Welcome to Day 2 of Darthhomer's press conference watch. Twas a big day today - five conferences and I saw the Dark Knight, but more on that later. Anyway - conference time!

NINTENDO

By far the most secretive of the big companies. Then again though, that is Nintendo for you. We did know one thing - that a game for the 'core' (Hardcore) audience would be announced. It also didn't take much thinking to realize that we'd also know something on a new casual game for Nintendo's new audience. With that being said - it's amazing some of the reactions that people are making. I've heard cries for Matt Cassamasina's (the head of IGN Nintendo) head after he said that his much talked about Kid Icarus reboot wouldn't show at E3. Hell, I've also heard this press conference compared to Sony's 2006 one - if the GIFs of Nintendo's Cammie Dunaway and others circling the internets are any indication. Anyway.

The only thing that I found personally interesting was the annoucement of the much rumoured Animal Crossing: City Folk. It also featured with the annoucement of WiiSpeak - which is essentially a speakerphone for the Wii, allowing you to...wait for it....communicate with people using your voice! About bloody time Nintendo! Though for some reason...I have a feeling that it'll be watered down and limited - which wouldn't surprise me at the least. It have been cooler if it was also annouced that games like Brawl or Mario Kart would be patched later down the line to use the application...or will it already support it? Who knows.

MotionPlus was also shown off for the first time - the Wiimote add-on that gives proper 3D waggling (or proper movement, I think it was). Doesn't seem so bad...who knows what could come for it?

And then...there was Wii Music. We've known about it for a good couple of years now, and now that we know more about it...it makes me sad. The idea that you can win by not even playing the notes correctly? Sorry, that's not fun, that's dumbing down for the masses. Would've been better if we had an announcement of an English release date for the excellent DS Daigasso Bros games.

Otherwise...GTA China Town sounds ok. Though hearing that a GTA game for the DS is coming and not knowing much more than that is...saddening, to say the least. That's all for Nintendo...unless you want to count gloating about how they keep selling as a 'highlight'.

SONY

Loads of people seemed down on this press conference. I didn't think it was that bad...but it certainly was much more enjoyable than the Nintendo conference. There were some cool things announced - including the Playstation Video Store, which I expect we won't be getting any time soon. That's cool though, it's nice to have.

It's finally good to see that although there's always a wait, the PSN stuff is of some quality. I'm particularly interested in the new Ratchet game - which does look fascinating to see that it's a proper game that fits in with the series mytho's. And then there's the return of the 80GB - priced $50 more than an 360. Not too bad - no word on backwards compatibility though, which sucks.

The highlight of the show was twofold - seeing Sony finally acknowledge God of War 3 and Zippers (SOCOM devs) new IP - dubbed a 'Massively Action Game', a 256-player shooter. It'll be interesting if it comes to frutition and there's no compromises.

Definitely not as disappointing as people made it out to be...though would've been far better if Yoichi Wada (Square Enix head) came out to announce Kingdom Hearts III for the PS3 exclusively...or Fumito Ueda (Team ICO head) FINALLY annouce their new game.

CAPCOM

Twas all about the Lost Planet movie. Most news blogs seemed to care that David Hayter was writing it than it actually coming (in 2011). Lame. I hope the movie turns out good though. Though it is good to hear that RE5 will have co-op, even if it isn't splitscreen...

UBISOFT

More details on the new Prince of Persia game were revealed - specifically the co-op stuff with the Prince's new sidekick. Read it, it's interesting stuff. I pray it's a great game and sells this time around. I Am Alive (Jade Raymonds new game) also does sound like a great premise that most games seem to ignore (last man on earth) - in fact, there's an Activision game that's sounding nearly as the same game announced, so that's cool. Secretly annouced was a new Naruto game for the 360 - if you're a fan, I guess that's cool.

And yes, there was plenty of Imagine and Petz games announced. Take that for what you will.

ACTIVISION

For the only conference that took place outside of E3 and the ESA, it actually wasn't that bad. They didn't reveal too much that we already knew, instead relying on stuff that we knew exsisted and stuff we kinda expected to see happening.

There's some good (Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 finally officially announced, as well as Wolfenstein), some interesting (Singularity - the game that sounds similar to Ubi's I am Alive), the bad (X-Men Origins: Wolvering & Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), the expected (Guitar Hero World Tour and Call of Duty: World at War). There was an extended segment on Spiderman: Web of Shadows that did seem promising...but I'll hold judgement until the game ships.

Otherwise, that was it. And Dark Knight? Good film. Granted, some of the plot elements regarding a few of the characters are messed around with, but in a good way. Expect everyone to love Ledger's performance. That is all.

Later.