Day 1

So because of some traffic, I didn't actually get into E3 until about 2pm. That gave me a little less than 4 hours to do whatever I wished, so if this seems like it's a little disjointed, please excuse me. :P



At the entrance of the South Wing you are greeted by an open Rock Band stage. Pretty cool if you're into that sort of thing I suppose.



The first thing I did was go up the stairs and just started browsing. I soon found myself confronted with Splinter Cell: Conviction. The last Splinter Cell game I played was the original way back on the Xbox, and that game really emphasized stealth over everything else. SC:C, not so much. The developer giving the overview of the game showed off the ability for you to queue up actions and then attacks on enemies in order so that you take half a second doing that, but then you drop from the ceiling and as you kill the targeted enemies it progresses automatically to the next one. This provides some really cool shots that were made where Fisher would shoot the enemy in front of him and then spin around to nail the next target behind him. Overall, I was pretty impressed with it so far.



Next, I got a bit of playtime with L4D2. Honestly, it just seems like an L4D upgrade that now takes place in Miami. If you were good at L4D, you'll be good here. The new melee weapons are interesting, but do little to really separate it from the original. Must say, I wasn't as interested as I expected.



I then decided to head on over to the Square Enix booth.



First off, FFXIII should be released in Japan mid-December, and will be making its way over to the US in early 2010. It will be using the same action-bar system that FFXII used, which I've always enjoyed.



Then I decided to check out Order of War, the up-and-coming RTS game coming to the computer from Square Enix. Sadly, I wasn't able to get any shots of the game in action (SE was really anal about photography of any kind) but I did get to play through the first mission. It seemed quite a lot like World in Conflict, albeit one set in WWII. However, the player seemed to lack control over his units. This made the battles simply whoever could spam harder. Considering the game is planned to release sometime this year, it needs some help.



Now to head over to the WB section!



Obviously, the biggest thing on display was Batman: Arkham Asylum.



They even pulled out the old-school Batmobile!



That said, the game was very fun. Even though it was set on super-easy, the combo system was fantastic, the fighting was fluid, and I can safely say that this is the first superhero game I'm interested in for a long time.

An ongoing theme is that there were tons of Rock Band/Guitar Hero/etc. Perhaps the most interesting one that I ran into was Rock Band: LEGO. Is that really necessary? As I understood it, the LEGO series of games were to make some series more kid-friendly (Indiana Jones for example). Perhaps it just set me off, but this seems like milking the cash-cow. That said, it's about time that The Final Countdown got Rock Band'd. Even if it was by the blocky brethren.



At this point I just started wandering...then I stumbled into:



The Halo:ODST exhibit! After waiting in line upwards of 40 minutes, I got my 10 minutes of playtime. It plays like a cleaned-up Halo 3, so I'm not too certain where I stand. The new gameplay mode (Firefight) was pretty fun. Basically, you hold a position against an increasing number of Covenant waves with you and three friends. You guys have a pool of 7 lives to draw from and as soon as those are exhausted, you lose. However, to switch things up a bit each wave does something a bit special based on the old skulls from Halo 3. The two waves I fought had the 'Tough Luck' boost (made them especially able to dodge grenades and roll to cover) and the 'Catch' boost (loads of Grenade spam). It's still up to debate as to whether this is really worth the full price for what is basically a Halo 3.5.



Although I didn't get to play, there was a lot of excitement over the Ghostbusters new video game...and lots of cool costumes!



Then decided to head over to the THQ booth.





The first thing I got my hands on was Red Faction Guerrilla. I went in not knowing what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. The game is done in a 3rd-person perspective, and reminded me a bit of the UT series of games. It was fast-paced, and scattered among the level was a multitude of jackets that gave you special abilities or powers. More importantly, everything in the game is destructible. After dying a couple of times, I got on a killing spree to win the game by grabbing a jacket called the 'Rhino'. What it does is basically charge you forward and crushes everything in your way. It's very hard not to yell, "I'M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!" when you charge through a concrete wall with guns blazing.



The last thing I got to play was Darksiders. It was a pretty crap way to end the evening, because the game was clearly not really ready for E3. It had a similar attack system to Fable (basic melee and ranged, four pronged 'special' attacks). However, the animations were jerky and the game clearly lagged. Perhaps with a little more work it'll be decent, but stay away from this if it doesn't change.