2404 - PC Gaming - E3 2004 Day 3

E3 2004 Day 3

Posted by Hengst June 15, 2004

E3 for the PC day 3 by Hengst

Day 3 marked my final trip through the busy streets of downtown LA, moving with and sometimes around the hundreds and hundreds of fellow gamers that had flocked to my city for the event. While not the busiest of the 3 days, it was productive none the less.

At the EA booth, I finally got my chance to see the Battle For Middle Earth game demo. In an odd twist, the second attempt at a Middle Earth RTS game proved to be not only better, but more true to the beautiful vision that Peter Jackson created with his film trilogy. It's apparent that this game was made to not only breathe new life into the ailing RTS genre, but to add new twists such as emotion and intelligent AI into the gaming mix.

The gorgeous graphics of this game cannot be discounted by anyone. The level of detail shown for the city of Minas Tirith, or the wild lands separating Gondor from Mordor were unprecedented for an RTS game. However it was the game units which truly took me by surprise. The amount of emotions shown by units, from orcs banging their shields to taunt their enemies before charging, to the massive Oliphaunt getting scared and charging through a group of soldiers in an attempt to get them to stop harming it. The other interesting twist was watching some Gondor infantrymen begin backing up when the recognized a troll approaching them. I was quite satisfied when I saw the troll grab a nearby tree and begin smashing through the ranks of the soldiers.

This satisfaction, however, did not prepare me for what was to follow. I watched as the battle for Minas Tirith was repeated. I watched a mounted flying Nazgul pick up King Theoden and then drop him onto the ground, killing him quite nicely. What followed though was nothing short of amazing. I watched in utter shock as a Balrog was summoned onto the battlefield towards the end of the battle. I saw the course of history for Middle Earth changed in an instant as the Balrog proceeded to bring down total destruction to the capitol of Gondor. This time the bad guys were the ones triumphant in the end.

It was mentioned that the playable armies would include Rohan, Gondor, Isengard and of course the forces of Mordor. No mention was made regarding the multiplayer portion of this game, but certainly more will follow on this as EA releases it.

After completing this, I made my way over to the Sony Online Entertainment booth, where I was shown the demo for Everquest 2, as well as given the chance to make a character and play through a half hour of the game. The first thing I must mention is how amazing the graphics engine for Everquest 2 is. From the amount of detail shown in my Cat man fighter, to even the way he moved across the deck of the ship I was on, I knew that a lot of work had been put into this game.

Unlike the original Everquest, this game benefits from a host of improvements. For starters, this game will include over 100 hours of voice work, meaning no more tiny text boxes for your character to read through. While much of the voices I heard today were merely parts of the staff who had chosen to fill in for voice actors, I could already see how this game was going to be much more accessible to the casual gamer.

Sony Online Entertainment acknowledged how difficult and sometimes daunting it can be to play this type of game as a new player. In an effort to increase accessibility, this game now includes a very thorough tutorial to help assist you in learning how to play the game properly. As a matter of fact, at the beginning of the game you actually don't have a career path. It's not until you move past the tutorial that you are given the chance to choose one of 4 beginning career paths. The game is done in this way so as to help give you time to decide what type of character you actually want to travel with.

The game interface was both familiar and somewhat different from the original game as well. It still involves heavy use of mouse clicking, but the menus have been redone, and the new interface was intuitive enough for me to pick it up rather quickly. The use of a better designed quest journal, accessible by the convenient letter ''J'' hotkey, makes it very clear not only what your quest is, but it also gives you some indication of what is actually required of you in order to complete these tasks. The combat is activated through double clicking the left mouse button while highlighting an enemy. It will still be possible to gauge your enemies as well. A great tool that helps prevent you from biting off more than you could possibly chew. The new combat animations also looked much more realistic. Your character has many different class specific movements, like your monk doing some creative martial art posing in battle, as well as some nice looking defensive movements.

Perhaps the one area I liked most was the sheer amount of options available to helping set your character apart from other characters. Using the randomize button I created a tiger looking cat man who had piercing all over his face. But you can do anything from give your character fierce tattoo patterns, to a Jay Leno looking chin. In these types of games, it is crucial, at least to me, to be able to set my character apart from everybody else that I see. For a pre-beta build, this game ran and looked amazing. If you haven't signed up to beta test this game, then I recommend you do so now as they will likely have multiple phases to their beta to help ensure a great release. While the game is slated to be released this fall, I was told that it wouldn't be released until it was ''completely ready for public play''. I must make mention that at the time of release this game will not include any Player vs. Player functionality. It was also mentioned to be watching as they were going to have some events where people playing Everquest and Everquest 2 would be able to influence one another, although they refused to elaborate further on this.

Sony Online Entertainment has also been hard at work on Jump to Lightspeed, the forthcoming expansion to the very popular Star Wars Galaxies: an Empire Divided. First off, as I have said more than once regarding the E3 titles shown to me, this game looked amazing. I was able to step into the cockpit of an X-Wing and engage imperial tie fighters in nice dogfight. Using a Logitech flight controller and feeling great about a space sim for the first time since the Freespace games, I took off into battle. This game is very far along and features some of the best graphics I have seen since Freelancer came out a while back. The controls on my X-Wing were fairly responsive, but make no bones about it, this is more of a space sim than an action title like the Rogue Squadron series. You can play from a cockpit view, or if you prefer a 3rd person perspective, similar again to that shown in Freelancer.

While they weren't shown to me at the time, this game will allow players to lad up a Corellian Freighter will 25 passengers, as well as to have some of those characters manning the separate weapons terminals in the ship. They advised that Imperial Star Destroyers would also make an appearance in the future of this game. In essence, this almost looked like a completely separate game to play from the Galaxies ground game as they referred to it.

Contrary to what many may think, you can actually create a character for this expansion and find yourself in space right away. They are not going to require you to wait until you have enough money and experience from the ground game to make your way to the stars. This feature will be great as I, like many, haven't been playing the game long enough to invest that many man hours into the ground game. Overall, this game promises to complete the entire Star Wars Galaxies game plan and create what they are referring to as more of a game platform than a game itself. This game should see the light of day this Fall, likely after a short beta period.

The final game that I got the chance to play for a while was the self-described ''Battlefield Killer'' SÖLDNER. This game, which is already out in Germany, boasts a massive multiplayer experience for the discerning war gamer. I was told that the final version of this game will include hundred of weapons and 70 vehicles (yes 70) to choose from, including various flying craft and ground craft. I spent some time today playing through a capture the flag map with both a tank, and a small helicopter. While somewhat arcade-like, the flying still managed to be tough enough that it became obvious it would require some skill to master. The tanks, however, were a different story. I saw the power of this beauty, when I lobbed a shell through a window and blew out the back wall of the house.

This game also allows you to choose to play from the ground, utilizing your choice of a 1st or 3rd person perceptive. For some reason the game felt better in the 3rd person. In this mode you can see how interactive the environments are, as your character will scale fences or even jump through windows (something I have always wanted to try). Should you decide to plow through a window, make sure you don't have any long arms as they likely won't make it through the window that you did. There is a beta demo for this game that is available for download right now, so if you love immersive online war games, then feel free to check this hot title out.

That is all for today, but check in this weekend as I will have up my final E3 recap including the 2404.org best of show awards, as well as my final thoughts on this year's E3.

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