Well, the big video game convention, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 for short), is finally over. I didn’t attend this year’s show, but I read enough news about it that I decided to write a blog about the things at the show that caught my interest. Of course, since my tastes in games are a little out there, I won’t be going over a lot of the big titles shown. Just the ones I like.

First of all, I’m very happy to say that while reading E3 news and blogs this year, I read nearly nary a complaint from game journalists about having to go to E3. In years past, it would just burn me up when they would gripe about having to go and do that extra work. In my opinion, if you’re writing about video games for a living, you have NO right to complain. Those who can do that should consider themselves VERY lucky. I worked my ass off in college trying to get into the video games journalism business, and aside from some newspaper and website free-lance work (which I’m still VERY thankful for), I haven’t been so lucky. (yeah I might be a tiny bit bitter) It’s tough to have to work somewhere where you feel like your talents are being squelched, and yet, millions of people have to do that every day just to make a buck to survive. Keep that in mind next time you’re out and about: the clerk at McDonald’s may be a fantastic poet, the Wal-Mart greeter may sing well. Well, at any rate, it lifted my spirits not to have to hear any complaints from journalists, so thanks, guys and gals.

One thing I did read a lot about in blogs from people who didn’t go to E3 this year was that most of them said they didn’t mind not going. They said it was better to read all the news and watch all the previews at home. I agree that is it pretty amazing that we can do that now, thanks to technology. But as an E3 attendee for eight years, I have to say that nothing beats the experience of going there and seeing the games at the show. Trust me on that.

However, I do have another good excuse for why I’m glad I didn’t go this year (it’s a poor excuse, but it’s all I’ve got). If I had left to go to E3 this past week, I wouldn’t be able to download a couple of really fun WiiWare and DSiWare games and enjoy them all week. They were Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and Mighty Flip Champs, so I thought I’d briefly talk about them, too. I’m sure they were shown at E3 as well.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
This WiiWare game is a sequel to the original FF4, and takes place 17 years after the events of the first game. Cecil and Rosa have a son named Ceodore (poor kid), and now Ceodore is out on a mission to become a member of the Red Wings airship fleet like his father. But when he leaves the castle, the second moon that flew away in the first game mysteriously comes back. Monster aggression increases, so it’s up to characters old and new to solve the mystery of the moon and save the day. You’ll play as familiar characters like Cecil, Rosa, Rydia, and Cid. As well as new characters like Ceodore and Luca (remember the little girl dwarf from the first game?). Old characters have grown up to become new characters as well, such as Palom and Porom. The impish twin mages are now young adults and have gone their separate ways.

FF4: The After Years was originally a cell phone game in Japan. And because of that, it’s not near as good as the original FF4. But for a cell phone game, it’s pretty darn good! A few years ago when I first got a more modern cell phone, I dabbled with a few cell games and wasn’t very impressed. I guess they’ve improved since then!

FF4: The After Years uses all the same music, graphics and sprites from the first game, so some people may complain about that. But I didn’t mind it one bit. It’s weird…why do the more modern RPGs bore me to tears, but you give me a 16-bit styled RPG and I’ll be glued to it? They did touch up the visuals just a bit so it looks on par with FF5 or FF6, though. And since the resolution is higher, it’s kind of weird seeing old locations looking a lot smaller. Most towns are not much more than one screen, for instance!

They did add a few things gameplay-wise to keep FF4: The After Years from feeling like a total rehash. Even though you visit the same locations, they add a few surprises to keep you on your toes. When you visit the Mist Cave, the first dungeon from the original game, you fall off the bridge this time and explore new parts of the cave in The After Years. There are a few new additions in battle, too. Depending on the phases of the moon, your attacks or magic may be doubled or halved, so you may have to change your strategies depending on what phase the moon is in. This goes for monsters, too. And you can combine attacks similar to Chrono Trigger.

People may complain about the price, which is a valid gripe. The main game costs 800 points and subsequent character chapters will be 300 points each. But if you REALLY like FF4 as much as I do, you won’t mind paying the price. It isn’t very often, really, that I pay full price for a game, so I don’t mind splurging this one time. Other than that, I think FF4: The After Years is great, old-school RPG fun and I’ve been addicted to it all week!

Hey I’ve got a question for you folks who have played FF12. Do you think I’d like it or should I stick with my old fogey FF games? I was thinking about giving it a try (not like I have the time, though).

Mighty Flip Champs
As a fan of WayForward’s 2-D masterpiece, Shantae on the GBC, I downloaded their new DSiWare title. It’s a 2-D action-puzzle game that’s really no more complicated than arcade classics like Donkey Kong. Your character can go left or right and climb up ladders. And that’s it. Your goal is to reach a frog man somewhere in the level, but your mobility is diminished since you can’t jump. But what you CAN do is flip to a different screen! The bottom screen shows what screen you can flip to next, so you can plan where you need to be before you flip screens. Because if you flip and you’re in a wall, you die! You can even touch the bottom screen to place a marker that also shows up on the top screen so you can plan where you should be when flipping screens. It gets pretty complicated in later levels when you can flip through multiple screens! It makes me wonder if it’s like an old WayForward GBC game based on the Wendy the Witch license. I heard it was actually pretty good because you would flip levels for some creative gameplay. I’ve never played it, though.

Anyway, I really can’t tell you much more than that. I haven’t been playing it as much since I’ve been so addicted to the other FF4 game. The graphics aren’t hardly any better than the NES. But since it’s made by WayForward, it has a distinct art style. One thing I do like about that is there really isn’t much of a story to go along with the interesting characters. Which is OK, not EVERY game needs a story. But if Mighty Flip Champs had a story, here’s all I can figure: Once upon a time, a cute chick who could be Shantae’s sister decided to run through flipping mazes so she could get to a frog. Then they could teleport out together. Sometime she also has to save a cat with a rocket pack or a pig…cow…thing. And that’s all! If you like simple little puzzley action games and have a DSi, Mighty Flip Champs is a good choice.

OK, sorry for going off on a tangent there. Now on to E3. I’ll just add a disclaimer and say that since this is a personal blog, I won’t be as professional and cite my sources. I just read E3 news over the week and jotted down what interested me.

E3 Press Conferences
Everyone talked about who won and failed at the press conferences of the big three companies. Do you want to know what I think? Well, you’ll have to wait until the END of my article before I say who ‘won!’ So there!

Microsoft
Even though I love my Xbox 360, Microsoft’s press conference didn’t interest me much. But that doesn’t mean it was a BAD showing. They just featured games and things that aren’t quite my cup of tea. The interactive Milo did look a little creepy and the motion sensor Natal is a ‘wait and see’ kind of thing. I’m not interested in integrating Twitter into my Xbox because I feel like I’m plugged in enough already! Really, I mostly enjoy my 360 for simple LIVE games and third party oddities.

Sony
It was hard for me to get into Sony’s announcements because I don’t have any of their new machines. Well I do have an old PSP. I’m a little unsure about the PSP Go. Since it’s download only, if you lose the system, you also lose the games. If they had any interesting ones, though, I might look into it since I don’t shy away from downloading games on my other systems. Note to Sony: if you make a new Loco Roco game, I’ll be more inclined. Plus I don’t really play my PSP that much anyway, so a new system isn’t as tantalizing to me. But there are a few Sony games that I do like. I read there’s a new Ratchet and Clank game, and I would like to try the ‘new’ Katamari PS3 game at some point.

Nintendo
Their conference got my attention the most because it had the majority of the games I’m interested in. But it doesn’t mean Nintendo is better or anything. Remember, I have weird tastes in games, and I actually LIKED last year’s Wii Music. I’m looking forward to Wii Sports Resort, as the first Wii Sports game took my spot as my number one favorite sports game (dethroning NES Super Dodge Ball). To this day, the original Wii Sports is the best showcase of the Wii’s strengths (which is both good and bad if you think about it). Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story looks like a fun and humorous RPG romp on the DS, and I can’t wait to see how Bowser plays. Also looking forward to the new DS Zelda game: Spirit Tracks. Link drives a train instead of a boat. Jeff said they should’ve called it Chugga Chugga Zelda. I agree, I like his name better! There’s also a new WarioWare game (DiY) where you can make your own games! I’m going to be like a Namco version of 9-Volt! I’m also glad that they’re bringing Starfy to the US next week, too. In Japan, Nintendo also announced a new Chibi Robo game on the DS. I hope that comes to the US also.

There were three games in particular from Nintendo that caught my interest that I’ll talk about in a little more detail: Metroid: Other M, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Metroid: Other M
I don’t talk about them very much, but I really enjoy Metroid games. I don’t care much for FPS titles and I even liked the Metroid Prime games. I was a little sad to see that Retro Studios isn’t making another Metroid. I really liked Retro because they were from Texas, and I visited them when they were called Iguana Entertainment in Austin and made the early Turok games. Team Ninja is doing the new Other M game. I hope it’s not going to be ridiculously hard like Ninja Gaiden or overly fan service-y like Dead or Alive. Well I guess it’s not fair of me to compare it to those games. Hopefully Team Ninja is up to the task of making a good new Metroid. Best of luck, guys!

Super Mario Galaxy 2
It was neat to see this sequel, too. It may look like more of the same, but the first game was so creative I bet the next one will be, too. And you can ride on Yoshi now.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii
When I first read this, I have to say I wasn’t so thrilled initially. I have to admit that the original Super Mario Bros. isn’t one of my favorite games, and while the DS version was nice, I liked other DS Mario games such as Super Princess Peach and Yoshi’s Island DS so much more. And plus I first thought the Wii version was just a port of the DS game. But after looking at videos and things, I was totally wrong about that assumption. It may look like the DS game at first, but it’s a totally new game with some really fun-looking features! Four player simultaneous play, new powers like the propeller suit and penguin suit, and best of all, there’s a rumor that THE KOOPA KIDS ARE BACK!! (Lemmy, Wendy, Morton, etc.) I loved those guys!

And that’s all from Nintendo that interested me, but they had a lot more games shown. I guess some people could complain that they didn’t have a new Pikmin or Kid Icarus game (I can’t understand why people want that so bad, the NES game was awful). I guess if I had to complain, I’m a little disappointed Nintendo didn’t announce a new Kirby game. I really want a new Kirby on the Wii. I like Kirby games better than Mario ones!

Fighting Games
One thing that surprised me about this year’s E3 is how many fighting games there were! And even more surprising is that many of these games looked interesting to me, and I don’t even LIKE fighting games that much! Namco showed a new Soul Calibur game on the PSP. Another PSP fighter that I’m looking forward to is Final Fantasy Dissidia. If anything, because I can play as my favorite FF hero and villain characters: Terra and Kefka respectively (both from FF6). I hope these PSP games will be on UMD and not be download only! I wasn’t really interested in Tekken 6 before, but now that Namco has announced a co-op mode, I may look into it. It would be funny to play a round as the kangaroo and panda helping each other out. And if not, I’ll just settle for playing as Asuka, the only character I could beat Tekken 5 with! Capcom made a surprising splash by announcing the release of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom on the Wii in the US. I’m surprised they got the rights to all those anime characters! I don’t know who any of them are yet, but I bet it’ll be fun to learn about them! I do know about the characters on the Capcom side, and I’m glad that one stage has Servebots in the background. I love those guys! Capcom’s also putting the classic Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on Xbox LIVE, but I don’t know if I’ll get that since I already have it on the Dreamcast (my favorite team is Mega Man, Cammy, and Tron Bonne, what’s yours?). Other fighting games that look cool are King of Fighters 13, a 3-D Samurai Shodown game subtitled Edge of Destiny (looks like Soul Calibur), and some new TMNT games. One is a remake of the arcade Turtles in Time, and the other is a Smash Bros. style game.

Misc. Games
Another WayForward game on WiiWare is A Boy and His Blob. I loved the NES game by David Crane (I met him at E3 once), and the remake has some beautiful 2-D animation. Another downloadable 2-D game that I might look into is Splosion Man on LIVE, made by the same folks who did the fantastic The Maw 3-D romp.

While Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing looks to be another Mario Kart clone, I really enjoyed the Sega Superstars Tennis game so I might give this one a chance. Hopefully they’ll have Ulala be one of the racers. Looks like LEGO games are still going strong, but LEGO Indiana Jones looks to have a lot of substantial improvements like a stage editor.

Some PSP oddities that interested me were Half Minute Hero, an RPG you play in 30 second increments. It also has a humorous 8-bit style. Another PSP game is called “Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman.” You make a dungeon for bad guys and try to kill heroes who wander into it. It has a lot of similarities to Dig Dug and Mr. Driller. I played the Japanese demo of it and it also has a humorous 8-bit style.

One of my favorite new developers, TellTale Games, is bringing back the Monkey Island series with LucasArts. Which is ironic since a lot of TellTale Games are former employees of LucasArts when they used to make a lot of point and click adventures. I never got into the Monkey Island games as much, though, strangely. Speaking of point and click, I’m also definitely getting the new Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney game from Capcom. I loved the Phoenix Wright games.

I’m glad Ignition is bringing the 2-D action Wii game Murasama to the US (I hope I spelled that right). It’s made by the same people who did the fantastic Odin Sphere game. Namco is making a Wii game based on the adventures of the original Dragon Ball (not Z), and that’s one of my favorite anime cartoons.

Other weirdo games include Cooking Mama 3, and it looks like Konami may finally bring their music game series Pop N Music to the US on the Wii. And last is Scribblenauts on the DS, which looks like you can write any word you want and it’ll appear in the game to aid your adventure!

E3 Games That I’m Not Excited About, But I’ll Mention Anyway
At E3, Ubisoft announced some TV game show video games, and one of them was Press Your Luck. I love that game show because it’s fun to watch the idiots play. But since it all boils down to pressing a button, I don’t know how that would make a fun video game, though. Most video games have a mini-game like Press Your Luck to earn extra lives or stuff. But if they bring the Whammies back and they’re animated by the same guy who created them, I might look into it. The Whammies were originally created and animated by “Savage” Steve Holland, who also directed a few cheesy 80′s movies like Better Off Dead and he also did one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons: Eek the Cat.

SouthPeak is making My Baby sequels on the DS and Wii. The only reason why I mention that is that you might not think the first game was popular enough to warrant a sequel. Well I reviewed the first game and my review got over 200 comments (and still counting) from people asking and sharing strategies with the game! I didn’t think much of the first game and it wasn’t one of my best reviews, but you can bet that if I review the sequel, I’m going to do a better job reviewing it since so many people play these kinds of games, seemingly. See, even though I’ve been writing about games for nearly 15 years now, I can still learn things and make improvements.

Disney announced a new DS game based on A Christmas Carol and it looked to have a unique gameplay element. You don’t control Scrooge directly, but can tap on things around him to get his attention (or freak him out). It kind of reminded me of Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures on SNES. At first I was all excited about this new game until I learned it wasn’t based on the Mickey’s Christmas Carol movie from the 80′s. If I can’t play as Scrooge McDuck, I’ll pass. Speaking of Disney, I read about the new Kingdom Hearts game on DS, and I have to say I’m getting sick of Square’s characters in them. They need to ditch all that Organization XIII crap and just have the game be Disney characters and worlds.

Who ‘won’ this year’s E3?
And that’s all I have to say about that. So who do I think ‘won’ this year’s E3? Was it one of the big three? Sony? Microsoft? Nintendo? Nope! Maybe a third party like Capcom, Konami, or Namco? Not them either. The REAL winners of this year’s E3 are us gamers! Because no matter which console you own or what games you like to play, it looks like there’s going to be a lot of fun games for everyone coming out soon. Since E3 looked so much better this year, I might actually go back to next year’s show (after a three year hiatus)!

But I still wish Nintendo would make a new Kirby game.

In the comments section, please leave me your opinions on the games I liked, or tell me what you are looking forward to after this year’s E3. Or if you made your own E3 blog, send me a link and I’ll read it! That’s all for now. Later! –Cary

Tags: Misc