The Daily Campus

Issue date: 6/15/09 Section: Focus

For the actual attendees, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is a four-day marathon through a giant room filled with noise, smells and flashing lights. Fueled by Cheetos and dogged by hangovers, gaming's biggest annual event can be summed up succinctly with two verbs: cheering and barfing. From my couch at home, I did a little cheering and barfing , and now both have been collected on this printed page for your enjoyment, dear reader.

I cheered: Mass Effect 2
Bioware's glitzy, cinematic space opera warmed my rusty android heart. The game throbbed with high octane, unleaded nerd fuel, and I'd lovingly take it again - even reheated and served lukewarm. Well, BioWare's not about 10-seconds-in-the-microwave, here-you-go sequel design. They're overhauling the combat. They're adding a male romance option. They're letting you interrupt people in the middle of conversations - by throwing them off skyscrapers. They haven't talked about that damn car yet, but hopefully you can throw that off a skyscraper, too.

I barfed: Final Fantasy XIII, XIV
Do you see that number? That's the Roman numeral 13. That one next to it? Yeah. You guessed it. Another 50-hour epic of hitting "X," scratching your head at incomprehensible dialog and sitting through minute-long attack animations that cost as much as the GDP of the entire Balkans. And yes, Square announced Final Fantasy XIV before XIII was even released. And, to the delight of everyone that wasted their virile high school years typing, "Thief looking for group," it's a massively-multiplayer online game. You may say I'm an ornery, Square-hating misanthrope. That's fine. In response, I direct you to the gameplay video showing Shiva turning into a motorcycle.

I cheered: Left 4 Dead 2
But you know, Valve could have announced anything and I'd be doing the victory dance. They could be making iPhone titles. They could be doing a Hannah Montana rhythm game. They could be porting Custer's Revenge to the DS. Well, maybe not that last one. But my point is that Valve has, barring all except maybe Blizzard, the strongest track record of any developer ever. Sure, you say they're just milking the franchise, and the changes are mostly incremental: melee weapons (including chainsaw), new Survivors, new campaigns, a new AI Director, a new gameplay mode, new Special Infected, oh, wait, those changes aren't incremental at all. Valve is making an awesome new game for everyone to play.

Continued...

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