Microsoft started off stupidly with Rock Band: The Beatles and Tony Hawk Ride, and reminded me too much of Nintendo's 2008 E3 conference. Modern Warfare 2 was nice, Halo ODST was nice, Halo Reach was... kind of a letdown, MGSR was a pleasant surprise, the XBox Live stuff I didn't give a sh** about, and Natal was impressive and at the same time a little unrealistic once they started scanning skateboards and talking to virtual boys. Also, why have Tony Hawk Ride there with its board controller in the first place when their biggest announcements dealt around using none at all - Natal even showed a skateboarding "game" that required no board. It didn't make sense, and I was left more confused than excited at the end of this conference. They were good at keeping up the pace, though.
Overall, a 3 out of 6
Nintendo started off pretty well, as long as I remembered not to go on a hate parade against Cammie Dunaway. She was pleasantly serious and strictly focused on presenting the games, so that's a plus to Cammie from me. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a much needed 2D (or 2.5D, lulz) Mario console platformer, and multiplayer made it more attractive. Wii Fit Plus was mildly interesting but not as nice as NSMBW, and a few moments later Reggie was talking about the Wii MotionPlus, as well as Wii Sports Resort. The few adds onto the title like basketball and archery were quite nice, so I'm more interested now indeed. Moving on, they talk about RPGs, which is always nice, especially once we get to see the next Final Fantasy, a DS Kingdom Hearts and of course Golden Sun DS. There was lots of talk (too much talk, honestly) about DSi and stuff you can do there, like sending your f***ed up picture to Facebook (whoop dee doo). Mario vs Donkey Kong looked alright (but I gotta say, user created content = meh, especially if you're looking to satisfy gamers), Wario looked alright, the three DS titles shown (the book, the cop and the Barbie, haha) all seemed quite uninteresting from my point of view. The three titles shown, Conduit, Resident Evil and Dead Space, all seemed promising, but I already knew about these titles. Still, nice to see some acknowledgement from Reggie. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was unexpected, and a pleasant surprise. Metroid: Other M was a complete shock. I had never expected that title to show up. Oh, and finally, I don't get the Wii Vitality Sensor. At all.
NSMBW, Golden Sun, Galaxy 2, Metroid, and interesting titles like Mario & Luigi and Kingdom Hearts DS make this conference much better than last year's conference. Overall, a 4.5 out of 6.
Sony was without a doubt the biggest, and also the most interesting game wise. While Microsoft had some mildly interesting ones like Call of Duty and Halo, and Nintendo had a few surprises like Metroid and Galaxy 2, Sony delivered game after game, doing them all justice with demonstrations and descriptions. I feel that the guy talking kept bringing up sales, which was also ironically linked to Nintendo's previous conferences. I know people love sales, but really, Microsoft didn't mention them except when they said that they wouldn't mention them, and Nintendo cut down on the number talking. Sony just wouldn't shut up about them, though. And to be honest, when he talked about the PSP I couldn't help but put a hand to my head and just sigh. The PSP is a good handheld, yes, but he didn't convince me for one second that it stood above the DS (in any way except multimedia and, of course, sheer power). The constant mentioning of Hannah Montana occurred to me as very odd. The racing game where they created a new stage looked cool. FFXIV was a pleasant sight to behold, and probably a decent surprise to any person who hadn't expected this in some shape or form.
I quite liked the line-ups for both PS3 and PSP, and I found this conference to be the biggest and most pleasing of all three. Motion control, however... blegh, this shitstorm will never end now, and it honestly is a barely improved MotionPlus in the first place, plus it's due for 2010.
The conference gets a 5 out of 6.
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