Another E3 has come and gone, and as usual, what a mess it was. Although there was certainly some good things to come out of this year’s show, I’m not here to spread the good news. I’m here to complain. First, I’ll tear into the hardware. What the f*ck; is it a law that next-gen consoles need to look ugly as hell?!
- Sony Playstation 3. I think I saw Lt. Geordi LaForge tinkering around with one of these on Star Trek: The Next Generation (pun intended). And then, everybody died. Alright, maybe not, but the thing does look uncannily like a PC Engine DUO-R from a decade or so ago. The controllers concern me as well; they look like goddamn boomerangs.
- Microsoft Xbox 360. Wow, a blender. Or a long lost cousin of HAL 9000. Microsoft may have shot themselves in the foot with the backwards compatibility rumors that have been swirling about; word has it that the 360 will not be backwards compatible out of the box. You’ll have to download patches and such to play your old Xbox games. So for gamers without a broadband connection…you’re shit outta luck.
- Nintendo Revolution. This thing looks like a damn external CD writer. I’ve seen modems from 1989 that looked sleeker. No internal hard drive? And they want to launch it after the 360 and PS3? Eesh. Also, bear in mind that no actual hardware was shown at E3, not to mention zero software! The hardware shown was just a CGI mockup, and not a controller to be found. Nintendo claims that they didn’t show the controllers because they “don’t want other companies to steal their ideas.” That’s business-speak for “we haven’t finished designing the controllers yet.”
- Nintendo GBA Micro. Not next-gen, but just as unnecessary. A third GBA?! Why, why WHY?! And I imagine it’ll cost nearly as much as an SP. Who knows.
What a piss-poor showing. All of the next-gen games look like shit. And I’m not talking about the pretty graphics, which are 100% useless as far as gaming quality is concerned. If you don’t have the gameplay to back it up, then it doesn’t matter how good the graphics are. Anyway, by and large, the next-gen offerings are comprised mainly of sequel after sequel after sequel. All the good “new” games are firmly rooted in the current generation. Thank God.
Speaking of which…
- Mario & Luigi 2. One big temporal paradox waiting to happen, as the Mario brothers team up with the baby versions of themselves. I f*cking hate the Mario babies. They’re the worst thing to ever happen to the Mario franchise; yes, even worse than Yoshi.
- Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team. You all know I’m a hardcore MM fan, but this game pisses me off to no end. It looks like Capcom is really going the PokÃÆ’©mon route here, by putting both GBA versions of MMBN5 on a single DS cart (just as PokÃÆ’©mon Emerald is a merger of Ruby and Sapphire). We should be looking at MMBN6, not another damn port!
- PokÃÆ’©mon XD: Gale of Darkness. Here we have a PokÃÆ’©mon Colosseum-esque Gamecube title. It uses the same engine as Colosseum, has nearly the same plot, takes place in the same land (Orre), features the same Shadow PokÃÆ’©mon, and has the same tech to snag/purify them. Holy rehash, Batman.
- Castlevania: Curse of Darkness and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. Nothing against the games themselves…but the titles suck ass.
If I get any angrier, I may give myself an aneurysm. So that’s all for now. See you next week…