GAMEScom, Day 1

Yes, today was the first day of GAMEScom in Cologne, Germany. And boy, was it an exciting day. Lots of announcements and an overall great start to the convention. Before I jump in, however, I want to explain a bit of how I will be writing down convention reactions like this. Basically, the post will take somewhat of a question and answer format. I will introduce what was announced, and after that I will add a personal reaction to it. Some things I barely have any reaction; to others I will have quite a bit to say. Although I expect these blogs to be a bit long, the way I am writing them should let you skip things you don't want to read. Anyway, let's get to it!

ANNOUNCEMENT: Dante's Inferno is given a release date of February 9th along with the announcement of a new intriguing morality system in the game. This system will consist of "righteous" and "unholy" choices, and will be integrated with combat.
REACTION: Great. Dante's Inferno looks to be an awesome game, and a February release date is perfect (especially because it's right next to my birthday!), especially since we have been expecting the game in 2010. The morality system sounds good too. Visceral Games seems to be trying to change the regular morality system from predetermined choices to combat. Apparently, the way you kill things determines morality. As long as this system doesn't impede combat, that's great. It would suck if the immoral ways of killings are way better than the moral. This, in my opinion, will only work if the holy choices are as good and are a strong alternative to the unholy choices.

A: Star Wars: The Old Republic is revealed to have full voice acting for not only English but French and German.
R: Holy shit. That is a lot of voice acting. Sounds epic, but this pretty much confirms that BioWare wants some moolah. Expect a WoW like subscription fee...

A: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is given a release date of March 2 and Battlefield 1943 is revealed to have already amassed more that 1 million players.
R: Although I don't care much for Bad Company 2, it seems DICE is making quite the franchise out of it. I hope to God they put more than 1 multiplayer mode in the game at retail. That was one of main reasons I didn't buy Bad Company 1. The fact that 1943 has hit 1 million players after only about a month and a half, and it's only an XBL title shows that arcade titles are bridging gaps between arcade and retail. Look at Shadow Complex...

A: Mass Effect 2 is shown at the EA Conference. The trailer showed a new area called Omega, a new krogan called Grunt, and some nice little tidbits. A revealing IGN interview also talked a bit more about things.
R: First, go see the trailer and the interview on IGN. The trailer was really interesting. I love how Omega looks. You can see the depth BioWare wants from ME2. The area looks way more detailed. Grunt is great, but I hope he isn't a replacement for Wrex. Although I tend to use Garrus and Ashley is ME1, I like Wrex a lot. He was definitely a great character. I kept him alive too, so I hope he is still there. Grunt looks to be a little different that Wrex obviously. He seems to be a lot more concerned with getting things done and he is more interested in killing things. The interview is insightful. One question posed was if the interviewee could name three choices in ME1 that would profoundly affect ME2. The answer was this: who died or didn't die on Virmire, who you had sexy time with, and if you saved the galactic council (I didn't. They were mean...)

A:Brutal Legend is getting a demo on PSN and XBL in September.
R: Awesome. Can't wait to play.

A: CCP announces a new FPS MMO for consoles that will connect with their PC strategy game, EVE Online.
R: This sounds cool. An FPS that is exclusively for consoles that will connect and determine certain things in the PC MMO. Think about this. If this turns out successful, you will be affecting a PC game's gameplay, and playing with all consoles.

A: Crytek is saving their Crysis 2 presentation for Thursday.
R: Question mark? What does Crytek have that they need a whole different time to show? I know Crysis 2 is coming to consoles, but do they really needs lots of time for that? Intriguing...

A: Ubisoft announces a dance game called "Just Dance".
R: crappy dance + Lady Gaga title = absolute crap.

A: Sony's PSN is up and running, with a recorded 27 million users registered. A little less that half of those are signed up to Home. Home was announced to be gaining two more spaces, an Audi space and a SingStar space, and the PSN will be getting an upgrade with interactive themes. Europe also gets a video service now.
R: Most of this is logistical stuff. It is interesting to see the ratio of PSN to Home users. If you take all the people that have an Xbox, the ratio of users on XBL is less that the ratio of PSN users on PS3. Honestly, Home spaces are no big deal. They just seem to be marketing ploys. The PSN upgrade is a blatant copy of the New Xbox Experience. Interactive Themes? Seperation is not changing "premium" to "interactive". Yay for Europe, I guess...

A: PS3 gains a digital reader service. This service will partner with Marvel to bring the Marvel comic catalogue to PS3. These comics can be transfered directly to your PSP and read.
R: Cool, but I don't think it will be "Twitter" popular.

A: PSP gains an apple like app store, called miniS. This store will be exclusively for PSN games of 100MB size or lower. The PSP is also getting more colors.
R: Seems Sony wants PSP to be more like an ipod than a portable gaming system. miniS seems to be intriguing however. Kind of like an arcade to the arcade...

A: Sony will wait to talk about motion controls till the Tokyo Game Show.
R: I was expecting this. This is partially because of time constraints (they only had an hour) and the fact that they don't have much to show yet. That's okay though.

A: Sony revealed the long rumored PS3 Slim. It will be the new version of the PS3. Specs are the same, with an 80GB hard drive, 2 USB drives, and the works. Sony also incorporated its price cut into the announcement, with the PS3 going down to $299.
R: THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!! Why in the world did they wait so effing long? This wasn't just the pink elephant in the room. This was the the neon pink elephant in the room that is 50 stories tall. Sony is finally making some good decisions. The Slim was a good move. And yes, I called it. As I said, this will reinvigorate the market. The $100 price cut is super smart, and now it makes the PS3 in my opinion a real competitor to the Xbox 360 and the Wii (Although, I hear Microsoft may be dropping the 360 price themselves). The way I see it is this: by introducing the Slim, Sony is garnering more attention to the PS3. Not only is this model new, but it is cheaper. And with the amazing 2009 lineup they have, lots of PS3's should be sold this Christmas. Although I don't think the Xbox will be hurt much, the Wii needs to look out for Sony. Xbox and Sony have both introduced new innovative things. Wii is not. Wii popularity is going down. Whether this be the difficulty to garner hardcore gamers or the lack of real change, Sony is in place to take quite a few of those Wii users who may want to go to something more hardcore. Sony made great announcements today. They can finally focus on games. This also shows one thing: SONY SUCKS AT HIDING THINGS.

That's it for day 1. Day 2 should hold some announcements, with the Microsoft conference taking place tomorrow (actually, you can catch it on a live blog if you wake up at 2 AM!). MS and Lionhead are poised to make some big announcement. See you tomorrow!