E3 isn’t even over yet, but I feel compelled to mention a few things that have struck me so far, especially in light of my last soapbox and my predictions therein. If you have the G4TV cable channel, now is actually a good time to put it to use. I caught all the press conferences I wanted, plus they have a 3 hour show every evening covering E3. If you don’t have G4TV, or even if you do, don’t forget to check out the PSN Store. They’ve got a ton of trailers there, even some hidden videos, and they’re not even downloading too slow.

One thing that really struck me is that PS3 fans have little to worry about. We’ve been hearing a lot of bad news in the PS3 world with bad ports, lost exclusives, delayed ports, cancelled games, etc. It was hard to keep up the faith. But E3 showed us that Sony still has life in it, and it’s more than just a little. The general consensus is that Sony’s was the most impressive press conference. The PS3 has a spectacular lineup of games coming out, and we know that this fall will bring a virtual cornucopia of choices.

The Killzone 2 demo was quite impressive. I had predicted that it would look good, but not quite up to par with the target render. This is one of my few predictions that came true, though I have to admit that it was a safe one. The demo looks fantastic. Don’t forget to download the video showing the demo from the PSN Store.

I am disappointed that the beta for Call of Duty 4 is going to be Xbox 360 exclusive. But not that disappointed, because the game itself is still being releasead for the PS3, and I’m really looking forward to it. Hopefully us PS3 gamers won’t get shafted like we did with CoD3, especially with regard to online support and map packs. But I have high hopes – it’s a different developer this time. Don’t forget to check out the PSN Store for the trailer.

LittleBigPlanet did make an appearance, unlike my prediction. Unfortunately, G4TV was in a commercial break for much of it. Doh! But luckily there’s a trailer on PSN Store, and I watched it yesterday. Yay! I was impressed. Very impressed. Every kid in the world (and every kid-at-heart) who wants to make video games for a living will buy this game. And create levels. And show them to the world. It’s that simple. I saw some of the stuff in there and was amazed. The game actually let’s you build things with CSG (constructive solid geometry)!!! Man that’s cool. I just know that someone’s going to recreate all of Star Wars in LittleBigPlanet, and believe me, I’ll be in line to download those levels. LittleBigPlanet will be huge.

How did my other soapbox predictions fair? Well, there was a price cut, obviously. But that was easy to predict. Sales have gone up and stayed up for a couple days. Let’s hope it stays that way. As well, we haven’t lost MGS4 exclusivity (yet), and I’m glad I was wrong about that one. I hope I continue to be wrong. 🙂 But we haven’t heard anything about a rumble SIXAXIS, at least not from Sony. Quite disappointing. The only thing we heard is that Immersion has licensed its technology to some third parties for the purpose of rumble controller creation. Ah well. Sony must be announcing something soon, right? Maybe next week in Japan, when MGS4 will be shown off properly. (What event is that, anyway?)

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