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Ah, yes ... E3. The gigantic hype machine has been toned down compared to its heyday, to be sure, but it's still a major industry event designed to get gamers salivating over the latest and greatest offerings from developers, publishers and hardware-makers alike. Or, in the case of Nintendo, it's a chance to leave gamers confused and mildly frightened. Either way, there's been so much gaming news coming out of LA this past week that, unless you're dead or stuck on a desert island, you've probably been caught up in the hype.
Hype sucks.
Look, there were interesting-looking games at E3, for sure.
Resident Evil 5,
Fallout 3,
Gears of War 2 -- these titles and others are looking exciting and fun. Some of them even look like they might change or advance the face of gaming in some minor way. I'm particularly intrigued by
Prince of Persia's "no punishment for sucking" philosophy, and
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is really starting to sound great.
But for all of the intrigue and excitement, a bunch of games on the slate that got some major press at this event just don't do it for me. So here, in reverse order, are my least compelling games of E3.
Don't do it, Kenny Rogers! He's not worth it!
Okay, this one only really makes the list because I happen to find the Splinter Cell series dull, plodding, overly concerned with realism, and generally non-compelling. I don't care about Sam Fisher and his exploits with or against the U.S. Government. I enjoy stealth-based gameplay to a point, but
Splinter Cell went flying by that point at Ferrari-like speeds, never to return.
Even better, the word on the street is that, in an attempt to right what appears to be a sinking ship, Ubisoft has taken the series back to the drawing board. That, my friends, is very rarely a good sign. Now we're looking at a game whose premise and setting don't interest me, that was having such substantial problems that it had to be essentially scrapped and started from scratch. No, thanks.
It's not a Sonic game until someone is angrily thrusting their groin at you...
Perhaps it's my innate skepticism, but the combination of Nintendo DS + RPG + Sonic the Friggin' Hedgehog does not exactly scream "Game of the Year" to me. Sonic has had his goofy, spiky-haired, EXTREME ATTITUDE self stuck into a whole variety of gameplay types, and I have yet to like any of them. The original series on the Genesis was dull and repetitive. We then moved on to pinball, weird pseudo-RPGs, interspecies love stories, and god knows what else. None of this changes the fact that Sonic and his world just aren't terribly interesting.
I know, I know ... it's BioWare and BioWare can DO NO WRONG (it should be noted that I actually only like about one out of every four games Bioware makes ... but that's a different editorial). I'm just having a hard time believing that they can pack their typical depth into a DS cart, and an even harder time believing that the Sonic universe is ever going to be able to support something called "The Dark Brotherhood" in any logical, reasonable way.