Delayed into mid-week as to get as get some really big response, it's our 45th Staff Roundtable: the E3 Roundtable. Spectacular or craptacular? We discuss.

So then, what did you think of E3 2003?

Ben (bjlangley): Satisfactory, but not overwhelming.

All of the shots and videos that have come out about the games we already knew about look fantastic, Mario Kart Double Dash!! and Star Fox 2, for instance.

It's cool that Nintendo have bettered their links with the third parties too, such as Capcom, Namco, Konami and EA. Good things will come from this, at least with EA games now we'll get something other than straight ports of the PS2 versions. This Geist game from n-space looks cool too.

The two Zelda games don't do anything for me though, perhaps if they were as one game, with additional mini games too, otherwise it seems a little lacking.

Still, nice to see Nintendo are trying to be innovative, but what happened to Mario 128?

Plenty to look forward to though.

Ben (Haver): Amazing. Absolutely amazing. This being my first E3, I was overwhelmed by the greatness of it all. The Nintendo press conference had my heart pounding and the news posting into the night on the first day was like nothing I'd ever done before. It was thrilling. It was....fun.

On the gaming side of things, many people have labelled the event as disappointing, but I believe it was the absolute opposite of that. In previous years we have had one or two big announcements but not many new titles. This year we had a flood of new exciting titles, even though there was no BIG title.

The two new Zelda titles look to be a great addition to the series, MGS looks nothing short of superb and the clip of Metroid Prime 2 made me feel all giggly inside. The GCN/GBA link-up feature has been flaunted brilliantly, and the third party support was overwhelming.

Go Nintendo!

Ash: Well I didnt get to see most of it (bah exams) but it seems cool. I'm now reading up about all the games and such and I look forward to downloading videos and trailers of games such as Geist, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Sonic Heroes etc.

Not the best E3 and not the worse, hopefully Nintendo have decided to host Spaceworld and are leaving all the big guns until then.

Kev: I was hoping e3 2003 would be really big this year but it wasnt for Nintendo platform owners we havent seen a single suprise every new title was either a simple rehash or previously annouced.

The most stupid annoucement was the PSP it was to early as they haven't even got firm specs or any footage of it in action.

pdhq64: In my opinion, this has been the worst E3 I can remember. All the games were shown before E3, so there were no suprises, or any new hardware such as the screen we saw at last year's E3.

Ever since the GameCube was announced, Nintendo at E3 has gotten worse and worse in my opinion. I thought last year was a disappointment, but this just took it's place.

It's not all bad though, as I got ADSL on the 2nd day of E3, so I've got over 2GB of E3 movies at the time I am typing this.

Link: It was coming, was, and has gone until next year. Know as the biggest expo show casing video games and other electronic entertainemnt, E3 gave us a glimpse into the next wave of interactive entertainment. Sony had a good lineup and Halo 2 for the XBOX certainly was a big hit, but when it comes to show-stealers everybody looks to Nintendo. And so they did and were disappointed.

This E3 Nintendo focused on third-party titles. There were few titles that appeared that were not previously announced, but the GameCube had a strong lineup. With RE4, Tales of Symphonia, Phantasy Star Online 3, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Soul Calibur 2, StarFox 2, and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, the GameCube's third-party support was apparent in some of the industries biggest franchises. So what if we only got Pikmin 2 and Mario Kart: Double Dash directly from Nintendo? Look to SpaceWorld for their big announcements on games. But before we pass total condemnation over Nintendo's weak first-party pressence at E3 lets look at the games.

A relatively large RPG presence was seen which is a great sign for the GameCube's nearly empty RPG selection. The major titles will be quality for obvious reasons and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, though brandishing a still PSXish overcoat, is looking excellent.

As for Geist: if n-Space was publishing it themselves then I would be a bit skeptical on its success, but under Nintendo's guiding hand it is sure to deliver big. Custom Robo 2 also shows promise to multi-player fans as does Mario Party 5.

Looking back on all these games you must admit that though Nintendo's presence may have been weak, the GameCube's wasn't. If anybody is still skeptical try sifting through all the E3 news and download a bunch of the E3 movies and I'm sure that you'll agree that the GameCube had a strong presence at E3. When compared to the XBOX and PS2 the GameCube matched them at least. So the new graphics of Halo 2 wowed the crowd and the announcement of Conker excited many that can't overshadow the quality of Nintendo. Look to SpaceWorld and prepare to be wowed.

Lamsh: This E3 was great! Even though there was no really big news, a lot of games that just were names before now had video's and hands-on reports.

My will-probably-buy list has grown quite a bit. Sonic Heroes, Billy Hatcher, Four Swords (great idea!), Tony Hawk Underground, Turtles, Prince of Persia and Spiderman 2 were all added after I saw movies of them. Nintendo had big names (F-Zero and Metal Gear Solid), innovation (Geist and the GBA-link games) and great gameplay (Mario Kart and Four Swords). Enough to make it a great E3 for me. I gotta give the "best game" award to Halflife 2 though.

Dominic: E3 this year was great, although I don't think Nintendo had that much of a good show.

Nintendo's show this year was a bit poor, sure they showed off some games but they should of not revealed Mario kart and others just before E3, they should of waited till the actually show, would of been a much bigger surprise.

The surprises that were shown weren't great either; two Zelda titles, which looked really mediocre, Geist had a slight interest but then when Half Life 2 was shown that was just blown away. And what happened to Game Zero? Hello where are you? I ask.

At least the games that I knew about looked fun to play which all that matters at the end of the day, but if Nintendo wants to capture more audiences it best make the next E3 a bang or I can see the successor to Gamecube not doing to well.

3rd party game wise, Turtles looks fun to play, been a fan of the Snes turtles in time game so I am looking forward to it, also Tales of Symphonia looks really nice and been a RPG fan just makes it even better for me.

Overall the show was good but Nintendo's side was a bit disappointing.

Game Of The Show? Half Life 2, not like you didn't know already.

Tim: E3 was great fun, like always! As expected Nintendo announced some new games. I am really looking forward to the announced GEIST game. Pokemon I am not a real fan of, but I am sure the fans will dig those games. The Zelda games seem fun, and Mario Kart totally kicks butt. Ah man, and that Metal Gear Solid game is totally going to rock.

The support for Nintendo at the E3 was a bit lacking. There were some games announced here and there, but not a lot of groundbraking innovative stuff. There were also quite some games which were for the Xbox, PS2 and not for the GameCube. That was a bit frustrating, though we most of the better games are released on the Cube also.

Still I feel that there could have been more. Why didn't they show us Metroid 2 or a new Mario?

Bas: Nintendo made it once again clear that they want to be the industry leader again. However, their line-up doesn't seem to back this statement.

Personally, I'm fine with Nintendo not being the major player on the games market. I like Nintendo for their vision on what ingredients make a good videogame. They know that a licence or extreme violence don't have to be one of those ingredients. However, you can't be the biggest console without being very mainstream and that is not what Nintendo is. They refuse to make games like Grand Theft Auto. That fine by me, but it's those games that appeal to the most people and can make you the biggest system. Then what do they do to win back their number one position?

First, they consolidate their fan base by making sequels to the most popular games. Mario Golf, 1080, F-Zero and Mario Party look nice indeed. However, they don't seem to be offering much that we haven't done before. Mario Kart, Star Fox and Pikmin seem to be a nice variation on their sequels. These are all great games but they're unlikely to attract large new audiences. The same goes for the Pokémon games. What they seem to forget is making some fresh franchises. Geist is one of the few and though the idea is great, it seems no match for Half-Life 2 and Halo 2. Giftpia and Wario World look okay but won't be system sellers.

Secondly, Nintendo heavily bets on the connectivity with the Game Boy Advance. It's certainly a good addition, but this is not what is going to make people sell their PS2s. The new Zelda games look fun but the requirement to have one ore more GBAs to get everything out of the game may put some people off playing those. Final Fantasy is also criticized for this.

The third weapon in the console wars is getting more famous third party games to the Cube. This is a commendable effort and great news for those who never had the chance to play Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid before but it probably won't have much effect. Metal Gear, as good as it's probably going to be is still MGS1 which many gamers already played. Other third party games exclusive for the GameCube seem to be a bit kiddy (which by no means make a bad game, but might imply bad sales). Billy Hatcher is one of these and even Final Fantasy gets a more cartoon-like look.

Overall, we've seen many great games. But with this line-up Nintendo won't be number one again. That's okay, I don't need another PlayStation. Let's hope Nintendo recognizes this and won't focus too much on the GBA connectivity and makes some more original games and not just sequels.

er-no: It was more of a let down then I imagined. Mario Kart was revealed before the show, so that was a shame. There was no new Smash Bros game or Mario or Zelda. Metroid 2 was known before the show.

The only great thing was the Metal Gear Solid movie and footage. That cheered me up. I don't really have much to say. Nintendo are stuffing up. They need to do something major and hopefully it'll be a console created with Sega. Otherwise they will die into the software world.

E3 2003? One question...Where the hell was PilotWings?