E3 Shmee 3

So if you have any interest in videogames at all, you can't have failed to notice that E3 is on. Between slathering packs of forum fanboys watching live keynote speeches from the platform holders and publishers, and every games website under the sun reporting on the slightest bit of heresay and rumour (MGS IS 360 exclusive! No, wait it's not. Oh hang on... Um? AAARGH, it's unavoidable.

Worse than that, it's kinda tedious. Endless promises of "megatonz" and incredible exclusives rarely match up to the hype, and the ones that DO actually surprise are often not what anyone actually wanted.

MS have gone first so far, announcing a motion sensing camera system called Project Natal, which everyone from Spielberg to Molyneux seemed to believe was the second coming.

To me it looked impressive, but it WAS a tech demo, not final product, and having been stung by the EyeToy previously, I'm less inclined to believe that it will work in every living room with bad light, smaller than ideal floorspace, etc. Still we'll see.

Speaking of Molyneux, the goblin king of half finished ideas has created a virtual boy called Milo for use with the system. Or girl, if you aren a equal oppurtunities saddo. In the video shown, Milo responds to a girl in the real world talkingto him, and reacts to her voice pitch to tell if it's a question or a joke or whatever - not exactly REAL AI, but still eerily interesting. The way the screen reacts to human movement was impressive, but it doesn't look like much of a game to me... Again, time may be the decider on Milo's actual impact, but it didn't particular interest me.

If they could make a robotic voiced Japanese girl who'd tell me that my life isn't a waste of time and that honestly, I look better bald then they might get a sale. Until then, no dice.

Elsewhere it was business as usual - More Halo, more Need for Speed, more Assassins Creed, more Tom Clancy shite. Yawn. Guess they can't win with me tbh - the new crazy stuff is all a bit emperor's new clothes, and the popular franchises are not my thing. Still, there's a rumour of a new Tetsuya Mizuguchi game, possibly a Rez sequel called Project Eden. That's got me excited. And Lost Planet 2 looks loads better than the dull first outing. Roll on the demo!

Nintendo are live now, but I've got better things to do. Like write this for no-one to read. Fuck me, my priorities are WELL out of whack. I need that Japanese girl robot virtual thingy more than I ever realised...