All of us at Average Gamers are avid fans of Valve, especially Left 4 Dead, originally released last November. Because we are such big fans, we are giving Left 4 Dead 2 it’s own post, will all the information we get from the information that gets released during E3.
Release Date:
November 17, 2009
Information:
What we know so far, by the trailers, videos, and other information online. You will play as 4 new players, in what looks like somewhere in the southern US. This time around they added a number of melee weapons to chose from, axe, chainsaw, and a bat, just to name a few. There are totally new weapons, but generally serve the same purpose as the original L4D; shotguns, smgs, rifles. There are new pistols, this time it looks to be more than one kind of pistol, and you can dual wield different types. In the videos below, it also looks like you will get a silenced gun, but will it work?
Left 4 Dead 2 will also feature a revamped AI Director 2.0, which is said to work better than AI Director 1.0, and can also chose different path combination’s for us to try.
Video:
Left 4 Dead 2 Debut Trailer @ Gametrailers
L4D2 Garden Maze via Wickedgamer81 @ Gametrailers
L4D2 Multiplayer Gameplay via Wickedgamer81 @ Gametrailers
L4D2 Gameplay Walkthrough @ Gametrailers
Will update as more information comes in.
As big fans of Fallout 3, we at Average Gamers are watching closely for information regarding the Fallout 3 DLC’s. Today, Bethesda released a new trailer for their next DLC, Point Lookout. The trailer looks like it’s set in a dark environment, a spooky swamp like area in Maryland. This DLC is scheduled to be released on June 23rd for the PC and Xbox 360. Release date is to be announced for the PS3 system, as they are still working on bringing the first three DLC packs for the PS3.
Fallout 3 Point Lookout DLC Trailer via Gametrailers
A download is available at the Bethesda site:
Download the trailer here
Point Lookout is the first of two additional DLCs planned by Bethesda, the second of which being Mothership Zeta, due to release late July. More information will be added as we receive it.
Shortly after Nintendo’s press conference, Sony started unveiling thier new products and gadgets to everyone watching.
At the start of the presentation, Sony Computer Entertainment of America President and CEO Jack Tretton walked out and gave a brief intro, and flaunted the massive screen behind him in which images and trailers for Sony’s presentation would be shown. I didn’t notice the scale of this screen until they zoomed the camera out, and I must say, it was MASSIVE. It dwarfed him, and anything else in view.
Sony’s massive screen. That little ant is Jack Tretton
After the rather boring sales figures Tretton was spitting out, explaining how many consoles were sold in year X, he began talking about the game featured on the screen above: Uncharted 2. Citing his great relationship with the development company Naughty Dog. The President of Naughty Dog then came out to give a game play demo of the game, and it was fairly stunning. A mix of Assassin’s Creed like structure scaling, and duck for cover combat, all bundled together in a 1st/3rd person shooter.
After that display, a new game was unveiled, MAG. A first person shooter. This game is truly revolutionary, as it flaunts a massive 256 player maximum possibility. Thats right, you can play with 255 other players in the same game! Seven more people came out and they all played as a squadron that was a part of a massive battle with 248 other employees/testers across the US in which one team invaded the base of the other. Truly epic if the scale of players matches the game’s fun factor.
After some groundbreaking game introductions for the PlayStation 3. The conference started to turn towards the PlayStation Portable (PSP). A new design for the PSP, the PSP Go, was revealed which is smaller, lighter, and as described, more targeted for anyone who wants more digital media, rather than hard copies such as CDs and DVDs. You get free Wifi as well as a free connection to Sony’s network to purchase any content you wish to download to your PSP. The PSP Go is set to retail at $249.99. New games were introduced for the PSP such as Gran Turismo. The creator of the series appeared to discuss the game. He doesn’t speak english, so he needed a translator by his side. In this game, you have a garage with all of your cars. You can also trade cars with other players to collect them all.
After game discussions for the PSP, the presentation then turned to new programs for the PSP, such as a new media manager called Media Go. Media Go allows you to manage your downloads from your PSP as well as your PC, much like the Xbox’s relationship to the PC.
I’m not sure exactly what the call the following, its not quite a game, but imagine it to be a social utility. A new utility Sony is working on, allows for socialization among users. You create an online person, alter their appearance per your desire, then you can walk around a virtual city and interact with other users.
Next, Sony unveiled a prototype controller that seeks to directly challenge the Wii, a motion censored controller. This controller, much like the Wii one, can detect motion, angle, and other various movements the holder makes. Applications such as moving objects around, picking up a gun and shooting objects, picking up a sword and hitting objects, using a bow and arrow to shoot enemies in an arena, and sword fighting were displayed. Although it is a prototype, this has great potential to directly challenge the Wii’s mechanics, especially since I could tell while viewing the differences between the Bow use here compared to that of the Wii, Sony’s version is much more gamer oriented rather than conventional things such as hitting a target.
Other game previews then followed.
Jack briefly discussed a new game from Rockstar, famed creators of the GTA series, called Agent. Agent is exclusive to the PC, and is set in the 1970s in a world full of assassins. Not much was revealed, at least what I can remember, other than that, so my guess is that it is still early in the development stages.
The President of the company that made Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, came out to discuss the new game. He too didn’t speak english and required a translator. He reiterated that the same staff who made the previous Metal Gear Solid games made this game, so it a full fledged game, not a spin/knockoff.
A preview of Assassin’s Creed II was also featured. Two employees of Ubisoft presented a game preview of an assassination mission, and giving a slight background of the game. In this game, Desmond, the main character of Assassin’s Creed I, revisits the Animus to experience the memories of another one of his ancestors. This time though, instead of assassinating Arab and Templar alike in the Holy Land during the Crusades as Altair, you instead are thrust into the Italian Renaissance as a man who, at first, has no clue what it is like to be an assassin, but is taught throughout the game’s progression. New fighting methods are introduced, such as taking enemy’s weapons, a smoke bomb, 2 assassinations at once, and various other methods that bring death. All in all, an amazing preview.
A trailer was also aired for Final Fantasy XIII as well as a preview of Final Fantasy XIV, which is exclusive to the PS3 and set to come out in spring 2010.
Two makers of God of War III came out to discuss the game, gave a brief outline of it, and played a game demo which appears to be the first level perhaps of the game. One of them lead the infamous Kratos through a fight with bunch of minions, then fight a centaur and minions, and finally a fight with a demonic four legged creature before time ran out and they had to cut their presentation off, even though a huge lava titan was nearby. I wanted to see some Titan pwnage, but I guess we will have to wait either for additional trailers, or for the game’s expected release in March 2010.
Two makers of a customizable racing game, aptly called ModNation Racers, based on the principles of Little Big Planet, came out to discuss thier game. Its a Mario Kart like game and you can customize your driver, the car, and even make your own racetracks. One of them made a track in literally 5 minutes and played briefly on it. Although it wasn’t a great quality track, it was still impressive what you could do with that time, and if more time was spend on it, an epic track could be made.
ModNation Racers Footage from E3 via Gametrailers
Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo VP of sales and marketing in America, was the first to appear at the beginning of the conference stating an interesting fact:
“Video games are just as big as home video, just as big as toys, and even bigger than music and video box office put together”
She began to describe how the Nintendo wanted to greater expand and surprise their players with a completely new experience.
After an opening speech about Nintendo’s marketing scheme and some little facts, she went into talking about Mario, and talking about giving Mario a new dimension, a new way to play Mario that was never introduced before. Then it was announced, Mario for the Wii. A rather stunning display was presented with several people appearing on stage playing a multiplayer version of Mario, with a coop maximum of 4 players. It virtually looked the same as many of us remember from The Super Nintendo, integrated with glossier graphics, and slightly new obstacles. There is a single player option still, but it is hinted that playing multiplayer is easier. New power-ups were shown, such as the “propeller suit”, in which you can levitate/fly in the air. At the end of a level, all of the players scored based on their performance in the level, bringing a slight competitive high to anyone involved. Mario is scheduled to launch during the 2009 holidays.
Cammie then started talking about the Wii fit. She talked about ways to make the application of Wii fit easier to daily life. Wii Fit Plus was then introduced. Wii Fit Plus has such applications as total calories burned, yoga, juggling, skateboarding, other exercise games. She said “Brain age, for your backside”. Due to arrive this fall as a combo with a Wii Balance board, and later as a single product.
Reggie Fils-Aime then came to the stage. Stating the history of Wii’s game controlling devices and introduced a new advance in gaming control, an apparent expansion to the Wii controller. It is described as “precision control”. Its basic structure is virtually an older controller for the Wii wrapped within a casing, with a device at the bottom.
The line “off the couch” was mentioned by Reggie in this presentation, further stating that this is also seeking to further revolutionize the otherwise stationary gaming experience today. Such applications as Bow drawing, sword swinging, waterboarding, golfing, canoeing, and ping pong were displayed with this new device. In other words, activities in real life, conveniently substituted and placed within your living room.
Reggie then re-introduced Bill who further described the controller, expanding the controllers functionality, how it detects angle, motion, etc. He then demonstrated a rather comical demonstration with skydiving. This new application is part of the new Wii Sports Resort. Imagine yourself at an island with a wide medley of activities. Bill then displayed a bow application, movement is mimicked as if you were holding an actual bow (without the massive resistance of course) and tried to hit targets, and I must say…his aim sucked! ha! After that demonstration, Bill invited Reggie back out, and the two competed in a basketball shoot-out competition. Rather funny to see them flailing their arms, mimicking the shooting of a basketball, but they wouldn’t jump at all and as you could guess, Bill lost. He even admitted he was embarrassed teehee.
Moving on, Reggie started talking about the same usual Wii games, tennis, golf, etc. A new Final Fantasy and a new Kingdom Hearts games were announced. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story was announced to come out in the West this fall for the DS. A Mario game in which Mario and Luigi are turned micro sized and ingested by Bowser, to battle inside his body.
Cammie came back out and started talking more about the Nintendo DS, and to be completely honest, I started to lose interest, as the DS, in my opinion, seems to not be aging along with the rest of gaming technology. Got to give props to Brain Age though for the non conventional gaming audience. In other words, while they are still games, they aren’t really games that I play, nor are they games that most game enthusiasts browsing this site play (most likely). So all I will mention for this section, are the new games scheduled to release:
Women’s Murder Club: A murder solving game.
Style Savvy.
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
A new method for users to develop their own games.
Cammie then said that the Nintendo DS has diversity, but it seems much of their newer games are targeting the rather unconventional gaming audience.
After the discussion of the Nintendo DS, Cammie introduced Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo. Iwata opened with research Nintendo conducted. The research divided people into three groups relating to their current gaming status: Active, Never, Might. Nintendo is actively targeting the “Might” group. Mr. Iwata said “For every two people already playing, there is another one waiting to play”.
Iwata began to talk about what Nintendo must to to satisfy all gaming groups with each game that releases. He said the most common belief among gamers: “Best games are those that require to most skills” and said how he believes that this is untrue. He believes that games must be both challenging and appealing and mentioned that if Nintendo raises the bar on skill requirements, the overall gaming population for that particular game will decrease and if the bar is lowered, it will not satisfy highly skilled players. Virtually, he seeks to create games to satisfy novice players and highly skilled players alike.
The new Wii Vitality Sensor was then introduced. The device your reads pulse and other signals in your body by inserting your index finger into a sensor, much like you’d find at a hospital. In Iwata’s case, he gave an example of how he could see nervous he is on stage with it.
Iwata took his leave and Cammie came back out and discussed a new Mario 3D game, Super Mario Galaxy 2, to appear on the Wii and included a preview.
Reggie appeared again to discuss new releases expected for the Wii:
The Conduit.
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles.
Dead Space Extraction. - A prequel to how Dead Space happened.
Metroid: Other M. - Team Ninja & Nintendo production.
After showing trailers of each of the above games, Reggie wrapped up his presentation and very briefly summarized Nintendo’s basic principles, and the presentation ended.
If I had to pick one press conference to skip today, it would have to be Ubisoft, they aren’t bad, and had some exciting game announcements, but it was extra long, they are from Montreal, so they all pretty much had a French accent, which was hard to concentrate on for the 2 hours. The beginning was really slow, they talked about a joint effort for video games and movies, it was very difficult for me to understand so I will try to find story about it and link it.
Moving on..
Red Steel 2 - For Wii. Looks like Samurai meets the West.
Red Steel 2 Trailer via Gametrailers
Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage
Shaun White Trailer via Gametrailers
Academy of Champions: Football (USA Soccer)
Splinter Cell: Conviction - I missed this during the Microsoft Press Conference, but this game looks awesome.
Splinter Cell Trailer via Gametrailers
Ruse - What is it? I am not sure, from the trailer they played, it looks like an RTS, I hope it’s for the PC. I will look up more info because it looks awesome, as a fan of World War 2 RTS games.
Ruse Website and Trailers
Your Shape - For the Wii, Ubisofts next big Fitness game. It features a camera, so no Wii Fit board or controllers, all Mocap (Like Project Natal) I Hope this won’t be as hard to find as the Wii Fit, I do not want to stand in line at Gamestop at 5AM for it after Thanksgiving.
Rabbidy Go Home - Basically Rabbits on drugs, pushing a shopping cart
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Pretty much Super Smash Brothers, with Turtles.
No More Heroes 2: No More Struggle - Just a mention, no trailer given
Trailer via Gametrailers
Assassins Creed 2 - The best announcement from Ubisoft, the trailer they showed was A-MAZ-ING! The visual of it was mind blowing. That’s not a trailer, that’s a movie! <–It really was a trailer but seemed like a movie.
Assassins Creed 2 Trailer via Gametrailers
HD Trailer coming soon!
Logo of the greatly anticipated sequel.
That’s it for today, tomorrow is the official start of E3 and Nintendo/Sony Press Conferences.