E3 is here...

So since E3 is here I'm going to start posting like a mad man. When I see it I'll try and cue you in to it. Today I'm going to briefly touch on two things. As always I'll give you the reach update and then I'll let you know what happened in the main press conferences for each major consol developer. Throughout the day today I'll try and come back later and add a second post about the main goings on with the PC.

Adding this as well, it's a live studio demo reel from 1up. As each game gets added you can come back and see your favorite stuff. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3179905

A word of apology first. As I'm hurrying to keep up with all the news and what not between all the things I'm doing these posts will be ugly, contain errors and will probably not feature any pictures or videos at first. Eventually I'll catch up with everything and throw down a highlight video or two.

Halo Reach -
So there are a number of videos going out there and I'm sure if we combed through all of them we could find tons of cool stuff. For now here's the short list of features that we now know to exist.

They showed a campaign video which included these features:
Four Player Co-op
Elite Armor Lock (it's red)
Advanced Ai, including Jackals making a phalanx
Space Battles

Wait what space battles you say. Are we doing a space walk or do you mean rogue squadron behind the cockpit stuff. I'm talking about the latter, and so far rumor has it that it's available in as a separate multiplayer mode as well.

Another video is floating around as well that confirms firefight mode:
Firefight confirmed (fully customizable, think custom games x10) <-- create your own skulls...
New Armor Ability, Bubble-shield/regen sort of thing called the drop shield
Brutes confirmed in firefight, possibility for more new weapons
New targeting lazer with hammer of dawn like capabilities, think orbital strike. Possibly calls in a Mac round or two.
Some sort of artillery strike was also seen, will need more to know what it was.
Custom game like customization for firefight which can be seen in the list on the following page which also contains the video.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3179906

Moving right along:

So the conferences were for the most part unimpressive. In fact this year the winner of best conference was undoubtedly nintendo. Here's a brief rundown of each consols press conference.

Sony:

So to be completely honest all bias aside Sony had the worst show. Their line up of games was predictable, their psp showing was absolutely garbage and they had only 2 new announcements. Twisted metal 2 looks okay which was really announced prior to the show accidentally but I'll give them that as a new announcement. Their second announcement was that Portal 2 was coming to the PS3, this is interesting enough but it isn't going to be a simultaneous release. They relied heavily on their new 3d tech which seemed rather dull although obviously it needs to be experienced in person. The other thing they relied heavily on was the move which seemed to me to be wii motion plus and nothing more. Honestly I own a wii and the waggle controls are fun but they aren't anything special. I don't really see a reason to go this way which brings me to the next press conference.

Microsoft: While their press conference was rather lack luster as well they did have a few great announcements. Gears 3, Halo Reach and several other heavy hitters were there in full force. In addition to the usual triple A titles we got to see a new quieter 360 that would be out that very day and natal now named Kinect. The later of these looked very promising, offering a new experience in which your entire body becomes your controller. This seems to be a new and fresh way to look at motion sensitive controls. I'm very excited to see what developers do with it.

Nintendo: Honestly the best showing here. Finally we got to see a large line-up of hard core nintendo games that fans want to see. I'll make a quick list and allow you guys to see them on your own. A new side scrolling Donkey Kong Country and a new Kirby game. A remastered Goldeneye remake that aside from the Wii graphics looks like a Call of Duty style triple A shooter. A new legend of Zelda featuring Wii Motion plus controls. Metroid Prime M, made by team ninja. A new kid icarus game on the 3ds, a Mario Sports game (volleyball, basketball, hockey, and dodgeball) and tons more. It's games like these and the full line up of 3DS titles as well as the announcement of no glasses 3d that made their press conference without a doubt the best.