We spent time with dozens and dozens of games at last week's E3, from your Gods of Wars to a fishing game. Some were good, some weren't -- and some good ones may have seemed bad (or vice versa) because of how they were shown. And so, forthwith, we present the best and worst demos of E3 2009. (Many more after the jump.)
The Best:
The Beatles: Rock Band
"Two things make up a good demo: 1) A game that obviously shows well to an audience, and 2) A presenter who is every bit as entertaining as the game. The former is fairly easy to accomplish, but it's very rare when these two factors come together, like they did for The Beatles: Rock Band demo.
You've got the iconic songs of the Fab Four for starters, but it's also weirdly fun just to watch people play Rock Band (especially folks who obviously have a good time doing it, like the ones in our demo). Couple this with a witty presenter who wasn't afraid to make fun of himself (or the game) and an amazing room constructed to look like a recording studio and you have one damn good demo." -Michael Donahoe
RUSE
"This is a bit unfair to all those boring videogames being played on plain ol' HDTVs (how 2008 of them), but Ubisoft showed off real-time-strategy game RUSE on a giant, tabletop touch screen in their booth. The demo driver looked like a DJ from the future (or a tiny person playing on a giant iPhone) as his fingers swept, swooped, and danced all around the screen while he effortlessly and elegantly moved his units and panned the camera from sky down to street-level view." -Dan "Shoe" Hsu
Dance Dance Revolution Wii
"Last year, Konami badly botched their Rock Revolution E3 presentation when they shoved a marketing rep onstage to handle the plastic guitar -- in retrospect, we should've realized it was a portent of disastrous things to come.
This year, they took no such risks. Flamboyant, charismatic producer Naoki Maeda is DDR to many fans, and his flowing, dyed-brown locks took center stage in demonstrating the first major DDR revolution in a decade -- taking the series from the dancepad to the Balance Board. With his Elvis-style hip swiveling, Maeda's boundless enthusiasm infected the crowd and really showcased how the series will change on the Wii. And even communicating in broken English, the DDR legend proved that at E3, it's really all about enthusiasm, spirit, and evidence that you actually care about your product." -Andrew Fitch
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Some of my earliest -- and favorite -- gaming memories involve the role-playing adventures of the '80s, games such as The Bard's Tale, Might and Magic, and Wizardry. My memories of playing The Bard's Tale on my Mom's Apple IIGS, mapping Mangar's Tower on a pad of graph paper while stealing a glimpse of my middle school crush as she walked by my house on her way to visit a friend after school, are fond indeed.
