E3 Awards 2009 (or, I'm Lazy, So Here's a List)
1.) The Giant Blue Ball Award (best game not out until 2010) - God of War 3The thing about God of War's "hero" Kratos is that he's an a-hole. Not the kind of a-hole who will make fun of your favorite shirt and then buy you a beer to show that he's "only kidding," but a real a-hole. He's the kind of guy who will make fun of your favorite shirt and then murder you, but not before he murders your entire family and eats your dog, all the while complaining about how much he has been wronged.
Still, though...did you see that gameplay footage? I never realized how much I've wanted to stab something with its own horns.
2.) The "oz-WEE-pay" Johnson Award (most unfortunately-titled game) - Women's Murder Club
It's probably best if I don't go into what kind of images the title of this game conjured in my sick, sick mind, especially once I learned that it's coming out on the DS. Needless to say, though, they were pretty jacked up.
3.) The "Brandon from College" Award (game I really just want to go away) - Bayonetta
In the past, I have described certain Japanese franchises as "gleefully sexist." Anyone who is not sure about what I mean by that has never seen this trailer, which features the eponymous angel-slayer...and her crotch.
We're looking at three more months of footage like that before the game comes out, and then I'm sure we'll be getting some TV ads like the one for DoA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. You remember it...the one where the guys can't even be in the same room as the game without holding pillows over their laps. I'd have posted a link to that monstrosity, but I think my computer refuses to play it. At this point, it doesn't even matter if Bayonetta is a good game or not; I can't think about it without remembering the look the cashier at Kay-Bee gave me when I bought my Sniper Wolf action figure.
4.) The Coupon for One Free Beer Award (sickest burn by a videogame writer covering E3) - JC Fletcher, Joystiq
"If we were wearing a Wii Vitality Sensor right now, would Nintendo sense that we'd fallen asleep?"
5.) The "We Had a Fantastic Second Quarter" Award (greatest accomplishment I can't make myself care about) - Motion controllers
Yeah, yeah...Sony has a wand, and Microsoft has a creepy British kid. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I have a hard time getting too worked up over tech demos. Remember that one for the PS3 where they rendered a whole lot of rubber ducks being poured into a bathtub in real time? All I could think was, "Yep...that sure is a whole lot of rubber ducks. Clearly the PS3 is leaps ahead of the PS2...in terms of ducks."
My mantra, when faced with tech demos, is this: "Where are the games?" Granted, I tend to only believe one out of every four words that come out of Peter Molyneux's oddly-shaped head. And if the Sony Wand had turned into, say, a lightsaber, instead of an MS-Paint-style blocky gun, then maybe I could have mustered up some enthusiasm. And if you really want to show how "Milo" reacts to random input, then don't show him talking about fish and then getting a sheet of paper with a fish drawn on it. Show him talking about fish and then draw something else. Then see what he does. That could be some next-level stuff.
Oh, and Motion Plus is coming out, too? Are you sure? Okay, then.
6.) The "Holy Shit, Metroid!" Award (best game that is Metroid) - Metroid: Other M
I wasn't expecting this at all. And I definitely wasn't expecting the next Metroid game to be mostly third-person. This is awesome; I can't wait to see what Team Ninja does with the franchise.
Wait a minute...
Didn't Team Ninja do DoA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball?
Shit.
Honestly, though, it looks pretty good.
-Evan
3 Comments On This Post:
Regarding Bayonetta, I've become so disaffected by Japanese tropes that I've forsworn the anything overtly Japanese. Though lumping all Japanese games together is potentially prejudice and means I'll probably miss out on a few gems, I've come to the conclusion that I don't give a shit. When Japanese gamemakers collectively get their shit together and meet my following demands, they'll start collecting my money again:
Friday, June 5, 2009 at 7:59:00 AM CDT1) No more preteen girls in skimpy outfits doing sexually provocative things. If you don't know what I'm talking about, reference the internet.
2) No more impossibly large breasted women doing incredulously physical activities in unreasonably revealing clothing. This includes, but is not limited to, fighting, playing volleyball, wielding a sword or other melee weapon, jumping hundreds of feet in the air, gunplay, performing magic in a dance-like fashion, etc.
3) No more androgynous male characters. Square-Enix I'm looking at you. If I have to closely examine several screenshots of FFXIII to be able to tell the main character's gender then something went wrong, a long time ago. And its not that there can be no androgynous male characters, its that there should be at least a few male characters I can spot by a lack of breasts or a miniskirt.
4) No more dodgy Japanese humor. Learn what makes the rest of the world laugh and try to incorporate some of it.
5) Cutesy can suck my ass. Things cease to be actually cute when they become a worn out cliche. Find a new angle.
6) Find new character archetypes. The whiny reluctant hero, the bossy girl, the brooding selfish introvert, the dumb guy who likes to eat a lot, yeah, we've seen them before. You're not breaking any new ground. Come up with something new and interesting.
Thats just the tip of the iceberg.
Oh, and Nintendo can suck my ass too. Vitality Sensor? Are they even trying anymore? Metroid aside, the entire week was a scratch for Nintendo IMHO.
Great post though Evan.
Evan and Glenn,
Friday, June 5, 2009 at 10:40:00 AM CDTYou'll be hearing more about this from me on our next show, but Nintendo's already done the Vitality Sensor - and if you don't know what I'm talking about, that should give you a clue as to just how well it went over.
There once was a game called Tetris 64 that came packed with a Bio Sensor - a heartbeat sensor that plugged into the N64 controller (sound familiar, Mr. Vitality Sensor?) and clipped to the player's earlobe to measure heartrate.
The idea was that the game would get harder or easier depending on the player's stress level. To this day I still want a copy of this game and the Bio Sensor, just to see how well it works. I can't imagine that you'll get much more out of a heartbeat sensor worn on your finger vs. one worn on your earlobe, so I really don't know what they're thinking.
A Google search for "Tetris 64" and another for "N64 Bio Sensor" take you to the exact same Wikipedia article, so as far as I know, this little doodad wasn't used for any other games, and was never sold outside of Japan.
Relevant Links:
Tetris 64
Bio Sensor
-Phil
Glenn-
Friday, June 5, 2009 at 11:03:00 AM CDTAs far as archetypes go, don't forget about the "awkward wunderkind" and the "useless, stuck-up bitch."
Phil-
I remember the Bio Sensor, and of course it's no less crazy now.
Also, I forgot to mention the DIY WarioWare title...apparently, Nintendo is no longer content to dedicate their own/third-party partners' resources to minigame collections, and has passed it on to us.
Yay?
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