Hey, it’s me again. Graev. I know there hasn’t been a post in a while so I’m back to fill in. Hopefully things will return to normal soon so don’t abandon us yet! It may look like I’m bailing water but rest assured I am merely in charge of liquid repatriation.
I spent what feels like all day watching E3 coverage which is something that I don’t entirely enjoy but feel anxious about and compelled to do. From what I’ve seen from the four conferences today is not a lot to be excited about. Most everything that I’m truly interested in is either not coming out this year or wasn’t covered at all. I’m going to go into more detail about what I’m so dissatisfied with and I’ll try and mention anything good if I can think of it.
“Exclusively debuts first” and “Exclusive content” and Multiplatform Games.
This year there was a lot lot of this BS through out both the Microsoft and Sony conferences. Both brands covered a lot of multiplat titles and it all became a giant pissing match over exclusivity. Who gets the BETA first seems to be a big deal to these people. I really don’t understand why but whatever. My biggest gripe is all of this exclusive content nonsense because in the end it really only hurts the players who should be able to play the game on whatever system they want. Largely so far it seems like this E3 has mostly been about multiplatform games, especially since it seems like nothing truly exclusive is coming out anytime soon for either system.
CGI trailers and Scripted gameplay
I don’t know about anybody else but I’m getting really fed up with seeing both of these things. I stopped being impressed by CGI trailers many years ago since they really translate into nothing. It feels like we’ve also started to see a lot more scripted gameplay and “concept” footage that I really don’t appreciate since they pretty much never actually turn out how they show it. Take the Rainbow Six video for example. Sure it looked cool but it also looked incredibly fake and scripted. It makes me wonder whether that was actually happening or if it was all created to merely look like people were playing a game. This is the same kind of stuff that happened with Watch Dogs and look how that turned out.
EA Conference
I love how they started off with the Battlefront video which basically turned out to be nothing more than “We’re working on the game.” Honestly that felt like a kick to the nuts and a complete waste of time. I don’t care if you want to go crawling around the forest trying to recreate the “feeling” from the movies. Let me know when you have some actual gameplay footage. I was also very surprised that they didn’t mention any other Star Wars games in development.
The Battlefield Hardline footage did look pretty cool but, again, it’s all scripted to appear way cooler than it actually plays out. Still, I am very interested in the cops and robbers style gameplay and I’m glad to see grappling hooks and ziplines make a comeback. I think the last time we had those was in the special forces expansion for Battlefield 2 or something.
BioWare stuff was also pretty underwhelming. They lightly mentioned that they are working on more Mass Effect stuff and a new IP but they didn’t show much of anything. I don’t have very high hopes for Dragon Age Inquisition after Dragon Age 2 was a huge letdown and broken promise. Maybe I’m the only one but I didn’t find the gameplay footage to be that impressive, especially when held up against something like Witcher 3.
There was a whole lot of “early footage” and “we’re working on” stuff. Star Wars, Mirror’s Edge, etc. Middle fingers for everyone!
Xbox Conference
There were some cool exclusive titles revealed like the Platinum Game’s Scalebound. Sunset Overdrive also appears to be very interesting in a “zombie killing meets Tony Hawk” kind of way. Crackdown coming back is also pretty cool but I was pretty let down by Fable Legends. The gameplay looked fairly “meh” and the villain portion was very disappointing to see. I was hoping for something a pit more complex than what they showed us. My biggest takeaway from this conference was the giant middle finger they held up to Conker fans with his throwaway inclusion into Project Spark, which did actually look pretty cool with it’s new galactic stuff.
UBI Conference
UBI shows always seem to be incredibly awkward and borderline awful. This didn’t really stray that far from the traditional formula. The entire atmosphere of the conference felt very odd. There was a very weird vibe and it seemed like a bunch of 12 year old’s trying to act grown-up by showing how edgy they can be and how much they can swear.
Anyway, The Division and FarCry4 looked pretty interesting. I already mentioned my thoughts on Rainbow Six. The fitness and dancing stuff went on entirely too long though. Assassin’s Cred Unity looked like it will probably be a good game but honestly I’m burnt out on them. Keen will probably go crazy for it. Also again, my takeaway was the giant middle finger they gave us with nothing on Beyond Good & Evil 2. Keep up the good work, Ubi.
Sony Conference
This one started out pretty good. I think they showed Destiny first and that was nice. It felt like it fell apart in the middle. There was a lot of talking and a lot of showing of stuff I felt like I had already seen. Plus they had some really awkward guy making cringe-worthy jokes while reading out of their fake mailbag. There was a cool moment where they announced a remastering of Grim Fandango so I have to give them credit for that. Lots of “EXCLUSIVE DEBUTS & CONTENT” and “LOOKS BEST ON.” I was pretty surprised that the Project Morpheus stuff wasn’t touched on more. It was very brief and they didn’t really seem to talk about it or what it can do.
Towards the end things got a little better with the Batman Footage, which was probably the highlight of their conference for me. No Man’s Sky also looked really cool but I have to wonder what it does that something like Star Citizen wont do better. And surprisingly (to nobody) they ended by teasing Uncharted 4. I do like the Uncharted games and I’m sure that it will probably be a good game… Still, I’m getting a little sick of them after playing 3 and a Vita title already.
Interestingly enough, my takeaway again was the giant middle finger they held up by basically abandoning the Vita into little more than a PS4 add-on.
Wrapping up…
So yeah, not a great E3 for me so far. SOME interesting stuff but mostly a lot of nonsense. Hopefully Nintendo will show some awesome things tomorrow. People are already talking about who “won E3″ and that kind of fanboy nonsense that pops up every unfortunate year. Do you want to know who I think won? The third-party companies with their fat exclusivity checks. The players lose this one.
NOTE: My editor is currently M.I.A. so kudos if you read it all the way here through every typo and grammar mistake.
My thoughts on the first day of E3 from Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog