4 Things E3 2014 Is Trying to Tell You

Frankly, "dark, foreboding, and mostly humorless" is the only aesthetic I'll spend money on. The alternative--the inane, cloying, treacle that has been the norm for most of gaming's history--has never appealed. Games should be art, and art should have something to say about the world, for which dark, foreboding, and mostly humorless is the only reasonable description.

Growing a little tired of all the death and destruction. This grim and the gray phase we all seem to be in, I wonder when it will end. It's tiring already. And it's not just limited to games. Certainly the TV and movie industries reflect the concepts as well. Also, I get that society goes through these cycles where it's fixated on certain ideas. Right now we seem to be pre-occupied with our own demise. But I want games that stray from this a bit. I'm more intrigued by a game like No Man's Sky (for its exploration) over Titanfall (for its "big, stompy robots"). But that's me. I want exploration and wonder. Not a digital depiction of stuff I can see when I turn on CNN everyday.

Not saying that a game has to be all sun-shine and rainbows to be good. Certainly depends on how the developer use these themes within the game. Lord knows I will be on line for Fallout 4. But...oof. Lighten up would ya.

This is one of the main reasons I am so glad for online marketplaces. There I stand a better chance of finding little gems like Bastion. Provided the content I want is there, I see myself straying from the AAA scene a bit once I do go next-gen.

co-op is all I want my loved one and a few friends and are all hardcore gamers and co-op is are favorite way to play games.

And what Gamespot wants?

Um, yeah, that is what we want. Why are you being so derisive about it?

Not all I want, but they don't care what I think. :p

This is the first time I've been looking forward to call of duty for quite a few years. The new weapons look really neat.

I dunno. Maybe its Kevin spacey.

WE don't want these things. YOU and the gaming elite, at Gamespot, IGN, and the respective companies at E3 are TELLING us these things are what we want. We want quality games, and more of them. Not the BS we saw from Sony and EA at E3, and certainly not the crap we're hearing from IGN and Gamespot.

For me the highlight of all the shows were LBP3 ( even if it was kind of obvious they will do another one ), Sunset something that I don't remember right now that comes on X1 and pretty much all Nintendo games.

Everything else looked very boring to me ... either super realistic or futuristic, very dark and gloomy. During the Order 1886 I was bored, at first I was wondering if it was a new survival horror with zombies, then it was a werewolf, ok interesting but still boring with all the vampyre and werewolf in tv shows.

otherwise it was a lot of multi plat that I didn't care and still too many shooter.

Sorry to be cynical but I'm fed up with Microsoft and Sony ... I feel like they are very bland and there isn't a lot of interesting stuff. It is pretty much copy and paste with a different paint job.

Coop multiplayer is next-gen ? It was a thing during SNES, N64/PSOne days ... looks like Next-gen is only a world for new shiny graphics but beneth it is still a stinky turd plague with Trophy and Acheivement ... stupidly useless that made almost everygames shorter since you have nothing to unlock anymore. Thank god we still Have Nintendo fort that.

Ya, I would enjoy more SP focused games myself. The dark and ugly stuff I can always have fun with (to be honest I am a horror fan). I'm more than excited to see what's been brought to the table on that genre, but I do feel bad for the gamers whose cup of tea rests somewhere else. Too much of anything can be a bad thing, no matter the content.

As far as remakes go, I've definitely got my share I'd like to see, but in the end I'd put my dollar toward a new and promising title over a redone one that I've finished. I would like to see more life breathed into the industry on this point and it seems like indy studios might be helping to do just that. Only time will tell, I guess.

And as for focusing on multiplayer integration...well, I'm not a fan. However, viewing it through the eyes of the ever-growing community who do embrace it, it's definitely a good thing. As long as there is as much support out there for the more-to-themself players like me as there is for those opposite, I'm fine with it. Everyone has their thing that makes them tick after all. Mine just happens to be less popular in the gaming world right now.

Just to be clear on my intent with the tone of this; I wanted to convey what the briefings on Monday (particularly, though it's relevant to the bulk of what's on-show at E3 with some notable exceptions like Nintendo) were trying to communicate about the game industry's observations of it's audience are. It's not that we collectively necessarily DO want co-op, or grimness, or remakes, or big monsters - but that the presentations at E3 are telling us that publishers currently believe that's what we want. Or should want.

One thing i forgot to mention yesterday that, imo, make SP much better when it comes to SP vs Co-Op.

Co-op is great if your goal is to have a few laughs and drink a few beers, nothing tops co-op when it comes to that.

But, if what you want is immersion, to be the character, to overcome the struggles thrown at you, to see the drama unfold.....nothing beats SP, even if there are AI companions in the mix.

Why? It's called PERSONALITY!

Take this for example:

Let's say you are playing 5 different games with your fried, let's call him Peter for the sake of argument.

In each game, Peter will play the same way (unless the game forces him not to).

If he is a gung-oh, he will always be one in very game; if he likes support, he will always be support; if he he is cautioned, he will always be....and so on.

Each character he plays with will be "Peter".

With AI companions (and i mean, great AI) each character will be themselves, they will play distinctive, they will have their own personality and ways of thinking.

The reboot trend is just a money spinning tool, it's not necessarily what the people "want". Companies are doing it because A) It's easy and B) It will enable people to hop onto these franchises easily and potentially buy future titles.

Actually, I don't want any of those things. Without friends online, co-op can be really annoying. Reboots are alright, but I'd rather see new IPs or sequels instead of shelling out $60 for a game I already played. Dark and grim? No man's sky and Sunset Overdrive were some of the coolest things from E3 and they're not dark or grim.

Instead of developers and publishers telling us what we want, Perhaps they should ask us what we want, And as for big monsters Dragon's Dogma did big monster battles better than any game i have ever played last gen,they need to look at that,getting bored running around monsters feet shooting at them or trying to break their kneecaps with melee weapons.

"In this(ACU) it was four people butchering the sh.i.t. out of everyone" and that will make me buy the game. :D

I find it funny that GTA V on last gen consoles has amazing scale with the map/terrain yet in GTA Online 99% of the time I see people ONLY in the bottom half of the map. Makes me wonder where Rockstar went wrong in not keeping players enticed to truly explore & do crazy stuff in the top half of the map.....

Eh, I'd rather more single player only, story-driven, closed-world experiences. I hate multiplayer because in a lot of ways I feel like it is a cancer on the industry. More story-driven games because in recent years it seems as if this has been tossed on the back-burner in favor of more "dude-bro" types of stories we see in most games these days. Finally, although many would disagree with me, more classic, closed-world experiences. I'd rather a short game with excellent content, and story instead of a long game with mediocre content. It seems when most games become "open-world" these days, they sacrifice every other aspect of the game for simply the sake of making the game open-world, and taking on lukewarm DLC for extra cash. Those are what I would like to see at least. Also, more "color". I'll admit I love grim, and gore as much as the next guy, yet I also love something vibrant, colorful, and happy amongst all the grizzle.

A trend I'm surprised isn't catching on is a 'you're it' mode. One player in an online game is it (but not specially targeted) and his/her mission is to infect or kill other players. Good examples of this are indi titles you can find on YouTube called Roblox Murder Mystery & Spy Party. They are incredibly addictive and fun with a replay value that is off the charts.

Thing I learned from E3: Game journalists like to ignore Nintendo.

Must we find a way to bring up Last Guardian in every freakin' E3 2014 post? A boy and his overly big bird-like dog and their adventures. Ok, it's not coming out, we get it. Can we move on please? There's obviously reasons why it's not on display. You think Sony would turn down buckets of money at this point?

If I read ONE more thing about this game, I'm destroying my copy of Socom: Confrontation. Dare me not to!

I'm all for co-op games. I'm shocked it took this long after the amazing experience of Rainbow Six 3 and Ghost Recon on the original Xbox.

It makes linear games less linear.

1. I want isolated single player experiences
2. Yes, I want enormous challenges
3. I seek new experiences
4. Give me a new spectrum!