Everybody knows that you never lead with your showstopper. Yet Nintendo started right away with perpetual smile machine Shigeru Miyamoto announcing Pikmin 3, a long requested title from Nintendo fans all around. Goodwill surounding Nintendo’s presser couldn’t be higher – surely the rest of the conference would be full of solid gold hits.
Yeah, about that… Continue reading »
For one of the largest publishers in the world, you’d always think that EA would go large – getting crazy guests to host their E3 shows, get the hottest of bands to tie into their upcoming works and play at the conference, and drop plenty of bombs. And yet, they never do. Their events are always pretty low key and very straight forward – and their 2012 showing was no different. Even after knowing everything that was going to be shown in advance, and one pretty damned huge surprise later, it remained a good showing. Continue reading »
I don’t know what the audience breakdown was, whether the auditorium was made up of game journalists, industry professionals, bloggers or eager fans. All I know is that they were an enthusiastic bunch, whooping and hollering at every single opportunity. A glimpse of gameplay? Cheering. Metacritic statistics? Wild applause. A shot of an ocean? WOOOO! What was it that worked the crowd in to such a tizzy? Continue reading »
In a week filled with plenty of surprise announcements, here’s one that practically no-one was expecting. EA signing a multi-year deal with the UFC, which guarantees the return of EA MMA. The deal has hit THQ rather hard, as the news of the transition comes as the beleagured publisher has shut down its San Diego studio, and fired all the employees that worked there. Continue reading »
Meet Tobuscus, YouTube celebrity. He helped present this year’s Ubisoft’s press conference alongside Aisha Tyler, and by present, I mean awkwardly drive the show to a grinding halt. Can you tell I wasn’t impressed with his performance?
I have a theory about this: From laser tag to breathing trainers to *shudder* Mr. Caffeine, Ubisoft’s previous E3 events kinda bombed. Hiring Tobuscus and letting nature take its course could theoretically make the rest of the show seem splendid by comparison. Well Ubisoft need not have worried, as the games more than spoke for themselves.
Microsoft’s press events tend to flip between two different audiences: The ‘core’ gamer and the morning-show crowd. For every Gears of War or Halo gameplay demo there’s a TV partnership or an all-audienes Kinect game. This year was no different; if anything, the two seemed to be heavily separated. Continue reading »
The 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo is almost upon us. We’ve already seen some of what’s on offer but the carnival well and truly kicks off tomorrow morning. What games will stand out above the rest? Will any new hardware be announced (or leaked a couple of hours beforehand)? Who will be crowned The King of E3?
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With E3 set to officially begin tomorrow (at the ungodly hour of 2AM AEST), it was good to see Nintendo get the jump on everyone by holding its whenever the hell they feel like it livestream show “Nintendo Direct”. This time, the half hour stream was dedicated to showing off the Wii U, and some of the changes/updates Nintendo have made since we last saw it, and boy, did they make some rather interesting changes and additions. Continue reading »
With E3 a number of days away, it’s getting more and more interesting to see just what information is just getting out there – like photos of booths or how stages are being presented, it’s hard to ignore the hype train and get on board. Then you have exhibitors just flat out announcing stuff prior to the show, which is never really any fun. Even if it’s a pretty badly kept secret, it’s always fun to see stuff get announced at the show. So then you have EA who basically don’t give you any surprises whatsoever and announce everything less than a week before the show. Continue reading »