With the Electronic Entertainment Expo just around the corner (June 6th to the 9th), game companies everywhere are getting ready to announce to the world what their biggest games for the rest of the year will be. As you can imagine, the internet is rife with speculation as to what might be shown - take the Wii 2 rumours, for example, where the controller seems to have everything but the kitchen sink built in - and now Microsoft have sent out a sneaky batch of stickers with their invites to their E3 conference, which contains a few silhouettes and quotes that may well hint at some of the games we might be seeing on the day.
Everyone likes stickers!
Some of the icons are fairly straightforward - the dark green gun, name "Marcus Fenix", and "Revive Me!" being linked to the upcoming Gears of War 3, while the Kinect sensor suggests that a number of new Kinect games may be being unveiled at the conference - and you'd have to be a pretty crazy person to bet against that happening. The references to Cortana, Spartans, Master Chief, and the Covenant Energy Sword sticker all point towards a new Halo game, and rumours have been rife over the past few weeks that, what with this being the 10th anniversary of Halo, Microsoft may be about to launch a remake of the very first Halo game, Halo: Combat Evolved.
There are some stranger things in there, however. The name Batman seems an odd inclusion, which most likely will be a reference to the upcoming Batman: Arkham City, the follow-up to the epic crime-fighting Batman: Arkham Asylum. With the word being coloured in purple, could this be suggest Kinect features for the new Batman game? Or will it be an entirely different Kinect-enabled caped crusader game altogether?
GLaDOS is another weird one. With the incredible mind-bending puzzler Portal 2, of which GLaDOS is from, recently having been released, it seems a bit early to be ramping up for a sequel. While it's more likely that we'll be seeing some exclusive downloadable levels, or something like that, as a full sequel, or spin-off seems unlikely.Of course, the inclusion of a lightsaber, and the name Luke Skywalker strongly suggests that we'll be seeing a bit more of Star Wars Kinect, which was shown at last year's E3, albeit only in video form, and has disappeared ever since. The trailer certainly whet a lot of people's appetites, so it'll be interesting to see what comes from this.
There are, however, a few icons we're not entirely sure about. The jet could be referring to the recently announced Ace Combat 6 - or, it could be referring to a Ghost Recon game, a Call of Duty, or any one of a number of games that feature jets. Similarly, the axe has us stumped, as does the sword - will we be seeing more of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim at the show? Could the guitar suggest a new Rock Band game? And what about the nunchucks? A new Killer Instinct?
We could speculate for years. And at the moment, that's exactly what this is, speculation. Either way, we can't imagine that the names, logos, and phrases on the sticker sheet were chosen purely through chance. Everything happens for a reason, and if even half of the stickers relate to what we think they do, this is going to be an E3 to be excited about. Keep your ears to the ground, as all will be revealed when E3 kicks off on the 7th June.
