Welcome to “Carbonated News,” the column where I take news stories from other Web sites and burp them back at you. This month, the focus is on the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), which will be held from June 2nd to June 4th this year. I’m going to talk about what games the three big videogame companies will showcase, and then I’ll get you up-to-date on all the latest rumors.

Nintendo at E3

Nintendo has promised to put on a bigger showcase this year than they did last year. That can’t be too difficult, seeing as the only games they showed were Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii and Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir for the DS.

Well, according to this year’s list, Nintendo is going to present…absolutely nothing. Huh. Guess they’re trying to keep everything a surprise by not announcing what they’ll show ahead of time. That kinda screws up my ability to give you a preview of what they’ll show.

But even though Nintendo is keeping their games under lock and key for now, we still have an official list of Wii/DS-exclusive games that we’ll see at E3 this year. There are four of them: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, Rabbids Go Home, Mega Man Star Force 3, and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is the follow-up to Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, which sold over ten million copies, and woah, WHAT? TEN MILLION COPIES? I thought that game was a commercial flop! The only time I’ve seen it in stores is in the discount pile, next to Superman 64 and Uno DS! Well, in any case, Mario and Sonic are back for more fun at the Olympics. And let’s face it, Sonic fans have been waiting to see Sonic compete in curling matches for a long time.

• Rabbids Go Home is the next in the Rabbids series, due this Christmas season. This will be the first game in the series to not haveRayman in it. Personally, the “rabbids” really kinda creep me out, so I’m going to stay away from this game, too.

  
  I find both the rabbids and Marilyn Monroe to be scary-looking.

• Mega Man Star Force 3 is part of the DS incarnation of the Mega Man Battle Network series. The plot, which I’m going to make up right now, is that all the humans on Earth mysteriously disappear. Mega Man and his sister Roll are still around because they’re robots, and they’re wondering what happened to everyone when Top Man shows up andkidnaps Roll, saying that he and the other Robot Masters are going to repopulate the Earth with Roll and thereby create a new generation of Super Robots. Mega Man is vehemently opposed to this, and fights the Robot Masters in an attempt to get his sister back. The game ends withhim fighting a cyborg version of Dr. Wily and bringing all the humans back to Earth.

• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is a game I’m not going to play. It stars Cartoon Link and his poorly-plotted adventures that involve saving the world. He’s going to have a new sidekick in this game, who is presumably going to be just as annoying as Ciela (AKA Navi Junior¹) was in the last game.

Sony at E3

Unlike Nintendo, Sony has told us what we’re going to see from them at E3: more installments of stable series. Yes, most of the games that they’re going to showcase are sequels, such as:

• Resident Evil 5: This is the fifth game in the Resident Evil series, I presume. It deals with zombies taking over Africa, and there was some controversy over how…wait a minute. Waaait a minute. This game has already been released! Who put that on the list of games that Sony is going to show previews for? I expect better quality from my sources!

• BioShock 2: This is a first-person shooter with top-of-the-line graphics. It takes place in a dystopian future, because, let’s face it, every time there’s a book/game/movie about a future society, it’s adystopia. The story is that a renegade Little Sister has turned herself into a Big Sister, and she is now kidnapping all the Little Sisters to turn them into creatures like her. Oh, and everything takes place under the sea.

• God of War 3: This is the third game on this list that comes from a series I haven’t played. The plot, which I’m making up right now, is that ancient Rome gets conquered by an army of evil, time-traveling MeteoXavier clones. Julius Caesar is forced to team up with Cicero and Mars to save the Roman Empire from total destruction. Each character has a unique ability: Cicero can fly, Julius Caesar can make salads (to feed the troops of the Romaine Empire), Mars can perform show-stopping musical numbers, and Meteo can grow facial hair at will.

• Dead Rising 2: Great, I haven’t played the original version of this game, either. Anyway, it’s a mixture of Resident Evil 5 and BioShock 2, because it involves killing zombies in a dystopian future. The graphics team is going all out for this game—there can be over 5,000 zombies onscreen at the same time, which will gain this game the world record for most onscreen rendered characters at once.

• Superman 64 2: Sorry, but this game is no longer in development.

• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is yet another action/adventure game where you go around shooting stuff. I’m sensing a pattern here. Anyway, this game boasts that it has no loading times at all, and it is a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

• Ghostbusters: The Video Game: The latest in a series of outdated franchises that are trying to make a comeback rather than leave well enough alone, Ghostbusters: The Video Game stars the original movie cast reprising their various roles; namely, Bill Murray stars as the sexy guy, (yes, you read that correctly), Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramisstar as nerds, and Ernie Hudson stars as the black guy. Together, the four of them save New York City from evil marshmallows andpaintings. An interesting concept, to be sure.

• Assassin’s Creed 2: Ubisoft’s 2008 Prince of Persia game didn’t sell too well—it sold less than a third as many copies as the 2007 Assassin’s Creed, which uses the same general engine. So, naturally, Ubisoft has decided to make a sequel to Assassin’s Creed, and not Prince of Persia. This one takes place in 1476 Italy, and will somehow involve Leonardoda Vinci, because “nobody knows any other Italians who lived in 1476, besides for Christopher Columbus.”

• Rock Band Unplugged: [Insert obvious joke about how most rock bands sound better when their instruments aren’t plugged in.]

  

  Okay, amateur bands, listen up. You should not perform in public if a) you can’t write music yourself, so all you do is cover songs, or b) you turn all the speakers/instruments to the loudest setting, and you screech into the microphone instead of singing. Loud music does not equal good music.

• The Beatles: Rock Band: That’s right, they’re making a Rock Band game for the Beatles. I personally don’t see what the big deal about the Beatles is—I suspect it’s a British thing—but their soul-touching, transcendental lyrics (such as “he likes to keep the fire engine clean / it’s a clean machine”) and their revolutionary musical ideas (such as having everyone sing the exact same thing at the exact same time in the exact same tone of voice in every single song) have endeared the Beatles to generations of musicians around the world. Now you and your friends can get together and learn how to play Beatles songs in an engrossing experience that is guaranteed to make you cry for “Help!”.

• Fat Princess: Regular GameCola readers will remember that Captain Eric psychically gave this game a positive review. It’s basically a big game of capture-the-flag, except you have to retrieve a princess instead of a flag. And when you feed the princess, she becomes fatter, and therefore harder for the enemy team to cart away. It’s an online multiplayer game that’s exclusive to PlayStation 3.

So overall, it seems that Sony is going to spend their time showing off all the stuff that’s coming out later this year. There are rumors that Sony is going to show footage of other games, such as Gran Turismo 5 and Final Fantasy XIII, but as of now, those are just rumors.

Microsoft at E3

Oh, crap. I just realized that I already talked about half of the Xbox 360 games being showcased at E3, because most of them are being released on the 360 and the PS3. Oh man, isn’t there anything on the list that’s Xbox 360 exclusive? Nothing? Seriously? Oh…wait a minute…just like Nintendo, Microsoft hasn’t submitted a list of games yet.

Well, in any case, it looks like trying to write an E3 column so far in advance (May 16th) was a dumb idea. But even if I can’t talk about big games, I can talk about a big gaming peripheral: the 3D Motion Sensor Camera.

The 3D Motion Sensor Camera has been confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, of all places. The general idea is that you set a camera on the TV, andthe camera will use its motion sensors to tell when the player moves his or her head, shoulders, knees and toes. This is sort of like the Wii motion sensors, except you don’t have to hold a motion sensor controller. Word on the street is that the device was inspired by the Wii and the Animorphs, who wanted motion-sensitive games, but no new Controllers.

Ouch. Ow. Bad Animorphs pun.

But in all seriousness, this seems like an ideal way to integrate motion-sensitive gaming without forcing all 360 owners to buy a new Wii-like controller. You have to distance yourself from the competition somehow, people.

I’m not sure how the 3D part comes into play, though. Presumably, it means the camera can tell when you’re moving toward/away from it, but it could be tied into the new fad of showing movies in 3D. Seriously? Movies in 3D? That’s an old gimmick, as this genuine 1954 newspaper ad shows:

My aunt tells me that because of all the new, sophisticated computer technology, the 3D movies really work. Sophisticated technology? You wear paper glasses with Saran Wrap for lenses. Come on, give me a break. That’s just plain silly.

In other Microsoft news, everyone thinks we’ll hear about a new Halo game, and Splinter Cell: Conviction, so you can look forward to that if you want.

Rumors

There are rumors coming out the wazoo about E3, ranging from realistic (“Disney Interactive will reveal a new Kim Possible game”) to far-fetched (“someday, we will learn what ‘out the wazoo’ refers to”). Here are a few of the rumors I’ve seen:

• Capcom is scheduled to show off some of their big titles, like Resident Evil, Dead Rising 2, Street Fighter IV and so on. However, Capcom has announced that there will be two as-of-yet unannounced² games they will show off at E3. Everyone is guessing what these games might be, and while I figure that one of them is most likely the fifth Phoenix Wright game that’s going to be released this winter, Capcom might throw everyone for a loop and unveil something like Mega Man 10.

• is another company that is registered to appear, but hasn’t revealed what games they will showcase. The rumor that I’m making up right now is that LucasArts will stop making Star Wars games becauseStar Wars came out in the 1970s, and people are totally over it by now. Instead, LucasArts is pouring its money into an utterly massive, eighty-hour point-and-click game that will be—get this—a crossover between Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle.

• It is confirmed that we will see Vancouver 2010: The Official Videogame of the Winter Olympic Games at E3. Rumor has it that the people from that booth will get in a fist fight with the people from the Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games booth, and the fight will be more entertaining than both games combined.

• Barbie Horse Adventures 3 will be revealed for release in October. Michael Ridgaway will not stop salivating until late July.

  

  This picture of people in Colorado comes up if you Google “Michael Ridgaway salivating.” Did I ever mention that the Internet makes no sense?

• Fans of the Professor Layton series should certainly be excited around now. Not only is there a Professor Layton movie being released in January 2010, but there are three Professor Layton games in production as we speak (the first of which comes out this fall), making a grand total of six Professor Layton games in all. It seems that it’s a pretty safe bet to say we will see some footage of one of these three games at E3. Unfortunately, American and European fans of the series are still going to have to wait for the second Professor Layton game to be translated into English. And by “wait,” I mean “hope,” because a release date has yet to be announced.

• Rumors have it that Sony is going to drop the price of the PlayStation 3 from $500 to $499.

• Another rumor is that Nintendo is going to unveil footage of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Zelda Wii and Pikmin Wii. The source of the rumor? Fanboys’ dreams.

So there you go! A preview for E3, which will officially be released after E3 has already started. Awesome.

1. Remember how everybody complained about Navi being too loud in Ocarina of Time? And then, in Majora’s Mask, they remedied that problem by giving Link a fairy who doesn’t shout at him all the time? I miss that.

2. I have no idea how you can announce that you will show unannounced games, but apparently, it’s possible.