E3 2014 Impressions

Well, E3 2014 is in the books. What was the overall impression from the show?: Meh. It's not that it was a bad E3, there just wasn't anything Earth-shattering to come out of it.

Usually you expect a ton of news and at least one mind-blowing revelation to come out of the expo, and that just didn't happen this year for a couple of reasons. First of all, it seemed like a lot of companies decided to try and get out ahead of the show proper and they made their biggest announcements a week or two before the show started. The reason for this is obvious, typically there is so much news coming down the pipe that it's easy for a lot of things to get lost in the shuffle, and then no one hears about them. Secondly, the biggest complaint/running joke that arose from this year's convention was about how it seemed like the vast majority of games being shown aren't due until at least 2015, if not beyond that.

This chart disproves that sentiment, but that doesn't change how the show felt.

Either way, the show's over. And that means it's time that I give you my impressions of it. Since the press conferences themselves weren't that interesting, I'm just going to share my thoughts on a few topics and then I'll talk about some of the games that caught my eye, and I will accompany them with their respective trailers. So, without further ado:

Biggest Disappointment

I suppose I should just get this one out of the way up front, there was no Fallout 4 announcement. Not only was this disappointing for me as a fan who is dying to play a new Fallout game, but I honestly feel like Bethesda really dropped the ball on this one. Because there really wasn't anything that stole the show this year, Fallout 4 could have been it. Hell, it would have been it. There is so much anticipation for this game that all they would've had to do was show a teaser trailer at one of the press conferences and then do a short gameplay demo during the show. They wouldn't even have had to make it public; just allow some media guys to play it or watch someone play it so they could write up a preview or two and, BAM, game of show. Oh well, I guess Wasteland 2 will just have to tide me over for now, but that a subject for another blog.

Coolest Trailer/Most Interesting Games

In no particular order, here are some of the things I feel like you should see that came out of the show. Some of these game I doubt I'd ever be interested in playing, they just had some very creative trailers, and the rest are games that I can't wait to get my hands on!

Inside

The next game from Playdead, the creators of the critically acclaimed Limbo, Inside looks just as dark and brooding as the game that put them on the map. Watching the trailer you definitely get the sense that these games came from the same minds, but there's enough about Inside's visual style alone to set it apart.

Limbo had a monochromatic color scheme and the game was all silhouettes. Inside makes use of color, but it's all very desaturated, lending it a very ominous tone, similar to what worked so well for Limbo. It also seems to emphasize depth in a way that Limbo didn't. The way that a number of shots in the above trailer use negative space to create a sense of scale in the environment is truly striking.

Dead Island 2

I don't have any particular interest in playing the Dead Island games; the first one seemed like it had some cool ideas, but was very messily put together. However, this was, without a doubt, one of the funnest trailers to come out of the show. I legitimately found myself smiling and chuckling over how ridiculous this trailer is. If the final game can hit this tone and tighten up the gameplay and hammer out the glitches, than Dead Island 2 may be worth a look once it's released.

I can only imagine that the name on the gilded dog tag is "Douche"

Tom Clancy's The Division

The Division is a third-person shooter set in a post-apocalyptic New York City following a mysterious viral outbreak that wiped out most of the city's population. Not the most original concept to be sure, and the game itself may wind up being another run-of-the-mill cover shooter, but the trailer that Ubisoft put together for this year's show was certainly one of the most artfully done. It's difficult to describe, but it's message is conveyed clearly; give it a watch and just enjoy the show.

Even if the game ends up being forgettable, at least it has one of the coolest in-game maps I've seen.

Alien: Isolation

I love the Alien movies! They are some of my favorite films of all time. That being said, I've never been a big fan of any games based on them. Most of them have been first-person shooters, and even the decent ones just didn't seem interesting to me. And, following the tragically bad Aliens: Colonial Marines, this game needs to be good in order to save face for the property as a whole. 

At the very least the team at Creative Assembly is trying something different. Rather than make another rote, mindless shooter starring space marines, Alien: Isolation is trying to play up the horror and slasher flick tone that the Original Alien film nailed so well. You won't be mowing down hordes of Xenomorphs with plasma rifles; there's only one in the whole game, and you stand no chance of fighting it. Instead you must hide and use a combination of wits and patients to throw the predatory beast off of your trail.

If the guys and gals at CA can pull this off without the game devolving into frustrating trial-and-error gameplay, we may have one of the best Alien games headed our way this October.

I'd say it's time to shit. I mean hide! Time to hide.

The new Mass Effect game

Ok, I need to talk about this one simply because I'm such a huge fan of the series. At E3 Bioware and EA put out the above video that they called a teaser trailer, but it was really more of developer diary. It's mostly a video of some of the guys at Bioware talking about their ideas for the next Mass Effect. They do show a few images, but they made sure to label them as "conceptual prototypes", meaning that a lot of what they showed may change significantly in the final version, or it may not be in there at all.

I wasn't really surprised by this, I know the next ME is a ways off. What did surprise me, however, is the fact there was no announcement of some sort of "Mass Effect Trilogy: Ultimate Edition" that'll be coming to the new consoles and PC with all of the DLC included and updated graphics. It seems like a foregone conclusion that they would make that, and I am just surprised that they didn't announce it; especially when you consider how bare-bones EA's press conference lineup was.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Speaking of Bioware, Dragon Age: Inquisition looks fantastic! This is my most anticipated game of the year and, after finally getting to see a real gameplay demonstration, I have to say that the game seems to be coming together nicely. You can check out some of the gameplay below:

Hopefully DA:I will live up to expectations and be the Dragon Age game that fans of the series want it to be. Speaking for myself, October 7th can't come soon enough.

Well that's not a good sign...

Mortal Kombat X

The action in this trailer is nothing short of bad ass! Personally I could do without the dumb rap song that in no way, shape, or form fits the game but hey, marketing. Either way, I am pumped to see what NetherRelam Studios has in store for the next iteration of this legendary fighting game franchise. And, thankfully, we got to see some real gameplay of it at the show, check it out below:

 I think this would hurt so bad, your brain wouldn't even let you feel it.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

After playing last year's excellent reboot of the classic Tomb Raider franchise, I've been very curious to see what Crystal Dynamics has planned for the indomitable Lara Croft next. Well, this year's E3 marked the announcement of the upcoming sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider. A lot of people have been pooh-poohing the name, but whatever; if the game can meet the high bar set by the original, than they could call it Rise of the Fart Raider for all I care.

There wasn't any gameplay shown, but I was still excited to hear the official word that the game is in development.

Far Cry 4

Ok, as long as I'm making a list that includes amazing trailer, this one had to make the cut. The Far Cry games have really hit their stride over the last couple of games, with Far Cry 3 receiving much critical and fan acclaim for it's open world and engaging gameplay. FC3 also introduced a captivating villain in Vaas. Unfortunately, most people agree that his potential was squandered early in the game.

Hopefully that won't be the case this time around with FC4's new villain, Pagan Min. The above trailer makes for one hell of an introduction to this psychopath and leaves you curious about not only the player's relationship with him, but also how far he will go and what his motives are. If the game can hold to it's current release date, we'll be discovering the answers to these question this November.

Honorable Mention

Just to wrap this up before I find myself talking about every trailer that debuted at the show, I should go ahead and list a few final trailers that caught my attention, click on the names to see their videos:

The Order: 1886 (Stylish 3rd-person shooter with an interesting setting.)

White Night (Creepy-looking horror game with striking visual style.)

Mario Maker (Looks super cool. if Nintendo can flesh it out and give creators the tools they'd want, it'll be spectacular.)

Destiny (The latest from Bungie, the team responsible for the Halo franchise. Looks really great so far, hopefully it can live up to its creator's legacy.)

Final Thoughts

So, maybe E3 2014 wasn't a mind-blowing event. We still got to see some fantastic looking games coming from talented people, ranging from small indie dev teams to massive AAA-title making factories.

If anything, this year's show proves that the video game industry is alive and well and will be pumping out cool stuff for years to come, and I couldn't be happier to be along for the ride.

E3 2014 Preview

The Electronic 3rd is nearly upon us!

E3, the biggest video game convention of the year, is only a few short weeks away. That means that it's high time I start talking about my expectations for what we may see this year. 

2013 felt like a bit of an off year for E3; the show was mostly focused on Sony and Microsoft hammering out the final details for their consoles before launch. Which was famously followed by a lot of backtracking on Microsoft's part due to the backlash they received over a number of their proposed policies regarding the Xbox One. 

Meanwhile the games themselves seemed to take a backseat. It just felt like the really cool stuff that's going to justify the existence of this new generation of hardware simply wasn't ready to show yet. Granted, that is pretty typical of a launch year E3, but it's also the reason why this year feels so exciting. Now that the new consoles are out of their "launch window" we should start to see the real next-gen games coming to the forefront. The one that aren't simply uprezzed versions of 360 and PS3 games. There will obviously still be some overlap, but it definitely appears that the newer machines are the lead platforms for these games, and they're being ported down for the old consoles, instead of the other way around. 

And, with that, I will run down a brief list of the games I'm most interested in seeing. Some of these have already been confirmed to be at E3 and some haven't, so please bear that in mind.

Fallout 4

Will it happen? God I hope so. And I am pretty confident that we will see the next Fallout at this year's show. The timing feels right and there's simply too much evidence that it's coming for the game to be a no-show again... right?

Let's run through all of the evidence that points to a new Fallout being announced this year:

1. Timing: its been 3 years since Skyrim was released, and about a year and a half since Bethesda finished the final piece of DLC for the game, Dragonborn. There was a post on Bethesda's official blog in April 2013 talking about how they were finished making new content for Skyrim and that this will free up the team to work on their "next major project". The Elder Scrolls Online just released earlier this year, so it would be silly of them to step on their own toes by even talking about the next proper Elder Scrolls release so soon. Fallout is the other big franchise that Bethesda is known to develop in-house and, assuming that it's being built on a modified version of the Skyrim engine, 3-4 years seems like the right amount of time it would take to make this game.
2. Sightings: Back in mid 2012 there were several stories claiming that Bethesda employees had been spotted scouting locations in and around the Boston area, leading to speculation that this would be the setting for the next Fallout game. It also helps that Boston makes a lot of sense as a place to set a Fallout game. The Commonwealth, which was mentioned several times in Fallout 3, is the in-lore name for the state of Massachusetts in the post-apocalypse. The fact that FO3 was developed by Bethesda makes these off-handed mentions feel like hints to the future of the franchise.
3. Leaks: Then, just a few months back in December, Kotaku ran a story detailing a script that had been leaked from a casting call. Although this script never mentions the word Fallout, it does refer to a number of places in the Fallout universe and even includes the infamous tag line: "War. War never changes."

Combine this evidence with a rabid fanbase that has been absolutely chomping at the bit for a new entry in the series, and it seems that Fallout 4 is a shoe-in for this year's E3.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Okay, let me start this one off by saying something controversial: I liked Dragon Age 2. Now, before you raise your pitchforks and light your torches, give me a moment to contextualize that. I liked DA2, I didn't love it. The game definitely had it's flaws, mainly stemming from the fact that it seemed rushed out the door entirely too quickly. However, there were a lot of things that I enjoyed about that game. Things that I'd like to see return for the next game in the franchise, Dragon Age: Inquisition.

First of all, I loved the combat in DA2; some would argue that it was dumbed down from Dragon Age: Origins, but I honestly felt like it was simply more streamlined and focused; that it made the combat feel better overall. And I will be a sad boy if the Force Magic specialization doesn't return; fewer things are more fun than using gravity itself to smash your foes around the battlefield.

Secondly, I really enjoyed having the snarky, smart-ass dialog choices as your third option within the dialog trees. Usually in games like this, including Bioware's own Mass Effect franchise, you have a choice between "good guy" and "bad guy" dialog with at third "neutral" option thrown in as well. The problem with that, is why would anyone choose the boring-ass neutral response? There's never any real reason to. But in Dragon Age 2 the third option was actually valid and fun to use. These options would have your character respond with a joke, or some sort of sarcastic comment, and it lent an entirely different tilt to his/her personality. This felt like a really unique thing that no one had pulled off properly before and it would be a shame if Dragon Age: Inquisition leaves it on the cutting room floor.

Here's to hoping.

All that being said, what they've shown of DA:I looks amazing. And the way that the developers speak about the game and how they're approaching it makes me think that this team is in the proper mindset to deliver something truly spectacular. The team has said that they've taken a lot of inspiration from Skyrim, and that this game will be quite massive in scope. Considering the amount of time that they're taking to make it, almost two years already and the game isn't due until 2015, I'd say that Bioware and EA seem to be giving this game it's due attention, and I can hardly wait to see it in action at E3.

New Mass Effect

If you know me or follow my blog, than you know that I love Mass Effect. It is my favorite video game franchise of all time; it speaks to me. Mass Effect embodies all of my favorite things about gaming and sci-fi: spaceships, futuristic guns, choices with consequences, an intense story, and sexy alien ladies.

"How you doin'?'

So I have to at least mention the possibility of a trailer for the next entry in the series. I doubt that it'll be much more than a teaser trailer, but maybe they will have at least put an official title on the game. That is assuming that there's anything ready to show at all.

(Not official screenshot, fan art by Baolong Zhang.)

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I never played the original, but The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was the first big game I bought after getting my first real gaming PC, the one I still use today. It's one of the reasons that I've done most of my gaming on the PC since then. Witcher 2 absolutely blew me away; the world was so twisted and dark compared to most games and movies that use the medieval fantasy setting.

That's why I'm excited to see what's next for this series. They've release a few trailers, and it looks stunning. If the team can hit the same level of quality and polish as the previous game, then The Witcher 3 will be a game for the ages. They're saying that this will be the final game in The Witcher series, and it certain looks like CD Projekt Red is aiming to do it justice.

Something tells me that thing ain't friendly.

Destiny

Destiny is the next game from Bungie and, while I never played much of their Halo games, something about their latest venture has caught my attention. It could be the art style reminding me of Mass Effect, or maybe I'm just hungry for this type of game. Whatever it may be, Destiny looks pretty spectacular and I'm excited to see more of it at the show.

Everything Else!

When it comes to E3, more often than not, the most exciting things to come out of the show are things that you didn't see coming at all. I'm excited to see what new games get announced and what new features are going to be coming to the PS4 and Xbox One. Will Microsoft announce a price drop in order to increase their install base and try to catch up to Sony? Will Nintendo or another company steal the show from the two heavyweights with something truly mind-blowing? Only time will tell and, thankfully, we don't have long to wait.