There were some rather unfortunate omissions in the E3 lineup, so I want to highlight those games that weren't represented at any of the conferences.
The one I was most disappointed not to see was Dishonored. This game has come from nowhere to be my number one most anticipated title this year (now that Bioshock Infinite has been pushed into next February). You play as Corvo, a supernatural assassin who can use a ton of powers and gadgets to assassinate targets. This game looks to meld Thief, Deus Ex, Bioshock and the art style of Half Life 2 into an incredible experience with giant replay value depending on how you approach the game.
Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the Zelda/God of War mash-up known as Darksiders. With the new footage from E3 of Darksiders 2, it looks to improve on the original in almost every way. I'm wary of the graphics, I know they're going for a more stylistic approach but they really don't look any more refined than what we saw in the first game which is a little disappointing. Still, the more agile, rogue-like Death looks to play just the way I like to play which is cool.
Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two looks to bring the well acclaimed (besides issues with the camera) Epic Mickey series to every platform out there. When I first saw Epic Mickey I had to wonder why it wasn't immediately ported to the Move. After all the Move is basically an upgraded Wiimote. Still, for Disney fans who don't own a Wii it looks like you'll finally get your chance to experience the magic.
The developers of Metro 2033 lovingly call it their "flawed masterpiece". I myself haven't played it, but after seeing the intense action/survival horror of Last Light, I might have to. Interesting weapons, great visuals, intriguing plot and a supernatural element thrown in for good measure. Sounds like a winner to me.
The new Devil May Cry reboot irked a lot of fans with its redesign of Dante, and after the first look at it I'm going to agree with them, not only because he now looks like an emo douchebag but because his voice is also terrible. However, it appears the gameplay, the true staple of DMC, is still intact with an interesting black-and-white-and-red take on the devil trigger (supercharged mode). Personally I loved the Devil May Cry games (and their spiritual successor Bayonetta) even though I was never really good at them, and the story was never the strong point anyways, so I think a wait-and-see is appropriate here.
Borderlands 2. I was frankly shocked at how little was shown. Admittedly they've been showing a lot elsewhere, but this one is right behind Dishonored in my most anticipated. 4 new classes, a 5th downloadable class free if you preorder, more guns, more loot, more everything that I loved in the first Borderlands plus more. Can't wait.
Defiance is going to be a sci-fi MMO with a TV show tie-in on Sci-fi. What? Due out in April of next year, the idea is that the actions of players in the MMO will determine how the TV show plays out. Very curious to see if this kind of model will flop or fly.
Hitman: Absolution ruffled some feathers with its trailer, with shows Agent 47 taking on some scantily clad nuns who then pull out assault rifles and RPGs. I haven't really kept up with the Hitman franchise but this one looks to keep up the blend of stealth and gruesome kills the series is known for.
The Lost Planet series has had its ups and downs, from the average but enjoyable first game to the poorly received co-op-necessary sequel. As such Lost Planet 3 was announced with I think very little fanfare. Thankfully this one is returning to the roots of the series with a more solitary experience, mechs, and giant monsters. It already looks better than 2, though whether it will live up to and surpass 1 remains to be seen.
There are so many more I think I have to revert to a list of the ones I can comment on:
-Aliens: Colonial Marines. The only successful Aliens game I know of was the first Aliens vs. Predator, though with Gearbox behind the helm (Borderlands) this could be a lot of fun.
-007 Legends which looks to relive famous Bond moments
-Sly Cooper Thieves In Time. Enjoyed the Sly Collection, and even though this one isn't being developed by Insomniac it might be worth checking out.
-Lollipop Chainsaw. At first I thought this looked like stupid fun, but the more I see of it the more I think it just looks plain stupid.
-Dust 514, a free to play FPS running concurrently with EVE Online? Pretty damn cool.-Elder Scrolls Online. The look of the Elder Scrolls is certainly there, but with so little details released about it it's hard to say whether this will be like Skyrim with tons of other people, or just another MMO.
-Lego Batman 2 and Lego Lord of the Rings
-Papo & Yo. I have no idea what this game is but it involves trippy Inception-like visuals, jetpacks, and platforming. Curious to see more.
-Transformers: Fall of Cybertron looks like it might actually be a decent Transformers game. Just, don't get your hopes up because let's face it, they always look good at first and then turn out to be not that great.
-Guardians of Middle Earth is apparently a basically self-admitted League of Legends clone using characters from Lord of the Rings as the legends/heroes. Could be interesting, but I doubt it. I really highly doubt it.
-Injustice Gods Among Us is a fighter with DC characters using the enhanced Mortal Kombat engine. The DC vs. Mortal Kombat game didn't fare well, but the recent standalone Mortal Kombat came out to high praise, so maybe a standalone DC title will as well. Wait and see.
-The Unfinished Swan is an indie title where you start in a completely white space and have to figure out what's going on by throwing black paint around. Very interesting concept.
-Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is essentially a new Studio Ghibli movie that you can play. Sign me up.
-Star Wars 1313 sets you in the feet of a bounty hunter in the bowels of Coruscant. Initial gameplay looks like your standard cover-based 3rd person shooter, but the graphics are reaaally good, and hey, it's Star Wars and it looks halfway decent so please don't remind me of Force Unleashed.
-Sleeping Dogs used to be True Crime: Hong Kong before Activision shut it down. Problem was, the game was nearly done. So Square Enix snatched it up and is now releasing it as Sleeping Dogs.
There were many more, but doubtful any you care about. So with that, I'm officially wrapping up my E3 2012 coverage. I'm out!
Friday, June 8, 2012
E3 2012: Summary
For those who want the quick and dirty rundown of what each company showed off, here it is:
Konami
-They're getting more into social media by putting Frogger on facebook
-Their soccer franchise, PES, is better this year.
-Zone of the Enders HD collection will have better graphics and a new intro cutscene
-Metal Gear is in its 25th year, so they're re-releasing all their old games in the form of the MGS HD Collection for Xbox, PS3 and Vita, and Snake Eater 3D for the 3DS.
-Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be a pure action game and nothing more
-Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 will feature Dracula
Microsoft
-Halo 4 looks like Halo, which is good considering it's a different studio
-Splinter Cell: Blacklist looks more action than stealth, with all new gadgets and Kinect support
-Madden and Fifa will have Kinect support
-Despite their assurances after the poor E3 demonstration last year, Fable: The Journey really does look that bad.
-Gears of War: Judgment is going to be a new Gears game with a smirking criminal protagonist.
-The next Forza game sounds like it's going open-world, and destruction heavy, in the style of Burnout Paradise.
-Kinect now features improved voice recognition along with support for 12 languages.
-Microsoft has gained partnerships with tons of TV, movie, and sports companies, including 24 hour access to ESPN.
-Nike+ is coming to Kinect
-Xbox Smartglass will link all your devices together (smartphones, yes even iphones, tablets, laptops, etc.) so you can, for example, be watching Game of Thrones on your Xbox and have a map of Westeros detailing where the scene is taking place on your tablet.
-The new Tomb Raider gets more impressive the more I see it. It may be stealing from Uncharted, but to be fair, Uncharted did steal from the original Tomb Raider.
-Ascend: New Gods is from the makers of Toy Soldiers and looks very God of War-like.
-Lococycle has something to do with a futuristic motorcycle.
-Gore Verbinski (director of Pirates of the Caribbean) is making a game called Matter that seems to involve a Portal core taking on Tron viruses.
-Resident Evil 6 has a lot of quick-time events and looks pretty heavy on the action for good or bad.
-Wreckateer is a crappy Kinect shovelware spin on Angry Birds.
-South Park: The Stick of Truth is everything you hope it would be.
-Dance Central 3 is another Kinect dance game, and will feature 2 new songs from Usher, who comes out and performs.
-Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 goes to the near future for better guns and flying turrets. Still looks like Modern Warfare.
EA
-Dead Space 3 has drop-in/drop-out co-op and is going to kick ass.
-Madden 13 is going to be the best yet. They swear. They have a new engine that doesn't look unrealistic at all. /sarcasm Career mode has incorporated RPG elements like XP.
-SimCity is back with a new engine, along with the facebook game SimCity Social.
-Battlefield 3: Premium is Battlefield's answer to Call of Duty: Elite and looks to do all the same things for $50.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic is getting a giant (free?) update with a new class, new race, new planet, etc. Also in July you'll be able to play for free up to level 15.
-Medal of Honor: Warfighter looks an awful lot like Battlefield 3, or just a generic shooter using the Frostbite 2 engine.
-EA Sports is expanding with UFC.
-Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a "reboot" of the previous Most Wanted that looks to share more in common with the latest Need for Speeds than it does with the source.
-Crysis 3 is PRETTY, and looks to play in the same way as 2.
Ubisoft
-Just Dance 4 will have Flo Rida, who gives a better performance than Usher.
-Farcry 3 is going to be even more incredible than you thought it was, thanks to the fact that the lead protagonist is insane, and the main villain is likely his split personality. Yes, there will be hallucinatory sequences.
-Co-op will be back for Splinter Cell: Blacklist
-Avengers: Battle for Earth looks to combine all Marvel properties into some kind of game, possibly exclusively for WiiU and Kinect. They were unhelpfully unspecific.
-Rayman: Legends will be for WiiU and looks pretty fun
-Other WiiU titles include: ZombiU (which will show up in the Nintendo conference), Your Shape Fitness Evolved, Rabbids Land, Just Dance 4, and Assassin's Creed 3.
-AC3 looks amazing with tree traversal, dual-wielding, dynamic weather and much much more.
-Shootmania is the next iteration of their free-to-play and create games (the first being Trackmania for racing), and while it's only in alpha/beta stage the competitive FPS they created and showed off looked pretty good.
-WATCH DOGS. I can't shorten what I said. Go read about it, or watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JcujYbctPk This is by far the biggest surprise of E3.
Sony
-Beyond: Two Souls is the latest from the makers of Heavy Rain and has to be seen to be believed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NEup8y0g-Q
-Playstation All Stars: Battle Royale is a blatant Super Smash Bros. clone using Playstation characters. Does that mean it'll be bad? Eeeeh, jury's still out on this one.
-Vita and PS3 are getting more integrated. For example, you can use the Vita as a remote to help build levels in Little Big Planet on PS3.
-Tons of indie titles are coming to PSN, and PS Plus is getting a ton of free games to download including Infamous 2 and Little Big Planet 2.
-Vita is getting more PSN titles including PS1 classics like Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy.
-Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified is hopefully going to be the near-console FPS that Resistance: Burning Skies was supposed to be.
-Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation will be for Vita, feature the first female assassin protagonist, take place in New Orleans, and have many of the same features as AC3.
-Speaking of AC3, there will also be naval battles.
-Farcry 3 will have a 4 player co-op campaign on top of the single player, as well as a map editor.
-A new storybook peripheral will use the PS Eye to make interactive books. The first of which will be the Book of Spells from J.K. Rowling, teaching you how to cast the spells from Harry Potter.
-PS Suite is now more appropriately called PS Mobile, for its attempts to bring PS games to mobile devices.
-God of War: Ascension is no God of War 4. The opening sequence is almost the exact same as it is in GoW1. Still, it doesn't look like any less fun, just more of the same.
-The Last of Us is going to be as much about surviving other humans as it is fungus-infested zombies. Much like I Am Alive there will be a focus on limited resources and using your wits to survive. Also, despite having a kid escort, the kid is actually super useful.
Nintendo
-Pikmin 3 will feature a new Pikmin type, the ability to control 4 leaders from the touchpad as well as using it as a map to quickly scroll around.
-The WiiU controller will have all of your standard controller buttons, just with a big screen in the middle and a camera at the top.
-The Miiverse will show Miis congregating around the games they're playing. You can also write messages or draw pictures to communicate with them.
-New Super Mario Bros. U will connect to the Miiverse, allowing people to comment on levels or point out secret areas.
-Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition will feature armored versions of Batman and Catwoman along with a new ability to fill up a bar through fighting and then activate it for increased power. You can use the controller as an inventory or to do things like pilot the remote batarang or set off individual explosive gels.
-Scribblenauts Unlimited will let you create, name and share your own things, so the franchise can finally fully live up to its promise of being able to put anything in the game just by writing it.
-Other games coming to WiiU: Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3, Tank! Tank! Tank! from Namco Bandai, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Trine 2 Director's Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge, and Aliens: Colonial Marines.
-WiiFitU adds WiiU controller features to WiiFit.
-Sing is a karaoke game where the words to the song appear on the controller.
-New Super Mario Bros. 2 will involve spewing gold coins everywhere, Paper Mario Sticker Star has you pull stickers from the environment to use as your move set, and Luigi's Mansion 2 will have *gasp* more ghosts. All are coming to 3DS.
-3rd party 3DS titles: Catlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (yes that's all the same game), Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and of course Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
-Lego City Undercover is an open-world Lego game with some almost Prince of Persia platforming elements that actually looks pretty damn fun.
-Just Dance 4 will allow whoever steals the WiiU controller to dictate what moves the other players dancing will do. You monsters.
-ZombiU looks to have the most practical and innovative use of the WiiU controller, and it's a first person zombie action shooter. And the tricky part? One bite kills. Looks to be the only new, interesting WiiU game.
-Nintendoland is a ripoff of Disneyland Kinect Adventures that will feature several minigames related to their various IPs (Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc.). An inordinate amount of time is spent showing off the Luigi's Ghost Mansion game, which pits 4 players against the "ghost" holding the controller. They look to this to do for the WiiU what WiiSports did for the Wii. We shall see.
And that's it!
Konami
-They're getting more into social media by putting Frogger on facebook
-Their soccer franchise, PES, is better this year.
-Zone of the Enders HD collection will have better graphics and a new intro cutscene
-Metal Gear is in its 25th year, so they're re-releasing all their old games in the form of the MGS HD Collection for Xbox, PS3 and Vita, and Snake Eater 3D for the 3DS.
-Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be a pure action game and nothing more
-Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 will feature Dracula
Microsoft
-Halo 4 looks like Halo, which is good considering it's a different studio
-Splinter Cell: Blacklist looks more action than stealth, with all new gadgets and Kinect support
-Madden and Fifa will have Kinect support
-Despite their assurances after the poor E3 demonstration last year, Fable: The Journey really does look that bad.
-Gears of War: Judgment is going to be a new Gears game with a smirking criminal protagonist.
-The next Forza game sounds like it's going open-world, and destruction heavy, in the style of Burnout Paradise.
-Kinect now features improved voice recognition along with support for 12 languages.
-Microsoft has gained partnerships with tons of TV, movie, and sports companies, including 24 hour access to ESPN.
-Nike+ is coming to Kinect
-Xbox Smartglass will link all your devices together (smartphones, yes even iphones, tablets, laptops, etc.) so you can, for example, be watching Game of Thrones on your Xbox and have a map of Westeros detailing where the scene is taking place on your tablet.
-The new Tomb Raider gets more impressive the more I see it. It may be stealing from Uncharted, but to be fair, Uncharted did steal from the original Tomb Raider.
-Ascend: New Gods is from the makers of Toy Soldiers and looks very God of War-like.
-Lococycle has something to do with a futuristic motorcycle.
-Gore Verbinski (director of Pirates of the Caribbean) is making a game called Matter that seems to involve a Portal core taking on Tron viruses.
-Resident Evil 6 has a lot of quick-time events and looks pretty heavy on the action for good or bad.
-Wreckateer is a crappy Kinect shovelware spin on Angry Birds.
-South Park: The Stick of Truth is everything you hope it would be.
-Dance Central 3 is another Kinect dance game, and will feature 2 new songs from Usher, who comes out and performs.
-Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 goes to the near future for better guns and flying turrets. Still looks like Modern Warfare.
EA
-Dead Space 3 has drop-in/drop-out co-op and is going to kick ass.
-Madden 13 is going to be the best yet. They swear. They have a new engine that doesn't look unrealistic at all. /sarcasm Career mode has incorporated RPG elements like XP.
-SimCity is back with a new engine, along with the facebook game SimCity Social.
-Battlefield 3: Premium is Battlefield's answer to Call of Duty: Elite and looks to do all the same things for $50.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic is getting a giant (free?) update with a new class, new race, new planet, etc. Also in July you'll be able to play for free up to level 15.
-Medal of Honor: Warfighter looks an awful lot like Battlefield 3, or just a generic shooter using the Frostbite 2 engine.
-EA Sports is expanding with UFC.
-Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a "reboot" of the previous Most Wanted that looks to share more in common with the latest Need for Speeds than it does with the source.
-Crysis 3 is PRETTY, and looks to play in the same way as 2.
Ubisoft
-Just Dance 4 will have Flo Rida, who gives a better performance than Usher.
-Farcry 3 is going to be even more incredible than you thought it was, thanks to the fact that the lead protagonist is insane, and the main villain is likely his split personality. Yes, there will be hallucinatory sequences.
-Co-op will be back for Splinter Cell: Blacklist
-Avengers: Battle for Earth looks to combine all Marvel properties into some kind of game, possibly exclusively for WiiU and Kinect. They were unhelpfully unspecific.
-Rayman: Legends will be for WiiU and looks pretty fun
-Other WiiU titles include: ZombiU (which will show up in the Nintendo conference), Your Shape Fitness Evolved, Rabbids Land, Just Dance 4, and Assassin's Creed 3.
-AC3 looks amazing with tree traversal, dual-wielding, dynamic weather and much much more.
-Shootmania is the next iteration of their free-to-play and create games (the first being Trackmania for racing), and while it's only in alpha/beta stage the competitive FPS they created and showed off looked pretty good.
-WATCH DOGS. I can't shorten what I said. Go read about it, or watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JcujYbctPk This is by far the biggest surprise of E3.
Sony
-Beyond: Two Souls is the latest from the makers of Heavy Rain and has to be seen to be believed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NEup8y0g-Q
-Playstation All Stars: Battle Royale is a blatant Super Smash Bros. clone using Playstation characters. Does that mean it'll be bad? Eeeeh, jury's still out on this one.
-Vita and PS3 are getting more integrated. For example, you can use the Vita as a remote to help build levels in Little Big Planet on PS3.
-Tons of indie titles are coming to PSN, and PS Plus is getting a ton of free games to download including Infamous 2 and Little Big Planet 2.
-Vita is getting more PSN titles including PS1 classics like Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy.
-Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified is hopefully going to be the near-console FPS that Resistance: Burning Skies was supposed to be.
-Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation will be for Vita, feature the first female assassin protagonist, take place in New Orleans, and have many of the same features as AC3.
-Speaking of AC3, there will also be naval battles.
-Farcry 3 will have a 4 player co-op campaign on top of the single player, as well as a map editor.
-A new storybook peripheral will use the PS Eye to make interactive books. The first of which will be the Book of Spells from J.K. Rowling, teaching you how to cast the spells from Harry Potter.
-PS Suite is now more appropriately called PS Mobile, for its attempts to bring PS games to mobile devices.
-God of War: Ascension is no God of War 4. The opening sequence is almost the exact same as it is in GoW1. Still, it doesn't look like any less fun, just more of the same.
-The Last of Us is going to be as much about surviving other humans as it is fungus-infested zombies. Much like I Am Alive there will be a focus on limited resources and using your wits to survive. Also, despite having a kid escort, the kid is actually super useful.
Nintendo
-Pikmin 3 will feature a new Pikmin type, the ability to control 4 leaders from the touchpad as well as using it as a map to quickly scroll around.
-The WiiU controller will have all of your standard controller buttons, just with a big screen in the middle and a camera at the top.
-The Miiverse will show Miis congregating around the games they're playing. You can also write messages or draw pictures to communicate with them.
-New Super Mario Bros. U will connect to the Miiverse, allowing people to comment on levels or point out secret areas.
-Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition will feature armored versions of Batman and Catwoman along with a new ability to fill up a bar through fighting and then activate it for increased power. You can use the controller as an inventory or to do things like pilot the remote batarang or set off individual explosive gels.
-Scribblenauts Unlimited will let you create, name and share your own things, so the franchise can finally fully live up to its promise of being able to put anything in the game just by writing it.
-Other games coming to WiiU: Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3, Tank! Tank! Tank! from Namco Bandai, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Trine 2 Director's Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge, and Aliens: Colonial Marines.
-WiiFitU adds WiiU controller features to WiiFit.
-Sing is a karaoke game where the words to the song appear on the controller.
-New Super Mario Bros. 2 will involve spewing gold coins everywhere, Paper Mario Sticker Star has you pull stickers from the environment to use as your move set, and Luigi's Mansion 2 will have *gasp* more ghosts. All are coming to 3DS.
-3rd party 3DS titles: Catlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (yes that's all the same game), Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and of course Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
-Lego City Undercover is an open-world Lego game with some almost Prince of Persia platforming elements that actually looks pretty damn fun.
-Just Dance 4 will allow whoever steals the WiiU controller to dictate what moves the other players dancing will do. You monsters.
-ZombiU looks to have the most practical and innovative use of the WiiU controller, and it's a first person zombie action shooter. And the tricky part? One bite kills. Looks to be the only new, interesting WiiU game.
-Nintendoland is a ripoff of Disneyland Kinect Adventures that will feature several minigames related to their various IPs (Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc.). An inordinate amount of time is spent showing off the Luigi's Ghost Mansion game, which pits 4 players against the "ghost" holding the controller. They look to this to do for the WiiU what WiiSports did for the Wii. We shall see.
And that's it!
E3 2012: Nintendo
The long trudge of E3 conferences ends with Nintendo, who has a lot of splainin' to do about their soon to be released new console, the WiiU.
First up, however, the always super-endearing Miyamoto comes out and announces the highly anticipated Pikmin 3. Explaining that the greatest challenge for Pikmin was always how to show the detail of individual Pikmin versus how much of the map to show, the WiiU solves that problem by letting you use the controller as a map. Thus they can zoom in a bit more to show the intricate details while also having a map you can quickly scroll around to control your now 4 leaders. Thus, it sounds like the opportunity for more intricate strategy has been increased.
Then good ol' Reggie, the President of Nintendo, comes out and delivers the awkward line of "I feel just like a purple Pikmin." One nervous laugh later aaaaand moving on.
Reggie then strangely spends about 5 minutes talking about there's not a lot of time to talk about all aspects of the WiiU, so for E3 they just want to spend time talking about games and if you want to know more you can go to e3.nintendo.com. And of course, they then don't talk about games (*sigh*) and instead talk about the controller itself and the Miiverse, which shows Miis congregating around games they're playing and talking to each other.
Apparently though the Miiverse does actually lend itself to games, in that you can interact with others directly in game. For example they showed off New Super Mario Bros. U, where others can leave comments about certain levels or secret areas, or just brag about their score. As for how the controller is integrated, whoever is playing on it can help out other players by placing blocks or somesuch. They didn't much mention it.
But here they get to the meat, and what gamers have been clamoring for from Nintendo: 3rd party titles. First up, Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition, which will have special armored versions of both Batman and Catwoman. These armored versions will have a special meter that fills up as you fight, and once full can be activated so you do greater damage for a time. The controller will be used essentially as inventory, though can also be used to select individual explosive gels to explode, or in directing the remote batarang where to go. Honestly...I saw nothing that was innovative or even helpful about any of it. Big disappoint.
But then they roll out a franchise that seems made for Nintendo with Scribblenauts : Unlimited, which will provide much larger areas to explore with seemingly integrated multiplayer, as well as the ability to create, name and share anything you want using the controller as a drawing/assembly pad. Essentially this means Scribblenauts will finally live up to its claim, thanks to constant innovation, that you can write anything into the game world. Cool cool.
Then a trailer of titles coming to the WiiU (though no details on how they'll use the tech): Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3 (giant surprise there!), Tank! Tank! Tank! from Namco Bandai, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (with the brief use of a Mario mushroom power-up), Trine 2 Director's Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge, and Aliens: Colonial Marines.
"Music and fitness genres have come into their own. WiiU will make both of these even better." *snoooore* If you care they talked about WiiFitU and Sing, a blatant karaoke game where the controller displays the lyrics while the main screen shows dance moves for other party-goers.
Oh how sad they also have no time to talk about the 3DS, but you can tune in for an hour long talk on the Nintendo E3 page. With that...let's talk about the 3DS. Brief gameplay is shown for New Super Mario Bros. 2, as well as Paper Mario Sticker Star and Luigi's Mansion 2. Then oh no they don't have any more time to talk about all the awesome 3rd party titles coming to the 3DS. So let's look at a trailer for all the 3rd party titles coming to 3DS: Catlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (yes that's all the same game), Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and of course Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.
And I swear to God if they say one more time they don't have time to talk about something and then proceed to talk about that thing I am going to kill someone.
Thankfully my murderous tendencies are somewhat calmed by Lego City Undercover, which I had heard was cancelled (or was that another Lego game?), but is apparently up and running as an open world Lego game where you play a detective. And it actually looked pretty darn awesome, with some almost Prince of Persia-like platforming and typical Lego tongue-in-cheek humor. 3DS version also in the works.
Just Dance 4 turns whoever controls the WiiU controller into a monster, by giving them control over what moves pop onto the screen for the other people holding Wiimotes to perform. You can also freeze on a move and make them hold it for as long as you like. I suppose they've only been showing off the helpful side of the asynchronous gameplay afforded by the controller, might as well show the competitive/spiteful side of it too.
ZombiU finally gets some gameplay, with finally some inventive use of the controller as inventory, radar, scanner, door hacking utility, sniper scope, and more. Leave it to Ubisoft to figure out what to do with this tech. They also revealed the nifty detail that with one bite, you're dead, AS IT SHOULD BE. So good on them. There's also a silly thing that will use the front camera to zombify your face.
They end their Ubisoft run with a small rehash of the rest of their games coming to WiiU: Assassin's Creed 3, Rabbids Land, Rayman Legends, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013, Rayman Legends, Sports Connection, and Avengers: Battle for Earth.
What little goodwill I had left is gone when in order to set up the stage they once again reminds us to check out their site for all the content they don't have time to show here, then reveal these goofy looking gates and the Nintendoland game. They then spend the last 15 of their oh so precious minutes talking about this Disneyland Kinect Adventures ripoff that will feature various minigames based on their franchises like Zelda and Donkey Kong and will be included at launch. A good 7 of those minutes are spent demoing Luigi's Ghost Mansion, where they pause it...repeatedly...whenever something happens so they can fully explain what's going on. Really guys? REALLY? Between that, talking about how they didn't have any time, and the way too prolonged intros for developers coupled with the awkward and also prolonged talks between them and Reggie, I'm guessing they could've shaved a good 20-30 minutes off their time or allocated it towards what they said they were going to talk about: the GAMES. At the beginning Reggie said we would see "in one form or another" 23 WiiU games. Technically true. How many of those got more than, say, 2 minutes of time? About 8. And those just barely pass, besides Nintendoland.
In other words, to me Nintendo was a big disappointment. While they finally showed off some inventive uses of the controller, nothing they showed off was a big hit. For first party we get more Mario because for some reason people keep buying the same constantly rehashed game, Pikmin 3 (likely to be the best of the bunch), and a Nintendo-themed carnival game. Of course the third party titles are where Nintendo is likeliest to shine, but their overview of Arkham City showed little to no innovation or features that would make it a must-buy for anyone but those who only own a WiiU. And besides Arkham, the only title they really showed off was ZombiU, which could be a diamond in the rough (though it all looked suspiciously pre-rendered). On top of this, with Microsoft's announcement of Smartglass and Sony's continued investment in merging Vita and PS3, Nintendo's crazy innovation isn't looking all that innovative. I suppose I could just go to Nintendo's E3 website to read up more on it and get the giant amounts of information that they just couldn't squeeze in, but frankly, from what they showed me, I couldn't care less.
So with a last pitiful breath, the E3 conferences are at an end. Microsoft locked themselves in as a giant media hub, Sony paid tribute to its fans with some exclusive titles, and Nintendo underwhelmed with its awkward presentation and lack of details on both its console and the games they said they were going to spend all their time on. With that, we'll see you next year E3.
First up, however, the always super-endearing Miyamoto comes out and announces the highly anticipated Pikmin 3. Explaining that the greatest challenge for Pikmin was always how to show the detail of individual Pikmin versus how much of the map to show, the WiiU solves that problem by letting you use the controller as a map. Thus they can zoom in a bit more to show the intricate details while also having a map you can quickly scroll around to control your now 4 leaders. Thus, it sounds like the opportunity for more intricate strategy has been increased.
Then good ol' Reggie, the President of Nintendo, comes out and delivers the awkward line of "I feel just like a purple Pikmin." One nervous laugh later aaaaand moving on.
Reggie then strangely spends about 5 minutes talking about there's not a lot of time to talk about all aspects of the WiiU, so for E3 they just want to spend time talking about games and if you want to know more you can go to e3.nintendo.com. And of course, they then don't talk about games (*sigh*) and instead talk about the controller itself and the Miiverse, which shows Miis congregating around games they're playing and talking to each other.
Apparently though the Miiverse does actually lend itself to games, in that you can interact with others directly in game. For example they showed off New Super Mario Bros. U, where others can leave comments about certain levels or secret areas, or just brag about their score. As for how the controller is integrated, whoever is playing on it can help out other players by placing blocks or somesuch. They didn't much mention it.
But here they get to the meat, and what gamers have been clamoring for from Nintendo: 3rd party titles. First up, Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition, which will have special armored versions of both Batman and Catwoman. These armored versions will have a special meter that fills up as you fight, and once full can be activated so you do greater damage for a time. The controller will be used essentially as inventory, though can also be used to select individual explosive gels to explode, or in directing the remote batarang where to go. Honestly...I saw nothing that was innovative or even helpful about any of it. Big disappoint.
But then they roll out a franchise that seems made for Nintendo with Scribblenauts : Unlimited, which will provide much larger areas to explore with seemingly integrated multiplayer, as well as the ability to create, name and share anything you want using the controller as a drawing/assembly pad. Essentially this means Scribblenauts will finally live up to its claim, thanks to constant innovation, that you can write anything into the game world. Cool cool.
Then a trailer of titles coming to the WiiU (though no details on how they'll use the tech): Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3 (giant surprise there!), Tank! Tank! Tank! from Namco Bandai, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (with the brief use of a Mario mushroom power-up), Trine 2 Director's Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge, and Aliens: Colonial Marines.
"Music and fitness genres have come into their own. WiiU will make both of these even better." *snoooore* If you care they talked about WiiFitU and Sing, a blatant karaoke game where the controller displays the lyrics while the main screen shows dance moves for other party-goers.
Oh how sad they also have no time to talk about the 3DS, but you can tune in for an hour long talk on the Nintendo E3 page. With that...let's talk about the 3DS. Brief gameplay is shown for New Super Mario Bros. 2, as well as Paper Mario Sticker Star and Luigi's Mansion 2. Then oh no they don't have any more time to talk about all the awesome 3rd party titles coming to the 3DS. So let's look at a trailer for all the 3rd party titles coming to 3DS: Catlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (yes that's all the same game), Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and of course Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.
And I swear to God if they say one more time they don't have time to talk about something and then proceed to talk about that thing I am going to kill someone.
Thankfully my murderous tendencies are somewhat calmed by Lego City Undercover, which I had heard was cancelled (or was that another Lego game?), but is apparently up and running as an open world Lego game where you play a detective. And it actually looked pretty darn awesome, with some almost Prince of Persia-like platforming and typical Lego tongue-in-cheek humor. 3DS version also in the works.
Just Dance 4 turns whoever controls the WiiU controller into a monster, by giving them control over what moves pop onto the screen for the other people holding Wiimotes to perform. You can also freeze on a move and make them hold it for as long as you like. I suppose they've only been showing off the helpful side of the asynchronous gameplay afforded by the controller, might as well show the competitive/spiteful side of it too.
ZombiU finally gets some gameplay, with finally some inventive use of the controller as inventory, radar, scanner, door hacking utility, sniper scope, and more. Leave it to Ubisoft to figure out what to do with this tech. They also revealed the nifty detail that with one bite, you're dead, AS IT SHOULD BE. So good on them. There's also a silly thing that will use the front camera to zombify your face.
They end their Ubisoft run with a small rehash of the rest of their games coming to WiiU: Assassin's Creed 3, Rabbids Land, Rayman Legends, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013, Rayman Legends, Sports Connection, and Avengers: Battle for Earth.
What little goodwill I had left is gone when in order to set up the stage they once again reminds us to check out their site for all the content they don't have time to show here, then reveal these goofy looking gates and the Nintendoland game. They then spend the last 15 of their oh so precious minutes talking about this Disneyland Kinect Adventures ripoff that will feature various minigames based on their franchises like Zelda and Donkey Kong and will be included at launch. A good 7 of those minutes are spent demoing Luigi's Ghost Mansion, where they pause it...repeatedly...whenever something happens so they can fully explain what's going on. Really guys? REALLY? Between that, talking about how they didn't have any time, and the way too prolonged intros for developers coupled with the awkward and also prolonged talks between them and Reggie, I'm guessing they could've shaved a good 20-30 minutes off their time or allocated it towards what they said they were going to talk about: the GAMES. At the beginning Reggie said we would see "in one form or another" 23 WiiU games. Technically true. How many of those got more than, say, 2 minutes of time? About 8. And those just barely pass, besides Nintendoland.
In other words, to me Nintendo was a big disappointment. While they finally showed off some inventive uses of the controller, nothing they showed off was a big hit. For first party we get more Mario because for some reason people keep buying the same constantly rehashed game, Pikmin 3 (likely to be the best of the bunch), and a Nintendo-themed carnival game. Of course the third party titles are where Nintendo is likeliest to shine, but their overview of Arkham City showed little to no innovation or features that would make it a must-buy for anyone but those who only own a WiiU. And besides Arkham, the only title they really showed off was ZombiU, which could be a diamond in the rough (though it all looked suspiciously pre-rendered). On top of this, with Microsoft's announcement of Smartglass and Sony's continued investment in merging Vita and PS3, Nintendo's crazy innovation isn't looking all that innovative. I suppose I could just go to Nintendo's E3 website to read up more on it and get the giant amounts of information that they just couldn't squeeze in, but frankly, from what they showed me, I couldn't care less.
So with a last pitiful breath, the E3 conferences are at an end. Microsoft locked themselves in as a giant media hub, Sony paid tribute to its fans with some exclusive titles, and Nintendo underwhelmed with its awkward presentation and lack of details on both its console and the games they said they were going to spend all their time on. With that, we'll see you next year E3.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
E3 2012: Sony
Now, I'm an admitted Sony fanboy as the PS3 is the first console I've ever owned and I love it. Sure they've had some missteps in the past, like pissing off hackers and getting one month of PSN outage for it, and they may not be the best selling console or have the most innovative motion control system, but I don't care. The consistently deliver prime exclusives and great innovative titles, so I'm behind them.
Example number one of why is their first exclusive, Beyond: Two Souls from the makers of Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain was an amazing, intense, though occasionally faulty game due mostly to the fact that they abandoned some concepts halfway through development and yet still kept traces of them in there (I'm looking at you Ethan's blackouts). Nonetheless, to hear of another title from Quantic Dream in the works is a happy thing. So before anything they announce that the story will follow Jodie Holmes, a woman who has some kind of presence/spirit around her, and we will shape her life over 15 years. And the woman playing Jodie? None other than Ellen Page. Rock on. Then, the demo starts...and my jaw firmly hits the floor and stays there. I joked in the Microsoft conference that for the Halo 4 demo it was initially hard to tell that the actors were actually live actors. Here, it was nearly impossible to tell that the actors weren't real. The graphics here are unprecedented. And while little to nothing was shown of gameplay besides the cinematic quality of it, I CANNOT WAIT. Seriously just go look it up and be blown away.
Next up is Super Playstation Bros, also known as Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, which will pit all your favorite Playstation characters against each other in a Smash Bros clone. Does that mean it will be bad? Hard to say. The real problem it faces is that it all looks so much like Smash Bros. There's also apparently no way to tell how well you're doing during the match. You just built up energy to unleash special moves which can essentially one-hit-kill any enemy they hit. At the end of the match you find out how well you did based on apparently how many you killed versus how many times you died. They show off a 4 player match with Sly Cooper, Fat Princess, Kratos, and Sweet Tooth, though others have been revealed. Two new characters are also revealed in the form of Nathan Drake and a Big Daddy. They also mention that some of the stages are from Ratchet and Clank so you best bet they'll be in there.
The Vita and PS3 will be more integrated as the months go on, with connected versions of Battle Royale as well as Little Big Planet, which will allow you to use the Vita as a kind of remote while designing levels on the PS3. Pretty cool.
A ton of really cool indie titles I know nothing about are coming to PSN. With as much enjoyment as I got out of Journey, this can only be a good thing.
Tons of games and discounts are coming to Plus, and everyone in the auditorium gets a free year-long pass. Damn them.
More games are coming to Vita, including PS1 classics like Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy. More video is also coming in the form of Hulu Plus, youtube, and Crackle. But what they're really banking on is Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified, coming this holiday season, to bring a big FPS to the Vita. Resistance: Burning Skies was supposed to be that, but apparently was really bad. So they're looking to Black Ops for the big bucks.
Oh but wait...there's another big title coming. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation, which looks amazing for many reasons, not the least of which is that the protagonist will be the first female assassin in the series. From the brief clip they showed the graphics are at least on the level of AC2 if not better, and even the tree traversing will be in the game. And there'll be a Vita bundle with a 4gb memory card along with the game. No price point, but if it's for the normal $249, man would that be a good reason to get on board.
Then AC3 comes out again, of course, but this isn't just what Ubisoft showed off in their conference. Oh no. This one...brought out sea battles. With dynamic storms and water, and the ability to control both your ship's movement and the cannons, your Master and Commander fantasies can finally come true. While it wasn't as frenetically paced or mind-blowing as what they showed earlier, it still looked pretty fun.
Next up, Farcry 3 will boast not only their robust single player campaign, but an entire 4 player co-op campaign. While it didn't really look too innovative to me besides the lush environments, I'm not much of one for co-op anyways, and it still looked damn impressive. Then after the action-packed sequence they reveal the handy detail that there will be a map editor so you can "build your own Facry". Very cool.
Move hasn't been doing very well, with a lot of games that are either on the very casual side and don't get great reviews or blockbuster games that incorporate Move but not to very great effect. So they say they're bringing something new to Move...storybooks. Essentially they're augmented reality books that you open up to see a story that you can interact with using the Move. I immediately smell the incoming disaster that faced other peripherals like the udraw tablet, until they reveal what their first book will be. The Book of Spells...from J. K. Rowling. That's right, it's a book teaching you the spells from Harry Potter. Using the Move. From the rather extended demo they showed off, it's obviously geared towards kids, but I can see a ton of older kids running out to grab this and learn Wingardium Leviosa as well. It's also got the history of each spell, as well as some kind of side adventure based on a student who "didn't live up to his potential". Let's face it, if you're going to sell a new storybook peripheral in combination with another peripheral that's mostly been targeted towards the casual/kid crowd so far, then making it about Harry Potter is the way to do it.
Playstation Suite, Sony's push to open up Playstation to phones and other mobile devices, is now appropriately renamed Playstation Mobile and is in beta development with a ton of companies.
God of War: Ascension revealed pre-E3 that it's going to be the first God of War with a multiplayer system, which for the most part actually looks pretty interesting. However, for E3 they finally brought out Kratos himself for the single-player. Now, I've loved each God of War title, even the remastered PSP games, so I have no doubt I'll be picking this one up. However, I can't help but notice that it looks kind of like the same old story. Sure Kratos picks up some new weapons, has some new moves, and uses some new abilities like time manipulation, but boy did it play out almost exactly like the beginning of the first God of War. I suppose that's somewhat appropriate since it's a prequel, but still, it gives me pause. Not enough to stop me from grabbing it, just enough to think it won't be a true successor to 3, which was by far my favorite.
Last but certainly not least we finally get an extended gameplay demo of The Last of Us, Naughty Dog's (makers of Uncharted) new IP. Set in an apocalyptic future where a fungus turn people into semi-zombies, surprisingly most of the gameplay centered around other humans being the enemy. Just as I Am Alive looked to focus on bullet scarcity and being smart about how you tackle an encounter, Last of Us pulls the same kind of punches, though you also have your helpful kid sidekick to catch enemies unawares and get you out of tight situations. This ain't no traditional escort mission, this one fights. Overall the whole scene was intense, cinematic, and looks to be a must-have title.
Overall a very strong showing for Sony, despite the fact that they really only showed 3 standout games. I'm sure it hurt them not being able to show off Bioshock Infinite with Move support. Still, got some great games to look forward to in the coming year.
And with that, we're on to the final conference...Nintendo.
Example number one of why is their first exclusive, Beyond: Two Souls from the makers of Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain was an amazing, intense, though occasionally faulty game due mostly to the fact that they abandoned some concepts halfway through development and yet still kept traces of them in there (I'm looking at you Ethan's blackouts). Nonetheless, to hear of another title from Quantic Dream in the works is a happy thing. So before anything they announce that the story will follow Jodie Holmes, a woman who has some kind of presence/spirit around her, and we will shape her life over 15 years. And the woman playing Jodie? None other than Ellen Page. Rock on. Then, the demo starts...and my jaw firmly hits the floor and stays there. I joked in the Microsoft conference that for the Halo 4 demo it was initially hard to tell that the actors were actually live actors. Here, it was nearly impossible to tell that the actors weren't real. The graphics here are unprecedented. And while little to nothing was shown of gameplay besides the cinematic quality of it, I CANNOT WAIT. Seriously just go look it up and be blown away.
Next up is Super Playstation Bros, also known as Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, which will pit all your favorite Playstation characters against each other in a Smash Bros clone. Does that mean it will be bad? Hard to say. The real problem it faces is that it all looks so much like Smash Bros. There's also apparently no way to tell how well you're doing during the match. You just built up energy to unleash special moves which can essentially one-hit-kill any enemy they hit. At the end of the match you find out how well you did based on apparently how many you killed versus how many times you died. They show off a 4 player match with Sly Cooper, Fat Princess, Kratos, and Sweet Tooth, though others have been revealed. Two new characters are also revealed in the form of Nathan Drake and a Big Daddy. They also mention that some of the stages are from Ratchet and Clank so you best bet they'll be in there.
The Vita and PS3 will be more integrated as the months go on, with connected versions of Battle Royale as well as Little Big Planet, which will allow you to use the Vita as a kind of remote while designing levels on the PS3. Pretty cool.
A ton of really cool indie titles I know nothing about are coming to PSN. With as much enjoyment as I got out of Journey, this can only be a good thing.
Tons of games and discounts are coming to Plus, and everyone in the auditorium gets a free year-long pass. Damn them.
More games are coming to Vita, including PS1 classics like Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy. More video is also coming in the form of Hulu Plus, youtube, and Crackle. But what they're really banking on is Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified, coming this holiday season, to bring a big FPS to the Vita. Resistance: Burning Skies was supposed to be that, but apparently was really bad. So they're looking to Black Ops for the big bucks.
Oh but wait...there's another big title coming. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation, which looks amazing for many reasons, not the least of which is that the protagonist will be the first female assassin in the series. From the brief clip they showed the graphics are at least on the level of AC2 if not better, and even the tree traversing will be in the game. And there'll be a Vita bundle with a 4gb memory card along with the game. No price point, but if it's for the normal $249, man would that be a good reason to get on board.
Then AC3 comes out again, of course, but this isn't just what Ubisoft showed off in their conference. Oh no. This one...brought out sea battles. With dynamic storms and water, and the ability to control both your ship's movement and the cannons, your Master and Commander fantasies can finally come true. While it wasn't as frenetically paced or mind-blowing as what they showed earlier, it still looked pretty fun.
Next up, Farcry 3 will boast not only their robust single player campaign, but an entire 4 player co-op campaign. While it didn't really look too innovative to me besides the lush environments, I'm not much of one for co-op anyways, and it still looked damn impressive. Then after the action-packed sequence they reveal the handy detail that there will be a map editor so you can "build your own Facry". Very cool.
Move hasn't been doing very well, with a lot of games that are either on the very casual side and don't get great reviews or blockbuster games that incorporate Move but not to very great effect. So they say they're bringing something new to Move...storybooks. Essentially they're augmented reality books that you open up to see a story that you can interact with using the Move. I immediately smell the incoming disaster that faced other peripherals like the udraw tablet, until they reveal what their first book will be. The Book of Spells...from J. K. Rowling. That's right, it's a book teaching you the spells from Harry Potter. Using the Move. From the rather extended demo they showed off, it's obviously geared towards kids, but I can see a ton of older kids running out to grab this and learn Wingardium Leviosa as well. It's also got the history of each spell, as well as some kind of side adventure based on a student who "didn't live up to his potential". Let's face it, if you're going to sell a new storybook peripheral in combination with another peripheral that's mostly been targeted towards the casual/kid crowd so far, then making it about Harry Potter is the way to do it.
Playstation Suite, Sony's push to open up Playstation to phones and other mobile devices, is now appropriately renamed Playstation Mobile and is in beta development with a ton of companies.
God of War: Ascension revealed pre-E3 that it's going to be the first God of War with a multiplayer system, which for the most part actually looks pretty interesting. However, for E3 they finally brought out Kratos himself for the single-player. Now, I've loved each God of War title, even the remastered PSP games, so I have no doubt I'll be picking this one up. However, I can't help but notice that it looks kind of like the same old story. Sure Kratos picks up some new weapons, has some new moves, and uses some new abilities like time manipulation, but boy did it play out almost exactly like the beginning of the first God of War. I suppose that's somewhat appropriate since it's a prequel, but still, it gives me pause. Not enough to stop me from grabbing it, just enough to think it won't be a true successor to 3, which was by far my favorite.
Last but certainly not least we finally get an extended gameplay demo of The Last of Us, Naughty Dog's (makers of Uncharted) new IP. Set in an apocalyptic future where a fungus turn people into semi-zombies, surprisingly most of the gameplay centered around other humans being the enemy. Just as I Am Alive looked to focus on bullet scarcity and being smart about how you tackle an encounter, Last of Us pulls the same kind of punches, though you also have your helpful kid sidekick to catch enemies unawares and get you out of tight situations. This ain't no traditional escort mission, this one fights. Overall the whole scene was intense, cinematic, and looks to be a must-have title.
Overall a very strong showing for Sony, despite the fact that they really only showed 3 standout games. I'm sure it hurt them not being able to show off Bioshock Infinite with Move support. Still, got some great games to look forward to in the coming year.
And with that, we're on to the final conference...Nintendo.
E3 2012: Ubisoft
I love Ubisoft, and always look forward to their E3 conference. Not really because of their game lineup or anything like that, but because you can always look to Ubisoft to deliver 2 things: snark, and weirdness. Two years ago they had the king of all snark, Joel McHale, under rehearsed and mobbed by laser tag. Last year, they had the king of all douchebaggery, Mr. Caffeine, alongside awkward French Shakespeare and stomping on Rabbids. So this time they brought in Aisha Tyler for the snark and Tobuscus backstage for the weird. Count me in.
First up, not to be outdone by Microsoft and their impromptu Usher performance for Dance Central 3, Ubisoft trots out three pairs of dancers showing off 3 sets of some less impressive dance moves from Just Dance 4 (like the "Wild Wild West"...*shudder*) in really unflattering clothes (I seriously cannot understand high-waisted shorts) until they all join together and Flo Rida takes the stage and puts Usher to shame. It was short, sweet, and packed a way bigger punch. So this is where we get to meet Aisha Tyler, who has been around the TV hosting biz for a while and who proceeds to molest and hit on Flo Rida, make a joke about how all women are a little bit gay and she and the dancers are going to "hug it out backstage", chide Tobuscus for stumbling over his lines, and introduce Farcry 3. God I love Ubisoft.
Anyways, FarGODDAMNWTF?Cry 3. Last year they showed off a wholly impressive trailer with lush visuals and the introduction of the lead villain, who looked amazingly insane. Well, guess what. YOU ARE HIM. AND HE IS YOU. WHAAAAAAAT? This demo not only brought back the delicious graphics, but introduced the fact that you are insane, and though it isn't explicitly stated, it appears to be pretty clear that the lead villain is a split personality. Which is AWESOME. Having never played Farcry 1 and hearing a pretty universal "meh" about 2, I wasn't too invested in 3, but after that trailer...holy crap do I want to know more. As one last "you're damn right this is going to be amazing", Tobuscus butts in with a question from a fan, asking how much there will be to explore. And while the dev didn't let any numbers fly, he did say there will be an entire archipelago of islands to explore, along with some hallucinatory levels. Rock on.
Next is the official trailer for Splinter Cell: Blacklist, along with the revelation that (surprise surprise) co-op will be back.
Brief trailer for Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, which only had WiiU and Kinect logos on it. Since they released literally no details about it beyond that, who knows exactly what this game is going to be besides the fact that it will draw on all Marvel entities including X-Men and Spider Man.
Ubisoft is also apparently excited for the WiiU since they're all about being different, and to lead off their development slate for it they brought out Rayman: Legends. Boasting the ability for 5 player co-op, which sounds insane, the person using the WiiU controller had a little zippy fairy-like character that could cut ropes and things and was also in charge of an almost rhythm-game-like section. Nothing sold me on it, but if you're going to get a WiiU Rayman: Legends does look to make good use of the tech. After the demo they also showed off their WiiU lineup, including an M-rated FPS zombie game called ZombiU, a Rabbids game because they have to, Just Dance 4 and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved which will involve the controller...somehow, but most importantly of all...Assassin's Creed 3.
And oooooh man AC3. Finally, FINALLY, we get to see some gameplay, and just what it's like to traverse trees, dual wield, and experience Connor's more fluid/on-the-move style of assassination. Admittedly even I, who have loved the series from the start, was a little skeptical after the rehashed and quite average Revelations. But they full on proved that this game has been in development ever since AC2 and has been separate from Brotherhood and Revelations. It looks unique, creative, and an astounding amount of fun to play. No just adding new gimmicks to a stale game here, they went back to the drawing board for a completely new experience. Couldn't be more impressed or hyped about this game.
With the repeated unable-to-tell-if-its-scripted-or-not butting in of Tobuscus and Aisha getting pissed about it, it only made sense to have a battle for hosting rights via Shootmania, the next iteration of their free-to-play and create service. Each had a team of 3 top-tier competitive gamers representing them in a game where it was 3 on 1, but the 1 had a railgun with instant kill while the other team had to land 2 hits on them to kill them. It had a very Unreal Tournament vibe in a very very early stage of development. And then, despite Toby's team winning he still gets sent backstage again. Ah well. After that they release a bunch of praise they've received for their other free to play franchises like Ghost Recon Online and The Settlers Online.
Then, to me, the greatest surprise of the show so far: Watch Dogs. It starts with a rather disheartening "Big Brother Is Watching" kind of set-up talking about how all data is connected and there are now these giant computer systems that track that data and use it to know anything and everything there is to know about you so that big corporations can use that information as power essentially. It was frankly all a little too real-sounding to get me excited for what they were about to show, but then they came out and basically said, "Okay, based on that, what if you could hack it all? What would you do with that power?" And then they started the demo and holycrapballs it looked amazing. We first take control of this unassuming looking man walking down the street, with a minimap on the side that screams "open-world game". As he walks by people little icons float above their heads, showing you the option to hack cellphones and listen in on conversations among other things. When you reach your destination, some sort of club with a big line outside, you pull out this device and send out a jamming signal, which causes the bouncer to wander around looking for a signal, opening up the opportunity to slip inside. As you walk around you start to hear comments that let you know you are known to these people, and not very welcome. You talk to a "friend" of yours who gives you a gun once he hears that you're after the guy running this little venue, and you reveal to him you want to be seen, to lure him here. Next you're tasked with finding an associate of the baddie to make sure he's coming. Pulling up another option, you scroll around the room, seeing the names and relevant data for basically everyone there. You finally find his accomplice, hack the phone call, and hear that he's on his way, and that security is on your tail. A man starts approaching and you see a red bar next to him that indicates "chance of aggression", so you run the other way only to run into another thug, who you proceed to beat the crap out of with a baton. Exiting out the door you come upon the nearest intersection, hack the traffic lights, and turn them all green as the baddie approaches in his car. One giant crash later, goons are suddenly shooting at you and you make your way around the accident, taking them out and inching closer to the baddie's crashed car. Smashing the window and pulling him out, you tell him you need him to send a message...before shooting him. Suddenly it pulls back to reveal that helicopters and all sorts of trouble are heading your way...though it's from the perspective of this mysterious figure on a roof...who you then take control of, and are tasked with protecting the former main character along with several other operatives. End of demo. I was BLOWN AWAY. In just a few minutes they showed off some amazing potential for missions, abilities, plot, and repeated playthroughs. Keep your eyes out for this one ladies and gents, my guess is you're looking at the next big IP.
And with that Ubisoft is done. Not as much weirdness this time around, but I can't complain what with all the amazing stuff they showed off. Now on to the final two conferences from the big contenders...
First up, not to be outdone by Microsoft and their impromptu Usher performance for Dance Central 3, Ubisoft trots out three pairs of dancers showing off 3 sets of some less impressive dance moves from Just Dance 4 (like the "Wild Wild West"...*shudder*) in really unflattering clothes (I seriously cannot understand high-waisted shorts) until they all join together and Flo Rida takes the stage and puts Usher to shame. It was short, sweet, and packed a way bigger punch. So this is where we get to meet Aisha Tyler, who has been around the TV hosting biz for a while and who proceeds to molest and hit on Flo Rida, make a joke about how all women are a little bit gay and she and the dancers are going to "hug it out backstage", chide Tobuscus for stumbling over his lines, and introduce Farcry 3. God I love Ubisoft.
Anyways, FarGODDAMNWTF?Cry 3. Last year they showed off a wholly impressive trailer with lush visuals and the introduction of the lead villain, who looked amazingly insane. Well, guess what. YOU ARE HIM. AND HE IS YOU. WHAAAAAAAT? This demo not only brought back the delicious graphics, but introduced the fact that you are insane, and though it isn't explicitly stated, it appears to be pretty clear that the lead villain is a split personality. Which is AWESOME. Having never played Farcry 1 and hearing a pretty universal "meh" about 2, I wasn't too invested in 3, but after that trailer...holy crap do I want to know more. As one last "you're damn right this is going to be amazing", Tobuscus butts in with a question from a fan, asking how much there will be to explore. And while the dev didn't let any numbers fly, he did say there will be an entire archipelago of islands to explore, along with some hallucinatory levels. Rock on.
Next is the official trailer for Splinter Cell: Blacklist, along with the revelation that (surprise surprise) co-op will be back.
Brief trailer for Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, which only had WiiU and Kinect logos on it. Since they released literally no details about it beyond that, who knows exactly what this game is going to be besides the fact that it will draw on all Marvel entities including X-Men and Spider Man.
Ubisoft is also apparently excited for the WiiU since they're all about being different, and to lead off their development slate for it they brought out Rayman: Legends. Boasting the ability for 5 player co-op, which sounds insane, the person using the WiiU controller had a little zippy fairy-like character that could cut ropes and things and was also in charge of an almost rhythm-game-like section. Nothing sold me on it, but if you're going to get a WiiU Rayman: Legends does look to make good use of the tech. After the demo they also showed off their WiiU lineup, including an M-rated FPS zombie game called ZombiU, a Rabbids game because they have to, Just Dance 4 and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved which will involve the controller...somehow, but most importantly of all...Assassin's Creed 3.
And oooooh man AC3. Finally, FINALLY, we get to see some gameplay, and just what it's like to traverse trees, dual wield, and experience Connor's more fluid/on-the-move style of assassination. Admittedly even I, who have loved the series from the start, was a little skeptical after the rehashed and quite average Revelations. But they full on proved that this game has been in development ever since AC2 and has been separate from Brotherhood and Revelations. It looks unique, creative, and an astounding amount of fun to play. No just adding new gimmicks to a stale game here, they went back to the drawing board for a completely new experience. Couldn't be more impressed or hyped about this game.
With the repeated unable-to-tell-if-its-scripted-or-not butting in of Tobuscus and Aisha getting pissed about it, it only made sense to have a battle for hosting rights via Shootmania, the next iteration of their free-to-play and create service. Each had a team of 3 top-tier competitive gamers representing them in a game where it was 3 on 1, but the 1 had a railgun with instant kill while the other team had to land 2 hits on them to kill them. It had a very Unreal Tournament vibe in a very very early stage of development. And then, despite Toby's team winning he still gets sent backstage again. Ah well. After that they release a bunch of praise they've received for their other free to play franchises like Ghost Recon Online and The Settlers Online.
Then, to me, the greatest surprise of the show so far: Watch Dogs. It starts with a rather disheartening "Big Brother Is Watching" kind of set-up talking about how all data is connected and there are now these giant computer systems that track that data and use it to know anything and everything there is to know about you so that big corporations can use that information as power essentially. It was frankly all a little too real-sounding to get me excited for what they were about to show, but then they came out and basically said, "Okay, based on that, what if you could hack it all? What would you do with that power?" And then they started the demo and holycrapballs it looked amazing. We first take control of this unassuming looking man walking down the street, with a minimap on the side that screams "open-world game". As he walks by people little icons float above their heads, showing you the option to hack cellphones and listen in on conversations among other things. When you reach your destination, some sort of club with a big line outside, you pull out this device and send out a jamming signal, which causes the bouncer to wander around looking for a signal, opening up the opportunity to slip inside. As you walk around you start to hear comments that let you know you are known to these people, and not very welcome. You talk to a "friend" of yours who gives you a gun once he hears that you're after the guy running this little venue, and you reveal to him you want to be seen, to lure him here. Next you're tasked with finding an associate of the baddie to make sure he's coming. Pulling up another option, you scroll around the room, seeing the names and relevant data for basically everyone there. You finally find his accomplice, hack the phone call, and hear that he's on his way, and that security is on your tail. A man starts approaching and you see a red bar next to him that indicates "chance of aggression", so you run the other way only to run into another thug, who you proceed to beat the crap out of with a baton. Exiting out the door you come upon the nearest intersection, hack the traffic lights, and turn them all green as the baddie approaches in his car. One giant crash later, goons are suddenly shooting at you and you make your way around the accident, taking them out and inching closer to the baddie's crashed car. Smashing the window and pulling him out, you tell him you need him to send a message...before shooting him. Suddenly it pulls back to reveal that helicopters and all sorts of trouble are heading your way...though it's from the perspective of this mysterious figure on a roof...who you then take control of, and are tasked with protecting the former main character along with several other operatives. End of demo. I was BLOWN AWAY. In just a few minutes they showed off some amazing potential for missions, abilities, plot, and repeated playthroughs. Keep your eyes out for this one ladies and gents, my guess is you're looking at the next big IP.
And with that Ubisoft is done. Not as much weirdness this time around, but I can't complain what with all the amazing stuff they showed off. Now on to the final two conferences from the big contenders...
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
E3 2012: EA
God damn it EA. I want to hate you for so many things, ruining Bioware, Origin, and all the rest, but how can I hate you when the first thing you do is show an action-packed trailer for Dead Space 3 and tell me it now has drop-in/drop-out co-op along with enemies that fire guns? That's just not fair. I can only salivate and wait until February 2013. Blast it.
Madden 13 is going to have a new engine that factors in things like player weight and athleticism into every single collision, and allows for the possibility to escape tackles. On top of that, with their new career mode, Madden is turning into an RPG. No, I'm not kidding. You have certain goals throughout the season, and if you complete them, you gain XP, which you can then spend on upgrading your abilities on the field. Not sure how well that's going to gel, but with the RPGification going on with so many other games I can't say I'm surprised it's there.
For some reason everyone is excited for the next SimCity, as well as SimCity Social for facebook. Like, really excited. You would've thought from the audience reactions they were showing off Mass Effect 4. It's got a new engine, multiplayer, and...well that seemed about it really. It's been 5 years since the last title, which could explain the hype, but not being a fan myself I guess I just don't get the buzz. Look for this one next February.
When Modern Warfare 3 announced their elite service, wherein you pay extra money for access to all expansion packs plus stats and other features, I think people were a bit wary of how it might fare. However, it has been a highly successful service. As such, it was kind of surprising that Battlefield 3, having thrown the gauntlet at MW3, didn't have a similar service. Well that all changes with Premium, which costs $50 and grabs you 5 map packs along with tons of weapons, vehicles, skins, etc. Considering the amount of content you get, plus 2 week early access to the packs, plus the success of elite, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a pretty big uptick in revenue for these guys.
Next up is a showcase of all the new content being added to Star Wars: The Old Republic, including a new race, a new planet with a new storyline, new abilities, new companions, and much more. Also included, the ability to play for free up to level 15 coming in July. Sweet.
The Medal of Honor reboot came out last year and was met with a nearly universal "meh". Basically despite some solid multiplayer, it resembled Battlefield: Bad Company 2 far too much and had nothing to distinguish itself. So now the sequel, Warfighter...looks exactly the same as Battlefield 3. Except you get to maneuver a little tank robot. There were also no mentions of them trying to distinguish themselves by "realism" this time, I'm assuming because of the backlash they received for having the opportunity to play the Taliban in multiplayer, but I also like to think it's because THERE IS STILL NOTHING REAL ABOUT IT. In the opening moments you get hit by a sniper. Dead? Nope, get right back up like you didn't feel a thing and keep going about your business. *sigh*
Basically every EA Sport is getting more social with facebook apps, as well as simply increased connectivity. Most are also getting a facelift with a new engine. The big surprise, however, is that there's another sport joining the mix: UFC. It was especially surprising for me because I thought UFC already had games, but to everyone there this was a big freakin deal. Perhaps it's just because they'll have a giant budget behind them now.
Following their success with Need for Speed: Hot Pursiut, Criterion is back at it again with Most Wanted. Now Zach, you may say, wasn't there already a Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted several years ago? Yes, yes there were anonymous person, it simply appears it's too hard to come up with new names and those ones were at least 7 years ago so what the hell just steal the name and call it a "reboot". 2 years ago Hot Pursuit made a splash with its new innovative features. Now, Most Wanted looks to...add nothing to that. Except trying to become "Most Wanted" among your friends. But can you really blame them for sticking to something that worked so well?
Crysis 3 is too god damn pretty. They briefly showed off the new crossbow weapon, but otherwise it all looks like the same old Crysis, though the same old Crysis still looks like a ton of fun. And with such amazing graphics, it's hard to complain about lack of innovation. Along with apparently every other game in development, Crysis 3 will be out February of next year.
With that, EA's conference is at an end. The trudge continues!
Madden 13 is going to have a new engine that factors in things like player weight and athleticism into every single collision, and allows for the possibility to escape tackles. On top of that, with their new career mode, Madden is turning into an RPG. No, I'm not kidding. You have certain goals throughout the season, and if you complete them, you gain XP, which you can then spend on upgrading your abilities on the field. Not sure how well that's going to gel, but with the RPGification going on with so many other games I can't say I'm surprised it's there.
For some reason everyone is excited for the next SimCity, as well as SimCity Social for facebook. Like, really excited. You would've thought from the audience reactions they were showing off Mass Effect 4. It's got a new engine, multiplayer, and...well that seemed about it really. It's been 5 years since the last title, which could explain the hype, but not being a fan myself I guess I just don't get the buzz. Look for this one next February.
When Modern Warfare 3 announced their elite service, wherein you pay extra money for access to all expansion packs plus stats and other features, I think people were a bit wary of how it might fare. However, it has been a highly successful service. As such, it was kind of surprising that Battlefield 3, having thrown the gauntlet at MW3, didn't have a similar service. Well that all changes with Premium, which costs $50 and grabs you 5 map packs along with tons of weapons, vehicles, skins, etc. Considering the amount of content you get, plus 2 week early access to the packs, plus the success of elite, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a pretty big uptick in revenue for these guys.
Next up is a showcase of all the new content being added to Star Wars: The Old Republic, including a new race, a new planet with a new storyline, new abilities, new companions, and much more. Also included, the ability to play for free up to level 15 coming in July. Sweet.
The Medal of Honor reboot came out last year and was met with a nearly universal "meh". Basically despite some solid multiplayer, it resembled Battlefield: Bad Company 2 far too much and had nothing to distinguish itself. So now the sequel, Warfighter...looks exactly the same as Battlefield 3. Except you get to maneuver a little tank robot. There were also no mentions of them trying to distinguish themselves by "realism" this time, I'm assuming because of the backlash they received for having the opportunity to play the Taliban in multiplayer, but I also like to think it's because THERE IS STILL NOTHING REAL ABOUT IT. In the opening moments you get hit by a sniper. Dead? Nope, get right back up like you didn't feel a thing and keep going about your business. *sigh*
Basically every EA Sport is getting more social with facebook apps, as well as simply increased connectivity. Most are also getting a facelift with a new engine. The big surprise, however, is that there's another sport joining the mix: UFC. It was especially surprising for me because I thought UFC already had games, but to everyone there this was a big freakin deal. Perhaps it's just because they'll have a giant budget behind them now.
Following their success with Need for Speed: Hot Pursiut, Criterion is back at it again with Most Wanted. Now Zach, you may say, wasn't there already a Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted several years ago? Yes, yes there were anonymous person, it simply appears it's too hard to come up with new names and those ones were at least 7 years ago so what the hell just steal the name and call it a "reboot". 2 years ago Hot Pursuit made a splash with its new innovative features. Now, Most Wanted looks to...add nothing to that. Except trying to become "Most Wanted" among your friends. But can you really blame them for sticking to something that worked so well?
Crysis 3 is too god damn pretty. They briefly showed off the new crossbow weapon, but otherwise it all looks like the same old Crysis, though the same old Crysis still looks like a ton of fun. And with such amazing graphics, it's hard to complain about lack of innovation. Along with apparently every other game in development, Crysis 3 will be out February of next year.
With that, EA's conference is at an end. The trudge continues!
E3 2012: Microsoft (and brief Konami)
WOOOOOO it's time once again for the E3 rundown. Technically Konami was up first, with a brief 30 minute pre-E3 video, but frankly none of it was worth caring about. To briefly sum it up: they're putting Frogger on facebook, their soccer franchise is (surprise surprise) better this year, the Zone of the Enders HD collection will have better graphics and a new intro cutscene, and Metal Gear is celebrating it's 25th year by re-releasing its games and simultaneously crapping all over itself with MGS: Rising/Revengeance. It was seriously laughable to hear Kojima talk about how he initially came up with MGS in opposition to the action/shooting games out there and then have it emphasized by everyone else that MGSRR is an action game. As a final surprise they booted out a trailer for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. Unfortunately, as the first Lords of Shadow wasn't up my alley, I wasn't particularly enthused, but it sounds like many others are. So there you go.
So with that, we move on to the first of the big 3, Microsoft. Once again, right off the bat they hit with a gameplay demo of likely their most anticipated title: Halo 4. First I just have to say, as a testament to video game graphics these days, at first I couldn't tell if I was watching live actors or CGI. They are, I'm 99% sure, real, but it still kind of weirded me out that it actually took me a couple seconds to realize. Anyways, the demo showed off some rather impressive graphics, some new enemies and weapons, and a brief look at the story. To me, every new Halo game just looks the exact same, but I don't really count that against it. Especially since this is no longer the original company, Bungie, making it. They've managed to stay true to the style and feel of all the others, and I have no doubt Halo fanboys will be appeased.
Next up, another demo, this time for Splinter Creed. I mean, Assassin's Cell. I mean, Splinter Cell: Blacklist. That's the one. Honestly, I can't really blame Ubisoft for merging the two together. Both are their properties anyways, why not add some athleticism/building climbing to Splinter Cell? The whole "stealth" mechanic also seems somewhat done away with unless you count hiding behind a short wall for 5 seconds before blasting everybody to smithereens "stealth", but still, I can't really blame them for going in a more actioney/Hollywood direction as it frankly looks way more fun. They've also added some basic Kinect voice commands, since every big game from Microsoft is basically being forced to, but as with every other game while the features may not be essential or add anything to the gameplay, they won't detract either.
Speaking of, Madden and Fifa are getting Kinect support. Fifa will let you make substitutions and formation changes on the fly, as well as humorously capturing your reactions to referee calls. In Madden, for once it actually appears that Kinect integration is a time-saver. You can call out plays, receivers, and essentially be a quarterback, as they get Joe Montana to demonstrate. I'm not one for sports games, but even I can appreciate how that's pretty darn cool.
Fable: The Journey makes a brief return in the form of a trailer detailing that you use your hands to fling spells. It also did nothing to dispel their mistake last E3 of making people think it was on rails. They of course came out afterwords trying to dispel that, but while you may not be tied to a rail, from the environments they showed it sure looked like a lot of straight lines. It also honestly looked wholly unimpressive.
So to wash that taste out of our mouths they showed off a trailer for the new Gears of War: Judgment, which as you might expect was full of guns, monsters, and burly men and light on everything else. Then they quickly followed it up with the latest Forza racing game, which from what the guy was saying might be heading in a more Burnout: Paradise (i.e. openish world) direction. And one thing I will say for Forza, and racing games in general...they know how to make those games look stunningly gorgeous.
Back on the Kinect train we go with improvements to Bing voice commands, like being able to sort movies by genre as well as support for 12 languages. They've also taken another chunk of the movie space by partnering with Nickelodeon and Paramount, and of the TV space with full 24 hour broadcasting of all 4 ESPN channels as well as new partnerships with the NBA, NHL, and MLB. The NFL is still conspicuously absent, though in the ad they showed off the dude said "Xbox, Monday Night Football" and it played so I guess it just means you can still watch NFL content, there's just no special social/media features like they've added to UFC.
In the sports vein, Nike+ is also coming to Kinect with its own workout game. What makes it any different than all the other Kinect fitness games out there? Apparently not much in the technical side of things. You're still doing all the same workouts and such. However, they are sticking the Nike+ system on top of it, and adding social integration so you can find workout partners. So if you've been using Nike+ for other things and own a Kinect, this will likely be a boon to you.
Then the head of Xbox Live comes out and announces Microsoft is taking over the world. Essentially. With a new system called Xbox Smartglass, every one of your devices, be it smartphone, tablet or computer/laptop (and yes, even iphones) can be integrated with Xbox for additional content. Watching Game of Thrones? Your tablet pops up with a map of Westeros telling you where the scene you're watching takes place in the world, or information about the cast and crew. Playing Madden and want to play it like it was on a WiiU? Congratulations, your tablet is now a controller. Sorry, Nintendo, for once you're not so far ahead of the curve. Lost the remote? Your smartphone can now act as one. Along with this tech they're bringing Internet Explorer along, and for I'm pretty sure the first time IE is going to be the best browser out there (for consoles at least). Not only can you use a controller or smartphone to browse the web in a standard way, but you can also just use your voice through Kinect. In every way Microsoft is capitalizing on making the Xbox your central media hub, especially now that all your other devices can by synced to it. And frankly, I think that's pretty damn cool.
Last year's look at a new, more mature/gritty Tomb Raider was surprisingly awesome, and this new demo from further on in the game did not disappoint. It can't be denied how much like Uncharted it looks and feels, but let's be fair, Lara Croft was adventure platforming long before Nathan Drake was born. Uncharted just added the cinematic spectacle, which Tomb Raider has rightfully incorporated. This new Lara screams in terror more than any human could without losing their voice, but otherwise this new take on the long-running franchise looks to be the best yet.
Three quick trailers for exclusives dot the screen next. First, from the makers of Toy Soldiers comes Ascend: New Gods, which looks to be a hack and slasher in the vein of God of War. Then, Lococycle, which has something to do with a Tron-like motorcycle. And finally, from Gore Verbinski (director of Pirates of the Caribbean) comes Matter, which looks to put you in the figurative shoes of a Portal core taking on the viruses from Tron. I swear. Watch the trailer, that is literally what it shows. Of course, the sphere is not directly like the Portal cores, and the bits of data are not directly from Tron, but come on.
Next, out came Capcom to show off Resident Evil: The Quick-Time Event (aka Resident Evil 6). Seriously the most frightening part of that demo were how many QTEs there were. RE6 looks to, as it seems with many of the other sequels shown off, dial up the action at the expense of what it's known for (horror, in this case). The zombies showed almost no reaction to Leon's presence, letting him get right up close before even turning in his direction to try and bite him. And even then with the new mobility enhancements you can finally move and shoot at the same time, and do a ridiculous looking roll, which also took some of the scare out of it. It is, however, very possible that they just wanted to show off an action packed segment for E3. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say that if you enjoyed 4 and 5, 6 will likely be right up your alley.
Kinect shovelware is for some reason trotted out as a game to be on the lookout for in the form of Wreckateer, an Angry Birds spinoff where instead of birds you have different types of catapult ammunition that you can direct by waving your hands around, and instead of pigs in structures you have goblins in castles. So if you ever thought "I wish I could play Angry Birds by flailing my arms instead of flicking my fingers!" then congratulations, Xbox has you covered.
Or maybe they just needed something crappy to make South Park: The Stick of Truth look all the more awesome. There wasn't much gameplay shown off, but everything looks and feels just like it does in the cartoon, and many of your favorite characters will be making an appearance. I'm not even much of a fan of South Park and I thought it looked awesome. Trey Stone and Matt Parker even made a brief appearance to throw down a great joke about Smartglass and talk about their involvement in the game. Can't deny, this one looks like a ton of fun.
Dance Central 3 will include old school moves, like from the disco era, as well as new. To demonstrate, Usher comes out and throws a surprise performance, showcasing the moves that will be featured in the new game and trying to get a crowd of gamers hyped about dancing. I myself am not a fan, but if you are then be happy because both the song he performed ("Scream") and one more that he worked with the dev team on will be in the game.
And of course, it isn't a Microsoft E3 without some Call of Duty. They showed off a demo for Black Ops 2, which looks to put a slightly futuristic spin on Call of Duty and...succeeds? They showed off a sniper rifle than can see through walls and the ability to tell some flying turrets where to shoot. Frankly it just looked like more Call of Duty. Even when a building collapsed in the background it was just kind of like "Well, seen that before." No doubt it will still become the number one selling game of all time, though. Why? I couldn't tell you.
And that's Microsoft! On to EA...
So with that, we move on to the first of the big 3, Microsoft. Once again, right off the bat they hit with a gameplay demo of likely their most anticipated title: Halo 4. First I just have to say, as a testament to video game graphics these days, at first I couldn't tell if I was watching live actors or CGI. They are, I'm 99% sure, real, but it still kind of weirded me out that it actually took me a couple seconds to realize. Anyways, the demo showed off some rather impressive graphics, some new enemies and weapons, and a brief look at the story. To me, every new Halo game just looks the exact same, but I don't really count that against it. Especially since this is no longer the original company, Bungie, making it. They've managed to stay true to the style and feel of all the others, and I have no doubt Halo fanboys will be appeased.
Next up, another demo, this time for Splinter Creed. I mean, Assassin's Cell. I mean, Splinter Cell: Blacklist. That's the one. Honestly, I can't really blame Ubisoft for merging the two together. Both are their properties anyways, why not add some athleticism/building climbing to Splinter Cell? The whole "stealth" mechanic also seems somewhat done away with unless you count hiding behind a short wall for 5 seconds before blasting everybody to smithereens "stealth", but still, I can't really blame them for going in a more actioney/Hollywood direction as it frankly looks way more fun. They've also added some basic Kinect voice commands, since every big game from Microsoft is basically being forced to, but as with every other game while the features may not be essential or add anything to the gameplay, they won't detract either.
Speaking of, Madden and Fifa are getting Kinect support. Fifa will let you make substitutions and formation changes on the fly, as well as humorously capturing your reactions to referee calls. In Madden, for once it actually appears that Kinect integration is a time-saver. You can call out plays, receivers, and essentially be a quarterback, as they get Joe Montana to demonstrate. I'm not one for sports games, but even I can appreciate how that's pretty darn cool.
Fable: The Journey makes a brief return in the form of a trailer detailing that you use your hands to fling spells. It also did nothing to dispel their mistake last E3 of making people think it was on rails. They of course came out afterwords trying to dispel that, but while you may not be tied to a rail, from the environments they showed it sure looked like a lot of straight lines. It also honestly looked wholly unimpressive.
So to wash that taste out of our mouths they showed off a trailer for the new Gears of War: Judgment, which as you might expect was full of guns, monsters, and burly men and light on everything else. Then they quickly followed it up with the latest Forza racing game, which from what the guy was saying might be heading in a more Burnout: Paradise (i.e. openish world) direction. And one thing I will say for Forza, and racing games in general...they know how to make those games look stunningly gorgeous.
Back on the Kinect train we go with improvements to Bing voice commands, like being able to sort movies by genre as well as support for 12 languages. They've also taken another chunk of the movie space by partnering with Nickelodeon and Paramount, and of the TV space with full 24 hour broadcasting of all 4 ESPN channels as well as new partnerships with the NBA, NHL, and MLB. The NFL is still conspicuously absent, though in the ad they showed off the dude said "Xbox, Monday Night Football" and it played so I guess it just means you can still watch NFL content, there's just no special social/media features like they've added to UFC.
In the sports vein, Nike+ is also coming to Kinect with its own workout game. What makes it any different than all the other Kinect fitness games out there? Apparently not much in the technical side of things. You're still doing all the same workouts and such. However, they are sticking the Nike+ system on top of it, and adding social integration so you can find workout partners. So if you've been using Nike+ for other things and own a Kinect, this will likely be a boon to you.
Then the head of Xbox Live comes out and announces Microsoft is taking over the world. Essentially. With a new system called Xbox Smartglass, every one of your devices, be it smartphone, tablet or computer/laptop (and yes, even iphones) can be integrated with Xbox for additional content. Watching Game of Thrones? Your tablet pops up with a map of Westeros telling you where the scene you're watching takes place in the world, or information about the cast and crew. Playing Madden and want to play it like it was on a WiiU? Congratulations, your tablet is now a controller. Sorry, Nintendo, for once you're not so far ahead of the curve. Lost the remote? Your smartphone can now act as one. Along with this tech they're bringing Internet Explorer along, and for I'm pretty sure the first time IE is going to be the best browser out there (for consoles at least). Not only can you use a controller or smartphone to browse the web in a standard way, but you can also just use your voice through Kinect. In every way Microsoft is capitalizing on making the Xbox your central media hub, especially now that all your other devices can by synced to it. And frankly, I think that's pretty damn cool.
Last year's look at a new, more mature/gritty Tomb Raider was surprisingly awesome, and this new demo from further on in the game did not disappoint. It can't be denied how much like Uncharted it looks and feels, but let's be fair, Lara Croft was adventure platforming long before Nathan Drake was born. Uncharted just added the cinematic spectacle, which Tomb Raider has rightfully incorporated. This new Lara screams in terror more than any human could without losing their voice, but otherwise this new take on the long-running franchise looks to be the best yet.
Three quick trailers for exclusives dot the screen next. First, from the makers of Toy Soldiers comes Ascend: New Gods, which looks to be a hack and slasher in the vein of God of War. Then, Lococycle, which has something to do with a Tron-like motorcycle. And finally, from Gore Verbinski (director of Pirates of the Caribbean) comes Matter, which looks to put you in the figurative shoes of a Portal core taking on the viruses from Tron. I swear. Watch the trailer, that is literally what it shows. Of course, the sphere is not directly like the Portal cores, and the bits of data are not directly from Tron, but come on.
Next, out came Capcom to show off Resident Evil: The Quick-Time Event (aka Resident Evil 6). Seriously the most frightening part of that demo were how many QTEs there were. RE6 looks to, as it seems with many of the other sequels shown off, dial up the action at the expense of what it's known for (horror, in this case). The zombies showed almost no reaction to Leon's presence, letting him get right up close before even turning in his direction to try and bite him. And even then with the new mobility enhancements you can finally move and shoot at the same time, and do a ridiculous looking roll, which also took some of the scare out of it. It is, however, very possible that they just wanted to show off an action packed segment for E3. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say that if you enjoyed 4 and 5, 6 will likely be right up your alley.
Kinect shovelware is for some reason trotted out as a game to be on the lookout for in the form of Wreckateer, an Angry Birds spinoff where instead of birds you have different types of catapult ammunition that you can direct by waving your hands around, and instead of pigs in structures you have goblins in castles. So if you ever thought "I wish I could play Angry Birds by flailing my arms instead of flicking my fingers!" then congratulations, Xbox has you covered.
Or maybe they just needed something crappy to make South Park: The Stick of Truth look all the more awesome. There wasn't much gameplay shown off, but everything looks and feels just like it does in the cartoon, and many of your favorite characters will be making an appearance. I'm not even much of a fan of South Park and I thought it looked awesome. Trey Stone and Matt Parker even made a brief appearance to throw down a great joke about Smartglass and talk about their involvement in the game. Can't deny, this one looks like a ton of fun.
Dance Central 3 will include old school moves, like from the disco era, as well as new. To demonstrate, Usher comes out and throws a surprise performance, showcasing the moves that will be featured in the new game and trying to get a crowd of gamers hyped about dancing. I myself am not a fan, but if you are then be happy because both the song he performed ("Scream") and one more that he worked with the dev team on will be in the game.
And of course, it isn't a Microsoft E3 without some Call of Duty. They showed off a demo for Black Ops 2, which looks to put a slightly futuristic spin on Call of Duty and...succeeds? They showed off a sniper rifle than can see through walls and the ability to tell some flying turrets where to shoot. Frankly it just looked like more Call of Duty. Even when a building collapsed in the background it was just kind of like "Well, seen that before." No doubt it will still become the number one selling game of all time, though. Why? I couldn't tell you.
And that's Microsoft! On to EA...
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