The E3 post I should have written a month ago

Yeah, I’m late. I’ve been busy :p

There was some interesting stuff at E3, I guess. Of particular interest to me were the following:

• Left 4 Dead 2 – yeah, I’m looking forward to it. There’s been a lot of bitching about the timing of the release (just a year after the first game came out) and I understand some of it, particularly since L4D has only gotten two significant updates since its release (the first being the major patch that buffed the Infected in versus mode, and the second being the Survival Pack). However, the point of a sequel is to improve upon the original’s mechanics, and it looks like L4D2 will do this, with more weapons, more enemy types (the new Charger special Infected should make corner camping a fair bit harder) and the Director now being able to control the weather (which affects visibility) and the routes you can take through the level. Given that, I’m very much willing to shell out another $50 to try it.
• Metroid: Other M – This came out of nowhere, really. The fact that Team Ninja is developing something for the Wii is pretty much enough to get me excited. While my experience with Ninja Gaiden is limited to the DS version (lol) and the demo for Ninja Gaiden Sigma, as well as an hour or so playing Ninja Gaiden II on my friend’s 360, and if this new Metroid game is anything like it then it will definitely be worth playing.
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 – more Mario Galaxy? Yes please.
• Mass Effect 2 – I thought Mass Effect was a game that failed to live up to what it could have been – it had an enormous universe to explore…which mostly consisted of barren planets with abandoned mines/military bases/laboratories, all of which must have been built with prefabs or something seeing how they repeated the same 4 level layouts again and again. The combat system was decent enough, although the much-hyped dialogue tree system wasn’t really anything that hadn’t been done before. If anything I’d have preferred a system that didn’t separate your options into \’Obvious Good Choice’, ‘Obvious Neutral Choice’ and ‘Obvious Bad Choice.’ There have been games that have done this already, and I’m not sure why so many devs seems to be married to it. In any case, Bioware claims that ME2 will have less barren planets, and that the choices you made in ME1 will have actual consequences for your ME2 game. On top of that they’ve apparently beefed up the combat with new features like location-based damage and an improved cover system. I guess I’ll keep an eye on it.
• Assassin’s Creed II – I’m playing the first game right now, and while it’s a pretty fun action game, all the people who called out the pointless overworld (which can fortunately be skipped after you’ve visited all the cities) and the lack of investigation types are pretty much right on the money. While this game seems to have added a bunch of new combat moves, I don’t know that it’s addressed the real problems with the game. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it has, but interviews like this don’t really do much for my confidence.
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – The first Uncharted is still one of the best PS3 exclusives out there, and its sequel seems to improve on it with a more involved melee system and more enemy variation. Hopefully the combat set-pieces are just as exciting as the first game’s.

That’s basically it, I guess. Borderlands seems kind of interesting, but I want to know more about it before I decide whether I should look forward to it or not – right now it seems to be a first-person Diablo II with guns.

Tomorrow being a ‘special occasion’, I’ll have a more in-depth post on a game I’ve been playing on my PS3 for the last week or so.