E3 kicks off in the next eight days and the wait is going to kill me. This post will definitely not ease my pain at all, but I’m going to share with you my hype for Microsoft’s conference as well as Nintendo’s.

Nintendo has been really quiet as to what we can expect for the rest of the year as far as their big titles go. Hopefully they have something big planned for E3, whether it’s a new Legend of Zelda or something brand new (I hope so) because aside from a few big titles that we’ve seen from them, that have already been released, there hasn’t been the greatest library of high tier titles on the Wii. I would hope they have some quality titles coming from some third parties as well as first party. As we’ve already seen, The Conduit is shaping up nicely and the team over at High Voltage seems to be taking advantage of online play as well as developing a strong first person shooter for the platform. Now we can only wait to see what else third parties are doing. I can’t really share anything more for Nintendo because I really have no idea what to expect.

Microsoft is definitely the last of the three that I would ever worry about delivering on games considering their track record thus far in the current generation. One thing, however, that I really disliked about last year’s conference was that they focused a lot on multiplatform games and seemingly less on their exclusives if my memory serves me right. For me, it’s really the big exclusive titles that make a console special to me, granted I do buy a few multiplatform games here and there. I just hope they really kick it up a notch and have some real big surprises in store for us this year. We already know about a few of their games that we can expect to ship this year and that will most likely show at E3. Some games such as Halo Wars and even Fable 2 are seemingly less likely to make it out the door in 2008. All I know is that we can definitely expect some unique titles from Microsoft this year provided the ‘Newton’ motion controller rumors are true.

The following are some of the titles I am hyped for/expecting to show:

• Gears of War 2 – Bigger, better, and more badass as Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games describes it, is most likely the biggest game Microsoft has in store for us in 2008 and as a follow up to one of 2006’s greatest games, with a greatly improved campaign and a more in-depth polished multiplayer experience this one is definitely on my ‘Must Buy’ list.
• Halo Wars – I’ve given the Halo franchise a fair amount of flack over the years, regardless of how much I secretly do love the games (Oops, the secret is out). After ‘Finishing the Fight’ in Halo 3 I felt underwhelmed. The Halo universe is something I’d love to continue exploring and Halo Wars gives me this opportunity except with a ’strategic’ twist. I haven’t gotten into a good RTS game in a long time and it’s about time I do with Halo Wars.
• Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts – Banjo & his feathered friend Kazooie have earned a place in my heart since their first outing on the Nintendo 64. Now the third iteration of the franchise is set to release on the Xbox 360 this year. Even though I’m really skeptical about the vehicle focused gameplay, I’m still willing to give Banjo a shot even if it turns out to be something completely different than what I would expect from these two seemingly odd partners.
• Fable 2 - As I’ve stated above, Fable 2 seems as if it won’t even make it this year. The first Fable was okay but nothing more. Peter Molyneux has been known for making bold promises and not delivering on them, yet even with his reputation some of the grand promises he has made for Fable 2 have got me excited. Let’s just hope Lionhead Studios can back his strong words.

Other Noteworthy Games:

Tales of Vesperia, Infinite Undiscovery, Alan Wake

Overall, I’m expecting all three companies to deliver great titles this year and get us salivating at what’s to come. I will give my comments/impressions of each conference as soon as they come to a close. Stay tuned for more.