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The tsunami of E3 2005 is finally over. What a week, with Sith and E3, it’s hard to keep up with everything. I’ve already written about the hardware wars, but it all comes down to the games. Looking at the games scheduled for the rest of 2005 (which means no PS3 games at all), here’s what most excites me from the preview coverage.
Xbox 360
Project Gotham Racing 3: I loved PGR2. It had the perfect set of Xbox live integration which has become the standard for all other XBL titles. They’ve only released one movie for this third iteration but it looks shweet.
Tiger Woods PGA 2006: I’m a Tiger addict; I’ve bought it every year for the past four years. The screenshots on the 360 version make the grass look real and they say there are several different kinds modelled. I read on IGN that they will only have six courses which is a bummer, because the current gen Tiger has many more.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted: Another sequel, but it combines the best of the Underground features (customization) with classic NFS modes (cops and hot pursuit).
Gears of War: Unreal guru CliffyB’s newest game looks pretty cool. I am not too sure about this new “second-person” viewpoint that combines first-person and third-person views. I just received my copy of Game Informer and it has a great article on this game.
Quake 4: The movie at E3 looked fantastic. ID is cranking this one up with awesome single and multiplayer features on a DOOM 3 engine for the 360.
Perfect Dark Zero: Can only go by the video shown on the MTV special but it looked like a cool shooter. Microsoft did show it behind closed doors at E3.
Top Spin 2: Everyone loved this on the old Xbox, now it’s back and with a Tiger-like calendar mode for playing events and unlocking items.
XBox:
Burnout: Revenge: It looks like Criterion found a way to tweak this and make the fourth iteration worth your while. Jumps, crashbreakers during takedown races, and new ambient lighting. Of course, will you still want it if you have Xbox 360? We could say the same about all Xbox 1 titles.
Star Wars Battlefront 2: I wasn’t happy with the first game, it looked rushed to market for the DVD release date. The sequel has tons of single player content and space battles. I’ve seen videos where you can jump into an X-Wing and fight alongside Star Destroyers or lead landing parties on the Death Star. God, I miss X-Wing vs. Tie-fighter.
Black: This is from the makers of Burnout and it promises to do for first-person shooters what the former game did for car racing. Pure adrenaline speed shooting. There’s only a few screenshots and no videos, but I’ve gulped down the cool aid on this one.
Ultimate Spider-Man: Last year’s Spider-Man 2 had the awesome scaled down version of New York city. This title takes that same city model and combines it with a more cartoony Spider-Man that resembles the MTV series a few years ago. Bendis helped developed the story and you get to play as Venom, too.
Far Cry Instincts: The great shooter from the PC comes to Xbox and from the screenshots it seems like they have a done a great job with the graphics engine. It has new modes and features not found on the PC.
Sony Playstation Portable
Burnout Legends: This takes the best tracks of Burnout 1-3 and combines it with the Burnout 3 gameplay innovations like takedown and Road Rage. Damn, my little PSP is hungry for this one.
Biggest No-Shows of E3 2005:
For the PSP: Madden 2006 and Gran Turismo. It looks like Gran Turismo won’t come out this year on the PSP.
Biggest Innovation of E3 2005:
Wireless controllers are now standard along with HD TV support.
Best Babe of E3 2005:
IGN Insider has three videos of the booth babes from the show floor. After a while, all the silicone begins to look the same. My favorite babe is still XPlay’s Morgan Webb, especially after seeing this video interview she did with Mike Capp on Unreal Tournament 2007. When Morgan says, “I gotta have my flak cannon”, you know this chick is for real and she does play games. Viva La Webb, baby!
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