Artist's impression

Persistent rumours of an Xbox 360 successor being in development have been whizzing around the interweb for months now, with the occasional whisper of a PS4. If industry & retail publication MCV‘s sources are to be believed, these consoles must have been in development for a very long time now; as they are both, apparently, due to be revealed at this year’s E3.

MCV claims it has been told that Microsoft “recently signalled to partners” that an E3 2012 announcement for its next Xbox console will definitely be happening. The source for Sony’s E3 plans is even more vague, with MCV saying only that “Execs at the PlayStation firm have made it clear to third-parties that they will not be left behind this time”. If true, Sony’s plans to reveal a new console in 2012 are surely the more surprising, given their repeated declaration that the PS3 ( first released at the end of 2006) will enjoy a “ten year plus” life cycle.

Nintendo Conference: June 7^th 05:00pm GMT

Everyone wants to see the new console Nintendo is premièring today. I don’t really want to take guesses on what it will be like, but my assumption would be no-3D and only about as good as the current gen. That said, they will hopefully have learned from the poor 3DS sales that really what matters is a powerful launch line-up.

• Things are a little delayed to start with, probably with it being so early in the morning.
• Screen showing random Nintendo facts, think the same happened last year. Same with the random multiple choice questions. But here we go. The proper start now.
• Live orchestra starts playing a fantastic Zelda medley to videos of the various Zelda titles over the years. Does that mean they’re back to aiming at their older audience? Not many people younger than me will appreciate this trip down memory lane.
• Towards the end of the video is new footage. Celebrating 25 years of Zelda games. That does make me feel old.
• Shingeru Miyamoto takes to the stage. As cheerful as always. Attempted English GO. Fingers crossed for a better on-stage demo this year if there is one.
• Phew, translator comes on stage.
• Last year was Mario’s 25^th, this year it’s Zelda’s turn. The song at the end of the orchestra was the theme to Skyward Sword. Chats about famous music (chest opening, item gained). He talks about the orchestra again and asks them to preform some famous Zelda riffs.
• “Item GET-o!”
• Miyamoto takes a Titanic poster stance during the fairy music for some reason. He then wants to hear getting an item again, orchestra clearly hasn’t played Zelda and starts the wrong riff at first.
• Each hardware system is getting a Zelda game for the anniversary. Link’s Awakening will be coming to the Virtual Console as a download today worldwide.
• Next weekend Ocarina of Time 3D launches (we already knew that). Improved graphics, frame rate and a new sense of realism. Master Quest mode returns and there is a Boss Challenge mode. Free download of Four Swords.
• Finally, Skyward Sword. Worldwide release this holiday season for Wii. “It’s finally done!”
• It uses Motion+. They are making a special gold Wii remote. Will anyone seriously be desperate to get that?
• He mentions he’s been playing Skyward Sword every day and it’s great exercise, he shows off imaginary muscles. Both games will be on the expo floor.
• A symphony based around the Zelda music will be touring the world as part of the anniversary. That’s nice. Wii 2 please. Nope, plugging music CDs next. At a game expo. Really.
• He invites numerous members of the development team onto the stage. I don’t think this is building to anything, he’s just mooching applause now. Mentions all the fans and thanks them, ending this section of the presentation – implies he’ll be back later on.
• Nintendo President Satoru Iwata takes centre stage to some horrible music. I like what he’s done with his hair. What shade of dye would that be?
• Talks about the boundaries that once separated age group, personality and gender being erased. Talks about horrible casual gamers. The vermin of the gaming world. I mean in a more positive way than I am making out here. Sadly.
• “Deeper and wider”. He’s talking about the new platform…I hope. So, deeper must mean 3D, right? A wider appeal than the Wii to gamers. “Let’s everyone see games in full detail” – no glasses, then? He was being a tease, he isn’t going into details until later.
• Moving onto the 3DS and the franchises that are moving into it. He walks off stage as a large trailer begins, starting with Mariokart. Starfox is next. Super Mario is after that (these are all really short glimpses of what I’m not entirely sure is real gameplay).
• Kid Icarus is after that. Next is…Luigi’s Ghost…mansion thing. What was that called again? Doesn’t matter, wasn’t very good.
• Here comes Reggie. Medium sized microphone. Don’t start a speech with an aggressive “Look…” Reggie. It’s rude. Seems to be acknowledging people’s complaints about 3DS while at the same time implying that they are wrong.
• Five key titles to show for 3DS. Mariokart first and a trailer plays. “It’s a tricked out version you’ve never played before” apparently, looks pretty much standard fare to me. Oh until they show that the karts can to flying type glides over large areas and also go underwater. Revolutionary stuff.
• Mariokart 3D out this holiday season.
• Starfox 3D next. Trailer playing in the background while Reggie talks. You can use controls or you can use the hand-held to tilt and steer – all those people who did that for years despite not needing to will love that! 3DS cameras record during gameplay…in horribly pixelated barely recognisable ways. It is released this September.
• Super Mario 3D now. Again typical Mario game, not bad just not special either. That raccoon suit I’ve forgotten the name of returns. That counts as an innovation at Nintendo by the way, if you’re not familiar with them. Out sometime this year.
• Kid Icarus Uprising. A voiced trailer plays. Probably the most impressive of the games shown so far. Trailer ends with multiplayer battles and then Icarus themed AR cards. MP is 3 on 3. Released later this year.
• Final game, a new one. Oh right they count Luigi as new. Luigi’s Mansion 2. An entirely new game (technically). More than one mansion.
• Third party developers now starting with Resident Evil Mercenaries 3D, then Mario & Sonic. Ace Combat, Tetris, Cave Story, Resident Evil Revelations, Driver Renegade, Pac-man, Tekken 3D. Montage ends on MGS Snake Eater 3D.
• Talks about the e-shop and updated browser for the 3DS now. Tried it earlier – nothing to go on about. Though Reggie then said there’d be exclusive 3D trailers on there later.
• Virtual Console next and the GB, GBA titles on it.
• “The biggest download news for 3DS concerns one of the biggest franchises in history” – he’s talking about Pokemon. Is he really trying to make that tacky 3D Pokedex sound like some amazing innovation? I tried that earlier too, bored of it after a couple minutes.
• “The essential tool for fans” - I’ll stick with the in-game one, thanks.
• Bloody hell they are being as condescending as those old Wii training videos. Talking very slowly about how to update the 3DS.
• Reggie is talking about the Wii. The name makes sense once you hear how it is pronounced, apparently. Is this building up to the justification of whatever stupid name they’ve chosen this time around?
• It’s called….Wii U. Sounds like a poor Asian child. I mean come on. Why not just Wii 2?
• The controller is a hand-held by the looks of it. Looks a lot like the PS Vita hilariously, if it had a baby with the 3DS.
• Video plays showing Wii U in action.
• Display switches from TV to the ‘controller’. Shows that it can be used like a tablet for drawing. It has touch screen. Graphics are as poor as the Wii. Well, maybe not quite. Use it as a scope for sniping with while playing first person games. Picture-in-picture calls.
• Wii U is very underwhelming. It’s no big thing to stream to the hand-held essentially, PS3 could do that with a few select games. It’s a gimmick sure, but has no practical use. Unless the game is self contained in the ‘controller’ as well and thus you can play portable or not anywhere, but I doubt it.
• Out next year if you want one for some reason.
• Wii U has 6.2” screen built in. Backward compatible with Wii games and accessories (in other words it’s still just a Wii).
• “We believe you will love the variety of the new console” – Uh huh.
• “Ramble feature.”
• Touch screen, microphone, speakers, two circle pads, control pad, gyroscope and so on. Every time Iwata says button it sounds like he’s saying bollocks. Fitting really.
• Ah, yes it’s wirelessly transmitted so it’s a hand-held Wii with the features of a 3DS essentially. “Those with an HD TV attach it to play Wii games in HD” – isn’t that like watching a black and white movie on the world’s best colour TV?
• Promotes strong bonds with the family, web-browsing, etc.
• “How can it be incorporated into gameplay” – and why.
• Trailer of a horrible conversation between Iwata and Miyamoto begins. To be honest I’ve lost all interest in this conference so I’m not sure what their translated voice-overs are going on about.
• Smash Bros. is coming to 3DS and Wii U, working together on both platforms. First genuine claps from the audience there.
• Reggie is back to talk about what Wii U games are playable at E3. “Eight different interactive experiences” – yeah, what about some nice new games please?
• Trailer plays. A tech demo I assume, a bird flying along on river to some nice music. I’m not even sure this is a tech demo actually, it’s more like it’s just…a video. What were they thinking with that?
• He moves onto how the new controller changes things. Conceptual “New Super Mario Mii” using your Mii alongside Mario. Drowning in innovation here.
• More concept art and concept descriptions. This is sounding like the Wii U is either just really, really early in development or there’s nothing to do with it.
• Oh, oh! One title in development for Wii U! Lego City Stories! Stay there a second! I need to put in my pre-order now to beat the rush! Get out of my way!
• I’m back. Still talking about lego I see.
• Video with Peter Moore and various other assess of gaming making nothing sound like the next generation. I remember the reaction to 3DS last year, even if it didn’t turn out as good as it sounded at the time, at least it got the crowd hyped. In comparison, this is pure embarrassment.
• Assassin’s Creed and Batman Arkham City will be on it apparently. Ghost Recon too.
• “Nintendo have heard the voices of the hardcore gamer” – are you kidding me? He did not just say that. Rage.
• Darksiders 2 trailer plays next. An Aliens game was also shown and some footage of Metro Last Light, Ghost Recon and Tekken. Tekken has customizable costumes. Ninja Gaiden 3 footage ends the Wii U montage.
• Reggie and Iwata on stage together. Blathering on.
• EA’s John R takes the stage. Don’t put your hands in your pockets during a speech – good (he took them out). John chats a bit about Wii U.
• “Brilliant high definition graphics” – really? They show Battlefield 3 footage (PC version) in some poor attempt to imply a Wii U version would be anything like it.
• John is off. Didn’t really listen to what he said.
• Reggie is back to conclude things. Asks people to think what each platform represents. “They share a common pedigree – inspiration” – kind of true, but how about actually being, you know, decent?
• It’s hilarious how quiet the audience is throughout.
• And it’s over. Thankfully.

Nintendo wins worst conference of E3 2011 hands down. There wasn’t a single on-stage demo. Even a Kinect heavy Microsoft conference couldn’t compare to that waste of time. Forgive my obvious frustration as I watched, because even if I hate what Nintendo has become I loved them for many years. Those days are long gone.

Sony Conference: June 7^th 01:00am GMT

Sony has had a brilliant year! …(*audible cough*). The only thing I predicted for this conference on Twitter was an on-stage suicide. Let’s see if I am correct. It better be good. I stayed up to cover this! Obvious games will be Uncharted 3 and Resistance 3.

• 3D glasses are being handed out to the audience. Oh dear. Things running a little behind as a result. At least I think that’s the reason. Wouldn’t it be fun if the conference was hacked? Someone comes out wearing a V for Vendetta mask they win the internet.
• Still more waiting. Crowd control is apparently to blame. …I don’t know either.
• Here we go. Finally. The command is given to have glasses ready, probably means Uncharted will be opening the show.
• PS3 generic advert begins, NGP seen also and Move. All to terrible dance music. A (presumably) 3D trailer than starts showing a few different games. Very…underwhelming.
• Focus then moves to N4G or whatever they chose to call it briefly before the Move again. This seems like space filler – is this really the start of the conference?
• Jack Tretton takes the stage. About time. He looks a lot more tired than usual. Get on with it, Jack.
• Straight onto PSN outage. Good man. An apology to their third party developers, retail partners and finally consumers. Glad they didn’t try to work around it. I mean it isn’t a genuine apology, it’s a well rehearsed one, but still.
• Too much talking after that about Netflix and such like. CinemaNow access also revealed.
• Jack moves to Uncharted, as expected. Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra take to the stage to display the game. As usual the game looks good. Drake is on a fairly large boat in a storm searching for something. The movement, while obviously trying to imitate the boat moving on choppy waters, seems very strange at times.
• Tension seems to build as he makes his way deeper into the ship. I sense a water themed catastrophe in the near future. He is caught by guards but quickly escapes and accidentally also makes the ship spring a leak. Who’d have figured?
• Water is slowly flooding the area while fighting continues. The ship overturns along with everything else. Platforming gameplay next and decent water effects. Gameplay ends abruptly to applause.
• There’s chat about the multiplayer, the Beta begins June 28^th. They announce a partnership with Subway in the US for some reason. Ends with a full 3D trailer. Release date is November 1^st.
• Jack’s back talking about Insomniac Games and Resistance 3. Marcus Smith is there to demo, wearing a jacket at least two sizes too big for him.
• He is playing in 3D. Shield Drones, shoot the drone to make the enemy vulnerable. Various weapons are shown off, many of them the typical weird variety you expect. The demo then skips ahead to a chase type sequence showing off some action in the background and pretty visuals. Doesn’t last long and cuts off very abruptly.
• Jack moves on to talk about a sharpshooter bundle for R3. Because you all wanted to buy it for $150 with a shooter, camera and Move set up.
• Next he talks about two ‘special collection’s. God of Wars Origins collection, remastered to HD. Same for Ico and Shadow of the Collosses. Playable in 3D.
• “Playstation is the ultimate solution for 3D.”
• He’s talking about pricing now. “Breaking the pricing of 3D.”
• A PS branded 3D display for affordable access to 3D. Interesting dual screen feature no split screen. No idea how that works but it sounds very interesting.
• This Fall people can get active 3D glasses with Resistance 3, HDMI cable for $499 (including the display I think – I hope).
• Now Jack’s wasting space with Move. From 2K Sports a couple of guys come on (complicated names) to give a sneak peak and tedious basketball simulator 2012.
• Does it really say a lot about your previous game if the only accolade it had was having Michael Jordan on the cover?
• Pro cameraman tip: try not to get other on-stage camera men on camera with their mouth hanging open gawking at the person there with them.
• Some NBA person is on stage now. Good point for a toilet break. Go now. I think I’ve heard of that guy actually, but not for good reasons. Must have been found not guilty. Moving on.
• Jack back again chatting about Move and a new title. Two more names I’m not attempting come to the stage to talk about Medieval Moves. Audience told to put on 3D glasses.
• You can slash, throw weapons or use a bow without inventory screens it’s down to the motions preformed. It seems quite responsive, far more so than the Kinect stage demos. You seem to be playing as a child skeleton of some kind. Looked a little interesting, but also aimed at the younger gamers.
• Infamous 2 next…seems a little pointless given it’s released tomorrow but I suppose they know the world is watching and are whoring as much as humanly possible.
• Further down the line there will be player made missions.
• This links Jack well into Little Big Planet and integrating Move to that.
• The next game on display is Starhawk. A trailer plays. No real gameplay but battles are shown using a variety of vehicle types on land and in space.
• Where is Jack going now? Something from 2002. A family friendly series? Oh, Sly Copper I think it was called. Hundreds of people email him about that? Really? Sly Cooper Thieves in Time coming 2012.
• Time for publishing partners. Something from EVE Online creator. A new game called…Durst, I think. PS exclusive. A console shooter directly connected to EVE Online to create one ‘why-brent’ universe (accents are fun).
• Trailer plays. First thought was “This all looks a bit Halo.” Second thought was “This all looks a lot like Halo, with a dash of Modern Warfare.” ISK (EVE currency) comes into play near the end of it. Land battles for EVE basically? Really hard to tell what’s going on. Sleep deprivation may also be to blame. Dust 514 was the name. I have no idea what I just saw.
• Closed Beta at the end of the year.
• Time for another guest, but not before a 2K trailer of Bioshock Infinite. The trailer was entirely in-game footage. Not enough people have done that this year.
• Ken Levine starts chatting about the game. Goes back to an interview he did a while back where he talked badly about Move. I assume by the squirming that he is about to announce Move compatibility. He’s babbling. Get on with it, it’s obvious.
• Yup, Bioshock Infinite will have Move in some capacity.
• From his back pocket he pulls out an NGP (and calls it that). Doesn’t show anything on it and walks off. Thanks, Irrational Games, for an irrational presentation.
• On the same blu-ray, people who buy Infinite get the first Bioshock for free on it.
• Saint’s Row 3 next. Exclusive ‘game mode’ on PS3. Out November 15^th. Implied Move for that as well, but not sure.
• Talks a little about the co-op Kirk/Spock Star Trek game, apparently it will also be Move compatible. There will be an exclusive digital-only prologue to it. Some ‘early’ pre-alpha footage is then shown. Coming 2012.
• EA content is next. Jack reveals three more PS3-exclusive bonuses to certain games. SSX – Mt. Fuji course. Need for Speed The Run – seven additional super cars. Battlefield 3 – Battlefield 1943 on the blu-ray.
• Kazuo Hirai takes the stage. The guy everyone knows and loves. They really gave him the job of announcing THE price we all want to know?
• He chats a little about connectivity and the outage. Good man. Thanks for the fans. Moves onto portable entertainment. Here it comes. Get ready for it.
• Or not. Something called Playstation Suite. For Android Smartphones. Alternate name: Playstation Steam? Hard to tell, not many details given.
• Chatting about the PSP. Then NGP. “Breaks traditional boundaries of entertainment”. Duel touch pads, duel cameras, AR experience. Here it comes for real now. Dip into your pocket.
• The official name is Playstation Vita, to no one’s surprise. “What does Vita mean?” - that all the good names were patented.
• Two analogue sticks. 5” screen. Front and rear touch pad. Six-axis. Front and rear cameras. Eh, never before seen? Did no one buy him a 3DS? 3G and Wi Fi versions. He’s building up to the price here.
• They will be partnering with at&t, to a mixture of boos and strange noises from the crowd. That’s the US though, other territories will follow.
• A feature called ‘Party’ to use voice chat no matter what game they are playing. That sounds familiar. Social connection tool called ‘Near’. That sounds familiar too.
• Scott Rohde takes the stage with him to chat about Vita and show some demos. Mentions advanced technology never seen before on any hand held. Uncharted Golden Abyss follows.
• Visuals are a clear improvement on the PSP. Large screen size doesn’t seem overbearing at all. No specifics given about specification, but they mention real time shadows and other graphic features.
• Can use traditional controls or screen when climbing. Six-axis tilts to make jumps in certain directions when hanging. Touch controls work as do the standard ones.
• ‘Painting edges’ is next, coated numerous climbable sections, like stacking up commands.
• Fairly impressive overall, but we need to see more than Uncharted.
• Next is a “Social Action RPG” compatible with PS3. Called Ruin. Some microphone problems as they come on. Guy speaking sounds nervous. Combat begins, assuming they don’t mess up something here. Looks very Diablo style.
• Other players are rivals. Isn’t describing it well,nerves are getting the better of him. Footage is fairly boring. The player is apparently attacking the lair of a rival. Player stops on Vita and picks up where he left off on PS3.
• Next on stage is Mod Nation Racers. Not exactly interesting. Also: wearing a rugby shirt to a presentation like this gets on my nerves. The player uses his finger to trace a course in seconds. Back touch panel used to make mountains, that’s fairly fun. Touching the front touch panel pushes down the land to make lakes and the like.
• More Vita connectivity with the PS3 being discussed. Titles which play on both, cross-play. Now talking about LBP and it being on Vita. A trailer of it plays. Shows some very creative uses for what Vita can do. Can share costumes with PS3.
• Still no price given yet.
• Publishing partners on Vita now. From Capcom. Street Fighter X Tekken. A very cheerful gentleman from Capcom Japan takes the stage to chat about the game via translator.
• There will be a Vita version of the game. Awkward pause waiting for applause. Audience eventually gives in.
• They also announce that Cole from Infamous will be appearing in it. They then show a video of him in action. Showing it off doesn’t last long, probably because it’s still heavily in development. There were no health bars or a visible GUI.
• Wrapping up Vita now by the sounds of it. Apparently 80 titles are in development. A video of some of them plays before Kaz returns to the stage. Wipeout. Locoroco. Some kind of snooker game. Something that looks like Tenchu. Dynasty Warriors.
• Kaz is back. Here’s the price. Come on. Nope…release date. Holiday season this year. Price! Wi-fi only model $249. 3G model is $299.
• Jack is back, Kaz is gone. Chatting about what’s been seen tonight. Points out Vita launch titles will be amazing. Won’t take much to beat 3DS.
• And that’s it folks. A little underwhelming, I was expecting a big finish of some kind.

Everyone will be talking about PS Vita, the 3D screen and of course the prices of both packages. Game wise there weren’t any real surprises.

Ubisoft Conference: June 6^th 10:30pm GMT

Here we go with Ubisoft. We already know about Assassin’s Creed Revelations, but what else will they have? E3 2010 saw them largely focus on fitness and dancing – hopefully they will have learned their lesson since then. Oh and the horrible comedian and that weird laser-tag thing. Let’s try to forget all that.

• Show begins with a video showing 25 years of Ubisoft.
• CEO Yves Guillemot takes to the stage to once again attempt English. Starts showing off total game sales over the years, links back to starting with Rayman and thanks the crowd.
• Yves brings Michel Angel to the stage to talk about Rayman Origins. He also attempts English…then some horrible back and fourth with Yves.
• The on-stage demo of the game begins. Apparently the demo is hard to play. They are playing co-op. Has a very old school charm to its style. Tetris music + in-game joke meets my approval.
• An underwater section is next, they are being chased by a very strange looking creature.
• A snow section is next mixed with aerial combat, I wonder if they are picking stereotypical annoying environments from most games on purpose? Demo ends with a very awkward joke that fails to land in the cinema.
• Aaron Priceman takes the stage. Mister Caffeine? Oh, he’s quite hyper. I’m going to hate this individual.
• Yes, let’s all talk about the 80s. And make fun of Charlie Sheen. That’s modern! Please stop talking Aaron. No. That wasn’t funny. Nor was that. Or that. Shut up, Aaron.
• Gaming is adventure. He’s talking so fast I’m losing the will to listen to him. I still don’t know which game he’s talking about. Get on with it!
• A trailer starts retro style. Ah, it’s Driver. Driver San Francisco. He mentions a game changing twist. Trailer seemed to skip a little at one point, don’t think it was on purpose. Either way it isn’t actual gameplay.
• I just noticed that Aaron’s microphone is quite large. Another reason to hate him.
• From Ubisoft Montreal Dan Hay and Jamie Keen take the stage. You are Jason Broady. That’s good to know. After that confusing introduction a trailer begins for what I’m guessing is a new Farcry.
• We get to listen to a very foul-mouthed evil person whine on and on about being evil. Then our hero escapes and also swears a bit. How edgy. Now he’s acquired a weapon.
• Some general exploration mixed with gun play and rather brutal knife kills. Then things start exploding and get rather fast-paced. The visuals for the most part are particularly nice, especially given it’s a console he’s playing it on. I wouldn’t want to be Jason Broady, he has a bit habit of running into nut cases.
• Closes on Farcry 3 title, coming 2012.
• The irritating Aaron is back to announce Randy Pitchford from Gearbox. He’s here to talk about Brothers in Arms games. He says they were challenged to make a new take on WW2 games, because the world needs more of those. It’s about “kicking Nazi ass”, they’ve clearly made some innovations here.
• A trailer about the ‘furious four’ plays. Seems you get to play as one of four stereotypical gits in a very action focused game that doesn’t look very good at all.
• Aaron is back. Apparently marriage is next. The one between gaming and Hollywood. A trailer plays. Steven Spielberg talks about Tintin. If anyone asks the point at which I lost interest in this trailer – that was it.
• I don’t know about you but what makes a trailer for me is two old guys talking for about five minutes on a subject they know nothing about. To be fair, afterwards they did show some real gameplay. Not good gameplay, but you know. The Adventures of Tintin The Game, coming soon.
• Aaron is talking about Ghost Recon now. More bad jokes. Where are you, snipers? An old school style trailer plays, guessing it will then advance and show proper Ghost action.
• Yup, Tommy Jacob and Roman Oriola take the stage to talk about Future Soldier. It’ll be on the floor playable for the crowds. An on stage demo then begins.
• Swampy village type area, the Ghost team wading through it. It’s a stage set in Nigeria. The team activates camo suits. That’s cheating a bit, isn’t it? A saved civilian doesn’t seem phased by stealth suit using Americans. It is revealed that it isn’t just one person playing, it’s four of them.
• The fire fights that follow aren’t as impressive as the coordinated stealth sections. Some kind of overhead map section is next, plotting out route and area before they begin moving through it.
• All four players using active camo in this section to take down various targets. Doesn’t seem to be any limit on the camo, even when ‘spotted’ to a certain degree. Things go loud again. For the most part the gameplay seems solid, getting together four people to play it looks like a lot of fun. No date given for release. Version played was Xbox. Multiplayer will be playable on the E3 floor.
• There’s talk next about PC. Ubisoft Singapore will be making a Ghost Recon Online, a PC game and it’s “absolutely free”. Looks much simpler but does incorporate the advanced technology. Free to play and applications for the Beta can be put in now.
• Tommy – don’t clap your own game. It’s bad form.
• Sadly, Aaron is back yet again. “More and more of gaming, is sharing” – really? Epic fail on the epic fail joke.
• Two people with names so complicated I will not insult them by trying to spell them here take the stage from Nadeo Publishing. They are here to chat about Trackmania 2 for PC.
• About three minutes in I’m still not quite sure what they are talking about, but hopefully this video will keep things nice and simple. The video shows some player made maps. Most fairly extreme and some roller-coaster style. Shootmania, Questmania…ah yes I remember this stuff from last year now. Still as confusing now as it was then and very, very strange.
• Aaron mentioned rabbits. Getting a bit sick of those. The way he described them is exactly how I’d describe him. Antoine Henry is on to blather away about the annoying rabbits, for Kinect.
• Pro-tip Ubisoft: if you’re going to make a pretend sitting room set to show off a Kinect game, make it a realistic size. Apparently four people can play it at the same time. Really? Oh wait they’re going to try it. Someone better injure themselves or it won’t be a genuine multiplayer Kinect experience.
• If for whatever reason you wanted your friends to see you pull stupid poses, Kinect Rabbits let you upload to Facebook and so on.
• Aaron is back, trying to draw attention away from people in the background altering the set. He’s talking about fear. Being locked in a room with him for an hour would scare me. He’s talking about pulling people from the audience to dance. Another retro video playing showing 8-bit dancing.
• Just Dance 3. Quickly moving on…nope, awful advert first.
• Tony Key takes the stage. Sadly he’s talking about Just Dance some more. He quickly moves on though to talk about Rocksmith. It’s a good job no one else has made a guitar simulation game. Oh wait.
• Video plays. It seems that it uses essentially a real guitar, sort of. It might be better than those other franchises if it really teaches guitar actually, a fun way to get around the tedium when you start. Coming Fall 2011.
• The next subject is…fitness. You learned nothing from last year! Your Shape Evolved. A video plays of people who don’t at all look stupid bouncing around. Out later this year.
• Aaron blathers on and then there’s a retro style Assassin’s Creed video.
• Assassin’s Creed Revelations. Alexandre Amancio and Martin Schelling take the stage to talk about the game. After a bit of chatting it’s straight into a trailer. After a lovely CG battle it looks like Ezio is caught and marched off to be hanged, all the while seeing Altair’s ghost.
• The E3 gameplay demo then begins. The first new thing shown off is area-of-effect bombs. Then it’s straight into combat briefly. Next is line grappling and then more fighting. Next he mounts a flame-thrower for a while before an escape sequence across burning ships. His own fault for setting them alight really. Demo ends with Animus related footage and then a mysterious glowing door. Released this November.
• Aaron is back to finish the show. Last chance to do something about him, snipers.

No real surprises here, but that isn’t to say Ubisoft disappointed. The absence of anything Splinter Cell was interesting. Ghost Recon, Farcry 3 and Revelations look good.

EA Conference: June 6^th 8:30pm GMT

At E3 2010 EA’s showing was largely based around sport franchises and was, for the most part, utterly uninspiring. Here’s hoping they’ve got something better to show off this year! What you can expect for sure is the number 3 being used to copious extremes.

• Good choice of music as the conference starts.
• Live action trailer then kicks in, clearly based in the Mass Effect 3 universe. Shows the Reaper arrival on Earth, general destruction follows. We already know some of the new features from the Microsoft conference, so let’s see what they do here.
• Casey Hudson takes the stage to talk about the game. March 6^th 2012 is when the game is out. Claims decisions from both previous games will all apply here.
• Live demo starts. Shepard is sent to destroy a Reaper base. Looks like the same kind of area as in the MS conference demo. More melee close combat kills. Demo shows Shepard helping aim Normandy weapons, manages to almost kill himself in the process. Go team human!
• Various large machinery arrive to cause trouble. Gameplay begins again without any voice recognition being used. Standard ME stuff so far. Numerous returning characters and a battle against a scorpion style Reaper from a mounted gun. Demo stops there.
• Casey back to talk about consequences and decisions. Restates March 6^th release and finishes there on a final trailer for the game called ‘The Fall of Earth’.
• John R takes the stage. I spelt his surname wrong last year so I’m not taking the chance this time. He chats a bit about ME3 and also talks about Origin.com and some exclusives there. Also takes a dig at companies who bring on celebrities during conferences.
• Need for Speed The Run is next with Jason Delong. Wasn’t this at E3 last time? Racing games tend to blend together for me so I’m probably wrong.
• Advanced Autolog features and out of the car gameplay. Uses the Frostbite2 engine. He then jumps into a live demo, clearly feeling the pressure.
• The game is quite shiny and has some impressive visuals. At a pre-scripted point the game changes to on foot with QTE moments rather than free movement. I like how vindictive these cops are. It’s back in a car and things carry on (fairly) as normal. I say normal – is it normal for police to murder numerous civilians to try and stop someone speeding?
• A very similar QTE to a moment from Heavy Rain plays out and the demo ends there.
• Star Wars music kicks in and Bioware appears on the screen. Greg Zeschuk takes the stage. Let’s see if they finally give this a release date. You know what I mean. Old Republic.
• Talks about meeting and hopefully exceeding the expectations of fans. Talks about the game involving years of his life and how he can’t show that. Just get on with the game, please. Mentions at E3 they’ll be showing high level boss battles, raids and other MMO features.
• …He then walks off stage as a CG trailer plays using quite a bit of old footage. Well, it’s nice to see someone so determined to display their game to the fullest for a worldwide audience. Thanks, Greg!
• Another trailer kicks off straight after. Someone who didn’t think it through thought it would be a good idea to flood the stage with smoke. It’s an SSX trailer, no actual gameplay – just as well really since the audience probably can’t see it. Out January 2012.
• Peter Moore takes the stage. People applaud for some reason.
• Talks about using NASA to scan the world for accurate mountain ranges and such. Yet the trailer also spoke about defying reality. Race it – trick it – survive it is the motto. He then plugs origin.com to see characters.
• It’s onto talking about Fifa next. 1.3 billion game sessions played apparently. Fifa 12 world premier follows with Matt Bilbey demonstrating and chatting about it.
• Does anyone genuinely care about football games? They do? Well, alright then.
• Positioning is as important as the tackling. Precision dribbling. Player impacts. Presumably there won’t be any real impacts, just ones that look believable enough to fool moronic referees.
• Trailer starts with footballers attempting to speak. That’s brave of them. What was that about not getting celebrities to plug stuff at the start there, John? Amusingly I’m understanding the Brazilian players more than the English ones.
• Did he just say storyline? I didn’t imagine it. He did. Football has plot, people! I will buy that game despite hating football if one plot involves Twitter and an affair with a reality TV star.
• EA Football Club specifics next. Connects people around the world to compete with favourite teams and so on. Glorified online multi-player marketed as something shockingly new.
• That was a very boring part of the presentation but what I will say is this: he had a reasonably sized microphone.
• Next trailer, looks sport related again. American Football. Probably the next Madden. Some people in the gear takes to the stage…I assume they are famous. Madden ’12. Peter is back to tell me who these people are which is lucky.
• Peter chats to them a little. Mentions a shared shower after the show. Not really. I’m just horrifically bored. If those footballers hadn’t have been wearing their kit I’d have thought they were recently unfrozen cavemen.
• John is back. He’s talking about connectivity between his biggest franchises. The Sims Social comes to Facebook. In the background is a picture of a farm, he makes fun of Farmville. A video follows.
• The video seems to imply you can stalk recently singled men to make them love you. You can have sex in the shower. I wonder if the stuff you get up to in it will get auto-placed on your Facebook wall? That’ll give your family some interesting reading.
• Next is two games from EA partners. Curt Schilling, founder of Studio 38, takes the stage. Their first title is Reckoning. He sounds nervous. Jumps straight into the game.
• Open world fantasy game, Ken Rolston has a hand in it as does Todd McFarlane. With that he’s off and a trailer for Reckoning plays.
• Initially it has a very Fable-ish feel to it. For some reason they decided to include the Wilhelm scream. Combat looks interesting, a few different styles are shown off. It has a 2012 release date.
• John is back again. Impending bad joke in 3, 2, 1…
• Insomniac game is next with a multi-platform franchise. Overstrike. Four elite agents blow stuff up. Slight hiccup there with the timing of character announcements to their profiles appearing. A trailer then plays.
• The trailer is fairly amusing but has no actual gameplay.
• Straight into another trailer now. From Dice. So we all know what this is.
• Karl Magnus from Dice is here to chat about Battlefield 3. As he chats various screenshots are appearing behind him. Before a live demo he’s showing another video displaying what Frostbite2 can do. Assuming it is all in-game and not touched up in any way then it’s capable of some impressive stuff (it does say all actual footage but that isn’t quite the same as being actual gameplay).
• Karl chats about multiplayer next and then shows some of that. An infantry focused map set in Paris. It looks very hectic and impressive at the same time, but also very short.
• Next he talks about Battlelog, a powerful social tool. Steam without the world domination angle and Elite without the price tag. It’s free. Open beta in September and yet another plug for content on Origin.com.
• More gameplay now as an on-stage demo begins. Would love to know how powerful the PC he’s using is.
• Visually, B3 is extremely impressive. Lots of tanks, all on the rails so far. He switches to driving the tank rather than manning the gun. The fighting starts with numerous enemy tanks on the horizon.
• After an over-long tank fight the player switches to overhead targeting to launch gun runs on anti-vehicle positions. It’s all very realistic and I say that with the confidence of someone who hasn’t been in a single war.
• Disappointed they chose a vehicle section for this demo. More tank fighting, approaching enemy base. Stomping enemy base. Laughing at crying children of enemy base. Demo ends with October 25^th flashing up.
• Apparently you can download something for free from Origin.
• After a brief final appearance, John wraps up the EA conference for 2011.

Nothing too extravagant this year but fans of the various franchises will probably be very happy with what was shown. It might be interesting to point out that the date set for Battlefield 3 will place it before MW3.

Xbox 360 Conference: June 6^th 5:30pm GMT

Well here were are again. It’s always such a pleasure. For right or wrong reasons it feels a lot like Nintendo and Sony will be dominating the press coverage this year, so Microsoft are going to have to do something special to get any significant attention. You can read that last sentence as ‘not wasting an entire conference on Kinect this time around’. It would also help if they didn’t accidentally leak Halo 4 an hour and a half before starting.

• The stage is looking very green as per usual. Last year there seemed to be a competition between all conferences for who could wear the most ridiculously oversized microphone while on stage – how will MS do?
• It begins. Last year opened with Black Ops, will it be MW3 this year? Disappointingly, yes.
• A person is visible on stage pretending to play during a cutscene, then begins actually playing when his controller disconnects itself. Great start!
• A small team floating around what looks like a flooded subway or something similar. Following a pipe with distant explosions visible. Russians mentioned.
• Some mine-dodging later another checkpoint is reached and a submarine passes over head Stardestroyer style. Person on stage still pretending to be concentrating really hard. A mine is planted on the Stardestroyer.
• A big explosion later the player travels to the surface for a lovely view of a city in the distance clearly under attack. ‘Proper’ MW gameplay then begins on the now floating sub.
• Play any previous MW title to get an idea of what it’s like to watch this being played.
• There is a time skip to later in the level. It’s all very reminiscent of the opening boat level from MW1. Slow-mo room breaches return as expected.
• It’s back to the surface now for a trip in a boat. The visuals are very impressive during this section even if the gameplay isn’t. It seems the Russians are using incredibly flammable boats, the fools.
• 90% of what was shown might as well have been a cutscene, no wonder the on-stage ‘player’ looked bored.
• Robert Bowling and Glen Schofield take the stage for Sledgehammer Games to talk about MW3.
• Heart and souls have gone into making MW3, presumably as some form of godless sacrifice.
• Don Mattrick takes the stage next to begin the keynote proper.
• He begins by thanking the loyal fans and boasting about how well last year went (comparatively speaking, I am guessing).
• “A better way to enjoy television” is on the cards, but he begins with games.
• From Crystal Dynamics, Daniel Neuberger comes on stage to show off Tomb Raider. His friend Dan plays the demo placed near the beginning of the game.
• Lara is shipwrecked and for some reason appears to be hanging upside down in a straight jacket. She frees herself after a lot of groans and stab wounds and that aren’t at all meant to increase the heartbeat of any youngsters watching.
• The visuals are very impressive though. The stage visuals I mean.
• Something or someone appears to be stalking Lara as she makes her way. She’s suddenly attacked and a brief QTE starts. Lara can highlight sections of the world that are relevant to making progress, her ‘survival instinct’. A fairly simple puzzle plays out involving jumps, flame and water before another escape sequence.
• If someone heard you listening to this demo they’d assume you were watching aggressive porn.
• Lara is attacked one last time by the mysterious stalker that had been hounding her and then makes her way through some more collapsing caves with QTE actions being required every so often.
• Once outside she sees a wrecked ship, boat and numerous other vehicles from different time zones (Bermuda Triangle setting perhaps?). Demo over.
• EA Sports president Peter Moore unfortunately takes the stage next. Makes terrible joke. Will not repeat it.
• Goes on about Kinect and sports. Four new Kinect friendly titles will be coming out and you can probably guess them. Seems very excited about combining the likes of Fifa with Kinect.
• Sims and Kinect coming together later this year.
• Bioware co-founder Ray Muzyka comes to the stage backed by Mass Effect soundtrack.
• “Mass Effect 3 is all about kick-ass action”. “Mass Effect 3 will also support Kinect through voice recognition.” Oh dear.
• On stage demo begins. If he says E3 is his favourite shop on the citadel I am stopping this right now.
• Shepard makes his way through some destroyed buildings, begins a conversation with Mordon. It seems like Kinect picks up you reading out one of the options in conversations and chooses it.
• Next it shows him using voice commands to cause team mates to move and use their abilities. Also demonstrates close combat special attack.
• Large enemy mech-like suit crashes in piloted by a humanoid figure. Demo ends here. Ray calls it epic – didn’t seem that way.
• Ubisoft and Tom Clancy is next. Trailer for Ghost Recon Future Soldier begins. High tech Americans picking on terrorists that might as well be using peashooters. Couldn’t tell if it was CG or in game footage.
• Yves Guillemo takes the stage to attempt to speak English. Speaking about using Kinect to enhance their ‘core games’. Chris comes on stage to show Ghost Recon being played. He isn’t holding a controller.
• Using Kinect and his hand he customises some weapons. Audience applauds a gun being moved side-to-side for some reason. Though the smoothness of his actions to the footage is fairly impressive. Voice recognition also working well.
• “Optimise for close combat” command seems to do just that. “Randomize” command also worked. He then played a testing arena using his random weapon (again no controller).
• Not sure why someone would want to play a game like that without a controller, but the voice recognition was fairly fun.
• “All future games in the Tom Clancy franchise will leverage Kinect.”
• Marc Whitten from Xbox Live takes the stage to quite a lot of ‘woos’ from the audience.
• “We must make the technology invisible” – really?
• TV has a new voice apparently and it’s yours. Awkward woman on stage demonstrating voice recognition commands with Kinect. Promoting not needing a controller as some kind of positive for reasons unknown.
• Partnerships and content will grow to millions this year. You Tube is coming to Xbox Live. (Can I plug my channel?)
• Bing is coming to Xbox.
• Delay from woman’s commands to something actually happening on screen does suggest this isn’t really legitimate reactions on stage.
• He announces that live television will be coming to 360 for the US and worldwide. Including Sky in the UK.
• Trailer then plays showing all the same features just shown. Appealing to certain lazy non-gamer types perhaps, but what it’s doing at E3 I don’t know.
• Dana White takes the stage to talk about UFC. He looks fairly intimidating. I will be nice about this uninteresting sport.
• A trailer plays mixing Kinect options and interactions with footage of UFC matches. Some kind of betting system on who will win matches.
• Phil Spencer comes to the stage.
• He talks about the core. Xbox is about games. This will be building up to Halo. Apparently every single thing from this point on is available only on 360.
• A game that more than one million people have pre-ordered…oh no. Yeah, Gears of War 3. I will stomach Cliffy B for you people. Be happy.
• Cliffy B and his teeth take to the stage. Small microphone this time around. Good. Thanks everyone for taking part in the pointless beta. He’s going to be playing part of the campaign and brings on Ice-T to play with him. I have no idea who that is.
• An infected sea creature has caught up with Marcus and team and they need to fight it off. Generic Gears gameplay follows, though the large monster is impressive to look at. Thankfully no horrible, fake team-talk this year around from the stage too.
• Silverback suits are entered. Now they look slightly more muscled than before. It is in fact the same breed of sea creature that has been in the previous game only slightly altered. The in-game conversations are almost identical too. As is the process of killing it. Silverbacks can be used as cover.
• And the demo is over. There really wasn’t much playing to it. Whoever Ice-T is then goes on about making a song about Horde. They walk off to a trailer playing.
• Crytek trailer next. Something about Rome. A Kinect sword fighting game. Trailer is utterly unrealistic and all cutscene. The game is called Ryse.
• Halo music plays.
• “10 years ago Halo changed the way people play games” – yeah, thanks for that.
• A remastered version of the first Halo game. Enhanced multi-player, co-op and so on. Halo: Anniversary. Is it too late to pitch an alternate title? Halo: Cash-in.
• Dan Greenawalt takes the stage for Forza 4. Starts talking about cars in a manner which frankly worries me. Using a controller he then plays the game. I say play, but then a trailer using game footage players and he isn’t actually doing anything.
• Something about Top Gear. Even more reason to stop paying attention for a few minutes. Out October 11^th.
• Peter Monte-cristo takes the stage to rant about a new Fable. Called The Journey. CG trailer plays. Why is it the Age of Heroes keeps ending? “Albion’s end is coming” – about time.
• Stage demo then begins with a Kinect horse ride. Delay between on-stage and on-screen activities. Magic casting using hand motions and hand-slashing close combat. Game is out in 2012.
• Phil Spencer is back. Starts talking about an indie game that came out of no where. Minecraft.
• This year Minecraft is mixing with Kinect. Console début this winter exclusively on Xbox360+Kinect.
• He then announces a collaboration with Disney. Kinect Disneyland Adventures. An interactive Disneyland for those too lazy to go to one for real.
• Demo begins of two kids doing ‘Peter Pan’s Flight’. Horrible, horrible acting. Again it doesn’t look like they are really playing, but they probably are. Or maybe not. They reach Captain Hook and it ends there.
• “Great job you two!” – don’t try to be actors.
• Two more awful children play an Alice in Wonderland themed game now. “This is so cool!” one of the kids says for reasons unknown. Game will be available this holiday. Ends with a trailer.
• Star Wars music plays. Star Wars Kinect. Cleverly they are showing the trailer rather than the now infamous footage of Kudo actually trying to play it for real. Though even in the footage it just looks so cumbersome and slow.
• Oh dear it’s a on-stage demo of the same section that’s been doing the rounds. Let’s see if it goes any better.
• “Lightsaber On!” – is that how those things work?
• On stage player tries to lift a ship and throw it away. Fails miserably first try. Second try goes better. Terrible delay between his slashes and them happening in the game. Sabre fighting seems slow and basic. Graphics are pretty terrible.
• Next up is Tim Schafer for Double Fine. He looks more like a Hobbit every time I see him. He’s showing off Sesame Street Once Upon a Monster for Kinect.
• Elmo! Kill him! Oh, apparently you can’t. This reminds me of those interactive holographic fairytales they had in Star Trek Voyager. In a disturbing, bad way. To be fair, young kids will probably love this kind of thing.
• Kudo Tsunoda takes the stage to talk about Kinect again. Bah. When he speaks it’s like he’s constantly smelling something awful under his nose. Perhaps he is, given the amount of garbage coming out of his mouth.
• Kinect Fun Labs. That sounds fun. Controller free entertainment, starting with ‘people scanning’. “In the future, you can become your avatar.”
• You can instantly create an avatar that looks like you, because apparently we all want that. Kinect also seems to capture clothing. Resulting avatar looks barely like the person on stage, however the clothes do match. How is that going to work for branded stuff?
• Kinect ‘finger tracking’ is the next thing. Doesn’t it already do that? Person on stage takes a picture of himself in a stupid pose, then a second to go with it. He’s drawing in the air with his finger and lines appear in front and behind his image, in 3D.
• Kinect ‘object capture’. I like my soul where it is, thank you. Woman holding a bizarre toy takes to the stage. She makes a digital version of it then dances around. Again I’m curious about how this will all work with copyrighted images, figures or material.
• Kudo talks some more. White noise. Some of it is available right now to try. He leaves to a trailer of Kinect Sports 2 using Xbox Live avatars.
• Nicole Makilna (don’t have such a complicated surname if you expect me to spell it right!). She’s here to talk about in-game voice and Kinect gestures for playing sports within video games. She’s showing golf and football.
• A gesture can make the game give you a view of the whole course. She takes a swing. “Change club” command and specific club name worked.
• Oh they meant rugby, not football. Two men take to the stage with awful back and fourth conversation about plays. “Time to show off the bazooka” – careful now, kids might be watching this stuff.
• From Harmonics Kasson Crooker takes the stage for Dance Central 2 to perhaps embarrass himself again with some – yeah he did that dance.
• Tuned out for a few minutes there because there was music and dancing and other things I’m allergic too.
• Don is back, probably to wrap up and end on something big. Come on, Don, don’t just go on about Kinect. Call of Duty DLC will be available first on 360.
• He closes with a first look at……..wait for it. The start of a new trilogy apparently. Something familiar about this but I can’t place it. Ah, a brand new Halo set after Halo 3. Halo 4. Okay then. Out next year.

That’s it for Microsoft. Very Kinect heavy which is a great disappointment. It probably isn’t the case, but I come away honestly believing most of the on-stage demos were using pre-recorded footage for the Kinect interactions. If that’s true it may just be to avoid the mistake Nintendo made last year during the Skyward Sword stage demo.

We could be making some Big mistakes here.

E3 is so close now, you can almost smell the sweat of thousands of journos crowded together in a heated building. Ew. If you thought that we’d decided to ignore the opportunity to embarrass ourselves with swiftly destroyed predictions this year, think again!

A handful of us at CG are brave/stupid enough to offer you our carefully considered opinions/blind guesses on what surprises this year’s sweatfest will bring. As editor, I’ll go first. That way, you’ll hopefully have forgotten what I said by the time you get to the end of the article.

Despite all the rumours and alleged leaks, I think that there’ll be at least one huge surprise regarding Nintendo’s new console. I’m not quite foolhardy enough to be more specific than that but, if pushed, I’d say that it will relate to the functionality of the (allegedly touchscreenised) controller. I do however expect Resident Evil 6 to be announced as a timed exclusive for this console; though not necessarily at this year’s E3.

New console!

Sony have two options at E3; pretend the hack never happened, or run straight into it headfirst (which they almost certainly will do). The security breach has hurt Sony both in terms of image and of finances. Because of this – and the knowledge that Nintendo will be showing off a previously secret console – Sony need to pull out all the stops this year. In order to do that at short notice, they’d have to show off something unexpected that’s not long come off the drawing board. Tantalising as it is, the NGP will not be enough.

Microsoft are hardest to guess this year. There are conflicting reports from within the industry regarding their next console. If it is in development, I’d still be shocked to see it announced any time soon. We’ll probably see a big push for Kinect, as this is (I think) the do-or-die year for it. I’d expect this to include a long on-stage presentation for Child of Eden. Ironically, this multiformat title could prove to be Kinect’s killer app.

Kevin says: At E3 this year I expect/hope to see Nintendo giving us 3DS owners some decent games to play. I’m looking forward to seeing the new Mario game, but would love to see them create a new franchise, rather than remakes or sequels to existing franchises.

I expect MS to have some new arm waving Kinect games on show for the hardcore. Will we see Xbox 720 previewed? I doubt it as they are only just starting to see the dollars rolling in now from the 360, and wouldn’t want to stop consumers investing in Kinect. I think a new Halo will be teased.

As for Sony I think they’ll spend most of their 5 hour conference apologising for the PSN hack, and Kaz Hirai will get very publically flogged by Kevin Butler, much to the amusement of the baying crowd. Obviously NGP will be getting a lot of exposure and we may get a good look at Uncharted and Call of Duty on the portable.

Anthony says: As far as major platform holders are concerned, I reckon Nintendo are going to win E3 again this year. With a new console to unveil, that may or may not have a new and innovative angle to it, Sony and Microsoft really need to pull rose scented fingers out of their R&D departments to compete. Sony could probably get a big cheer by simply telling us their full online service works again.

New handheld!

Looking at individual game reveals, my soft spot lies with Hitman: Absolution, as long as IO and Square Enix don’t draw inspiration from Kane & Lynch…

Editor’s note: Anthony was the only one who stuck to the suggested 100 words for contributions to this piece. Brownie points (and much less room for embarrassment) for him.

Steven, AKA Grumpy Gurevitz, says: Nintendo: Show off new console. Promises some amazing third and first party games which won’t be released till at least 2013. Amazing content and online connectivity will be suggested, but no concrete plans laid out. 3DS will be relaunched with E-Store and possibly upgraded ‘friends’ functionality as core components. E-Store will underwhelm with lack of content from launch.

Sony: 3D, 3D, 3D. Did I mention 3D? Much more on the PSP2/NGP. Possible PS3 price cut. Lots of Uncharted 3. Google TV implementation.

Microsoft: 3D as well! Kinect hardcore game demonstration (Call of Duty implementation?), Halo future, and past revisited and remastered; Gears of War 3.

What will be missing from previous E3s…… Any reference to Music/Instrument based games…..

Stephen (his higher ph value means he’s an alkali) says: Let’s face it: motion controls aren’t working out very well. At the very least, they’re not particularly well-liked. Sony and Microsoft will probably have to defend this trend, but Nintendo is in a different situation. Most of us are probably hoping that the beloved company returns to their roots with a new console at least slightly more appropriate for traditional games, but is that a realistic notion? The Wii was, of course, wildly successful, but its glory days are waning. While their competitors fumble about with magic wands and 3D glasses, perhaps Nintendo will initiate phase two of their secret plan. Now that the casual demographic has been hooked, is it time to teach them about Star Fox and RPGs? Could all those waggle shenanigans have served the purpose of actually broadening the audience to deepen the gaming experience? Is that a load of wishful nonsense? Regardless, if Nintendo plans to reclaim their previous splendour and make a shift towards (forgive my condescension) “real” games, the time is now!

We're not quite sure!

Our lovable self-declared philanthropist – sorry, misanthropist – Ian says: My prediction is that it will involve lots of horrible, scripted back and forth between 40+ year old men pretending to be in their 20s, especially if they waste stage time on Cliffy B or any of the Gears 3 team while morons applaud at nothing. Or did you mean something other than that?

Wii 2 and it’ll be just about as good as a 360, barely. Might have 3D aspects, but it’s a long shot they’ll even move up to HD so we’ll see.

Nintendo will quietly hide how poor the 3DS has done and probably try and build it back up with more Zelda, Mario, blah blah.

More on the next Devil May Cry, I suspect they might even give in and change Dante’s look to something closer to how he should look.

Mass Effect 3 trailer/dev walkthrough that’ll amaze everyone and disguise the fact that it’ll just be more of the same untweaked game.

Dead Island 4-player co-op playable (cheating here, they stated it will be there). Dark Souls will be getting attention but I doubt that’d be a surprise. Might be a War for Cybertron 2 reveal, not that anyone besides me is interested in that.

Steam will announce global economic control and begin killing long time hold-outs and protestors of their methods (it’s been nice knowing you all).

I personally hope for a lot of NGP info because Sony is going to have to do something big to survive. Watching them awkwardly talk about the attacks is going to be hilarious.

I doubt there will be any really big surprises outside of new console/handheld news (I don’t count things like MW3 gameplay or similar as a surprise…or interesting).

Isn’t he adorable?

So, there are our predictions and hopes for E3 2011. All that remains is to watch them all slowly but surely fall from the skies in flames, wincing and cringing with each failure. The good news is, Snezana will come back with some reports on what actually happened. Stay tuned!

Nordic Games already have a trio of Wii exclusive We Sing games under their collective belt – including We Sing Encore and We Sing Robbie Williams, which we reviewed and had much guilty fun with (don’t judge) – and they’re planning to show off not one, not two, not three, but (yup, you guessed it) four new additions to the franchise at E3.

As well as boasting of their shiny new US office, Nordic Games will be showing off We Sing America, We Sing UK Hits, We Sing Pop!, and We Sing Rock!. Oddly, We Sing Rock! has only been announced for PAL territories. The exclamation mark hints that we won’t be seeing an awful lot of Cannibal Corpse or Napalm Death in the tracklist, but there’s huge potential for cheesy hair-rock anthems. Isn’t that what karaoke should be all about?

Tracklists will (hopefully) be revealed at E3 at least in part, and we’ll have a rather stressed and overworked Snezana at the event to see them first-hand. With the upcoming We Dance also set to feature, Nordic Games look to have a busy year ahead of them.

Civilization V looks to improve yet again upon its predecessor. During E3, one of the producers at 2K tried to tell us what it is that makes Civ V so much cooler than all previous Civs.

Simplicity is one of the changes to the game. And that doesn’t mean they’ve made the game easy and casual, it just means that they made the game clean up its act. This means UI improvements that are simple and clear. The most commonly used functions are now shown in the front, moving into the depth with a second row that shows less used functions. This second row is normally hidden from view, but pops up when you want it to.

Tech trees are another way of cleaning the game and giving the player a better overview.   You can assign priorities in the tech tree to influence what your civilization will become like. Although simplicity is a big point, control and detail is not given up. Besides control over your tech tree you can tune your civ with ‘social policies’: upgrades for your civilization that you buy with culture.

Strategy

Civilization V wouldn’t be part of the Civilization series if it didn’t have strategy. The first change they made, according to the 2K producer, was a big one that yet looks small in many of our eyes. Civ V says goodbye to the good old square tiles and adopts hexagons.

Switch to hexagons

But don’t worry, this isn’t the most exciting change to the series. Civ V introduces city states, which are cities that are AI controlled and you can interact with them like you do with every AI. Except now they won’t be part of the enemies you have to defeat to win the game, but you can use them to your advantage. This means befriending them and utilising them for trade or for gaining culture. However, a friendship with certain city states brings with it the responsibilities many countries experience in real life. If your buddy declares or is declared war, you have to choose to support them or not. If you don’t, they won’t take that decision lightly.

Although city states primarily seem to be there to befriend, you can also choose to have a bit of irrational fun with them and attack them. You can either show off your military muscle and force your way into the city, or act like a fancy playboy and simply buy your way ‘into their hearts’.

As mentioned before, there has been a switch from square tiles to hexagons. More tile changes, as exciting as it sounds, have been made. While Civilization always allowed us to build huge armies and simply ravage the entire map, part five takes a slightly more subtle approach to warfare. You are now only allowed to place 1 unit per tile, making every piece of military and tile important. So it’s no longer just about large numbers; the kind of units, tactics and their position is much more important.

Bonjour, Napoleon

Leaders have always been present in the Civ series, although you never really got to interact with them while playing the game. This time that’s about to change, according to the 2K producer. Characters like Hiawatha and Augustus Ceasar, also playable, will now interactively engage in conversation when you run into them while, just to name something, trying to invade their land.

Chatting with Queen Elizabeth

As the preview shows a wonderful CG Napoleon talking to us in French, leader to leader, the extended contact with the AI is further explained. Of the 18 leaders present in the game, each of them has been given a unique personality. This personality pops off the screen in the new diplomacy screen that is armed with a full 3D environment and animated leaders speaking in their native tongue. Every leader comes with their own animated environment, so you will meet Gandhi by the river and Napoleon on the battlefield.

Also look forward to..

Multiplayer and modding. Both great additions for the big Civilization fans. Developer Firaxis has made it even easier for the player to find great mods: you can see all the mods in game.

Although there is still a lot they weren’t talking about, let me name a few things to look forward to:

Tanks, choppers, building a spaceship as a technologic victory and nuking someone. Nuking the heck out of them. A sneak peak of throwing a nuclear bomb on a technologically advanced opponent that posed a serious threat, was by far the most impressive preview of the game. But that might just be because nukes in games are so very awesome. Expect more this fall, as Civilization V is released.

Remember the Nintendo Wii? Of course you do, everyone and your dog owns one. It is the little white (or now black) box that couldn’t satisfy you if you had the nerve to consider yourself “proper hardcore.”

That’s a half-truism. Every now and then a more mature game with a different target audience than what the Wii generally caters to is released, such as No More Heroes, Madworld, or House of the Dead Overkill. Unfortunately, these games usually tank on the charts because the audience these games are aimed at probably doesn’t own a Wii, or if they do, they’ve long since forgotten about it. Why? Games that target the traditional fan base took a little too long getting to the machine, or are so few and far between that they can often slip by the public unnoticed.

The Conduit, released in the summer of 2009, was one of those games that slipped by the radar. There was a lot of hype leading up to its release, but once it hit store shelves the game received mixed reviews from industry leading critics, and worse than that, it had box art that screamed “bargain bin.”

Okay. Honestly, that was a larger introduction than I’m used to writing, and chances are that you, the reader, have stopped doing your job. That is, uh, reading.

Conduit 2 (the developers dropped the “The” from the title) is coming out in the fall of this year, and if all goes according to plan, it’ll blow the pants off of not only the original, but what you expect from a Wii shooter.

First off, let’s be clear: developer High Voltage Software (HVS) is smart. Many people consider the original Conduit to be a technological marvel on the Wii console. The Quantom3 engine has been refined once again and the effects are immediately noticeable. Conduit 2 looks phenomenal. Wii release or not, the game looks good. It’d be mind blowing in full 1080p. HVS knows what they are doing with visuals.

But what really makes HVS so intelligent is that they listen to the gamers. They listen to the critics. Yes, most companies say they do, but these guys really are. In this day and age you have to. There is so much competition in the market that you can’t afford to ignore what the users online are talking about. You have to compete for the love. You have to compete for the money.

One of the complaints critics made was about boss battles. In the original, there wasn’t so much bosses as there were regular, powered up regular enemies. Gameplay design flaw number 1. In the sequel, there are full on bosses with full on battles. Early levels on display showcased a canned fight scene versus a rather hefty leviathan.

Working around Nintendo’s Friend Code policy, HVS has developed their own in-game Rivals List. This will allow you to bookmark friends and enemies in a quick and easy manner, rather than using the clunky Friends Code option delivered to you by Nintendo in most system releases.

Wii Motion Plus? Well, of course. It’d be absolutely juvenile for High Voltage to release a game catering to this particular market without accessories for the hardcore. Interestingly enough, however, HVS isn’t going to use Motion Plus for your traditional 1-for-1 movement tracking, and instead will use the optional add-on for recalibration of the controller. Essentially, when you move your Wii remote cursor off screen, the device will help recognize it quicker.

There are improvements to be mentioned for sure but to be frank, Conduit 2 looks strikingly similar to The Conduit. If you’re a Wii gamer looking for a more traditional first person shooting experience, check out this game. If by chance you are regular, run of the mill Nintendo Wii user (there are 70+ million of you), you will probably walk right by HVS’s newest offering, looking for a friendly family title.