During E3 I was so busy running around, I had blinders on when it came to any other coverage.  This wasn’t so much out of laziness, but necessity — the last thing I needed was another distraction.  Now that I am back home and things are starting to settle down, I am picking up the pieces and putting them together to put the whole event in perspective.

One title which I did not cover yet but am really excited for is Metal Gear Solid: Rising.  I may have not gotten a chance to cover this as I did attended neither Microsoft’s nor Konami’s press events.  On the off-chance that you did not see the trailer, here it is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKU_od-oN8o[/youtube]

This definitely wins my best trailer of E3 award.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising

The game is not being directed by Hideo Kojima as with past titles, rather Mineshi Kimura has assumed this role.  Kimura had been a texture and background artist for the past Metal Gear Solid titles, but Kojima has apparently entrusted this project mostly to him.  Kojima of course will have some control as he is the overall producer.

The change in direction is rather apparent in the game’s gameplay which looks nothing like swordplay from Metal Gear Solid 2.  This is probably for the best, as that system was a bit clunky.  The game’s aesthetic also looks darker and even a bit anime-ish, what with Raiden’s red eye-twinkle and all.

The system mentioned in the trailer is “zan-datsu”, which nicely translates to “cut and take” — more like “behead and rob”, but whatever.  As the video shows, Raiden can take certain items from felled mechanized units which restores health and ammo.  When it comes to cutting, action is slowed considerably allowing the player to select the direction they wish to cut.  In addition to androids and unfortunate PMCs, the terrain also appears very destroyable, which is an awesome feature rarely executed properly.

Story-wise, as I had anticipated, Rising will chronicle Jack’s transformation into the cold android-warrior we saw in Metal Gear Solid 4.  This was a dramatic change going from the second installment in the series so I am very interested to learn what happened.

Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D: The Naked Sample

A new Metal Gear Solid project was announced at E3 – Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D: The Naked Sample. It appears to be a port of Snake Eater to the 3Ds. When I saw the trailer for it at E3, the 3D effects enhanced the environment dramatically.  Some examples were when Snake was climbing up a crazy tall ladder, or the infamous final battle with The Boss:

The graphics actually look like a step up from Playstation 2, or maybe they are just a step sideways.  Either way I am excited but wonder about the controls… I have never played any form of shooter on the DS, nor recall any being released.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII

One upset for some (even though it was announced beforehand) was that Final Fantasy Versus XIII was not mentioned at E3.  I admit, part of me hoped that Square Enix would surprise everyone — that obviously wasn’t the case.

Recently however it was announced that Versus will appear at Tokyo Game Show 2010.  With this announcement a few details about the game came up in a leaded dengeki interview with Tetsuya Nomura.

Most exciting to me was that the developers are going for an open-world experience.  There are massive environments that can be explored such as a forest, a city and other terrains — all connected by roads.  These roads aren’t just for looks it would seem, as the player can explore the world via car but can still get out and explore on foot whenever they want.  This already has me quite excited — the idea of an open-world RPG on a Final Fantasy scale would be truly groundbreaking.

Tell me this doesn’t look like Fallout 3, but with style:

In addition to this, it was revealed that battles are seamless, with encounters occurring both by running into visible enemies and randomly.  Nomura stated that the quality of battles will be “very high”.  This screen shot shows a battle with a Behemoth:

I can’t really claim to know what’s going on in this screen, but it does look very different.  I can’t wait to hear more about this game — too bad I am sure both the JP and US release are a ways off.

I may try to make more catch-up posts as I become aware of more E3 stuff I missed, or maybe not.  For now, this is some huge news from two franchises that I really love, thus very newsworthy!