E3 2015 Thoughts and Winners

Best E3, like, ever! It has to be said before going more in-depth, it was a great show and many unbelievable surprises. It was so much fun seeing old and new games doing their best to impress. With that said, lets get to the meatier stuff! Do note that these are my opinions and I do focus on the stuff I was personally interested in.

I started watching Bethesda's E3 conference at 5:00 am Finnish time, and I'm glad I did. They started off with Doom 4 which was looking really good. Cannot complain about neither graphics nor gameplay, it was fun to see. They had a bit of stuff I didn't care about in the middle, like the Elder Scrolls online thing but they also showed off a lot of Fallout 4, and what can I say about that? It looks damn good, gameplay looks very fun with combat that they've actually put effort into this time around and they have a crazy amount of customization options. Lets just say it's hard to say that Fallout 4 isn't your kind of game because there's just so many options on how to play it. I suppose I should also mention that I can't wait to see more of Dishonored 2, I loved the first game so I do also expect great things from this game.

Moving on, the next conference I watched was Microsoft. I seem to be quite alone in this but their conference was pretty boring. Sure, they had good stuff like announcing backwards compatibility and, yeah. Don't get me wrong they showed games like Halo 5, Gears 4 and Forza 6 but those are franchises I've never been very fond of so they were pretty forgettable. The one game I was interested in that they showed was The Rise of the Tomb Raider (silly title though) but that demo was really disappointing. Very linear, scripted and the same old "shit breaks" kind of set piece gameplay that's just not very fun. They did the same with when they showed off the reboot as well, I thought that game was going to suck big time yet it's one of my favorite games from that year.

However, if we're talking about an outright bad conference, lets check out EA. If you wanna go to sleep, this is where it's at. They were smart saying every now and then how long until the reveal of Battlefront 3, because that was really the only reason to watch their show. Sure they had the new Need For Speed which looked neat enough, but it was really Star Wars: Battlefront 3 that people were most excited about. They also showed off the new Mass Effect: Andromeda game, but there's not much to talk about there either, EA really should've waited to announce a few of their projects because it seems like they aren't even nearly ready to talk about their games yet. Better luck next year.

Maybe it was because I had just watched EA's snoozefest, but Ubisoft had a really good conference, or shall I say an entertaining one. With a good host and good games to show off, with highlights being The Division and Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Curiously enough with only a brief CGI trailer for Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, though I suppose that by now everyone knows what AC is. And lets not forget For Honor which also looks really interesting, new IP with a more realistic take on sword battles. Overall, good job to Ubisoft!

Next up, my personal favorite of E3 2015, Sony. Where to start, the first thing they did was reveal The Last Guardian which people have been waiting for forever. Almost unreal to see it again, and no mercy was given as they showed off a new IP, Horizon: Zero Dawn, with some impressive looking gameplay. The announcements kept coming, Final Fantasy 7 remake in the works and Shenmue 3 is also to be revived. Finally, they showed off more Uncharted 4 gameplay which looked really grand, more open and so detailed. To think that they still have plenty of studios still working on unannounced titles is really exciting. Sony really won me over this E3.

Nathan Drake in action!

As far as Nintendo and Square Enix goes, I don't have much to say. Nintendo's show was cute, sure, but I don't really saw anything worth of note. Square Enix then again showed stuff like Just Cause 3, but their speakers were so dull I just couldn't feel enthusiastic about their games. Seriously, if they don't care about what they're talking about then why should I? Charisma is really important in these situations, next time I hope they have speakers that actually care about our amazing medium.

Final words then, so this year Sony "won" E3 for me, however this year it was so great that I can't really say someone had the best show. All I can say is that EA, Nintendo and Square Enix still have a lot to learn, the rest all had good stuff going on. In the end it's the gamers that won, we will be getting so many quality experiences in these coming years it's insane. Hope you, yes you reading this, are just as excited as I am to be a gamer in this day and age!


You can also find me on twitter @crazycat690

E3 2014 Reactions

E3 2014 just went by, they showed off plenty of good games but there was also few surprises. Sony showed some Uncharted, Microsoft showed Halo, and Nintendo showed Zelda. 

I'm going to go over E3 briefly and from my own point of view now so don't expect some in depth analysis or anything, without any further delay lets start out with Microsoft! Their idea to show only games was great, it was entertaining to see game after game but they showed mostly multiplats and then CGI trailers for newly announced games. Oh and if you're not tired of Halo, good news, they talked a lot of Halo.

Then I watched the EA conference, they kinda left me puzzled. I understand that they want to show off games and all but they proved that you can show them off too soon. Do I need to see games so early in development that they miss all textures? No, not really. Hard to be excited for something that we'll know won't come out anytime soon. And while Battlefield Hardline did look interesting, I don't think it's a smart move to annualize the franchise considering they like releasing pricy DLC for about a year. I can't speak for everyone but I won't be spending 120 bucks for a game that'll last a year. Though since I never bought BF4 I might get Hardline instead.

Moving on, Ubisoft, they were a bit more fun and once again having the energetic Aisha Tyler return as host. Apart from the less interesting segments with those dance and workout games their show was pretty solid as they showed off good games like Far Cry 4, AC Unity, The Division and the newly announced Rainbow Six: Siege. Overall a strong conference.

I watched the Sony conference last, the first half hour was really entertaining with Little Big Planet 3 suddenly being announced and demoed. It slowed down for about 20-30 minutes halfway through when they spent way too much time talking about more boring and technical things. Overall it was a decent conference with games like LBP3, Bloodborne and Uncharted 4.

Final words, I didn't bother watching Nintendo's thing because I was kinda asleep at the time and they've never interested me much. Later I've heard that it was pretty good with many games shown off. Anyway, based on my experience I liked Sony's most, mostly because they showed off the three games I'm most interested in, MGSV, Gta V next gen version and Uncharted 4.

E3 2014 Predictions and Wishes

E3 is soon upon us once again, and boy is there reason to hype. Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo all have reason to bring the big guns. The new consoles have been out now for about half a year, so this E3 will be a deciding point for many gamers. What else can we now do to handle the wait then hype some more?

Nintendo haven't been much of a presence on E3 since the release of Wii U, but they still have a desire to make their fans happy so don't expect them to show up empty handed. Say what you want about Nintendo but they are good at keeping secrets, wouldn't be surprised if they announced a new, grand Zelda game that the Wii U really need. Also I don't think the fans would mind perhaps a Super Mario Galaxy 3, a fan favorite to surprise? Nintendo could use the spotlight.

Microsoft then again have been hyping their stuff big time. Some stuff has also been leaked early, like cover and some info about the announced Halo 5: Guardians. Lately, they've been announcing new and good changes to their console, Xbox One, stuff they could've said at E3 but they might be clearing room to talk about games. Which is a smart move, they could do with some more popularity considering their situation. What I would expect to see from MS is a demo of Quantum Break, a lengthy trailer of Halo 5, a teaser of Gears of War 4, Sunset Overdrive trailer and then some more surprising announcements and some less surprising announcements with the usual exclusive content for certain games.

Then we have Sony, now I must admit I'm personally most hyped over Sony since I've been playing Playstation since a wee lad. I feel like they will bring good stuff to the show this year, they want to stay number 1 right now, eye of the tiger and all that. I wouldn't expect much as far as announcements for the console itself though I suppose I could see a demo of their VR project Morpheus thing and see how it separates itself from the competition. Maybe along with an announcement of Media Molecules game we'll see a demo of their game with Morpheus.

What I expect from them on a gaming note is that they really show off Uncharted 4, it will likely be used to show off the graphical powers of the Ps4, and I for one expect to be impressed. Other than that I think we'll see The Order 1886, Driveclub and Deep Down, you know, the announced stuff. When talking about the surprises I would hope that they're ready to re-introduce The Last Guardian, but not only that, also Agent, and the optimist in me would also not mind seeing Eight Days as a Ps4 project. Finally there's this older franchise that's been rumored to make a return for a long time now that I hope to finally see, which is Syphon Filter.

Of course we also have Ubisoft and EA which I which I will bring up last. Ubisoft have spilled the beans on a lot of stuff they will show like Far Cry 4, AC Unity and The Division, but I would still expect a surprise from them at the end in some form or another. EA on the other hand is kind of a wild card, not really sure what they're up to, could be really good, though they also have the biggest potential to disappoint greatly. Having new Star Wars games, like Battlefront 4, to show they really need to show something good to meet the high expectations from eager fans. They're also rumored to have already have a new Battlefield game in the works, scheduled for no later than this year, while some would be happy I'd imagine many would be angry with them releasing a new BF game one year later while BF4 is according to many still not very functional. Also making it an annual franchise like CoD which is so often trash talked by BF fans and EA alike.
 

If anyone want to share their hype go ahead, I do encourage discussion, not just one-sided talking.