E3 Has Apparently Started Early

The gaming community isn't letting a little thing like TIME stand in the way of making epic announcements. There's 3 big news stories of the day: one long rumored and now confirmed, one unexpected that has ignited the Metal Gear fanbase, and another unexpected trailer with a rough release date.

For starters, a new trailer for Batman: Arkham City was released, featuring the confirmation that yes, Catwoman is indeed a playable character. It's been hinted by Rocksteady that Arkham City will play somewhat similar to the Onimusha series, where the player periodically changes the character one plays as. Catwoman is slated to play very similar to Batman, but she will not be able to glide since she doesn't have a cape. Rumors of a co-op mode have yet to be shot down, but those rumors might die down now.

Konami made a rather surprising announcement today, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will receive HD remakes on the PS3 and Xbox 360, with the PS3 version supporting uploading the PSP version of Peace Walker to a PS3 and transferring the save file. This actually not the first time that MGS2 will be on the Xbox; the original edition of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance was an original Xbox exclusive for a few months. This will however, be the first time a handheld game will be remade for a different company's console.

Also announced were HD remakes of Zone of the Enders 1 & 2, both also for 360 and PS3. This news is totally unexpected, but Hideo Kojima has been hinting for quite a while that he is not done with ZoE.

Lastly, in the world of "Wow, that was completely unexpected, but sweet!," Square Enix premiered the first trailer of Tomb Raider. It's a reboot of the entire series, taking into account how gaming has changed since the original game and how Lara Croft needed to change. You may remember I wrote about the original announcement of this new Tomb Raider back in December. Back then, Tomb Raider was slated for a Q4 2011 release, but the trailer reveals that the game is far from completion, now slated for a Fall 2012 release. This news is actually unsurprising since Tomb Raider would have to compete with Uncharted 3, something Square Enix definitely does not want. The trailer is fantastic and Lara's new look (and especially voice) are a welcome change. Lara no longer sounds like she's better than you and doesn't look like a guy mistakenly entered +150% rather than +15% on breast size.

More big announcements are expected to come before E3 even starts, so stay tuned!