Nintendo Keynote - E3 2009
Nintendo's keynote began with Satoru Iwata taking the stage and politely thanking those in attendance. He thanked everyone who owns a Nintendo Sapphire or a Game Boy Supernova, and promised that the upcoming year would bring Nintendo's strongest games ever as their hardworking developers devoted themselves to innovating and coming up with fun new ways to enjoy your favorite Nintendo games and characters. Iwata's introduction was very humble, not touting sales figures or showing off a promotional video of games, but simply promising more of the same high quality from Nintendo. He then introduced Bill Trinen, and the two shared the stage as they discussed the first game of the show,
Squad Four Protectors. Nintendo has been showing this game off for the last nine months, and we've gotten a lot of good information on it already, but Nintendo devoted the first eight minutes of their E3 2009 presentation to this game, showing off more details about the plot and gameplay, and focusing heavily on Evangelyne, the squad's friendly new AI who gives them their missions and advice. In fact, Evangelyne narrated about half of the gameplay trailer, reading off new moves that the four characters can perform. Shad showed off some incredible martial arts techniques, while Rebecca demonstrated some truly fearsome sword attacks. Marcus went to town on enemies with a shotgun axe, and Lane was shown setting up a myriad of traps and then setting them all off at once after baiting enemies into them. It seems that each of the game's four characters will emphasize a different type of gameplay. Shad is for people who are quite knowledgeable about combos and can set up lots of them, Rebecca is for players who enjoy speed, Marcus is for players who like power, and Lane is for players who like strategy. Iwata in particular really enjoyed showing off the game, as he and Bill Trinen actually played some of the game with two Argonaut representatives after the gameplay trailer. The game actually has a four player cooperative mode, a first for a
Squad Four game allowing the whole squad to fight together.
Protectors is the first game in the series to offer total player choice in terms of characters: Shad, Lane, Marcus, and Rebecca can be chosen for all of the game's missions from the start, allowing players to enjoy the game as any of the squad members they wish.
Squad Four Protectors is right up there with
Bayonetta as one of the year's most anticipated hack and slash games, and it'll be very interesting to see which of the two games ends up being better.
Protectors is scheduled for release in November, which is shaping up like a truly huge month. Following the
Squad Four Protectors preview, we got another in depth look at
The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Of The Woods, which is now just a week and a half from release. The presentation showed off a segment of one of the game's early dungeons, in which Link traverses a treetop village while solving puzzles and helping the local treefolk. It's very interesting to see a town and a dungeon combined into one, and the game itself, which is said to take place entirely within the Lost Woods, is unlike any
Zelda we've ever seen. It's sprawling and beautiful, utilizing the Sapphire's capabilities to full effect, but also heavily puzzle and exploration based, and Iwata flat out says "you will get lost" when playing the game. In fact, the game's tagline is "get lost in adventure". This is definitely a return to old school style
Zelda after the surprising modern turn in
Hero Eternal, but it's also one of Nintendo's most anticipated games of the year, if not the most anticipated. HD
Zelda is something fans have been looking forward to for a long time, and now it's nearly here. While we've known about
Squad Four Protectors and
Spirit Of The Woods for a long time, the next reveal of a game that's just two months away took everyone by surprise, and generated the presentation's biggest cheers to date. And, surprisingly, it's a Supernova game. The game was announced with a video that showed off
Super Mario World, then
Super Mario World 2, and finally,
Super Mario World 3. Then, we saw something amazing: footage of a brand new 2-D (but with 3-D graphics)
Mario platformer, with music and assets from previous
Super Mario World games. Yes, incredibly,
Super Mario World 4 is coming to the Nintendo Supernova. This isn't
Flip, with a 3-D gimmick or a major storyline, it's an old school style
Super Mario platformer with modern graphics. It's more like the first two
Super Mario World games than the isometric
Super Mario World 3, and when we saw Mario whip out a cape and start flying, the crowd roared with approval. How Nintendo kept this game under wraps is a mystery, but
Super Mario World 4 is just two months away.
After that announcement, Satoru Iwata left the stage, while Bill Trinen remained. We got another video... this one showing Samus Aran in command of several Federation troops. As the video progresses, the soldiers all disappear, one by one... until only Samus is left. As gameplay is shown on screen, revealing a fully 3-D and HD
Metroid adventure on a small planet littered with debris, Samus talks about how she never wanted to be a leader, but now she finds herself alone again and must rescue her missing comrades. After the video, Trinen discusses the game,
Metroid: Starfall, over footage of gameplay that depicts a fast-paced, exploration-based third person shooter in which Samus had her familiar moves and abilities, but with a much more cinematic feel than the
Homecoming games on the Wave. Trinen reveals that during the first third of the game, you'll actually be commanding some Federation troops during the opening missions, giving the game the feel of a squad-based shooter. But then, as they gradually disappear, Samus, as always, will be left alone on a planet where everything wants to kill her. Not only must she solve the mystery plaguing this desolate rock of a planet, but she must also rescue her crew and evacuate back to safety. The squad-based segments were interesting, Samus is shown being able to give certain orders to her team, and they can also combo with her attacks on certain enemies. While the reaction to
Starfall was a bit mixed, with some murmurs of
The Covenant by a few of the assembled reporters, some of the segments were downright impressive, and as is the case with the other Sapphire exclusives we've seen thus far, the game is a technical marvel.
Starfall will be released in August. We then got a quick reveal video for another Sapphire game, and by the time we heard the familiar engine revving of a go-kart a few seconds in, we knew exactly what this game was going to be.
Mariokart Crown is coming next year to the Sapphire, boasting more tracks and promising a difficult circuit of courses for races who are up to the challenge. A challenge-based
Mariokart game almost seems like a response to last year's successful
F-Zero, but we're hoping
Mariokart Crown doesn't quite go that route. Either way, fans roared for the trailer, even more than they did for
Super Mario World 4's cape reveal, and it's abundantly clear that Nintendo has a huge slate of games coming up. The next trailer revealed a new game in the
Antarctica series,
Antarctica 2100, depicting an Antarctica with its ice shelf massively cracked and irradiated, and promising the ability to fight in the rocky valleys between the cracked ice. This FPS series has always been a treat, and though it's no
Cyberwar, it remains quite popular. This game will be its second outing on the Sapphire, coming less than two years after the first. We then got another quick look at an upcoming 2010 Sapphire game:
Star Tropics: Incursion Of Realities. This game features the same 3-D adventure gameplay of its predecessors, and the teaser revealed that fan favorite Culex would be returning, along with Mike Jones and his friends Tosh and Marion. The teaser seemed to imply that the game would deal with the consequences of the weakening of the tesseract between Mike and Culex's worlds, but we'll have to wait for more details to be released. The next segment dealt with
Kingdom Quest 3, which will be released early next year. We got a bit more information for this game than we got for the last two, with Trinen bringing up two members of the game's development team to tease some of the new gameplay, show off some playable Calypso footage, and also reveal a few new characters lampooning video game tropes, including a Pikachu spoof and a character named Sarah Coldstone, who seems to be a spoof of Sadira from the hit
Blackheart series. We didn't see a lot of footage from the game, but we did get enough to whet our appetites, and this is clearly looking like one of Nintendo's big marquee Sapphire games for 2010.
After all that, Bill Trinen ceded the stage to Michel Ancel and some other personnel from Ubisoft, who were of course there to discuss
Beyond Good And Evil 3, the epic conclusion to the trilogy which is coming to Sapphire later this year. This was one of the most anticipated games of Nintendo's presentation, and the crowd cheered at almost every big gameplay and storyline reveal. Ancel first showed off Jade, still in prison rags and roaming a destroyed New York City. Ancel didn't exactly spoil how Jade ended up on our Earth and how it ended up in such bad shape, but from what occurred during gameplay, we could glean that the Earth is being used as some sort of prison colony by the evil corporation revealed at the end of the previous game. Robot soldiers could be seen roaming the wastes, and Jade had to avoid them, as engaging them at this point was completely impossible. After this harrowing gameplay reveal which went on for about four minutes, we switched perspective to Lorima, Jade's sister and the one leading the search for her. In contrast with Jade, who was forced to sneak and use stealth, Lorima is a full-on action badass, blasting enemies with magic and a laser pistol. It's clear that she's not sitting around waiting for her opportunity to find and rescue Jade: in the three years since Jade's abduction, Lorima has mobilized her entire civilization in rebellion against the corporation that abducted Jade, and she's already found many of the answers she's been seeking. Ancel promised flashbacks that would reveal what happened during the three year timeskip, and that Jade and Lorima's reunion would just be the "beginning" of the story.
Beyond Good And Evil 3 is shaping up to be a beautiful, epic game that will span an entire universe, and hopefully wrap up all the loose ends that
Beyond Good And Evil 2 left dangling. After the
Beyond Good And Evil 3 presentation, Ancel then gave a very small teaser for the next
Rayman game, including a title reveal:
Rayman: The Light Of Heroes. He admitted that the game was still very early in development but that it would see the return of the Rayman we all know and love, and that he's looking forward to showing off more of the game soon. Ancel and the Ubisoft reps then left the stage, and we got a surprise trailer for Capcom's upcoming
Devil May Cry 5, which was revealed as a Sapphire exclusive. Considering Capcom's close relationship with Apple, the fact that the company is still making Nintendo exclusives is incredible, but this game looks like a lot of fun and we'll get to play it just a couple months from now. Next up was another trailer for Retro Studios'
Arcadia, which is still about a year away. After the trailer, which revealed the game's villain, an alien warlord, we got plenty of gameplay footage showing off the game itself.
Arcadia plays a lot like action-RPGs such as
Gauntlet, but has elements of shooting games as well. Players roam a 3-D landscape armed with various arcade-style weapons, such as laser pistols or energy swords, and they blast enemies that pop out of nowhere. Players can earn points but can also earn loot which can be used to upgrade their weapons and abilities. The game seems to be best played with four people, but can also be enjoyed by one's self with an AI companion. The game is full of retro-graphical touches and arcade-style sounds, though it also has a fully orchestral soundtrack and modern 3-D graphics. There's a huge variety of environments. In addition to the city we saw in the trailer, there's also a forest, an outer space level, and a restaurant-type level combining elements of games such as
Tapper and
Burgertime. Trinen announced that Nintendo and Retro Studios have made licensing agreements with a number of old-school arcade software companies, so this won't just be a throwback to classic arcade games, it'll be a full on nostalgia trip. He then said we should expect to see
Arcadia released exclusively on the Sapphire next spring.
Trinen then showed off a trailer for the Sapphire version of
Final Fantasy Online. It's the classic Wave and PC MMORPG that released in 2004, but with all the DLC included, updated graphics, and a brand new expansion exclusive to this version in console. The trailer did a great job of showing the Sapphire's enhancements to the game, and with a release month of March 2010, it's not all that far away. Next up was another reveal for a new
Final Fantasy spinoff game:
Final Fantasy: Palladium Knights. The game is a traditional turn-based RPG with a unique combat system involving "Knight" skills such as live counters and sword combinations, and will take place in a nation besieged by forces from a nation under the thrall of a demon implied to perhaps be the Emperor from
Final Fantasy II. Visually, it actually doesn't look quite as good as
Final Fantasy XII, but it's still a gorgeous game and it's great to be getting more
Final Fantasy on the Sapphire so soon after
XII, indicating that Squaresoft may in fact be doubling down on the Sapphire rather than getting ready to jump ship to Apple.
Palladium Knights won't be out until next year, and that's also the case for another new RPG set to be released for the Sapphire, which was also revealed in a quick teaser trailer. This time, the game's identity remained fairly cryptic until about halfway through, when we heard the phrase "Mana is dying". Then, we saw a series of action-RPG style gameplay clips, indicating that this is a new game in the
Mana series, about a legendary hero who must journey to restore Mana to the world. The trailer revealed that the game will combine action-RPG gameplay with townbuilding, giving the game an almost
Ultima-esque feel. The title was revealed as
Miracle Of Mana, and the release window was given as 2010. That ended the Squaresoft portion of the presentation, save for one more thing... the final North American trailer for
Final Fantasy XII.
-
(the song featured in the trailer)
*The intro to ”Kings And Queens” by Thirty Seconds To Mars begins to play. Unlike OTL's
Final Fantasy XIII, which used "My Hands" by Leona Lewis both in promotion and in the North American version of the game itself, ITTL, "Kings And Queens" only shows up in the game's trailer and some commercials, and the North American version of the game will include the original Japanese theme song.*
*Scenes of Lilith are shown, interspersed with scenes of Lilith and Amyra.*
Lilith: Amyra, you can't follow me. You need to stay with the Order.
Amyra: But I want to stay with you.
Lilith: That's not possible. Not anymore. *she walks away* Stay here, no matter what.
*Lilith begins to narrate as scenes of their city are shown, with Lilith as a proud warrior priestess.*
Lilith: *narrating* I had already turned my back on the Order and its hypocrisy...
*A snippet of the scene from last year's trailer is shown, of Amyra's execution at the Order's hands.*
Lilith: *narrating* But seeing first hand what became of even the Order's holiest of servants...
Gregorio: For your crimes against your god and against your world...
Lilith: NO! *screams and struggles against the warrior priests holding her*
Amyra: *bows her head and sobs*
Lilith: *narrating* I had no choice but to embrace what the Order feared most...
*Lilith is shown seizing the Xenoblade as a horde of soldiers run toward her.*
Lilith: And now I will show the world...
*Lilith's fellow party members, including a magical pirate, a plant creature, and an Order warrior priest, are shown.*
Lilith: That everything they ever knew is wrong.
*The song launches into its first major climax, showing gameplay footage of Lilith and her party traversing the world's massive landscapes, first showing off the enormous Gaur Plains, and then a snow-filled landscape, a dark plant-filled paradise, an enormous beach area with a huge coral city in the background, and the inside of a factory. The scene also shows off some of the game's enormous enemies, and just before the lyrics begin, Lilith and her fellow party members as shown staring down an enormous boss.*
Into the night
*Lilith crouches down on a grassy cliffside with the stars above her, her sword on the ground as she thinks about Amyra.*
Desperate and broken
*A group of oppressed people are shown watching the Order's skyships above them, as soldiers march in to conquer their land.*
The sound of a fight
*A couple of scenes are shown here, including Lilith sparring with her fellow warrior priests during training, and then Lilith and another party member, a guardsman named Scout, leaping up on top of two large robots as they rush to battle more soldiers.*
Father has spoken
*The face of the game's primary antagonist, Gregorio, is shown, and then a flashback scene of him with Lilith is shown.*
Gregorio: The people must be obedient to the will of God. It is the only way our world will survive.
Lilith: Of course. I just don't think we can force people to obey us.
*Gregorio continues to speak as a scene from the present of Lilith facing down soldiers is shown.*
Gregorio: We are strong enough to punish all who would defy God's will.
*As the song builds to the chorus, Lilith is shown running toward the soldiers with some of her friends right beside her.*
Lilith: Strike without mercy!
Jaffrey: Are we really doing this?
Lilith: We don't have a choice!
*As the song launches into the chorus, a montage of fighting and action FMVs are shown.*
We were the kings and queens of promise
We were the victims of ourselves
*A young thieving woman, Cassidy, is shown hopping on top of soldiers' heads with stolen goods in hand. A ferocious warrior woman slams a giant creature to the ground, then the guardsman Scout is shown using a rifle to battle back soldiers and robots invading his village. Lilith swings her sword at some enemies, and then Jaffrey is shown doing the same. Graddock, the magic pirate, fires from his skyship, taking out several Order vessels, then Lilith is shown leaping from the skyship to destroy one more as Cassidy and Jaffrey run to the edge of the ship and look down at her, worried.*
Maybe the children of a lesser god
Between heaven and hell
Heaven and hell
*Cassidy is shown leading some of the party members through a beautiful forested area reminiscent of the Sunleth Waterscape. Lilith, Cassidy, and Scout are ensnared by some vines, but Lilith slips out just in time to cut one down. Then we see Lilith turn to face a massive creature, half-mechanical, half-magical. She holds up the Xenoblade and seems to summon an equally large creature, and the two clash as the chorus reaches its end. More environmental scenes are shown, including more story exposition and dialogue.*
Cassidy: Mmm, you seem to be missin' somethin', don'tcha?
Lilith: What did you do?
Cassidy: *laughs at her and flees*
Scout: She took it!
Lilith: Get back here!
*The scene switches to show Graddock's skyship flying through the air.*
Lilith: *kneeling and chained up on the ground but still VERY defiant and in command* You're going to help us.
Graddock: And what makes you think I'm going to do that?
Lilith: Because if I get free and you haven't agreed to help us, you're a dead man and I'm taking your ship.
Graddock: Well, you're braver than the others...
Into your eyes...
*A child is shown sadly bowing his head as Lilith tries to comfort him.*
Lilith: We'll get your family back.
Hopeless and taken...
*Various scenes of the world beaten down by the Order is shown, with some of Gregorio's lieutenants, including a bespectacled female similar to OTL's Jihl Nabaat and a tall man decked out in a suit of powered black armor are shown.*
Scalera (the woman): We stand at a crossroads between order and chaos... light and darkness... obedience and death.
*The tall man is shown clashing swords with Lilith, both looking furious with one another.*
We stole our new lives...
*Scenes of the party members bonding are shown, even Graddock seems to be getting along with the rest of the group as Cassidy gives him a smile. Scout is shown hugging his family, who he has to leave behind to join Lilith on our journey.*
Through blood and name
*Lilith holds up the Xenoblade, which activates and glows, some of its parts beginning to move.*
Lilith: This thing is incredible....!
Jaffrey: That sword could change the whole world... you shouldn't use it unless you're ready to accept the consequences!
Lilith: I don't give a damn about the consequences, I want the Order to pay for Amyra's death!
In defense of our dreams
Cassidy: I won't let you hurt my new friends! *stands ready with her daggers*
*The party members run through another beautiful environment, then are shown battling in a large city.*
In defense of our dreams
Order Captain: *slams his fist against a table* Why can't we stop one woman?
Soldier: She's not alone!
Captain: How many are fighting with her?
*A city full of people is shown rallying against the Order, with Lilith leading the charge. Lilith cuts down an enormous battle mech, then a scene is shown of several of the party members appearing to use summoning attacks against an oncoming foe.*
*The party looks on as a settlement full of people burns, in various states of sadness and shock.*
Lilith: I'll avenge them all! *the Xenoblade activates as the chorus starts back up*
We were the kings and queens of promise
We were the victims of ourselves
Maybe the children of a lesser god
Between heaven and hell
Heaven and hell
*This sequence during the chorus shows off the game's battle system, which looks like an almost 50/50 hybrid of the battle systems from OTL
Xenoblade Chronicles and OTL
Final Fantasy XIII, with special attacks on a Xenoblade-like cooldown system. Some characters use primarily magic, some use primarily physical attacks, and some use both, with enemy staggering mostly like
Final Fantasy XIII's system, but aiding in the use of
Xenoblade-esque Break/Topple/Launch combos. Enemies run the gamut from a huge variety of wildlife, to humans of various factions, to massive beasts, and character attacks range from Fire/Fira/Firaga-type spells to attacks involving a variety of strategies and quirks, with even huge summon creatures available in the game, with some characters who don't use summons having their own special physical attacks. Lilith can also use the Xenoblade in much the same way as Shulk uses the Monado in OTL
Xenoblade Chronicles, using it to shield her party from specials or break down enemy defenses, and also using it to manipulate time. As the chorus ends, the fight system exhibition segues into more subdued cutscenes, showing the party entering a ruin of an ancient modern city like the ruins on Gran Pulse in OTL
Final Fantasy XIII.*
The age of man is over...
Jaffrey: The ancient city of Mechonis... destroyed all those years ago...
Lilith: What happened?
Cassidy: They say it was the wrath of God.
Lilith: Do you believe that?
Cassidy: Something horrible happened here...
A darkness comes at dawn...
*Shooting stars plummet from the sky as Lilith and her friends look off in the distance toward a massive fortress on an island floating in the air.*
Lilith: There. Our answers lie there.
*The plant warrior Folfol walks sadly as his own people seem to have rejected him.*
Folfol: I don't know if I should do this.
Lilith: I can't tell you what to do. I won't force you to be something you're not. That would make me no better than the Order.
Folfol: But I know this is the right thing to do.
Lilith: That makes one of us...
*The scenes continue to build up to a climax, with the heroes exploring more areas and more emotional moments on display. Scout screams as he cradles a woman's body in his arms.*
These lessons that we've learned here...
*Cassidy finds an incredible treasure, and looks up to see a phoenix-like bird flying down toward her. Two children fly together on a mechanical vehicle. A robot clad in white is shown rising out of some kind of liquid.
*
Have only just begun...
*A rapid-fire montage of scenes and dialogue are shown as the song builds up to the final chorus.*
Gregorio: Find them!
Lilith: I won't stop until you tell everyone the truth!
Cassidy: I'm not afraid anymore!
Scout: Alexis! Krissy!
Lilith: *to Graddock* You're nothing but a filthy traitor!
Graddock: And how many people did you betray to get here?
Lilith: Shut up! *rushes him*
Leafian Leader: Folfol, this is outrageous!
Folfol: I am fighting for everyone, whether you want me to or not!
*As the song reaches the chorus again, Lilith is shown riding on a winged dragon that greatly resembles Bahamut, attacking a massive, angelic dragon.*
We were the kings and queens of promise
*Folfol leads a charge of Leafians against a group of soldiers led by the tall Order lieutenant from before. Then, Lilith is shown freezing time and grabbing a bound Cassidy away from a villain about to slice her throat, saving her life in a split second.*
Villain: How....?! That's impossible!
Lilith: I am the impossible. *the Xenoblade activates as Cassidy looks on in amazement*
We were the victims of ourselves
*Lilith and Scout stand back to back, battling enemies with their swords, smiling as hundreds of foes fall before them without putting a scratch on them.*
Maybe the children of a lesser god
*A voice can be heard, seemingly addressing Lilith. It's not Gregorio, but something deep and menacing.*
Voice: Do you dare to defy the will of your god? Do you dare to condemn all of humanity to an eternity of darkness and punishment for your own selfish revenge?
Lilith: I'm through listening to you! I'm through listening to everyone who tells me what I have to do and who I have to be!
Between heaven and hell!
*Lilith and the rest of the party are shown one last time battling various foes as increasingly cataclysmic events happen on screen: cities being vaporized, entire continents seemingly rising up from the ground, and the Xenoblade performing more and more spectacular feats.*
Voice: You'll die!
Lilith: I'll take you to hell with me!
We are the kings
*Scenes of various male characters from the game, most prominently Scout, Jaffrey, and Graddock, are shown performing various awesome feats, with Jaffrey battling his commanding officer one on one and Graddock ramming his ship into a huge beast.*
We are the queens
*The focus shifts to Lilith and Cassidy, but also various other prominent female characters in the game, culminating in Lilith and Cassidy embracing and Lilith battling against the strange white robot from before, along with a scene of Lilith and Amyra looking at each other.*
We are the kings!
*Graddock is shown standing on the bow of his ship with the wind at his back, smiling. Folfol rises up on a massive vine that transforms into an incredible flower creature, and Jaffrey kneels and takes a warrior oath.*
We are the queens!
*Lilith, battered and beaten, picks up the Xenoblade and looks up. She runs full speed toward something, and the camera pans way out to show that Lilith is attacking some kind of creature that looks to be the size of a continent. With no hesitation, as the song launches into its triumphant climax, Lilith leaps into the air, Xenoblade in hand, at the creature. As the chorus ends and the backing choir kicks in, we get an iconic shot of Lilith, alone and defiant, Xenoblade raised, hanging in midair and facing this creature that appears to be God itself. The video hangs on this moment for several more seconds before slowly fading to white and showing the
Final Fantasy XII logo. The song concludes as the logo remains on screen and then fades away to reveal the game's worldwide release date: October 20, 2009.*
-
The
Final Fantasy XII trailer was followed by one of the longest sustained ovations we've ever heard at an E3 event. It was breathtaking, spectacular, awe-inspiring, and tearjerking, and while it may have written a check that no game could ever cash, we're all hoping it lives up to the hype and becomes the best
Final Fantasy game ever, or at least the best since
VIII, the last one helmed by Tetsuya Takahashi. After the trailer ended, Trinen showed off another trailer, this one a teaser for a somewhat unexpected sequel...
-
(Authors' Note: The teaser for
Selene 2 was given to us by the reader
jolou!)
*A sad song can be heard in the background as the screen begin to show a camp in the night. More precisely what seem to be a slave camp. The tools seem relatively modern and even some futuristic. The camp is surrounded by hills.
Inside the camp, the crowd of humans seem to work as hard as they can. Some are beaten down, but we can’t see by who but their weapons doesn’t seem made by a human mind and are quite advanced*
*Suddenly, instead of Humans being pushed on the ground, it’s the “guard” who are killed precisely, one shot at a time*
All the humans turn toward a hill. We can see a form there. The camera does a jump, and it’s clearly a human protected by a mask.
It is an older Mathew Fullington. In the background, we can see the Selene far away in the sky.*
*The theme from
Selene begins to play.*
SELENE 2
2011
-
While the cheers weren't as exuberant as they were for
Final Fantasy XII's incredible trailer, the confirmation of a
Selene sequel so quickly after the release of the original game was one of the more exciting reveals of Nintendo's presentation, and generated some strong cheers from the crowd. The next teaser began with the Sony Entertainment logo, and showed off a prison environment. This seemed to be some kind of intergalactic prison, Alkatraz on steroids, and we could see a prisoner walking through the halls. Suddenly, the prisoner pulled a weapon, and the perspective shifted to first person. After some first-person shooting, the perspective shifted back to third person as the prisoner continued to escape with guards chasing behind him. He commandeered a vehicle and drove as fast as he could away from the prison, then hijacked a space ship, only for the ship to encounter some kind of impenetrable barrier. The prisoner was surrounded by guards, and tried to shoot as many as he could, only to be suddenly pinned down by some kind of huge monster that was being commanded by the prison planet's warden, who said that he might have use for the prisoner. Then the game's title was revealed:
Ballistic Limit: No Escape. The reveal of the
Ballistic Limit logo generated a lot of cheering, about as much as the cheering for
Selene 2. This game will be a 2010 release, and it looks like it could be ditching Ash Beckland as the protagonist, as he was nowhere to be seen in the trailer. Following the
No Escape trailer, we got a quick reel of new upcoming Supernova games, including a new
WarioWare game in which players can make their own microgames called
WarioWare: D.I.Y., a new
Twisted Metal game called
Twisted Metal Liquid, a quick little preview for
Pokemon LightSun and DarkMoon, a pair of remakes of 2000's
Pokemon Sun And Moon that were revealed late last year and are being released later this month, and finally, a nice little featurette for
Squad Four Declassified, a full-fledged 3-D
Squad Four adventure in the style of
Rebellion.
Declassifed looks a LOT better than 2007's
Unauthorized, which drew a polarizing critical reaction, and looks like a fun little companion game to the upcoming
Protectors. We're also getting a new
The Lost Vikings game exclusively for the Supernova, and
Shin Megami Tensei III is finally coming to the West in November. After the Supernova reel, Trinen welcomed Rare's new VP of design and development, Josh Sawyer, up to the stage. Sawyer was recently let go from Black Isle Studios after its purchase by Electronic Arts, and has been a crucial figure in the development of Rare's latest titles. He started off by welcoming Chris Seavor to the stage, and Seavor and Sawyer discussed
The Conkering Hero, Rare's newest platforming title starring the wisecracking squirrel. In this new game, which takes place over a sprawling world featuring a huge variety of environments, Conker can don a number of costumes which enhance his abilities, and spent most of the presentation in a knight costume, riding a cartoonish horse and slashing enemies with a comically large sword. Humor and whimsy are definitely the name of the game in
The Conkering Hero, and Rare showed no shame in exhibiting a full-fledged, old school collectathon 3-D platformer at E3. Despite the game's old school feel, it definitely had its charm, and the crowd really seemed to be into it, especially during Conker's boss fight with a fire spewing but surprisingly wimpy dragon. Next up, Rare teased a game that likely won't be ready until 2011: the company's first WRPG, and the first Rare project to be headed solely by Sawyer. The game has a somewhat dark aesthetic, and will also be sci-fi based, taking place on a world tainted by corruption and a mysterious dark force. The game's title was revealed as
Slaughtered Planet, an appropriately dark name for such a game, and though the game won't be out for quite some time, the crowd seemed to be quite energized by the teaser. Seavor then left the stage, and Sawyer told the crowd that he knows what game they've been waiting for. After showing a bit of last year's "what is humanity?" teaser, the teaser segued into a gameplay segment showing off Joanna Dark in her full HD glory as the crowd roared. Joanna moved through a government facility, shooting guards and evading cameras and laser fire, then ducked into a room, where she stood at a computer. She removed a "disguise", revealing that it wasn't Joanna at all, but instead was Joanna's AI sister Velvet, downloading some information. Velvet seemed to be tracking down some captured AIs like herself, and as the guards beat down the door to the room, Velvet was littered with gunfire... but she had already downloaded herself onto the internet. She then spoke to an unseen contact, revealing that her cover had been blown but that she knows where one of the prisoners is. The gameplay segment went on for a bit longer, and revealed that significant parts of the game will take place in cyberspace itself, with Velvet forced to fight in a synthetic world similar to that of
The Matrix. The story reveals indicated that the game will feature significant characters that the player won't know whether they are human or AI, and that AIs were forced to become "human" to evade a government bent on destroying them all. The presentation also reveals that while Joanna will be the primary protagonist of the game, she and Velvet haven't been able to communicate in quite some time, as Velvet has been forced to go into hiding. The game's title was revealed as
Dark Humanity, and Spring 2010 was given as the release window. The crowd had an extremely enthusiastic reaction to the
Dark Humanity presentation, one of the most positive of all of E3, and Sawyer further excited the crowd by revealing that
Dark Humanity would be playable at Rare's E3 booth. He then thanked the crowd for coming to E3.
After Sawyer left, a video began playing promoting
Killer Instinct 4, showing Fulgore fighting a variety of characters from the game, including the new villain Karkena. Fulgore takes them all out, but is suddenly blindsided when a fireball is thrown his way. He turns just in time to see a gloved fist taking a swing at him, forcing him to leap back. He looks into the shadows... it's Mario! Fulgore and Mario begin fighting, when all of a sudden, Link appears and it's a three-way brawl. By now, the crowd is ecstatic... they know what this means. Fulgore fights off Mario and Link, and leaps into the air, seeing a bunch of Nintendo characters coming from all directions. He lands in the middle of them, and an all out brawl begins as the video fades to white. We then see a familiar face appear on the screen... Masahiro Sakurai, here to introduce a brand new
Super Smash Bros. game for the Nintendo Sapphire. The game is still early in development, but Sakurai announces that nearly all of the characters from 2005's
Smash Bros. Clash will return, along with a lot of new characters including Fulgore from
Killer Instinct. He promises that nearly every week, something new will be revealed about the upcoming game. After about a minute more of Sakurai thanking fans and promising that the new
Super Smash Bros. game will be the best one ever, one more video is played. Mario and Luigi and Peach are walking along when they're attacked by Bowser. They seem to have fought him off, only for a burst of magic to come flying in, revealing a second new character... the Magikoopa Kamek! Kamek flies along, laughing as his magic seems to be wreaking havoc for Mario and Luigi. Bowser grabs Peach and begins to carry her off, and then we hear a voice... "Isn't that a rude way to treat a lady?" Somebody in the crowd shouts "Henry Rollins!", and by now, a lot of people in the crowd know who's coming next... it's Nero, from the
Big Bad Hero series, and he quickly wins a brief magic duel with Kamek, saving Peach. He tells her not to get used to him saving damsels in distress, then enters into a spectacular fight with Bowser that carries off the screen before the game's title is revealed:
Super Smash Bros. Unleashed. The crowd cheers again, and Bill Trinen returns to the stage, telling them to expect a lot more information about
Super Smash Bros. Unleashed before the game's release some time next year. That concludes Nintendo's presentation, and while Apple's slate of games was admittedly equally impressive, Nintendo's presentation and theatrics stole the show, with some of the most memorable trailers we've ever seen and some thrilling big moments for the crowd. Nintendo definitely brought its big franchises to this year's show, and the Sapphire's slate looks as impressive as any we've seen in quite some time.
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Chloe Maritzen: *playing the early New York City segment from
Beyond Good And Evil 3, showing Jade just exploring a destroyed and windswept Manhattan, dust storms blowing around her* This is one of the most haunting things I've ever seen in a video game. This is how
Beyond Good And Evil 3 starts off, right?
Michel Ancel: It's one of the very first levels but I won't quite spoil how the game actually starts off. But yes, this is one of the first.
*Chloe continues to explore. It's very quiet, no enemies are coming out but Jade can pick up a ton of treasures that give lots of exposition and background information, creating an environment of sadness and desolation.*
Chloe: I'm in awe at the graphics in this game too. The Sapphire just makes this look so incredible.
Ancel: This game was actually partially in development before the release of
Beyond Good And Evil 2. It's four years in the making, once we finalized the story for that game we started immediately on this one, so we've been polishing and working on it for a very long time. We didn't want to take a long time to get this game to the fans, we didn't want to keep them waiting with that awful cliffhanger.
Chloe: I remember that cliffhanger- oh crap I've been spotted! *she ducks behind a building just in time to see a patrol of robot soldiers* If they spot me, I'm toast, right?
Ancel: It's not instant death, Jade can kill the robot soldiers but not more than one or maybe two at a time, so yes, stealth is almost mandatory here.
Chloe: I know a lot of gamers don't like these stealth sections. I actually do, but I know they turn a lot of people off.
Ancel: It's very early in the game, so we make it so it's not so hard, and it's pretty forgiving at first. We teach you before we throw you to the wolves, so to speak!
*Chloe is able to get Jade where she needs to be, avoiding the robot patrols.*
Chloe: I'm so excited for this game. Is it really going to be the last one?
Ancel: It is a definitive conclusion to the series.
Chloe: Wow, really?
Ancel: I will not be making any more
Beyond Good And Evil games after this one.
Chloe: But if Ubisoft wanted to make more....?
Ancel: *laughing*
Chloe: *she passes another stealth section* So when does Jade get all her abilities and stuff back?
Ancel: Does she? *laughing some more*
Chloe: Oh, come on!
Ancel: Maybe she doesn't!
Chloe: I could see making us earn them all back but don't make it so hard!
Ancel: I will say that Jade is stronger in this game than she's ever been. She starts out weaker but she becomes so much stronger. She's already fought her way out of some kind of prison.
Chloe: Will we get to see flashbacks of that too?
Ancel: Yes, we will.
(...)
Adam Sessler: It's good to see that Ubisoft is not neglecting the handhelds. Right now, I'm playing
Assassin's Creed on the Game Boy Supernova. This is actually the original game, scaled down a bit, but it looks great on this machine.
*Adam can perform all the assassinations and wall climbing that he can on the original game. The draw distance and resolution are obviously severely reduced, but the game still runs at a full frame rate, and it's one of the more impressive looking handheld games ever seen.*
Sessler: It looks like, you know,
Assassin's Creed on the Nintendo Wave. Which we never got, but if we had gotten it, this is probably what it would have looked like. It's a very pretty port of a really fun game. And we've also got
Tom Clancy's Delta Force: Rendition, which is coming to the Supernova and the iPod Play, and also the iPhone. So let's switch over to that game and I'll show you that this one also looks pretty good. Now, this isn't the same game. It's reduced in the number of missions and it actually has some extra story stuff to make it more worthwhile of a purchase. It focuses more heavily on the
Rendition characters, so it's nice that it's not just a straight up port. It looks... pretty fantastic. I'm playing this one on the iPhone, and can you believe a shooter like this looks this good on a phone?
*Adam continues to play for a while to show off the graphics and gameplay, which, again, look last gen but the game plays like a modern shooter.*
Sessler: You can see just how far handhelds have come in such a short time. It really is an amazing thing to be playing this on an iPhone, and I'm sure a lot of people will be playing this on their iPhone later this year.
-from G4's live coverage of E3 2009, airing on June 18, 2009
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There's no denying that console games made the biggest splash at this year's E3. From the spectacular reveals of games like
Super Smash Bros. Unleashed to the emotional trailer for
Final Fantasy XII and popular console franchise exclusives like
Cyberwar: Netizen X and
Sonic: Elemental Friends, E3 2009 was the year when all the current gen consoles flexed their muscle and battled it out for the hearts and minds of players everywhere. But there's still a big place in this world for PC gaming, especially after last year's
SimSociety shattered records for both sales and critical reception. The big software companies were all out in force to show off upcoming PC titles, and we got some really good ones at this year's show.
Quake V was probably the biggest reveal, and even though it was revealed at Microsoft's keynote for the Xbox 2, we all know that power players will be enjoying it on their PC. id Software showed off lots of footage of the game running on the latest rigs, and it looks stunning, even better than last year's
Cold War: Enlisted Man. It looks like not only the most visually impressive Quake yet, but also the scariest, and the attention to detail is part of the thrill: you can hear a monster's breathing get slowly louder as it approaches. Make sure you have a pair of nice headphones, and maybe some diapers handy, because if you have the first, you'll probably need the second. Then there was
Night Comes To Venville, a game combining old-school point and click elements with a full-fledged Necrocracy-style RPG. You're a monster hunting detective who has to solve the strange events happening in the small town of Venville, but in order to do it you'll need to form relationships with the townspeople and gain clues to where the occurrences have happened and where they'll happen next. The game will let you fully customize your protagonist, and you can be anyone from an aged World War II veteran to a glasses-wearing teen sleuth girl, and anyone in between. This game swept a lot of the PC awards for the show and even beat out Final Fantasy for some of the RPG awards as well. There was an extremely good simulation title,
Freightline, where you take the role of a train conductor and must direct traffic across an entire region of the country. It's the deepest train simulation game we've seen in quite some time, and might win some mainstream appeal due to its slightly quirky aesthetic hidden amongst its realistic simulation gameplay. Speaking of great simulators,
Nemo Propheta In Patria returned, this time with almost a complete build. This amazing religion simulation game is chugging along nicely, and in the absence of any news about a new Civilization game, this could whet our appetite for world builder games for years to come, even with SimSociety still the biggest thing since sliced bread. We also got a chance to play
The Perfect Soldier Project, which features some of the most realistic sniper gameplay ever and tells the story of a man brainwashed by a corporation to assassinate targets across the world. The game keeps track of the protagonist's biometrics, which are as important to gameplay as the player's aim and steady hand, and while the game will also feature traditional FPS segments, it has an emphasis on sniping. This game's still a bit early in development and may not be ready until late next year, but the tech demo we played was very impressive.
-from an article on The PC Enthuasiast's Blog, posted on June 19, 2009
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Game Critics Awards E3 2009
Best Of Show:
Duality
Best Original Game:
Duality
Best Console Game:
Duality
Best PC Game:
Night Comes To Venville
Best Handheld Game:
Super Mario World 4
Best Peripheral/Hardware: Apple Dance Ball
Best Action Game:
Duality
Best Action/Adventure Game:
Kingdom Quest 3
Best Role Playing Game:
Final Fantasy XII
Best Racing Game:
Mariokart Crown
Best Sports Game:
Thrillseekers 2
Best Fighting Game:
Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Best Shooter:
Molten
Best Party Game:
Just Dance
Best Online Multiplayer:
Final Fantasy Online (Sapphire)
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E3 2009 saw a much stronger slate of games than E3 2008, particularly on consoles, and particularly on Nintendo and Apple's HD machines. Nintendo came into E3 trailing behind the iTwin in market share, the first time Nintendo had been behind in the console wars since the period immediately before the release of the Ultra Nintendo, when Sega's surging Saturn was beating on an aging SNES-CD. That's 12 years that Nintendo has gone since facing a situation like this, and the company had all hands on deck at a time when it needed them most. Mario, Zelda, Samus, Squad Four, all the big guns were there, and all pointed directly at Steve Jobs and the iTwin. Though Nintendo didn't even mention the iTwin during their keynote speech, it was clear from the games they showed off, which emphasized graphical power and spectacular set pieces, that the Sapphire was gunning for Apple's underpowered machine, hoping to convince buyers that games that looked better also played better. To Nintendo's credit, their E3 lineup looked really good, with
Beyond Good And Evil 3 and
Final Fantasy XII being stand-outs. However, Nintendo also went surprisingly old-school, not only with a
Super Mario World 4 reveal, but a showcase for their 2010 game
Arcadia that took arcade nostalgia to new heights. Nintendo's message was simple: we own the past, and we'll own the future.
Meanwhile, Apple just wanted to have fun. From a hyper-colorful
Sonic: Elemental Friends trailer, to a Reynaud exhibition dripping with fanservice, to a shameless bubblegum pop disco ball game in
Just Dance, Apple and its enthusiastic champion Reggie Fils-Aime (with the charismatic Steve Jobs right behind him) hyped up their iTwin as the fun system, and even one you could stream movies on. What they didn't reveal was a price cut: this thing was still retailing for $399.99, the same price as a Nintendo Sapphire and by now, more than an Xbox 2. Like the iPhone, Apple continued to push their hardware at a premium price tag, and while that approach hadn't caught up with them yet, it might well in the future.
And the Xbox 2? Apart from
Cyberwar: Netizen X and a surprisingly good
The Covenant 4 teaser, Microsoft's presser had little in the way of excitement or fanservice, and their booth was one of the least crowded major booths at the show. Most of the people who wanted to try out
Quake V were doing it on one of id's custom PC gaming rigs, and avoiding the Xbox 2 port like the plague. Microsoft needed a home run, and in the eyes of many, they barely reached first base. As compelling as their E3 2008 presentation was, that's how boring they were at E3 2009, and now they'd have to hope that what few exclusives they did reveal would be good enough to get those who hadn't bought an Xbox 2 to buy one instead of gravitating to Nintendo and Apple's machines.
The economic recession was in full swing at the time of E3 2009, but that didn't seem to put a damper on the festivities. There were just as many celebrities as in previous years, and companies still hawked their wares with excitement, hoping that the quality of their games would persuade cash-strapped gamers to buy in. There was, however, a bit of a murmur amongst game companies, a more competitive environment, if you will. Companies knew that gamers' budgets were tight, and only the best games would make it into libraries and under Christmas trees in 2009. While the full effects of the recession had yet to be felt in the industry, there was a quiet tension beneath all the celebration and buzz. Come this time next year, some companies might not find themselves in the same place as they did this year... if they still existed at all.
-from IGN's summary of E3 2009
