Game Update 4: E3 Game Impressions

I watched a ton of Stage Demos on Gamespot, so here are some specific impressions.

Assassin's Creed - The free-running still looks really cool, but the game has some sticky points. The transitional animations look really janky, and the combat could be bad. The enemies don't seem too smart and the fighting looks a bit canned and less of an actual combat system. I still want to play it just for the chase and escape parts though.

BioShock - It's just awesome how many ways you can deal with your enemies in this game, mixing and matching your different weapons and special abilities, like using a little cyclone to throw them into proximity mines, hacking health stations to injure them, it just looks like a lot of fun and really replayable. I also like the idea of the Big Daddies, tough enemies who leave you alone unless you try to kill the Little Sisters for energy to upgrade your abilities.

Blacksite: Area 51 - I guess this is sort of a sequel to Area 51 from a couple years ago, although I didn't play it. Blacksite looks pretty cool actually, it seems like it might just capture the idea of an alien attack very well. The concept of an invasion from another planet was always interesting to me, and it looks like a solid shooter.

Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway - Ever since Halo, there's been a trend in shooters of using a regenerating health system instead of a health bar. There's nothing wrong with it gameplay wise, but it doesn't actually make sense. It's fine in Halo, because it's an energy shield that recharges. But usually, you're just some guy who can shot a dozen times and be fine just by hiding behind a wall for a while. The new Brothers In Arms fixes that with just the context of how it works. When you're out in the open, you're not getting shot, your risk is just increasing, and when it maxes out you get hit and killed. It's not a big change but it just works better to me. The game itself looks pretty good, although I don't know how much patience I have for tactics-heavy shooters.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - It's a bit weird to me that they'd just dump the real war thing in the middle of a series. I can see moving away from World War II, but why not explore other true conflicts before making something up? It still seems like Call of Duty though, and Battlefield 2 made the same jump successfully, so I guess it works. There's something awesome about turning on your night vision and seeing all the laser sights criss-crossing and tracking all over the environment, and the quieter, stealthy stuff they showed at Microsoft's conference looked great too.

Conan - It looks like a less polished God of War. Also, these quick-time button things to do stuff are getting out of hand. They showed him jamming on the B button to climb a wall. What's wrong with just pressing up on the analog stick?

Dark Sector - The game itself looked pretty unimpressive, although the blade weapon that can be used in melee and as a boomerang type thing, and can be imbued with properties like fire and electricity from the environment, looked pretty cool.

Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire - Hey, a third-party Wii action game! And it doesn't look very good! The powers were kind of cool, but the Wii controls don't seem to work for a quickly-paced game like it should be, and I kind of wondered why they would say they're avoiding adventure and puzzle elements to focus on the combat. Does the Wii really need all these one-note games out there?

Fracture - The terrain deformation weaponry looks really cool, but otherwise it's a pretty standard looking shooter. That's the thing this generation, shooters are everywhere so they all have to have some sort of gimmick to get your attention. That's the problem with Haze by Free Radical - it's not bad looking, but it's a completely generic shooter from what I've seen. Not what I expect from the creative people behind Timesplitters.

Heavenly Sword - I'm not sure about it yet, the combat looks like it could be fun, but I don't know if there's enough to the game besides just fighting. The cutscenes look really great though, the facial animation is incredible and it could be acted well.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - Another third person shooter, it looks interesting more because of the premise (Crime action like Heat or something) than the gameplay too much. Although I like the idea of your squadmates helping you more or less depending on how much they like you.

Mass Effect - The conversation system looks incredible, and it's basically Knights of the Old Republic minus Star Wars and plus squad-based shooting. I'm worried too many of the planets you can explore won't be that interesting, but the main game could be pretty awesome.

Medal of Honor: Airborne - I think the gaming world has passed Medal of Honor by, although the idea of controlling your parachute and starting the level wherever you want sounds genuinely interesting. I'm not sure if I'll play it though, the shooting action itself isn't overly exciting.

Mercenaries 2: World In Flames - The demo was full of ridiculous destruction and looked awesome, although they were using health and ammo cheats so the real game won't be as crazy. Still, there's something just cool about picking up a tanker truck with a magnet on a helicopter, lifting it in the air, and throwing it to the ground as you launch rockets at it, causing a ridiculous firestorm explosion.

Orange Box - What I've seen of Half-Life 2: Episode Two has me a bit worried, because they've only really shown little abandoned villages out in the woods that you drive between and shoot robots. I'm not that concerned really though, I have too much faith in Valve's level design ability. The other games coming with it looks nice too.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction - The second and third Ratchet games were the peak of the series, and honestly some of the most genuine fun I've ever had with the medium. This looks like a return to that same form, and I can't help but be extremely excited for what it turns out to be, especially since they're focusing on the single-player in lieu of the less-than-compelling multiplayer.

Stranglehold - Everyone says it looks like Max Payne, I say it looks like Max Payne on speed. It's a lot faster and crazier than that game, but still in the same vein with stylistic third-person shooting. Also, the PS3 special edition has Hard Boiled on the disc, which is awesome.

Timeshift - The old sequel from a year ago looked pretty lame, but this appears much different and much better. The shooting itself seems pretty good, and the use of time to keep going (rewinding to get past an area before rubble collapses the way, stopping time to walk across water) looks cool.

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty - Nazis invading an unprepared America is an interesting, although somewhat flimsy idea (Would we really have not built up and entered WWII if Churchill wasn't around?) and it could be executed well, although what I saw of the gameplay seemed unpolished and I'm not sure if they have enough time to really fix it.

Turok - It actually looks pretty cool, and it's interesting to see three factions interacting (you and your guys, an opposing group of humans, and the dinosaurs) and how you can work them against each other. Also, knifing velociraptors to death is neat.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - It does the same fix of the recharging health system as Brothers In Arms, except it's your luck running out instead of your risk increasing. The game itself also looks like a really cool mix of Prince of Persia/new Tomb Raider style platforming and shooting, and it's nice to see Naughty Dog finally put targeting in one of their games.

A lot of cool looking stuff at E3 despite a lack of new announcements, and I'm genuinely excited about the future of gaming.