E3: The Aftermath

And so E3 is over.  It's a bit of a bittersweet moment.  On the one hand one of the biggest video game events is over and we won't get to experience this again for another year.  But on the other we leave this event with more information as to what's coming in the near future.  This year was especially exciting as Sony and Microsoft went toe to toe and showed off their next generation consoles.  Other companies came too including Nintendo, EA, UbiSoft, and many more to show off new and upcoming games.  One of the most anticipated aspects of E3 is the press conference as gamers around the world gather around a live stream to hear some of these announcements first, myself included.  There's a certain sense of anticipation and excitement as you see a company take stage and show off a completely new game whether it be the continuation of a popular franchise or a new IP.  Since this is one of the more important aspects of E3 I figured I would give a summary of each one along with my thoughts.

Microsoft:  Going in Microsoft was the one company who had a lot of work to do.  After the lackluster debut of the Xbox One they really needed to show off some high quality games that would convince people that the console is worth it.  As such I think that they showed off a lot of  interesting games such as Ryse: Son of Rome, Metal Gear Solid V, Dead Rising 3, Project Spark, Titanfall and many more.  While the games did look good the one thing that concerned me was the lack of exactly sharing used games would work or how the console would have to connect to the internet once every 24 hours.  The best way I could sum this up is that Microsoft showed some good games but then you realize you would need to buy an Xbox One.  And the price for the Xbox One didn't relive much tension either as it had a whopping price tag of $499.  It's not nearly as crazy as the PS3's original price of $599 but it's still expensive.  When I was finished watching the conference I was left thinking that the games were alright but I still didn't have much faith in the actual console.

EA: EA was average this year. I had no idea what to expect going in as we already knew about most of EA's games such as Battlefield 4 and the various sports titles they make too.  They did however have a surprise or two up their sleeve.  The first was Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, a third person shooter based upon the popular mobile game franchise.  It looked like a good game but I honestly wouldn't pay full price for it.  The next surprise was the announcement of a sequel to Mirror's Edge.  Only a trailer was shown and it was made pretty clear that DICE, the developer, was taking it's time with this game only offering a vague release date of "when it's done."  The one announcement that I was excited for the most was the first Star Wars game being developed by EA.  While it was only a short trailer it brought me joy knowing that EA was going to be resurrecting the Battlefront series. Aside from that EA also showed off Dragon Age Inquisition and a new Need for Speed game.  They both looked  good even though I wasn't particularly interested in either franchise.  The weirdest announcement though was  a Need for Speed movie starring Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame.  It flet out of place but at least it didn't take up most of the conference.  Overall the conference was  average for me aside from the Battlefront announcement.  I'm sure other people are excited for Dragon Age, Battlefield and the other games as well but for me I just wasn't interested.

Ubisoft: This in my opinion was the most disappointing press conference.  Almost every game shown were games we already knew about and no gameplay was shown yet.  Sure it's nice to know South Park is still in development but it would've been cool to see some gameplay.  All we got was a short trailer.  The same goes for the other games there as well such as Rayman Legends, Watch Dogs, and Assassin's Creed.  The only new games shown were The Crew which looked like an interesting online multiplayer driving game and Tom Clancy's The Division a post apocalyptic MMORPG.  Even though I'm not a fan of the Tom Clancy games this one looked interesting.  But one of the biggest drawbacks of the conference was the host Aisha Tyler.  While I enjoyed her last year, this year she seemed a little off.  While last year she was full of enthusiasm and ramped up excitement for the games, this year she just seemed to crack jokes about sex whenever she could.  It may be funny the first time but it gets tiresome if that's the same shtick you go with for the entire conference.  I wish Ubisoft showed off more of their games instead of just showing us trailer after trailer.

Sony:  I was looking forward to Sony's press conference the most this year.  Ever since the announcement of the PS4 in February I was hungry for more information about the system.  If the  announcement in February was the appetizer consider this the main course.  Starting off Sony briefly touched on upcoming games for the PS Vita and PS3.  From there though they kicked it into high gear as they finally showed off what the actual PS4 system look like.  The console looked very cool.  It was a black box like most expected but it had some interesting angular details to it.  After that they debuted a trailer for The Order: 1886.  The game is a third person shooter set in an alternate history.  It looks like it's about an organization that's trying to hunt down monsters.  It had a very interesting Steampunk aesthetic as one character had what appeared to be gun that shot electricity.  No other details were shown aside from that.  Following that Square Enix had two announcements.  Final Fantasy Versus XIII was now retitled as Final Fantasy XV and work on the long anticipated Kingdom Hearts 3 has finally begun.  Sony also showed off a slew of Indie games for the PS4 focusing on its more development friendly nature.  We also learned that Killzone, Knack, and Driveclub were all going to be launch titles.  But arguably the biggest announcements were that Sony wasn't going to be blocking used games or forcing the console to connect to the internet. Combined with the price of $399 for the actual console and many have agreed that Sony definitely triumphed over Microsoft that day.

Nintendo:  I won't lie but I was kind of disappointed by Nintendo's showing this year.  Instead of doing a press conference, Nintendo just did a general livestream of upcoming games.   What disappointed me however was that the new Mario game they were touting was just going to be an expanded version of Super Mario 3D Land.  There was also a very small presence of third party games as it looked like UbiSoft and Sega  were the only companies outside of Nintendo developing for the Wii U.  The only announcement I was genuinely excited about was the new Super Smash Bros. game and the fact that Mega Man was going to be a playable character.  While Nintendo did show off several interesting games I am worried about the lack of third party developers producing games for Nintendo.  Nintendo can't sell the WiiU on Mario and Zelda alone. 

Well that was what I thought about the press conferences this year.  While some companies did a lackluster job others did showed off some impressive games and hardware. Either way I left E3 this year more excited for the next generation of consoles.