All about E3 2007

Aight so lets get this out of the way.

You may not know what E3 is, but its a videogame conference where companies showcase their wares for various platforms. More importantly it's where Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, hold their press conferences showcasing their new shit for the rest of this year and beyond.

Nintendo in my opinion had the weakest showing. There were the obvious announcements.

Super Mario Galaxy hits 11-20-07. It looks super awesome, check it.

Nintendo also revealed the new zapper, which they say will make FPS games like doom more accessible to casual and non gamers.

The zapper, which is merely a plastic housing for the wii remot and nunchuck, will be sold for 19.99 on its own, but has also promised to come bundled with software which will utilize it, including the new Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles which looks like House of the Dead in the Resident Evil universe.

There were many other announcements including Metroid Prime Corruptions release date 08-27-07. Members of the press able to play the game said it controlled extremely well with the wii controls.

Also a brief announcement of Mario Kart for Wii being online.

The big announcement, at least as far as Nintendo was concerned was to introduce Wii Fit. Which has a balance pad you stand on and has you do exercises and play mini games. It seems like that stair master thing to me though. Check it.

All around Nintendo dissappointed me a bit. I wanted to at least see a new Luigi's Mansion game (one of my favorite gamecube titles).

Microsoft had a pretty solid showing, but no big surprises at all. Instead they focused on their 2007 lineup and showed more videos of incoming games. Games like Bioshock, Halo 3, Assasin's Creed, and Mass Effect all look very impressive, but we already knew about these titles. Announcements like Sonic the Hedgehog and Golden Axe for Xbox Live arcade didn't really impress me either (They are available for download right now for 400 ms point btw).

I'll just jump to my favorites here.

Resident Evil 5

Call of Duty 4

Rock Band

I know me and all my peeps are gonna enjoy the shit out of this game. Maybe start a new fake band and tour each others houses. Maybe make a fake venue and throw fake music festivals.

You might be pleased to find out that Microsoft is also releasing yet another version of the 360. Behold...

Wheew....I need to take a break. E3 every year is definitely a mental over load for someone like me who needs to read and watch every morsel offered. I'm just giving you what I feel are the highlights. I'm gonna pause the action for a little bit here and talk about a real music festival.

Friday I went to Warped Tour in San Antonio, and while it was extremely hot, and I'm getting way to fuckin old to be standing up for 5 hours in the blazing sun, I had a great time. I got to see Coheed and Cambria, and Circa Survive, and also Escape the Fate. Escape the Fate played great, but their singer really needs to figure out a way to keep his pants from falling down. I don't wanna see man ass on stage for 30 minutes. Also Bayside had a great set, and we got to hear a song and a half from Paramore, both sounded great. Also 16 bucks for a burger fries and 2 drinks. That's just criminal.

Ok lets finish this shit...

Probably the most impressive showing was from Sony. They really needed to show something impressive to be able to get back on track. The PS3 is a piece of junk. It's a great machine for sure, but there is just no great must have games on it. A machine with no games is just junk.

So this year Sony showed some good stuff that makes me excited for PS3.

Ratchet and Clank

Other awesome games shown were Folklore (google it I'm too lazy right now), Uncharted:Drake's Fortune (awesome), Heavenly Sword (old'd), Unreal Tournament 3 said to be exclusive to PS3, but only this year. Also Sony revealed UT3 will support PC User Created Mods, which is a big ass fuckin deal for me. They also showed a new trailer for Killzone 2, which looked ok, but not Halo shattering, not even close.

Probably the best and worst thing Sony announce was the new PSP redesign. I say worst because I'm going to have to buy another one, and I suspect I'm not the only one. The new design is slimmer and lighter, and get this, you can plug it into your T.V. with provided cables and play videos and games on yer T.V. Thats just rad!

Check out these pics from Kotaku.

Best for Last

Left 4 Dead is a PC and Xbox 360 cooperative FPS game, where you try to survive hordes of zombies of the 28 Days Later variety. JAWS ON THE FLOOR.

Well, thats about all I got for E3. I been watching shit on it all week, and thought I'd share some of the goods. I have no life.

"There's no such thing as love. Prove me wrong."

The government doesnt want you to know.

Ok maybe not the government, but Sony and Microsoft.

They been keeping hush hush on some big news, and in two days it has been revealed. And I mean BIG.

Ok maybe not big, but to me its pretty big.

Its bad news for both company's, but good news for consumers.

Today it has been reported that the price of the PS3 will indeed be dropping to 499.99 as reported at Kotaku. This is no big deal to me, as I already own a PS3, but its just funny how Sony repeatedly denied this price drop, and yet there it is.

The price drops July 15th. Still in my opinion, yer better off with 360.

I can say that with a bit more confidence since the other breaking news from yesterday.

This is the real big one.

Microsoft Admits Xbox 360 red ring problem!

Last week my 3rd Xbox 360 got the red rings, which pretty much means death for the xbox 360. We'd given up hope that Microsoft would fix it for us. It was out of waranty, and they had given us a hard time on our 2 previous machines that red ringed. Well it looks like Microsoft is finally stepping up. We called up Microsoft support last night, and they quickly took care of us and will indeed fix our 360. The announcement microsoft made said

"The majority of Xbox 360 owners are having a great experience with their console and have from day one. But, this problem has caused frustration for some of our customers and for that, we sincerely apologize," said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division. "We value our community tremendously and look at this as an investment in our customer base. We look forward to great things to come." more at Kotaku

Microsoft has extended the warranty to 3 years for any red ring related defects. I can now officially sleep a little better at night.

I talk about videogames way to much. Right now I'm playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma on PS3 and Super StarDust HD also on PS3.