Tag: e3 2016

E3 2016: much ado about nothing

I’d hoped to have posted my impressions of Sony’s press conference much sooner, but events have conspired against me.  I suppose it’s for the best, since I have the benefit of hindsight now and I feel that I can be a bit more objective about what Sony had to offer.

Did Sony “win” E3?  Was this “the greatest press conference ever”?  I’ve seen several tweeted headlines that answer in the affirmative to both of these questions, but I’m not convinced.  Again – I’m writing this a few days after the presser, so I’m not nearly as breathless with anticipation as I might’ve been during the actual event.

Sony’s actual press conference was certainly not the epic, no-doubt-about-it mic drop of a few years ago.  (And when I look at that recap, I am simply stunned by what I managed to be stunned by.)  I did find it much more substantive and tasteful than Microsoft’s, though that could’ve been the live orchestra.

More to the point, the games – or, rather, the portions of new games that were presented to us – seemed more mature, more sophisticated.  This new, Norse-themed God of War reboot feels like a Naughty Dog game, with a nuanced relationship between a father and son.   Horizon similarly looks quite astonishing, although it’s hard to know how to extrapolate a full game experience from that 7-8 minute demo.  We have a 2016 release date for The Last Guardian, which is nice, even if I haven’t read any preview coverage that managed to get a clear handle on what it is.

Honestly, I’m mostly excited about the Crash Bandicoot remasters.  And also the PSVR, which comes in at a price point that I can most probably survive.

This is all well and good, but now that’s it’s been a few days I’m more concerned about what we didn’t see – like No Man’s Sky (which I suspect was withheld simply because they’re in crunch time and didn’t have time to show anything without severely cramping their style).  And of course Sony did not talk about the “Neo”, which begs the question – will my PSVR work better with the new hardware?  Can I afford a Neo and a Scorpio while still paying my mortgage?  Will my wife leave me if I buy them both anyway?

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With regards to the rest of the show: I am the wrong dude to ask.  Work has been crazy, and whatever free time I’ve had this week has been devoted to posting about gun control and how horrible Donald Trump is. But I can run off a few bullet points:

  • I bought Trials of the Blood Dragon after hearing about it at the Ubisoft presser because I love the Trials games, and after 15 minutes with it I can tell you that whoever decided to make a Trials game where you get off the motorcycle and engage in shitty platforming/shooting segments needs to get fired immediately.
  • The South Park game looks awesome.
  • Ubisoft’s winter-sports thing looks promising, though I’ve heard some absolutely dreadful impressions.
  • I must cop to admitting that Call of Duty in space actually looks pretty neat.
  • I very nearly pre-ordered the ultimate edition of Forza Horizon 3 earlier today.  I don’t know why, nor do I know why I stopped.
  • I’m willing to give that standalone Gwent game a look, though I never played more than the tutorial in Witcher 3 proper.
  • Speaking of which, I need to get back to that Blood & Wine DLC.
  • Also need to get back to Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, though to be honest I’m not enjoying it all that much.  It feels like EA’s first draft of a Ubisoft open-world game, and you can take that however you want.

E3 2016: Microsoft presser impressions

I don’t know what I wanted out of Microsoft’s E3 presser today.  I barely touch my Xbox One these days as it is.  Nearly everything that looked halfway interesting had a 2017 date attached to it, and there wasn’t necessarily all that much that looked halfway interesting.

In this frightening post-Burnout world we live in, Forza Horizon has become my favorite driving franchise, and Forza Horizon 3 looks pretty spectacular – I’ll definitely be picking that up in September.

I was hoping for some Crackdown 3 news or footage, and we got absolutely nothing on that front, and I’m not sure if that means I should be worried.  And I suppose I’d also hoped for some big-name 360 games to become backward-compatible (*cough cough* Red Dead *cough cough*).  There were other, obvious things that I figured we’d see – Gears 4 (which looks very Gears-y) and Halo Wars 2 (which isn’t my thing, but whatever).

The Xbox One Slim is a nice deal, but who in their right mind would buy it if the Scorpio – “the most powerful console ever built” with the “highest quality pixels” – is coming next year?  And will developers have a collective nervous breakdown if they have to develop across all Xbox SKUs?

As per usual, the most interesting part of the press conference was the “indie showcase”, which is merely a montage of all the legitimately cool-looking games that I’m actually looking forward to checking out.  Hard to get a feel for any of them with that quick-fire editing, though.

I can’t tell if I’m disappointed, jaded, or distracted.  But I’m definitely not feeling as gung-ho as I’d like to be feeling right now.

As in E3s past, I will most likely miss the Ubisoft presser, just because of my evening commute.  But I’m certainly very interested to see what Sony’s got up their sleeve. I’ll most likely be live-tweeting when that starts happening, and a more detailed impressions post will follow shortly thereafter.

 

 

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