And in this feature, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. And we’re going to begin with what is probably (in retrospect, at least) their most hilarious blunder to date.

E3 2011

All major publishers have, at one point or another, made fools of themselves at E3. Sony did it in 2005, Nintendo did it in 2008, Konami did it in 2010, EA have done it more times than we can care to count. Ubisoft’s rock bottom E3 moment came in 2011, with the infamous Mr. Caffeine. It was an uneventful and dull conference all around, but Mr. Caffeine’s silly shenanigans turned it into an absolute train-wreck.

Ken Levine sparked talks about the possibility of it coming to Wii U as far back as E3 2011, when he appeared in a Nintendo promotional video for the Wii U’s initial announcement.

It happened during publisher Take Two’s recent earnings call, wherein the company confirmed a BioShock Infinite Wii U version. They also noted that the game will begin development after the release of the XBox 360 and PS3 fans. So all you first person shooter-RPG hybrid fans on the Wii U (of which there are undoubtedly millions) will have to wait that much longer.

BioShock Infinite is currently scheduled for a February 2013 release on PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

“This year, FPS war games were trend,” Pokemon director Junichi Masuda in a blog post about his E3 impressions (via Siliconera). “A lot of splatter scenes!! Blood spread everywhere. Shooting a lot, killing a lot.”

“The game developer seems get used to ‘kill’ the target. Therefore, I felt ‘how to kill’ became a focus of developing game. For that reason, target become zombie and alien…

“These targets’ savage attack and human counterattacks… It became savage contents and you never know. Mmm… It is the player who choose the game to play. As a game creator, it is little sad!

“Majority of the games look like a same game. There were little of original games. I felt a sense of crisis with above part.”

The English is… a little incomprehensible, but you still get what point he’s trying to make.

One game I did not get a chance to check out at E3 2011 with a supper booked crazy schedule that kept changing, was Need for Speed: The Run.  The game is a whole different take on the series as there is actually a good portion of a story based in the game.  This is something that is generally not seen in any racing games but definitely not unwanted.  Over at the Playstation Blog, they managed to grab Executive Producer Jason Delong on the game for some questions and a basic walkthrough of the game as well as a demo below.  It was really cool to see that you are now outside of the drivers seat at times in the game which will be released on November 17th for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC, Wii and I can’t wait to see how it looks on the Nintendo 3DS.

Bodycount is a new first-person shooter from Codemasters, that’s powered by the award-winning EGO Engine. We got to preview the game at E3 and probably one of the most impressive aspects of the game was the destructible environments, as it seemed unique to the way other games handle that. On top of that the game will feature online multiplayer and co-operative modes. Bodycount is due out this year for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

So here is my closing comments and personal experience at E3 2011 along some things you may have missed out on whether you were there or not.  E3 just gets bigger and bigger every year with it now being open to the public.  After the convention was over I walked outside my hotel room to see what seemed like some college students pulling some pranks in the hallway.  They then admitted that they were filming a documentary on how they were all able to sneak into E3 through fake ID’s and such.  You really never know what to expect during the week of E3 as literally anything can happen.  There is no telling what celebrities might attend the convention or simply some of the many parties held over the course of the week.  Of course you can’t forget about the Press Conferences from not just Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo but the other publishers as well.  Every year at least one of them invests some major cash to make sure their press event is the talk of the week.  Last year it was Activision which included numerous artists performances from the likes of Eminem, Rhiana, Usher and more with pyrotechnics.  This year it was the Sony Press Conference that once revealing the PS Vita lifted the curtains and actually had their E3 party right there at the same place the press conference was held.

I was curious as to why they were having the Sony Press Conference at that specific venue but once the actual Press Conference was over, the party revealed a full arcade floor where people got the opportunity to play all the games that they were just previewed at the Press Conference.  They had everything and then some, not to mention the open bar which no E3 party would be without.  You were given the opportunity to play Resistance 3, Uncharted 3 Versus, Street Fight x Tekken, Twisted Metal along with many of the PS Vita games right there on the show floor.  Along with the long list of games I didn’t even mention, there were also other things like Music Unlimited, I believe it was called, that let you listen to music on the Playstation 3 for a fee (not limited to the Playstation 3).  After quarreling with the woman running it that it would not be able to find a certain Metal artists I had in mind, it did indeed find nearly the entire catalog of music from that artist.  In addition Sony had Jane’s Addiction come out to perform as well, so I will have to give it to Sony as they stole the show this year (even though Jane’s Addiction happened to also play last year at the Activision Press Conference).  Regardless it was a blast and I am pretty sure I had to be carried back to the hotel.

There are without a doubt plenty of things that I am sure you missed whether you were there or not, which I will get into shortly.  First I have to say that this year at E3 is was like a Dancing Freak-show, from professional dancing to dancing that just downright wanted to make you cry.  Of course, between clubs, parties, after parties there is always dancing, but this year at E3, you could not get away from it.  I almost gave up on asking questions regarding a Ubisoft game because of the blaring dance music in the background, but don’t get me wrong, it was all good with people enjoying themselves and it made it seem like karaoke was a thing of the past as we welcome in the dance.  Between the new Dance Central 2, Just Dance 3 and the brand new Everybody Dance for Playstation 3.

People just could not get enough of Everybody Dance with its Infinite Party Mode letting up to 20 players take turns dancing.  Offering three different difficult modes, the game also has a system to record you best moves for later use as well as a karaoke mode that will let not dancers sing along via the PlayStation Eye’s built-in mic, giving bonus points to the dancers. The game will be available this fall but it was quite clear that dancing was the general theme at E3 2011… hence the post title.

I had a lot on my plate at E3 this year so I was running around everywhere trying to make appointments and such.  Overall though, I was able to see a good portion of what was at E3 this year.  In case you missed it the new Gears of War 3 Xbox 360 Console was announced that has custom decals down to the controller, which you can purchase separately, but the console bundle itself comes with two controllers and a copy of Gears of War 3.  The console also includes the largest hard drive ever available in an Xbox 360 (320GB) and will be available on September 20th coinciding with the games release date.  Speaking of Gears of War, I just randomly bumped into Carlos Ferro, who does the voice for Dom in all three Gears of War games, among many other games as well, which was cool.  Another impressive title was the new Star Wars Kinect title, which will surely suit fans of the series while you actually get to wave your hand to use force powers.  The PS Vita completely blew me away after trying it and you can read me preview of it here.  All the new additions coming to the 3DS were also very impressive such as the Resident Evil games, the eShop and more.  Here is my opinion on certain things at E3 2011.

Best Demo Presentation: Saints Row – The Third

Best Press Conference: Sony

Best New Announcement: PS Vita

Most Anticipated Games: Elder Scrolls: Skyrim/Gears of War 3/Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Until next year folks!

For those of you who were not at E3 2011, or were not even able to drive by the L.A. Convention Center, you missed the giant life size real tank stationed outside of on of the halls.  This bad boy was hauled over to the L.A. Convention Center just for E3 to promote World of Tanks which is “the first and only team-based massively multiplayer online action game dedicated to armored warfare”.  The game features:

-Action-packed 30-vs-30 PvP Tank battles
-Mixture of Action, Strategy, Simulation and MMORPG genres
-150 Vehicles, thousands of upgrades
-Unprecedented global Clan Wars

You can check out the title and more details on either Wargaming.net or WorldOfTanks.com
With out further a due here are some videos for the excursion leading up to E3 2011.

Hetzer Video

T-34-85 Video

Sherman Video

Now we have already let you know about the Brother in Arms Furious 4 announcement, but here is the official trailer for it.  Here is a link to the official forums for the game which will be out sometime in 2012 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.  Check out the trailer above.

You take the role of Murphy, an inmate whose prison inmate bus has crashed and are left with what you have from there to move on. There are two aspects of the game which are the main character and the town itself. ‘Downpour’ has something that Silent Hill 2 kind of started with the town and all the strange things that happen depending on who is there, where the game could have had different vignettes about all these different people that would tell a greater story about the town as the developers put it. After Silent Hill 2 the games focused more one that cult aspect seen in the other games. The sound is as always a huge aspect in the game with all of it being stereoscopic. Murphy, the main character even has different positions he will stand or walk in depending on the situation at hand, from frightening moments to him being hurt. Downpour will also have multiple enemies.

If you pay attention enough you will also notice homages to previous Silent Hill games like the Jukebox seen playing in the demo for ‘Downpour’ that was from the first Silent Hill. The camera system has also been brought back to the way the older games were, where you don’t always have control of the camera system. One of the enemies I saw was something the developers called ‘the void’ which almost looked like a black hole and was pretty freaky along with the fact that running away from it was how they reacted to it in the demo. One thing that I was happy to hear the developers mention was the fact that they did not want the player to have to go back and retrace a lot of his steps in the previous games, which was kind of a pain in the ass, as they wanted to steer away from that. Another enemy that was in the demo was one that screamed and disoriented you and the developers mentioned that running away is indeed a good strategy especially if there are more than a few enemies around. The game will also have all new enemies and there will be three different difficulty levels when it comes to the puzzles. After the demo we had a short time for some group Q&A with the developers.

Q: With the name of the game being ‘Downpour’, how much of an impact will water have on the gameplay?
A: A lot, it is not just there for intrinsic value at all, it actual ties into the back story and it is about the psychology of the main character so water does factor into that.
[Later the developers revealed that the more rain there was the more enemies would be roaming the the world and the rain system is completely unscripted.]

Q: How is the absence of composer Akira Yamaoka affected the mood of the game?
A: We were obviously in a tough spot when he left Konami with the musical atmosphere playing such a big role in the Silent Hill game. We had to search for a new composer and were fans of the quieter musical moments in the game ‘Dexter’, while feeling that those moments did not sound strange if played in the backdrop of Silent Hill. Bringing in the ‘Dexter’ composer Daniel Licht, we did not tell him to mimic Akira Yamaoka and we feel that the music is pretty authentic.

Q: Silent Hill 5 was criticized for its streamlined combat engine as it, in effect, detracted from the horror by empowering the protagonist. What role does combat play in Downpour and do you think combat should be handled in a Survival Horror game?
A: Our combat is very much designed to dis-empower the player so you don’t feel very capable or very safe. You will not have a full arsenal on weaponry or a giant inventory system. Whatever you can pick can pretty much be used as a weapon and all the items you pick up are destructible. So if you happen to find a hand gun and then run out of ammo for it you might want to holster it, to wait to find more ammo, rather than using it as a melee weapon as is may break.

Neverdead is a third person shooter/action game with you taking on the role of the immortal character Bryce.  Bryce has a back story that goes back five hundred years when he was demon hunting with his wife.  After attempting to kill the demon king those many years ago Bryce failed, had lost his wife in the process while the demon king made him immortal by implanting an evil eye in place of his right one.  Now in despair after everything he lost, he still works as a demon hunter for a secret government agency with a partner.  This is where it gets hilarious; being that he is immortal his limbs can be dismembered with no issues as long as he retrieves them.  You will even come to certain scenarios where you might have to throw your head on top of building to complete a puzzle as your limbs or head especially can be controlled independently.

You can use your head to get to places you could not take you full body to whether it is at a high point you can’t reach or simply a small hole your full body cannot fit in.  Bryce also has the ability in certain cases to regenerate his limbs otherwise you can just roll over your dismembered limb to have to reattached.  If your partner dies, it is game over and that is how some balance has been implemented into a game where you can never die.  Neverdead also has destructible environments that can used in different situations one being to maybe take out a platform enemies are stationed on, among others.  You will gain XP points throughout the game that you can upgrade many different abilities with.  For instance you can use those XP points on upgrading, according to your style of gameplay whether that is gun play, sword play or using some of the immortal powers that you will gain over the course of the game.  There will of course be boss battles where you will need to figure out the specific technique to defeat that boss.  After the preview of the game we had a short Q&A session that was unfortunately cut short.

Q: What inspired the whole dismemberment aspect?
A: Everybody asks that question. I only try to provide a unique style and am very anxious as well as concerned to see if it is received well by the audience.

Q: Will Bryce and his immortality be a major plot point for the game?
A: Yes, and the plot is also outlined in one the latest trailers for the game (as seen above).

Q: Has the game been influenced by any other media?
A: Yes, a lot of movies have influenced the development of the game. As far of the dismemberment, that is a unique feature that I came up with influences from everywhere.

Q: Is there multiplayer in the game?
A: There will be 4 player co-op and competitive game play.

Official Site