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I am a great lover of beat-’em-up games, and thus I practially drooled all over myself when it came out on the 1st of the month.

And i’ve spent my entire time since then drooling too. And swearing. Heh. But I do have to admit that its an amazing game, even if it does keep laughing at me and kicking me in the face.
I did object slightly to the inclusion of the three star wars characters at first and, being a 360 owner, I have to say I hate Yoda with a passion but the Apprentice is absolutely shocking. I’m totally waiting for Force Unleashed now, although there may be a problem in that Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise comes out a week or two before it. I loves me some Star Wars, but do I love it more than Pinatas? I just don’t know.

I daren’t say that at work though, as I’d probably get stoned to death for blasphemy or something.

Back in its slinky, public-less new body, E3 has once again swung round once again to torment all of those in the gaming industry in some fashion or another.

Through the joys of IGN I’ve been watching the press conferences and such, and as much as I claim (every year) that I’d sell a body part to actually be able to go to an E3 event it looks really horribly dry unless you’re running around touching all of the games.

After nodding off 30 minutes in to the sony conference, and being told the nintendo one is not worth the bandwidth it would eat I decided to take a nosey at the list of games that developers/publishers/people in the know have confirmed that will be at least mentioning this year. A lot of it seems to be the usual dross, and a horrifying chunk of it is being pumped out by the giant dross-engine that is EA, but some is worth possibly investing the effort to make squeeing noises.

Everyone else seems to be excited by Fallout 3, by the geniuses over at Bethesda who gave rise to the joyous Oblivion. Which I am currently re-hooked on, mainly because I downloaded the Wizards Tower and (although my character isn’t much of a wizard) I love the little alchemy garden that grows next to the bedroom. I am also obsessively questing to get enough booty to actually buy back the furniture for the Tower and one of the other super abodes you get. I can’t remember what its called but it was the free one, and its a castle and you get your own garrison when you put all the stuff back in it.

Anyway, scrolling down IGN’s handily organised list (alphabetical by developer) I’m totally not anything more than vaguely interested by anything until I get to Eidos and the up coming joy that will be Tomb Raider Underworld. I love Lara Croft, possibly more than it is healthy for a girl to love another (albeit computer generated) girl, but I really cannot wait for this. I might want to finish Tomb Raider Anniversary (on either format, as I have it for both PC and 360) first though.

After that comes the bloated EA list, quite oddly containing no Sims 3. Red Alert 3 has already produced amusement and distress in equal quantities as it has snubbed the PS3, but I’ve had to listen to Mr Carrick rant on about how it will be a travesty and such (which has caused the distress, but I have to listen as he listens when I rant). There is, however, Spore. This has caused mild interest, mostly due to the hilarity of the massive amount of penis monsters created by those with the creature creator pack, but it does stir some genuine interest.

After that comes two interesting parties from the Microsoft camp - Fable 2 and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. Fable pushes all the correct buttons of ‘fantasy’ and ‘rpg’ so i’ll play it regardless of the fact that I’ve not finished the first one yet and that came out years ago. As for the second one, I shall utter my usual cry when anyone mentions Viva Pinata…

PINATA PINATA!!!!!!

I do so love that.

Next is Namco Bandai with Soul Calibur 4. I’ve been waiting for this for years. Soul Calibur is my favourite in the beat-em-up genre, and I’ve just forked out microsoft points to actually purchase the dreamcast original on my 360 as I’ve just given my dreamcast away. I didn’t have a VMU anyway.

Between N and S there isn’t anything interesting, but once we hit S we’re into Squeenix territory. I could just copy and paste the last that IGN have for this, as I’m fairly sure I’m at least quite interested in all of them. Chrono Trigger and FF4 for the DS, Last Remnant, Star Ocean and FF13 for 360, and two Star Oceans for the PSP. I’m turning my nose up at Infinite Undiscovery and Dragon Quest, mainly because I’m so totally uninpressed by the IU trailer and I can’t stand Akira Toriyama’s art style. Has nobody noticed he just draws the same person with slightly different hair and clothes yet?

Only thing after Squeenix is the mention of Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise from THQ for the DS. Pinata on my DS you say? Oh ho! I’m game for that what what.

And now, I shall have to wander off to see if there is more news to be gleaned from this insanity known as E3