Chris, one of our reviewers, was able to make it to this year's E3 conference. Towards the middle of the article you'll find links to many previews to each of the games he got to demo or view.
With this being my first E3, I couldn’t really gauge how much a compact version this was, but after hearing murmurs from the crowds and eager businessmen, this is miniscule compared to the gaudy insanity when E3 was still a ridiculous paroxysm of noise and overeager yelling over the latest trailers for the next big game.
I didn’t feel any of that. I thought E3 ’09 was massive, and I can’t imagine how much bigger it was in its glory days. It really put a lot of things in perspective. Games are a big deal commercially. That was always a known quantity, but seeing the profitability displayed over the course of three days, it really hits home. Games are a business, and it’s a serious one.
And sometimes, it can be a cold one. I always knew games were a business, but again, seeing the business side play out was impacting. As I walked through the food courts and meeting rooms where I could hear myself think, I heard about exclusivity deals, why a publisher should publish their game, and even about company bleeding out its wallet to just barely maintain itself. It was tragic to hear, as I sat there eating my overpriced cheeseburger.
However, perhaps the biggest thing that should impact you is that if E3 ’09 was indicative of anything, it was that the PC doesn’t have a presence. It barely made a blip on the edges of the floor and even then it was all very esoteric and very niche. There was no Doom 3, there was no Half-Life 2, no Crysis or whatever. There was no one game that truly defined the PC. It’s an ugly truth, but with console technology being able to come very close to matching the PC in terms of graphical capabilities, I knew this was going to happen when I stepped into the South Hall. Still, it stung.
Instead, you get a lot of bleed-in. A lot of the games that were on display were prominently shown as console games, with nary a reminder that respective PC versions were absolutely coming. In that sense, the PC has a lot of great stuff coming out by the end of the year, but none of it specifically built for the platform. It’s a strange predicament, but if you’re looking for a healthy amount of PC-specific stuff, then you will be bummed. Depressing to be sure, but hey, that bleed-in includes a lot of cool stuff.
Game preview list - we decided to let you choose what you want to read about instead of having a super long multi-page article this time around:
Indie Games:
For my first E3, there weren’t many disappointments. Just one letdown and you can guess which game that was.
As much as E3 just made me worry about the state of the PC even more, there was undeniable selection of great games at the show, PC or not. The Wii in particular had some promising hands-on displays, such as the surprisingly awesome Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and the gorgeous 2-D hack and slash, Muramasa: The Demon Blade.
All corners of every genre and every profitable market reeked of great stuff to see and play and again, yes, the PC laid in the background, but once you toss in the multi-platforming, it becomes a platform with a lot of great games coming out by the end of the year.
Personally, I’m looking forward the Alpha Protocol the most, which effectively makes it my game of the show. It’s everything I want in an Obsidian RPG. Lots of choices and lots of consequences, hooked together with a unique setting and solid writing and voice acting. I just checked off most of the elements of why Obsidian’s Mask of the Betrayer was so great, so that’s a good sign.
It may not be the golden of years of PC classics like Fallout, System Shock 2 and Half-Life,but there are a lot of games to look forward to and it’s ramping up to be another great year of games.
