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.
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| 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
