List:- Top 5 E3 Fails
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is the biggest event of the year, to many gamers it’s even bigger than Christmas. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all given a turn on the conference merrygoround so they can demonstrate what new games they have in development, their big plans for the future and generally try to impress as many gamers as possible so they can make lots of money. If you want to know what is coming up in the future for your favourite gaming platforms E3 is the place to be.
However, sometimes things go terribly wrong, even more so in the last few years, but we can forgive the developers since some of the ideas were just so funny… because they failed so badly.
E3 2012 kicks off today and to celebrate we’re sharing our top picks for some of our favourite terrible moments from E3 over the years.
SEGA Saturn Launch
During the very first E3 Sega had a pretty stable hold on a decent chunk of the market with their Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. Nobody expected them to announce and release the Sega Saturn, not even the developers who all thought they had another 4 months to finish making games. So they launched a new console with only 6 games, four months until anything else came out and it cost a bomb as well. Even if you were rich enough to have one you couldn’t find it on store shelves anywhere since the retailers had no idea it was coming either. They just didn’t think it through that’s all, they got caught up in all the excitement for the first E3 and really wanted to deliver something special.
The four month premature release of the Sega Deathwish prompted Sony to unveil and release the Playstation soon after, for less money and with better games and almost killing off Sega completely. Having said that, Sega did manage to redeem themselves with the Dreamcast though.
Wii Music Demonstration
Music games have been around for a while and can be incredible fun, especially at parties with your buddies. After the mind boggling success of the Wii, it was inevitable Nintendo would throw their hat into the ring again. They did a great job with Mario Paint after all, people still make music with Mario Paint 20 years after its release in 1992. So they know what they’re doing right? Well… No, not anymore, not after Wii Music.
It shouldn’t even be called a game, it was just a noise maker for babies. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking or who they were trying to market this game to… and they probably had no idea either. All of that is clear from the poor E3 demonstration in 2008. None of the thousands of people there or the millions watching online wanted to see a badly dressed, sweaty man, with a terrible haircut, play the worst drum solo in the history of music. He looked like an octopus having a seizure! On top of the terrible demonstration, Wii Music had a song list even the deaf would disapprove of. In summary it wasn’t fun and it made you look stupid. Looking stupid is fine if you’re having fun but it wasn’t.
Kinect Star Wars Demonstration
There was a time when the only thing bad about the Star Wars universe was Jar Jar Binks, then Kinect Star Wars came along and it was an atrocity. Now I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan, it’s OK, but you cannot argue the fact that it is one of the most popular franchises ever with lots of great video games about it too. But Kinect Star Wars – oh my god – it’s so bad! And they did a terrible job trying to sell it at E3, the demonstration they gave was dull, out of sync and utterly cringe worthy with unexciting gameplay. It was just laughable.
It’s like the game was developed by a bunch of people who hated Star Wars, in fact that’s probably true and after the game was finished I bet they hated themselves as well. I actually can’t belive that somebody – George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, even Warrick Davis - failed to step in and say “actually you know what guys, we need to stop this, we need to cancel this game. Sure, the kinect is a great piece of tech and I’m sure Microsoft would love us to finish the game so they can sell more Kinects, but this is just wrong guys. We need to all go home and rethink our career paths”
James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game Being Unveiled
James Cameron is one of the world’s most popular directors and his most expensive movie Avatar was kind of a big deal back in 2009. As with all big movies it also had a video game to go with it and who better to demonstrate the game’s potential than James Cameron himself. At least, that’s what Ubisoft thought. But unfortunately James Cameron didn’t really give enough of a f*ck about the game to really sell it and instead talked at great length about the film. Yes, that’s right, he talked about his mediocre CGI bloated 3D film for what seemed like an eternity.
I probably could have jumped aboard a spaceship and flown to planet Pandora and back before he was done. He couldn’t even talk about the game if he wanted to, and he hadn’t even played the game himself until he arrived at E3. All Ubisoft managed to prove was that James Cameron is the worlds biggest buzzkill.
Duke Nukem Forever’s Multiple Unveilings
Duke Nukem 3D was one of the funnest games you could play in 1996, the multiplayer was especially satisfying and people wanted more. But it would be years before we even got a teaser of the Duke’s next ass kicking adventure. In that time Duke Nukem Forever became one of E3′s biggest running jokes – the game was announced, then deferred, then announced again only to have the release dates changed time and time again. And then the development studio, 3D Realms, laid off everyone involved in the game bringing a lawsuit from Take Two Interactive down on themselves in the process because they failed to finish the game.
This was easily one of the most problematic developments ever and it wasn’t until 2010, Duke Nukem was again announced to be in development by Gearbox Software… and finally after 15 years, it was finished. Duke Nukem Forever was released in June 2011 to a tidal wave of terrible reviews and disappointed fans. The game was riddled with bugs, annoying game mechanics and generally just bad in ever possible way. The only thing good about the game was the half naked ladies, and even they were pretty ugly.
And there we have it, our top picks for the worst E3 moments of all time. Of course E3 2012 has yet to happen yet, so this list could very well see some new cringe worthy moments added later this week. Think we’ve missed out a classic E3 misstep? Why not share your awful E3 memories in the comments section below.
-Adam Radcliffe
