E3 2011 is over ... time for a short recap'!

From this E3, I salute the impressive line-ups from the editors, but keep in mind the very discreet enthousiasm heard from the crowd during the different pre-E3 conferences from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Starting with the amazing Modern Warfare 3 trailer and ending on Halo 4 's annoucement, Microsoft conference tried to make the bridge between the original Xbox hardcore gamer base and the new Kinect casual gamers, with a large catalogue of games, soon completed by Ubisoft in its own conference.

I think casual gamers will have found more than they expected on the Kinect front. I've found both Disneyland Kinect Adventures and Once Upon A Monster most surely enjoyable to play for both kids and parents. I also find very cool the Inception effect on the new Your Shape Evolution 2012 game. Finally, I've already tried Kinect Labs on my Xbox and it is indeed very promissing.

But this conference quite made the Xbox appear like the new Wii while Microsoft not really succeed in my opinion to give hardcore gamers what they have promissed for more than a year now: a real Kinect additition in hardore games. The voice support in Mass Effect 3 does look great but Kinect in Ghost Recon quite weird with the demonstrator pointing targets with his fingers like “comboys and indians” child games.

The famous Star Wars Kinect was finally presented in demonstration and here too, for what I've seen, the use of Kinect puts the player on rails and the game ends to be a Star Wars customized Kinect Adventures.

On the other hand, Sony nearly didn't mention PS move and gave harcore players what they expected with an impressive line-up topped by Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception which appeared to be a massive hit for the end of the year.

But THE event from Sony's conference was the Playstation NGP, now to be called Playstation Vita. This new portable console is pretty awesome with Wifi and 3G support, cameras, touch screen, touch pad in the back, …. Let's say it loud and clear, mine is already pre-ordered! I can't wait to discover new gameplays offered by this all new level of interactivity, and already several games to use this with the PSV version of Little Big Planet, Sound Shapes, Wipeout 2048 or Uncharted Golden Abyss. Bravo Sony!

Hard to mention the hardware part without talking about the Nintendo Wii U which hasn't really managed to convince as well, blame the messy conference for that as many people were wondering after it if Wii U was a new controler for the Wii, a new portable console or a new console. Good answer is last one: it is a brand new console though we'll learn more about it during Tokyo Game Show. For those interested about the gaming industry, this new console wasn't really a surprise but clearly the public announcement was a big FAIL. Many promisses were made for the future with not much to see and, if you remember it, when Wii was announced, a certain Gauntlet come back was announced as well; with no HUB on the console as players would see all required information about their characters on their DS. This is one of the reasons why I bought my Wii and I'm pretty disapointed to see this old new idea coming back while justifying the new console.

HD graphics have been announced with a few technical demonstrations to proove it, including a nice looking Zelda HD demo. Several Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 have been announced to be released on Wii U too. Well, wait and see... In the meantime the only Zelda incoming is Zelda Skyward Sword, on Wii.

In the end, despite incredible line-ups (check our Youtube page where more than 50 E3 2011 are awaiting you), E3 2011 lacked of real surprises. However good they are, most games presented are sequels (besides those already mentioned we have Battlefield 3, Gears of War 3, Assassins' Creed Revelations, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3, Hitman Absolution, Ninja Gaiden 3, SoulCalibur V, Resistance 3, Metro: Last Light...), prequels (Rayman Origins, Devil May Cry, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, ...) or reboot (Tomb Raider) for franchises now well established and it's quite disapointing to see so few novelties incoming. Though they do look good, that's sure!

In between these new announcements Deus Ex: Human Revolution stays my most awaited game for 2011 but I really can't wait to play Battlefield 3 which looks really impressive and appears as a serious challenger for the Modern Warfare franchise.

I'm really pleased too to see that Rayman Origins keeps the 2D gameplay and we'll most surely speak about this game again here as well :)

Finally the enigmatic but beautiful trailer for Journey makes me curious about the game as well. Plus the game is original and unlike 95% of the games presented or announced, you don't seem to kill people in that one!

And that's it for now! More focused articles will follow soon about these numerous announced games. In the meantime, don't forget we have more than fifty trailers from E3 2011 awaiting for you on our Youtube Page: http://www.youtube.com/user/thelostforum