A new game plan

Brutal Legend features Jack Black as its heavy metal hero. Photo / Supplied

E3's massive stands packed with giant screens and scantily-clad booth babes showed that the industry's bread and butter is still the spotty teen with a PlayStation tan - but worlds were colliding at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo in LA.

It is the game trade's big week out - tens of thousands of press, designers, coders, fans and fanatics descending on the LA Convention Centre to experience the best (and worst) of what the industry has to offer.

This year there was a focus on widening the gamer demographic - with Beatles, 'tween girls, automatic weapons, fast cars, and wild journeys to Satan's place all mixing it up to create a digital nirvana.

With Nintendo leading the pack with its demographic-crossing Wii console, Xbox 360 lagging behind and Sony's higher-priced PlayStation 3 bringing up the rear, some see the game console superiority battle as already won.

The truth is that Wii sales are starting to flatten out, and while a massive 50 million of the consoles have been sold worldwide, its lack of next-gen graphics ability and computing power is not going to help it in the long run.

Xbox 360 shipped first, and with its high-def-capable hardware and extremely well-conceived Xbox Live online service, it's not surprising that it's already got 30-odd million units sitting in the lounges of the world.

PlayStation 3 - while technically the superior beast, with high-def output, a built-in Blu-ray drive and a processor that blows the others out of the water - has thus far sold around 22 million.

So who's really winning? Despite what the sales sheets say, the fight is far from over. And as all three push to impress the gaming populace with new and wonderful tricks, it will come down to exclusive titles and content, as well as ticket price for the consoles.

Nintendo's DS handheld continues to dominate the handheld market, outselling the Sony PSP. While Nintendo pre-launched its new internet-friendly DSi earlier this year, Sony was sucker-punched by the online media in the build-up to E3.

Details of its new PSP Go! handheld game machine were leaked days before the event, and Sony Computer Entertainment America president Jack Tretton had to start his presentation with a tongue-in-cheek "Given this industry's ability to keep confidential information ..." as the thousands-strong crowd of media fell about laughing.

Controlling the game
One of the biggest talking points of E3 this year was control. Nintendo is already leading the pack with its motion controlled Wii - which it has now updated with a MotionPlus add-on that plugs into the WiiMote controller. It provides far more accuracy for players than the standard version as gamers demand more finesse in Wii titles.

Nintendo pushed its new controller's abilities with Wii Sports Resort, involving activities like archery, basketball and skydiving. After having a good play with the new controller, it must be said that it's a huge advance on the existing device.

But Microsoft and Sony both jumped on the bandwagon - each with varying degrees of success.

At Microsoft's packed press conference the day before E3 opened, it unveiled Project Natal - a way of interfacing with games on the Xbox 360 without a physical controller.

A small device containing cameras and a microphone not only can recognise vocal commands, but can "see" players' movements in 3D, tracking gestures and converting them to in-game movements.

A demonstration video showed a player using a fighting game without a controller and another gamer using only her hands to turn an invisible steering wheel in a race game.

Even director extraordinaire Steven Spielberg stepped up and sung its praises: "The gamer in me went out of of my mind," he said. "It's not about reinventing the wheel, it's having no wheel at all."

While Project Natal could potentially be a game-changer for the industry, it wasn't hugely accurate and still felt a bit pie in the sky.

Sony's presentation of its new Motion Control seemed closer to reality, proving extremely accurate in a live demonstration by the company's excitable engineering boffins.

Using the PlayStation Eye - a video camera that sits on top of the television - Motion Sensor tracked 3D movements by following glowing spheres on top of control sticks.

"This far surpasses anything you can get on the market now," said Dr Richard Marx.

"We've been hard at work on it for a few years. It's a new set of experiences for PS3.

"Its most distinctive feature is the glowing eye that the PS Eye can track. When you're playing RPG, for an example, you can choose fireball, and you throw to cast a spell."

The demonstration showed Marx' sidekick using the controllers to pull arrows from a virtual quiver and fire them at advancing enemies. It will allow gamers to reach behind combatants in a 3D space in a game.

Though Project Natal requires no actual device, the Sony technology's advantage will become clear in-game - a shooting game without a trigger to pull would otherwise seem a bit like playing cowboys and Indians in the backyard as a kid.

Tune in, turn on
Music-based games have become a surprise success story in recent years - with the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises topping bestseller lists worldwide.

Long-awaited title The Beatles: Rock Band was one of the first to be shouted about from the rooftops this year. Rights fights have plagued the release of Beatles' material and it looked to be a long wait before musical pretenders were going to be able to annoy neighbours with tuneless renditions of I Am the Walrus.

This has all changed, and when the band's back catalogue is re-released on 09.09.09, the game will simultaneously go on sale around the world with 45 songs, controllers modelled on the band's instruments and scope to download full albums in the future.

It was introduced by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, with Beatles widows Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison making appearances as well.

"We love the game," Macca told the audience, "but who would have thought we would end up as androids?"

Musicians are generally divided on the need for games like Rock Band and the ultra-popular Guitar Hero - but DJ Hero from Activision takes it to a whole new level.

Superstar DJ wannabes can use a turntable-type controller to pretend to play tracks that actual DJs have flogged off other people. Reach for the lasers.

Big guns
The bread and butter of gaming has always been FPS (first person shooter) and RPG (role playing game) titles. While there's a new focus towards a female audience, it's the Red Bull-loaded boy gamer that makes up the core of the audience.

Perhaps the most vaunted title this year was Modern Warfare 2 - a realistic war sim that boasts stunning graphics and terrifyingly fast gameplay.

But two other titles were generating equal hype: God of War 3 - the third in a dark Greek mythology based RPG that sees players fighting (and occasionally disembowelling) hard-to-kill enemies in monstrous environments.

Electronic Arts tried to hype its game, Dante's Inferno - based on the epic poem Divine Comedy - with fake fundamentalist Christian protesters outside the convention centre holding signs with slogans like "Trade in your PlayStation for a PrayStation".

A closed doors demo showed the hero's journey towards the centre of Hell as a highly challenging title with often grotesque imagery and an extremely dark side. This title really pushes the PS3's power and will definitely be one to watch.

Also on the journey to the pits of Hell was Brutal Legend - one of my personal faves - with funny man Jack Black voicing the main character and Motorhead's Lemmy ("Lovingly rendered down to the last mole," said producer Tim Schafer); metal chick Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne all on the game's vocal roster. It's a bogan classic with guitars and metal becoming powerful weapons against otherworldly enemies.

You play like a girl
After the Wii's runaway success with WiiFit, Nintendo revealed an update with improvements called WiiFit Plus. It now allows players to skip between-exercise interludes for a less-relaxed workout and adds a host of new balance board exercises.

The tween girl market seems to be next on the publishers' hit list with EA's introduction of Charm Girl Club - featuring pyjama parties, high school prom and mall versions. It was met with cries of "Where are the f'n dragons?" and similar from the bemused crowd at EA's press conference.

Disney's Hannah Montana: Rock Out the Show will be appearing on PSP, and will be offered in a bundle with a lilac-coloured version of the handheld device.

Nintendo was also jumping on the bandwagon and targeting Team Tween with Style Savvy - a DS portable game that lets gamers run a boutique.