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Game Sites Finish Up Post-E3 Awards
An anonymous reader writes "Most of the major game sites have put up 'Best of E3' sections, including those from Gamespot, from IGN, from GameSpy, and from 1UP . Everyone gave a different Best of Show this year, and agreed that the competition was fierce. I was happy to see mention of Yoot Saito's Odama and Namco's Katamari Damashii. Notable absences, in my opinion, included Tim Schafer's chronically late Psychonauts for Xbox. What games caught your eye? Who was the big winner this year?" T adds: Danno writes "The gang over here at GameGal.com have just put up our 2004 edition of the E3 Hall of Shame. Each year we chronicle the best of the worst in booth babes and half-naked female video game characters. We're not really offended by most of this, but it is amusing to see the lengths companies will go to catch the attention of jaded E3 attendees."
International House of Mojo reports that without a publisher, Psychonauts creator Tim Schaffer had to show the game out of his hotel room. Although that sounds weird, my bet is that it was a very funny hotel room, maybe as funny as some of those Korean booths at E3 in the warehouse near the restrooms.
From the Mojo:
Wonder why there is no Psychonauts news from any other media sites? Our own Doug Tabacco on the show floor explains:
That's because Psychonauts isn't being shown on the floor. With no publisher to host them and no time or space left to secure a booth of their own, Tim is reduced to showing it out of a hotel suite. We called him and tried to set up a meeting, but he said he's totally booked up. We take that to be a good thing, since it means lots of people (hopefully some of them publishers) are seeing the game.
Thre you have it folks... You heard it here first! Exclusive E3 News coverage. Come on you know Mojo still loves you. It does.
Exposing the ridiculousness with good humour works much better than some feminist ranting. I'm a guy and find that funny. ;)
".....let's just have the girls dance around on stage for a while.."
Exactly.. this is the kind of thing that would make me feel a plonker for going to this show.. it's not the girls that are sad, they're probably being well paid and have nothing to fear, it's the guys standing around photographing them (i realise some of those are for magazines, that's a whole other rant)... i mean come on, whack off/have sex *before* you go to E3 and maybe next year the companies can concentrate on the games... we can have an agreement sort of thing. never mind what the gamer girls think, it just makes more sense aiight guys
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I applaud GameGal's bringing this horror to attention -- but only six pictures? Surely there must be more cases of exploitation about which we must be informed!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
FYI, I suspect the chronically late Psychonauts was missing because is it also the cancelled Psychonauts.
I would think they would have a big problem with the panty brigade. I am surprised that it was not on their Hall of Shame. Are they OK with it or just didn't see it.
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
Please forgive the side of me that is about to emerge.
:)
Their category of "Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game"
Winner: EverQuest II
Finalists:
Auto Assault (PC)
Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed (PC)
The Matrix Online (PC)
Tabula Rasa (PC)
Anyone else notice a VERY conspicuous abscense fro m this list?
World of Warcraft anyone?
Ok, got that out of my system.
(Karma = auto -1)
Maybe I am just a nintendo fanboy gone mad, but did anyone else wet their pants when they saw that Zelda trailer?
http://www.actiontrip.com/features/e32004babes.pht ml5 30&password=t h%20Babes%20-%20Part%201
:-p
http://photo.thetechzone.com/showgallery.php?cat=
http://e32004.gamemarshal.com/album.php?album=Boo
Apologies to GameGal
They also have appaling grasp of the English language. I can understand Taito having "Train Shimulation" at TGS because, well, they're Japanese, but why do we English speakers have to endure such obvious wrongs as "Who is hair ..." when it's "whose hair"?
Surely they have the 5$ or so to pay someone to vet their signs.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Hey - those bimbo... er, models, probably did all their own signs. If they're anything like my cousin, she can cheer, she can draw and design (she's also adept at spurting out kids, signing divorce papers, and collecting alimony and child support from four different fathers, not to mention is a grandmother at 32), but grammar and spelling - ha!
As for booth babes, is E3 mostly male? I suspect yes, so from a marketing standpoint, hiring attractive women to push your product seems like a good idea. The more skin you can show on your models, the more attention your booth will get from the mostly male audience. Most women don't want to see other women naked and most guys don't want to see other guys naked, so there is some justified repulsion from the women as the booth babes get more scantily clad. If E3 were mostly female, I have no doubt that the marketing would be reversed.
Hey - I think that IS my blonde bimbo cousin in one of those pics...
I haven't seen nearly any coverage on Psi-Ops on any of these E3 reports... I think this is criminal! If you're lucky enough to have a demo of this game (I got it in June's OPM... think it's in OXM also), it's crazy-fun! Nice graphics, physics that rival HL2 (seriously!), and just the most fun I've had with a demo in ages.
:P
Did nobody at E3 see this game? Am I the only one that thinks it's cool? Somewhat rhetorical- a quick scan of the GameFAQs message boards shows there are actually a lot of people that have noticed this game... so why not the press?
Just irks me that all I hear is "sequels are killing this industry", but then when there really is something innovative out there, it's totally ignored in favor of all the exact same stuff that was raved about last E3! That just seems bogus to me. Get over HL2, most of it's technology will be long-present in other games before that behemoth ever hits the streets
Hell yeah! I'm a programmer on the Psi-Ops team, and I have been a bit bummed about the lack of coverage- particularly since everyone, press or otherwise, who saw the game at E3 seemed blown away! :/
:D</Plug>
<Plug>Well, like he said, get the demo and try for yourself
Nothing to see here.
Funny, I felt bombarded by Psi-Ops material on Gamespot recently.
I completely lost all interest in the game because of the ads and brown-nosed reporting on the game because of them. Seriously, who expects game sites to do major stories on Midway games anymore?
"This was a particularly strong year for RPG's at E3", says Gamespot.
Ok. I am not going to be restrained about this at all.
This is clueless reporting and this *idiot* does not have a CLUE as to what he is talking about.
This was the worse year for RPG's in about 7 or 8 years at E3. The PC side has all but abandoned stand alone CRPG titles chasing the MMORPG prize, with a glutted market and a significant crash in 2005/6 expected. It's a friggin disaster waiting to happen.
The fact that someone could posit - with a stright face - that "Paper Mario 2" even *qualifies* as an RPG is about 5 mm away from ludicrous.
KotOR2 would have been about the only traditional CRPG title on view by the public. Dragon Age, which would otherwise qualify, was for press showings by invite only.
The rest of those claiming to be CRPGs really don't even qualify for the monniker.
So - to summarize: Gamespot's reporting on this subject borders on stupidity. Next time, just drink a lot, get plastered at the Microsoft party on Wednesday night and throw up most of Thursday. Save us the trouble of reporting on it at all.
.Robert
We've had to fight like hell (and spend a lot of money) to get that coverage- it's nearly impossible to put out new IP these days without getting drowned in "killer sequels".
And the game has earned the praise it's gotten, thank you very much.
Nothing to see here.
One reason we don't know about it may be because when I got to your site it won't tell me anything without installing Flash first.
I don't know if that's a Midway "FLASH ONLY!!!!" policy or if you guys have some concious decision in it, but tell your boss you should have an HTML page. You're not a Flash tech demo, you're trying to hawk your wares to the largest possible demographic.
Yeah, that's a damn good point... unfortunately I'm just a lowly programmer and insanely far removed from the PR process that creates the website :) (I believe the whole thing was farmed out to somebody, anyway).
There are quite a few previews out there, but all of them are based off of some old build, or the demo (which is quite old- 'round January). You might as well just spend the $4 on the demo and play it yourself, it seems silly to read a review based on a demo to me...
But anyway, I think the original point was that Psi-Ops hasn't been getting any E3 mentions at all (and I agree with it wholeheartedly- I probably search harder than anyone, and I've yet to turn up any actual show floor impressions in my searching). I'm not sure why that is.
Perhaps, as AltaMannen pointed out, it's part of the Midway curse- until this year, I would agree that besides MK:DA (which I loved) Midway has not put out a good game in years. But, if you bother to look at anything at all recent, you'd see we are on track to turn that completely around. We've released 2 games this year, and both (IMHO) are fantastic. I'm not personally a huge fan of The Suffering, just not my genre... but neither is basketball, however Ballers has become one of favorite games- particularly in a party-type situation. Both games are very different from anything Midway's put out recently... and, I daresay, anything anybody's put out, for that matter.
Psi-Ops is going to be hugely different- it provides a style of gameplay that is completely new. Telekenisis as a weapon has not been done like this before- I don't care if you played Legacy of Kain or Gallerians or whatever else you think has "done it before", you haven't experienced a play mechanic like this, period. That should at least count for something- either way, it's totally ignorant to discount a game and/or an entire company forever because they had a down period, no matter how long. Things change, companies change... particularly when they get a new CEO!
Anyway, I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this anymore... so... yeah, sorry the website is flash-only =D
Nothing to see here.