Highlights from E3 - Part 5

One of the best things about E3 in my opinion, is getting to see cutting edge visuals on display.  I already touched on the Final Fantasy demo, but one of the most notable announcements came from Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream with...

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Highlights from E3 - Part 4

With a household of gamers of varying ages and interests, I find myself considering a lot of titles that might not immediately appeal to me.  That's not to say that Forza or Kingdom Hearts titles are bad games, but they are not ones I would give much thought to when there are announcements and trailers released.  However, knowing that my youngest daughter loves LittleBigPlanet or my son enjoys all things Call of Duty, I find myself examining games more closely than I might otherwise do - and occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised when I do.

My oldest?  She mostly plays games like The Sims, but she absolutely loves games with unique artwork too.  She might not play, but she will plop down next to me and watch me play, which can be fun too because it gets us sitting together and talking as we pass the time.  One such title I think will appeal to her is...

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Highlights from E3 - Part 3

Round three of... well, I don't know how many yet.  As someone who owns every current-gen system except the Vita though, I have quite the interest in a wide variety of releases.  And quite frankly, there is a solid chance I wind up with a Vita sometime in the next year, so even those titles interest me.  Since I'm talking Sony specifically, and led off with Xbox exclusives last article, let's kick things off with...

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Highlights from E3 - Part 2

One of the great things about being console agnostic is I get excited about a wide range of games and do not believe in fanboyism.  Do I come to appreciate the offerings of one system more than another, or one game series more than another?  Sure, but it is personal preference and not some blind devotion or loyalty to a company because I plunked money down on their system and feel an irrational need to defend that decision by ripping on another console.

As a result?  I watch events like E3 and simply try to take it all in and figure out what games and hardware over the next year or two is going to appeal to my family and myself and not get riled up over console exclusives.  So, here is the second part of my highlights from E3, starting with...

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Highlights from E3 - Part 1

So this week I have commented on my own E3 thoughts, and how I came away disappointed from the conferences that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo held.  There were few real surprising announcements and most of the best stuff shown was third party software that shows up on multiple platforms.  It is nice to see that there is some enthusiastic third party support for the Wii U, but when it makes up a third of Nintendo's conference, that somehow seems a bit odd - especially when you do not see hardly anything from Nintendo's stable of great first party titles like Kirby or Metroid.

All was not lost however.  There were some very good showings from individual game developers.  While I would have liked to see more surprises - it felt like everyone's pre-E3 announcements took a lot of the punch out of the event itself - there is still some good stuff to talk about, so I thought I would briefly list some of the highlights for me coming out of this year's conference.  I will break this up into a few parts to include video for anyone who hasn't gotten to see something that may be of interest to them, but too many embed videos in a single page can be rough for loading purposes.  Plus there are some upcoming items I have not yet gotten to see, but will surely want to talk about (like Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Persona 4 Arena and Disney Epic Mickey 2) I have to start with...

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Nintendo's E3 conference

I was really hoping Nintendo would come out swinging this year.  Last year I thought the Big N had the weakest showing at E3 of the three consoles.  They only showed one title from their current gen console, and while Skyward Sword was amazing, it still left a lot of Wii owners feel like they were left out in the cold because so much attention was given to the Wii-U, which was still a long ways off.

For me personally at the time, the 3DS portion of the conference last year did not resonate all that well as I did not have a 3DS.  This year I have one, and the with the Wii U coming out soon, I had much higher expectations from this conference - it felt like it would be much more relevant to fans.

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June's PlayStation Plus

I haven't had a chance to finish watching Nintendo's E3 yet, but once I do I'll get a post out there (probably tomorrow) with my thoughts on it as well as on what has been (at least to me so far) a disappointing E3 overall.

But in the meantime, if you are a PlayStation 3 owner, and you don't have PlayStation Plus, now might be a very solid time to sign up for a month or three. Just hope you have plenty of hard drive space.  For those who haven't used PlayStation Plus yet, the premise is this: While you are a subscriber, you get access to demos (complete with the ability to earn trophies) and 'free' games.  The catch on the free games is that they only will play while you are an active subscriber.  For those who like to purchase content on the PlayStation Network however, being a PlayStation Plus subscriber sometimes gives you some nice discounts too, and unlike the freebies, games you actually purchase while a subscriber are yours to play indefinitely, even when your subscription runs out.

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Just a few quick E3 thoughts this morning

Unfortunately real-life is conspiring against my ability to fully digest and share my thoughts on E3 right now, between my dad visiting from out of state, some issues at work and so on.  Still, having gotten to watch some of the press conferences, here's some of the things that caught my eye for better or worse.  I will start with what everyone seemed to be talking about, even at work yesterday afternoon: Tomb Raider.

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Heroes of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes - PSN Review

Heroes of Might and Magic is a series I am familiar with, but not experience with.  I know that it is generally a strategy series involving magic and monsters of fantasy lore.  This game has little resemblance to those titles based on what I know of them, with a story line that as best as I can tell is completely independent of that series as well.

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