really great article i loved it

Impressive article, guys. Despite it amazes me how many Mario games can come from Nintendo's ass, that version of the classic Super Mario Bros. makes yet another big attempt in order to convince to sell my XBox 360 and get a Wii.

Hey, -RoG-, you should be careful while taking photographs with nurses who are not Ms. Diagnosis!

"Because I can't tell you how many years I've waited to shoot the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the dick with a proton pack."

Best sentence known to man.

Looking foward to that Batman game. That Bayoneta thing looks fun too.

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun at E3. Thanks for sharing these pictures with us!

Great article guys!

They also had people trained to run up and wave their hands in front of your camera if you dared to take a photograph. Why show something at a giant media event if you're not going to allow the press to take photos? Genius.

Yeah, great work, E3. Keep this up, & PAX will eat you alive.

You'll always be the true King of Kong in my book Steve.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we glady accept Steve as the King of Kongs, instead of that fucking douchebag Billy Mitchell.

I agree with Dimnos about the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man line.

Don't be so surprised about the booth babes, RoG. You are a sexy beast. (For the record, I'm NOT homosexual (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course)).

This looks like a really good E3, not as plagued with horror as the last few times and pretty fun. Im glad you wrote this article, its been a while since ive seen this and i was beginning to think you gave up on covering events.

I love Castlevania too, but I'm very intrigued to see where Kojima takes it. IGA has always said that he loves 2D games and he's good at making them. However, even the 3D games he has worked on haven't been great. Lament of Innocence was decent, the second PS2 game completely escapes me other than Trevor was in it and even he admitted that Judgment had no chance of being good. I think if Konami wants to make Castlevania into a successful 3D series they should split the franchise between IGA and Kojima. Let IGA make the 2D games and Kojima make the 3D ones.

Of the three reasons I had for doubting the new game, Kojima's involvement was probably the one that's worrying me the least. The developer's shoddy track record, and the potential lack of a meaningful connection to the other games are what has me the most concerned. But it is early on, I suppose.

As always the pictures made me feel like I was there. Good job!

Bayonetta Babe's head looks too small for her body.

Why are girls always attracted to pickles?

Hmm its funny but Bayoneta has a striking resemblance to a certain senator we got to know last year.

Rog with two hot nurses yet no Ms. Diagnosis? What's up with that?

I almost made that comparison, but I decided not to because I enjoyed the demo.

Nice write-up. Here are my thoughts on what I've seen:

Muramasa- I really appreciate what Vanillaware is trying to do. Their sprites are so absolutely stunning it makes you wish 3D had never been invented. Their stories have a fanciful style to them that makes you wish for the days when every game didn't need to be "Dark and Gritty" (can't anything be gritty without being dark and vise-versa). Still, I don't like the way the games play. Odin Sphere, for all it's charm, is a soul-crushingly repetitive experience that I couldn't beat it. Muramasa sadly looks the same.

What these guys need to do is make the graphics for other games. Their games are prettier to look at than play. They need to team up with a good game studio and make the graphics for them, similar to how Team Ninja is making the graphics for Metroid: Other M.

M:OM- Speaking of this one, I'm unsure. I'm not against a beat-em-up Metroid but the trailer looks so uninspired. I can't be the only one who sees Metroid Gaiden. If I want to play Ninja Gaiden I can pick it up, I don't need Metroid to turn itself into it. Still, it's very early in the games life span so I can't really dislike it. File me under worried.

P.S. I am partially disappointed that it isn't Metroid Dread (V) that was announced. I guess I'm holding that against M:OM. Slightly.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories- I'm hopeful for this one. The "no-attacking" is a risk but it might actually imbue the series with horror again. Plus, I never played the original Silent Hill (though I did see a play-through of it) so if nothing else I get to experience the first game in the series.

Bayonetta- This looks freaking awesome! It's like Devil May Cry 1/3's sense of humor and gameplay bumped to obscene levels. Bayonetta really is a female Dante. Not just because of her taunts or the game she is appearing in but because, like Dante, she is an over-the-top satirazation of action movie hero's. Seriously, these games are what Shoot-Em-Up would be if it was a game.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow- MOTHER-FREAKING PATRICK STEWART!! How the hell did they get him for this!? More than anything else that is a good sign that this game will be good.

On a more serious note, I do like the games focus on blatant Gothic tones. That's been missing from the series since SOTN and it's nice to see it represented again.

I like that the main hero is a MANLY MAN rather than the bishoshen Final Fantasy boys we've had to deal with on the most recent installments.

The whip doesn't get used enough on the series. Except for Order of Eccleasia, I've never loved a Castlevania game that doesn't have the whip. I see it as what separates Castlevania from other games.

Kojima is a great producer so I want to give him a chance. It's certainly better than allowing IGA to make another boring clone of SOTN.

P.S. IGA is so overrated. That guy is great at making these nice little experiences. At making actual games is where he fails. OOE is the only good game he directed (even SOTN isn't that good) because he put some balls in it.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii- I kinda don't like the first one. It's a decently made platformer but it lacks the fantastic level designs of the previous 2D games. The physics seem out of whack (Mario doesn't control nearly as smootly as he does in other games). For my money, Super Mario Galaxy feels more like a true Mario game that NSMB does (and I'm not even talking about the 2D sections). NSMB doesn't have the adventurous spirit and charm of it's predecessors. It feels like a bland repeat.

Umm... That relates to NSMBW because it doesn't look like much has changed.

Super Mario Galaxy 2- AMMMMMMAAAAZZZIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGG!!!

Hurm. I think ill have to start wearing a pickle hat and goggles...

My roommate ordered a copy of Demon's Souls from Asia because the Asian versions of the game are actually in English, and it didn't look like it would ever be released here. Two days after it arrived, they announced that it would be released in the US. I've watched him play, and it looks really fucking hard and all the environments kind of look the same after a while.

Can't wait for the Batman game though. And Ghostbusters. :O

The only interesting game i see here is Bayonetta.

Man, Rei better watch out, RoG is the Pimp of the Pickle-Hat. Obviously, if you want coverage at any future Comic-Cons, you need RoG as your "booth babe". :P

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is going to be the best thing ever.

Actually, Odin Sphere had a very dark storyline, but you had to make some decent headway into the game to see it unfold that way.

I wouldn't go that far. He did do a voice in Oblivion, after all.

They actually have had a lot of gothic tones in the games since then. Not all of them, but even the newer 3D ones have had their fair share of gothic architecture and such.

Well, nearly every game since SotN has included a playable character wielding the whip, if not the main character than an unlockable one.


I would say they're both on roughly equal ground, as far as being producers. They both have found what their fans want and have been making games aimed at them since (IGA = MetroidVania games, Kojima = stealth games with an inordinate amount of talking), and they've both had their ill-advised departures from the norm (IGA = the N64 games and Judgement, Kojima = Metal Gear Acid and putting some whiny effeminate guy in MGS2). I just hope Kojima doesn't try to shoehorn his particular kind of storytelling into the Castlevania games. Because I like to play games, not watch them.

Also, you have that backwards: SotN is the only game IGA directed. The ones since he's just produced. And SotN is great. It's in the Alphabet of Manliness, for crying out loud.

Dr. Boogie: I don't know how to quote so I'll quickly reference.

Muramasa: By fanciful I meant storybook-like (which the game suggests since it's a story being read by a little girl (I think? I didn't make it past halfway of the bunny guy). By "Dark and Gritty" I meant your average FPS with a TOTALLY DARK AND GRITTY STORYLINE SINCE THAT'S WHAT TEENAGE BOYS THINK IS MATURE GRRRR!!.

Gothic: I don't know why I wrote that. I regretted it since I put it down.

Whip: Yeah, but it's never been as good as in Super Castlevania. That game had the best control scheme in the entire series. The whip could be spun, dragged for a shield, and, best of all, it could be used in all eight directions. I don't know why they gave that up. They had figured out to separate the sub-weapon (there are six main buttons on the SNES pad so somebody realized that there was no reason to keep the sub-weapon on Up + Attack anymore (they only did it on the NES since it only had two buttons (not counting Start and Select) only to get rid of it again for no reason.

Oh! This post hasn't actually addressed the whip comment and instead turned to praising Super Castlevania.

I don't like the later whip games (or non-whip) since they feel so stiff (battle-wise) compared to the greatness of Super Castlevania. It's one of the reasons I like OOE. The Beam Glyph feels like I've gotten back my precious whip in some way (even if still not as awesome as Super Castlevania). It feels the closest to combining the battle style of Super (and a little Bloodlines/Rondo of Blood) with the movement of the IGA games.

IGA: Oops. I meant that it's the only game that he directed (apparently produced) that I like as a game (Must have lost a few words there). I do have a soft spot for the guy. His games are really good at setting an atmosphere. As games they fail to work for me. There is so many bad backtracking, easy enemies, bad placement of said enemies (Ex: Why are there plants in the library in SOTN?), and confusing systems (the souls were a nice idea but they aren't as good as plain old sub-weapons plus it made people do this: http://castlevaniasoul.ytmnd.com/) that I can't take it.

On an unfair note, I think the Castlevania games aren't as good as the Metroid games at that style of gameplay, probably due to their lack of polish. The only exception is OOE and that's because it isn't really a Metroidvania game. The first 2/3 of the game are basically levels ( the exploring is fairly light) and Dracula's Castle is practically level-based (there is very little exploring. It looks explorable but in actuality it is a series of levels with no map screen change. You do it in this order (using the bosses as the order name): Wallman, BlackMore, Death or Eligor, Dracula. It's structure is actually more Demon's Crest (Capcom will never make a 2, will they?) than Metroid.

Alphabet on Manliness: No offense to Maddox, but Dawn of Sorrow was also on that list and that game is boring. As for SOTN it doesn't really deserve it's place in gaming history. It's a nice experience but it isn't as good a game as Super Metroid (not surprising, since IGA only made SOTN that way since he missed Metroid). It does a worse job than Metroid in nearly every way.

Man, you hit the "quote" button. Geez.

Also, to do it manually, just put "quote" in brackets without the quotation marks before a section you want to quote, and "/quote" at the end to put the whole thing in one box.


Anyway, it sounds like you just prefer the old school Castlevania games to the new ones. I think there's definitely something to be had there; the new formula may have helped revitalize the series, but it was ultimately the original games that got people interested in the first place. I would much rather see IGA experimenting with new titles built in the style of SCIV rather than his most recent efforts. He did that a little with The Dracula X Chronicles, but there's definitely room for improvement in the field of whip control.


Also, you talked about the Dracula's Castle section of OoE being "practically no exploring" and having a more level-based feel to it. That particular area was almost identical in execution as the castle in SotN: a semi-linear path with some opportunities for exploration, limited by what abilities/glyphs the player has.

Furthermore, I'd go as far as to say that the same is true of Super Metroid: there's some exploration, but only until you get to a grappling point, or a room that's too hot, or an underwater area, or the like. At the end of the day, you still had the tackle the bosses in a set order to get what you needed to go where you needed to go. And as you said, that same sort of formula can be seen in Demon's Crest, albeit broken up into actual stages with a world map serving as a hub.

Personally, I feel the exact opposite about the two series. I loved SotN, and I really enjoyed Super Metroid, but that series just didn't do it for me the same way Castlevania did using the same gameplay formula. If I had to pick one element that made that decision for me, apart from Castlevania nostalgia, it would be that the exploration of different areas in the Metroid games never seemed to lead to any really remarkable discoveries.

In SotN, you could break open a niche in a wall and find some food, or you might find a cool new weapon/armor that does something really unique, like summon a group of soldiers to defend you or create money out of thin air. Heck, you might even discover a whole new area that holds a heretofore unseen powerup that lets you take the story in another direction. It was that variety of stuff that made it so interesting.

In the Metroid games, on the other hand, you could fire at walls and such to find hidden powerups, but they would be either energy tanks or powerups that increase your special weapon capacity. You did get new weapons as the game progressed, but there wasn't really any opportunity for customization, i.e. killing a metroid always requires a freeze ray and missiles.


In any case, a sequel to Demon's Crest is long overdue. At this point, Capcom could even do what they did with Bionic Commando, and have a remake of the game followed by a 3D sequel. I know I'd buy it.

The Ghostbusters stuff (especially the Ecto-1) left me short of breath. Really. o_o

Plus the Batmobile? If there had somehow also been a time-traveling DeLorean too, all three of my favourite vehicles of all time would be in one spot. I probably would've had a heart attack.

It looked to me like the Batmobile was a lot more gray than it was in the movies. I guess because it's getting so old.

You're probably right. I do enjoy the IGA produced games but I don't like them nearly as much as the older Castlevania titles or the Metroid Games. Hopefully one day the producers of the series will think of making a truly old-school game since we haven't seen one of those since Castlevania Chronicles on the Playstation (and that one sucked). The SOTN clones are Metroid style, (as far as I know) Judgment is a beat-em-upish fighter, and Kojima's new game does not bear unfair comparisons to God of War. It's time for the series to return to it's roots.

I disagree (on a fact!?). There aren't very many options to do the castle out-of-order. You have to make your way to Wallman to get to the underground area. Once you do that the only path divergence is to get the Cerberus Glyph (which is mandatory). Once you do that you make your way to the underground. That is mostly straight with the only path divergence being to go to the Rapidus Glyph. After that you get a real path divergence to either go to fight Death or Eligor (but it's mostly like being able to choose between Temples 2 and 3 or 4 and 5 in Ocarina of time. It doesn't really matter which one you choose since you'll have to do both anyway). Once you kill both those guys you make your way to the top where the final path divergence is to get the Flying glyph.

Compare that to SOTN (I can't find a FAQ that states all the different paths you could take but it's a lot (I should know. I've beaten that game several times) and I think you'll see (at least from my point of view) how different their Castle's are.

On a related sidenote: I actually like the castle better that way. Since you have all the major abilites and glyphs by the time you get there (minus Paries) you truly get to enjoy the castle since you don't have to think about backtracking.

To each his own. I like Metroid more because it's more tightly designed (I don't feel like writing "In My Opinion" after everything I type. Obviously, since I wrote it, it's my opinion). The Castlevania games end up with me lost too often, especially the hell that is Harmony of Dissonance (strangely enough, it has my favorite atmosphere but my most hated gameplay). Shout out to Circle of the Moon, which is more tightly designed than any of IGA's games barring the level-based Ecclesia.

I do think I need to mention another thing that may get someone (not necessarily you) to like Castlevania over Metroid (despite my complaints they are basically the same type of game): Atmosphere. The Metroid games are based on alien planets while the Castlevania games are based in a Castle and thus have enviroments that with stone/metal/cement walls and hard, stone/cement/metal floors (generally. There are special areas like the underground). I guess what I'm saying is that the sights are definitely something that might twist a gamers opinion to one series over another (do you enjoy the alien sights of Metroid or the (fantastically) realistic Earth sites of the Castlevania games?)

Agreed. Considering how remake/sequel happy they are right now with their old series, I say there is a chance for revival (if people make enough noise). I do hope a remake or sequel would be more Rearmed (awesome!) and less BC (sucks!).

So am I the only one who thinks Booth Babes is a really bad idea? They have nothing to do with video games. I don't know, that's always just annoyed me. I mean I know sex sells, but come on.

Then again, we live in a world where they use sex to sell chewing gum and deodorant.

Sigh...

Great article though.

They get people to take pictures, so if you put the name of your game on their top, that's one way to get people to at least mention the name of your game.

Yeah, that's true, but I'll never truly understand the whole thing.

Am I in the minority who thinks that Booth Babes should exhibit intelligence more than mere beauty as their sole worth? I mean, who knows how smart Chun Li is, she's a detective, for example. Anyway, maybe I'm just rambling because the glasses on Bayonetta make her look more intelligent.

To everyone else reading this, I ask you: What isn't wrong with that post?

well, at least he's a good at spelling

I don't know, is Chun Li a detective?

You realize...those are fictional characters....and...the booth babes...are models...right?