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Although we're in the middle of a gaming generation, with all three major consoles now firmly established after over a year of being on sale, and, aside from the N-Gage, no sign of any major hardware launches on the horizon, this year's E3 still proved to be just as successful, if not more, than its predecessors. And despite some technical problems that delayed some of our coverage of the event, the site's still be absolutely saturated with new game announcements, as well as brand new screenshots and videos of games we already knew were in development. However, with over a week having passed since the show finished, and the large resource of fresh gaming news having gradually been reduced, we've decided to look back over the event and provide you with links to all our coverage in case you missed any of it.
While GameCube sales have been underperforming recently compared to Xbox and the seemingly unstoppable PlayStation 2, Nintendo showed little sign of losing faith in the console. Almost all the games we expected to see at E3 were there; Pikmin 2, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Mario Golf, 1080: Snowboarding, Wario World, and we have a fresh video trailer for each. They also announced a fair wad of new titles, including three new Pokemon games, their new first-person shooter, Geist, Star Fox 2, Zelda: Tetra's Trackers and the revival of Kirby Air Ride. Also, Lucasarts and Factor 5 revealed the highly anticipated next instalment in their Rogue Squadron series, Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, Square showed off the first instalment of the Final Fantasy series to hit the GameCube, Final Fantasy Chronicles, and Sega released brand new F-Zero GX screenshots as well as a new E3 video and details of a new platformer called Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. Despite hearing nothing of the much-rumoured new Mario game, overall GameCube fans have plenty to look forward to over the coming months, and we hope this also translates into the higher hardware sales the console deserves.
Meanwhile Sony wasn't going to let a massive publicity opportunity like E3 pass them by, with third parties such as Konami, Sega and Activision providing a raft of new games for them to show off. Most notably, after a slightly disappointing first announcement of Metal Gear Solid 3 we finally managed to get our hands on the full trailer for the game, which once again shows that classic Hideo Kojima magic. The next biggest title had to be Gran Turismo 4 which was shown for the first time to the rampant gaggle of gaming press, and looks to be absolutely fantastic. Activision were happily showing off their potential Grand Theft Auto-beater, True Crime: Streets of L.A., as well as their next big movie tie-in, Shrek 2. Konami were keen to display the visual splendour of their retro-style shoot 'em up Gradius V, and also took the opportunity to release more stuff on their babe 'em up, Cy Girls. Finally, Sega were also there offering support in the form of Sonic Heroes (which is also appearing on GameCube and Xbox), as well as the revival of one of their famous Megadrive characters, Vectorman.
Finally, Microsoft aimed to prove to the world that the Xbox could match up to the PlayStation 2's impressive software library. Despite a limited showing of Halo 2, which indicates further the need for the post-2003 release, they still managed to impress with Project Gotham Racing 2, which is looking almost photo-realistic in quality, and proving that their recent Rare aquisition was worth the expense, displayed Kameo: Elements of Power, Grabbed by the Goulies and Conker: Live and Uncut. Meanwhile, third parties also had a good showing with James Bond: Everything or Nothing, Lord of the Rings III: The Return of the King and the highly impressive Doom III, for which we also have the amazing PC trailer.
Although taking a more conservative presence than the big three games companies, Nokia was also in attendance to give some important announcements. They revealed further details of their N-Gage console, including its price-point and release date, and went on to show off some impressive titles like Sonic N and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Although we remain slightly skeptical about the console's outlook, many developers certainly seemed impressed at E3, and we look forward to hearing more closer to its European release later this year.
And so, after almost a week of madness and a week's time to recover, E3 has come to a close until 2004, when it will happen all over again. So what delights can we expect from next year's show? Technical demos of the new PlayStation or Xbox? Information on the next Mario and Zelda games? Perhaps even a hands-on demo of Sony's portable console, the PSP? Who knows, but if this year's event was anything to go by, next year's should be absolutely fantastic, and with any luck we should still be here, reporting the latest news straight back to you.
Marc Hull
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