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E3 2007 Review July 18, 2007 John JCal Callaham |
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Summary: E3 2007 is done and over with. JCal has his final thoughts ready.
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 10 ) |
Most Impressive Games Of E3 2007:
This year's E3 seemed at first to be a tad short in games that made us go, "Oh WOW". We saw quite a number games that were first demoed a year or even two years ago at past E3s (and some games that were shown last year at E3 didn't make an appearance at all this year; more on that later) and the new titles at first didn't excite us much. However we soon learned that there were a number of new titles that impressed us at this year's show with their E3 demos. Keep in mind that these games were mostly shown to use under very controlled circumstances with the developer handling the live demo in nearly all cases. We also tended to mention games we had not seen before than those we had seen in earlier press events.
Untitled F.E.A.R. Sequel
Monolith's upcoming next horror-themed first person shooter will be both a high energy shooting fest mixed with horror elements, and all under a new graphics engine that looks pretty sweet.
Condemned 2
Monolith's other upcoming game brings a lot more variety into the melee and hand-to-hand combat than its predecceror did and the addition of more forensics puzzles and an instant action "hobo fight club" has us stoked
Echochrome
Shown during the Sony E3 press conference, this tiny M.C. Echer style puzzle game is unique and looks like quite a lot of additive fun which is what all games should be.
Fracture
Day 1 Studios and LucasArts have created a game that combined relevant social commentary with some kick-butt action, complete with deforming terrain and some cool unique weapons.
Crysis
Oh my dear DirectX10, it looks so good when it has a game that really treats your API well. Crytek and EA's first person shooter does that in spades and it happens to be fun to play as well.
Call of Duty 4
Infinity Ward and Activision break away from WWII in style with this modern day shooter that in our live demo looked like a Michael Bay movie on steroids (and yes that's a good thing
Gears of War PC
You may have played this game on the Xbox 360 but have you played it in high resolution with new maps, new co-op missions and generally cool new stuff? I think not.
Unreal Tournament 3
Cool new weapons were shown as were excellent new vehicles, new items and the graphics look amazing. Sign us up now.
Fallout 3
Some critics have already called this game "Elder Scrolls Apocalypse" but our E3 demo showed that this game retains a ton of elements from the original Interplay titles while adding a lot of Bethesda Softworks' games.
| More games | Page:: ( 2 / 10 ) |
Spore
Will Wright's evolution sim has won tons of E3 awards for the past two years but this year it was a no show as rumors of troubled game development have pushed the release date back to at least March or April of 2008.
New Getaway game
Sony showed off a "tech demo" of a new PS3 open world game set in London from the Getaway dev team at Soho Studio at E3 2006 over a year ago but it has pretty much disappeared from Sony's minds this year. No one at Sony even bothered to mention it this year.
Afrika
Another Sony PS3 game shown at E3 2006 was another no show. This odd title was shown to be something like a simulation of an African safari. Sony said little about the game then and nothing about the game since, including this year.
Eight Days
Sony's PS3 shoot em up was shown at E3 2006 with lots of stuff blowing up real good in an American desert setting. It looked great then but apparently it didn't look good enough to show again at E3 2007.
Final Fantasy XIII
Square Enix's fantasy RPG was front and center in CGI form at Square Enix's press conference at E3 2006 as well as Sony's but nothing new of the game was shown this year..not a huge surprise.
Alan Wake
The team at Remedy first showed off this third person action-thriller at E3 2005 in playable form but Microsoft later bought the publishing rights and showed just a trailer at E3 2006. This year, Microsoft didn't even bother to show even a trailer for the game with just a brief mention during the press conference...hmmmmm.
Tekken 6
Namco's next game in their fighting series was shown at Sony's E3 2006 press conference but there was no sign of the game this year at any venue.
Lost
UbiSoft announced plans to publish a game based on the great TV series at E3 2006 but aside from a brief mention during their E3 2007 press conference the company hasn't said anything about their plans for the game since.
Project H.A.M.M.E.R.
Nintendo's Wii exclusive action game about a man and his hammer was shown in playable form at E3 2006 but it looks like Nintendo has pretty much given up on the game since and its almost certain that its non-appearance at this year's show means that its canceled (Nintendo tends not to confirm that a game has been axed)
Dragon Age
BioWare's fantasy RPG was shown way back at E3 2004 in playable form but the game has pretty much gone into stealth mode since, except for a cover story for Games For Windows magazine less than a year ago.
New Indiana Jones Game
LucasArts showed off a new game starring Dr Henry Jones Jr. at their E3 meeting room in May 2006 that showed off some impressive graphics and interactive environments. It was a no show this year, however, perhaps because there is a fourth movie in production.
Too Human
Silicon Knights demoed their sci-fi action game at E3 2006 and even the developer admits it wasn't up to snuff back then. The game was briefly mentioned during Microsoft' E3 press conference but that's about it.
| E3 itself | Page:: ( 3 / 10 ) |
We should also mention how Sony has been handling its Gran Turismo series of racing sims. Originally the plan, announced at E3 2006, was to release Gran Turismo HD, a PS3 version of Gran Turismo 4 with improved graphics but that plan was abandoned (although a free demo was released). Now Sony is saying it will release Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, a new game that will serve as a kind of prequel to what will be the full version of Gran Turismo 5. Geeze..I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it.
The E3 Event Itself
So how was the event itself to attend? There were some good and bad points to coming to Santa Monica There was the weather which was nearly perfect throughout the conference. It was nice that we didn't have to deal with tens of thousands of people who were fighting over getting pictures of celebs or booth babes. The hotel suites were an excellent way to get a demo of a game, chat with the developers in an informal way and generally get a better sense if the game was a real gameplay product rather than just something that was made only for E3. We've heard a few complaints that representatives from major retailers (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc) were few and far between at this year's E3 but to us this is a non-issue; most retailers have their own conferences anyway and the ones that don't should be able to get a sense on whether a game is good or not by reading E3 press coverage. We were also glad to see lots of international media attending E3 this year. More than one publisher seem to indicate that E3 2007 would be mostly for the North American press but as in years past journalists from all over the world came to Santa Monica to attend and report on E3.
But the format of E3 2008, if there is an E3 2008, needs to change some in order to make future expos a success. One of the biggest problems with this year's show were trying to get to a number of hotels (particularly the Fairmont and Sheraton) and the Barker Arena. They were difficult to get to without the aid of E3 supplied buses and missing appointments was definitely the order of the day. It didn't help that Sony decided to hold its E3 press conference outside Santa Monica (at their Culver City Movie Studios) late on Wednesday morning. An over-long press conference meant that journalists were buses back to Santa Monica very late and caused a lot of previously scheduled appointments with other publishers to be postponed (thankfully the publishers were extremely understanding and were very accommodating if journalists missed appointments and made arrangements to reschedule). Another problem was the Barker Hanger itself. Basically a hot airplane hanger at Santa Monica Airport, the location had a number of publishers show off a number of games but quite a number of the titles were already being shown at the hotel suites. While there were some games only being shown at the hanger the real meat of E3 this year was at the hotels (indeed Microsoft took over an entire Santa Monica hotel, the Viceroy, for the entire E3 week). We also missed seeing a number of smaller publishers at this year's show and we hope organizers do a better job next year in making E3 a more inviting place for them to attend.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 4 / 10 ) |
| Introduction | Page:: ( 5 / 10 ) |
Most Impressive Games Of E3 2007:
This year's E3 seemed at first to be a tad short in games that made us go, "Oh WOW". We saw quite a number games that were first demoed a year or even two years ago at past E3s (and some games that were shown last year at E3 didn't make an appearance at all this year; more on that later) and the new titles at first didn't excite us much. However we soon learned that there were a number of new titles that impressed us at this year's show with their E3 demos. Keep in mind that these games were mostly shown to use under very controlled circumstances with the developer handling the live demo in nearly all cases. We also tended to mention games we had not seen before than those we had seen in earlier press events.
Untitled F.E.A.R. Sequel
Monolith's upcoming next horror-themed first person shooter will be both a high energy shooting fest mixed with horror elements, and all under a new graphics engine that looks pretty sweet.
Condemned 2
Monolith's other upcoming game brings a lot more variety into the melee and hand-to-hand combat than its predecceror did and the addition of more forensics puzzles and an instant action "hobo fight club" has us stoked
Echochrome
Shown during the Sony E3 press conference, this tiny M.C. Echer style puzzle game is unique and looks like quite a lot of additive fun which is what all games should be.
Fracture
Day 1 Studios and LucasArts have created a game that combined relevant social commentary with some kick-butt action, complete with deforming terrain and some cool unique weapons.
Crysis
Oh my dear DirectX10, it looks so good when it has a game that really treats your API well. Crytek and EA's first person shooter does that in spades and it happens to be fun to play as well.
Call of Duty 4
Infinity Ward and Activision break away from WWII in style with this modern day shooter that in our live demo looked like a Michael Bay movie on steroids (and yes that's a good thing
Gears of War PC
You may have played this game on the Xbox 360 but have you played it in high resolution with new maps, new co-op missions and generally cool new stuff? I think not.
Unreal Tournament 3
Cool new weapons were shown as were excellent new vehicles, new items and the graphics look amazing. Sign us up now.
Fallout 3
Some critics have already called this game "Elder Scrolls Apocalypse" but our E3 demo showed that this game retains a ton of elements from the original Interplay titles while adding a lot of Bethesda Softworks' games.
| More games | Page:: ( 6 / 10 ) |
Spore
Will Wright's evolution sim has won tons of E3 awards for the past two years but this year it was a no show as rumors of troubled game development have pushed the release date back to at least March or April of 2008.
New Getaway game
Sony showed off a "tech demo" of a new PS3 open world game set in London from the Getaway dev team at Soho Studio at E3 2006 over a year ago but it has pretty much disappeared from Sony's minds this year. No one at Sony even bothered to mention it this year.
Afrika
Another Sony PS3 game shown at E3 2006 was another no show. This odd title was shown to be something like a simulation of an African safari. Sony said little about the game then and nothing about the game since, including this year.
Eight Days
Sony's PS3 shoot em up was shown at E3 2006 with lots of stuff blowing up real good in an American desert setting. It looked great then but apparently it didn't look good enough to show again at E3 2007.
Final Fantasy XIII
Square Enix's fantasy RPG was front and center in CGI form at Square Enix's press conference at E3 2006 as well as Sony's but nothing new of the game was shown this year..not a huge surprise.
Alan Wake
The team at Remedy first showed off this third person action-thriller at E3 2005 in playable form but Microsoft later bought the publishing rights and showed just a trailer at E3 2006. This year, Microsoft didn't even bother to show even a trailer for the game with just a brief mention during the press conference...hmmmmm.
Tekken 6
Namco's next game in their fighting series was shown at Sony's E3 2006 press conference but there was no sign of the game this year at any venue.
Lost
UbiSoft announced plans to publish a game based on the great TV series at E3 2006 but aside from a brief mention during their E3 2007 press conference the company hasn't said anything about their plans for the game since.
Project H.A.M.M.E.R.
Nintendo's Wii exclusive action game about a man and his hammer was shown in playable form at E3 2006 but it looks like Nintendo has pretty much given up on the game since and its almost certain that its non-appearance at this year's show means that its canceled (Nintendo tends not to confirm that a game has been axed)
Dragon Age
BioWare's fantasy RPG was shown way back at E3 2004 in playable form but the game has pretty much gone into stealth mode since, except for a cover story for Games For Windows magazine less than a year ago.
New Indiana Jones Game
LucasArts showed off a new game starring Dr Henry Jones Jr. at their E3 meeting room in May 2006 that showed off some impressive graphics and interactive environments. It was a no show this year, however, perhaps because there is a fourth movie in production.
Too Human
Silicon Knights demoed their sci-fi action game at E3 2006 and even the developer admits it wasn't up to snuff back then. The game was briefly mentioned during Microsoft' E3 press conference but that's about it.
| E3 itself | Page:: ( 7 / 10 ) |
We should also mention how Sony has been handling its Gran Turismo series of racing sims. Originally the plan, announced at E3 2006, was to release Gran Turismo HD, a PS3 version of Gran Turismo 4 with improved graphics but that plan was abandoned (although a free demo was released). Now Sony is saying it will release Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, a new game that will serve as a kind of prequel to what will be the full version of Gran Turismo 5. Geeze..I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it.
The E3 Event Itself
So how was the event itself to attend? There were some good and bad points to coming to Santa Monica There was the weather which was nearly perfect throughout the conference. It was nice that we didn't have to deal with tens of thousands of people who were fighting over getting pictures of celebs or booth babes. The hotel suites were an excellent way to get a demo of a game, chat with the developers in an informal way and generally get a better sense if the game was a real gameplay product rather than just something that was made only for E3. We've heard a few complaints that representatives from major retailers (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc) were few and far between at this year's E3 but to us this is a non-issue; most retailers have their own conferences anyway and the ones that don't should be able to get a sense on whether a game is good or not by reading E3 press coverage. We were also glad to see lots of international media attending E3 this year. More than one publisher seem to indicate that E3 2007 would be mostly for the North American press but as in years past journalists from all over the world came to Santa Monica to attend and report on E3.
But the format of E3 2008, if there is an E3 2008, needs to change some in order to make future expos a success. One of the biggest problems with this year's show were trying to get to a number of hotels (particularly the Fairmont and Sheraton) and the Barker Arena. They were difficult to get to without the aid of E3 supplied buses and missing appointments was definitely the order of the day. It didn't help that Sony decided to hold its E3 press conference outside Santa Monica (at their Culver City Movie Studios) late on Wednesday morning. An over-long press conference meant that journalists were buses back to Santa Monica very late and caused a lot of previously scheduled appointments with other publishers to be postponed (thankfully the publishers were extremely understanding and were very accommodating if journalists missed appointments and made arrangements to reschedule). Another problem was the Barker Hanger itself. Basically a hot airplane hanger at Santa Monica Airport, the location had a number of publishers show off a number of games but quite a number of the titles were already being shown at the hotel suites. While there were some games only being shown at the hanger the real meat of E3 this year was at the hotels (indeed Microsoft took over an entire Santa Monica hotel, the Viceroy, for the entire E3 week). We also missed seeing a number of smaller publishers at this year's show and we hope organizers do a better job next year in making E3 a more inviting place for them to attend.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 8 / 10 ) |
Pros
Lots of cool new games
E3 2007 was still the place where publishers announced major new games and put their best foot forward in making sure the press was aware of games coming in 2007 and 2008
Less people
Cutting down the amount of people to just the folks that were serious about covering the show for their respected media outlets was a great way to cut through the haze of hangers-on who had no business at previous E3s.
Intimate game demos
If you went to the various E3 hotels you got personal treatment from the developers and PR folks and they in tern treated you to game demos that seemed to be more about gameplay and less about flash this year.
Cons
Way too spread out
E3 2007 made journalists walk or bus from hotel to hotel and to the Barker Hanger; the result was an inability to make appointments and generally caused too much confusion
Barker Hanger was not worth going
The number of games at the Santa Monica Airport location was not enough to make journalists take the 20 minute bus ride to show up.
Not enough smaller companies
There were a few exceptions but overall E3 2007 was dominated by the larger companies; it would be nice to see the sometimes original and eclectic mix of games from smaller companies
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 9 / 10 ) |