411 Games Top 5 05.21.09: Week 12 - Top E3 Moments

Posted by Todd Vote on 05.21.2009

This week we start the hype for E3. The games staff sits down and lists our top 5 favorite moments in the history of E3. What made the list? Well you'll have to come in to see.

Once I realized that E3 was literally just around the corner, I decided it would be a good idea to take a look back at some of the history of E3. With two weeks left till the big show, this week the staff of 411 games takes a look at some of our favorite moments from E3's past. Remember when Sony announced the price of the original Playstation? How about the announcement last year of FFXIII being multi-platform? Those are just a couple of the moments we will be taking a look at this week. Strap in and get ready for a trip down memory lane. E3 style. I think for this week we will go points free. You just can't put a point total on someones memory. Without further ado, 411 Games Top 5 presents: Our favorite E3 Moments in history.




First up is Adam Larck, Adam what kind of fuzzy memories do you have for us?

Adam Larck

Before getting to my list, I do want to say that this took me a lot of time to figure out, as I really couldn't remember a lot of top moments without having to look up past E3s. Without any more delay, though, here's my list.

HONORABLE MENTIONS


I'm not going anywhere...yet.

Metal Gear Solid 4 staying exclusive - We know that this rumor normally pops up every few months, but it was also at E3 last year that they debunked this myth and that the game will stay only on PS3. Hopefully, this rumor will leave us alone once and for all (although we know that won't happen).

5.Sega Saturn immediate release date - Who could have seen this coming? Certainly not the developers of Saturn games or retailers trying to sell the system. At the first E3, instead of sticking with their release date of the Saturn a few months down the line, Sega decided to announce that the system would be released "tomorrow." Very little titles were released with it at launch, and the Saturn never did take off like it should have. What did Sony do, though? They came out, announced that the PlayStation 1 price would be $100 less than a Saturn and walked away. 14 years later, and we can easily see who came out the winner in that battle.

4.Console jumping at E3 2008 - This had to hurt Sony. Not only did they lose one console exclusive title, but actually two at almost the same time. Namco announced that the newest Tekken would be available this fall for the Xbox 360. If that wasn't enough to hurt Sony, Square-Enix then comes out during the Microsoft press conference to announce that Final Fantasy XIII would be coming to 360 in America as well. At least they got to keep MGS 4 on PS3, right?

3.Bioshock announcement for 360 - Talk about a genre defining game. I saw the trailer for this game and immediately fell in love with it. Not much more can be said about this game that hasn't already been said. It went on to do great and sales and, as everyone knows, the newest game will be out this fall. Expect me to be playing it on Day 1.

2.Wii name change/showing off - While the Revolution had been announced the year before, it was at the 2006 E3 that the name was changed to the Wii, and that the new motion sensor controls were shown off. The system would be released later that year to major acclaim and still continues to be a hot buy each year around Christmas time (although the system still needs major help with big-name software titles).

1.Halo 2 announcement - Like the game or hate it, it really helped push Microsoft's Live service after it was released. The announcement was also big, with Peter Moore actually having a tattoo of the release date on him. The single player game was decent, if quite a bit short, but it was the matchmaking system that really helped kick this game off. It still remains one of Xbox's most played titles online, and I think it helped to kick off the online playing trend overall that's huge today.

Next up is our fearless leader Ramon Aranda who also leads the charge in the Boxing zone and puts together our Fact or Fiction each week.

Ramon Aranda

HONORABLE MENTIONS

GTA IV to the Xbox 360 - When Peter Moore raised his shirt sleeve and revealed a GTA tattoo, it was just a funny moment with big implications. The 360 was ready going to make some noise.

5.Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Trailer - While folks were in line waiting to get a glimpse of the just announced Nintendo DS, the giant screens above suddenly started playing a video. Lights slightly dimmed, and quite unexpected, the first trailer for Twilight Princess came on like a summer blockbuster movie. The ooh's and aaah's were loud throughout the area and when it was all over, fans were cheering and that's all anyone could talk about. It's like the Nintendo DS wasn't even there after that.

4.Gears of War Preview - With the Xbox 360 in the midst of its release, there were plenty of games that we wanted to see at E3 in 2005 but none was as highly anticipated as Gears of War. Unless you were media though, you weren't seeing this game as it wasn't on the showroom. Luckily for me, I was working at EA at the time so I got the green light to come in and check it out. Needless to say it looked wicked and finally seeing this baby in motion was just something else!

3.Three Consoles, One E3 - 2001; I was living in Pomona finishing my studies at Cal Poly when I made my first trip to E3. This was the year that the Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2 and the Xbox first made their way to the party as a trio and it was very interesting and exciting to see three 'next-gen' consoles all make their big splashes at the show. It was one of those shows where it was really tough to get around to check everything out and since I went solo on this one, it was almost overkill. Still trying all these games out was as fun as anything. I must've played Madden and FIFA for what seemed like hours at this show!



2.Nintendo Wii Unveiled - Ah, one of my fondest E3 trips. The hype surrounding the Nintendo Wii was through the roof - both bad and good. How would this thing look in person, both the system and games? How would it control? Arriving that first morning, I was flabbergasted at the HUGE line at the Nintendo booth of eager gamers sweating at the chance to try this thing out. Hell, when the doors opened, attendees literally rushed to the booth to get in line, even causing people to fall down; it was mayhem. Finally getting to play it was surreal. Super Mario Galaxy was incredible, while Madden felt new again. Red Steel had me on the fence but it was still pretty sweet to try it out and get a hang of the controller.

1.Super Mario 64 Reveal - The announcement of the N64 was something pretty cool in its own right but the revelation of Super Mario 64 was just downright amazing. This game defined the 3D era along with the analog stick and control mechanism. As we all know, this game rocked hard and proved that games were ready to take that next technological leap. Getting a shot to play this thing was unreal.

Alright, thanks Ramon. Coming up next we have one of the resident new guys here at 411 Games, be sure to check him out each week when he helps with your gaming strategies in Game Pow.

Sam Pow

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Civilization: Revolution announcement - Civ is a great franchise, and one of the greatest strategy games of all time. When it was announced at E3 07, I cried.

5.Halo Wars announcement - Everyone knows what Halo is. It's become a household word, and every time someone hears it, they think of a shooter, but Halo Wars broke that assumption. Announced at E3 08, Halo Wars was said to be a game that would effectively take the Halo universe and turn it into an RTS game set 20 years before the events in Halo: Combat Evolved. Tampering with a huge franchise may have seemed like a bad idea, but the game turned out great, and showed that many franchises need to experiment.

4.Wii MotionPlus - Finally, the Wii will be able to handle more intricate motions with the addition of the Wii MotionPlus accessory! MotionPlus is a small thingy attached to the end of the Wii remote that will allow for more accurate motion sensing, and allowing better games to be made. Or it could just create a bunch of shovelware. But let's hope it's the first one.

3.iD and EA partner - This may not seem like a big deal to most, but when iD announced they would be partnering with EA, I was very excited. iD is one of my favorite game studios, and hopefully EA will provide enough funding and such for iD to start producing even better games, and more of them. I guess we'll see what happens.

2.Wii name revealed - E3 06: The Revolution's name is switched to Wii (more on that in a later column) and its cool new features are shown off. This was a big deal, and really started to raise more attention for the, er…Wii. All of its new features also gave gamers months to think about what was possible with motion gaming, too.


One of the 64's best titles

1.Nintendo 64 - In 1996, Nintendo let somebody see their newest gaming contraption: the Nintendo 64. E3 proved a great place to show off its beautiful 3D graphics and cool games, including Super Mario 64, the first Mario game in 3D. The N64 was my favorite system of all time, and was nothing short of a technical marvel.

The Nintendo 64 was a great system that was underutilized due to being cartridge based. Thanks Sam. Next up we have a list full of moments from one of us that has been to E3 in person, Jacob Lopez is next to bring us his favorite E3 moments.

Jacob Lopez
Top 5 Surprises of E3

5) Nintendo dissapoints. Well, this one is fairly subjective. I didn't think there was anything wrong with Nintendo's showing in 2008, but it seems that 99.9% of the gaming crowd disagrees with me. Agree or disagree, one conclusion we can all come to is that Nintendo was not a company used to dissapointing. There was always something for the fans. A new Zelda, a new controller, a cool handheld .... the list goes on. Everyone could anticipate Nintendo's biggest announcements during the press conference, right? Wrong. Nintendo knew that both the DSi and Punch-Out!! were in the pipeline, and decided to keep it under wraps. Of course the rest of us didn't, and the common complaint heard around the showfloor was, "nothing for the hardcore," but Nintendo Shiggy had a little something up their his sleeve. Which brings us to number four...

4) New Pikmin announced. This was Nintendo's biggest announcement at E3 2008, and it happend in a very-limited-seating developer roundtable with about 40 people in attendance, including yours-truly. A journalist asked Miyamoto if the next Pikmin would be coming, and that was when Miyamoto said, "We will announce Pikmin when the time is right," he paused for a moment, smiled, and said, "We're making Pikmin." At that moment, I think GoNintendo broke the second RMC hit the "edit" button.

3) SquareEnix gives Microsoft Final Fantasy XIII. This was probably the bigest news of E3'08. A port, but a huge win for Microsoft. This one game stole the show. I am not sure how much Sony knows before these conferences, but I am sure it was a huge, steel-toed boot kick in the nards for the once-leading console maker.

2) 1995. The first E3. Sony had just jumped on the console thing with the original PlayStation, and they were going to be at it head-to-head with Sega's Saturn.

The Saturn's (which was launching Saturday of that week, Saturday) price was announced at $399 by Sega of America's president at the time, Tom Kalinske in a keynote.

Shortly after that, Steve Race spoke at Sony's keynote. He walked up to the podium, and said, "$299," then walked off stage, taking a huge dump on Sega. Wow.


Swords kick ass

1) Miyamoto takes the stage with a sword and shield to announce The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. This was of course before the huge boom in videogame-related blog sites. The public still went to E3, so geeks and gamers from all over the world came to the huge spectacle that was E3 to be razzled and dazzled. Reggie gave his, "But before you leave…" speech. The lights dimmed, and gamers got to live out one of the most epic moments in E3 history, the announcement of the latest Zelda. As if that weren't enough, just as the video of an image of a cooler-than-ever Link faded, we see Miyamoto standing tall (well more like around 5'5 or 5'7). He looked larger than life at that moment, swinging his sword with a shield in hand. The guy was like a freakin' rock star. Awesome. Just awesome.

Thanks Jacob, always appreciated. Next up we have a tag team list from them whacky fellas over at B3yond the Report. Mark Salmela, and the one and only Shaq! Fear not fair readers, Target Terror wasn't at E3 as far as I know so we may get around that this week.

Your local B3yond the Report team: Mark Salmela and Shaq



HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Target Terror is coming to the Wii! - Ok, I have no idea if that was actually announced at E3, or announced at all, but I'm required to bring up Target Terror. Eat it comments section. Don't be pissin' off your fans Salmela. When they go I go. Bullshit Shaqy, you're nothing without me. You couldn't even make the playoffs. Christ even I made the playoffs, and I don't even play in the NBA!
Son of a bitch, I was wrong.

5.) Final Fantasy 13 will be coming to Xbox 360 - In what was the only thing to legitimately shock us at B3yond in 2008, FF13 is no longer a PS3 exclusive. Just like Square stabbed Nintendo in the back, what goes around comes around as FF13 will now be launching day and date in the US for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. But hey, I wasn't the one crying now was I? You promised Salmela!

4.) Miyamoto has lost his mind - We have no idea what Miyamoto was talking about in 2004, probably Twighlight Princess or something, but Miyamoto walking out onto the stage in a Mario mushroom shirt with a link sword and shield was quite the sight to behold. We all know Miyamoto is a little crazy, but at least he doesn't have his teammates carry him around the arena in a Superman position. You have no idea what the Superman position is do you Salmela?

3.) Peter Moore has a shiny new tattoo - So much for that Superman tattoo Shaqy, Peter Moore tattooed GTA4 on his freaking arm! Watch it Salmela, don't think I won't tattoo my fist on your face. Ahem… Anyways this was the first big punch from Microsoft to Sony, and it was far from the last. GTA4 pretty much started the end to Sony 3rd party exclusives not named Metal Gear.

2.) Screw Saturn, the PlayStation will only cost $300! - Sony executive walks on stage, pimp slaps Sega, and says $300. That's $100 less than the Saturn. That's all he needed to say too. And with that announcement Sony won the first ever E3. If only they had the grapefruits to do that now days.

1.) The Sega Saturn is available… TOMORROW! - Holy shit this is the grand-daddy of all E3 announcements. Shaq and I had no idea listening to E3 1995 on the radio what Sega was smoking. Ok, so maybe the radio was pushing it… We heard it on television… In color too! But after the failed attempts at pushing the Sega CD and Sega 32X Sega decided that the Saturn was going to be the future, and the future was now. We've never heard an announcement that crazy before, and we've never heard an announcement that crazy since. We wonder why…?

Todd Vote

5.) Gears of War 2 Announcement: It wasn't such a big deal that Gears 2 was finally announced, but the way dorky ass Cliffy B made the announcement was certainly memorable. Using a Lancer to chew his way through the screen and then making the announcement that Gears 2 would be "Bigger, Better, and more badass" than the first. While cheesy as hell, it certainly make the announcement memorable.

4.) E3 Returns to old glory: It was announced, I think before last years E3 that the show would be returning to the form of years past with fans and press alike allowed into the event. It was a big step in the right direction for the show.

3.) Sony kills the Saturn: "$299" *walks away*

2.) Final Fantasy XIII comes to Microsoft: This was huge, everyone was absolutely sure that this would not happen. This was not so much a huge move for Microsoft as they had been stealing exclusives since the start of this gen. It was however indicative of MS's success in the states that Square is only porting the game to the 360 in the states. This announcement might have been #1, but there was another exclusive announcement this same year that I feel was a bigger deal.



1.) Tekken 6 comes to the 360: Why do I think this was the bigger deal of last years two big announcements? Simple, Final Fantasy XIII did not start on Sony's system, they have always been on different systems. Tekken however, has always been with Sony, or in the arcade. So in my opinion, this was the bigger announcement, even though it was slightly overshadowed by the FFXIII announcement, and I am a fighting game guy, so this gets the nod.

Alright, I want to thank everyone who participated in this look back at E3. I hope the readers enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed putting it together. What are your favorite E3 announcements? We'd love to hear about it as much as we enjoyed sharing our top moments. Let us know what you think in the comments section.

A little note to the readers: The Top 5 has been firmly placed in its new home. That's right, we packed up our shit and said goodbye to Mondays. Starting today, the Top 5 will be hitting the site every Thursday. So be sure to check back on the 28th when we bring you our most anticipated/wishful thinking list for this years E3. We'll see you then. For the rest of you, be sure to bookmark 411. It will fend off the gremlins.