E3 and Me: The Choice

When the first E3 reports from the conferences and floor started trickling in, I felt unmoved. I’ve seen it all before. I’ve seen visceral Call of Duty corridor battles. I’ve seen Master Chief and Cortana escape from an exploding ship. I’ve seen Nathan Drake exchanging cinematic gunfire with faceless foes. I’ve seen Marcus and Dom slaughtering Locust. I’ve seen immersive street battles in Middle-Eastern theatres of war. I’ve seen cars racing fast on tracks. I’ve seen zombies being slaughtered by a range of melee weapons. I’ve seen Kinect games looking lame.

I watched all the footage, read all the copy and listened to all the podcasts. I still didn’t care.

Then I suddenly realised I was tired of something else. I was tired of the cynic inside me. The part of me that sneers at all the sequels, sneers at Microsoft for peddling Kinect, sneers at the new Sony handheld and sneers at Nintendo for apparently allowing reception classes at primary schools to design their consoles. I can’t moan about all this familiarity, and then also moan that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are all pushing new hardware that can potentially empower developers to produce truly fresh experiences, fail as they might.

This time ten years ago, Grand Theft Auto III was probably just about falling onto my radar. This year, the games industry is nonchalantly farting out games of that quality for fun. There are consoles with better graphics than the PS2 that fit in your pocket. There’s a console that you don’t even need a controller to play. There’s a football game that’s more realistic than actual football. There’s even a new Tomb Raider game, for the love of boobs.

Videogames are capturing the imagination of an ever-widening market. E3 is the epicentre of that buzz, and the aftershocks are more powerful than ever. So, I’ve made a choice. I’m going to let it all wash over me. Instead of pointing the finger at the re-imaginings and sequels, I’m going to wallow in them, munching at them like a full bag of Skittles until I feel sick and pass out. Then, when I wake up at some indeterminate time in the future, we’ll all be assessing whether or not Kinect, Wii U and Vita are empowering developers in the way the manufacturers have claimed they will.

For now then, it’s going to be an incredible year. Modern Warfare 3 is surely going to somehow top its forebears, presumably by causing the entire world to explode in a shower of moustaches. Battlefield 3 will do its best to rain on the parade. Uncharted 3 will similarly deliver an interactive big-budget action movie experience directly into our faces. FIFA 12 and Forza Motorsport 4 will take authenticity to dizzying heights, ensuring that most of my Christmas holiday will be spent between trying to realistically injure the groins of the entire Manchester United squad and racing around the Top Gear test track in a reasonably priced car. Deus Ex: Human Revolution will give both my new PC and my moral compass something meaty to chew on. Dark Souls will immerse, Gears of War 3 will bring us together and Rage will dazzle us with its sandy splendour.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. Bring it all on. I’ll moan about sequels properly next year. Scout’s honour.