E3 2010- All Fun and Games Until Someone Pokes An Eye Out.

This year’s E3 involved a whole lot of flailing around as everyone made a mad dash to grab their slice of the motion game controller market pie. There was one question on everyone’s collective minds- “Who’s going to pay for that broken lamp?”. Racket’s hot tip: Invest in living room furniture. Ikea is going to make a killing.

Kinect– The most potential for  collateral damage of any motion controlled gaming device yet. Sure, getting to hand-wave through menus like Tom Cruise in Minority Report is pretty cool and it works flawlessly when hired acrobats and gymnasts use it in completely empty rooms, but what will it perform like when you‘ve pounded down a few shots and the designated driver is swinging his arms around having a heated philosophical debate with a guy who passed out on the couch with sunglasses on while two people clumsily have sex on a pile of coats beside you? Racket put this to the test at E3 by playing a few rounds while drunk. The answer- not so well.

Nintendo 3DS– Basically, like looking into a box through a tiny magical window. Now imagine this box is shackled to an attractive but cheerfully disinterested woman while brightly colored characters sway and jump around in it and you pretty much have the same experience others waited in line an hour and half for. That said, it looks awesome.

Sony 3D– Ever think to yourself, “I wish I could experience in-your-face fast-paced racing action… at the bottom of a lake!”? Well, hold on to your waterlogged hats because Sony’s new 3D technology brings you all the fun of navigating through a murky haze like a myopic grandpa wearing sunglasses, while still letting you enjoy the anti-social luxury of giving everyone else in the room watching the screen a throbbing migraine.

Rage– From id, the people who brought you the original FPS, comes an impressive grungy mutant-fest post-apocalyptic shooter with a hefty side-helping of turret equipped go carts. Enjoy traipsing through garbage piles laced with Tetanus as a slew of WTF looking creatures come snarling at you as fast as you can pump rounds into their fetal alcohol syndrome mangled faces.

Rock Band 3– Sure, you are a Rock Band master, but somehow, until now, you couldn’t shake the shame of the haunting truth that you still don’t actually know how to play an instrument. You’re not playing guitar, you’re playing a weird real-time Simon Says and screeching into a toy microphone like a wounded banshee. Well, Rock Band 3 kicks that criticism right in the junk with their revolutionary new Pro Modes. They have done the unthinkable. With any MIDI controller (guitar, keyboard, err, keytar), you can play and ACTUALLY learn how to play songs. Genius. For those of you still desperately clinging to your full blown denial, don’t worry, there still are the regular modes. For the rest of you willing to brave it, they have baby steps to work you up from hitting root notes on an honest-to-God fretboard to showboating like a rock star, if you can make it that far. To earn the respect of panty-tossing groupie fame still requires doing that shit on expert before we can start to talk. You won’t be a real musician, or ever get laid, but at you won’t be flushing hours of your life away down the toilet just to get carpel tunnel for nothing.

Traffic's a Bitch...

Tron– Stays true to its vision of a futuristic computer world with lots of glowing blue things where cutting people off in traffic is perfected to a well honed skill by even the most casual motorist and ugly people will be able to project much more attractive versions of themselves onto helmets, which they will wear around constantly.

Homefront– Leading marketing with a full-fledged assault including marching a fully uniformed militia through the halls of the Expo center. I was too dazzled by the building tall banners, flag decorated Humvees, and thousand man mass-choreographed dance routines to find out what the game was actually about, or realize my family was starving. I think it is some kind of western. Just kidding… it’s about killing Asian commies.

Little Big Planet 2– Holy crap! This is an arm-chair game designer’s floppy sack filled dream come true. Homebrew ingenuity has a new muse. More modifiable than ever before, the freedom you have to create stages is truly mind boggling. They’ve even added grappling hooks! Yes, just like Batman. This game looks set to rock the socks off the entire planet.

Nexon did a good job this E3 of pairing the Korean’s obsession for online gaming with American fervor for giant bags and free fluffy red wolf hats with built in mittens. Well played. Their giveaways had people clamoring over each other and flashing tits like they were tossing out mardi-gras beads… and I’m not just talking about the women. The stable of assorted combat geared games they were trotting out, like Vindictus, did seem pretty badass, though.

Jurassic Park/Back to the Future– Tell Tale Games is poised to take over all realms of time, past and future, with their announcement of their plans to release game episodes for both the Jurassic Park and Back to the Future franchises. We don’t know much except no, you can’t ride the dinosaurs, but they did let us pose with a hoverboard.

Fallout New Vegas– Apparently, the half-life of what happens in Vegas is the hot ticket environmental issue of the future. That, and the impact of Cirque du Soliel on wildlife/ammunition prices.

Scribblenauts 2– Now with adjectives! Add monocles and top hats to anything you want.

Assassins Creed 3– Now you can climb around and play yackity-sax stealth parkour tag with townsfolk while wearing even fancier clothing. Also, there are cannons.

Kung-Fu Riders for Sony Move- If Jackass and Japanese game shows had a sex in a cubical while shoving a well oiled Wii-mote up their ass, this would be their ADHD ridden love child. Pretty much the most fun you can have with an office chair that doesn’t involve a fractured femur or chaps and late night dictation sessions with your secretary.

Lucha Libre AAA: Heroes Del Ring– When I played the game, I was blown away. The game features exceptional customization, everything from your entry dance, grappling moves, and your luchador can be personalized. Having actually had the fortune to have seen the spectacle that is a lucha libre match, I can attest to the fact that Slang captured it in its purest form. Taunts, flamboyance and fighting moves as theatrical as they are devastating all amount to a game I can’t wait to own.

MMA Supremacy– Apparently, the first rule of MMA Supremacy is, you don’t ask about MMA Supremacy. The developers couldn’t answer a single question anyone had. All I could tell was it looked like the aftermath of an Ed Hardy themed back-alley abortion.

That concludes Racket’s journey through the wonders of E3, we hope it was as magical for you as it was for us.

– Laura Gaddy & Jonathan Yost