Chicago's Jonathan Toews is the global cover athlete for NHL 11 but EA Sports shows some love for other nations, putting Henrik and Daniel Sedin on the cover for the game sold in Sweden, and Mark Streit for Switzerland's version.
The same day Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers would repeat as NBA champions just a block away from E3, 2K Sports made its case for why NBA 2K will continue its dominance of pro basketball on consoles.
At E3, we were given an eyes-only demonstration of NBA 2K11 that was long on visuals and short on gameplay specifics. The return of Michael Jordan to video games; the second season of its singleplayer career mode; new controls, questions that touched those areas weren't answered. 2K has been pressed by hype for NBA Elite's name change and new control set, but EA Sports, as the long running challenger, is somewhat obligated to get its message out now. 2K isn't about to dump everything it has just because it's a big week for new games, when such news could get lost in traffic.
Presentationally, NBA 2K11 is still a very beautiful game. The player models were redone and the broadcast angle adjusted, so that players are more identifiable on first sight. The arena interiors were redone for deeper authenticity. Players on the bench react dynamically to the game, and the coaches seemed to show their real-world tendencies - Phil Jackson walking, Doc Rivers sitting. The crowd was more animated - last year, games could drag through unnatural dead spots in the reaction - but we didn't see a full game or hear much of it in different situations.
2K Sports also brought in a producer from TNT's well regarded NBA broadcast team to advise on new broadcast quality transitions and pregame sequences. Pregame, you'll see players arriving on the team bus and walking to the clubhouse in their streetclothes. Animations pre-tipoff featured more transitions and closeups - and the closeups showed an even greater attention to photorealistic detail. Jersey textures really pop out and lighting is more dynamic.
How the game will handles is a different story, and one nearly unknown as of now. Player dribbling and shooting will be redone to deliver a 1:1 control that's also visually authentic. It's just 2K Sports said nothing about how that will work in the 20 minute eyes-on they gave.
"When you see it and you do it, it just feels natural," said producer Rob Jones. "There's more gesturing, and less of straight commands."
Jones was pretty direct that the game had not "scrapped" iso-motion, but did acknowledge that player control was going to behave in a different way. They just didn't say how. Jones did say the right analog will remain the game's Shot Stick, a control introduced way back in NBA 2K6. That does not necessarily exclude putting dribble controls on the right analog, as we see in NBA Elite. 2K will be very sensitive to insinuations it's mimicking that control set, especially considering the return of Mike Wang, who spent a year up in Canada working on NBA Live.
Aspirationally, they want to go for a total-body-control system that NBA Elite also is implementing. Jones explained it to me with an example: Moving across the lane on the run, parallel to the baseline, if you push up a shot, what would you expect to see in real life? A runner, with the shooter's arm out 90 degrees from his body. In NBA 2K10, he'd stop on a dime and pop the shot or, if he was close enough, move into an unnatural layup animation.
So the key to execution will not be solely with the control set - they need scads of new player animations to pull this off, and multiple points where the player may enter and exit them. The running shot example is just one. Jones said he watched the new dribbling model and asked a bystander in the studio how many different animations he thought he saw in a pretty basic move to the basket. The bystander thought he saw three, when there were actually nine involved.
"It's all redone, very smoothly, there's no cutting, no popping," Jones said, "No herky-jerky motions or popping up, especially in the defensive postures."
We haven't begun to see the totality of what NBA 2K11 will have to offer, that is for certain. 2K Sports still showed off a beautiful game without getting into the new controls, or even how Michael Jordan will appear in this game - someone for whom the Visual Concepts team has had a long-running plan should that longshot ever come through, and it did.
The team is confident they've got the best entry in a series that has won every year on the current console generation. Of course, every studio speaks confidently at E3. From what we saw, I can't yet say that they do. But I also can't say they don't.
The post E3 2010 episode of Speak-Up on Kotaku is here, with Linfosoma, Dracosummoner, Richardsim7, and Mayonaisetim sounding off on dead 60GB PlayStation 3 consoles, mushroom art, the F-Zero series, and the trouble with games in Argentina.
Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.
About Speak-Up on Kotaku: Our readers have a lot to say, and sometimes what they have to say has nothing to do with the stories we run. That's why we have that little box on the front page of Kotaku. You know, the one with "Got something to say?" written in it? That's the place to post anecdotes, photos, game tips and hints, and anything you want to share with Kotaku at large. Just make sure to include #speakup in your comment so we can find it. Every Wednesday or so we'll pull the best #speakup posts we can find and highlight them here.
Cry For Argentina
Linfosoma lives in Argentina, and has an issue with publishers keeping their country out of the loop when it comes to releasing games there.
Open letter to game publishers:
I live in Argentina, we have no anti-game laws in here (I think they banned rape games but that doesn't count), no restrictions.
Still, you somehow tend to decide to block games in my area.
May I ask you to stop?
I can understand games being blocked from Steam (the only digital distribution site apart from GoG.com smart enough to sell games to places other than NA) in regions where you want to sell retail copies, but we have no retail games in here (only console imports, and I'm a PC gamer).
Seriously, there's a world out there, people in third world countries like this do buy games and you have nothing to loose if you allow digital distribution. So why block them?
I would appreciate if Kotaku helps spread this message, the new Transformers game just got released and I'm pissed to find out that I cant buy it for no reason other than some random guy decided to ignore the fact that I exist, and even worst, they decided to ignore my money.
More F-Zero Please
What happened to the F-Zero franchise? That's what Dracosummoner wants to know.
Mommy, I want one of these on the 3DS!
Seriously, though — I'd love to see a new entry in the F-Zero racing series, though I'm not sure if I'd rather see it on the Wii or the 3DS. I honestly want to buy a 3DS more than I want a Wii, but that's just me.
Regardless of which system it's on (which would you all prefer?), I'd love to see it support online play for a bunch of players at once (even four players wouldn't be bad with twenty-six bots, but hey, the more people they can support at once ...).
Mushroom Art
Richardsim7 shows off a lovely eye for composition with his latest work.
Thought you guys might like my latest picture :)
Well I do at least. Can't speak for everyone else.
Requiem for a Dead 60GB PlayStation 3
Mayonaisetim has finally experienced what I went through a year ago. Say goodbye to backwards compatibility, and hello to a larger hard drive.
My 60GB launch PS3 just died (YLOD) on me today. It was 4 years and 5 months old. It's last game was a free roam session of Red Dead Redemption. It and the backward compatibility of PS2 games shall be sorely missed.
By the way, anyone else's lauch 60GB is still kicking? I saw all these posts online about the YLOD a while back and I thought mine was outliving a lot of people.....until today.
This is a first for Kotaku.
While we've been judges for oodles of other people's best of E3 awards, we've never actually done our own. And there's a reason for that: They're really hard work. Just ask Geoff Keighley.
But we figured that it was probably a good idea for us to start. Take a moment, if you'd like, to check out our list of nominees for best of E3 this year and let us know what you think. We'll be declaring the winners next week.
Also, we'd love to hear your take on our categories. It shouldn't come as a surprise to those of you who are regular readers that we didn't include a break down by genre.
Enjoy, debate, suggest.
Hamonix's Dance Central for the Xbox 360
Junction Point's Epic Mickey for the Wii
SCE's Sorcery for the PS3
Epic's Bulletstorm for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Ubisoft's Shaun White Skateboarding for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii
THQ's Homefront for the PS3, Xbox 360,PC
Uber Entertainment's Monday Night Combat for the Xbox 360
Id's Rage for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Hudson's Lost In Shadow for the Wii
Playdead's Limbo for the Xbox 360
Klei Entertainment's Shank for the PS3, Xbox 360
Good Feel's Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii
Id's Rage for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Splash Damage's Brink for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Fatshark's Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360
Valve's Portal 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Capcom's Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 for the PS3, Xbox 360
Ignition's El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron for the PS3, Xbox 360
Day 1's FEAR 3 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC : Fettel and Pointman dichotomy.
Lionhead's Fable III for the Xbox 360, PC: Weapon morphing.
Ubisoft Reflections' Driver San Francisco for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC: Disembodied car swapping.
Yager's Spec Ops The Line for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC: Use of sand.
Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for the PS3, Xbox 360: Trip and Monkey's relationship.
Splash Damage's Brink for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC: Button-free traversing.
Hudson's Lost in Shadow for the Wii: Use of shadows.
Epic's Bulletstorm for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC: Reverse bullet-time.
Fire Hose Game's Slam Bolt Scrappers for the PS3: Mix of building and brawling.
Tiburon's EA Sports MMA for the PS3, Xbox 360: Submission holds.
Harmonix's Dance Central for the Xbox 360
SCE's Sorcery for the PS3
Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved for the Xbox 360
Good Science's Kinect Adventures! for the Xbox 360
SCE's EyePet for the PS3, PSP
Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii
Q Entertainment's Child of Eden for the PS3, Xbox 360
Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved for the Xbox 360
Nintendo's 3DS Iwata & Miyamoto & Reggie 3DS Trailer
Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC
Vigil's Warhammer 40K MMO for the PC
Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Valve's Portal 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Relic's Warhammer 40k Space Marine for the PS3, Xbox 360
Firaxis's Civilization V for the PC
Harmonix's Rock Band 3 for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii
Sony's PlayStation Plus
Seven45's Power Gig for the PS3, Xbox 360
Sony's PlayStation 3 3D Gaming
Ubisoft's Battle Tag
Yager's Spec Ops: The Line for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC
Crytek's Crysis 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Id's Rage for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Junction Point's Epic Mickey for the Wii
Good Feel's Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii
2K's XCOM for the Xbox 360, PC
Valve's Portal 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Epic's Bulletstorm for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Ace Team's Rock of Ages for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Valve's Portal 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Id's Rage for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic for the PC
Vigil's Warhammer 40K MMO for the PC
Firaxis's Civilization V for the PC
CD Projekt's The Witcher 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Capcom's Okamiden for the DS
Capcom's Ghost Trick for the DS
Camelot's Golden Sun: Dark Dawn for the DS
5th Cell's Super Scribblenauts for the DS
Eat Sleep Play's Twisted Metal for the PS3
Epic's Bulletstorm for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Valve's Portal 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC
Crystal Dynamic's Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Id's Rage for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Sucker Punch's Infamous 2 for the PS3
Q-game's Pixeljunk Shooter 2 for the PS3
Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet 2 for the PS3
Novarama's Invizimals for the PSP
Ready at Dawn's God of War: Ghost of Sparta for the PSP
Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep for the PSP
Sega's Valkyria Chronicles 2 for the PSP
Pyramid's Patapon 3 for the PSP
Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii
Good Feel's Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii
Junction Point's Epic Mickey for the Wii
EA's NBA Jam for the Wii
Hudson's Lost In Shadow for the Wii
Bungie's Halo: Reach for the Xbox 360
Epic's Bulletstorm for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Valve's Portal 2 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC
Playdead's Limbo for the Xbox 360
Harmonix's Dance Central for the Xbox 360
Crystal Dynamic's Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Id's Rage for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Epic's Gears of War 3 for the Xbox 360
Lionhead's Fable III for the Xbox 360, PC
Ever wonder what you'd look like as a character from Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series? Probably much better than you do in real life, if my picture from the Scott Pilgrim Avatar Creator is any indication.
The video game reference riddled Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World movie is coming in August, and the official website is slowly filling up with goodies to keep eager fans satiated until the big day comes. Goodies like the Scott Pilgrim Avatar Creator, which lets you reimagine yourself as a character straight from the books.
Enter your name and age, accept your title, and then customize to your heart's content, until you come up with something vaguely resembling you.
And then share them in the comments section.
Scott Pilgrim Character Creator [Official Website - Thanks Emily!]
I threw a verbal elbow at some Nintendo people this past E3 and asked them to tell me which game I needed to play among the ones I might have easily missed. Two of them said right away: Steel Diver.
The submarine game on the 3DS? The one I messed with for 10 seconds before moving on to Star Fox 3DS or other seemingly cooler stuff?
Yeah, that one.
I first played a version of Steel Diver in 2004. It was a demo on the original, ugliest unreleased DS at E3 that year. I fiddled with it a couple of days before the show floor opened when I think I was the first U.S. reporter to touch Nintendo's new machine (the power of a New York Times credential!). The game was a demonstration of how the two-screened system's lower touch screen could be rendered to resemble a complicated control panel for a vessel that moved across the upper screen. I vaguely remember that demo's virtual levers and dials and have long wished Nintendo released it to the public.
Steel Diver is that old 2004 DS demo brought back to life and greatly improved. It's a side-scrolling sub game that now benefits from the fishtank-deep 3D display of the 3DS' upper screen. In the tutorial mission I tried, the sub has to motor undersea below an island and then up toward a ship that must be sunk with a torpedo.
The controls are all touch-based. Look at the screenshots here and you can figure most of it out: a slider for forward and reverse movement, a dial for tilting the sub, a bunch of buttons for firing torpedoes. The "masker" button puts the sub in stealth mode, but rapidly consumes "air" as a trade-off.
The Steel Diver demo at this year's E3 included a few missions and three models of submarine. I only tried the tutorial during my second session with it at the show, so I'm still not sure how the missions unfold and what kind of complexities are added. But the basics are quite good. I was a fan of a complicated screenful of dials on the touch screen back in 2004 and still like how they work six years later.
The odd thing about the action in the top screen is that submarines make for much slower side-scrolling avatars than do Marios and Sonics. The action plays out more as a lightly-simulated puzzle game, requiring forethought about acceleration and angle and leaving the player distressed as they watch poor planning result in a hull smashing into the undersea rock.
I'd like to see more. I appreciate this being an actual brand-new game from Nintendo — brand-new via 2004 — but with nary a franchise character or other old stand-by insight. Six years later, Steel Diver still feels novel. It may prove to be the world's slowest side-scroller, but with enough mission variety, it could be a sleeper success when the 3DS launches. Here's hoping I can play this game before 2016.
Spotted at last week's Bulletstorm party, Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson hangs out with former All That co-star and current Kotaku columnist Lisa Foiles.
Blizzard's 3.3.5 patch for World of Warcraft went live yesterday, enabling the new Battle.net Real ID feature, allowing for cross-faction, cross-server, and when StarCraft II comes out, cross-game chat.
Real ID is a layer of friends list on top of the one World of Warcraft players are used to. Instead of tagging another character name as a friend, players can now tag the Battle.net ID of their friends, keeping in touch with them no matter where they are playing on the Battle.net network.
Say your guild is getting ready for a raid, but your healer is off playing StarCraft II. Not only will you be able to see what he or she is doing (should they allow it), you'll be able to drop them a line telling them to get their sorry ass in gear.
It also means that once you add a Real ID friend, you don't have to worry about adding all of their alts to your list as well. Real ID friends can even send out broadcast messages across their entire friend network, which sounds amazingly annoying, though perfect for dramatic "quitting the game" notices.
For those who'd rather have everyone known them as Porksword, the mighty Orc warrior, the Real ID feature is completely optional.
This is one of the first steps in integrating World of Warcraft with Battle.net, bringing players of all Blizzard games together in one big community.
Check out the Real ID page on Battle.net for more information on the feature, and visit the World of Warcraft patch notes page for more on patch 3.3.5, which also introduces the Ruby Sanctum raid dungeon.
Man appears to be on the verge of coming a Pac-Man meal outside of Pac-Man's 30th birthday party in Los Angeles last week.
Are you up on your commenting etiquette? I sure hope you are, because we just brought in an army of ban hammers.
While I can't guarantee all of them are wearing leather aprons, white gloves and sport waist-long beards, I can guarantee that they're all a bunch of no-nonsense comment moderators, men and women just itching to smash heads.
Now's probably a good time to read up on DA Rules!