Video Gaming Update

Developments from the Electronic Entertainment Exposition

Washington Post staff writer Mike Musgrove was online Monday, May 17, at 2 p.m. ET to talk about video gaming innovations introduced at E3, the industry's annual trade show.

He writes that what you think of this show as a gamer really seems to depend on whether you're a glass-half-empty or a glass-half-full type.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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washingtonpost.com: Hello Mike. Thanks for joining us today. Before we get started with questions from our readers, tell us a little bit about the mood at this year's E3. There were relatively few big announcements at the expo, and did that fact take some of the energy out of the exhibition floor?"

Mike Musgrove : Hello and greetings all. Thanks for having me.

Yes, the lack of big announcements did take some energy out of the show floor. When a new console from Sony or whichever company makes its first appearance, the excitement is much higher. When they open the doors to the show in such years, it's like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, with gamers sprinting in to see the latest stuff. This year was much mellower, by comparison.

The first appearance of a breakout game that gets everybody talking, such as The Sims a couple of years ago, can nudge the excitement up considerably as well. But I don't know of any such game from this year's show.

By the way, our freelance correspondent Daniel Greenberg will be acting as my lifeline this afternoon. As someone who has worked in the industry, Dan might be good at tackling questions about specific titles I missed or techy issus that are over my head. If I farm out a question to him as we go, I will note that accordingly.

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Falls Church, VA: Did you get a glimpse of Halo 2? Should I be pre-ordering for my Xbox?

Mike Musgrove : I got to play Halo 2 for a little bit. Looks pretty slick, though it didn't seem radically different from the original.

Master chief will be able to "dual-wield" two smaller weapons. The developer didn't give any indication of what the story line will be like, but the level they were showing was set on Earth in Zanzibar. Why the aliens would attack us starting in Zanzibar, I dunno, but perhaps the game's story will explain...

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Squirrel Hill, PA: Hi Mike,

Did you get to meet Tony Hawk when you were at E3? I thought that was the best part of the show.

Mike Musgrove : Yah, I see Tony Hawk out there every year but I don't know what to say to him or ask him, honestly. One year I apologized for making his head bleed so many times in the video games, but I didn't get much response.

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Reston, Va.: Mike: did you get a chance to play with the PSP or the DS?

Mike Musgrove : I did get a chance to play the Nintendo DS (the new GameBoy that will have two screens). My first impression of the dual screen, at the press event that Nintendo threw, was that this was sort of gimmicky. But I tried out some of the games at the show and liked them. There is definitely some promise there, I think.

Nintendo had a slight problem in that not enough game developers took advantage of the connectivity features linking GBA to the GameCube, but I think developers will have to take advantage of the DS's cool features because their games will look bad if they don't use the extra screen, etc.

I did not play any games on the PSP and I'm not sure Sony had a working model on the show floor.

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Washington, DC: Greetings, Mr. Musgrove-

I have a couple questions about Half-Life 2. First, did Valve team members express any concern about the leaking of the game's source code several months ago? If so, was that leak the major cause of the delay in the game's release?

Second, are Valve confident in a summer release this time around?

Thanks!;

Mike Musgrove : This question refers to a theft of the programming for a highly-anticpated upcoming game that was originally supposed to come out last year.

Here is the verbatim answer to that question from Valve's marketing guy Doug Lombardy (I e-mailed him the same question right before the show). I did not look at the demo of Half-Life 2 this year because I saw it last year. The next place I want to see Gordon Freeman is on my desktop!

"Originally, we had pushed out our 9/30 date to the Holidays. Shortly after moving the date, the source code theft happened. The source code theft was a distraction and did cause some disruption, however, decisions about when we are finished with Half-Life 2 are fundamentally driven by our goal of putting a quality game out for our fans."

Lombardy says his company is "currently targeting summer" for the release of Half-Life 2. Obviously, he has deliberately left a little wiggle room there, so read that how you will.

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Philly, PA: I am not sure to what extent you spend time playing MMORPGs, but if you have some experience in the genre, I would be interested in a comparison of World of Warcraft, EQI, and EQ II. I am not so interested in the graphics as I am in gameplay. From what I can gather, WoW seems rather easy and EQ II seems as though it doesn't know exactly what it wants to do to distinguish itself from its predecessor or its competitors. Did you get hands-on experience with the two newcomers at E3 (or have you been in on the WoW beta?) I appreciate your comments.

Mike Musgrove : For what it's worth, I share your question. It used to be easier to tell the difference between a game with a lot of mojo and one without it at E3. Now, everything looks pretty good and you can't tell until you sit down and play the thing sometimes. I don't have any firsthand MMPORG experience (this refers to "massively multiplayer" games in which players pay a monthly subscription to build characters and interact with other players online). WoW looked pretty good, same as EQ2, but I don't see how either really changes what you can expect out of this type of game.

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Lexington, KY: I know nothing official was said about either system in this year's E3, but was there anything on the grapevine about when we can expect PlayStation 3 and/or XBox 2? Is there a chance either will appear as early as next year?

Mike Musgrove : I seriously doubt we will see the PlayStation 3 next year, as Sony has been spending a lot of time talking about how the original PlayStation has been on the market for 10 years and still sells software. It is more profitable for them to stretch out the life cycle, as developing a new console is very, very expensive.

Sony's statements seem to be a pretty strong signal to game developers that they shouldn't change their focus to what's next. Developers I talked to, such as iD (the Doom and Quake guys) and publishers EA indicated they already have some general expectations of the tech specs on the next generation and have projects in the works.

I would not expect the XBox or a successor to the GameCube next year either.

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Washington DC: Any news or hype about the new GTA game beyond the limited screen shots that were released?

Mike Musgrove : The next Grand Theft Auto is set in three cities, each as large as Vice City, from their last GTA game. They are trying to create a "state" this time around. San Francisco, LA, and Las Vegas are the inspirations for the new fictional cities. It is set in the early 90s.

Could be good, but how large does a game have to be before it's TOO big? I think Vice City could've been a little more dense with activity/stuff to do in some places. Guess we'll see.

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Denver, CO: Hey Mike,

The game boards are full of frustration at the lack of innovation in the game world these last 2 years or so. Just to work with something new, was there anything at E3 that caught your eye as particularly innovative?

Mike Musgrove : No, not really. Nothing entirely new under the sun this time around.

I met with Shigeru Morimoto this morning, one of Nintendo's big brains/artistic visionary guys (he was in Washington for a brief visit). Even HE said he is worried stagnation in the game industry and hopes that the touch screen on the Nintendo DS will encourage a new kind of gameplay.

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Washington, D.C.: Is the Sony handheld worth it?

Mike Musgrove : Worth what, though? They haven't announced a price. They wouldn't even come close to naming a price when I quizzed their execs.

Hard/impossible to me to know whether this thing will meet with success without having a price point to figure into the equation.

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Fairlington, Va.: Ok -- here is what I don't get about the video game industry. The second Halo is coming out three years after the first. While I recognize that the game's designers want to really take Halo 2 to the next level, I'm not sure I see the demand for that many changes. It seems to me a sequel that was a lot like the original, only different missions and a few more weapons and multiplayer maps, would have been easier to do and faster to produce (not to mention a big money maker). But the video game industry seems to spend forever creating sequels to great games in an effort to overhaul everything. All we want is more of the same!; I don't need Halo 2 to be radically different from Halo (i.e. blowing up the vehicles is nice, but I would have gladly taken a game without that ability a year and a half ago).

So my question is: why? Why do they do this? Why do I have to wait so damn long for Halo 2?

Mike Musgrove : I'm with you. I didn't see anything radically different with the sequel, but they only showed us part of one level this year. I guess we'll see.

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Washington, DC: Did you see that game "The Movies"?...what can you tell us...from the concept it sounds awesome

Mike Musgrove : Yes, The Movies looks pretty interesting. This game kind-of looks like the Sims, but lets players manage a movie studio from the 1920's up to the near future. Players will actually be able to make sim-like movies and upload them to the Web.

They haven't announced a release date, but it isn't coming out this year, I'm pretty sure.

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Norwich, CT: Any news on the Knights of the Old Republic sequel?

Mike Musgrove : What a great game the first one was. Better Star Wars story than either of the recent movies.

Microsoft just showed the briefest of clips at the XBox press conference. Not enough to glean any details about it, though.

Bioware, the Canadian company that made Knights is at work on a Hong Kong-style adventure/role-playing game for the Xbox called Jade Empire.

I hope these terms make sense to some of the folks tuning in to this chat...

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Oakton, VA: What's new from the Madden Franchise for the 2005 installment?

Mike Musgrove : Only news I know of there is that Madden 2005 for the Xbox will finally let players go online with the Xbox Live service. Graphics- and feature-wise I can't really tell the difference from one year of Madden to the next, honestly.

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Fairfax, Va.: Did you see any games going after the cheese cake market like DOAX Beach Volleyball did?

Mike Musgrove : I didn't notice any hugely growing trend there, but there are a few titles, sure.

There's a Sims-like game where you get to run the Playboy Mansion that will obviously go in the cheesecake direction.

>Daniel Greenberg also points out a couple of titles in this direction. There's an all-women wrestling game from Konami called Rumble Roses in the works, that looks like a similar cheesecakey thing.

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Pirates!;: Get any info about Sid Meier's self-remake of his old classic?

Mike Musgrove : I got a look of that a few weeks ago at Meier's Hunt Valley studio. It has a lot in common with the original (you fly under the flag of a certain country and make negotiations as you move from port to port attacking or avoiding other ships), though it takes advantage of new technology, as PCs have changed a little bit since 1987...

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Old Town Alexandria, VA: Not much was said about the new Zelda. Do you have any more titillating info for us Zelda fanatics? It looked like they weren't following up with the cel-shading technique, any word on that as well?

Mike Musgrove : Nintendo execs showed me a 2-minute movie of it this morning, but I don't know enough about the Zelda games to have gleaned any valuable intel for you, my apologies.

Miyamoto-san sez they aren't doing this one as a cel-shading game (cel-shading makes the games look like cartoons, as opposed to the more realistic-looking games you frequently see these days). He said Nintendo has other experiments in the works for games that may use this visual style.

To the person who asked about GTA San Andreas, Dan Greenberg also offers these comments.

Rockstar said the new GTA will be 4-6 times the size of Vice City, with each of the three main cities at least as big as all of Vice City. It will have a lot more vertical height, including a mountain. They admit that Vice City got bigger, but not denser than GTA3, and they are looking to address that, with lots more interiors, more buying of buildings, more story, more recurring personalities, more detailed combat, and more direct connections to existing street culture rather than a kind of fantasy noir crime world.

Better AI, too. And eating donuts makes you fat. The game now feels more like a sim than GTA3 sandbox.

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Washington, D.C.: Hey Muskrat,

Did you get a chance to play the new Quark x27 version 3? I hear it's got some crazy new scenarios on the upper levels: dragons eating spaceships, one-eyed trolls stomping on Smurfs. Sounds totally rad, dude.

Mike Musgrove : Andy, I will totally take you on in a deathmatch when that game comes out. Thanx for tuning in.

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Washington, D.C.: You wrote in "Same is the Name of the Game" that "Game publishers are increasingly unwilling to back any project that lacks a built-in audience." Is that what's leading to the rush tie shoddy games to big budget names? A recent editorial in Play magazine complained about how playing "real" people isn't a cool as playing fake people, i.e. playing Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing vs. Lara Croft in Tomb Raider and a lot of gamers tend to agree if you check out the sales Matrix, Reign of Fire, etc. So why the unoriginality in producing new games if it doesn't even drive sales?

Mike Musgrove : Well, sometimes the tie-in does drive sales. I know the EA Lord of the Rings games have sold like gangbusters, and I'm sure many of them were picked up by people who don't normally play games. I'm sure a lot of people will try EA's upcoming LoTR "real-time strategy" game, who ordinarily would not have interest in that type of game.

Even though I should know better, I'm probably more inclined to pick up a game that has Ton Hawk's name on it or Tom Clancy's (for Splinter Cell). For what it's worth, the Spider-Man game that came out with the movie a couple of years ago was pretty good, and the sequel may be too, unless Activision , the game's publisher, somehow drops the ball/

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Rockville, MD: This was my seventh E3 and I have to say that I had never seen so many sequels at any other show I attended in the past. Was there one thing or game that stood out for you? BTW, I think the PSP seemed pretty cool and will be the hottest thing out there for its target market when it reaches $150-$200.

Mike Musgrove : just passing this along. thanks for weighing in.

Honestly, nothing really really stood out to me. There was nothing new or old that I am just dying to try out. How out you?

The next Splinter Cell game looked pretty good, but I'm a fan of those games.

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peoria, IL: Studies show that excessive video gaming leads to obesity, feeblemindedness and hairy palms.

As a reporter who hypes this stuff to our impressionable youth (who should be outside developing motor skills to help fight terrorism) how can you sleep at night?

Mike Musgrove : it's tough. I almost overslept through my meeting with Miyamoto (the Nintendo guy) this morning. Or maybe it's because I'm still on California time.

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Columbia, Maryland: Hey Mike,

Thanks for taking questions today. What new features will the new PS3 have? I hear it will retail for around $700 U.S. For that price it should have multiple processors, DVD burning capabilities, as well as DVR and be a HDTV decoder. Also will it be backward compatible and support PS2 games and accessories?

Thanks,

Stirling

Mike Musgrove : Sony wasn't saying anything, anything at all, about PS2, so I don't know. I hope it also comes with a can opener and waffle iron.

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Huh?!;: Cheesecake market? Please define,...thanks.

Mike Musgrove : Maybe I should be explaining more as i answer these questions... the game the person was referring too features a bunch of bikini clad women playing volleyball. And there are other games with bikini-clad women wrestling. I hope this answers your question...

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New York: We currently own two GameCubes which are easy to use and have excellent software for under 10 gamers. A list of new software titles I saw from the show listed few new Game Cube entries. Have most developers stopped writing for this platform?

Mike Musgrove : The GameCube did not seem to have tons of hot new stuff. I fear that developers are not giving the platform as much attention as GameCube owners would want. Game Cube has seen some accelerated sales as they have cut the prices for the GC, so maybe that will bring developers back around.

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stuck in the virtual world: I just bought a new computer a week ago. My old computer could not cut with todays games. I also bought a fx 5200 gpu to go along with my new computer. The graphics just amazed me. The graphic processing power blows away the xbox. It figures why Microsoft dropped its price so low on it console unit, the xbox. Besides playing games, it is a good video processor.

Mike Musgrove : Just giving this fellow a public forum in which to brag about his new rig.

Which reminds me, Alienware, maker of high-end computers aimed at gamers, was showing off a computer with TWO graphics cards built in. Beat that at your next LAN party, d00d.

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Mike Musgrove : Ok, it's 3 o'clock and I gots to run.

Most of the questions I missed look like variations of ones I got to, but if I missed any of your burning questions, e-mail me at musgrovem@washpost.com and I will answer them if I can. We're all about service.

Thank you everybody who tuned in.

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