The Top Ten things about E3 2006

It's been hours and hours. And hours and hours. Since E3 started, hundreds of Video Gaming journalists, including yours truly, have been spending sleepless nights entering database information, writing previews, and grabbing pictures to out-bid each other at the biggest gaming conference of the year. But, now that it's over, a lot of people are looking around somewhat confusedly- what now? What was it all for? And what really mattered in the long run? So, it's time for the Gametrash crew to do a good old fashioned breakdown, and basically show you all you need to know from E3- and none of that extra information, like around the hundred of Disney-sponsored games we had to enter into the now tainted database.

10: The PSP will play PS1 games

One of the things that not many people heard from the show floor was, in my opinion, one of the coolest- the fact that Sony intends to distribute Playstation One games that you can buy and play on your PSP. Instead of using the expensive UMD format, they will be downloadable via a “Content Server” and available to put on any applicable memory stick that can hold them.

The reason this exists is simple, and it goes back to the history of the PSP. Originally, the PSP (with the original firmware) was rather simplistic, and many hackers got into it and began writing homebrew programs for the new system. Of course, knowing homebrew programmers, that meant one thing: emulation. With some truly phenomenal NES/SNES/Game Boy emulators on the market (and the promise of a Nintendo 64 emulator, see our forums), the homebrew community itself generated the reason to get the system.

But unfortunately, Sony has locked half the firmware up so the community can no longer hack it, and we are all left someone empty handed- but it has become obvious Sony is using the concepts from the homebrew community and simply transferring it to the straight firmware- from the PSP Web Browser to, now, the emulators themselves.

9: Call of Duty 3

One of the first videos we got our hands on, the Call of Duty 3 video initially scared me because it showcased the mediocre graphics of the old games. Turning to the new game, the new Call of Duty that will be launched on all next-next-gen systems showed an absolutely beautiful rendition of World War 2, keeping to the cl*ssic WW2 shooter style that made the first and second games as popular as they are.

While the game showing itself was obviously rendered on a computer and not on a system (Due to the fact that it will be released unilaterally), we cannot really say the game will be “Phenomenal” or “Beautiful”, but we can say that if the game retains the original style, it will be a really good title for the next-next gens.

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