With just three weeks before the official start of E3, it’s pretty much an understatement to say you could cut through the anticipation with a rusty spoon. With two new consoles, the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Revolution, set to make their first public appearance, and with Microsoft planning to show second-generation Xbox 360 games, the stage is set for E3 2006 to be one of the most hype-filled, intriguing shows of the past six years.
Yet regardless of the system you most ardently support, it’s hard to deny that Nintendo’s new vision for console controllers has the highest curiosity quotient. Is it little more than a gimmick? Will your arms get tired moving it around? Will it fare better than the Power Glove? Will the games actually make use of its unique functionality?
Having not yet gotten ours hands on the controller ourselves, we did the next best thing: we sat down with a source deep inside a leading publisher to chat about how it’s all coming together. And more important, whether it’s safe to believe the hype.
There’s a lot of talk leading up to E3. What are you most excited about at E3 this year?
Anonymous Source: That’s tricky, because we all know so much more will be revealed at the actual show. With that said, I’m excited to see more about Enemy Territory, Crysis, Ubisoft’s Project Assassin, the PS3 Ratchet and Clank, Zelda, but am most eager to check out the slate of Revolution titles.
Yeah, Revolution is up there on our list too, although more from a curiosity standpoint than an “excited” one.
Nope, be excited. What Nintendo’s doing with their controller is as important as the analog stick or mouse were. I love what I’ve played with so far.
Sounds like you’re just drinking their Kool-Aid….
I don’t get their Kool-Aid, I just know I like what I’ve played. If the first-gen stuff is this fun, I can’t wait to see what else people come up with. If we’re looking at the equivalent right now on the Revolution of what Nights, Mario 64 or Ape Escape started in terms of analog control….
It’s really that amazing, huh? Do you think it will lose some people, or is it going to be universally accepted?
Well first, I must say I agree with Nintendo’s recent silence. People really just need to come into contact with it to understand it. I’m sure Reggie and Iwata could talk and talk, but people really need to just use it. And releasing screenshots side by side with photos of what people are doing with the controller, like you saw in the Red Steel article, is great because the screenshots alone don’t give you the same context.
As far as the Revolution being universally accepted, I’m sure you’ll have a lot of people who choose not to try [the controller] and write it off. But I think in general, people are going to love it, and I think new people are going to love it…. It’s a much easier experience for someone who doesn’t know games to learn a game with it.
So if they write it off it’s probably because they didn’t try it, then? That’s a pretty rousing endorsement on your end.
That’s why I can’t wait to try everyone else’s stuff. I’ve tried some early stuff, and it sounds kind of silly, but the fact that you’re sort of moving with what you see on the screen, it tricks your brain a little more, giving you a better feeling of speed/immersion, etc.
You’re not suddenly going to think you’re having that Peter Moore lucid dream, but sometimes your brain lets you get tricked better, and you get a slightly new sensation in a game context.
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And with that, our industry source had to go. When you’ve got hot information like this, you can’t stay in any one place too long. DailyGame will have hands-on impressions of the Revolution at E3, at which point we’ll either confirm or refute the excitement our source showed today. Until then, let the spoon-cutting of anticipation commence.
