Gamespot's E3 2005 Collector's DVD Set

This week, I received in the mail my E3 6 Disc DVD set from the good folks at Gamespot (www.gamespot.com). Their coverage is fantastic, especially the 200 or more game previews. Being one of the poor souls who is unable to attend the show, this set is a God-send for me. Here are my thoughts on what I saw:

THE GOOD:

Thanks to Gamespot for putting these DVD's together!

The Elder Scrolls Oblivion is looking fantastic! I have been a huge fan of Bethesda's work since Arena, and having beaten Morrowind and it's three expansions, I am definately hungry for more. This game will be a plus for the X-Box 360 launch, however I'm sticking to the PC side of this release.

The Sony Press Conference. Playstation 3 has already won the next generation console wars in my opinion. Insterestingly, the demo that made the biggest impression for me was the ducks in a bathtub demo. In explanation: The fellow running the demo had an Eye Toy hooked up a PS3 and held up two drinking glasses. Two identical glasses, albeit digital, floated up from the side of the virtual bathtub and reproduced the movements Mr. Demo was making in real life. The amazing part of the demo was how the glasses interacted with the environment; Mr. Demo was able to scoop virtual water out of the bathtub and pour it back and fourth between the glasses. It's exciting to think of the gaming opportunities here. How about instead of pushing button A to spin Tetris peices, you could reach out and spin them by hand? Unfortunately, the Sony reps didn't seem as excited about these prospects as me and only spent a few seconds on the demo; they proceed directly to some Unreal engine graphics demo that, while beautiful, didn't bring gaming into the next level. Hopefully, a game designer in the audience was just as impressed as I was and is working on something to utilize this technology now.

The Killzone 2 demo rocked. I cannot tell if this was really game footage or a pre-rendered lie. I guess it's a testament to the system that noone believes them ;-). Sony has some big promises to live up to with that demo. If they fail to deliver that level of quality in the real product, it will sink the PS3.

Age of Conan is an MMORPG dream come true. Impressive on every level, I am deifnately looking forward to this one.

After reading the PC Gamer article on Prey, I was convinced this was going to be the dumbest game ever to grace a CD (or DVD for that matter.) I'll admit a mistake and say that game looks fantastic! If you get the opportunity to download the trailer, please do.

Quake 4 surprised me! Getting to play a Strogg is going to be awesome. The Doom 3 engine is aging well (see Prey above) and looks as spooky as ever.

THE BAD:

X-Box 360 unimpressed me. Every demo shown looked great graphically, but nothing really looked all that different from anything we already have. Microsoft needs to realize that will live in a post Doom 3 and Halflife 2 world, and nothing they showed tops those games. As I said, I don't know if Killzone 2 was a lie or not, but next gen gaming had better look that good.

Nintendo was a no-show. Period. They will deliver Revolution late and finish third once again.

Two games I was really looking forward to seeing unimpressed me. Lord of the Rings Online looks horrible. Dungeons and Dragons Online looks better than LOTR, but it still didn't do anything for me. I don't know if MMO developers are playing World of Warcraft or not, but these guys need to buy subscriptions. I can't imagine the developers comparing these games and seeing them taking over the market. LOTR looks like Everquest 2, but worse. Ugh.

While I'm on the subject of Blizzard, Starcraft Ghost's demo was pathetic. That game has been in development FOREVER. It seems like past demos I have seen looked much better than this one. I'm keeping the faith for Blizzard, but this might turn out to be their first flop.

The PC market was mostly absent from the show. I'm a PC man, and there's not a whole lot in development right now. I guess we're slipping into one of those PC game slumps that is always ushered in when a new console is in the works. They'll come back. They always come back.

Square needs to either make movies or games. The Final Fantasy demo was nothing but a bunch of cut scenes, albeit good looking ones. What happened to PLAYING Games instead of WATCHING THEM.