These posts are not intended to be well written articles so much as simply the opinions of a cranky jaded gamer who has been around for a good while now.

Nintendo

Nintendo started off with what it usually starts off with, Reggie Fils-Aime spewing bullshit.  As far as I know, that is his job description so if I'm right about that then he is great at his job.  The man is a politician and I don't much care for him (as a spokesman I mean, I don't know him personally.)  I was hoping they would bring out something strong this year to compete with the Microsoft and Sony, but really there was nothing to interest me.  In a way they did come out with something strong (which I will talk about below), but I have zero interest in it personally.

I actually spent a large part of the conference with the feeling that I should be sitting in a movie theater with the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 making fun of the conference.  It would have been easy.

Zelda: Skyward Sword.  This game actually looked pretty decent.  Zelda is fun, and I generally like the games, but I usually don't get around to playing them for more than a few hours.  There are always just so many other games to play.  This one looks like it will be much the same for me.  The graphics are pretty much what I expect from a Zelda game and the game play will be as solid as ever.  The controls rely heavily on jerking the Wii controller around, which I'm not a huge fan of, but they won't likely overdo it too much so it should be OK.  Internet comments about the game were fairly amusing during the show.  This is a game that is (I expect) at least a year from coming out.  There is a lot of work that still has to be done, and will be done.

Nintendo showed the new Golden Eye game for the Wii.  It looked a little better than the original Nintendo 64 game.  I mean that literally.  It looked a little better.  At least the controls have to be better than they were in the N64 game.  Anything is better than the controls the original game had.  If someone gave me the choice between playing the original or jumping off a bridge, I would probably jump off the bridge.  Both options would kill me, but at least one of them would probably be faster.  None the less, the game should look better than it does.

Warren Spector showed his new game, Disney Epic Mickey.  It's not exactly what I think of when I think Warren Spector, but it looks like a quality game.  I might even play it.  The art style was spot on and the game play looks solid.

Kirby's Epic Yarn.  This is an interesting game concept, at least as far as the art goes.  Everything is based around yarn (string) or fabric.  It is interesting to look at, but it's also quite heavy on the usage of pastel colours.  While I do think it's a neat game to look at, I feel that I would quickly grow tired of the art style of the game and end up wishing I was playing the usual Kirby style game.  There may be a large diversity of levels, so I'll just have to wait and see.

Nintendo brought out a demo of Metroid other M.  I have not been paying much attention to this title since it was first announced, but I was under the impression it was supposed to be more of a side-scroller.  I guess I was wrong.  It looked a lot like the last few first person shooter type Metroid games.  That's not a bad thing in my opinion though, as those have been great games.  The art style looked quite similar, which is also fine with me.

Donkey Kong Country Returns made an appearance.  Yawn.  What do you want me to say?  It's more of the same.  I saw nothing different, nothing worth mentioning in the video.  If you love these games then you will likely love this one.

Nintendo made a big deal about their 3DS.  They showed this (too long) video that's entire purpose was to say that you don't need glasses to see the 3D from the 3DS.  I'm not a big fan of these types of videos.  I am not an idiot.  If you want to tell me I don't need glasses to use the device, then just say "You don't need glasses with this device."  It's really very simple.  The new Nintendo hand-held has an interesting effect, but the system itself doesn't really interest me at all.  It's just another gimmicky device from a company that specializes in them.  I'm sure it will do very well, but I don't plan to pick one up.  General feeling around the internet that I have seen is very positive.  People seem to think the 3DS is the greatest thing ever.  Maybe Nintendo is lucky interesting things from this E3 were few and far between.  I have to wonder if people would have been so wowed by this if any of the other companies had managed to bring something impressive to the table.  Personally I think I'll hold out for the Nintendo Holographic Projector.

Sony Computer Entertainment

Oh Sony, I try.  I really do.  I try so hard not to hate you.  You just make it so easy for me to fail at my attempts when you behave as you behaved in this press conference.

Not only did Sony spend 90% of their conference wasting time, they blatantly promoted Coke.  Really Sony?  Do you need money so bad you had to get Coke to pay you to act even more douchey than usual?

The following is what I remember of the conference, what I didn't tune out that is.  I will skip them plugging 3D televisions, and Blu-ray.

Killzone 3 started off the conference.  A fairly strong start relative to the rest of the E3 conferences.  Killzone 3 looks very strong graphically.  The thing with saying that it's graphics look good though, is that you have to admit that Killzone 2 looked good as well and that Killzone 3 is really only a tiny little bit better looking that the second game was.  Not that that's a bad thing or even unexpected, it's just that it sort of downgrades it as far as a "Wow look at that!" kind of thing.  I'm sure this game will do well.  I'm not a fan of the Killzone games (the first game was one of the worst games I have ever played), so I may never get around to playing this one.

Sony showed Little Big Planet 2.  I am actually a fan of Little Big Planet, but I did really get pretty bored of it quite a while ago.  I'm not sure if this new game can get me interested in it again or not.  I had a lot of fun with the first one, but I'm just not sure if that type of game is for me anymore.  They have put a lot of work into it, and the additions to the game that I saw looked great.  It features a much more diverse tool set now and you should be able to do a great deal with it.

Playstation Plus was announced.  It will be a subscription service costing $50 a year, or $18 for three months.  Purportedly the content that is available from the service is only available while your subscription is active.  From what I have heard, the things you acquire from the service will not be downloadable if you let your subscription expire.  It is also rumoured that you may not even be able to play things you have obtained from the service after a subscription expires.  I have not heard these things explained with any real level of clarity from any official source so I can not be completely sure on these details (about service expiration).  The service will offer "access to free games, early demos, beta invites, discounts, free themes, and more." ^[source]

A new Medal of Honor game was shown.  This is a reboot of the series and has (to my knowledge) no subtitle.  The game looks great.  It looks like a really well done clone of the Modern Warfare games.  I don't say that to be a jerk, it's not really a bad thing at all.  The game looks great and it looks like it plays great as well.  I look forward to playing this one.

More Dead Space 2 was shown.  It looks just as good as the last time I saw it (the day before), which is very good.  It was announced that Dead Space 2 and the original game are being bundled together and that both games will have Move support.  I think that's a great move.  I'm disappointed that Microsoft doesn't seem to have done anything like this for the Kinect.  Having at least one or two hardcore games for Kinect would have helped it a lot.  Good job on this one Sony.

Gabe Newell came out and made slightly nervous looking jokes about his previous Sony bashing.  He was the only truly funny guy Sony brought out for this conference so it was nice to have him there.  He showed Portal 2, and it looks fantastic.  I absolutely loved the first game and I can't wait to play this new one.  They have put a lot of effort into it and I'm sure it will be great.  I doubt I'll play it on my Playstation 3 though.  I generally prefer to play things on either my Xbox 360 or my PC.  I just like the 360 controller a lot more than the Playstation 3 controller, and I also think that Xbox Live is 100 times the service that Playstation Network is.

Sony showed (and talked about) Final Fantasy XIV, which is it's new MMO set in the Final Fantasy world (so to speak.)  I really don't have much to say about this.  I was so bored by this that I think I may have fallen asleep at one point.

To Sum It All Up

Terrible, just terrible.  I don't remember a more disappointing E3 than this one, as far as press conferences are concerned.  There was nothing particularly memorable (unless you want to count things that aren't press conferences exactly and then the super insanity that was the Kinect naming event with Cirque du Soleil really takes the prize) in all the conferences.  Nintendo just brought very little of interest to me.  They had some little things that were the usual for them, but nothing really interesting.  Sony managed to really irritated me with what seemed like stalling tactics, and then tried to shove advertising down my throat.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who wouldn't agree with me on many of my opinions stated here, but I do think most people would agree that this E3 has been quite a let down.  Hopefully the showroom floors have a big surprise or two hiding in them.