E3 2011 Day Two: Random Musings

– It was interesting talking to industry people about bad names. There are a lot of poorly named games and a pair of new consoles with bad names at E3 2011. Most of my friends have at least three game names that bother them. A lot of them spent so much energy hating on the name PlayStation Vita that they didn’t have anything left when the name Wii U was announced.

– I’m still seeking out sleeper games, similar to how Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom impressed me at E3 2010. I’ve seen a few major titles and spent most of yesterday with Virgin Mobile Sarah, so I haven’t been able to see any underdogs yet. A bunch of my friends were surprised by Bastion, an action-RPG from Warner Bros. Interactive. A few told me that Ubi’s The Adventures of Tin Tin was surprisingly fun in an old-school way — kind of like a mix of Donkey Kong and Elevator Action with modern production values. I’ll try to check out both today.

– After two days of game consumption, the majority of my friends still have BioShock Infinite pegged as the best game of the show by far. A lot of them are trying to get second viewings of the behind-closed-doors demo, simply because it’s 100-percent pure awesome.

– It’s funny talking to longtime developers that are now working on Kinect games. Showing off the same demo dozens of times a day for three days straight was draining at previous E3 shows. Being physically active has taken it to a new level.

– It’s always excellent seeing old industry friends, especially ones you haven’t seen for a long time and ones you’ve had a crush on for years (Annette Cardwell). It’s always excellent meeting new, cool people too. Emily from 5th Cell (Scribblenauts) and Cat from Red Box are awesome.

– Speaking of Red Box, please let me know if you use their rental kiosks. I might be able to hook you up with some freebies.

– Last, but not least, I miss you guys! I’ll miss the excitement of E3 2011, but I’m looking forward to writing more and hanging out with you here. Be good!!!

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

35 thoughts on “E3 2011 Day Two: Random Musings”

  1. My boy Ray uses Red Box, although he doesn't comment here he reads quite a few of the posts.

  2. When Ray says "Virgin Mobile Sarah"' I hear him saying it in the same tone that Dan Akroyd used to say "Virgin Connie Swale" in the movie Dragnet.

    See if she can hook me up with tickets to space!

  3. I can only imagine how tired those guys are. Same goes for you, actually being there and covering it. I'm two-fisting Mountain Dew and 5 Hour Energy drinks just trying to keep up with it all from home.

    1. It's actually pretty okay for me this year. Tuesday was a bunch of pre-production for Sarah and Wednesday was mostly Sarah. I had some time to take appointments on my own, but it's not like when I was writing for GameSpy, G4, etc. Those days were tough — taking appointments all day, writing previews until my brain turned to jelly, and "networking" at parties. The best was covering E3 for my Yahoo! show — film all day and party all night! *sigh* I miss having my own show.

      1. Nice, I just checked out some of the game play online (watched about 2 mins out of 7) and decided that it would look better on my cell than my work computer. So as soon as I get out of this dead zone I am going to watch it in full.

  6. My family absolutely diggs Redbox. It singlehandedly took down our neighborhood video rental giant Blockbuster. We have a single Redbox at our local Krogers, and it ran the local Blockbuster out of business.

    My dad uses Redbox all the time; he drives a bus for sports at our local high school, and they aren't allowed to leave the bus, so he rents movies and watches them on his laptop while he waits.

    Anyway, I thought that last Vita game (I think it was Dragon's Crown) looked pretty good in an old-school arcade style. Seriously, all the old beat-em-up games use that format, from TMNT to X-Men. So, there are two "official" days of E3, but 3 days of press conferences? How does that work out?

    2. Prey 2 was a little different than what I espected, but I think it looks awesome. The story in the first one was actually pretty good, and Big Blak and I had fun doing the online stuff before. I also love that they took multiplayer out completely and focused on single player mode only. That's a really bold move (but one I can understand coming from working with Bethesda) and one with which I sometimes wish other game makers would follow suit. I haven't played it yet, but I think it is safe to say that Bioshock 2 is a game that other people feel the same with regards to the multiplayer.

      1. I played through about 3/4 of the first Prey, and I really don't know how I got that far with it. I played it during one of those release lulls and I hated it, but there wasn't really anything else that I wanted to play at that time.

        But you're right, the new one looks really interesting. It seems like it's going to be much better than the original.

      2. I think it had a lot more potential and wasn't done as well as it could have been done, but the story was still pretty fun to play through. It also felt like one of those games where it got a little dull in the middle but came back and ended strongly if you got that far. I think after working with Bethesda on the second one, along with the fact that they took out the multiplayer, the story will really shine.

      3. The problem with Prey (at least for me) was that Portal was released/demoed and really made Prey's gimmick seem second rate.

      4. That's one thing I thought at first too, but Prey was in development before Portal ever was. Also, Prey was released in 2006 and Portal wasn't until 2007. I actually thought the portals were a really cool part of Prey and them beign a part of alien technology seemed like a pretty believable part of the story and logic behind everything.

      5. @BSU

        I saw them at the same time in 2006. The demo of portal (non playable) released by Valve in my opinion is what did Prey in for me.

      7. Haha, a great way of putting it. In some of the previews and demos I saw on tv for Prey 2 when they were talking to one of the developers and he mentioned open world bounty hunter type missions Bobba Fett was the first thing that popped into my head.

  8. I got to see Duke Nukem at PAX and was not impressed, what do you think of it, if you got to see it in action?

    1. I’ve been waiting to hear news of the XBLA Summer of Arcade games, wasn’t sure when the first news would be released. I haven’t been actively seaking the information though, just looking on the XBL dashboard. A lot of the memorable XBLA games seem to have very distinctive art styles, I’m sure this one will look cool too.

  10. Hey Ray, glad to hear you had a good time at E3 this year (though how could you not?). Two questions-

    -Any idea when Redbox is supposed to be renting games? Both Blockbusters here in town are gone, so no more spontaneous rentals for me.

    -Did you get to try out the 'official' Playstation surround sound headset that's coming this fall? I'd like to know how you'd rate the sound quality.

    1. Redbox videogame rentals launch nationally on June 17. Let me know if you'd like some freebie coupons.

      I did not get a chance to try the headset. In general, E3 is a horrible place for audio demos because everyone is blasting sound from their booths, so I tend not to try stuff like that at the show.

      1. I love using Redbox, would greatly appreciate some coupons if you still have some. It will be great to see what kind of games I will be able to get in the redboxes around here. I’ve been anxious to have games be an option around me as movies have been all that’s been available.

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