A couple of observations about the videos from the last post:
1. The most interesting thing about E3's parade of best-foot-forwarding is this: BF3's in-game footage often looks better than the cinematic trailers of other games. DICE seems to have figured out that graphics and aesthetics are not the same thing, and they're using the former to drive the latter. That might be the biggest step any developer takes this year.
2. It seems that BioWare has had their own epiphany with the final installment of Mass Effect. Shepard can now roll and vault over cover while running. Why? Because cover is boring.
3. There's been some talk of ramping-up the RPG elements with ME3, but it's still going rely heavily on the "guns and conversation" motif that has become ME's hallmark. What this means, three games in, is that the narrative arc is going to have be pitch-perfect all the way to the credits. Anything less will be viewed as a disappointment.
4. It was a good move to spotlight the combat mechanics in Rage, even if we've seen some fairly substantial bits of it already. Up close, the injury and death animations for the NPC's are better than I've seen (or noticed before) in a shooter -- with the possible exception of Condemned: Criminal Origins. Unfortunately, I'm still not terribly interested in the game. It pains me to say that, because I have a whole wing in my gaming memory dedicated to Id.
5. Dead Island is losing me a little more with every trailer. I like the "Far Cry with zombies" concept, but I forsee a Borderlands-like repetitiveness on the horizon. And seriously, everything associated with guns just looks wrong. How the hell do you mess that up?
6. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has a lot of nice little details in it, but still has the feel of a game that should have been released two years ago. All that tactical shooter/squad commander stuff has been done into the dirt with Rainbow 6, Arma, Operation Flashpoint, and GR itself, and Future Soldier's novelties probably won't bring enough to the table to generate a lot of interest. The irony is that the closer the game creeps towards "mainstream" shooter status -- in an effort to broaden its appeal -- the more it's going to have to compete with MW3 and BF3. Niche games occupy a niche for a reason.
