My impressions on all the conferences
at E3 2016
Well, this year’s E3 has come and
gone. All 6 of the big developers have had their chances to impress us. Some
did, others did not. Here are my in-depth thoughts on each of them!
EA
Our first showing was EA’s, and it wound
up being one of the most middle of the road conferences I’ve ever seen. It
wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible. We got some really good trailers, we got some
really boring non-trailers.
For starters, we got our first look at
Titanfall 2. As someone who never played or was interested in the original
Titanfall, this looked pretty good to me, while nothing super mindblowing. We
also saw the single-player campaign, which essentially looks like every other
multiplayer-focused FPS’s single player campaign: white guy with a beard is
fighting to avenge something. It didn’t look super interesting.
What did look super interesting was EA’s indie game of the year, a colourful
little game called Fe. While it’s not exactly original (it seems more like a
mix of Ori and the Blind Forest and Journey to me), I really love the idea of
playing as a tiny animal in a big world. The graphics are gorgeous and full of
life, and the idea of everything in this world having a sort of song they sing
is genius. If anything, I’m really looking forward to the soundtrack of this
one. The best part was that we got another adorably nervous indie dev
presenting it, and while he wasn’t as “Awww” inducing as Martin Sahlin and
Unravel were last year, it was still fun to watch him nervously stutter his way
through his speech.
We also got a bizarre, sort of look at
the upcoming slate of Star Wars games. When I say look, I mean someone came
onstage and said “Hey, look! These are the developers that are working on Star
Wars games! Bye!” We got a grand total of 5 seconds of footage, and we don’t
even know what game it was for, aside from the fact it was under the Star Wars
name. It was honestly the most disappointing part of the conference for me. I
feel they only put it in there to remind people that they have control of the
Star Wars license now, and to justify giving more DLC to the 3 people who
haven’t traded Battlefront into GameStop yet.
A recurring theme I noticed during
this conference was trailers with developers sitting at their desks, and little
to no gameplay. We saw it with the Star Wars bit, and we also saw it with the
trailer for the new Mass Effect. They showed as little of the actual game as
possible, instead having developers talking about how they’re so excited to
work on the game and so on. While I’m glad that these oft-unsung heroes are
getting the attention they deserve, I feel I must make one point. Show, don’t
tell. We want to see what you’re working on, not be told about it. Maybe next
time, if a game isn’t ready to be seen in full yet, don’t wag a teaser for it
in front of our faces. Wait until you have a decent trailer. If that means a
game is absent at E3, so be it. It’s not like it wouldn’t be there in the first
place if you have no footage.
The conference was also only 1 hour
long, which was fine to me, they didn’t have much to show after all. What I
didn’t think was fine was the fact that we had to sit through 30 minutes of
sports. I know, EA Sports is an enormous part of the brand, and I know, they
need to have it there for their shareholders, but come on. Did we really need 10 minutes of learning that another
Madden game was coming out? Spoiler alert, it looks exactly the same as the
last Madden game I played, and that was a decade ago! At least the new FIFA
looks okay, with a story mode added. I’m sure the fans are really looking
forward to that. I especially enjoyed the random guy who came out onstage and
acted his little heart out, trying to be the main character from the campaign.
I really didn’t pick up on what he was saying, because I was laughing too hard.
I’m sure I’ll see him again when the inevitable E3 2016 cringe compilation
shows up.
Battlefield 1 made a return appearance
at the end, and while I’m not interested in this game in the slightest, I can’t
deny the appeal here. This is probably going to be one of the most original
realistic themed shooters in the years since modern warfare dominated the
market. My only hope is that it delivers on these promises, and we don’t have
another Battlefront disaster on our hands.
Overall, a decent press conference.
I’m not sure if I’ll remember anything I saw in it by next week (besides maybe
Fe), but I don’t regret watching it either. My only hope is that next year we
have less trailers of developers sitting at their desks, and more trailers
showing actual gameplay.
Bethesda
I really didn’t know what to expect
going into this one, but what I was sure we’d get was some new games.
Well, we sort of got that. Just not
many of them.
Bethesda’s E3 this year to me was
scarily reminiscent of last year’s Square-Enix bomb. The presenters were
lifeless and disinterested, and the trailers were slow and boring.
They started off with what was the
highlight of the conference for me (aside from that guy in the pre-show who
kept changing his shirt every time he came on camera), Quake Champions. Now, I’ve
never played a Quake game before, and we didn’t see enough to fully grasp
exactly what this game was about, but I can at least figure it’s going to be a
hero-based shooter in the same vein as Overwatch. I’m a huge fan of those kinds
of games, so I’ll be watching this with lots of interest.
The other new game that we saw was
called Prey. Again, I had no idea that this was an existing series until
someone on Twitter mentioned it, so I have no history with it. My first
impressions aren’t great, as I felt that this game looked sort of like a
generic space action game with a grizzled white male hero. I did really like
the design of the enemies, as they had a sort of Venom symbiote look to them.
The way they slithered around was very creative, and I do hope they do more
with it.
Sadly, this is mostly everything new
they showed, aside from their final game, which I’ll get to in a minute.
Everything else was DLC for existing games, like Doom, Fallout 4, Fallout Shelter,
and Elder Scrolls Online. It seemed that the only people who still played Elder
Scrolls Online were in the auditorium for the conference as well, because there
were about 5 people screaming their heads off about it. We also got our first
look at Skyrim Remastered, which looks just fine, but has a bit too many
filters over it for my taste. Maybe we can adjust them in the options menu.
As someone who’s never played any of
these games, I can tell you that this was one of the slowest things I’ve ever
had to watch. I kept waiting and waiting for this DLC and expansion talk to
end, and to move onto something new, but every time they finished, they’d just
start talking about a different game. It was so bad, I almost fell asleep
halfway through.
The worst came when they were talking
about the Elder Scrolls card game, which looks so much like Hearthstone it’s
not even funny. The trailer they showed was extremely poorly put together, with
none of what we were seeing having any cohesion with the game at all. It was
just still images. I could’ve made that trailer in Microsoft PowerPoint if you
gave me enough time. It was so bad, even the Twitch player gave up on it, as
the stream briefly crashed partway through, and came back just as the trailer
ended.
Their last game was Dishonored 2,
another game I knew nothing about going in. They showed a really cool trailer for
it during the preshow, which I assume aired sometime before this, and I was
very interested in what more they had to show about the game.
After 20 minutes of droning on and on
about how realistic the peeling paint on the walls in the game was, I have
officially lost any and all interest I had in Dishonored 2.
It went on for ages. They walked slowly around the boring, grey game world in
awkward, musicless silence, as an executive talked about just how detailed it
was. Then, we got to see some actual gameplay! Which consisted of more walking.
Then, finally, we got some real
action and a trailer, but at this point I was so bored out of my skull I
couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention.
While it wasn’t necessarily the worst
conference of all time, Bethesda’s showing this year sure was a boring one. I
assume that if you’re an avid player of any of the games that got DLC, you’d be
excited, but as I’m not, I was left with a really empty feeling. I’m looking
forward to seeing more of Quake later on, but not much else. Maybe next year,
guys.
Microsoft
Here’s something I didn’t expect to be
saying: Microsoft showed us a lot of gameplay this year at E3. Yeah, I can’t
believe it either. We still got lots of cinematic trailers, but they were
balanced out rather evenly with some gameplay that, while it was clearly
scripted, was really nice to see.
I think my favourite part about this
conference was that it fixed the problems that plagued both of the first two
conferences. While EA and Bethesda suffered because they showed too little,
Microsoft’s conference was a steady stream of trailers and developers talking,
keeping a decent pace the whole time.
We started off with a trailer for
Gears of War 4, because of course we did. Now, I’m not a Gears fan, I’ve never
played any of the games, but this looked like big dumb fun to me. Giant
monsters, zany weapons, and more brown hued scenery than you can shake a stick at.
It was kind of odd how the sound cut out towards the end though. Unintentional
glitch or censoring that girl’s pottymouth? You be the judge.
Then, we went onto a gorgeous
landscape. I’m a huge junkie for these types of shots, so if you ever find
yourself making a trailer specifically for me for whatever horrible reason, you
start with some pretty looking vista. Then, we saw the shadows of kangaroos
hopping along across. This got me excited, because I thought we were seeing
some sort of Australian bush adventure game.
But all my hopes and dreams were
crushed when the Forza cars drove through. I didn’t pick up anything from this
trailer, I was so disappointed. I’m sure Forza fans are thrilled they’re
getting the Australian Cup or whatever, but I’m still salty that I was promised
kangaroos and then they were torn from my grasp.
We then saw some more of ReCore, a
game that intrigued me last year, but now has my full attention. With a large
cast of robots to play as, each with their own unique abilities, I think this
has potential to be something special.
Speaking of ReCore, it brings up a
point that I have about the entire conference: it seems tailor made for me, a
person who doesn’t own an Xbox One. Every exclusive trailer started with
“Available for Xbox One and Windows 10”. So thanks, Microsoft, for allowing me
to not have to pretend to be excited for games that I wouldn’t be able to play.
I’m definitely considering buying ReCore if the reviews are good.
One thing it seemed Microsoft wanted
to focus on this year was smaller games. While it’s great to get things like
this out there, it did feel like a bit of a slog halfway through. Between the
Limbo developers’ next project, We Happy Few, which looks like a game I would
really dislike, and a disastrous trailer for Sea of Thieves, Rare’s next game.
It seemed that someone decided to grab the most annoying let’s players from the
internet and have that be their trailer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t focus on the
trailer, they were screeching so loud.
The conference ended with a cute but
unmemorable trailer for Dead Rising 4 (featuring the best pun of the entire
conference), a rather cliché looking trailer for Scalebound, an extremely grey
and uninteresting Halo Wars 2 trailer, and the reveal of Project Scorpio. What
is Project Scorpio, you ask? Good question. Some say it’s the successor to the
Xbox One. Others will tell you it’s simply an upgraded version of the one.
What everyone can see to agree on is
that it’s capable of 4K video, and has several “megaflops” of power, which
can’t sound cool no matter how you say it. Trust me, I’ve tried.
All in all, a stellar showing for
Microsoft. I truly do think that the Xbox One’s glorious failure when it was
first announced was the wake-up call this company needed. It showed them that
they weren’t invincible, and that if they wanted to appeal to the people who
actually buy their products, they have to actually try. This year there was no TV or real-life sports and cars.
They’ve really shed the “frat-boy of game companies” image they had for so
long, and I absolutely respect them as developers now.
Ubisoft
As Microsoft leaves behind their
“frat-boy of game companies” title, the scoundrels over at Ubisoft seem more
than happy to pick it up. This conference was filled with cool dudes shooting
stuff while cursing constantly, with blood flying everywhere, and lots of
different shades of grey and brown. They also showed about 3 mildly interesting
games. At least that’s more than Bethesda, right?
I try to look on the bright side of
most game companies. I’ll defend EA, even if they’ve made several missteps in
the past. And although I really didn’t like this year’s Bethesda conference, I
still have nothing but respect for them, and it’s obvious that it just wasn’t
for me.
I never have any words for Ubisoft.
Whenever I look at them, I just see the biggest money-grubbing,
creativity-crushing, soul-stealing scumbags in the entire industry. All their
games seem catered directly towards the 11 year olds who think swearing and
guns are the coolest things in the world, and they make fake promises
constantly in their conferences.
Case in point? Watch Dogs 2. The
original game is infamous for being one of the biggest lies in E3 history, with
the cinematic demo looking far better than the actual released game was. While
it did seem that the graphics here were a bit more believable than the trailer
for the original’s were (but you never know!), it seemed that everything was
geared towards the “cool dude” demographic.
The characters acted like what a robot
would think a “cool dude” would sound like. Lots of swears and gang lingo that
makes absolutely no sense. If anything, they seemed more childish than
anything. Then, we got into a gameplay demo, and while at first it seemed that all
you had on you this time were your hacking gadgets, which would be a really
cool way to do combat, it wasn’t long before Mr. Protagonist whipped out a gun
and shot up everyone inside.
This segued into one of the worst
trailers I’ve ever seen for a video game. My God, the official trailer for
Watch Dogs 2 was so bad. Between the profanity filled rap soundtrack, the
middle fingers to the camera, the cars exploding, and ending off with a selfie,
it seemed that the demographic Ubisoft is catering to the most is the
stereotypical “little kid on Call of Duty” gamer. It’s like they looked up what
kids liked in middle school and built their trailer around that. Yeah, because
10-14 year olds are who we should target our inevitably 17+ rated game to!
We also saw more of the new Tom
Clancy’s Ghost Recon, as Ubisoft pulled out their favourite technique! No, not
calling everything under their umbrella “iconic”. The other one.
That’s right! Scripted game chat that
only exists to make a barren game seem livelier than it actually is! I didn’t
really pick up on what they were saying, mostly because I knew it was all fake
junk, but I could gather that it was the same old stuff we saw from The
Division trailer last year.
Speaking of the game, it looks pretty
darn unoriginal. Think Metal Gear Solid meets Just Cause, with a little bit of
The Division thrown in there. If that sounds interesting to you, try checking
out the trailer and see how you feel. To me, though, it looks like every other
Ubisoft game from recent years: an empty and lifeless open world, with missions
that’ll get boring in a couple of hours. Colour me unimpressed.
Now, to be fair, there were a few
things in this conference that I did like. For one, Star Trek VR, while the
graphics weren’t fantastic, seems like an excellent idea! They also brought
LeVar Burton, Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation, out on stage
to talk about it, and there’s no way I can be bored when he’s talking. This is
more of a “wait and see” game for me, because we didn’t get much of any footage
from the game, but I really hope it plays out.
The best thing at this conference was
easily the return of For Honor. It does look a little too close to Dynasty
Warriors for comfort in my opinion, but it really looks like a blast. This
year, they focused on the single-player campaign, and while it might get
uninteresting really fast, it does look fun to mow down enemy after enemy as a
super-powered Viking dude. From what I could gather, there were lots of special
moves to perform, as well as large maps available, so that’s always nice. The
best part is the same as last year, as the guy presenting this game is always
super fun to watch. He seems so passionate and happy to be there, despite
presenting at the Ubisoft conference! I honestly want this guy to take over for
Aisha Tyler next year. He’s just too cool. Since this is Ubisoft, I doubt I’m
going to buy the game, as there’s no way I’m trusting paying $80 for one of
their games, but it might be fun to rent for a weekend.
We also got a look at a brand new IP!
Surprise! It’s yet another open world
game. I don’t know who over at Ubisoft is so in love with open worlds, but they
need to be stopped before people get sick of them. I personally love open
worlds, but not all the time. Especially with Ubisoft open worlds constantly
being nothing but endless fields of dirt and mud, it won’t be long before the
genre dies out.
But I’m getting off track. The new IP,
known as Steep, promises an open world mountain range, with lots of potential
ski slopes. That’s it. It seems like a great starting idea, but I’m going to
need a bit more substance before I’m willing to pay money for it. I’m sure
extreme sports lovers will really enjoy it, though.
The rest of the conference was more of
the usual Ubisoft shenanigans. An opening dance number featuring animal mascots,
expansions and DLC for games nobody liked in the first place, unfunny jokes by
Aisha Tyler, and a long segment about the Assassin’s Creed movie, though
thankfully nowhere near as long as I was speculating.
I will give them this: this year’s
conference was an improvement over last year’s. At least we didn’t have
cutaways in between every single game to go see what Aisha Tyler was up to.
Hell, she was barely onstage this year! If this is their first steps going down
the long, winding road to redemption, I will greet them at the other end with
open arms. But until then, this conference, while better than Bethesda’s
snoozefest, should never be witnessed again.
Sony
Call me a Sony fanboy all you want,
but there’s no denying that they knocked it out of the park again this year.
Before the conference I said that topping last year’s crazy announcements would
be near-impossible. But they did it, by giving us nothing but crazy
announcements, with little to no downtime in between, plus a live orchestra
playing music over it all.
I felt that the conference had a bit
of a slow start, mostly because I’m not a God of War fan, and to me Days Gone
looks like little more than the next game trying to be Last of Us. At this
point I’m so sick of zombies and apocalyptic settings in games that as soon as
it becomes clear that one of the two are a major theme in a game, I lose
interest. They’ve been oversaturated like crazy.
God of War did look good, though. I
liked seeing an older Kratos (complete with beard!) guiding who I assume to be
his son through a Norse-mythology inspired tundra, even fighting a frost giant
at one point. Plus, it was an actual gameplay demo, which is always nice to see
at E3.
We then moved into the return of two
of the biggest stars of last year’s conference: The Last Guardian and Horizon
Zero Dawn. Last Guardian only got a minute or two to show off what new stuff it
has, but it was kind of crazy to think that one of those is a release date.
Yes. After 7 years, The Last Guardian is finally coming out on October 25. Unless
it gets delayed. Please don’t get delayed.
On the other hand, Horizon: Zero Dawn,
which has been conspicuously absent from the spotlight since last year, got a
full gameplay trailer. And wow, was it ever amazing. Horizon was my Game of E3
last year, and this year it really showed what it could do.
We saw our huntress heroine doing what
she does best: fighting and wrangling robots. She grabbed a large ram-like bot,
and was able to hack into its programming to domesticate it, giving her a
mount. One has to wonder how many different rideable creatures are in this
game.
Then, we got a look at how the combat
is going to work. As the protagonist faced off with a malicious Corruptor, she
used arrows, ropes, and more tools to take it down. When victory had finally
been achieved, she noted that the machine looked ancient. We know that this
game takes place in a future where the old civilizations have been overgrown
and returned to nature, but it’s still a mystery what exactly those humans did
for this to happen.
While, as I said, I’m really sick of
post-apocalyptic settings, this one seems interesting to me. It’s not a barren,
uninteresting wasteland full of boring colours this time. Instead it feels more
like the lost cities from Uncharted, complete with lots of green hues. Only
time will tell if it’s actually good in-game, but for now, I’m intrigued.
We then segued into Detroit: Become
Human, which looked fine. From what I could tell, it was a Telltale Games-style
experience, where every decision you made counted towards whether you could
save a hostage or not. Sometimes you wouldn’t save her, sometimes you’d save
her but her captor would die, sometimes you’d save everyone, and sometimes
you’d die in the process. I really like the choose your own adventure idea, but
I can’t help but feel that this could become really stale if it’s just one
case. I’ll need to see more before I can say I’m interested.
Then we saw some VR games, including a
surprising appearance by Resident Evil 7, a Star Wars X-Wing Game, and more.
I’m still not sold on VR just yet, but the potential of flying an X-Wing in
virtual reality may just be too much to pass up.
After that, it felt like Sony was on a
roll that no one could stop. A new trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
premiered, and it was a huge success in that it got me excited about Call of
Duty for the first time ever. We got the return of Crash Bandicoot with the
promise of remasters. Hideo Kojima came out in the most grandiose entrance ever
to introduce his new game, Death Stranding. It looked very much like the type
of game he would make, with lots of imagery that made no sense, but it looked
interesting. Again, no actual gameplay though. That’s one thing I’m a little
sick of at E3. If you can’t show us the game itself, I’d say we might be better
off not seeing it at all.
To close out the show, we learned that
Insomniac Games is working on a new Spider-Man game, and Days Gone came back
for a gameplay demo. Firstly, Spider-Man is my favourite superhero, so I have
high hopes for this game. And while Days Gone doesn’t look interesting at all,
I was impressed with the amount of zombies they were able to get onscreen at
once. There were thousands chasing this guy. I can imagine it getting really
stressful at times.
Sony knows how to do E3 right. The
conference was an hour shorter than Microsoft’s, but by cutting all the crap
and showing people what they wanted, they put themselves above the rest. In a
perfect world, they’d all be like this. All games, no zany personalities,
promises that no one intends to keep, or attempts at memes. Thank you, Sony.
Nintendo
This was the one I was most nervous
about. Nintendo’s always been very hit or miss at E3. I thought that their
feeble attempt at a conference last year was an enormous disappointment,
especially with the fact that their next Nintendo Direct later that year topped
it in every sense of the word.
So with the announcement that they
were going to focus primarily on Zelda Wii U this year, with no sign of their
enigmatic next console, I wasn’t sure if they could pull it off.
Wouldn’t you know it, they did.
We began with a trailer for Zelda, and
by god, does it ever look gorgeous. We supposedly only saw 1% of what the game
has to offer in the E3 demo, but judging by the different landscapes, the world
looks to be extremely diverse, with deserts and snowcapped areas. Plus, it
finally got a title: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
But before we could see more, we were
thrust into some more info on Pokémon Sun and Moon. I believe that Nintendo
knew that this game was their only other hot ticket at E3 this year, so they
put it right at the start to ensure that fans didn’t miss it in the avalanche
of Zelda news.
We saw a lot more than before, and I
was very happy with it. It seems to improve on everything Generation 6 did in
every way, with full 3D models on all the trainers, updated lighting and visual
effects, the PokéDex is more useful, and my personal favourite, you can now
check your Pokémon’s statistics on a whim in the middle of battle. New Pokémon
were introduced as well, as we got our first looks at this generation’s
starting bird, bug, and small mammal Pokémon. They all clearly follow in the
footsteps of Pidgey, Caterpie, and Rattata before them, but I really like their
designs, especially Pikipek the woodpecker. I don’t believe we’ve seen a new
Pokémon so far this generation that I’ve flat out disliked.
After that was done, we finally moved
onto Zelda, as Bill Trinen and Eiji Aonuma were on hand to finally introduce
the long-awaited next installment. We played through the first few minutes, and
right off the bat it’s clear that this game is taking lots of inspiration from
games like Skyrim. Zelda staples like collectible hearts are out, replaced by
eating food such as apples and meat. You can go anywhere you want, supposedly
even right to the final boss. Also, those adorable little Koroks from Wind
Waker are here, sparking lots of debate on where this game lies in the infamous
Zelda timeline.
As the presentation went on, we saw
more and more of the 1% they were willing to show us, including climbing the
tallest mountain in the area, fighting off swarms of Bokoblins, and exploring
small dungeon-like shrines.
While it was fantastic to finally see
this game we’ve been waiting 2 years for the return of, as it went on it did
become clear that they’d mostly run out of things to show behind the
limitations of the E3 demo. A lot of time was spent killing the same enemy
types, just with different weapons. It also didn’t help that a lot of the
Treehouse employees drafted to host the different sections of the livestream
were very cringeworthy. Not Ubisoft levels of bad, but not great either.
Despite the problems it had, I really
liked the Nintendo Livestream. I did wish we’d seen more variety in Zelda, but
I’m just happy we’re finally seeing the game. I also wish we could’ve gotten a
glimpse at NX, but if it’s not ready, it’s not ready.
FINAL SCORES
1.
Sony: 9/10 (Amazing)
2.
Nintendo: 8/10 (Great)
3.
Microsoft: 7/10 (Good)
4.
EA: 5/10 (Average)
5.
Ubisoft: 3/10 (Bad)
6.
Bethesda: 2/10 (Awful)
Yeah, I couldn’t not give Sony the top spot again this year.
It gave me exactly what I wanted out of an E3 conference, and then some. The
only question is how they’ll top it next year.
Nintendo and
Microsoft both had excellent showings as well, very much deserving second and
third place. Like I said, EA was a very middle of the road conference, and
while they didn’t show much of anything, what we did have was good. Ubisoft and
Bethesda both had pretty darn lousy showings, but I had to give Ubisoft the
higher placing, because Bethesda had a grand total of 3 unreleased games to
show total, and because Ubisoft somehow bored me less than Bethesda.
All in all, another great E3! I really enjoyed watching
everyone this year (except Bethesda and Ubisoft of course), and I’m already
looking forward to next time! Next week, we’ll close out E3 Month 2016 as I
give my Top 10 Best (and Top 5 Worst) Games of E3. Hope to see you there!
No comments:
Post a Comment