E3 2012 - The Bad

E3 has been something of a mixed bag this year. Overall, my complaints going in have proven to be accurate with every one of the big three announcing or "leaking" their announcements before the show, which basically takes away the whole excitement factor. Where Sony and Microsoft are concerned, it seems like they basically are waiting for this year to be over so they can get to their next console announcements, and with Nintendo, they are up to their usual tricks in announcing the same Mario games over and over again and knowing that people will mindlessly buy it.  I want to take this in more of a point form direction as there is a lot to cover, so let's get to it.

Note: I decided to split this into two parts as there is a lot of ground to cover.

Iwata-San standing in front of a sign that can be translated to say "Give us your money bitches!"

Wii U - This was the biggest story of E3 going in and I'm sure many would maintain that it still is. Unfortunately, the message that Nintendo sent to me was that I could play mini game collections and newer versions of old Mario games. They pretty much ignored their 3DS market (which at this point is their bread and butter) to the point where the guy who quickly squeezed in a few 3DS announcements (of more Mario games) even was complaining about how little time he was given. The 3DS did end up with a separate video conference later on, but I honestly didn't care. When they announced the Wii U, they described it as "the wii for you...that's why we've decided to call it The Wii U." This excited the audience at last years E3, as they were actual gamers and Nintendo insisted this time it would be bringing the core gaming experience that we have been begging for. Unfortunately, this only means that you will get to play games that came out on PS3/X360 a year or so before. They even went as far as to brag about Batman Arkham City coming to the Wii U at launch. I'll pass, as I've already played through it with a better controller last year some time. As far as new game announcements go, it was pretty slim, though the new Rayman Legends game looks kinda neat, it probably would be just as fun on the iPad.

Nintendoland - I have no intention of bagging on Nintendo for this whole write up, but I need to mention Nintendo's big E3 swan song, Nintendoland. Nintendo proudly proclaims it to be "the only mini game collection that includes Nintendo characters". After that, we get an extremely long demo where a japanese guy explains to us how it works. The game (Luigi's Ghost Mansion) was basically a 4 player Luigi's Mansion mixed with Pac Man, yet somehow this took at least 10 minutes to explain. Ultimately, this presentation and the entire Nintendo presentation as a whole looked pretty awful and insultingly unambitious. Nintendo is basically saying "we know you'll buy it, so we aren't gonna try". Sadly, Nintendo fanboys have been obliging this pretty seriously on various message boards too.

Wonderbook - Remember last year's E3 showing of Disney Kinect Adventures from Microsoft? That was seriously painful, and I am attaching the link to that video here so that you can go see it, if you haven't. It's a great example of a video game company missing the mark, and showing the wrong audience something relatively fascinating. This year, Sony clearly decided that it could be way more groan inducing than Microsoft with something called Wonderbook. Sony's conference was going really great, until they decided to dedicate 20 minutes of their 90 minute time slot to Wonderbook. I kid you not, this was the longest presentation Sony did. Basically, it's an augmented reality book that you can used with the Playstation Move and PS Eye. You open it and wave your move around and it apparently adds up to being fun. The presentation was so bad that it moved past Disney Kinect Adventure's laughable presentation and into straight up agony. This may be interesting enough for children who like Harry Potter (as that's how they advertised it), but after 20 minutes, my friend fell asleep, my girlfriend who loves Harry Potter got so bored she walked off, and I seriously considered playing my Vita until it was over. Speaking of which....

Sony pretty much ignoring the Vita - Sony clearly thinks pretty highly of their new handheld, and why shouldn't they? It's a great system. It's the handheld that I myself have always wanted and I can say I've had some really special gaming experiences with it, sitting outside in the sun. Sadly, the sales do not reflect this, as people claim their are no games for it. I have 5 physical games right now and will be buying Gravity Rush in a few days, when it releases. For a console that has been out for barely 3 months, that is pretty good. Sadly, Sony seems oblivious to it's serious sales problems and instead of dropping the price or doing much of anything at all to help out this great machine, they said we'll be able to play Playstation 1 games soon on it (which was already announced), and that a special Assassin's Creed 3 spin off will be coming to the Vita with a white Vita bundle on the day that Assassin's Creed 3 comes out (Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation). Hell yeah. They also told us that their smash bros. rip off game Playstation All-Star Battle Royal (rolls right off the tongue) will be on Vita too. Ultimately, that was not enough. They could have even talked about already announced games if they had the time to.... I'm looking at you Wonderbook.

Aisha Tyler & Tobuscus - Every year, Ubisoft hires someone to be obnoxious while hosting their panel and every year everyone complains about it. This year they hired two people and it actually did work out to be double annoying. Whenever Aisha wasn't talking about her girl wood, Tobuscus (as he apparently goes by on youtube) just acts obnoxious and expects people to laugh afterwards. The whole act fell flat. Perhaps it's time we just go with Ubisoft's french-Canadian management team as the hosts, as I would honestly enjoy that more. As an aside, Ubisoft's games were some of the best shown (but I'll get to that on E3 2012 - The Best).

Usher - Usher came out and performed a song for Dance Central 3 at Microsoft's show. I'm not really sure who this was for.

Pretty much EA's entire conference - It wasn't offensive at all, it was just boring. Tons of sports games that are barely any different than last years. None of EA's partener's were there. The new Medal of Honor looks pretty cool, and the new Sim City looks pretty fun too, but I really didn't care until the very final announcement. Crysis 3, which almost made up for all of the boring Madden talk... almost.