E3 Press Conferences Round-Up

5:23 AM Unknown 0 Comments



The Electronic Entertainment Expo is upon us once again and already we have a massive amount of new IPs and gameplay for highly anticipated games. While up to this point I have had a strong focus regarding TV and film, I am also a huge fan of gaming and have been ever since I owned my first console, the Nintendo 64. While I never grew up in the golden ages of the NES, Sega Genesis or SNES, I do believe that we still are living in a time where video games are flourishing. Naturally during the E3 this feeling is the more apparent so without further ado here is a look at all the press conferences so far with a look at the recent highlights.

Bethesda
I confess I have not had the chance to watch this conference live, but I certainly have catched up on all the essential information that have been published and one cannot deny that the tease of Fallout 4 was a huge success. A game that many have been waiting for not only has an official trailer, but even more got a plethora of gameplay revealed and is going to be released this year. Additionally, we got our first look at Doom, which looks like a perfect amalgam of classic and modern shooter gameplay, similar to what Wolvenstein: The New Order was. Probably the biggest surprise was a trailer to Dishonored 2, which looked amazing and certainly has our curiosity and attention for what this sequel might entail.

Microsoft
Quite a jam-packed conference for Microsoft, as they had some interesting new IPs to show off such as Recore, with Keiji Inafune at the helm, and more information regarding The Division. Even Rare had a spotlight once again with their classic games being repackaged as Rare Replay and the news regarding a brand new game they are working on, Sea of Thieves. Still, it seems Microsoft was the sequel conference, as we had looks at Halo 5: Guardians, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, Forza Motorsport 6, Gears of War 4 and Dark Souls 3. Also the now Xbox exclusive Rise of the Tomb Raider showcased some gameplay and may be their direct competition with Sony’s Uncharted franchise.

EA
EA new exactly what everyone wanted and forced all viewers to wait until the very end to get a look at Star Wars Battlefront, which was certainly worth the wait. Still, once again the main focus were on their EA Sports titles, which I have no true interest for and no matter how they say they are changing with every year it still feels like they are simply releasing the same product every year. Still, they actually showed some new IP with Unravel, which looks like a potential next generation Limbo and it certainly has a interesting style that fits the quirky environments presented. Still, what we all wanted to see was Battlefront and they certainly delivered with a beautiful battle on Hoth showcasing the various aerial battles alongside even being able to control the Empire’s AT-AT Walkers, which is something I always wanted to do when I was a child.

Ubisoft
This one started off with a bang, as Matt Stone and Trey Parker revealed they are actually working on a sequel to South Park: The Stick of Truth titled South Park: The Fractured but Whole, which is just genius, and it seems this time around we will playing a superhero RPG with our favorite characters from the TV show. Right after that came For Honor, which looks like quite an interesting ne IP, but reached its peak a bit too early as all the follow-ups couldn’t compete. As much as I like Aisha Tyler, she sadly seems slightly out of place at these events trying desperately to be “cool” and with the addition of an off-key Jason Derulo the conference kind of dropped in quality. Still, they were able to pick up with a great reveal of Ghost Recon: Wildlands as the very last reveal for the press conference.

Sony
I will say this conference was hands-down the best one so far, simply because they had the best reveals throughout the conference. Reveal that The Last Guardian was not cancelled after all, a brand new IP Horizon: Zero Dawn, which looks quite interesting and even a brand-new entry into the Hitman franchise. A look at Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which seems to be much more open-world then it has ever been and an interesting thriller game simply titled Firewatch. Two of the most fascinating reveals were though a Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue 3, which is a bit odd that they aren’t raising the money themselves, but still great seeing the franchise finally return to end its storyline and the biggest one of them all the confirmation of the Final Fantasy 7 HD Remake people been wishing for since 2005.


Nintendo
Now that was a bizarre press conference, as seeing the three heads behind Nintendo as puppets slowly turning into Star Fox characters was quite an odd experience. Even if I kind of loved this innovative way to keep the otherwise disappointing E3 showing interesting. While seeing Star Fox Zero was interesting they sadly didn’t show much that truly caught my interest, as it seemed almost too empty, I mean I understand it is in space, but just felt a little flat. The only other interesting project was Mario Maker, but we have known about it for quite some time. The new 3DS Zelda game looked a bit odd, but is an interesting new twist on the Four Sword Adventures just with one character less and also that Hyrule Warriors is coming to Nintendo 3DS looks interesting. I am not a big Amiibo, Skylanders or even Animal Crossing fan so can’t really comment on it as it doesn’t catch my interest. While I do like seeing a new Mario and Luigi game and like the inclusion of Paper Mario, but I confess at first it looked a bit odd, but I’ll see how it turns out. The most disappointing aspect was that the new Metroid Prime game is a multiplayer without Samus, which made me a bit depressed if we will see the character sometime soon.

Square Enix
After Nintendo not announcing much information I have to say that Square Enix’s first press conference after a long time was sadly a bit boring. Everything they showed was not only explained by the creators, but then repeated everything stated during the videos. I actually ended up losing some interest in the new Just Cause 3 game. Yet I am very much looking forward to the new Hitman and Star Ocean, a franchise I haven’t visited in quite some time. With the release of a new Nier game I was more confused by the creator showing up in a mask of a gray, creepy version of Koro-sensei from Assassination Classroom. It was very odd and out of place, but no one touched upon it which was rather strange. I am not a fan of Deus Ex, but a friend of me did state his fascination of it. My biggest hope was for more Kingdom Hearts 3 footage and after a lot of teasing, which drove me insane, we got a beautiful video, which I will touch upon in an additional article. My biggest disappointment was the lack of Final Fantasy XV that still has no release date and I am slowly getting the feeling the wait might destroy this game or anyones hopes for it coming out.

With that comes my round-up of all PR conferences from E3, as I am not a PC gamer I don’t think I can comment much on it so I had to skip that press conference. Still in general this was probably the calmest E3 we have had in a while, as there are no crazy events that have stuck out to me, like Mr. Caffeine or the crazy Kinect showing. E3 is far from over, but probably all big announcements have been made while some better than others it certainly was filled to the brim with new IPs and recurring franchises. Let us hope that we won’t have to wait too long for more informations.
 

Keep your eyes on this one, as I will add the leftover press conferences as soon as they are done today and can’t wait to see what Nintendo and Square-Enix still have left to deliver!

What did you think of the conferences? Any games you can’t wait to play? Maybe something you wish they still would have revealed? Leave your thoughts below!

0 comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)