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It’s been about a week now since E3 2010.

An event where Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all gave reasons as to why we should own and have money ready for their consoles over the next year.  Also an event packed with some cringe-worthy and time consuming presentations on motion controls or hardware that can only really be done promotion justice with actually hands-on playing of said devices (i.e. Microsoft’s Kinect, or Nintendo’s 3DS).

I wouldn’t say there was an outright winner of E3, although I do feel Microsoft were the weakest this year…

I say Microsoft’s was weakest mainly due to the fact they were a bit TOO extensive and cheesy with the Kinect demo’s, plus it’s hard to judge quite how well the device works from there presentations, obviously Microsoft will feed us the idea that it works amazing, and we all should buy it, but things of this nature are never quite as good as they lead us to believe.  Still, Kinect differs itself from the Wii and PS3′s take on motion controls, and the minority report style menu navigation is cool, so it has potential.

I did like the idea of the ESPN service shown, although I’m doubtful on if that will actually be released in Europe.

The new 360 slim looks nice for those who may want to update, with it’s (finally) in-built wi-fi support, 250gb Hard Drive, and better connectivity for Kinect (due it requiring extra leads on the older 360′s).

Although they showed off some good games, they spent the most time focusing on COD: Black Ops, Halo Reach, and Gears of War 3 in.  As promising as they all look, it was a bit crowded in terms of shooters if you ask me.

I also feel like they should have highlighted XBLA.  The MS presentation basically ignored XBLA (although it did have some showings on the show floor at least).  I do feel as though this years Summer of Arcade line up is a bit weaker than the previous years, however it still has a chance of being good, and I’m quite certain Xbox live arcade is a nice money maker for Microsoft.  I just think it would’ve been a nice refreshing thing to add in between the other game announcements for them to cover the success of XBLA in the past year, the upcoming Summer of Arcade, Game Room, and what else is on it’s way…

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Sony didn’t have a problem with game range.  Gran Turismo 5, Little Big Planet 2, Agent, Twisted Metal, Infamous 2, Killzone 3…to name a few, as well as a better Dead Space 2 bundle, and a surprise announcement of Portal 2 getting the better version and potentially some sort of Steam support on PS3.

PlayStation Move got it’s fair share of coverage, and although it is pretty much just PlayStation trying to get a piece of the Wii market, so the concept isn’t too exciting, although they do have the advantage of having a much more powerful system, so when it comes to games such as Tiger Woods 2011…then providing the controls are equally on par (no pun intended), Sony would especially win if a purchase decision should come down to a visual comparison.

Sony were also bold enough to admit the PSP hasn’t been as strong as they’d have liked, although they’re still fighting with it, announcing a lot of support was still incoming for the console, mainly a new PSP God of War.

Still, Sony didn’t seem to rely on Move to ‘wow’ people as much as Microsoft did with Kinect, so with Sony’s strong showing of games they had a good E3 presentation.

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Nintendo showed off there new Zelda, which looks very promising (although the live presentation was ruined due to the show lighting interfering with the Wii sensor bar).  Donkey Kong Country 4, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn look to be some amazing 2d style platformers.  A new Wii exclusive “Goldeneye” is an exciting prospect, although whether it amounts to be a worthy successor or just another name hogging mediocre-fest like Goldeneye: Rogue Agent we shall see.

The highlight of Nintendo’s show (as well as one of the highlights of E3 overall) had to be the unveiling of the new Nintendo 3DS though.  It’s always exciting when a company has a new console to show, and this was no different.

Some key 3DS features:

• The 3DS graphical capabilities look to be at least on par with Nintendo Gamecube, plus on a small screen it’d look great.
• Top screen is wide screen, and the 3D effects have a slider to control how great the 3D is.
• Analogue Control, as well as in-built motion sensors.
• Many big 3rd party companies are already at work on 3Ds games, a new Metal Gear Solid and a Resident Evil are just the start.
• Much better wi-fi support, seems to be hinting at Nintendo offering something as good as XBOX live connectivity between users.
• The ability to watch 3D movies, “glasses free”.
• Has 2 camera’s on the outside allowing people to take 3D pictures.  Those whom have used this function at E3 said it was a very cool feature, and who knows…if ‘glasses free’ 3D picture frames are made, the Nintendo DS could perhaps pioneer the 3D camera movement.
• Nintendo says it’s battery life should be the same as that found on the DSi.
• Cart’s are supposed to average at about 2gig in size (where as the regular DS only went upto 256mb I believe).

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That’s it for this round up.

Round 2 will consist of some of the cool games and announcements from the many game developers/ publishers out there.

Peggle.

Do you know what it is?  …if you don’t then oh lordy consider yourself lucky.  No doubt if you don’t know you’re now curious and will continue to read on… :\

Ok, so, Peggle.  Peggle is a sort of puzzle game, in the same vein as Tetris is a puzzle game, but at the same time it’s not like you have to do that much thinking.  However, HOW-freaking-EVER!! I’m perhaps more addicted to Peggle than I was on my original discovery of Tetris as a little boy receiving his much wanted Nintendo Game Boy when I was about 6.

The game itself is a cross between Pachinko and Bust-a-Move/ Puzzle Bobble, you fire a ball from the top of the screen and your objective is to clear all the orange pegs from the level, but the more blue pegs you can clear before you run out of shots will net you a better score, plus there are many ways in which you can get score bonuses for doing certain things. There are a few different characters in the game whom you can choose to do a level with, each with there own special abilities and once you complete the game you can re-play any level (and there are more than enough of them sure to satisfy) where as on your first play through you are limited to using a specific character per level (in adventure mode)

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It doesn’t require much skill, you can strategise a little, but a lot of it comes from the luck of the bounce, and the luck of timing.  The package itself though is great, the sound effects REALLY compliment the simple gameplay and you have to experience them to really get what I mean, the colours are bright and cheery (which is what these types of games usually have), and all the cartoon animal cast in the game have daft characteristics, which whether I’m laughing with or at…it’s still laughter.
Now…at this pointyou’re perhaps still not sold on the idea that this game is that fun, and fail to see how it’s become my new addiction.  Well…all I can say to you is go and play it.

I have it on my XBOX 360 (downloaded via XBOX LIVE, as well as the add-on pack “Peggle nights”).  It’s also available on the PSN, iPod Touch/ iPhone, Nintendo DS and PC/ Mac.

I downloaded the game after I saw it listed in a couple of peoples Top 10 lists for Xbox Live Arcade games and saw that the game had scored high in reviews.  I was hesitant on buying it at first though, as I’m not the kind of person that sits and plays these sort of games, I normally only play something like this on my phone, or on a web browser if I’m bored somewhere other than my place…although still, it’s rare I’d play these sorts of games then and even in those instances i don’t find myself saying “just one more level…” for 3 friggin hours O_O.  So I can certainly confirm that even as a hardcore gamer, this game found its way in…and has claimed me BIG TIME!  I almost feel bad for playing it as much as I have been, instead of some high class blockbuster of a game that pushes my 360 or Wii’s potentials.  It’s like the gaming equivalent of watching reality TV, one of those casual anyone can play mainstream-ish kind of games, and I’ve literally put over 15 hours into this game over the past 3 days (I’ve been dealing with a bout of flu though, so it’s helped having something mindless to kill time with).

I can sit and make note of the fact that this isn’t something epic like “The Orange Box“, “Forza Motorsport 3“, “New Super Mario Bros Wii“, “Punch Out Wii” or “Castlevania Sympthony of the Night” (5 games I’m also playing at the moment)
…but then, just because Peggle isn’t like a “proper” video game, it’s not something I can really complain about.  The fact is I’m happy when I’m playing it, even when I’m not doing good I don’t feel frustrated, I just feel more motivated, or I blame myself for a mistake and want to better myself.  One of the core values I look for in a video game is “fun”, and this game has definitely achieved that.  I will no doubt pick up another copy of this for my Nintendo DS at some point in the future, and maybe even onto whatever my next phone is when in the distant future I upgrade to something new.  Finally though, if you’ve come this far in the article and haven’t already opened up another tab to check the game out in some form or another, then I urge you to go to the website and at least download thePC Demo.  It’s £15 (in the uk) from that site though, so I URGE you NOT to buy it from there, but instead to buy it through STEAM, as you can get not only Peggle, but the Peggle Nights (add-on pack which adds another 50 or so levels) all for £9.99.

It cost me 1200ms points on XBOX Live Arcade to get Peggle + the add-on pack (which is approx £9), but it’s definitely one of the most “bang for buck” games I’ve bought in ages.  I’m nowhere near done playing this game yet and it is pretty much the best thing since Tetris in terms of “I’m frickin addicted!”, and as much as I do blogs, I rarely devote a blog fully to a single game, yet Peggle has just stole me completely in the recent days and I’m just compelled to share it’s awesome-ness.
or perhaps I’m just sinister in the fact that I’m brining more people into this addiction with me, hehe

You can read the IGN review of Peggle >here<

also I just read on the wikipedia page for Peggle that people who have Steam on there computers can get a free short version of peggle inspired on some of the game developer Valve’s games (Half Life/ Portal/ etc)….So I downloaded it myself and lost approx another hour to it.  Great cross-over product though ^_^

…and if you’re a fan of Valve, why not check out there G4TV Idols video –> HERE

If you like Peggle you may also like “World of Goo” (available on Wii and PC).