E3, the Electronics Entertainment Expo, that’s had its ups and downs over the past several years, is currently going on in Los Angeles, Day 2 just having finished up. It’s the annual gaming event where games studios, developers and publishers come out and show off what they have in store for the year to come. There’s been tons of surprise reveals, and some rather arbitrary ones. Here’s a list of the things that’s got me excited so far:

Project Natal

Project Natal has been *the* biggest thing that’s got me excited at the moment. It’s simply a super-charged version of the Wii remotes for the Xbox 360, but no controllers in your hand, just simply *you* as the controller. So far it does seem a bit gimmicky, with the demo games being boring things like 3D breakout and a canvas painting thing, but as with the Nintendo Wii, the possibilities are endless, if only the developers harness the technology correctly. Telling you about this technology will not convey the possibilities, so rather go look at these two videos at Youtube: A tech demo by the lead Creative Designer for Project Natal, and also a “Whoa, look at the possibilities!!” video by Peter Molyneux from Lionhead Studios.

New Games

Final Fantasy VII, known by any and all *real* Final Fantasy fans as the best Final Fantasy ever, originally for the PlayStation 1, is going to be remade and released for the PSP and the PlayStation 3. It will be downloadable for a mere $9.99 via the PlayStation Network.

New Super Mario Brother Wii, a new New SMB game, was announced by Nintendo. The gameplay video looks very much like Little Big Planet for the PS3, minus all the world-building bits, but the cooperative play aspect is there, and it looks really good.

Halo: ODST, some gameplay footage was shown, and it may seem like “Just more Halo 3″, but if you watch some of the gameplay videos you’ll see some really great enhancements, as the ODST troopers are a different kind of solder to the Spartan that you played as in the first three Halo games.

Left 4 Dead 2 was announced, the follow-up to last year’s very successful cooperative multiplayer game. Great new things like incendiary ammo and more-of-the-same as the first game, this new game seems to be better.

All Points Bulletin, or APB, was shown at E3. They showed the character customisation possibilities, much more to customise than in previous games, including, yes, boob size. APB is an online action RPG, and comes to us from the makers of Crackdown, one of the earlier very good Xbox 360 games.

Two Metal Gear Solid games were announced, MGS Rising for the Xbox 360, and MGS Peace Walker for the PSP, in two separate announcements from Konami. Not quite the MGS games that fans were hoping for (Most MGS fans were hoping for an MGS5 announcement), bu still something to get excited about. The MGS series of games have always been very popular and well executed due to Hideo Kojima, game design veteran’s involvement.

Special mentions

Other games that were announced or showed, that should definitely be good, include Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Final Fantasy XIII, Assassin’s Creed 2, Saw, Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, Mass Effect 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, God of War III, Beatles Rock Band, The Grinder (Wii) and many, many more.

For more information and live coverage of E3 as it’s happening, you can check out Gamespot, Gametrailers, IGN and Kotaku. And yes, the booth babes are very much still there, if in a bit toned down fashion than before.

All of the above, and there’s still one more day left of hopefully great surprises.