The One & Only E3 Thread

[Guest Kingpk]

I just read up on MGS3 at Gamers.com and...oh, excuse me, must wipe all this drool off before my keyboard shorts out.

 

Oh, and guess who was at E3?

 

And, after reading about all the coming games and seeing screenshots, I have come to the conclusion that 2004 (and the rest of 2003) is going to be a DAMN fine time for gamers.

 

Case in point, Gran Turismo 4. Urban racing in NYC? I'm there.

[Guest fazzle]

Yeah, maybe it's just me, but this year's E3 has been a lot better than the last two years, at least.

[Guest Kingpk]

I think it's because Nintendo and Microsoft are really starting to get into the game more now after struggling a little with their system launches. X-Box is starting to get more popular and the GC is rolling out it's franchise games this year (Mario Kart, F-Zero)

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Blah..So far nintendo has shown off a lot of GBA Games and most of the games that everyone knew about, maybe a few surprises..they haven't even revealed the supposed mystery franchise that Myamoto (SP? its to damn late..) has supposedly been working on (rumor of it being Kid Icarus)..but it could really be anything, including something completely new..

[Guest Flyboy]

Impressions for WMXIX from Planet Gamecube:

 

WrestleMania XIX has come a long way since the preview build I saw back at the end of March. In just about a month and a half, they have six characters playable, the RAW set is in, Hell in a Cell is available, and you can try a bit of the single player “out of the ring” career mode. For some reason, The Undertaker wasn’t playable this time around (he was in the March build), but Rey Mysterio was there, along with Hulk Hogan, Rob Van Dam, Kurt Angle, The Big Show, and the current WWE Champion, Brock Lesnar.

 

The character models are outstanding, featuring incredibly detailed textures. The tattoos on both Mysterio and Lesnar are very vivid and realistic. They seem to have taken a great deal of care making sure that each character looks and moves just right. Hogan comes out to “Voodoo Child”, sporting a red and yellow feathered boa, playing the air guitar and tearing off his shirt … all just as you would expect. The camera work has been vastly improved, and is much less likely to get caught under the ring, though it’s not yet perfected.

 

The sound still has a bit of work to go, while the sounds in the ring are good enough, the crowd noise is largely random and things like the “You Suck” chant to Kurt Angle’s entrance music was a bit out of sync. The entrance music is all as authentic as possible, and the music during the match is not at all distracting and out of place, somewhat of a rarity.

 

Gameplay wise, the game plays much like Def Jam Vendetta and No Mercy, which is what AKI wrestling fans have told THQ that they wanted. THQ is paying a great deal of attention to how the game’s controls handle, going as far as to ask me how I felt about waggling the analog stick to get out of a dizzy condition … a subject of debate within THQ. “How would YOU do that if you were designing this game?” I offered a few suggestions including simply mashing the controller buttons, or spinning the C-Stick instead, making it less likely that you would take your right hand off the controller to waggle the analog stick faster. Hammering the face buttons is apparently an option they are looking into as well, so that feedback will be going back to Yuke’s in order to experiment.

 

Fans should really be rejoicing at this point, because the game is making huge strides and is already better than WMX8 in every possible way. Create-A-Wrestler wasn’t available to play, but will definitely be in the game. Oh, and I did get confirmation today that while the WrestleMania XIX roster was set as of March 30th … GOLDBERG will definitely be in the game, guaranteed. THQ is getting this game right, and is making sure that they will give you exactly what you’ve been begging for. And it's coming Q3 of this year.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Yep. The big thing from GameSpot's preview:

 

We got a peek at the new Wrestlemania XIX game for the GameCube at THQ's E3 booth. One of the big new features added in this edition of Wrestlemania is location-specific damage. This feature allows you to focus attacks on your opponent's arm or leg, and the game will reflect this by causing the wrestler to hold his damaged arm or even to limp, if you've done enough damage to a leg. This adds a new layer of strategy as well, as doing an armbar to an opponent with a gimpy arm may cause him to tap out earlier than normal.

 

(...)

 

THQ was also happy to point out that the old grapple system from No Mercy will return in Wrestlemania XIX, allowing players to do two kinds of grapples--weak and strong. Weak grapples let you do more quick-hitting moves by pressing in any direction and pressing A or B. The strong grapple maneuvers let you choose from eight different, harder-hitting moves. Counters using the R and L buttons are also present in the game--one button is for countering strikes and another is for breaking out of grapples.

 

 

 

 

But really, why is Hogan a black man?

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

That's all nice and all...

 

but it hardly accurately reflects the WWE style.

 

Selling? Not in the real world.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

IGN has a huge developer interview up. They talk about how they've added strike and grapple counters, and strong and weak grapples to the front and back.

 

 

Then the talk about the much-crapped-on single player story (the thing where you demolish Vince's cars, beat on rent-a-cops, etc.) Guy says they included this because

 

 

"One of our criticisms from last year was that we didn't have a compelling single player experience, so we listened to our consumers and everybody really wants to take the action outside of the ring. It's great to fight in the ring, it's great to fight your friends in the ring. That's true to programming, but hey, this is a video game. Let's do something fresh, let's do something new. (...) This is a very unique WWE storyline full of turns and twists and double-crosses with the usual likes of Vince and Stephanie with environments like a construction site, a shipping port, a parking lot, a shopping mall. Things that feel alive, that you can throw your opponents through."

 

They talk about how they've mixed WWE match types to the storylines "You know Royal Rumble, where you have to throw your opponent over the rope? Well, in the construction site, which is a multi-level construction site with an environment you can roam around, where you fight construction workers depending on your mission, you have to throw them over the platform to the lower level to knock them out. Similar to a Royal Rumble where you throw them over the top ropes."

 

 

It definitely looks better in motion than in pictures.