Will Wright is Right: E3 is Dead

Imagine that, a well known game developer finally says what everyone has been thinking, “it’s the walking dead.” Will Wright, famous for TheSims, SimCity and upcoming Spore believes E3 is in a state now where we’ll never see the old E3 and we’ll never accept the slimmed down anorexic thing we’re getting now.

End result is simple: it’s time to move on and create a new event and begin our arms race anew. Or, bring a version of the Game Convention over here from Europe and allow a new convention group to see what they can do with it, booth babes and all.

It’s hard to argue with the sheer amount of money that was spent to “compete” at a PR level with each major publisher and console maker. However, allowing E3 to die and starting a brand new design means people will be able to think ahead of “what’s to come” before re-igniting the exact same brand under a new name. We need something as exciting and invogorating without the massive hommoraging of cash.

(Thanks, GameStooge)

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Are Game Controllers Too Complicated?Are Game Controllers Too Complicated?

The same company that brought us the NES Advantage has proven the Wii control scheme isn’t as bad as critics speculated. The beauty of adding the “waggle” technology is limiting your button count to a reasonable level without overwhelming gamers.

We’re seeing casual gaming on the rise both in the press and in the public. Yet, each “next generation” console brings new features and functionality to the consoles, games and accessories. Since NES birthed the SNES we’ve seen button count increase on controllers.

Nintendo has usually been conservative on buttons, trying to work “shape” over sheer volume of buttons, barring the C button count on the N64 controller. Nintendo controllers change shape with each generation and they’ve evolved, not innovated, their way around with the Wii control scheme. Each function of the controller exists, on its own, in other products but nobody has built a fully functional controller in such a way for a game console until now.

Sony took pieces of this concept in their PS3 controller and its ability to detect “tilt.” Xbox 360 stuck with the beefy controller with lots of buttons and analog sticks. Not just a D-Pad but two analog sticks and a ton of buttons to press, some pressure sensitive as well. What of our next-generation console? Maybe a few new buttons?

Or, maybe a few new motions? Wii evolved the control scheme and Sony validated their decision, what’s next? Are the controllers just too damn complicated in today’s world? Or, perhaps limiting the buttons brings in more gamers, like Grandma and Grandpa, to play your console as well.

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Episode 255: The Darkness II ContestEpisode 255: The Darkness II Contest

Dan Quick returns again to cover for Paul Nowak, and this week, the Gaming Podcast is offering free copies of The Darkness II Limited Edition, which comes with the main game and some free DLC. The guys are giving away an Xbox 360 version and a PlayStation 3 version. To win, just listen to the podcast and post what your favorite scary movie is.

The game news this week includes:

  • Ex-SCEE senior VP Phil Harrison joins Microsoft’s European team
  • DOOM developer John Romero has “plans” for “old school” shooter
  • EA defends Mass Effect 3 From Ashes DLC data being on disc
  • Notch settles with Bethesda over “Scrolls” trademark
  • DICE: 2GB RAM won’t be enough for next gen consoles
  • Angry Birds theme park to open in Finland
  • GAME puts itself up for sale, GameStop interested
  • Diablo III release date announcement “in a few days“, no PvP in launch version

And yes, they know that the announcement was just made today – May 15th release date for Diablo III.

The contest to win either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 version of The Darkness II will run this and next week, with the winners announced in Episode 257.

Diablo III: Confirmed and IsometricDiablo III: Confirmed and Isometric

We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, we’ve made speculations and we’ve come up with theories. Blizzard has now cleared up much of the fuzzy details and theories by announcing their next title: Diablo III.

Some of us thought it was too early to announce the game, right on the heals of a StarCraft III announcement but Blizzards marketing team must consider this the perfect time, as it’s official. Not only did they announce the title, but they’ve got a cinematic and a good five minutes of game play footage.

We’re not talking about vaporware, this is a real game with really sweet features, hot new graphics and sound and enemies that make prior diablo look like childs play. The worlds are destructable, you can drop walls upon your enemies, toss them over cliffs (on fire no less) and rescue people whom help you do battle.

The game play footage covers barbarian (fighter) class and the witch doctor (sorta a necromancer archtype) with both male and female varients. They explain some of the great powers of the warrior style class and show off a few of the neat spells for the witch doctor. From electric axes to walls of zombies this game is packed with stylish battle techniques unique to Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 utilizes their standard isometric view, familiar to Diablo gamers with a bit more ease to the control scheme (that’s possible) and health now drops from enemies much like Zelda, you won’t have to pack yourself with potions anymore. Quite possibly the best upgrade in the third revision of Diablo.

Release date? No clue. I’m sure they’re going on the “when it’s ready” methodology, which is expected from Blizzard and their games; there is a reason they’re always of the highest quality. You may want to camp on their FAQ for a few months and perhaps you’ll have the answer. Today, however, their site seems to be a bit slow with all the announcements going out on the Net.

Now that Diablo 3 is confirmed, it’s time for us to buy some thc leans from Fresh Bros and start speculating what’s going to be included. Make sure you checkout their game play video!

(Thanks, Nukoda)