More E3

A few more thoughts on the games I saw at E3.

- Sony's Little Big Planet is going to be amazing. If the PS3's installed base was larger, this game would/should be a monumental hit. I personally cannot wait. Its design is fantastic and its concept can change gaming. So far word of mouth is that it is extremely intuitive and insanely fun. That is a good combination.

- The new Ratchet and Clank game for the PS3 has some of the most impressive visuals I have seen on the system yet. It follows the series' traditional art style, but holy crap does it look great!!!! Gameplay-wise though, it looks to be identical to previous entries in the series. We'll see how that goes. The Ratchet games are great platforming fun, but with the next gen entry I was hoping for more than just a graphical upgrade, even if that upgrade is phenomenal.

- After watching the developer walkthrough of Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway I am excited about the game again. Early on this was one of my most anticipated next gen releases. The game seemed to have disappeared from the radar and the quick footage I had seen lately wasn't as impressive as I remembered. Plus, thanks to CoD 3 I was completely done with WWII. After watching the demo it is clear this game is extremely different from your other WWII games and it reminded me of why I enjoy this series so much. The destructible environments look to add a whole new dimension to the game and I look forward to commanding my squad once more. Now lets see if this game ever comes out!

- Crysis looks absolutely amazing! Watching the developer demo, I was constantly floored. The game world is huge and completely open. The foliage and plant life does not only look great, but is also fully destructible (as are the buildings). The game now has wildlife and they all look and animate extremely realistically. Chickens, crabs, small quail-like birds, fish, they all look simply amazing. I wish I had a PC powerful enough to run this game even half decent, but as it is, my set-up can't even generate one of the game's excellently modeled chickens.

- My biggest surprise of the show has got to be the new Turok game. For a series that has been synonymous with "crap-on-a-stick" for many years now, this game has come out of left field. The game is running very, very smooth, the graphics are extremely polished, and the game looks to combine some great stealth elements to your normal everyday FPS. Plus, the game has dinosaurs!!! Ok fine, it can't be a Turok game without dinosaurs, but these dinos look to add a whole new dimension to the gameplay, as they won't be only after your hide, but they will just as quickly attack your enemies. The video I saw ended with a T-Rex appearing (a herd of herbivores running away from him) and your character getting attacked. The T-Rex was huge and beautifully modeled and animated. Very impressive. The game is scheduled to come out next February. It looks like this might be a great title to fill in the post Christmas drought.