E3 2011

[WoottWinds]

Anyone get something announced they're really looking forward to from this year's E3?

The announcement of Luigi's Mansion 2 almost gave me a heart attack (original is one of my all time Nintendo favs) and the footage of Super Mario 3DS and Paper Mario 3DS was extremely cool. The trailer for Insomniac's new IP Overstrike looked interesting, definitely has their personal flair and kind of gave me a Team Fortress/Timesplitters vibe. And after failing numerous times to get into the original BioShock game, I was extremely surprised with how impressed I was with the footage from BioShock Infinite. It definitely made me want to give the series yet another try.

Can't think about much other than those that I hadn't already been excited for... I'll definitely need to see much more on the Wii U before making any type of opinion there, slightly enraged that the rumor mill is churning the info that while we are getting DQ Monster Joker 2, it's not the enhanced version, pissed that Ignition keeps localizing games and managed to get Vanillaware's new title Dragon's Crown for PSV and PS3, and cannot believe we didn't see a Xenoblade, Last Story, or Pandora's Tower announcement. How's everyone else feeling so far?

[AweOfShe]

pissed that Ignition keeps localizing games and managed to get Vanillaware's new title Dragon's Crown for PSV and PS3,

I am absolutely happy about getting Dragon Crown, but also absolutely appalled that Ignition is working on it. :l

and cannot believe we didn't see a Xenoblade, Last Story, or Pandora's Tower announcement.

I'm pretty butthurt about that, so I'm probably going to end up importing them at some point in time. Tired of Nintendo of America's BACONBACONBACONBACON sometimes. :P

EDIT: On the WiiU (absolutely terrible name aside), I'm looking forward to giving it a try, but I honestly have no opinion on it, until I get my hands on it. I'm just hoping that controller doesn't feel uncomfortable to hold.

[conurebleu]

Ignition that did an absolytely wonderful job with Arc Rise Fantasia? (sarcasm...)

As long as I can get Japanese voice It'll be fine by me ^^ Now I've got to buy a PS3....AFTER buying the game XD Buiying the game that are gonna become rare...than buy a used PS3 system so sony won'T have a buck

Nintendo's Wii U ...crap I say. What the bacon is that thing? How much is gonna woth a single controller (China made of coursE) that will break the first time you drop it?! Do not tell me about Nintendium like they said for DS ... I broke mine (I mean someone else broke mine) after a single drop on the floor!

To finish Golden Sun without R button... yeahhhh!

gotta go to work, see you!

[Chelli]

I'm actually kind of excited about the Wii U. I'm glad they're going back to a (more or less) traditional type of controller and not motion controls. Sure, it has a giant touch screen, but it's more similar to PS3/Xbox360 controllers than the Wiimote. I am worried about the cost of it, though. I can't see that controller costing much less than $100, which is completely ridiculous for a video game controller.

I haven't been closely following E3, but the 3DS games I heard about seem really good. I'm also really surprised at the price of the Vita. The same as a 3DS? It seems like I might actually be able to afford one around launch.

[PurpleDoom]

I was taken by surprise with the Vita's price point, I was definitely expecting something higher than $249.99. I'm interested in the Wii U, but like Chelli, I'm worried about the price. Does anyone else think the analog sticks are placed really oddly on that controller, though? The sticks just don't look comfortable to use at all.

[Sgt Phantomizer]

I don't even know how the WiiU looks like :P

That aside, i'm still waiting to download the videos on the respective platforms or to watch them on youtube for what i'm interested in. God of War Collection Volume 2 is definitely good news.
As for the PS Vita? Honestly, i was looking forward to the new handheld from Sony, but the name = instant and irreversible fail.

[Chaosblade]

PS Vita looks good. I assume XSeed will keep going with their Falcom partnership and hopefully get their game out ASAP. Especially if it turns out to be Ys. Wipeout looks awesome. Uncharted and Gravity could be cool too. Maybe Ruin, but it's from the Pain guys and supposedly Pain was terrible. Also nice to see $250. I didn't expect it to be extremely expensive like a lot of people, my estimate was $299/$350 for the models. Nothing interesting on PS3 though, unfortunately.

Microsoft didn't really announce anything interesting to me. Meh. There is that Crimson Alliance game, need to see more though.

Nintendo... geeze, I could write a freaking article on this. Rant ahead:

Wii U is a terrible name. Seriously terrible. Not only does it not sound good or roll off the tongue like "Wii" did, but it's entirely possible it will hurt them from a marketing standpoint. They are already having issues with the 3DS in this regard. After the DS Lite, DSi, DSiXL, they have cemented the DS as a product and not a brand. So using the name 3DS leads consumers to believe it's just a DSi-like device with 3D, and it's obviously not. Wii U could very well have that same problem, with the casual/less informed Wii audience not realizing this is something totally new. And the Call of Duty/dudebro audience isn't going to be very interested in a Nintendo platform anyway. Then on top of that the reveal was awful too. The way it was shown, people got the impression that it was just a new controller for the existing Wii until they showed some 360 games that people were supposed to believe were running on Wii U.

Nintendo also completely blew off the Wii and DS. Not surprising regarding the DS since it's successor is on the market, but the Wii... good lord, I can't blame people for selling their stock. Talk about mismanagement. They have the fastest selling console of all time, the biggest userbase this generation, the 360 and Kinect have taken a stranglehold on the market in the last six months, and what is Nintendo doing to "fight back?" Nothing. They aren't releasing anything this year. Nothing, nada. Their biggest release so far has been... Mario Sports Mix in February. And they don't have anything of note until this holiday with Zelda and Kirby. That is embarrassingly bad for any publisher, but for a platform holder? And it's even worse considering all the games they are sitting on. Games already in English. Xenoblade could have easily been finished and released this year during the drought. They could have fallen back on older games, like Fatal Frame or Disaster. They could have even put a nice team on Last Story and got it out. But no, they would rather release nothing on the most popular console this generation. Really, Nintendo?

The only thing good to come out of the conference was the 3DS game announcements, but even those weren't mind blowing. Nice that Mario 3D is this year. Already knew about all the others except Luigi's Mansion, but I don't see why people want a sequel to that mediocre game so badly anyway. Wii U raised more questions than it's answered so far, since everything we saw was already mentioned in various rumors.

Lots of ranting... It's ironic I feel more let down by them now than I did during the last four years even though they are pushing a console that's supposedly targeting the "core" demographic.

[PurpleDoom]

My jaw dropped for all the wrong reasons when the name was announced as Wii U. You're right, it's absolutely dreadful. To me, personally, the system itself looks great, but it could do without the stupid name.

I didn't find myself missing Wii or DS game announcements particularly, but I was definitely disappointed in Sony not talking about the PSP at all. If they're planning to continue supporting it (given it's popularity in Japan, at least, one would think they would) they really should have shown at least something for it.

[Chaosblade]

Lack of PSP didn't surprise me, I didn't expect much presence at all. It's pretty much dead everywhere outside Japan, so chances are anything they would want to show for it would be left for TGS.

I really think Sony is going to drop the PSP pretty fast in the North America and Europe. This is probably the PSP's last full year of "official" support.

[Echiboo]

I thought this E3 was really crappy. The PSVita looks nice and the Wii U has potential, but I was beyond disappointed at Nintendo of America utterly ignoring the existence of The Last Story and Xenoblade. If they really have no intentions of localizing those games then they need to let someone else localize them...Like our deal ol' XSEED. I was so looking forward to playing those two games but Nintendo had to crush my hopes...I loved Lost Odyssey so I was really looking forward to another Mistwalker game and I really loved the Xenosaga and Baten Kaitos games so I was looking forward to another Monolithsoft game...*sigh* I think I'll go cry in a corner now...