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| EddyT
25th Post
 
Rare Customer
 
|  "E3 Report - Day 1"
, posted Thu 23 May 00:15
Here are some personal experiences from Day 1... boy were there a lot of good stuff.
Konami: As posted by others, Contra is coming to PS2. The way it played was like this... you could switch between 3 guns. One was your usual long-range gun, 2nd was a sort of grenade-launcher, and 3rd was a flame thrower (very short range). It's all in 3D, but plays in the traditional 2D plane. Very nice surprise that played well. Contra Advance will also be hitting GBA. My friend said it was a port of Contra III for SNES, and he said the music was altered from the original due to the limitations of the music chip.
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance for GBA plays very much like Dracula X for Super CD, especially the items like the circling bible projectile and that hand icon thingie where you throw sprinkles on the ground (forgot the actual name of that one).
Namco: No Soul Calibur II on the floor, or Ridge Racer. Just teaser movies. Was pretty disappointed.
Capcom: Rockman Zero is fun fun fun. Feels just like the Rockman X series. I am trying to figure out what the arranged version of Super Ghouls & Ghosts GBA does, but I haven't figured it out yet. Maybe it's music related, but I noticed that at least the traditional stage map is replaced by a grid of pictures.
Steel Battalion is intimidating with it's 30+ button controller. I'll attempt to play it tomorrow.
Tecmo: You probably heard the news on both Ninja Gaiden, Rygar and DOA Extreme Volleyball. None weren't playable unfortunately, and no actual gameplay footage from Rygar... just CG movies. DOA Volleyball is a dream come true for DOA fans who want to see the girls in bikinis. You can go to a shop (it's called Zack's Shop) and buy them new swimsuits and other articles of clothing (like catears). Ninja Gaiden looks pretty nice, but it has some competition from Shinobi for PS2. More later.
Nintendo: This booth blew me out of the water. Lots to talk about.
Legend of Zelda looks excellent for GC and Game Boy Advance. GBA version is a direct port of Link to the Past on SNES, but it has a mini-game (like Super Mario Advance) that involves multi-player action. It also features a different look that's a little more related to the GC Zelda. It is a mix of co-operation and competition. You always need all 4 people to get through certain areas, but at the same time... the player with the most rupees wins. Statues are abound with items, ranging from shield, running boots, boomerang, magnetic hands and bombs (maybe more, haven't played through the whole game). You can only carry one item at a time, and all items need to be used in a way to get through the mini-quest. Really great addition to a SNES port.
GBA Yoshi's Island looks perfect graphically, but the music is changed. Mario Sunshine is definitely as interactive as I anticipated. You probably will hear tons about this game from other sites, so I won't explain more. Wario World GC looked fun to play, but it wasn't as popular as Zelda or Mario. It's a shame... Wario deserves a look.
Metroid made a strong showing at the booth! I was afraid Metroid Prime GC would not be the same in a 3D aspect (like how Castlevania was not great in N64), but it plays pretty well and is great graphically. I'll play more tomorrow. Metroid Fusion GBA is what I spent the most time on. This is NOT a rehash of SNES Super Metroid... it looks slightly different and Samus can do much more in this game. Animation is INSANE and is one of the best GBA games in technical standpoints. It's weird how enemies form and how you get powerups... there are energy plasms and missle plasms that float around. If they attach to a dormant enemy, the enemy will come to life and attack you, but if you touch the plasma... you get the powerup. You can shoot the plasmas to stun them and prevent them from attaching to enemies. Samus can climb ladder-areas, which are on the side of walls and on ceilings. Can also grab edges of ledges. This game is a MUST-BUY.
It was cool playing Sega's Nights through that GC-to-GBA link, but unfortunately the game only lasts until you power off (then it's gone). Nights, Puyo Pop and Chao Garden are available "N-Link" games for PSO Ch. 1/2. Animal Crossing is the other game that features this option (I heard that you can download Donkey Kong and Clu Clu Land onto GBA). There's also an e-card reader, that can utilize classic Game and Watch cards to play actual Game and Watch games on GBA. It's only the classic versions (not remade like previous Game/Watch conversions for GBC), but it's cool nonetheless.
Game and Watch 4 was nice, but Donkey Kong Plus was a surprise. It's basically a remake of Donkey Kong for Super Game Boy, but with nicer graphics. It seems that you can also play it on GC, and you can design levels of your own. It looks nicer on GBA, surprising enough.
Sega: Shinobi PS2 looks cool! He has a long scarf. More tomorrow. GBA version is okay... it's not the Genesis version... but a different game.
Altered Beast GBA is not that great, from what I experienced. It is redone like Shinobi GBA. A guy watched me play for 10 minutes, and mentioned that he didn't see any power-ups the whole time I played. I just wanted to turn to a monster (like classic Altered Beast), but it took so long, I lost interest and gave it to the guy who was watching.
Sega Sports/ESPN: I hate the ESPN layouts/presentation... I liked the original Sega Sports presentation better. Thank God the commentary for NFL 2K3 features the 2 original guys. I would have been pissed if I couldn't hear "you can't coach that" anymore. NBA 2K3 has nicer commentary, and thank God again it doesn't feature Stuart Scott in commentary (like ESPN's last NBA offering from Konami).
Panzer Dragoon Orta looks beautiful, and makes me glad I own a XBox. I want to try it tomorrow.
Crazy Taxi 3 looks dated... hmmm.
Microsoft: Brute Force looked pretty framey (running 30-45 frames most of the time, and it was on single player full-screen I believe). Hope it gets better... Halo wasn't impressive last year at E3, but ended up game of the year for some magazines.
I could not find Kakuto Chojin, the fighting game made by MS and Dream Factory. I was really hoping it would have been playable there.
Yeah, this post is pretty long. I'd be surprised if one person reads it. More tomorrow!
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