So like all good games writers stuck at home this E3, I’ve been keeping my depression at bay by following the broadcasts of the major industry press conferences. 3D is once again under the spotlight, and the seemingly desperate race to catch up with motion control has come to a head with the release dates for both Kinect and Move slated this year.

But it hasn’t been all sunshine and flowers, with serious concerns arising about exactly who the big companies are looking to market themselves to. So I’ve selected a few memorable quotes from most of the major presentations that I thought summed up the entire event:

Coming soon: Kinect Corridors. You can go ANYWHERE.

Wow, look at the water! We can go anywhere!

-Shannon and Abigail demonstrating Kinect Adventures, Microsoft Xbox Conference

Two women jump and sway to steer a two-man raft down a river-rapids level, and this was the wittiest banter they could come up with? While I understand that the people on stage must be under tremendous pressure to make sure a product looks fun and technically proficient, this line was obviously supposed to reinforce what Microsoft had written as part of their Kinect press release.

The statement “we can go anywhere” especially smacks of PR, as every gamer knows that a game’s world is only as big as it’s designers make it. You can go anywhere you like in Grand Theft Auto IV too … provided it’s not inside most buildings or underwater.

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Sigh, rhyming headlines, I must have my news hat on too tight today.  Nevertheless, details coming straight-outta-Joystiq today, talking about Xbox Live’s integration with Last.Fm.

The service was announced at this year’s E3, including linking up Facebook and Twitter to Live.  Apparently the Last.Fm service will be free but contain ads for Gold accounts, and there will be 3 hour trials for Silver users.

Silver users will be able access what we’re considering a trial period of three hours a month, which comes with video advertising. Gold users will have unlimited ad-supported access, so they can use it 24 hours a day. There will also be a premium offering on a subscription basis from Last.fm, that will be commercial free and will also have more sophisticated personalization features, like Loved Tracks.

-Christina DeRosa, general manager with XBL

The premium service is an additional subscription fee that will be paid directly to Last.fm.  Using the service via Live will still require a registered Last.fm account.  Check out the whole article.

Sure, a Big Daddy looks cute in rag-doll form

More E3-ness (although I’ve been meaning to talk about this one for a while), more and more details have been trickling out of 2K recently about BioShock 2, a game I’m very much waiting for.  I picked up the original quite late, which proved nice price-wise, but I kicked myself when I played the game for not having bought it sooner.  The thing I loved most about it was the art direction.  The underwater city of Rapture drips with 1920′s style architecture and class.  The character design is brilliant too, with most of the residents of Rapture having long ago succumbed to being “splicers”, genetically altered and mutated freaks on a constant search for Adam (the catalyst for all genetic modification).

What worries me however, with the upcoming release of the sequel, is that the original BioShock had a very linear (albeit brilliant) storyline and might prove a little difficult to follow.  But the dev team seems to be taking pains to remain true to the original game in matters of design and gameplay, so hopefully it will prove itself good in it’s own right.

BioShock 2 puts you in the hulking boots of a prototype Big Daddy, the enormous, scuba suited bodyguard to Rapture’s Adam harvesting Little Sisters.  By the looks of things this prototype is a fair bit more agile than the Daddies you encounter in BioShock 1, and also will have it’s own splicing abilities too.  2K released a gameplay trailer a little while ago showing off the weapons and abilities of your Big Daddy, and introducing the Big Sister, who is presumably the game’s protaganist.  Amongst the new features are the ability to combine splices (the video shows flaming cyclone traps) and the ability to take the Big Daddy out onto the sea floor.

The game is also going to be introducing multiplayer, something that was lacking from the original.  Players will take the role of genetic modification test subjects from early Rapture, which sounds cool as it’s also supposed to give a glimpse of the underwater city before it fell into disarray.  From the sound of things, it’s going to have it’s own little RPG kind of feel to it too, with players slowly building up their splicing abilities and attributes in their own little apartment of Rapture between matches.   Neat to see a game taking on both a sequel AND prequel element in one package. Hopefully it proves worthwhile, because while the pressure to add multiplayer is almost overwhelming these days, not every game actually needs it (something which the original BioShock proved).

Still, eagerly anticipating this one!  Would you kindly go and pre-order?

I’m finding it a little overwhelming to sort through the stuff that’s actually interesting and stuff that seems overhyped in the massive inundation of details from E3.  Here’s one of each then.

LucasArts has dropped a new teaser trailer for the next Star Wars game: Star Wars The Old Republic.  Note that they may have dropped the prefix “Knights Of” to avoid any residual bad feelings.  As someone rightly mentioned, the trailer looks better than some of the movies Star Wars has seen of late, so hopefully the gameplay side of things will be up to standard too.  Still, for those who didn’t dig Galaxies, it’s another stab at the MMORPG genre for LucasArts.  Looks good, anyway, will have to wait for more details.

As far as the overhyped side goes, it’s hard to avoid reading about Microsoft’s new Project Natal, a full motion body sensor for the Xbox.  Now don’t get me wrong, it sounds interesting, but all the talk of what a “revolution” this will be frankly seems a little over the top to me.  Full body motion gaming, where have we heard that before?  Oh, maybe on that technological BEAST of a machine: the Playstation 2?  Seriously, until they come up with something interesting to do with it, this is just an EyeToy on steroids, well programmed chatbot youngster or no.  I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on this one, but the previews so far don’t really seem to convey the “revolution” they’re touting.

Plus the last time I trusted something to come out of Molyneux’s mouth, I was inflicted with the uselessly short ending to Fable.  Bring me a Black & White for the Natal and we’ll talk!

Sometimes I surprise myself with my tastes.  There are a lot of different bits of news flying around out of E3 (and it’s barely begun), including the rumoured announcement of another Halo title (take THAT dead horse!).  I’ve found myself drawn, however, to the new Dead Rising 2 trailer(s).  The original was a fantastic game, and apart from the tiny captioning ahead of it’s time, brilliant visually too.  Nothing brings the maniacal boy-giggle like bringing a sledgehammer down on a mall zombie for the first time.

It looks like Capcom is out to make gaming gold twice, and they know their audience (well let’s face it, they KNOW zombies).  Two chainsaws duct-taped to a motorcycle?  Bravo, good sirs and madams.  The new protagonist’s name is Chuck Greene, and DR2 will be set in a casino town.  Also of note is the fact that online multiplayer is going to be included with this game, unlike DR1 which was a strictly single player affair.  Hopes are high, people!  No word if we get to see poor tank-stranded Frank “I’ve covered wars, y’know” West again however.  Pity too, that dude had a badass last name.

Also, because I haven’t shut up about music games all friggin’ week: Guitar Hero 5‘s website has listed the artists to be included (no track names yet).  Note that Rammstein is included … now who had that idea? I’m interested to find out how many tracks will be once again doubling up with Rock Band offerings.  Hopefully not too many.