So if you’re here… you’ve likely heard, seen, and read a WHOLE LOT from E3.

Clearly we’ve already been keeping our hands full with interviews and blogs, and we’re going to keep it coming.

What I’ve got for you here today is just a few trailers and some pics of what I consider to be the highlights of Sony’s presentation (excluding their rendition of motion-sensor gaming, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and a few more games that I’ve been looking at).

Essentially, these are just some pretty pictures that I haven’t seen anywhere else… so I wanted to share them with you.

We’ll be discussing all of these titles on this Sunday’s show (5pm), so I figured incase they slipped under your radar, you can get a form of reference with these.

First up, is the REALLY REALLY REALLY RIDICULOUSLY GOOD LOOKING (any Zoolander heads in the house?) God of War III.  (there’s some brutality in this one, so kids… cover your eyes)

…my goodness!

Next up… a game that I’m all sorts of excited about… Heavy Rain.  At E3 we got to see a lot of the mechanics as to how this game is played.  We know it’s smooth… we know it’s sexy… what we don’t know is how much fun it’s going to be.  This trailer gives just a touch of the backstory, and shows a couple (of the four) characters you will get to play as.

The trailer didn’t really touch on the amount of reflect-action that will be called upon… the story twists and turns based on your response-time successes and failures.  The characters can die… and they die for good.  The plot moves on without them.  And THAT, ladies and gentleman, is how you get replayability.

Then, of course, there’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which is in beta testing now… If you’ve played the first, you don’t need me to hype this one up anymore.  As our regular listeners know, I just got a PS3, so I’ve missed out on that one and a few other huge titles… but hopefully in the coming weeks I’ll get to catch up (MGS4, I’m talking to you!).

Meantime… here’s an Uncharted trailer that I hadn’t seen… here it is, in all it’s glory:

… and finally, a game that I heard NOTHING about until E3, was ModNation Racer.  It’s being described as Little Big Planet meets Super Mario Kart (although the Sony people just say, any kart racer).  Customization is HUGE, whether it be your avatar… the car… or the TRACKS, which is where my interest REALLY peaked.  Based on the demo at E3, it appears to be simple to grasp, with oh so many options for depth and complexity.

It’s being developed by United Front Games, out in our wonderful Canadian West Coast… you better believe we’re going to speaking to them in the near future!

…We’ll speak with you Sunday, at 5pm, on The FAN590… but you KNOW we’ve got you covered on the podcast if you miss it.  ….but don’t miss it!

So the official 2nd day of E3 2009 has come and gone, and I believe now that I may actually make it through this year’s event. It was touch and go for a while, but I just grabbed a nap, and now I am ready to dive back in. However, I am still a little groggy, so Momin has volunteered to start us off with this indepth look at what Nintendo announced at this years E3.

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NINTENDO – Brings back the old with a new look.

By Momin Qureshi

Nintendo is having a busy E3.  They held their annual press conference yesterday in which they made a series of major announcements. I spoke with Nintendo Canada’s Matt Ryan who is down at E3 about all their big plans.

[audio:http://qml.quiettouch.com/files/radio/fan590/hotaudio/mattryan-bc-20090604.mp3]

The most prevalent announcement Nintendo made is the unveiling of The Wii Motion Plus.

Wii Motion Plus: It’s a small starburst piece sized accessory you attach to the bottom of your wii mote which will enhance the motion gaming experience.  I spoke to Matt Ryan of Nintendo who says the motion plus is supposed to take motion game play to the next level, picking up on more than just simple arm movements.  It certainly looks interesting and as a small add on I’m likely going to pick it up and give it a trial run.

On our last show we were asked about our E3 wish list, and I said I would love to see a new Mario Game for the Wii.  I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, I got more! Mario is coming back, not for one, but for two new games. First off, the Super Mario Brothers franchise is making a big comeback with New Super Mario Brothers Wii. 

New Super Mario Brothers Wii: Mario and Luigi will make their return along with all their old Nintendo pals in this classic franchise that we all know and love from the original NES.  Just like all the old Mario games, this one will be in the classic 2D scroll screen format.  However, in this latest incarnation you can actually play as a team with up to 4 players at one time.  Or you can play with 4 players playing head to head on one screen.  As a Wii owner I am very much looking forward to this game, which looks great. Check out the trailer.

Mario’s second appearance will in Super Mario Galaxy 2.  On this past weeks show I talked about how great the original Mario Galaxy was, if this one comes anywhere close to what the last one gave us, it should be spectacular.  This new version is supposed to carry on where the last one left off, and that’s just fine with me.You can check out that trailer here.

Wii sports has been a smash hit for Nintendo so its no surprise that Wii Sports Resort will be available this summer. This new multi sport game will include Archery and basketball among others and will incorporate the Wii motion plus we spoke of earlier.  Much like Wii Sports, Resort will involve basic moves that pretty much anyone can handle in Nintendo’s classic attempt to capture the non gamer market. 

Nintendo also announced the upcoming release of Metroid Other M and Wii Fit Plus. To hear more about those and all things Nintendo at E3 click on my interview with Matt Ryan at the beginning of this blog.

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Microsoft - Over Reaching and other Halo puns

Now while Momin was talking to Matt, Zack and I looked at Microsoft’s line up and felt that more explanation was required, so we chased down Jeff Rivait of Xbox Canada (who is down at E3 right now) to expand on what Microsoft’s announcements really mean for the Xbox-Nation.

[audio:http://qml.quiettouch.com/files/radio/fan590/hotaudio/rivait-gg-20090603.mp3]

By the way, here is the book that we were talking about during the interview.

According to Jeff, the story of the game will loosely follow the story of this novel, which chronicles the events that lead up to the opening cut scene of the first Halo game.

Also, if you want to learn more about the fall of Reach without waiting for the game’s release (sometime in the fall of 2010), I still see a few copies of the book on the shelves of my local Chapters book store.

…and if you didn’t see Project Natal in action… here’s the frightening little boy we were referring to:

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Konami – A Solid Line Up

The big 3 press conferences have already come, gone, and been uploaded to Youtube; but that doesn’t mean the news is done at E3. Today Konami held their press conference, showing off another solid line up of Metal Gear games like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP. From the 4 Solid Snakes we saw on the trailer it looks like this one will have 4 player co-op in it.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising was also shown, and according to a number of different press conferences it will be released on the Xbox360, PS3, and the PC. Metal Gear Arcade was also announced, and appears to be a direct port of the MGS4 multiplayer. The twist is that it will be ported into a coin operated arcade machine. We also have no idea at this time if any of those arcade cabinets will make it up to Canada.

Konami then dropped what has to be one of the biggest pieces of news to come out of this year’s E3. Many of you have probably seen or at least heard of this teaser site from Komani that was being called “The Mask.” Well today we found out that the mask is part of a 3D Castlevania game subtitled Lords of Shadow.

Not much is known about the game as of yet. Right now we know that:

1. the game is set to be released sometime in 2010
2. it will be released for the Xbox360 and PS3
3. Captain Jean-Luc Picard may in some way be involved in the game as he narrated the game’s announcement trailer
4. Speaking of that trailer, you can watch it for yourself here

Those were the games that popped out, but they are nowhere near the full list of games. If you are interested in the full list of games announced by Konami at this year’s E3, you can find them here.

The first official day of E3 has come to a end and what more can you say but wow!?

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Microsoft

Microsoft’s press conference dropped the biggest news on us (probably because half of Sony’s news was leaked before the show), so let’s start there.

The boys and girls behind the Xbox360 started off their conference with the official intro film for the new Beatles Rock Band game, and then began to talk about a number of games that had already been announced (like Modern Warfare 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction for example).  Although it wasn’t long before Microsoft began to drop one bombshell after another on us. In less then an hour Microsoft announced:

1. Left 4 Dead 2
2. Alan Wake
3. Crackdown 2
4. Froza 3
5. Halo Reach
6. Metal Gear Solid: Rising (which Microsoft says will be released on their Xbox first)

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Microsoft then reconfirmed Final Fantasy XIII for the 360, but changed the release date to sometime around the Spring of 2010; Halo ODST was also given the release date of September 22nd and a price tag of $60 (U.S. dollars).

When they were done with software Microsoft finally tossed their hat into the motion controller ring with their brand new device codenamed: Project Natal (we will tell you more about this product in tomorrow’s blog after we interview Jeff Rivait who looks after 1st party games and accessories for Microsoft).

After that Microsoft went into detail about what would be happening to Xbox Live over the next year or so; and because these Xbox Live changes can be regional, me and Ken Rodney tracked down Glenn Purkis (of Xbox Live Canada) to find out what we Canadians can expect from our Xbox Live accounts. Here is our interview with Glenn Purkis, who was live at E3.

[audio:http://qml.quiettouch.com/files/radio/fan590/hotaudio/Glenn-Purkis-Interview-Bryan-Calhoun-Ken-Rodney-20090602.mp3]|

SONY

Sony’s conference felt to me like it lacked the overall wow factor that Microsoft’s did, but that’s probably because half of their stuff was leaked out before E3 even started. That being said Sony did manage to surprise us a number of times during their conference. The biggest of those would be the new Sony Motion Controller. The version we saw during the Sony press conference was a tech demo that kind of looked like a bingo dabber to be honest. It had a long cylinder like body and a round head that apparently will be used as a target for the PS-Eye camera to track. It was not made clear if you will have to buy the controller and PS-Eye separately, but based on the level of polish put into this demo I would say that we have a few years to worry about that.

After that, Sony went on to announce a number of exclusive games for their system:

1. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
2. Uncharted 2: Among Theives
3. Gran Turismo 5
4. The Last Guardian (aka – Project Trico)
5. God of War 3
6. Final Fantasy XIV: Online

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Sony also confirmed a number of details regarding their leaked PSP GO. The GO will not have any UMD slot at all. That will instead be replaced by a 16 gig hard drive. A Blue Tooth connection will also be added, and like the picture below shows the PSP GO will come with a sliding screen. However, what the picture doesn’t show is that the price tag for this puppy is currently set at $249.

More E3 details from Sony can be heard in this interview that we did with our good friend from Sony, Kyle Moffat, who has been down at E3 for a few days now. This time Kyle talked with Got Game’s Ken Rodney and Zack Cooper.

[audio:http://qml.quiettouch.com/files/radio/fan590/hotaudio/Kyle-Moffat-Interview-Zack-Cooper-Ken-Rodney-20090602.mp3]

One last quick note about the Sony conference; Sony also mentioned that they would be releasing at least 100 new games for the PlayStation 2 this year, but they did not offer any details on what those games could be.

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Nintendo

This blog has gone on long enough, so I won’t say to much about Nintendo’s press conference. However, that is because there really isn’t much to say to begin with. Their conference pretty much consisted of some Wii Motion Plus and Wii Fit Plus demos, and then a number of new title announcements. This year there will be at least four new games involving Mario:

1. New Super Mario Brothers Wii
2. Super Mario Brothers: Bowser’s Insider Story (for the DS)
3. Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again
4. Super Mario Galaxy 2

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However, things picked up when the press conference turned it’s eye on the Nintendo DSi. In that area, Nintendo seems to have three strong titles set to release in the next year:

1. Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
2. Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bears
3. Kingdom Hearts DS

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And to finish it all off Nintendo announced the next Wii/Metroid game titled: Other M, and also hinted at a possible Legend of Zelda game in the works for the Wii.

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Random Audio

We will end this first E3 blog with some more audio that we managed to grab from E3. The first is me and Michelle Liem of Disney Interactive. Like you, I first heard the name Disney and thought, “is this worth my time?” However, I sat down and talked to Michelle for about five minutes, and learned about an amazing racing game called Split/Second. A game that looks like it will give the Burn Out franchise a run for its money.

[audio:http://qml.quiettouch.com/files/radio/fan590/hotaudio/MichelleLiem-BC-20090602.mp3]

Also, in case you missed it, we managed to get our microphones in for the entire Ubisoft Press Conference. You can hear that here.

[audio:http://qml.quiettouch.com/files/radio/fan590/hotaudio/ubisoftpresser-bc-20090601.mp3]

Just a reminder: Please check the blog at this time tomorrow, because we have more BLOG ONLY recaps and interviews lined up for the next day of E3.

Until then.

Hey again!

This week’s show was dedicated to previewing E3, and just in case you couldn’t believe your ears the first time we aired it, you can hear it again on this blog. We have conveniently placed it right after this sentence for your listening pleasure.

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This information packed episode includes an interview with Dan Hsu (who is currently at E3), an iPhone review by Momin, Ken loving some inFAMOUS, I of course hating on the “Mii-Mote” (aka – Microsoft’s rumored motion controller), and Zack talking about a game (Heavy Rain) that keeps reminding me of Purple Rain by Prince… I don’t know why it reminds me of Purple Rain… it just does.

Anyhow, Zack may have already pre-ordered this game; but personally, I am holding back my judgment on it until we learn more about it during this year’s E3. And speaking of E3, we are still over an hour away from E3′s official start (when this blog was posted), but we are already starting to get news from the L.A. Convention Center.

Activision decided to hold their press conference early and dropped the following bomb shells on us:

1. Activision once again announced their new racing game Blur which they claim will have elements of a hardcore tuner sim, and a just-for-fun arcade racer. No release date was announced, but Mike Griffin of Activision said the game will be multi-platform.

2. A release date was almost confirmed for Starcraft II, as Activision promises the game will be released sometime before the end of 2009. Beyond that, all they were will to say was that the beta test for Starcraft II will begin sometime later this summer, and that even more details about this Starcraft sequel would be announced at this years BlizzCon in August.

3. Dan Rosensweig, Activision’s Guitar Hero Brand Manager, announced that Guitar Hero 5 would have at least 20 Top 10 tracks, and that the game would have less “filler” (music) then any previous edition. He went on to say that the Guitar Hero franchise is also planning to expand itself to mobile devices, with the PSP and iPhone being specifically mentioned as possible platforms for future games.

4. While no exact details on these games were mentioned Activision’s Mike Griffith said that there will also be a new Spider-Man, Shrek, Tony Hawk (probably Tony Hawk Ride), Transformers, and a James Bond game released in 2010. Griffith also hinted that the company would be working on another new intellectual property for the action genre of games, but gave no hints as to what that would be exactly.

That’s it for today’s E3 preview/show blog, but remember to check this blog often for exclusive interviews and daily recaps all this week. On Monday Microsoft will have their press conference, and we will be here breaking it down for you before the day is out!

Catch you later,
- Bryan