E3 2011 Gaming Round-Up: An erotic puzzler, Dark Souls, and more sequels than you could shake a Wii U at!

This year's E3 has come and gone, but I can still barely keep up with all the news that has come out since Monday: new games, new consoles and -- since this is the video game industry, after all -- tons of new sequels. The three juiciest pieces of gaming goodness this week were Nintendo's big reveal of the Wii U; Sony's announcement of its new handheld, the Playstation Vita, and the debut trailer for Halo 4.

With a touchscreen and camera functionality on its controller, I'm wondering how much potential the Wii U has for the massive success of its predecessor. If the iPad's sales are any indication, the Wii U could definitely attract a lot of new gamers -- hopefully without alienating the hardcore crowd.

Actually, the Playstation Vita has been garnering positive attention from fellow geeks, who think that it might offer a more hardcore portable gaming experience than the 3DS. The Vita is certainly a product of the smartphone generation, in which cell phones are becoming more like gaming systems and gaming systems are becoming more like cellphones. There will be a 3G version of  the Vita with AT&T service (online Bioshock multiplayer in the mountains, anyone?) retailing for $299.99, while the regular version will come at a reasonable price of $249.99.

The biggest titles of E3 2011? Well, it mostly amounts to a lot of 3's and 4's -- Mass Effect 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3, Battlefield 3, Sly 4: Thieves in Time (yes!!), etc., not to mention The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and the new Assassin's Creed and Tomb Raider games. The big-name sequels from E3 I'm most excited about are Twisted Metal, Batman: Arkham City, Bioshock Infinite and Saints Row 3.

My pick for most promising game of E3 2011 is Dark Souls. Coming out on PS3 and Xbox 360 later this year, it is the sequel to the notoriously difficult Demon's Souls, which was one of my favorite games and Gamespot.com's Game of the Year in 2009.

But what about a games that are (gasp) original? Catharine, an upcoming PSN/Xbox Live game about a man who wakes up to find a naked seductress in his bed, definitely offers some fresh meat. Check out its baffling E3 trailer here. You wouldn't have guessed that this is actually a surrealist horror puzzle game where you encounter monster babies and other manifestations of the fear of commitment, would you?

And if Catharine is the diva older sister of the "PSN/Xbox Live-games-at-E3-titled-vaguely-after women-names" family, then Amy would be the redheaded stepchild who talks to herself and plays with zombie dolls (if they exist). The lucky bastards at IGN got to play it, and they described the game as "Ico with zombies and it's totally brilliant."

And while we're on the topic of new IP and downloadable zombie games, Dead Island looks very promising as well.

Of course, this post doesn't begin to scratch at the surface of went on in Los Angeles this past week at the largest gaming show in the world. If you're looking for more tidbits, Google "Top E3 2011 games" or check out PC Advisor's tidy round-up of the best, worst, and most surprising games this year.