Last week was the E3 Media and Business Summit, formerly known as Electronic Entertainment Expo also known as E3. I thought I’d post my take on the show this year and give an overview of the major announcements.

MS definitely won E3 this year. Hands down. First they announces a refresh for the Xbox 360 dashboard interface. The new look is similar to that of Vista’s Flip3d and the new Media Center. I can’t wait to play with the interface when it is released. Along with they new interface they’re also allowing 8 person voice chat and the ability to copy game discs to the HD to speed up load times. Microsoft is also adding avatars, which are basically Miis for the 360, and along with them a casual games section for XBL called Primetime. Not extremely exciting but kind of neat. Two other things that don’t really interest me are Lips and Netflix. Lips is a karaoke game and Netflix is partnering with MS to allow movie downloads. The big reveal for MS was Final Fantasy 13 was going to be available for the 360 (everywhere but Japan). That’s a pretty big blow for Sony since the Final Fantasy series has always been a huge exclusive for Sony.

Harmonix also announced the entire set list for Rock Band 2 and it is chock full of awesome. One of the coolest parts of the announcement was that for $5 you can unlock get most of the RB1 content as DLC for RB2 which will go nicely with the ability to use any RB1 DLC in RB2. Activision also annouced that the Rock Band guitars and drum set will work with Guitar Hero 4 which means there is actually a chance of me buying GH4 now, depending on the set list.

The Nintendo conference was just weak. Wii Music was announced and looks pretty useless, basically it amounts to a video game version of the toy instrument they make for kids. Other than a generic statement about more Mario and Zelda coming they didn’t really say anything about any games I actually care about. They did announce Animal Crossing: City folk and eventually Pikmin 3. Neither of which I’ve play or have much interest in right now (although I did order Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS). I was hoping for a new Kirby, Kid Icarus, or a new IP. Of course they did announce two new periperals for the Wii, WiiSpeak and the Wiimotion+. Wiimotion plus comes bundles with WiiSport: Resort looks and interesting but it would have been nice if it was built in to the Wiimotes to begin with. Apparently WiiSpeak, which comes with Animal Crossing, works pretty well but I think I’d just prefer a headset.

OK, So there was some good news for Nintendo on the DS side. Chrono Trigger (aka the best RPG ever) and Kirby Superstar are being remade for the DS.

As for Sony, they didn’t have much that interested me. probably since I don’t own a PS3. They some new PSN games and a video download service. They also showed a trailer for a game called MAG which is supposed to feature 256 players at once.

Some other stuff worth mentioning:

• PC/360: Left 4 Dead
• PC/360/PS3: Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2
• 360: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
• 360: No Bungie announcement
• Wii: Dead Rising is coming to the Wii
• Wii: Mad World
• Wii/360/PS3: MegaMan 9
• DS: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
• DS: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

In the end, I think this sums it up the entire conference pretty well.

Somewhat recently my current favorite online multiplayer game, Team Fortress 2, received a large update. There were two major things added in this update the first is a new gameplay type called Payload and it’s associated map Gold Rush. Payload is an escort mission similar to the hunted in TFC. The difference is instead of escorting a player you escort a giant bomb that moves along a track. There are always a ridiculous amount of deaths once you get close to the target which is frustrating but it’s a fun map and payload has some definite potential.

The second major part of this update is the more interesting one. The Medic class recieved 36 new achievements and for every 12 achievements you unlock you get a new weapon that can replace one of your current weapons. The Blutsauger replaces the Syringe gun and sucks health from enemies but doesn’t get critical hits. The Kritzkrieg replaces the medigun and rather than making your opponent indestructible it causes all their attacks to be critical hits. Finally the Ubersaw replaced the normal saw and adds to your ubercharge each time you hit an enemy. Sounds pretty cool right?

There’s two problems here, first, a lot of people are playing medics now, it’s not so bad after about two weeks but when the update first dropped every server I joined was at least 80% medics. I’d like to see multiple new character updated drop at once just so people might mix it up a bit while trying to unlock the new stuff.

Second and most importantly, I haven’t managed to unlock any of them until tonight. I only managed to get that one after spending an hour farming the achievements on a map designed solely for that purpose. I just don’t have the time to play enough TF2 to unlock some of the achievements. Finally managing to unlock at least one of the weapons was nice but I really  wasn’t having much fun doing it. At this point I’ve pretty much given up any hope that I might get the Ubersaw.

When Bioshock first came out there was all sorts of hoopla about how great of a game it was but at that point I was busy with other stuff so I mostly ignored it. Until yesterday when I read that Bioshock won game of the year at the VGAs. Despite being almost overwhelmed with games to play I found myself oddly interested in Bioshock. So I decided to cave in and check it out. Bioshock won GotY for the 360, but the PC is my chosen platform for FPS games because I’ve never had much luck playing an FPS with a controller. So I booted up steam, my preferred method of buying games and whipped out my credit card. Before making the jump I took a quick look at the minimum system requirements:

CPU: Intel single-core Pentium 4 processor at 2.4GHz check
System RAM: 1 GB check
Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM and Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better Well shit.

Since I pretty much live in a hotel, I game almost exclusively on a laptop. While it’s a nice laptop it’s still not made for gaming. Chances are I might possibly be able to hack it with all the settings on low, maybe. This is one probably the best argument for console gaming.

If I had an XBox 360, I’d know without any doubt I’d be able to play Bioshock without missing out on anything. One of the things I enjoy about consoles is being able to just play a game. Everyone is playing the same game with the same hardware. I don’t need to worry about finding the latest patch, software conflicts or upgrading my hardware every six months. No one is killing me because my system barely runs at 30 fps and their system is getting 10,000 fps and baking cakes.

This standardized system is a huge advantage for consoles. One that both Microsoft and Sony seem to be actively trying to kill by having multiple version of the same console. Sure, it’s a requirement that games are must work across all version of the systems but that also means developer can use those extra features. Look at the arcade version of the 360. Why the hell does it not have a hard drive? That is seriously handicapping the 360 platform especially since the capacity for DVD is rapidly being reach. Now developers are forced to either squeeze everything on to a single DVD or span multiple discs neither of which is a good option for games like GTA4. If every 360 had a hard drive then they could install files to it which would take care of that problem.

So now I’m not playing Bioshock. Maybe whenever I get around to buying a 360 I’ll pick it up. Even though I am pretty much inept when it comes to playing an FPS with a controller.

The Team Fortress Classic was my first love affair with online gaming. I remember meeting up with friends in the Half-Life Spanish Chat room on WON. Coordinating our efforts to find a server we could all play in while hoping noone in my family would try to make a phone call and disconnect me. My first clan (*HWF*) played TFC and we talked about how we’d all switch over to TF2 once it came out. It was a long wait. TF2 was originally announced in 1998 as a realistic, team-based, war game and shown off at E3 in 1999, then delayed in 2000 so it could be ported to the Source engine and eventually just not talked about. In 2004 Valve stated that TF2 was still in development and in 2006 it was mentioned again. Last month roughly 8 years after being announced it was finally released as part of the Orange Box.

…and boy is it fun. It is well balanced, runs pretty darn good on my not so top of the line system. The game looks like a cartoon with a decent amount of blood and gore thrown in. Each of the classes has their own style, voice, and personality. The games oozes style and that style works really well. it actually reminds me a bit of No One Lives for Ever, minus the 60′s. Much of the game has been simplified from TFC. Grenades are gone, as are many guns, the flashlight, ammo backpacks, armor, etc. It actually took me sometime to notice that a lot of that stuff was missing. One of my favorite additions to the games is the stats and achievements. I love being able to keep track of my stats for each class and overall.

As for the classes it’d take me all day to cover them all. My favorite class so far is the scout, who isn’t too different from TFC. He gained a double jump which replaces the concussion jump in TFC. He lost the nail gun which I really miss when trying to take out a sentry gun but his scattergun is more powerful (at short ranges) so he take out other players easier. Medic’s healing gun is awesome but his syringe launcher is lacking. It’s pretty good close range but for long range you’d have a better chance of hitting someone with your bone saw. I do miss is the ability to to infect people. When a medic teams up with a heavy and gets an uber charge that combination can cause some serious havoc. Engineers are still awesome. Supposedly spies are good but for some reason I haven’t had much luck with them. Snipers, Soldiers, Heavy Weapons Guys, Pyros, and Demomen aren’t terribly different from TFC but I haven’t played them much.

Like CS: Source when it came out TF2 has a noticeable lack of maps. Right now there are only 6 maps: ctf_2fort, cp_well, cp_dustbowl, cp_gravelpit, cp_granary and tc_hydro. I am hoping for a few more (Avanti, casbah, crossover, cz2, epicenter, rock2 and my all time favorites maps the hunted). Presumably some of them will be added eventually but I fear I may never get to experience the hunted in TF2. The majority of the maps are control point now as opposed to capture the flag I knew and loved in TFC. Even Well has been converted to the control points which is somewhat disapointing because I think it was a much better CTF map. Maps like dustbowl and hydro aee broken up into sections where you fight for control between two points rather than multiple. This adds some variation to the game by making one map feel like several.

I graduated both high school AND college while waiting for TF2. If anyone from *HWF* happens to read this I’m still around and I have a feeling I’ll be playing TF2 for quite awhile. In fact I’ve delayed posting this about 3 weeks because I was too busy playing to bother with writing about it. Since noone bothers to read any of this, I think it worked out ok.

As for the rest of the Orange Box. I couldn’t beat Half-Life 2 because it made me feel sick so I didn’t bother with Episode One and won’t bother with Episode Two until I get around to buying some dramamine and beat HL2 and Ep1. Portal is quite simply the most fun I’ve had playing single player FPS in a long time and is a complete triumph. It is bit short but full of humor and just plain inventiveness that it’s a huge success. I can only hope there’s a sequel on its way.