threevue

As you may already know, the E3 trade show is set to kick off this week, with tons of announcements and news to coincide with the event. Since it’s invitation-only nowadays (and we definitely didn’t get an invite) it will be our duty to scour the internets for valuable info and pass it along, with an accompaniment of unfounded and biased opinion to boot.

Big news items of the day:
Nintendo announces Wii Sports Resort, Wii Music, Animal Crossing Wii
Grand Theft Auto coming to Nintendo DS
Nintendo introduces “Wii Speak” microphone, “Motion Plus” Wiimote extender/enhancer
Sony announces video content for PS3, PSP
Sony anounces God of War 3 for PS3, Resistance game for PSP
$399 80GB PS3 in September
New PS2 bundle w/ Lego Batman, $149

Mark:
The two marquee keynotes (marqueenotes?) today were from industry tough guys Sony and ‘Intendo, but there was another one containing some very, very juicy info about a game that I (and therefore so should you) am very interested in. Activision revealed some intel about the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War. There will be perks, vehicles, the voice of Jack Baeur and online 4 player co-op! Boioioiong.

There was also some news about a few non-WWDeuce shooters, like Spiderman: Web of Shadows, the new Wolfenstein, and 007: Quantum of Something, but I really only care about games where you can kill Germans Nazis. Wait…Wolfestein will be rad.

Russ:
I must admit that I was sorely disappointed by Nintendo’s keynote. Two years ago I was fully behind them, and how they would bring casual games to the masses and turn them into gamers, giving us gamers more weight and a higher likelihood of taking over the world. Instead, I see a rift where casual gamers buy crap casual games like Wii Music and the rest of us scoff at them and the millions of dollars that Nintendo makes. And Nintendo cheerily rubs it in our faces and throws us little nuggets like “oh, the Mario and Zelda teams are working on new games…”

The Sony keynote was better, with several price drops and a promise of God of War III. Makes me wish I had a PS3 just a little more. And at $399, it’s looking better and better (I just wish it would get a redesign, so it would actually LOOK better, and not like a George Foreman grill). And since when did Ratchet and Clank become this company’s flagship franchise? When they lost everything else? BURN!

Tyler:
I would have to say that the thing I’m most surprised about has to be the Grand Theft Auto game for the DS. Now when I say “surprised”, don’t misconstrue that as meaning “excited”. Cuz I wouldn’t pay one penny for that game based on the title alone. Come to think of it, I haven’t paid a penny for a DS game in years.

Sony had more of my attention though and won my favorite moment with the God of War III reveal. They really didn’t have to show any in-game footage or feature sets… just let me see ol’ Kratos standing atop a demolished temple, posing all thugged out in front of a thunderstorm. Thank you.

Sweet.