Show may be over, but here are some revelations that didn't make headlines.
E3 is over. The big game companies have paved their paths and pointed to victory. But what little tidbits of information didn't quite crack through? GameFile brings you some potential surprises that didn't make the headlines.
» As announced last week, the new September redesign of the PSP will be slimmer. It will be lighter. But reports of its genuinely improved battery life have been misunderstood. A Sony rep who showed the new model to GameFile explained that the slimmer PSP will come with a smaller battery than the current model does and that the smaller model, thanks to improved energy efficiency, will provide the same battery life as the original system's battery did. What if a gamer wants more charge? The old PSP's battery will fit in the new unit but will only nestle into the slimmer system with the help of a custom-made battery hatch cover, not the one built onto the new September PSP.
» "Burnout: Paradise" is the ambitious new open-world sequel to Criterion's crash-filled racing series. Players can hop in a high-definition sports car, drive to any point in the game's expansive virtual city and start a race. Online-connected friends who drive by can join the races. Even when not engaging in these spontaneous races, players can compete with each other. That's because every time the player drives on any of the city's roads, the game notes which members of a "friends list" have the best speed and crash runs on that street. A less-discussed "Burnout: Paradise" feature uses the PlayStation Eye USB camera to snap a photo of a player whose online opponents have sent him or her crashing. Criterion Creative Director Alex Ward told GameFile to think of the snapped photos as the equivalent of marks on a fighter plane tallying an ace's victories. He was showing the game on PS3 (it's also slated for the Xbox 360) and said he expects the system to hold up to 2,500 photos. That's a lot of shame to log.
» "God of War: Chains of Olympus" may sport the most impressive graphics yet on the PSP, but that isn't, as suspected, because of the new Sony standards that finally allow developers to tap the full speed of the portable system's processor. While the game's lead developer says they are now working on a version of the title that takes advantage of the PSP's 333-MHz chip, the version that wowed at E3 was still running on a build designed for PSPs constrained to 266-MHz, the artificial threshold imposed by Sony from the system's launch up until last month.
» "Gears of War" helped popularize the notion of online co-op play on a home console. But it also taught some gamers the cold truths of infidelity. Many were the gamers who hoped to have a friend faithfully play through the game's campaign with them and wait to make progress on the days the two couldn't make a play date only to find that the player they waited for had forged ahead without them. The developers of EA's co-op-focused "Army of Two" have a remedy: The Xbox 360 version will include a "Best Friends Forever" achievement that rewards two gamers who complete the whole campaign together.
» Any online service with a large user base can benefit from widespread developer support. One way Sony may increase the odds that the company's free online virtual world, PlayStation Home, enjoys broad adoption by gamers is to force every PS3 gamer to get it (see "Sony Unveils Big PS3 Secret: Gamers Get To Go 'Home' "). A Sony producer overseeing the project told GameFile that Home will be included as a PS3 firmware upgrade when it launches in the fall. That means every gamer will get Home simply because they will need their firmware updated to play newer games and log in to the PS3's online store.
» The makers of "Assassin's Creed," Ubisoft's spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed "Prince of Persia" series, have been loathe to reveal their new game's plot. But something has seemed strange about the game's medieval setting. Characters ambling through the dusty streets of the game's 12th-century Jerusalem occasionally flash "Matrix"-style computer-code glitches on their skin and clothing. That raised the possibility that the game might have playable areas set in the present or future. That last theory would be wrong, according to the "Assassin's Creed" developer, who told GameFile that the playable parts of "AC" are all set in the era of the Third Crusade.
» In an approach opposite from their competitors, Nintendo executives decided to show only a small percentage of the company's upcoming 2007 slate of games in the E3 demo venues. That left reporters scouring Nintendo release lists and spinning press-kit DVDs to learn more about upcoming Wii and DS games. Even those sources, however, revealed little about mysterious products such as October's "Endless Ocean" on the Wii and the late November DS offering "Nintendo Magic." A Nintendo official explained to GameFile that "Nintendo Magic" — which isn't the project's final name — is a port of "Magic Taizen," a so-called DS non-game already released in Japan. The Japanese version came with a deck of cards and is designed to teach users card tricks.
» Microsoft got some buzz for the debut of its game-show-style Xbox 360 controller. Four of them will be bundled with a new 360-specific version of the movie and TV trivia game Scene It?. The project lead at Microsoft who demoed the game showed several modes that had players answering questions about movies such as "King Kong," "The Matrix" and "North by Northwest." One area of expertise the 360 Scene It? won't tap, he told GameFile, is video games. No "Halo" trivia is planned for the game's inaugural Xbox 360 installment.
» Sega's E3 representatives showed a tiny slice of this fall's "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games" (see "Mario, Sonic Facing Off For Game Of Olympic Proportions"). They were willing to demonstrate a few events — including the triple jump and the hammer throw — and eight characters out of the game's large roster: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Dr. Robotnik. That's a roster any Mario or Sonic fan would expect. So was the game bereft of surprises? At least one novelty emerged during demos of the game: To rally the Olympics stadium crowd, players can sort of clap their hands while holding the Wii nunchuck and remote. The character the player controls will clap too, exhorting the Olympic audience to follow along.
» "Hannah Montana: Music Jam" is one of the first apparent girl games that has a shot at also reaching a more hard-core gamer audience. The reason? The game turns the DS into a drum set you can play and a guitar you can strum, and players can record vocals. Multiple DS systems can be linked wirelessly to form a DS-enabled, multi-instrument band. Does that sound appealing? Southpaws be warned: In guitar mode, "Hannah Montana" displays the neck of the guitar at an angle, from the top screen's upper left corner to the bottom screen's lower right. This gives the right-handed player a good angle at which to hit the strings. A lefty mode switches the direction the strings should strum (and assigns more convenient buttons for switching chords), but it does not flip the angle of the neck of the guitar. A Disney Interactive producer working on "Hannah Montana" told GameFile that space limitations on the DS cartridge prohibited the developers from programming flipped graphics.
Recent video game stories from MTV News:
· "Nintendo At E3: Mad 'Mario' Titles On The Way; Wii Zapper Could Be A Future Shock"
· "Microsoft Shows Off Blockbuster Holiday Lineup At E3 Kickoff"
· "Sony At E3: Chewbacca Helps Announce Revised PSP, PS3 Ready To Counter-Attack 'Halo' "
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From http://www.mtv.com