E3 2011: Namco Bandai

Namco Bandai showed off a good amount of games at E3, seven in total. I'm going to be going over the non-ports and the ones that got extra details at E3 this year. So let's dive in with Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.

ACE COMBAT: ASSAULT HORIZON

It has been a LONG time since I've played an Ace Combat game. The last time I played one was back in the PS1 era. I remember them being really fun but they just weren't games that I continued to play after that, I don't really know why. Because of this I can't really know too much about the changes that have been made over the series.

What I read from Wikipedia is that one of the main changes is that they're taking away the effectiveness of spamming missiles when you fight other ace pilots. You have to either take them by surprise or defeat them in close combat. That sounds cool but then again it's been a while. Here's the trailer anyway.

DARK SOULS

One of my most anticipated games of the year, this is the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls one of the best games of 2009. Known for it's exceptional difficulty but also for being completely fair, if you died it was because you frakked up. It was not cheap and there were barely any bugs that you could blame. It was hard as hell but not by accident.

From Software, the developers of Demon's Souls, have promised that Dark Souls will be even more difficult but still have the fairness of the original. I was fully convinced of this by some of the demos that I saw at E3 this year. I can tell I'm going to need a lot of extra controllers while playing this game.

INVERSION

This is a third-person shooter from Saber Interactive that will feature destructible environments and involve a lot of manipulation of gravity. It's set to come out on February 7, 2012. It kind of reminds me of Fracture. Hopefully it will turn out better than that game which was mediocre at best. It doesn't look too bad but it's probably not something that I'm going to be picking up right away.

RIDGE RACER UNBOUNDED

Only a trailer shown for this game but I'm still not sure of the details besides that it's set for a 2012 release.

SOUL CALIBUR V

I've never been a huge fan of the Soul Calibur games. They're fun but I feel that there are much more rewarding and fun fighters out there. I don't have the love for it that I do Street Fighter, Tekken, Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, or Mortal Kombat. Still they're good games even if I never got into them that much. Soul Calibur V, as many know, had some gameplay shown at E3 and I've got the gameplay trailer here for you.