NINJA GAIDEN 3
The Ninja Gaiden series. The three NES games are legendary among old-school gamers for being strong contenders for the most difficult series of games EVER released. I still haven't beaten the first one (though I've come close, got to 6-2). And of course you played as arguably the most badass ninja in video game history, Ryu Hayabusa. They were also groundbreaking for pioneering in-game cinematics or as we call them, cutscenes. The series came back with a vengeance on the Xbox also being incredibly difficult.
As for Ninja Gaiden 3 here it's received significant backlash for statements about lowering the difficulty and making it more accessible. I'm generally not one to complain about accessibility, but an article from IGN that talked about how much easier it was than past Ninja Gaiden games has me a little worried. These are some of the most difficult games ever conceived and I'd kind of like them to stay that way. Have lower difficulty levels but don't lower the difficulty of the difficulty levels as a whole.
The gameplay looks cool although the cinematic kills are a little distracting from what I see in the demo and like the others it looks good and bloody. The problem is the demo is a little too dark to see much. But I'm still looking forward to this and hoping the difficulty will be there to kick my ass again.
Now for Warner Bros. Studios starting with Bastion.
BASTION
Bastion is an action RPG and a downloadable title for the Xbox 360 and PC and all I can say is it looks great. This could be this year's Limbo. I almost put this on my 10 best of E3. I really liked what I saw. The fact that these guys essentially made it from a basement is already impressive enough but the game itself looks outstanding.
I love the art style which is inspired by anime and while I'm not a huge anime guy, if done right the art style can really look unique and stunning and it does here. The gameplay also has me intrigued and looks excellent and I'm wondering what the full role of the narrator will play. With real-time action RPGs being one of my favorite genres, I cannot wait for this game.
BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY
My most anticipated game yet to be released this year, with either Skyrim or Dark Souls following close behind, Arkham City only made #8 on my 10 Best of E3. The reason for this is because they didn't tell me an enormous amount that I didn't already know and therefore didn't increase my excitement level too much from what it was.
What they DID show us was how they're handling the Riddler this time around. I loved the Riddler challenges in Arkham Asylum but my main complaint about them was that once you found them, there was no real challenge anymore. This time though you have to prove your worth to get at them. And once you've found enough, that's where the real fun begins.
The Riddler sets up death traps that you need to spring people out of and what you get are puzzle rooms that would make Portal blush. They're big and it looks like they require quite a bit of thought to navigate successfully.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: WAR IN THE NORTH
The Lord of the Rings has some excellent games. The ones that came out alongside the movies were all strong hack-n-slash games and Battle for Middle Earth was an excellent RTS. So now Snowblind is attempting a co-op hack-n-slash RPG. What I saw (couldn't find a demo to put here) looked promising but I'm still not fully hooked by it.
The jump-in jump-out co-op is something that I've never seen done for an RPG, in fact I don't think I've seen co-op in an RPG since Secret of Mana. However, the gameplay that I've seen hasn't fully convinced me. I'm going to keep my eye on it as I really like the concept of taking the series to a place that hasn't been explored before but I'm still hesitant.
Tomorrow (or today), I start going over the bigger presenters at E3 this year with companies like Square Enix, Namco Bandai, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts. Keep an eye out for that starting soon.
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