No thread yet? I'll do the highlights. I'll start with Xbox because that's what I care about the most.


Microsoft:

- Started off with Halo 4. Debuted a live action teaser (which was already available on XBL). This will be the first game soley done by 343 Studios. The gameplay stuff didn't indicate if 343 put their own stamp on it as it looked pretty much identical to what Bungie had done with the series.

- Next came Splintercell: Blacklist.

- EA came next with their demos of Madden & FIFA 13, mostly focusing on the Kinect voice interaction with the games. Example shown: In FIFA if you react badly to a referee's call, the Kinect will pick up your reaction and could land you a yellow card. (LOL).

- Next came franchise displays of Fable, Forza, and GEARS OF WAR: JUDGMENT (caplocks shows how excited I am). There were no gameplay footage of this but the teasers definitely got people excited. For Gears, it looks like they are giving Baird the lead role this time around. I don't care, I'm stoked.

- Focus was then shifted to sports apps. NHL and NBA were the 2 mentioned specifically.

- More stuff for Kinect fitness is coming. The biggest addition is the Nike + Kinect Training. This will judge your form and give you tips to improve it. It will also link in other Nike Fitness apps as well.

- Xbox Smartglass was apparently the big item for the conference. To give it an easy description, it's a better version of the Wii U but for Xbox. It will also link with any tablet (and Iphone) you already own. They showed a scene from Game Of Thrones on the big screen...on the tablet it was showing you interactive stuff like where the scene was taking place in Westoros. You can also use this to select plays in Madden. Piggybacking on this was the fact that Internet Explorer is coming to the Xbox. Smartglass will play a great role in using it.

- Next game demos for both the new Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 6.

- Two new franchise titles were displayed. Ascened: New Gods and LocoCycle. Ascend appears to be a hack & slash in vain of God Of War.

- The briefing then started picking up speed and showed a number of coming XBLA titles. Nothing mindblowing.

- Trey Parker & Matt Stone came out to introduce the new South Park RPG game called The Stick Of Truth.

- Call Of Duty: Black Ops II rounded out the conference for Xbox.


Many game critics that were on site for Xbox's briefing were slightly disappointed with the direction that Microsoft decided to take. Smartglass is interesting enough but it wasn't the "big gun" that everyone hoped for. Some great titles were displayed but it seems that this year the focus was more on further developing the console with apps rather than new games.

Personally I'm stoked on a new Gears game. I figured one was coming but didn't think it was going to be announced this quickly. I've read that early talks of the gameplay is that it's more squadron based play than just run and gun like the previous 3 were.

I only care for that Aliens game, saw they mentioned it for Wii, fuck that. Is it console bound? (Real console)

Everything was underwhelming to me. The fact that Wii U is actually a full HD console and it won't up convert Wii games is a huge disappointment.

I'm a Sony guy, and wasn't really blown away by anything exclusive.

Games I'm stoked on: Dead Space 3, RE6, Two Souls and The Last of Us.

Nintendo:

- Sunday Nintendo put up a video that revealed details on the new Wii U pad and their own social network called Miiverse. Many gaming critics thinks this was smart because it got a bunch of their functionality news out and they could focus on gaming at the conference.

- First game up was Pikmin 3. If you recall the last Pikmin game was released 8 years ago for the GameCube. This is also the first game showed that will be greatly enhanced by the Wii U pad.

- After a bit of a fun setup, Nintendo announced that there would be 23 Wii U games displayed. Right then it was made quite clear that pushing the Wii U was going to be their focus this year.

- Before the games were showed, an explaination of what they have done to correct the online problems with Wii U and demonstrated how the Miiverse will work to enhance the Wii U experience.

- Next up was Super Mario Bros. U. 4 Player co-op and messages can be scattered throughout the game from your friends. No mention of the co-op was online though.

- To address the lack of third party games, they announced Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition for the Wii. Then came displays for Darksiders II, Aliens Colonial Marines and, somewhat surprisingly, Mass Effect 3.

- Next came the integration of Wii Fit with the Wii U. Critics said it looks a bit awkard trying to use a tablet while exercising but the demo was limited and most are positive Nintendo has it figured out.

- The 3DS was the next item of focus. Naturally a new Mario Bros game was displayed for the device.

- Just that quickly they went right back to Wii U and showed Lego Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Underwater City.

- Just Dance for the Wii U was apparently the best demo of the conference for Nintendo. It showed how you set up dance moves on the Wii U pad for the person to dance too. It sounds corny but for those that love the dancing games, it sounds as if it will add something new to a rather simple idea.

- They ended the conference with an awkward display for NintendoLand, which appears to be a minigame compilation set in a themepark of Nintendo titles such as Donkey Kong, Mario, and Animal Crossing.

Overall critics seemed to be unimpressed with Nintendo this year. The focus was directed greatly towards the Wii U but the explainations of the features. With every display it became more complicated to follow. One critic said "its something that is just going to have to be played" and that's not a great way to sell your main focus for the year. They also failed to announce any pricing or dates other than "this holiday season". That didn't help much either.

There are a bunch of games coming out that were displayed on the floor or during Day Zero (monday) that I'm stoked about. Dead Space 3 is the big one. I'm just now reading about Sony's conference so I'll post that stuff in a minute.

SONY:

- Right off the bat Sony seemed to make it clear they were going a safe route and setting up titles everyone already knows and loves.

- The first up for a new title though was Beyond: Two Souls which stars Ellen Page as the lead character. The cutscene shown was great looking but left more questions than were answered about it. No gameplay was shown.

- Next up was the Playstation All-Star Battle Royale, which is essentially Super Smash Bros but with Playstation characters such as Kratos (God Of War) and Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal). Looks fun but nothing new in concept.

- They tackled the Vita and it's further integration with the PS3, by demonstrating the "cross controlling" with Little Big Planet. It's in vain of the Wii U and Xbox Smartglass but not nearly as in depth. However, it was hinted that this is just the start. So I'm sure if Nintendo and Xbox do well their sales, Sony will put more focus on this for next year.

- Next up was just the Vita itself. Some games like Assassins Creed III and a Call Of Duty Black Ops game were displayed. The Vita portion was ended with a display of Far Cry 3.

- The focused was then shifted to the Playstation Move, the forgotten son of the Playstation Family. A display of a Harry Potter game was shown but it's really just more of the same. To make matter's worse there was a "technical hiccup" during the display when a demonstrator tried to do a spell and the game didn't "cooperate".

- Playstation Suite had it's name changed to Playstation Mobile...because that makes more sense for the mobile phone app.

- It wouldn't be complete without a demo of the new God Of War game. Critics said it looked awesome but so did GOW 1, 2, and 3 when they were displayed. It essentially is the same game but with different monsters and amplified carnage.

- They ended their conference with a display of the other new big title, The Last Of Us. The game looks like the movie The Road meets Uncharted. It's gritty, depressing, and violent. It got a huge ovasion so expect this one to be big this year.


Much like the other two companies, Sony appeared to take it safe. It seems that E3 was the year of applications rather than new technology or surprise titles that no one was expecting. The show floor with all the 3rd Party games sounds like it is going to take center stage with all the lackluster conferences for the consoles themselves.

the south park game is supposed to be pretty rad

Yeah I'm stoked on it