E3: A look back

By Rob Watkins

E3 was awesome. This year seems to be pumping out the hits. While sequels to great titles were aplenty, lots of new, unique titles were shown as well. One of the genres I saw a lot of (and was very interested in) was the old beat ‘em style done in 3D. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Viewtiful Joe, and Chaos Legion are a few examples. While each of these games have their own details that set them apart and make them more interesting to play, they’re all basically the same genre as Golden Axe and Streets of Rage…man I’d love to see remakes of those titles.

As far as booths go, they all had their own charm. Eidos and Tecmo had the babes, Konami and Capcom had great games, and Nintendo and Sony had an excellent environment. It’s very hard for me to pick a favorite, but I found myself spending a lot of time at the Konami booth staring at their giant screen and drooling over Metal Gear Solid 3, Castlevania, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Overall I’d have to say it was a tie between Konami and Capcom for best booth. They both had a plethora of playable hits all under a gigantic screen showing theatrical trailers of games that both made it to E3 and didn’t. Plus, the fact that I’m more of a console gamer made their demos that much more enjoyable.

Painkiller definitely surprised me. At the end of the first day I had about 15 minutes before E3 was closing down, so I stopped by Dreamcatcher’s booth. I’m a huge fan of PC First-Person Shooters, so a game called Painkiller caught my eye. Well, after about 2 minutes I was hooked. The graphics were very pretty to look at, and the gameplay engine was easy to play with. The most attractive feature was Painkiller’s physics engine. Characters went limp realistically and hung over ledges just right. The gore was just enough, not over the top and not too little. Painkiller is definitely a title to keep an eye out for. The other game that surprised me was Castlevania: Lament of Innocence for the PS2. I was a bit frightened of a 3D Castlevania; considering the quality of the N64 version. Well, it was quite the opposite of bad. Check my hands-on preview for the skinny.

Now come the games I knew would be good. Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 blew me away. I didn’t expect what I saw from either one – they were both truly amazing and should redefine the term “interactive” as far as environments go. I’ve already babbled enough, so now I will conclude my post-E3 impressions and hopefully I’ll get to see it again next year! 

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