June is the biggest month in the video game industry for news and exciting announcements. E3 is back on stunning form after a bit of a lull and all the platform holders had fantastic shows. The problem with writing a review of the month is that by the time it comes to the end of the year, almost everything they showed off and talked about at E3 has been released.
Nintendo showed the 3DS and a raft of games to people at the show and it was almost universally praised. Sony showed off some Move stuff ahead of the release and Microsoft imported a bizarre circus and a sackful of glowing ponchos before appeasing a cynical crowd of journalists by giving them all a new Xbox 360 S with its special “Kinect ready” USB port.
Gabe Newell arriving on stage at the Sony press show was probably the biggest shock of the event and we still eagerly await both the Steamworks elements for PSN and Portal 2.
In real-world news, BP’s oil well continued to spew pollution into the Mexican Gulf although they did manage to get a cap half on and slow things down a bit. The UK saw it’s worst firearms crime since the Dunblane school shootings in 1990 when a gunman killed twelve people and injured another twenty-five in Cumbria.
Brighter news saw the FIFA World Cup kick off in South Africa and vuvuzelas quickly becoming the most annoying sound heard in a sports broadcast other than the ITV commentary team. The best thing about the opening stages of the tournament was the implosion of the French camp as the players fell out with the management and ended up boycotting training. Republic of Ireland also officially came out of recession. I think we all know how well that went for them.
Game releases were fairly slow with the highlight undoubtedly being Super Mario Galaxy 2. The PSP also saw some quality with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker impressing most. Singularity was released with little marketing support from Activision and was unfortunately overlooked by many, in spite of its quality.
On the other end of the spectrum we saw Naughty Bear’s release. The less said about that, the better.
Apparently, June was warm and sunny with only a little bit of rain in the second week. No, I don’t remember that either.
Also of note, TheSixthAxis turned three years old on the 25th. We had cake and fizzy pop while deciding that we would carry on doing this website stuff for a bit longer.
Darth Newdar
The vuvuzelas reminded me of a swarm of bees… very irritating bees.
aerobes
I was impressed by E3 too and my excitement for the 3DS has only risen since.
The shooting here in Cumbria was terrifying, it makes things like that all too real when they’re happening about 10 minutes from your front door!
Nice to see Singularity getting a mention, It was one my gaming highlights of the year and I’d recommend it to anyone.
As for the vuvuzelas, I thought they were great and all added to the cultural experience, not that I want them in the premiership mind you! Gave me a huge chuckle too when Dave Henson made a song about them, well worth a listen if you haven’t heard it!
4lf13
The best thing about Naught Bear was the email I received from Game describing it. It was so full of unintentional innuendos that I spent the next half hour reading and re-reading it giggling. There were phrases like “if you go down to the woods today, you’d better bring some protection” plus others which I can’t remember.
hennerzcfc
did’t need reminding about the wc. still a good month for games
jediryan123
ahh naughty bear. I wanted it to be good so much.