Here is what happened on Saturday the 19th. The last day of this years E3. :( boohoo Byebye.
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• 5/17/01
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• General
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• XBOX
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I played more XBOX games today. I still find the system lacking any must have games in general. From everything I played and saw I am starting to feel that the launch games for the XBOX will be, as a whole, not much better then the PS2 launch games. And for a console that is supposedly so easy to program for, and with MS helping developers so much, that is a very sad thing indeed.

What about those games?

Title	Thoughts
Halo	Back when this was a PC and Mac game in development it was looking to be a great single player game with graphics unlike anything we'd seen before. The multiplayer aspect was to be good but not the focus of the game. But at E3 it was shown as nothing more then a multiplayer frag-fest. All of the demo units were setup for multiplayer gaming. I didn't see anything on the single player aspect of the game. Not only that but the graphics have taken a HUGE hit. It no longer looks any better then what we've seen in games like Quake 3. Even Unreal Championship, the XBOX version of Unreal, looks just as good. Man am I disapointed in Halo. :(
Munch	I don't know what to say. It's very much like the other Oddworld games. You collect other Mudokens(sp?) and have them do work for you. Sure you have to utilize both Munch and Abe to solve puzzles, but other then that it was just the same. It does look good. The game is a great example of what an XBOX game can look like. Huge expansive levels thanks to the 64MB of RAM and large numbers of enemies on-screen thanks to the power of the NVidia graphics chip. But that's it. Even the feature of cleaning up the poluted land is only used as eye candy. The subtle change that happens while you watch is very cool. But it played no part in effecting the gameplay at all. If you get an XBOX this is one of the games you must have in your library, the Oddworld games are fun, but don't expect anything new here.
Tony Hawk 2X	Have you seen or played Tony Hawk 2? Well then you've played this one. Not only that but people didn't seem to like it. The game was demoed by appointment only, at least that's what the sigh said, but I watched as the demo guy actually begged people to come over and play. Go figure.
Amped	Yawn. Boring game with a boring level. I can't say much about this one. Not after having played Dark Summit. This game just can't compete with the likes of that or SSX. Heck, even Cool Boarders 2001 was better.
Progect Gothem	This game was mostly unimpressive. Graphically it was very similar to the DC game it is based off of, Metropolis Street Racer. The main focus of the game is to drive well and cool. You earn "Kudos" based on how well you drive and how good you "look" doing it. The level in the demo was fairly small, sub 50sec laps, and not very wide. It was a night level just after a rain shower, probably to show off the lighting and refection in the game. But it still didn't look much better then the DC version. To top it off, there were no AI cars at all. Just you. And even worse, the best effect is something most will probably never see. The steam raising out of the sewer grates fully interacts with your car. You drive over it, you will block it from rising. As you move off of it it will flow with the car before straightening out. It was very realistic. But, how is anyone going to see it when you go by a grate at 100MPH?
Azurik	Slowdown.. boaring.. slowdown.. only OK looking.. oh.. did I say slowdown. Um.. I don't really have much more to say. It looked OK, but it was simply unplayable.
NASCAR Heat	It's a NASCAR game. What more needs to be said. Wel, how about that it's an online NASCAR game for a console. Or how it's a very well done NASCAR game. How you can actually see the details in the interior of the cars while playing using the outside camera. I walked up to one of the free demo set-ups and said to myself, what the heck. I played a couple of races and then backed away. Realized, "Man that was Fun." and then someone next to me asked one of the demo people "Where's the camera?" (There was a video monitor on top of the demo setup showing people playing the game. The MS rep said that it was showing the people in the Infogrames booth and that these demo setups were networked to those. He informed us we were playing online against the people in the Infrogrames booth. That's when I said, cool. So if you like NASCAR games, and like playing against other people, then this is a game for you. Otherwise, it's just another NASCAR racing game.
Blood Wake	Must shoot stuff. Must blow things up.... Even though the crowd around the Halo demos were larger, no game got as much praise as this one. Not once was the demo units for this game free, there was always people playing and people watching. Everyone who played it said the same thing "This is the best XBOX game here." You drive big attack boats around the levels destroying everything while all hell is breaking loose around you. Everyone is shooting at you as you blast through the levels. Rarely was the screen not filled with tracer bullets as everyone is trying to kill you. This could end up being one of the best XBOX games.
Mad Dash Racing	This was a good game. It's a character racing game. Instead of karts or cars you play characters. At first glance I thought it was a platformer like Spyro. But after watching it for a minute I realized it was a racing game. It utilizes the 64MB of RAM to have HUGE levels. The one I saw took quite a few minutes to complete. And the rep said it was one of the mid-sized tracks. A good concept for a launch title. It's nothing inovative, but it is a good looking fun game.
Jonny Drama	I didn't play this one. I did watch it for a bit. It's a really cool looking adventure/shooter type of game. I really couldn't pin down a genre from what I saw. But it does a very good job of looking like a hero/supervillan cartoon.
Others	There was a bunch of others there. But I either missed them (Medal of Honor, Nightcaster) or only the media was shown them (Morrowind).