1. E3
Last on my 2012 list is something that I tune into every year and after watching, can't really explain why. I of course am speaking about the Electronic Entertainment Expo or what it's commonly abbreviated to; E3. Now most years E3 is like large if not bland cheese baguette, nothing awful mind. It fills your appetite, but lacks any explosive flavour to liven the senses. This year's E3 was like if you replaced that baguette with a picture of a wooden stool and a slap in the face. I just felt hurt and confused. I know for a fact that I am (sometimes) needlessly critical of the Video Games Industry, but as a gamer I felt not only physically offended, but painfully embarrassed that I more or less, paid for these huge companies to effectively spit in my face. It was a bloody shambles. If it wasn't everybody the word 'innovation' like a man suffering from extreme diarrhoea would use all the toilet paper, it was unnecessary celebrity appearances by individuals who were incredibly poor at hiding the fact that they didn't want to spend their time in a hall full of clammy nerds. Every conference (maybe excluding Ubisoft because they're always mad as a hatter) was painful to get though. Nintendo did what they always do and shout about new Mario titles like it's 1996, but this year they 'wowed' the audience with more news of the Wii U that is only three to four years behind SONY and Microsoft. SONY was just bloody dry and (not to sound like a smelly hippie) pretty corporate, maybe that's Jack Trettons nature. As for Microsoft and Mr. Don Mattrick; I honestly felt bad for him. Lets just get that straight, I feel bad for the President of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, someone who makes so much money he could build a giant catapult to fire any employee that looks at him funny, so why couldnt he hire someone to write down a joke or two confuses me. At the Microsoft conference after Usher dazzled us with his performance? Mr. Mattrick decided to end the conference with one of the rib-ticklers from his private collection. At Xbox were Usher-ing in a new golden age of entertainment To be frank it wasnt actually the pun itself, even though it was God awful. What did it for me was the five seconds of deafening thick silence while Don politely waited for laughter that just never came. I can not imagine what was going through his head when he looked out at the hundreds of eyes sitting in front of him, not to mentioning the thousands watching online at home. Don, if you ever read this, youre a brave, but an unbelievably unfunny man. To sum up, I didnt like the large majority of games showcased at E3, but that isnt the reason that it was so poor. What made E3 2012 horrible was the fact that every company wanted for widen their audience to such an extent that they alienated the very gamers who paid to come in the first place. Bring on 2013.