Post-E3 News Dump

As with most E3's, a lot of the news isn't quite revealed until it's over and done with, and when it is, it's usually not the news you want to hear.  It's usually always the stuff they conveniently leave out on stage, as it's all about the excitement, not anything that could potentially be a downer.  So be warned, this all isn't good news.

Silent Hill:  Book of Memories, which you may or may not have even known it was announced, is the first Silent Hill title announced for the Playstation Vita, though the reasons for it and how it's implemented might leave one to worry about it.  You see, it's going to focus on Multiplayer and, in fact, is based off the multiplayer concept they were designing for Downpour, but didn't feel it quite worked.  The exact quote is "We decided if we don't have something that is uniquely Silent Hill and feels good in multiplayer, we don't want to just tack it on; We don't just want to throw something in to say, 'hey, there's a bullet point.'".

Uhhh...?  Then why make a game around it?  He said that Book of Memories was spawned from their continued exploration into it, which would hopefully suggest they figured out a way to make it work and feel like Silent Hill, rather than, y'know, just slapping something together.  Whoever's making it, though, it's not the team working on Downpour.  I'm giving this the most skeptical look I can muster until we learn some more about it.

Update!:  So, apparently, Wayforward is making Book of Memories.  Wayforward is also making Bloodrayne:  Betrayal.  Uhm...

Speaking of Silent Hill, the announced Silent Hill HD collection, consisting of Silent Hill 2 and 3 only, has been outed as a PS3 exclusive.....for now.  There's still not a whole hell of a lot of new news about it beyond that, with the only extra pieces being that there will, of course, be trophies (Oh god, will there be a trophy for Silent Hill 2's 'holy shit' moment? You know what I'm talking about.), but of particular mention is the fact that the collection will feature "all new voice acting" and come out this fall.  That's....a bit odd, as these collections are usually just up-scaling the resolutions and adding other bits, but hey, hopefully that'll turn out well.

While perhaps not E3 news per se, it's in the same window, and hey, it was shown off before at the -last- E3, so let's run with it.  The above image is the Flare Red 3DS that Japan is getting sometime.  It looks rather nice, but to hear that it's being released to 'invigorate the market in Japan' isn't...well, it isn't a good sign.  Are there really people who looked at the initial 3DS' and went, "Hmm.....nah.  I will wait for red, and not a moment sooner."?  Well, it can't be denied that numbers go up a bit when a new color is put out, but still, you're not supposed to say that in your press release.

Keeping on Nintendo news to finish us out,  there are a few new tidbits of information about the Wii U, answering only a couple questions that were raised by their keynote.  First of all, don't go selling your Wii just yet, because if you like playing GameCube games and don't own one, the Wii U isn't going to help you.  Nintendo confirmed recently that the only games the Wii U will play (in disk format at least) are Wii games and Wii U games.  While not surprising, it is a bit of a downer, if just because it's dashed my hopes of getting some up-scaling on the GameCube port of Skies of Arcadia, which I've always intended on tracking down.

And finally, which was possibly one of the bigger questions about the Wii U Controller since they first showed it off, Nintendo has let you know how many of these things you will need to buy:  One.  That is to say, you could buy more, but you won't be able to use them all; just one.  Again, not surprising, as it's rather impossible to think it could stream graphics to multiple of these devices, but Multiplayer is still a strange thing to think of.  Still, Ubisoft has been so kind to inform us of the implementation of it on one of their new games:  Killer Freaks from Outer Space.  As you can see, the person with the Wii U Controller seems to have a little more on their plate, and specifically the ability, nay, the responsibility to be actively against the second player (Possibly third and fourth?) who is left with the Classic Controller that I imagine you could swap out for the Mote-Chuck combo.  Maybe.

Though it does lead one to wonder just how many games are going to show off like that promo shot, using the classic controller.  Maybe it's an attempt to make everyone think you don't have to swing around the Wii mote, which is apparently something people are fairly adverse to doing.  Despite the crazy numbers the Wii has sold.  Still, it might be a little off-putting to transition into a more 'classic' controller system after a whole generation of waggle.  That might just be me with my tinfoil hat, anyway.