Friday, June 18 Recap
by Stephanie “Panther” Lessentine
E3 2010 had a lot of ups and downs this year, but let’s start with some of the ups. The major highlight had to be the preview of Thrustmaster’s HOTAS Warthog and the DCS: A-10C Warthog preview with Matt Wagner. These two products stirred a lot of debate prior to E3 and many in the flight sim world were asking if they would be there. Those of us in the know were sworn to secrecy. And if we told anyone, even our husbands or wives, we would regret it.
The demo stations for Gran Turismo 5 were major hits as well. GT5 was the only racing product demo with a wheel and pedal setup featured in a racing cockpit. This was such a hit with the SimHQ gang that we asked the attendants if they minded us staying in the seat longer than the two minute demo time. The line for the demo was long, but everyone waiting wanted the 3D experience. Fine by us, because we were able to rack up a good bit of time in the 2D version that nobody was interested in playing because they were enamored with the 3D version. I don’t have a PS3 but I may need to invest in one for this title. It has NASCAR and I’m sold.
Just like the exciting points of E3, there were of course let downs.
Among those were the “no shows” of Lead Pursuit’s “next one”, Jet Thunder, Fighter Ops, and of course Oleg’s SoW (see guod’s info on SoW from Monday’s E3 Team Report). Jason did have some news and showed Rise of Flight: Iron Cross Edition. I’m an avid flight simulation nerd and this year’s E3 was a letdown for the modern era fighter flight simulations.
One let down that we mentioned in our Monday report was the lack of Codemasters and their F1 2010. However we located a demo station on Tuesday and found the private meeting room of Codemasters and F1 2010. The game does look promising, but unfortunately they demonstrated the product on a gamepad which didn’t allow for an accurate feeling of the physics in game.
That brings me to my next sour spot: product demos utilizing gamepads for racing simulations.
Other not so good news is Ghost Recon has turned away from its roots and become another shooter. We’ll see what it looks like at review time, but gone are the tactical days of the original.
But nonetheless, its always good for us to see developers and other media friends at E3 and get the opportunity to exchange ideas. There are some good ideas running around out there. We hope to be able to discuss them more in the not-to-distant future.
And now, what better way to wrap-up the week than with lots of pictures!
Click on the images below to open each of the screenshows.
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