Patrick Miller covers HDTVs and how-tos for PCWorld, and he has a particular weakness for fighting games and StarCraft 2.
What I Want: First, I want Nintendo's to excite me. The Wii might have been excellent for getting video game consoles into houses that had never seen them before, but not that many Wii games could hold my interest for longer than an hour or so. Although Nintendo may have scored big with the casual-friendly Wii, I don't think the company will be able to make that magic happen again. At the very minimum, the new system needs to be substantially more powerful--at least two Wiis duct-taped together, this time.
Other than that, this year's E3 is all about follow-through. Microsoft's Kinect and Nintendo's 3DS are cool, but now I want to see games designed for the Kinect and 3DS that I'll actually pick up and play by myself for more than 20 minutes. I want to see Sony show off its new portable console with some games (or even half-baked game concepts) that make me think, "Wow, that could be done only on the NGP." And I really want to see a full suite of blockbuster titles and low-budget independent games that show off everything the PC can bring to the gaming world, because we're due for a resurgence.
What I Expect: Sequels are big business in video games, and for a good reason--it's easier to sell a prospective game buyer on another iteration of a game they were convinced to purchase once before, as they're already interested in the characters and the gameplay. I hate the incessant sequelitis as much as everyone else does, but I suspect we'll see a few good sequels and spinoffs tactically employed to build enthusiasm for a new platform. For example, the Nintendo 3DS version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater mixes arguably the best game from the series with some 3DS-exclusive features such as the accelerometer and the forward-facing camera. If I have to be stuck with the same old stories, at least use the Kinect or something to switch things up a bit.
What I Don't Want: I'm fully convinced that iOS/Android games and social games have incredible amounts of potential, and I can't wait to see what kinds of addictive gems pop out from the woodwork at this year's E3. That said, if any game is described as being in the vein of FarmVille or Angry Birds, my brain is going to reboot. Game makers won't do justice to the mobile and social categories simply by name-dropping two banal (if wildly popular) games that don't need to be rehashed yet again.