What made a group of people this size stop and stare in one singular direction? After our experience at E3 it could have been quite a few things. In this case, we snapped this picture in the Sony booth as a God of War 3 demo was shown on a gigantic screen. Some of the people watching were actually waiting in line to play the very same demo. E3 manages to work its magic over crowds this size over three full days of video games.
There were plenty of games at this years E3, and plenty of people to see them and play them too. Over 40,000 people were in attendance over the course of three days. Some of them were mere enthusiasts, some were journalists, and some were business types. All of these people were shown games in development, unfinished products of imagination and marketing, but which of these games had the best showing? Which needed more work? Here’s a quick review of all of the titles That’s the Name of the Game saw over the past three days.
THE BEATLES ROCK BAND: We already wrote up our impressions of the fab four’s debut in video game form, but it goes without saying that this title is definitely ready for the masses.
ALAN WAKE: Alan Wake is a psychological thriller about a writer unraveling the mystery surrounding his latest novel and his wife’s disappearance. The developers have used light and dark to create drama in the plot-centered video game that has been long in development for the Xbox 360. We saw the developers present the game behind closed doors and it looks like its coming along well. Certain effects look great but hopefully the textures will be cleaned up a little bit more. Overall, Alan Wake made a great impression on us.
ARMY OF TWO THE 40TH DAY: This sequel from Electronic Arts seemed enticing, certainly enough to reserve our doubts and check it out. Unfortunately it failed to wow us. Having played some of the original title (Army of Two), I was hoping that the developers were making some changes in order address some of the failings we found in the first title. During the demonstration we noted a low frame rate, and kind of boring gameplay. Army of Two focuses heavily on co op tactics, but beyond that we didn’t see much that the game had to offer. One scene however was pretty cool. As the two player controlled characters made their way through an office, the roof is literally ripped off right over their heads. Maybe if these dynamic environments played a bigger role in the game we could stick around through the end.
MASS EFFECT 2: Despite not having played the original Mass Effect title, we were still enticed by Bioware’s long track record of putting out quality titles. Having seen the demonstration behind closed doors at Electronic Arts’ booth, we can say that Mass Effect 2 is utilizing an extremely dynamic cinematic quality that was constantly raising our blood pressure. In the first sequence, the hero came into contact with a deadly assassin after blasting through numerous fire fights. This scene highlighted the dynamic conversation dialogue choices players would make in the game. The second scene was on board a space ship consumed in flames, damaged, and about to crash into the planet’s surface. The graphics showcased in this scene were fantastic, as was the difference between the ship consumed in flames and the outside of the ship devoid of sound because of the vacuum of space. Mass Effect 2 should definitely be one to watch.
We’ll have more previews for you later. Until the next game, we’re going to rest our traveled feet.
You can check out more of Daniel’s writing on Video Games at playreadwrite.blogspot.com.
