The E3 Thread

Asher · May 20, 2002, 05:23

Well, the 2002 Electronics Entertainment Expo (E³) officially starts later this week in Los Angeles, but the news is rolling in now already.

Effective Tuesday May 21st, the Nintendo Gamecube will be $149US. The Xbox and PS2 are currently $199US.

Three new first and second party Xbox games have been leaked. 2 of them seem to be targetting a Nintendo-type audience.

The first game is called Blinx: The Time Sweeper, and is created by the same team that made Sonic games. (Screenshot)

The second game is called TaoFeng, and is a "realistic" fighter game complete with in-battle blood, wounds, and clothing ripping, etc. (Screenshot)

The third game is called Tork, which looks like Banjo Kazooie or something. (Screenshot)

Tomorrow @ 5pm PDT, Microsoft is holding the first news conference. Then tuesday morning, Sony has its conference, followed by Nintendo. Wednesday the expo starts.

It also has come out that Microsoft is spending $1B US on Xbox Live, including huge server farms in Tokyo, London, and Seattle, and plans to unveil the service tomorrow. The New York Times reports that it will be $9.95/mo for unlimited Xbox Online games, or $49/year (which includes the voice headset [Picture])

The following is what we already know about Xbox Live:

Quote:

* Stats tracking across all games. Uses of this will be bragging rights, and even the ability to challenge someone around your skill level to a certain game.
* Consistent interfaces and features across all online games. ig, mandatory support of the voice headset (players can use it optionally, and if they use it they can use the built in voice morphing software and mute players they don't want to hear.)
* Ability to keep a buddy list of people you enjoy playing with, showing online/offline status and to talk to them.
* Ability to challenge other users to play even a completely different game than you've got in the machine. The Xbox actually supports you challenging people to a different game, at which point you swap the DVD while it keeps you connected and you boot up into the other game and immediately play with those people.
* Ability to pay a flat fee and play unlimited games online for that month/year. Nintendo and Sony opted for a route where developers can charge per game played, or what have you.

Rumored Xbox games to be announced and shown at E3 include Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, Grand Theft Auto (either 3, 3: Miami, or 4, or a combination), Brute Force, Project Ego, Knights of the Old Republic, Splinter Cell, LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring, ToeJam and Earl III, Deathrow, Crazy Taxi 3, MechAssault, Duality, House of the Dead 3, Sega GT 2002, Yager, and a slew of unannounced titles.

More as E3 develops.

Buck Birdseed · May 20, 2002, 08:13

You make E3 sound as if it was Gamestock or something... Surely there are other publishers than Microsoft?

I'm looking forward to seing what the seventh LucasArts game is, if it's another Adventure game... Whoo!

Juggernaut · May 20, 2002, 11:03

There will be playable versions of eg. Mario Sunshine, Starfox Aventures and Metroid Prime on the show floor...

Asher · May 20, 2002, 16:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Snapcase
You make E3 sound as if it was Gamestock or something... Surely there are other publishers than Microsoft?

I don't pay too much attention to what the other guys are doing, that's what this thread is for. Tell me.

Asher · May 20, 2002, 16:29

Xbox:
LucasArts just announced that the Star Wars MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies will be on the Xbox (it's coming to the PS2 and PC as well).
IGN also has done a hands-on with Deus Ex 2 for Xbox (IGN Insiders only)

Cube:
Looks like there's some kind of Godzilla game coming.

PS2:
We know the prices for some PS2 addons. The Hard Drive will cost you $80US, the network adapter will cost you $40. Some quick math shows that in order to get the same stuff you get with the Xbox, the PS2 costs $200 (Console) + $80 (HD) + $40 (Network) + $30 (Multi-tap) = $350. But that's just me.

Sony's really making some money here...

IGN has posted a new Tenchu 3 preview for IGN Insiders.

First Impressions of Devil May Cry 2 from GameSpot.

Misc
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is PS2 and Xbox bound.

HisMajestyBOB · May 20, 2002, 16:42

I'm looking foward to more information on Hearts of Iron and Crusader Kings by Paradox. Screw Micro$oft

Imran Siddiqui · May 20, 2002, 17:01

What about PC news

I could give a flying **** about consoles.

Asher · May 20, 2002, 17:04

PC News at E3 isn't anything surprising.

We already know they'll show DOOM III, Civ3: PTW, etc. There's nothing big coming out of the PC sector.

Console gaming is where everything's heating up.

MS spending $1B on the Xbox Live service in 2002 is astonishing, and not matched in the PC world.

Imran Siddiqui · May 20, 2002, 17:05

Quote:

There's nothing big coming out of the PC sector.

That's because you aren't looking

.

Asher · May 20, 2002, 17:06

For Imran:
PC:
Deux Ex 2 preview with screenshots.

And uh...that's all the PC news that I can find right now.

monolith94 · May 20, 2002, 17:16

Asher: are you an insider to that page? If so, could you post the text content to this site...?

Asher · May 20, 2002, 17:20

Quote:

Originally posted by monolith94
Asher: are you an insider to that page? If so, could you post the text content to this site...?

For which article?

Asher · May 20, 2002, 18:27

MS' pre-E3 press conference has ended with a bang.

The following games were announced, shown, and discussed, and it is by no means all games that will be announced at E3 for the Xbox. More will be shown every day.

Halo 2 (online with Xbox Live)

Ninja Gaiden

Half Life: Counter-Strike (online Xbox Live)

Psychonauts

Blinx: The Timesweeper (see below)

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

Tork

Midtown Madness 3 (online with Xbox Live)

Phantasy Star Online (online with Xbox Live)

Splinter Cell

Project Ego

Star Wars Galaxies

Brute Force

MechAssault

Dead to Rights

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

Dead or Alive Extreme Volleyball

Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus

Steel Battallion

Panzer Dragoon Orta

Project Gotham Racing (online with Xbox Live)

Amped (online with Xbox Live)

Rallisport Challenge (online with Xbox Live)

NBA Inside Drive 2003

NFL Fever 2003

Quantum RedShift

ToeJam & Earl 3

Turok Evolution

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

Kakuto Chojin

Here's what IGN said of Blinx:

Quote:

Blinx could be the most innovative, industry-changing title of them all and as such we're gong to give you all we know about it right now:

Read it now and believe it -- Blinx is a revolutionary platformer. Not just for the platform genre (he's more than just a cat with vacuum cleaner and his name isn't Luigi), but for videogames as we know them. Blinx takes the Xbox hard drive and more or less makes it function like a Tivo or Ultimate TV system. Play is recorded using around 200 megs of hard drive space. When you die, the game rewinds in front of your eyes to a point where you can start again. That's not all Blinx can do, though.

Players will be able to fast forward, record, rewind, and stop time to assist them in their quest. For example, a barrel falls off a roof. You pause the game, then hop on the barrel and rewind the game, allowing you to ride the barrel to the top of the roof from where it had fallen. The title character in Blinx is not affected by the shifts in time, and can move independent of the affected environment.

Not only is the application of the hard drive in this game an amazing innovation, but has the looks of a second generation Xbox game. Created by Sonic/Nights game designer Naoto Oshima for his Artoon development house, Blinx should be bolting, as you read this, to the top tier of most wanted Xbox games.

And other misc comments about the press conference by IGN:

Quote:

As we said the next version of Halo (MS won't even refer to it as Halo 2) will be online but the company was not forthcoming with any details beyond this. This title of course drew the biggest cheers from the assembled crowd with Counter-Strike, Ninja Gaiden and Star Wars Galaxies splitting second place honors for the biggest ovations. Tecmo's take on volleyball featuring those oh-so-endearing women from Dead or Alive was the game that caused people to drool, shift in their seats and adjust accordingly. There was drooling with Star Wars Galaxies, but certainly no adjusting.

Beyond the multiple bomb drops of game announcements, the Xbox braintrust pointed to past successes of Xbox as well as financial plans for the future in their effort to reaffirm the strength of the company and the platform The first European sales figures from Microsoft were announced with the company claiming 500,000 units sold in that territory along with an 88% attach rate for the all-powerful Halo. That's 440,000 copies of Bungie's breakthrough first person shooter for those of you slow on the math. In fact, Halo was leading the pack of top selling Xbox games along with the four other titles that sold more than 500,000 copies. All tolled, the Xbox could boast more than 20 titles that have seen sales of 100,000 copies or more compared to the ten 100,000+ titles for the GameCube over the first five months of each system's US run.

For those of you worried about stuff like CounterStrike playing without a mouse, you should know that "The Claw" is hitting the streets soon and allows any mouse with a USB adapter (all modern MS mice, for example) to connect to the Xbox for use in games like this).

monolith94 · May 20, 2002, 20:20

Eheheh, you already posted it for Imran… thanks anyways though.

So Deus Ex 2 is coming, eh? Looks pretty damn fine if you ask me...

Imran Siddiqui · May 20, 2002, 20:31

Ah, that it does

.

I hope they have another great story for this one

.

Provost Harrison · May 20, 2002, 20:33

Anything on Doom 3?

Asher · May 20, 2002, 20:47

Not yet, from what I've heard it's going to be shown behind closed doors only

There's a HUGE banner outside the convention hall that says "DOOM III" then 2003 below it.

Provost Harrison · May 20, 2002, 20:48

Hmmm, it's not going to be another one of those games that never actually materialises. Dare I say 'Duke Nukem Forever'?

Asher · May 20, 2002, 20:50

I don't think it will be. Carmack writes his own engine, Duke Nukem Forever keeps taking forever because they've changed the game engine like 4 times now.

Plus Quake IV is already in development with the pre-release DOOM III engine.

alva · May 20, 2002, 20:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Anything on Doom 3?

will not be released before 2003!

Asher · May 20, 2002, 20:55

Xbox.com has been updated.
It now reads:

Quote:

200 games by this holiday season - including stunning exclusives, a new online game service called Xbox Live, and a $2 billion commitment fuel the future of Xbox.

They've set up an E3 page here: http://www.xbox.com/e3-02/default.htm
Tomorrow morning they're going to post video from today's press conference.

Provost Harrison · May 20, 2002, 20:55

I mean, how long has Duke Nukem been under development for? It's stalled for too long, and who is paying their wages while they continue to bugger around.

Asher · May 20, 2002, 21:01

I have no idea who's paying Duke Nukem's paychecks.

In other news, Sony has lowered the MSRP for PS2 games to $39 from $49.

Hopefully MS and Nintendo follow suit.

Provost Harrison · May 20, 2002, 21:05

Oh, who cares here about crappy consoles, after all, we are all bleeding PC users for the most part

Asher · May 20, 2002, 21:06

There's no real PC news until wednesday. It's a far, far less competitive market.

Right now, Nintendo, Sony, and MS are all trying to set a pace for the show to try to dominate it.

Asher · May 21, 2002, 03:52

Ahhhhhhhhh so much Xbox news so many coolass games coming.

Most importantly it was confirmed that Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is coming to Xbox first, and PS2 will get it sometime later.

It's like MGS2: Sons of Liberty, but WAY more playtime and you can also play as Snake! Woot. Way more information here: http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories...866504,00.html

Ninja Gaiden was also confirmed as an Xbox exclusive.

Provost Harrison · May 21, 2002, 06:46

Consoles, consoles, consoles...

The Emperor Fabulous · May 21, 2002, 07:18

All I have to say is...

WWE Wrestlemania X8 (GC)
WWE Smackdown 4 (PS2)
WWE Raw 2 (XBOX)
WWE Crush Hour (Car fighting game - All)
Legends of Wrestling (GC, XBOX)
Legends of Wrestling 2 (PS2)
UFC Tapout (GC, PS2)

Tis a good time to be a wrestling videogame fan!

(BTW: WWE is the new name for WWF, who lost a court battle with the World Wildlife Foundation.)

Chowlett · May 21, 2002, 07:33

Quote:

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
(BTW: WWE is the new name for WWF, who lost a court battle with the World Wildlife Foundation.)

Actually, I don't believe they lost, per se, they just agreed to change when it became clear they were going to lose.

moomin · May 21, 2002, 08:57

All those games - nothing but FPS, platform games and racing games? I was really hoping someone would come around to start releasing strategy on consoles. MS had a chance to really do something interesting by having that HD, and what do we get? Rewinding platform crap. Feh.