Thankfully, she quickly got onto the subject most of us wanted to hear about (actually, I wanted to hear more about her kids…); Mario. New Super Mario Bros. Wii, presumably a sequel to the DS game, was announced. It will offer four player multiplayer, which Miyamoto apparently wanted in a sequel to Mario 64.  It’ll be out “holiday” 2009, presumably meaning Christmas.

“Mario wasn’t big enough to attract all consumers to our category” coupled with a balance board on the screen gave off some pretty bad signs. Wii Fit Plus, which had been rumoured for quite a while, was officially announced. We’ve got that to look forward to this Autumn…

After another montage, Reggie came onstage. Just what everyone wanted (don’t even try and deny it).  He bangs on a bit before getting to the point. Wii Motion Plus. Old news is old. There’s a video about Motion Plus. It’s a little pointless. “On video you can do almost everything” he said, in what could be a jab at Natal, which hasn’t properly proven itself yet. Bill Trinnen comes along to show us how it all works.

There’s a bit of sky diving, which seems to be little more than a demo for WMP, followed by a bit of archery, which is more meaty. Poor Bill isn’t much good, although it’s all very smooth and precise. He invites Reggie back on stage and they play a bit of basketball. A bit of awkward banter in front of a silent, presumably unamused, audience. Reggie tells us that WMP will be out on the 26th of July, then tells us about some sports games we already knew about.

We get a little bit of chat about Red Steel 2, and we’re told that third party development is flowing to Nintendo, which is basically a lie. Then he moves onto the RPG genre. A slightly hamfisted attempt to please the “core” audience. Final Fantasy: Crystal Bearers and Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days were rolled out.  Old news all round.

Next was Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, the next in game in the Mario & Luigi series. Very nice, but old news again. Silly Reggie’s going to have to work harder. Which he does, duly showing off Golden Sun DS, a long overdue sequel to the GBA original.

And Cammie came back to us. She decided to curry favour by talking about… James Patterson. The sad thing is that I know who he is and have read two of his books. Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion. You won’t like it unless you’re a middle-aged woman (or me…). Casual tat, basically. With Mah Jong, it seems.

Next up was Cop: The Recruit. Ubisoft’s been watching The Fast and the Furious, and so have ripped it off for a rather pretty looking DS game, but with added shooting. “Let’s shift gears” says Cammie in a moment of liver cirrhosis inducing punnery, before introducing us to Girls’ Mode. A fashion game. Thanks for that.

Another montage, this time about the DSi. Lovely. She talks about the DSi complementing the cheaper DSLite.  Basically, she’s saying they’re so rich they can wipe their caviar bloated asses with hundred dollar bills. She then announces Moving Memo, now called Flipnote Studio, will be about this summer in the US. Bit late.

Next up is Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again. This DSi Shop sequel to March of the Minis will be out in America on Monday. Very snappy. It’s mostly a level editor, so a bit Little Big Planet-y, but hopefully in a way that actually works. Then comes WarioWare: DIY. Similar idea, but WarioWare. Wonder if Nintendo will be making any games at all.

Next big news is photo transfer via Facebook for the DSi. Facebook seems to be quite the big thing at E3 this year. Spirit Tracks trailer is next. Old news… another montage. Then Satoru Iwata rushes out onto the stage amid a squeal of guitar noise. Fifty this December, that man, but doesn’t look it. Gives us some waffle about active, maybe and never gamers. Makes very little sense. In short, he just wants more cash.

He starts going on about games needing skills, Wii Wheels, Wii Fit and Brain Training. Eventually we get to the point. A little thing that clips onto your finger and measurse your pulse. It looks like a tampon. That’s all he had to say. He wants to force people to relax with it. Nice guy. Bye bye, Iwata. Don’t come back until you’ve made us some games.

Hello Cammie. Back to talking about games. She threatened the audience with more Mario news. She then whips out Super Mario Galaxy 2, the first time for three generations there has been more than one full Mario game on a home console. Looks like it’s been built on Galaxy‘s engine, but with Yoshi. Thankfully, the audience reacted to that. Poor woman…

Reggie comes back to tell us that he reads the blogs. Presumably, he has someone who reads them for him, but that’s not important. He talks about some third party titles out before the end of this year. The Conduit, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles and Deadspace Extraction. More old news. Reggie then adopts his winding up tone. Oh dear.

Wait, what’s this? A new, edgier game. An old Nintendo franchise revitalised? Metroid: Other M, made by Team Ninja (Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive). It looks to be first and third person, very very different from any Metroid game before. It will explore the Metroid universe and Samus’ background. Sounds fascinating. And that’s the end. Bye bye Reggie.

Not as bad as last year, to be honest. They didn’t cut out the casual stuff, but didn’t focus on it completely. No real killer blows, though, and quite a bit of old news. Microsoft are still in the lead.

By the way, I haven’t time to see what Sony’s been up to today, so I’ll write that up tomorrow afternoon.

Sparky.

Microsoft’s press conference opened with The Beatles: Rock Band, complete with the two surviving Beatles and the dead ones’ wives. This was followed by another celebrity endorsement when Tony Hawks mounted the stage to show off his new plastic skateboard (complete with accelerometers!). Then he disappeared off stage, presumably to make awkward small talk with the remains of the Beatles.

Then we got a huge surprise. A trailer for Modern Warfare 2 which everyone’s already seem before. There were some explosions and all that kind of gaff.  Messers Yoshinori Kitase and Motumo Toriyama came along to show off Final Fantasy XIII on the 360, although they didn’t have a great deal to say for themselves. Spring 2010, they told the world, presumably for both platforms, but hopefully not.

Following this was something called Shadow Complex. It was slightly unmemorable. Left for Dead 2 was next, then Crackdown 2, then Splinter Cell Conviction. “Driven by his emotions, Sam is now the ultimate predator” and other such gibberish.

There was some driving game, but I’ve forgotten the name of it (it’s just a driving game), then Halo ODST, which looked like… Halo. No huge surprises.

Then there was a lecture on Xbox Live. All sorts of stuff that you can usually do on your computer, you can now do on your Xbox too. Last.fm, Facebook, Twitter, all coming this Autumn. Hideo Kojima crept on stage.

Big announcement: Metal Gear Solid Rising, featuring Raiden as the main character. Not exclusive to the 360, as it turns out. Gamespress gave it away yesterday, presumably by accident.

Microsoft’s killer blow came next. Project Natal. To put it simply, it’s an Eyetoy, but with voice and face recognition. Poor Microsoft. Their two big innovations have been online gaming (PC and Dreamcast got there first) and a beefed up Eyetoy. Steven Spielberg came along to tell us about people being scared of traditional controllers and how historic Natal is going to be. Frankly, he’s a film director. He’s slightly irrelevant, but seems to be trying for the position of archfiend of casual gaming. There was a bit of (rather dodgy looking) painting and messing about with avatars (well BAM there it is).

Someone then told us that “Xbox 360 is home to every hit franchise”, which we all know simply isn’t true, and, a couple of minutes later, it was all over. Frankly, it was impressively star-studded and packed with new games, so Nintendo and Sony and pretty much screwed. Microsoft look set to walk away with E3 yet again.

By the way, there’s speculation that Nintendo are going to be showing a new Mario game because of these photos. Apparently, you can make out blocks, coins and fireflowers through the sheets.

Sparky.

Written by Paddy:

I thought that with JT’s metal minute, it was about time we branched into music a bit, so, here goes!

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m an avid Avenged fan. Not on the verge of ‘Oh My God I’ll never listen to anything else again!’, unlike those on YouTube with profile names like *A7XzackyA7X*:

*Sigh*, moving on…

Their latest work is “Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough”, a compilation of a DVD of one of their live shows, and a CD of the ‘B-sides’ that didn’t make it on their latest album, Avenged Sevenfold.

Let’s start with the DVD. It’s set in Long Beach, California, reportedly Avenged’s “Favourite place in the whole ****ing world to play”. They go through a playlist of 12 songs, with most of them being from Avenged Sevenfold, which, seeing how I introduced myself to Waking the Fallen and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet a week or so ago, and continuing my love for City of Evil, it peeved me a bit. I can’t help but think that they sold out to Warner Bros. with their latest album. I can prove that I’m right with two words:

Dear God.

Moving on, there are some old favourites there, with Bat Country, Beast and the Harlot and Unholy Confessions making an appearance. The stage is chock-full of effects and you can see how confident the guys are on stage. The banter’s good also, with Shadows getting a drunken crowd member to sing their cover of Pantera’s ‘Walk’, and Johnny Christ singing the opening of Seize the Day.

Overall, the quality of their live play is astounding, they’ve really tightened up when performing. The sound seems a little too…clean though. I’d like to hear a bit more distortion and crowd noise in a live album, but that’s just me.

Okay, here’s the important bit. Diamonds in the Rough, the CD with all of the B-sides that didn’t make the album. Frankly, I don’t know why, most of them are better than what’s on there. Chuck out Lost, Dear God, Unbound and Brompton Cocktail, and replace them with Demons, Dancing Dead, Crossroads and Flash of the Blade (A cover of Iron Maiden’s original). Also, the alternative version of Afterlife that’s on there is far superior, with a much heavier feel and better timed string sections.

There are other notable songs on Diamonds, with “Girl I Know” being a personal favourite of mine. Although, it doesn’t really fit with the album, so I’d keep it out. Their cover of Pantera’s “Walk” is good, although far too similar to the original for it to be included. The rest are alright, with Tension showing Johnny Christ’s skills as a bassist, he’s generally over-looked.

In conclusion, a great compilation, buy it solely for Diamonds in the Rough, although Live in the LBC is hardly a bad DVD either.

Download Worthy:

· Dancing Dead

· Demons

· Flash of the Blade

· Afterlife (Alternate version)