Another E3 has passed and everything is settling down again to its normal pace within the industry. Fans have begun to process the information they've gained and magazines are starting to conjure articles about what the got from the floors of E3.

For me the expo was a bland story. While some may argue that some of the revelations we're they biggest yet, I couldn't help not to be impressed by a lot of them. But I think that has to do with me being a PC Gamer more than a console gamer. Let's begin first with the Sony conference. I didn’t see it live, as it ran in the middle of the night where I live. So I skipped that. But judging from what I read from it, it was a rather meek one. The news about the PS3 wasn’t that much of an interest too me, and while I do agree the price tag was hefty, I wouldn’t wind myself up on it too much. Seeing as the 360 went for nearly the same price and people still bought it without hesitation. So I don’t think that will stop the fans, despite what some pessimists say. Because Sony is Sony and people loved the PS2 so the price of the PS3 won't stop many fans. Otherwise I got the feeling that nothing new was revealed. The gyro thing that everyone complains about, get over it. We all know that it isn't a new innovation by now, so no need to hang them in the gallows for that. The next conference on the line was Nintendo’s. This one I managed to watch as its timeslot was a lot better. To be honest, I really enjoyed this one. While it contained some number crunching that all conferences must have. The demonstrations shown were really interesting. From the Twilight Princess to the smaller sports games. It made me extremely interested in owning a Wii, something I never even considered before. Oh, and the jokes about its name are no longer funny. Get over it. As I said before, I'm extremely interested in getting a Wii; this was reinforced by some announcements later. But more about that later. And last on the line was Microsoft. This one I sort of skipped watching as the link to the video didn’t want to appear when the counter had reached zero. So I spent the time hammering at the F5 button to watch the blog. And now looking back, I didn’t miss anything by not watching the video. The MS one was the blandest of the bland to me. A lot of talking about XBL, something that is not of my concern, seeing as I don’t even own a 360 or an Xbox. And the games shown we're not that many. Gears of War might be nice, but seeing as I won’t play it, I'm not that interested. And I couldn’t but to laugh at the mistake they did with GTAIV, exclusively on 360? Yeah right.  We'll probably even see a PC version later on or so. Fable 2 I didn’t care about either, never enjoyed the first game entirely, the final fight on the PC version was just a dull on the rail thing, and the whole game felt a bit boring. And way too many loading times, but that's more or less due to it being the Xbox version that was used, why didn’t even think of removing the loading times is beyond me. DOAX seemed more or less the same as DOAXBV with only jet skis as the real difference, and the impressed graphics for people to ogle at. This makes me thing of a statement that Kutaragi said, he considered the DOA girls as his own daughters. Interesting usage of them I have to say with DOAX and all. I was slightly disappointed when it came to light that it didn’t seem that Michael Ironside does the voice for Sam Fisher in Double Agent, as his voice is Fisher and nothing else it's sad to see that he's been replaced. So during the conference I mostly sat waiting for the PC part to arrive. Which it did, and I still wasn't that impressed. All they had as an onstage presentation was Crysis, which they said it was "Windows exclusive", another thing I highly doubt. It will appear on at least the 360 later on, if not being all of a sudden announced for a 360 release too. The Conan game I didn’t even bother about, nothing to interesting for me. The notion about dual release sounded bad for me, as I've played Oblivion and noticed the slightly annoying interface controls being all tied to the F-series of buttons. This was slightly annoying in the long run. So I don’t think I can greet that part with open arms yet, despite the fact that the 360 and PC being almost alike in some terms. And then came the Shadowrun game, I didn’t actually bother about it until some people complained it was a pure and utter butchery of the universe. So I took a peek at the trailer, and I have to agree, especially after spending some time reading about the universe on the net. The game can be aptly summarized as "Counterstrike Magic". Because that's more or less what it is, and FPS med CS theme only with some magic and fantasy races thrown in the mix. But seeing as it’s apparently for the Vista I won’t even bother about it, not planning to upgrade. After the PC part was over I stopped bothering about the MS conference, but I still remained because I knew they were going to reveal one thing more. And of course it came, Halo 3. I didn't jump for joy, as it was entirely expected to arrive, seeing as they blew the lid before E3. If they didn’t do that, the reaction could be slightly different. One though that flew through my head when I was matching the trailer was that I wanted the music. But that's just me I suppose. And no, the announcement of Halo 3 won't get me interested in getting a 360. I only played the first part on the PC (which I enjoyed), and the first part of Halo 2 on the Xbox. That's about it. And knowing that Halo 2 is coming out to the PC on Vista won’t entice me either. Don’t planning to upgrade to Vista anytime so. But enough about that.

Of all the conferences that were shown, I found that the Nintendo one was the strongest, as they had a lot to show in terms of games and usage of their console. While some may argue that the MS and Sony one had some strong cards, like Gears of War for MS and MGS4 for Sony, they weren't that much on hands on thing like Nintendo. All you were shown for those games were trailers, while Nintendo had on stage demonstrations with people actually playing the game with the controls and all. While I do remember that Sony had a demonstration with their gyro thing on their conference. But that wasn't as impressive as what Nintendo showed off. And that Tennis match was an extremely good way to show off how the whole thing worked in multiplayer. So I have to agree with the notion that Nintendo stole the show, although that could be split with MGS games and Halo 3. But I do believe that Dendrei_Aitrus was right when he mentioned in one of his video blogs that they only had to show Master Chief and they'll get a following. Which they of course did.

Now onto the other things that interested me at E3. I've always been a slight fan of fighting games, especially the Super Smash Bros. line, as they are to me the easiest to play, as I don’t need to bother with extreme combos that require and elaborate set of key combinations to master, or an set of blocks that you just have to use to counter every move from the opponent to win. It's just sit down and let it rip. This is why I got interested in hearing that the Wii is going to get a SSB game. Seeing how that is going to be played with the controls will be interested. But that we will probably know later on. It is slightly this games fault to adamanting my want in a Wii. As most of all know what new character besides some classic Nintendo ones (Mmm. Samus in a catsuit. :d) For those who don’t know, its the legendary console super agent Solid Snake himself. Seeing him a fighting game such as this will be extremely interesting. Especially in which fighting style he while use. And I do hope they will add some fun MGS themed power ups or special items. (Metal Gear Rex or Ray suddenly appearing out of nowhere and starting smacking stuff around would be awesome really.) And then with this game we don't even know the secret characters. Who knows, it could even be Raiden or something like that, to further add upon the MGS theme. But that we will hopefully know after the game is out.

To be honest I am slightly disappointed with Gamespots E3 coverage, it seems too centered on popularity with coverage on particularly the consoles and their upcoming games. And being a PC gamer at heart I was dying for some neat info about some of the new games, or even one or two new gold pieces that could entice me. While I did read some PC news, it wasn't as much as I wanted. Especially one game lacked coverage here, namely Operation Flashpoint 1.5, or Armed Assault as it's really called. I do know however (thanks to some inside information) that the game will receive cover somewhere else. So at least I'll know something about it. It's a bit dull to see the sequel to perhaps of the best military simulation games out there being virtually none covered. But, as one of my friends commented, it’s because of it being in the Kentia hall. This is to me a slightly shoddy reason to avoid it.

WoW got huge cover, which is nothing to be surprised at, it has moved away from game onto the stage of cultural phenomena. So it’s entirely natural that an expansion to a game like this would get a lot of cover. One fun to note is that according to one source was Vivendi told them that Blizzard wasn't about to announce something new at E3. Which I have to say got shot down pretty fast. First they revealed the WoW live action movie, after that the Alliance Race for the Burning Crusade expansion and lastly that they are either planning to work or are working with more new games on other consoles. If that isn't new announcements I don’t know what it is. Before the announcement at E3 people where theorizing wildly about what race it was going to be and the reasons why. While some theories were quite nice, others were bordering on stupid (To those with the worgen theories, go back to the White Wolf games will ya. ) And now we know the race, it's the Draenei. But hang on you might say, aren’t they short and quite ugly. Well, these are a bit different. They are apparently how they looked from the beginning before the Burning Legion suddenly got interested in them. Which is quite cool actually, this means that they're doing new models for them instead of reusing an already ingame one. This is slightly visible with the Blood Elves. For some reason when it comes to the Draenei, I can’t wait to see how their racial emotes are going to be. Blizz has shown that they are quite good at giving each race their own specific set of emotes and such and I can't wait to see what they have to offer with the Draenei. And as one of the WoW trailers hinted, the Darkmoon Fair is in for some changes too. Will be interesting to see how that's going to work.

Another big game that had it fair share of cover was C&C3 Tiberian Wars. Not that much was said about it, but judging from what was said, we're in for some very interesting. Especially when the trailers last words were "Until they came" with a shot on earth from space. Looks like we are in for one helluva ride. Hopefully we'll know more later on. But one thing is for certain, the jump over to the sage engine hasn't hurt a bit. The game looks real slick with its graphics. Now the only worry is how they are going to do the FMV sequences, as the FMVs from Zero Hour was nothing compared to the excellency of Tiberian Sun. That and the fact that Frank Klepacki isn't involved with the music, original C&C cant be C&C with Frank’s music. I do hope they'll involve him, as Bill Browns General music wasn't that much of a hit. The US part stunk of R6 feeling. But hopefully they'll try to do the music justice. Or else it’s mute on that. But for now the information is way too sketchy to really build up a definitive opinion, for now the game looks good to me.

On the topic of music by the way, I was delighted to hear that Jeremy Soule will do the music to Supreme Commander, which is just excellent. Hopefully he'll do it in the theme of the Total Annihilation game. This is one soundtrack and game I can't to lay my hands on.

Supreme Commander and World in Conflict has definitely showed that nukes can be cool. (In games of course.) Especially SC shows that they can be cool with its massive destructive power. Though I have yet to see the WiC nukes, I've heard from a source it looks really nice. Hopefully a video of one will drop in sooner or later.

Splinter Cell Double Agent looked nice. Despite the disappointment with the lack of Michael Ironside. It will be interesting to see how the whole Double Agent thing will be done, and how the whole thing will affect the game. I have to see if I really want to play it. As I've never been that much of a fan with multiple ending, it makes me feel cheated on material if it suddenly comes clear to me that if I do a certain action I'll miss out or stuff. But hopefully I'll overcome that for this game.

What else is there to mention for me? Well, except the fact that Spore looks awesome, Neverwinter Nights 2 looks like a sure buy (MP sessions especially), and Company of Heroes look to cool (albeit a bit rugged still judging by the trailers). There isn't that much to mention. If they PC cover had been a bit bigger, there might have just been some more to say. But for now that's it really. Now it's time to wait for the magazines to drop in what they have to say about the whole thing. And I know one magazine in particular I'll be waiting for.