I love it when E3 is approaching, the anticipation for
what’s going to be shown, what’s going to be playable, new hardware, new games,
new ideas. It represents the biggest stage video game companies have in showing
off their products to us. And boy do they like to show off!
I personally love E3 because it reignites the gaming industry
and gets me interested again. People start talking again, forums start buzzing,
Twitter explodes, everyone has an opinion and there are plenty willing to argue
til their faces turn blue!
So what happened at this year’s E3? Well quite a lot actually, there were plenty of games shown and plenty of new hardware to look at with the revelation of two new consoles. Most of the big up and coming games were on show, some of them were even playable. Mass Effect 3, Tomb Raider, Battlefield 3, Skyward Sword, Modern Warfare 3, XCOM, Deus Ex and many many more.
Of all the games shown outside of the big three’s
conferences the one that caught my eye the most was Assassin’s Creed
Revelations. It was given a lot of attention with Ubisoft revealing the next
instalment of their franchise at their conference before the main conferences
had even begun. They showed a new CGI trailer that also showed some gameplay
elements as well. It features Ezio again all be it he’s in his 50s in this one
and it looks as though he’s gone to Constantinople in order to find out about
the original protagonist: Altair. There was a short demo played showing off
some new abilities such as grenades, ziplining, and he even wielded a
flamethrower at one point! It’s the usual Ezio bad-assery as you’d expect and
it looks pretty glorious. Needless to say I’ll be getting my hands on this when
it comes out.
Square Enix showed off yet another trailer for Deus Ex,
revealing a little more of the story behind it, and a few new gameplay elements
we can all look forward to. The release date is still unknown as of yet though
so you might want to contain some excitement at least. My feeling is that by
the time this game hit’s the shelves, the hype train will have run out of steam
and sales will suffer.
There’s apparently an epic Mass Effect trailer out there but
I don’t think my body would be able to handle it so I gave it a miss. I just
know that I’m definitely getting Mass Effect 3, I don’t want any of it ruined
for me by a trailer or any gameplay! I don’t know why I’m doing this, by the
time it comes out there is no way I’ll have avoided it for that long! But I
have to try!
So what about the big three then: Microsoft, Sony and
Nintendo. Each of them had plenty to show off. So I’ll get right into it…
Microsoft
Sony
Nintendo
Each conference focussed on different areas, which is a good
thing, but it was only really Nintendo who got it right. Their focus was good,
they covered all the bases and structured the conference well. On top of all
that they had a good range of content, especially for the 3DS, as well as
revealing a brand new console in the Wii U.
Sony’s conference lacked this focus and they got a little
lost. They bored the audience for over an hour before showing them the
Playstation Vita which although it looked good, didn’t really have the same
vibe as the 3DS did when it was revealed. Their cause wasn’t aided either by
constantly banging on about the capabilities of 3D and showing long winded
montage footage. It wasn’t all bad for them though, the Uncharted 3 demo looked
very good and they did give more details on the Vita than was predicted.
Microsoft had the burden of going first, and maybe that has
something to do with their poor showing but comparatively they lacked a lot of
what the other two big boys had. They really should have named their conference
the Kinect conference as it seemed to be the only thing they were showing off.
The only real redeeming features on the Microsoft conference would be the
revelation of a new Halo trilogy, kicking off with Halo 4, and the good demos
of Modern Warfare 3, Tomb Raider, and Gears of War 3, even though the first two
of these will be multiplatform.
So that’s E3 for another year and I have to say it was a
much better convention than it has been in previous years. Last year’s was good
but I think this one just about topped it. E3 has started to show signs of
struggling since it was downsized a little a few years ago, but it seems to be
coming back strong in recent years. Over 46,000 people attended it on this
occasion which is a staggering amount of people! We’ve come a long way since
the year Nintendo turned up with Wii Music and Animal Crossing!
***
The Assassin's Creed Revelations trailer is below; the music
will get in your head.
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