Street Fighter IV 3DS - First hands on with the 3DS was one of the games I want to pick up on release. First, the 3D in the 3DS works, and it works pretty well. The one issue that I've seen many people say (and I experienced as well) is that you need to have the 3DS at a very particular angle for the 3D to work. But when it works it's really 3D. It's quite impressive. The game itself was Street Fighter on a handheld. The new angle they introduced for the 3DS version kind of sucked. It's hard to tell how far away someone is (even with the 3D)
The Swarm - Another downloadable game. I think it's coming out on PSN and XBLA. I played the PSN version and it's cute and entertaining. You control a swarm of little blue guys that you must guide through to the end of the level. You have different ways to control the little ones; you can spread them out to reach more collectibles, you can bunch them together to pile on top of each other to reach higher collectibles. Another fun game that I'm sure I'll grab on release.
Gunslinger - The new game from Twisted Pixel being released on XBLA and for use with Microsoft's Kinect. You control a small marionette gunslinger running through each level. Using your left hand to move the puppet around and your right hand is used to paint targets and shoot them. It's a great concept and a good idea for a Kinect game. Control was still a little spotty but it's still a demo. Plus these guys have released one of my favourite XBLA games ('Spolsion Man) so definitely going to pick up the final product.
Fez - Another XBLA game, this one played with a regular Xbox controller. I've been hearing about this game for over a year. It's essentially a side scroller in a rotating 3-D world. From the demo I played you're trying to get to the top of the level by jumping and climbing through the level. The twist is that you have control over the world itself. You rotate it to find better angles, new platforms or new places to climb. Really looking forward to the final release of this game, going to pick it up for sure.
Things I saw:
LA Noire - This game took the biggest chunk out of my day. Mostly because of the 2 hour wait to see the game (that's right you didn't even get to play it!). The 2 hours waiting in line seemed like it took forever, but once you got in and the folks at Rockstar demoed the game you quickly saw that it was worth it. The detective work seems very cool, very reminiscent of Heavy Rain. And the graphics are just wow. The new tech Team Bondi is using for their facial capture is absolutely stunning. It really is like they have real life actors in the game doing their performances. Insanely cool and a little freaky when you think about how far video games have come. Also a definite must buy (I'm going to be very poor after all these games come out)
Giant Bombcast - Last event of the day. Ended up waiting in line for 1.5 hours for this. It's truly amazing how far these guys have come considering where they started. I'm very happy for them and it's great to see that they've got such a devoted following. The podcast was awesome, great humor, great crowd interaction and the live band was on point. It's everything I would have expected from a live Giant Bombcast after listening to all of their podcasts over the years. If they were releasing a game I'm sure I'd buy it on day 1 too, but the only way I can give them money is to buy a membership...I've already done that so no more money for them.
