WoW.

I suppose deep down we knew that Empire at War would have expansions, but I guess we never really thought about it too hard. Well the first expansion has been announced and “Forces of Corruption” sounds like it will add a whole ton of fun to an already outstanding game.

Here’s the skinny at gamespot, and be sure not to miss the video. It shows a couple of the new Super Star Destroyer class ships in action. One of which looks to be the weapon of the new faction.

Heres a snippet from the Gamespot Article:

There’s so much to tell you about the expansion that it’s difficult to know where to start, so we’ll kick off by throwing a few numbers at you and go from there: New factions? 1. All-new units in new faction? 40. New planets? 13. Number of Executor-class starships we saw in action? 1. Number of players who can skirmish simultaneously with expansion pack content? 3. Seeing Yoda kill dozens of stormtroopers with his berserker lightsaber attack? Priceless.

…

Staying on the planet surface for the moment, we got to see the underground forces unleashing one of the new orbital bombardments that will be available to all factions, as long as they have a capital ship orbiting the planet in question. When activating the bombardment, you’ll get to place a gigantic crosshair on your target, and you’ll then see all of your forces retreating from the surface before it hits. The bombardment that we saw comprised two projectiles–an EMP to knock out the Imperial base’s shield and defenses, and then a plasma blast that essentially killed everything on the planet. How often you’ll get to use this incredibly powerful weapon remains to be seen, but we doubt that it’ll be very often.

Wow, I never thought I would see this. Apparently Robin Williams was at a E3 Wired party in which he was ask to give a short demo, Robin Williams style of course . Very funny, read and see the video from the original article here.

Lord of the Rings Online is the next MMO currently in development at Turbine Inc. LOTRO is showing more and more promise as it matures, and today you can sign up for a beta account on Turbine’s site.
Gamespot has posted some initial impressions of the game, and the results are good.
I may be a bit biased towards this game, but I am excited to see how it turns out.

Now that the press conferences are over, and E3 is officially underway we here at Monkeygames can focus on whats really important…the games!
This whole 360 “bringing it home” thing has turned out to be a blast, lots of cool free virtual swag, cool trailers, and of course demos from the show floor.
Last night I fired up the demo for Capcom’s “Lost Planet”and so far its the best of this weeks bunch.
Lost Planet will be a 3rd person shooter that takes place on a frozen world. Not much is known about the storyline, but I can tell from the demo its got something to do with Snow Pirates, and big Bugs!
The demo is broken up into two parts. The first has you start outdoors on foot, on your way to destroy a bug hive. The second has you assault a Pirate base all by yourself.
The art and style of this game are beautiful, and the graphics at points are jaw dropping (even more so considering this is a “beta” version). The 360 does a good job of keeping the frame rate consistent even with all the enemies, and action on screen. Bugs range in size from small to down right huge. On the human side of things, the Pirate ground units look great and in some respects look like snow-troopers. There are also Pirate units walking around in massive VC’s or Mechs (trust me more on that in a minuet).
This is one of the first games that feels next gen in its presentation, the lighting and explosions are beautiful, the level of detail in the world and on the enimes is spot on (even more so when you zoom in).

The controls are very responsive, weather you on foot or stomping around in your customized Mech.
Ok by far the best thing about Lost planet are the Mech sequences. Each Mech you jump into can be customized by adding or removing weapon arms either already attached or laying on the ground.
I think the main reason these sequences are so enjoyable is because this is where the action gest stepped up. Lots of Enimes, explosions and fast paced combat.
Now here is something cool, lets say you see a cannon for your Mech on one side of the room, and you can only get to it on foot. You can jump out of the Mech run to the Gun attachment and make your way back slowly. While your lugging this weapon back there may be a Bug or Pirate in your way, so the easy and FUN solution… lean into the massive cannon and blast away. its just fun destroying things with a weapon that should be on a Tank. Once your done attach the arm, and be on your way.
Considering that this is a very early version of the game there are some issues with clipping, and well to put it nicely the Enemies AI is missing the “I”, but for the most part this game is a lot of fun.

Lost planet is scheduled to ship next Winter 2007. It seems a bit evil to make us wait this long, but according to the developers they need this time to build the multi player portion of the game.
If you have a 360 this is a must download (300mb), if not check out the Trailer

There are photos floating around today about a yet un-announced controller for the Nintendo Wii. The more info coming out about the Wii the more I like it, check out the photo of the next gen “Zapper”.

Rockstar officially announced GTA4 today.
The game will come out on October 16th 2007 in the US, and be out first on the 360.
Once GTA4 proper is released, Rockstar is planning on create episodic content that will be available on the Xbox Marketplace.

Gamebrink has some screen shots posted today for the new PSP Metal Gear Solid game. So far its looking good.

Microsofts press conference was the last of the big three. During the event MSFT outlined what they have coming down the pike for the 360, Vista, and….phones.
The presentation started off with an amazing real time, in game demo of Gears of War. The more you see this game in action its just exciting. The strange thing about this conference was the lack of real gameplay.
Microsoft showed a bunch of FMV Trailers for: Gears of War, Too Human, Lost Planet, Fable 2, and 99 Night, among others. While its nice to see what MSFT has cool games waiting in the wings something other than Gears of War and Viva Pinata would have been nice.
Speaking of Viva Pinata, an in game demo was shown and I have to say it looks very interesting. Players will create a garden who attract “life” and the gardens. The population builds up from there. I am hoping there will be more details during E3, but for now it looks like next gen Animal Crossing.
On the 360 Arcade side of things MSFT announced deals with Capcom, Namco, Midway and SEGA (could this mean Dreamcast games on the 360 Arcade?).
MSFT announced that the HD-DVD player for the 360 will be available this holiday season, but no price point was mentioned.
One of the more “scary” parts of this conference centered around the ideas behind “Live Anywhere”. Windows Vista will have full integration with Xbox Live. What this means is that while your playing a game on the 360 and a friend is “working” on a PC you can send an invite to them to play a game, chat over VOIP, etc.
Now where it gets scary is that there is limited functionality for this in present and upcoming windows Mobil devices. I am sure it will be cool, but there is a part of me bothered by the idea that MSFT can “see” me at home, on the road or at work.
Towards the end two small announcements were made. The first: Grand Theft Auto 4 will ship to the 360 Oct 16, 2007. Whats even cooler is that Rockstar will make future GTA episodes available via the Xbox Live marketplace.
Oh yeah then they showed a teaser for Halo 3, and there was no sign of the Arbitor, so there’s hope!

This morning (PST) Nintendo laid out their plans for the Wii, and DS. The best thing about this press conference, was the feeling I had as a smile came across my face.
Finally there appears to be some innovation in this next generation of consoles!
Here are the high points:
Nintendo did not go into a lot of detail about the Wii console, only telling the audience that the Wii will be available in Q4 of 2006. Much of the Wii focus was on the controller. I have to say this looks cooler and cooler every time I see it used. Nintendo showed examples ranging form two Wii controllers being used as drumsticks to mock-sword fighting.
The most impressive demonstration was when Ubi-Soft showed off Red Steel, as in past screen shots we have seen that Red Steel is a FPS, but what made it cool (aside from aiming with you right hand) was the sword battle at the demos end. Blocking was controlled with the left hand, and striking with the right.
In relation to games the Wii could have a library of up to 27 titles available at launch, however nothing can be confirmed. One title that will be available at launch is The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess!
Other New games shown were Super Mario Galaxies, Metroid 3, Excite Truck, Pilot Wings, and Wario Ware. All the games look like they will be a blast top play with the new controller. Also reviled today is a small speaker located in the Wii controller. This was demonstrated in the Zelda demo. Imagine drawing your bow back and hearing it become taught. Then letting the arrow fly as the sound of it traveling from your hands to the TV.
The Wii will also have a 24hour network connection, Nintendo intends to use this for content downloads while you sleep, or patches, demos the potential is interesting.
The key thing here is Nintendo has me genuinely interested in the console from games, and control to functionality. Nintnedo has my attention.
The only downside is the graphics are not uber impressive. By no means do they look horrid, but if they are focusing on gameplay it may not matter in the end.
The DS got some love during the conference today as well, mainly in the way of new games. I’ll start with the one that will make Russ happy. The DS gets its own 3D Zelda Game, and its a sequel to the Wind Waker! Other titles mentioned were Star fox DS, and Final Fantasy III (rebuilt in 3d).
Nintendo sometimes is that “little guy” you always root for. What is interesting is this time around it appears they caught the Sony giant sleeping.

Update:
Fico found an interesting quote from the VP of marketing at Sega.
“Bet on the Wii will selling for less than $200, says Scott Steinberg, vice president of marketing for Sega (other-otc: SEGNF.PK - news - people ), one of the major game publishers for Nintendo consoles.”

The teaser trailer is now available on the XBOX live marketplace and Bungie.net. I am currently 46% into the download and it has taken ten minutes up to this point, so be patient.