Not surprisingly, Yahtzee was not amused by almost anything at E3. I can understand that; there were a lot of promises made which have yet to be followed through on (probably some never will) and a lot of rehashing of old stuff that was never particularly original to begin with.

It was a fun show and I look forward to a lot of the games we saw demoed, but I have to share his perspective on a lot of this stuff, although I may just give Final Fantasy XIV a try.

Fatal1ty, the world’s most recognizable (and most frequently name-checked) pro gamer, took a little time out of his busy schedule giving stuff away for OCZ to have a little chat with us. His press shots have him mugging like a bro who just took you down in Halo and is ready for his close-up, but in reality he’s a pretty straightforward guy. That said, having an entire line of gaming peripherals named after you does imply he possesses only vestigial modesty. We talk about the new model of Fatal1ty headphones with intelligent voice filtering, old-school gaming, and whether or not regular Excitebike had a two-player mode (it doesn’t, I maintain).

Oh, to be young again and be playing Super Mario Bros for the first time. Not possible, unfortunately, but at least I can play New Super Mario Bros for the first time — and I just did. The new side-scrolling Wii Mario game was playable here at E3 and we spent a good amount of time checking it out. Watch closely and you can see Peter twice die on the first two things in the game that can possibly kill you. Nice job, Ha.

The brutal yearly schedule for Need For Speed games has produced some excellent ones (Wanted) and some dogs (ProStreet). Need For Speed: Shift looks like a good one, although it’s far more sim-ish than the ones in the series I’ve enjoyed the most. I failed real hard at playing this thing, believe me, despite the promise of a BMW M3 if I played well enough. Greg did a little better, and if you watch the video, you’ll understand just how bad I must have done.

Red Steel 2, which just got its first real gameplay debut yesterday, is now out in the open and being played by every Tom, Dick and Harry who passes by. Of course, we had to take a shot at it. I’m happy to say I was pleasantly surprised by how it controlled, although I’ve never mastered the Wii shooter style. It helped that the guy in front of us was hopeless; why learn from my own mistakes when I can learn from his ahead of time?

So what do we make of Final Fantasy XIV? The game, which will be an MMO à la Final Fantasy XI, was announced at some point during Sony’s 18-and-a-half hour press conference at E3. The trailer is available online, but I haven’t yet figured out a way to grab it and put it here. Oh, well.

We’re skimp on details until we hit the Nyko booth, but we have images of Nyko’s upcoming accessories for this year. They all seem to be pretty straightforward. So without further ado, I present to you the DSi Zoom Case, PSP Charge Grip Flex, and the Wii Type Pad Pro. There’s the Speakercom 360, but there aren’t any images of it yet. No release dates or prices have been announced, but we’re told that they are coming out this year.

Are any of you ardent Sony PS3 supporters concerned with the way things have turned out? You lost Final Fantasy exclusivity (well, outside of Japan) at last year’s E3, and Metal Gear this year. Those are two of the biggest franchises that made PlayStation what it is today. Or what it was yesterday, as it were. I’m just trying to think, if I were to buy a PS3 today, what’s in it for me?

We were on the scene down here in LA, and today was the first big day of the show — even though it doesn’t really even start until tomorrow. Today was actually the day of press conferences by some of the big players, where they drop all their big news and tell you where to check out the latest big franchise games. It’s also a showcase for the latest acquisitions and technology, as well as announcing partnerships and that sort of thing.

Today’s events included Microsoft’s Xbox event this morning, then heavyweight EA’s press conference in the early afternoon, then Ubisoft in the later afternoon (they win the guest presenter contest, with both Pele and James Cameron). They dropped some interesting stuff, though I’d be lying if I told you they didn’t introduce a game where you do fantasy make-up.

You’ve seen the trailer, now see the gameplay. They actually modeled Sam Fisher on a younger, fitter now-CrunchGear-editor John Biggs. John was never quite that deadly, let’s be honest, but we have to allow a certain level of artistic license in these things. The lithe movements are very Biggs-ish, though.

Red Steel was a groundbreaking game in the truest sense: it broke ground. Not necessarily very well, but it was the first Wii game to really try to do what we were all thinking: guns and swords. Red Steel 2 may actually deliver on the promises its predecessor made, but at the very least it looks like a fun game to flail around in.

Check out a few minutes of gameplay inside, including the cinematic intro, some normal guys, and a boss fight.

Raise your hand if you thought Microsoft’s press conference was a bit of a bore this morning? Aside from Natal, I wasn’t all that impressed by any of the upcoming titles (except for Conviction and maybe The Beatles Rock Band) or the updates to Xbox Live. Lionhead really stole the show when they unveiled a little AI boy named Milo.

We had a bootleg that we almost uploaded, but we decided to download and re-up Ubisoft’s streaming version instead. Are you ready for some new-school Assassin’s Creed? Are you? Well then what are you waiting for? Click!

Hard to tell anything specific about the game other than that part of it takes place in picturesque Venice (hopefully one of several locations you can again ride to), but the addition of having a gun does seem to change some of the core gameplay elements.

Fancy a ODST wireless Xbox 360 controller? Well, it’s going to cost you $99 when Halo 3 ODST drops on September 22, but don’t worry that includes the game as well. Hit the jump to see the controller and the official ODST trailer.

This, if you haven’t already seen it on G4 or whatever, is the début trailer of Splinter Cell: Conviction. Sam has gone rogue!