E3 2011: My favorites from this year's E3

It felt only yesterday that I was excited to watch the first Press Conference to kick off E3, and just like that, before I knew it, E3 was over. So many big announcements, trailer, never before seen game demo that either wow'd us or gave us a bit of confusion. I've never been in E3 but watching every new thing coming out of this event makes me want to plan a big trip just for this event. Since E3 2011 has wrapped up, here's my personal favorites coming from this year's E3.

Press Conference

I'm going to start things off with the Press Conferences. Who won for me? man, this is pretty tough to answer. Last year, Nintendo won hands down with the Nintendo 3DS' impressive game lineup and many first party game announcements. This, year, I'd like to say none. For arguments sake, if I had to pick one from all the Press Conferences, I guess I'll have to go with Sony. Now let me explain why. It's not because it was the best out of the 3 or  anything, it's because it was the only one whose announcements wowed me, and those announcements were the PS Vita's game lineup and It's price range. $299 for the PS Vita was not expected of Sony and it gave some smiles. If you take out those announcements and the Uncharted 3 demo, Sony had nothing really.

Pretty small reason to pick Sony I know, but the big three were that bad to be honest. I wanted to say Nintendo because of the new console but when the WiiU was revealed, I was left confused rather than excited. This is not what i expected out of Nintendo's new console. They made the focus solely on the controller without any talk about the console as a whole. Yes, great features coming from the controller but we needed more. It's a new console that would carry Nintendo for the next few years, they needed to show game lineups, tech demos of the consoles power and any other news. They left us in the dark. We were left with what the new controller can do but confused to what the WiiU will bring us in the future.

When they announced third-party support, that was big. But later, they revealed that most of those shots from that video montage were PS3 and Xbox 360 footage? now we again are left in the dark wondering if this system is either underpowered or overpowered. The line-up mentioned is all coming out this year or early next year meaning those games when WiiU is released are considered "old".

Microsoft was all about Kinect. Can't blame them for that since they need to expose their new technology just like what Nintendo did a few years back with the Wii, but regardless of what they needed to do, it was boring. They started off with Modern Warfare 3 and it wasn't as impressive as when they revealed Black Ops for the first time. It got better when we got first look at the new Tomb Raider a new demo of Gears 3 plus first look at Mass Effect 3 gameplay, after that it went downhill from there going all out Kinect. The feeling of watching all those Kinect announcements is exactly how I felt watching the Nintendo Press Conference when revealing the Wii vitality sensory stuff a few years back.

Their last announcement was Halo 4 to close the Press Conference but for me I was not surprised. Thanks to leaks, I already knew it was coming. I actually thought it was going to be announced together with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary but proved me wrong. What shocked me though is that they said " New Trilogy", meaning Halo 5 and 6 are planned. It got me wondering though, with Bungie out of the picture and a new company(343 Industries) working on the new Halo games, will we see a big difference? let's hope not, that company has big shoes to fill.

E3 2011 games

Ok enough of the Press Conference. let's talk games. This is about my favorites in this year's E3 and it's all pretty much the Third Party devs and their games. This year has a huge lineup and I wonder if my wallet can keep up with what I NEED to buy this year or next year. First up is...

Batman: Arkham City

This was like an instantly in my to buy list when first announced and as trailers, gameplay footage start showing up it just seals the deal. Batman:Arkham Asylum i think is one of the best Batman games out there and with what we're seeing with Arkham City, this will be a bigger, better game. It will be twice as long as the first game with over 20+ hours of gameplay. Demo also shows some Catwoman gameplay which is a good way to give players a break in the game.

Dark Souls

Demon's Souls was one of the hardest games I've played and i can't believe I'm excited to get my hands on its sequel to die X times. Even thought it's difficulty can frustrate the hell out of players, this is a really solid RPG. It introduced us to a unique multiplayer experience and it kept me hooked in making multiple playthrough's. It's not anymore a Playstation 3 exclusive which is good so that more people can experience this amazing yet frustrating RPG. Dark Souls is set to come out this year on October 4, 2011 on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Tomb Raider

Not a fan of reboots, it's always a risk to start all over but this time around it seems to be a good one. It's an Origins story and we get to see a young Lara Croft still not the Lara Croft we all know. E3 revealed first ever gameplay footage of the game and amazed us. It's out next year and i can't wait to see more of this when we get closer to release.

Street Fighter X Tekken

I love fighting games and the biggest titles clash?? who wouldn't be excited! When they first revealed Street Fighter X Tekken they already showed in-game footage of the game in its very early stages. Now in E3 we get to see a more complete version of the game with life bars and everything, together with a reveal of 2 characters for Street Fighter and 2 new characters for Tekken. It's set to come out next year 2012, can't wait!

Dragon's Dogma

When Dragon's Dogma was first revealed at Captivate, i got excited for this title. It looks amazing and the battle against mystical creatures like Dragons, Gryphons and Hydras are epic. It's revealed to be only a single player experience but that's completely ok. It's rare now to have games that live with only Single player, and that gives us a more polished game.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Oh man, I've been wanting a new Elder Scrolls for the longest time and thankfully we get a new one this year. Thanks to E3, we get our first gameplay demo and it blew me away. They have a new engine running Skyrim and it looks amazing. I was thinking of getting it for my PC but when i saw the demo for the first time I'm now thinking about getting it in console. They say there might be over 300+ game hours in Skyrim? well i don't believe that but one thing is for sure, ill be playing it for weeks.

Well  that's it. The PS Vita was tempting for this year but with this kind of game lineup for the next few months, i don't think ill have enough cash to get one. At the same time I'm still saving up for an Xbox 360 so damn, my wallet's screaming at the moment. there are still tons of great games revealed this E3 but these games impressed me the most and pretty much gave me a new list of games to buy this year and next year.

Last year's E3 Press Conference was impressive and I was expecting this year to beat it. As I look back and compare the this year and last year, I'll have to say E3 2010's Press Conference was better. The big three companies each presented a solid Press Conference in 2010 and I was clearly disappointed this year. E3 is behind us and it's time to move on, till next year then.

I apologize in advance if we didn't cover most of what E3 2011 has to offer but we can only do so much. I've never been to E3 but with all that has been shown at this years E3, I am definitely going to attend next years E3 in 2012, someway, somehow. I will make it happen.

What were your favorites this E3?  any games added to your buy list?