Just a few ruminations on the recent E3 and things tangential.

1.  Being a game journalist ronin kind of suits Adam Sessler, but dude needs his own podcast/show stat.  This needs to happen.

2. Best coverage of E3 by far was the after hours Giant Bomb podcasts, which I wouldn’t have even known about if I hadn’t been looking at stupid unrelated Tweets.  Justin Mcelroy talking about “Time Belt” was the funniest thing ever (subject came up because the latest Dance Central game is going to have some kind of goofy time travel plot).  Do a google search for Justin Mcelroy time belt if you want some instant entertainment.

3.  Ubisoft definitely had the most baffling/awkward presentation and the best games to show this year.

4. Nintendo dropped the ball again, but despite it all I still like em.  Continue to be the most …earnest game company that ever was…even under all the contrivance that everyone has.

5.  Elder Scroll MMO…Brad from Giantbomb summed it up best “a bad idea that’s gone on far too long”… on a related note, watching the Star Wars MMO guy on stage was just painful.  What almost no one seems to get is that unless you bring something else to the table besides the tropes that WOW has established in repackaged form, it isn’t going to work.  It seems like such an obvious point too…maybe in 2007 when all these games were being started up it didn’t seem like that…after all, taking someone elses ideas and repackaging them is kind of a video game staple.

6.  More emphasis on Free to Play being the inevitable future…microtransactions, microtransactions… I don’t think that will be the case.  Much like everything being an MMO was the inevitable future…or motion control…or the “casual” market…it’s another case of certain companies making a shitload of money off an idea and everyone else trying to emulate them.

7.  Last of Us looks incredible…it’s almost like a reaction to the Uncharted games…cavalier violence that didn’t really fit with the story replaced by violence being actually treated as murder, necessity for survival, upclose and horrible.  Of course, biggest applause from gamers in audience is close up of some guys head being shot off.

8. Underwhelming E3…could be seen as reflection of ailing industry, none of the big companies are doing that well…as E3 was going on THQ is closing studios, studio 38 going through painful bankruptcy.  Or, could be that everyone is working on new generation of consoles except Nintendo, so their “A” game isn’t really here.  OR, it could be the big companies realizing that putting on a big show at E3 doesn’t really matter to anyone but a small circle of game journalists/enthusiasts, who are becoming more and more pointless as sales mouthpieces…why not just spread the hype yourself, cut out the middlemen?