would happen here. For all your Wii and DS news, read on.

As I mentioned before, I was sure that a certain plumber would be getting a new game on Wii and I was right on the mark. Luckily for gamers, Mario games are good and don't suck like the Sonic games, so while the plumber is starting to outstay his welcome (how about a new platformer?), I'm sure it will be a good game. It won't be like Galaxy though, this Mario game plays like a 2D Mario just like New Super Mario Bros. on DS. It will be 3D graphics of course. Also, the game has four player co-op, which is an interesting idea. Personally though, something new would have been my preference, but maybe Sega will take notice and make Sonic in the same way.



Next up was Wii Fit Plus. As someone who was bewildered by the success of Wii Fit, I can't really say this made me jump up for joy. Anyone heard of going OUTSIDE for excercise? Playing a sport, socializing, going to a gym, running etc. It contains 15 new balance "games" (I use the term loosely), calorie tracker, six new strengths and Yoga activities. Last time I checked, Yoga was a form of meditation and watching a screen and listening to sound isn't part of it. Meh, whatever.

Wii Motion Plus was shown, with plenty of demos showing the sensitivity. Lucky for Nintendo they were on the ball here, since Microsoft and Sony have come out with motion controllers that seem to have much better precision than the standard Wiimote.



A trailer of Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers. Not much new stuff here. It sure doesn't compare to FFXIII, but it might satisfy a Wii owners RPG needs.



After that there was a new trailer of Kingdom Hearts for DS, which is coming in September. A big seller no doubt.



Another DS game shown. This one's called Bowser's Inside Story and features Mario and Luigi going inside Bowser's "pipes". Ah, plenty of joke possibilities here. Anyway, it's coming this fall.



The sequel to the two Golden Sun GBA games was announced. I thought this series was dead. Luckily it's not! The Golden Sun games were some of the best on the GBA and the best RPG's.



DSi Facebook integration. No prizes for guessing if I skipped this bit. Do you really need Facebook on your DSi? As predicted, a new Zelda game was announced, Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and mentioned along with DSiware.

Okay, now we have something that left most people baffled. There was a big hype up for this add-on product. It's called the Wii Vitality Sensor and it reads your pulse from your finger. Boned. It's useless, 'nuff said.



Plenty of people were probably happy to hear about the Super Mario Galaxy sequel. Looks like Nintendo has learned from the Gamecube to release more than one proper Mario game. It looks like more of the same to me.



Announcements of third party titles. Nintendo trying to appeal to the more mature and hardcore gaming market with The Conduit, Resident Evil: Dark Side Chronicles, and Dead Space Extraction.

The surprising and most interesting title for last. A new Metroid game being made by Team Ninja of Ninja Gaiden fame. It's called Metroid: Other M and will feature an M rating. Whoa, prepare for the ketchup to go flying! It'll be interesting to see if it plays better than the flawed Ninja Gaiden 2.



Overall a good presentation. Couldn't compete with Microsoft or Sony, but much better than the one in 2008.

E3 Conference Summary Part 1 - Microsoft

The big three (Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony) have done their E3 presentations for the year and I thought they were pretty awesome, especially after a dissapointing E3 in 2008. All three presentations were great and it's hard to tell who "won" E3, but it was either Microsoft or Sony. Anyway, I'll give you the lowdown of what happened and even provide my own opinion on the parts that interested me. So, get ready because first up is the Microsoft conference.

Microsoft's press conference started off with the Fab Four's (The Beatles, of course) Rockband title. The intro movie was shown and it was quite good indeed. It featured some slick animation and of course, some great Beatles songs. There will be 45 songs in total, with whole album downloads (Abbey Road being the first) coming soon after the game is released on 09.09.09. They also mentioned the whole Beatles catalogue (13 albums) will be released as remastered editions in music stores at the same time. Sounds good to me. There will also be an exclusive song "All you need is love" for sale soon after launch with all proceeds going to charity, not for homeless people but for "Doctors Without Frontiers". George Harrison's wife and Son showed up without saying a word as well as Yoko Ono-Lennon, which the less said, the better. The anti-climactic finale had the two remaining living Beatles members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr take the stage, being unprepared, unprofessional and fumbling for words on what to say about the game apart from, "The game is great". A waste of time, then. Oh yeah, forgot to mention... some people also played a Beatles song from the game, complete with all the instruments and singing and it was excruciatingly bad. I had to skip this part.

Moving on, Microsoft didn't spout out numbers and sales figures and instead focused on showing game footage and displaying demos, something Sony still hasn't stopped doing. We were treated to 10 world premier titles. This part was great.

First up was Tony Hawk showcasing his new game (Tony Hawk Ride) and acting professional and able to talk about the game unlike a certain pair of Beatles. Anyway, a new Skateboard controller, which is basically a skateboard with no wheels or trucks, just the skateboard deck. The skateboard has good detection capabilities thanks to infrared sensors all over and it seemed to work great with the new game and understands kicks, grabs of the board and grinds. A video was shown of pro skateboarders playing the game and commenting on how close it is to the real thing. Looks good, let's just hope it can deliver. The game itself looked okay, let's hope it's better than the mediocre Tony Hawk games of the last few years.



Next up was probably what most people were waiting for, a certain title called Modern Warfare 2. This of course being the sequel to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Of course, it didn't dissapoint and it's shaping up to be even more awesome than the first game. Feels very "Hollywood". Comes out 11.10.09.



After that great presentation, we were shown some footage from the surprise announcement of E3 2008, Final Fantasy XIII. Most of it was basically what's in the PS3 demo on the Advent Children Blu-ray release, but it also featured english voice acting. Looks very similar to the PS3 game graphics wise and still looks like a great game. Spring 2010 for this, damn.

All the above games are coming to other platforms, but the rest of the 10 games shown are all exclusives, starting with Shadow Complex. Oh my, this was definately one of the low points of the presentation. For such an underwhelming game, Shadow Complex sure recieved a lot of presentation time and enthusiasm from two members of the development team responsible, Epic Games. Using the Unreal Tournament 3 engine, Shadow Complex doesn't show anything amazing at all and is a 2D plane shooter like Contra, with okay graphics. I guess it's okay for an Xbox Live game, but like I said, there was too much huzzah from the devs for such a mediocre looking game. Not interested, sorry.



Joy Ride came next, with an okay trailer showcasing a kart racer for use with your Live avatar. The best thing about the game is that it will be a free download off Xbox Live, so can't complain even if it sucks (like PlaySation home), well we can, but we shouldn't. Additional content purchases for the game will incur a fee. It'll be interesting to see how good it is.



Away from the XBL stuff, Crackdown 2 was shown with a short trailer. Didn't tell us squat, so there's not much to report on here apart from the fact that it exists. Same thing happened with Left 4 Dead 2, a trailer with no ingame footage or details.

Splinter Cell Conviction was one of the high points. This game looks freaking awesome and the amount of different ways of going about missions and the combat possibilities needs to be seen. A true next gen title and a 360 exclusive. A "must get" for me.



The Forza 3 presentation was impressive and the dev was sure to point out multiple times that Forza 3 will be THE driving game of this generation. Well, not totally empty words after Forza 2, but Gran Turismo 5 will provide stiff competition. Game runs at 60fps, with 400 cars from 50 manufacturers. It's coming this October and it looks good.



Halo fanboys probably enjoyed the Halo 3: ODST presentation. Playing a human soldier named the "Rookie", it's your job to find out what's going on. I found the gameplay shown very underwhelming, bordering on lame. What was shown just wasn't interesting and when a ladder was climbed with no animation for climbing, just the running movement, the game felt half-assed. But, we shall see. Unimpressive from what I saw.



Alan Wake looked pretty cool, it's kind of like Alone in the Dark, but only you know, GOOD. Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool how Alan narrates some bits and the combat looked fun. Nice graphics and atmosphere, could be a hit.



That's it for the games, next up was announcements about the movie service on XBL, with movies now being available to stream at 1080p and available in more countries. Facebook and Twitter came next, I skipped these bits and won't go into any detail, sorry.

Okay, back to the games. Metal Gear Solid: Rising, the next game in the series starring the Ninja, Raiden is also coming to Xbox 360. Microsoft was reeeeeal happy about this. PS3 just lost it's last important third party exclusive, ouch. It's going to be a different game experience, probably something like Ninja Gaiden.



Finally, the big surprise, Project Natal. It's basically a camera which tracks motion and can be used to control all games. Not only that, it also has voice recognition. Steven Spielberg came along and gave his praise for it. I think it's best you watch this promo video to see the possibilities:



A few demos were shown and it does indeed seem to work well. It might even put the wiimote to shame, but I'll need to try it for myself. So to conclude, it was a great presentation and Project Natal was a pleasent surprise. Good job Microsoft.