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The tone was set on Monday morning, 10 a.m., at the Shrine Auditorium at the University of Southern California, where Sony's press conference was held. Our motley crew of three found ourselves greeted by an almost obscene spread: several open bars stocked with a wide selection of beers, liquor, wine and champagne; roving waiters with fruit smoothies; and a serious buffet packed with Asian delicacies and fresh fruit.

Two mimosas later, I joined the throng and filed into the massive auditorium, which was decked out with an immense central screen that looked ready to beam down instructions from the mother ship. It was clear that modesty was not the theme here, as the presentation gave an exclusively rosy view of the third-place Playstation 3's past success and future outlook.

Of course, the games looked beautiful. An incredible live demo of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was almost overwhelming, as the characters climbed and shimmied through a nearly photorealistic ruined city, before the peace was broken with a Hollywood-caliber setpiece battle with a helicopter. Assassin's Creed 2 was similarly impressive, reproducing (and exceeding) the original's immersive cityscapes and breathtaking vertical acrobatics. There were much welcomed hints that the game would round out of some of its predecessor's shallow and repetitive gameplay.

Sony's presentation was classic behavioof escapist entertainment in tough economic times - more, bigger, better. The PS2's low price point was briefly mentioned, but a price cut for the PS3 (which retails for $100 more than its closest competitor and suffering in sales) was nowhere to be found. In fact, the new "PSP Go," a redesigned Playstation Portable with a slide-out screen and no slot for physical media, costs $80 more than the current model.

Another Sony highlight was Mod Nation Racer, which takes the visual ascetic and sandbox creation tools of Little Big Planet and applies them to a cart racer. The level creation tool was shown to be both fast and extremely flexible. The game stood out, along with the new Motion Controller and a few other products, as one of the few games that broke the shooting/fighting motif that dominated the conference.

At E3 proper, major players and properties dominated the show. Sony's massive structure highlighted a re-emphasis on the PSP, as well as big-budget exclusives such as Uncharted 2 and MAG (which was decidedly underwhelming when shown at the press conference Monday.)

Nintendo's open floor gave ample space to show off the New Super Mario Bros. Wii, games feature the newly improved Motion Control Plus, and a score of interesting Nintendo DS titles. Particularly interesting were Picross 3D, which brings the original's clever math/logic puzzles into 3D space, the new Professor Layton, which looked and played just as the incredible first in the series, and Golden Sun DS, which had virtually no gameplay to show but sported a clean, alluring 2D/3D graphic scheme reminiscent of the best SNES-era RPGs.

The primary attraction in Microsoft's space looked to be Halo: ODST, but this writer did not brave the incredibly long lines to find out if the hype was justified.

The show's best bits where the unexpected: the new Splinter Cell title showed potential for fluid stealth gameplay that seems to sidestep the occasionally slow pace and clunkiness of the earlier games. Even more importantly, the game had a striking visual style for gameplay and story exposition, reminiscent of a slick modern caper film, where gameplay objectives and story elements are played out in real time on the walls of surrounding buildings. Batman: Arkham Asylum also showed promise as perhaps the first game to capture the technology-based stealth of the comic book character.

Banished to the rear of the hall, the independent games in the "IndieCade" focused on clean, 2D graphics with cerebral twists on classic gameplay archetypes. I was greatly intrigued by Snapshot, a 2D platformer with a unique photography mechanic being developed by the nascent Retro Affect. The game blends 2D platforming with a unique mechanic: at any time, you may move a cursor on screen to take a snapshot of the terrain or any objects. This little square is whisked away and stored in your photo library in the top right corner (you can store up to six of these photographs), and these photos can be replaced later in order to solve puzzles, e.g., placing a box allowing a character to reach a high ledge. The game is a labor of love from two young students who worked on the game as their senior thesis and hope to release the game in 2010. Its easy to see the game as a cult hit along the lines of Drawn to Life or Henry Hatsworth.

Overall, E3 offered some of the best and the worst of videogames. Thre was slavish juvenile devotion to games as simply more pixels and bullets per minute, but there was also the recognition of games as a medium that will not be ignored. E3 is one showcase where the future of gaming is shaped, but it is not the only one. Only the consumer, when she chooses what games to reward with her hard-earned time and money, will shape the ultimate future of the industry.

Comments (1)

Darke said:

	We are flooded with E3 wrap-ups constantly. But these guys had some different perspectives. Also, there are some games I haven't even heard of before! Especially on Tom's page.
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June 16, 2009
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