Sometimes, you can just tell when a game is going to be good. The best example in recent memory was seeing Crysis at E3 last year. It was one of those games that people raved about. The buzz about Crytek’s new shooter permeated the Los Angeles Convention Center like cannabis smoke at a Phish concert. There was little doubt when the mammoth video game show wrapped up that Crysis was one of the hottest – if not the hottest – titles previewed at the event.
But here’s the thing about E3 and game previews: what you see at the show isn’t always what you get. I caught a lot of games last year, and a lot of the playable demos bored me to death. I laughed off Saint’s Row as an uninspired Grand Theft Auto knockoff. But a few months later, I played the game on the Xbox 360 and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. On the other hand, I played Heavenly Sword on the PlayStation 3 and thought it was quite good – only to discover later that the so-called launch title was postponed and then apparently completely overhauled (see the screenshots below for a comparison between E3 2006 screenshots and more recently pictures of Heavenly Sword). Sometimes, the demo you play at E3 will be almost exactly the same as the game you end up buying, like Resistance: Fall of Man for the PS3. But more often than not, a title will undergo radical changes, for better or for worse, from its demo stage.
When venturing into trade shows like E3, Game Developer Conference, CES and other mammoth events, it’s important to keep in mind that a lot can happen with a game from the time that its demo version is first unveiled to the public to the game’s actual release date, which is typically anywhere from 12 to 18 months. For instance, Halo didn’t exactly turn heads the when the game made its E3 debut years ago. In fact, some of the best games around have had less-than-stellar showings at E3 the first time around.
But that’s the great thing about demos and previews – if the game needs work, then developers will find out pretty quickly what needs to be done. E3 can be a very harsh environment for games in development, but at least you can get a pretty good idea of a title’s potential from a few snippets of a playable demo. Just don’t bank on the actual release version looking exactly like what you played at E3.
Heavenly Sword screenshots from E3 2006.
And some Heavenly Sword screenshots released this year.
