Post E3-Thoughts
Posted by Ben Sawyer on 06-05-18Well it's been almost a week since E3. We're finally recovering here. A great event and we thank everyone who came by to visit our booth in Kentia Hall. We hosted about a dozen or so members of the press at our booth and our Games for Health Project had a spectacular conference at USC on Tuesday (for more on this see www.gamesforhealth.org).
So what amazed us serious gamers at E3? In general I think the most amazing thing was the maturity of the quality of games. Everything looked polished and spectacular. This isn't to say everything will be great just that there is less uneveness in the look of most games.
That being said here were the "serious" highlights I saw...
* Crysis from CryTek/EA looked spectacular. As a moddable environment this could be very cool. The game seemed conventional but I'll still proably play it. It's at least a year+ out.
* QuakeWars also seemed spectacular for the same reasons as Crysis. Megatexturing is here for good now. Especially for outdoor environments. I wonder if next-gen team oriented titles like QuakeWars can be used out of the box effectively. There is so much teamwork built into it...
* The Camera attachment and microphone attachment for the PSP. Nothing big to show with it yet but I think it will offer some interesting opportunities. Wonder how easy it will be to hack it via homebrew? I met the Talkman producer from Sony and he's very interested in non-entertainment applications of the technology.
* A card game from Sony that Noah Falstien told me about and Peter Smith got video of (we'll try to post it or find it on YouTube). Basically as you play cards like a Magic the Gathering or a PokeMon the Sony EyeToy camera catches this and then animates a virtual card on screen. It's augmented card game reality. Very cool and innovative.
* In the Singapore booth there was a company showcasing color coded square technology that you can put on objects, people, etc. Take a picture with it with your camera phone and it can be intergrated as a data trigger in your game. Very cool for augmented reality games. People could wear tags denoting their vital signs for a mass casualty sim, objects could become treasures, etc. I'm convinced that augmented reality gaming is one of the next-big-things but the overall infrastructure of mobile devices, data tagging, GPS, WiFi, Edge, and RFID just isn't all pulled together enough.
* A next-gen RTS from Relic (makers of Homeworld among other great games) that seemed pretty sweet. Squad based action. We need more RTS interfaces to play with...
* NeverWinter Nights II looked cool but I needed to play with it more to see how great they've advanced the modding tools and conversation editor.
* Sonica Spanish in the UK pavillion. This is a dance pad game where you learn spanish using a dance mat. PC based with Flash being the game engine. Pad games in flash and language training. I have heard good things about the product but had missed them at GDC Europe. We're hoping to get them over to the U.S. this fall for SGS.
* JesterTek was also at the show. They go back a long way in the camera-based game system world. The EyeToy before there was an EyeToy. Good to see them and we had some good conversations about how much they're being used in the PT world.
Beyond that I have to review the literature I picked up at the show, and go back through more notes. So more post-E3 thoughts soon.