Gamenomics & Comicology

Hello there everyone! It’s my first time posting here at G&C, and what better way to start things off than with some snarky thoughts on E3?

Microsoft’s press conference (which is available here) began as you would expect it to: they trotted out one of their most successful franchises, Halo, and assured everyone that a sequel was on its way. In fact, you could almost hear the joyful weeping of Master Chief fanboys  everywhere as the demo for Halo 4: The Quest for More Money lit up the screen.

And then they proceeded to please  all the other fanboys (and fangirls) with sequels galore.

You’re probably asking yourself “Is Andrew sippin’ Microsoft-flavored haterade?” Not at all. Why wouldn’t Microsoft want to keep up successful franchises? And if the fans want more installments to the stories, then it’s a win-win for everyone. My point is merely that  part of what draws gamers to events like E3 in the first place is new, original titles. It is fun to see your favorite characters reappearing for another awesome adventure, but I get really excited when a new idea comes completely outta left field and blows me away.

So after Microsoft announced countless more add ons to existing franchises (including FIFA 13, Gears of War: Judgement, Resident Evil 6, Call of Duty Black Ops 2, and even a revival of the Tomb Raider series…yes you read that right) needless to say I was hungry for more original concepts…and boy did they disappoint.

Let’s take a look at some of the new titles that were featured:

Wreckateer: A game which utilizes XBox’s Kinect feature and allows  players to control a ball by flailing their arms and legs. The extremely unoriginal premise is to shoot the ball into a castle to destroy it. Basically Wreckateer is a Microsoft’s version of Angry Birds or Crush the Castle in an attempt to tap into the “casual players” market which is all the rage these days

Loco Cycle: Aside from about a 30 second teaser, little information was given about this game. I’m assuming its some sort of racing game? But again, this is pure speculation as almost nothing was shown in the teaser anyway. It could be about knitting for all I know.

Matter: Another game designed for the Kinect and another game which (you guessed it) Microsoft gave us very little information about. It appears to be a Portal-esque puzzle game, but only time will tell. Looks like it could be fun, but puzzle games require finesse which I’m not confident I can achieve while flapping my arms in front of a Kinect…

Ascend: New Gods: Perhaps the most promising of the new titles announced, Ascend: New Gods looks like the lovechild of God of War and Shadow of  the Colossus… which is not a bad thing. Again, Microsoft didn’t give us a whole lot to go on, but this one has serious potential for awesomeness.

Really Microsoft?!! It’s hard to get people excited about new games when you give us virtually zero information about them.

Hopefully Nintendo and Sony will kick it up a notch!