The Top 5 Things We Learned At E3 2009

What does the future of gaming hold? Here's everything you need to know from this week's video-game expo.

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Complex Original

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Ethrizzle—the name alone holds godly. Yesterday marked the end of this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (a.k.a. E3) in L.A., where the biggest monsters of video-gaming come together in L.A. to meet, greet, and sell their wares to the press and each other. We've condensed the entire convention into this informative post about what you can expect in the video-game world for the rest of this year and beyond. Between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, who had the best E3 showing? What titles are the most promising for the coming year? And what the fuck is a Project Natal? Find out these answers and the other top things we learned at E3 below...

Text by Nick Marroni

2. THE FUTURE IS A BIT CREEPY.
• Along with Microsoft's camera comes a scary advanced kid named Milo as part of Lionhead Studios head and Fable series developer Peter Molyneux's new Project Natal (they're trying to get people to say it Nuh-Tall, but, for real talk's sake, let's keep it Nay-Tul, please). Natal and Milo use the new motion recognition camera to simulate the most advanced, ostensibly real world yet seen in the interactive entertainment space (or any other space too, for that matter) and it's downright creepy and just a bit unsettling to see how effective and immersive the simulation is. When this thing really reaches critical mass, WoW addictions may end up looking downright tame in comparison to the socially deprived children who might end up getting attached to Milo and his other soul-sucking little buddies.

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1. THE REAL E3 IS BACK!
• The one thing everyone will agree on about this year's show is that a big Electronic Entertainment Expo is a fun Electronic Entertainment Expo and that the more the merrier—things still aren't back to E3's peak years of the early '00s and some companies probably wouldn't have minded a bit more traffic and congestion, but it's plain to see that this is the way things are supposed to be and the mistakes of the past two years now stand corrected. Especially cool is that surprises were actually left as surprises (though we already knew about the Em/Jay-Z DJ Hero performance) without everyone knowing ahead of time during the press shows exactly what to expect—Final Fantasy XIV pretty much came out of nowhere at the Sony show and the new Castlevania received a loud round of approval. Things should be good to go again for next year and beyond and E3 looks set to stick around. Video games are the business, and business is good.

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