Another E3 has come and gone and with it some awesome new stuff to look at and some things we would have rather not seen.
Here at the TGA we are going to show you the top 10 the best things that you should look at and the 5 worst things from E3 2012.
Next up on the list at E3 is Sony. Right out of the gate Sony does a great job at really dropping a bomb on the world with the announcement the makers of Heavy Rain are developing a new title. Not much is known about this title other than the trailer released at E3, but with Quantic Dream making this project it will sure to be nothing other than a smash hit. With Beyond: Two Souls you will play as Jodie Holmes and go through points in her life spanning 15yrs. But there is something very special about Jodie; she is surrounded by an invisible and powerful unknown presence that she talks to. In the video we see her sitting at a local police station not saying a word to a jabbering officer trying to help. The officer later becomes frightened when the coffee mug he placed on the table is lifted off and thrown against the wall, and chooses to leave Jodie. Left alone she starts to interact with this supernatural being stating that she knew that SWAT was coming for her. Right after SWAT members start to storm the building and position themselves to try to capture Jodie. The door to where she is opens than the video than cuts to an amazing montage of what else is in store for the game. The video alone was enough to give me goose bumps.
With E3 beginning in just a few short hours we here at The Gamer’s Abstract would like to throw out some predictions for the major press conferences. Alongside those predictions will be stuff that is most anticipated and the biggest shocker announcement of E3. This will be written in the order of the press conferences themselves.
You will see the big heavy hitter first party titles here. Expect to see some new clips involving Epic Games new Gears of War title, and also more in depth with Halo 4. Microsoft will want to reinforce why gamers choose Xbox 360 above all else with the strength of their first party IP’s and how they have exclusive content first to the market. Microsoft will remind users that Xbox is the only place to get Call of Duty content first on the market and show some gameplay footage from Black Ops 2. Look to Microsoft to have a dedicated time slot to just showing off the Kinect. As always this might include a bunch of kids or adults doing silly things on stage in their 2 minutes of fame. Xbox 360 seems to want to become more and more integrated for being the only media device one might need for a household (cable, dvd, bing, ESPN, etc.) . It will come as no shock to see that Microsoft will announce further integration with the mobile market and moving more into a cloud based system. Microsoft wants to be like Apple in that all their devices will talk and communicate with one another. I do not anticipate that there will be any announcement or buzz for the new Xbox and will be absent from E3 until next year.
Sony may never outsell Microsoft but they do gain more and more ground with their IP’s each year. Look for videos of the new Assassin’s Creed, Sly Cooper 4, The Last of Us, The Last Guardian, God of War: Ascension, and the newly announced All Star Battle Royal. The Last of Us and All Star Battle Royal will be the highlight of the unreleased games during the press conference. The big push will not only reinforce why gamers choose the wide variety of exclusive games on the PS3 but will also focus on the Vita. Vita sales are less than what Sony would like them to be and gamers need a reason to go out and buy a Vita. I would recommend that Sony get Kevin Butler to do this segment as if anyone could get people pumped about buying anything gamer related it would be him. Expect Kevin to make an appearance at the conference and just like his appearance in 2010 people to be hanging on his every word. Vita will be seeing a price drop due to lackluster sales in the range of $50-$100. PS Move seems to be something that didn’t and still hasn’t caught on. Move will be mentioned but not to very much extent. Sony has been rumored in doing a strictly streaming based form of gaming sort of like onlive, I expect to see more details announced as to what exactly is in the works. With the PS3 still strong and the Vita in need of more sales it would not be smart for Sony to announce a new system at E3. I do not expect that this will be in the arsenal for Sony
All eyes are on the Big N this conference with buzz and hype all centered on Wii U. The name is here to stay as recent pictures of the tablet controller have the Wii U branded logo all over it. People want to know what it is, what the intended way to play this new system is, and what the recently leaked Rayman Legends trailer with Wii U means. (For those of you who do not know there was a trailer that showed putting action figures on the Wii U tablet controller and being recognized on the screen as an item, possibly game, or character. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSlccZt5O2o ) Consumers will see a release date of Early 2013 and no price point yet. There will be announced 1st and 3rd party games for the system possibly in the realm of Metroid, Mario, and Super Smash and how these games will work with the new tablet controller. Pikmin 3 along with the New Super Mario Bros 2 and the popular upcoming 3DS titles like Paper Mario and Luigi’s Mansion 2. And last as always we will be graced by the wonderful and charismatic personality of Reggie Fils-Aime. Who always manages to bore and annoy the crap out of me every E3 press conference.
With Predictions also comes the most anticipated already expected stuff that here at The Gamer’s Abstract are itching to know more about or can’t wait to see. Below is a list of what we here at TGA will be looking out for. Those things would be:
Castlevania DS and Lords of Shadows
Wii U (We want to know wtf this thing is)
Kevin Butler as always makes a great addition
Paper Mario and Luigi’s Mansion 2
Bioshock infinite
Resident Evil 6
Tomb Raider
Assassin’s Creed 3
The biggest shocker prediction to hit E3:
Valve will finally man up and announce Half-Life 3
What do you think will happen at E3? Post your comments in the section below and remember to follow us on http://www.facebook.com/thegamersabstract
The events leading up to the release of the PS Vita thus far has been filled with great anticipation alongside an equally matched hype. The System boasts a quad processor, front and back touch pads, Wi-Fi/3G (depending which model you get), front and back cameras, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. The question for me has always been, “How is it that this system can dump all these specs into one handheld system and only cost $249.99-$299.99? It must be too good to be true.” It seemed that way until just recently I came across a news article about the system.
How is it that PS Vita is able to have such a low price for a lot of bells and whistles? Well that’s because the means in which Sony is going to profit is proprietary memory cards. I thought in this day and age that no one would be so bold as to make something that couldn’t be universally used by standard forms of media. The system doesn’t have a single bit of on board memory, and should you own one will be forced to pay for overpriced memory cards that are only used by the PS Vita. The memory cards range in size from 4GB to 32GB and in price. The memory cards start at $29.99 to a whopping $119.99. That is absurd to charge that kind of money for a digital storage medium. Upon hearing this I was completely turned off from buying the system at launch. I understand that the system has high specs, a low price point and will likely see a next to nothing profit, but the solution is not to charge outrageous prices on a memory card that I can only use on my PS Vita. I would rather pay a higher system price to get a PS Vita with on board memory or a widely used form of memory storage then revert back to the old ways of technology.
I recently started reading articles that the memory card prices are not set in stone using Google. Even though the price points might not be the premium that I first read, the cards themselves are not going to be cheap. This seems to be the money maker for Sony on the PS Vita, but I feel that this decision could be the downfall of the system at launch. As it currently stands I will not be buying a PS Vita at launch and wait to see what happens before purchasing one down the road.
It will be a long time before I get to play Drake’s next adventure
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