Activision

Okay I was most impressed with the Activision booth or area because the first thing I saw when I went inside was the DJ Hero demo being down. I can honestly say that I was blown away demo and made me want to play immediately. The best part of DJ Hero is that Activision was smart enough to incorporate the best parts of its Guitar Hero franchise into DJ Hero. So while I watched a DJ Hero demo of The Beastie Boy’s Sabotage I could really see how the DJ was matching his mixing technique with the game as someone else gets to jam away on the guitar element of Sabotage. I think many non-Hip-Hop fans are going to be greatly encouraged to try DJ Hero because the game is not going to make them choose between supporting Rock or Hip-Hop songs. DJ Hero also has custom mash-ups of popular Hip-Hop icons like Grandmaster Flash, pop icons like Herbie Hancock, legendary soul star James  Brown, sultry Ska/Pop princess Gwen Stefani and DJ Kool. So the absolute best aspect of DJ Hero will be to experiment and discover the fun of playing with mixes from all genres of music. I think in time DJ Hero will be another valuable way to inspire music sales.

Activision did have many big titles at E3 Expo like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2, the racing game Blur, Guitar Hero 5, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, first person shooter games like Wolfenstein and the time displacement Singularitry I know all the hype is supposed to be over Modern Warfare 2. And I know Activision wants to spend $200 million to launch MW2 and make its release bigger than any Hollywood summer film or rival the super mega launch of GTA 4 and Halo Wars 2. But for me the most stand-out game from Activision is Tony Hawk’s Ride. I would not do this innovative justice by limiting its description to my gaming literary skills. So I will defer below to the Tony Hawk Ride breakdown from the E3 Expo 2009 Show Daily:

“Activision is introducing Tony Hawk Ride, which will ship with a skateboard accessory that
should stop gamers in their tracks. Unlike the previous iterations of the hit series, Tony Hawk
Ride will not utilize standard controllers, instead using a skateboard accessory loaded with three
accelerometers inside and four sensors on each side of the boarding order to match the player’s
movement. Tilt back, and your on-screen character will do an Ollie; shift your weight to a side, and
he will turn and get air, wave your hand in front of the sensor in order to pull off a sick grab trick.
With both street and half-pipe skating events, Tony Hawk Ride promises to be a skating
experience like none other”…E3 Expo Show Daily 06/02/09