This is a condensed version of the post for GameSpot, the full one is on my tumblrhttp://bigevilblog.tumblr.com/
Games of E3 2012
The Last of Us
Basic Premise: A new game from Naughty Dog, creators of the Uncharted series. A man and a young girl, apparently not his daughter, are struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-monster-infested world. Walking Dead meets Children of Men, I guess.
This gorgeous looking game got a huge reaction from the crowd at the Sony press conference and they reacted correctly. It has amazing visuals, some interesting gameplay mechanics and an oppressive and dark tone. There are zombies in the game, but the demo shown focused on human enemies, a gang of bandits who kill people for their supplies. It has a much different approach to the action than the studio?s Uncharted series. In those games, Nathan Drake can take down dozens of enemies without blinking an eye, in The Last of Us, if 2-3 baddies show up, you?re got a challenge on your hands. I like that approach, it makes the game seem more intense, whereas mowing down wave upon wave of goons becomes tiresome.
The young girl can also apparently have a direct effect on gameplay, in the demo she threw a brick at an enemy that had the player cornered. Developers say those things happen dynamically, so she will just know when to do it, interesting. And for those who feared the game would be too action-packed, there was reportedly a ?behind-closed-doors? demo that showed the same section of the game, but handled completely stealthily instead of guns-blazing. The game looks great, and will get another mention in a couple of other sections of this article.
Tom Clancy?s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Basic Premise: More Splinter Cell action with Sam Fisher, no longer voiced by Michael Ironside.
Blacklist didn?t blow too many people away at the show this year, but I am still excited for it, even though it seems like Ubisoft is cramming mechanics from their other games into it. Almost all of the action-adventure games coming from Ubisoft this year seem to have just a touch of Assassins Creed sprinkled on them. Fisher can now run along rooftops and dangle from ledges before leaping off to perform executions, and while he could do things like that before, it looks more like Assassins Creed. I really enjoyed Conviction, the last game in the series, and this looks like more of the same, with a bit of Assassins and Ghost Recon thrown into it, which may not be a bad thing.
The main complaint is, no Michael Ironside. While on GameSpot?s stage show, some of the developers claimed it was a really tough decision for them to make and basically stated that Ironside sounded too old. I don?t care, his voice is epic, and while I will likely buy and enjoy this game, it will nag at me the entire time. Some of the new gameplay mechanics like ?killing in motion? seem pretty fun. It is basically an evolution of the ?mark and execute? device from the last game, but now it can be done while Sam is moving. Even though there is no Ironside, yes I?m mentioning it again, I do want this game.
Gears of War: Judgement
Basic Premise: More Gears of War. Prequel story, about Baird apparently, but who cares.
In a surprising turn, even though there is a new Gears game coming, there was no gameplay demo of it at the Microsoft presser. They did show the game off at the GameSpot stage and other places during E3 but it was odd that such a major franchise for the Xbox got no ?love? at the show, just a short teaser trailer. The game basically just looks like more Gears of War, without any huge gameplay modifications. This isn?t bad, but it isn?t new so it is hard to get excited. They did show off one of the new multiplayer modes called ?Overrun? which seems like a combination of the Beast and Horde modes from Gears 3, seems great, not mind-blasting though. Cliffy B did mention at the show that he wanted the game to be harder, name-dropping Dark Souls, and while the game will be nothing like that in terms of difficulty, the challenge could be good for the campaign. This one might not be a launch day game for me.
Tomb Raider
Basic Premise: Raiding tombs. Long-awaited reboot of the franchise, young Lara on her first adventure.
I don?t know about you, gorgeous reader, but I like Tomb Raider. I?ve only played a few games in the franchise but I have always enjoyed them. This reboot was announced last year and we got to see even more footage this time around, and it looks fun. Lara is shipwrecked on an island, weird stuff happens, people try to kill her, sounds like a thing. This is a very young Lara who has never been off on her own before and it seems that terrible things will be happening to her on a regular basis. Every demo of the game shows Lara pulling chunks of rebar out of her side, dealing with cuts, scrapes, limping, all kinds of injuries. This was a conscious decision by the developers to make her seem more human and inexperienced, but almost borders on torture porn. Like a more adventurous version of Saw. Still, I want to play it. Lara will apparently gain experience and level up by doing things in the game like killing people, hunting animals, exploration etc. She is even so new to the ?raiding? experience in the game that she apologizes to the first animal she has to kill for food. I think it?s about time someone did a genuine reboot of Tomb Raider, and hopefully this one is as good as it looks.
God of War: Ascension
Basic Premise: An HD version of what was probably going to be a VITA game. Another Kratos prequel.
Like Blacklist and Gears, this game will probably not have much new to offer to the franchise, but I still want it. The weird thing for me was Kratos has a power in the game that lets him freeze and reverse time to rebuild objects and the like. This is weird to me because, God of War is ripping off other action-adventure games now, they were so genre-defining before, but now it seems like they?re running out of ideas. The time suspension and reversal thing has been done a million times in various games, like Prince of Persia for the biggest example. Also, another Kratos prequel? Really? The God of War timeline is already messed up with the prequels they did on the PSP, with major characters like Kratos? own brother showing up, and then not being mentioned in any of the main console instalments. I also liked how previously the prequels were on handheld and the main instalments were on console, just seemed to fit, but now the pattern is broken. We want to see where Kratos is going to go next, not where he has supposedly been already. They are apparently putting some Persian stuff into the game, possibly locations and creatures etc. and Kratos did fight a giant evil elephant in the demo, but nothing really new story-wise. The one new thing there is in the game, multiplayer, they didn?t even mention during the Sony presser or any of the stage demos for the game. I wonder why that was. Multiplayer in God of War gets the same gut reaction from me that multiplayer in Bioshock 2 did, but that ended up being pretty fun and this could too.
Beyond
Basic Premise: Ellen Page stars in David Cage?s (creator of Heavy Rain) new epic. She has a connection to spirits ?Beyond? this world and can use things like telekinesis to fight off baddies.
Now, I haven?t played Heavy Rain yet, I want to, but haven?t. This game really does seem like Heavy Rain 2 from the previews, but the more I heard about the game from people who saw it ?behind closed doors? there does seem to be more of a level of direct control and not just an endless QTE (Quick Time Event, for those who don?t know). It definitely has an intriguing concept and fantastic visuals, but we?ll see what ?direct control? actually means when it comes out, David. They will need something more ?direct? to make the game appeal to the mass market and hopefully this will do that. My love of Ellen Page and interest in the premise will likely sell this one for me though.
Elder Scrolls Online
Basic Premise: The Elder Scrolls, but Online. It?s an MMO people, what?s to get?
So, I have no interest in playing this game, but I wanted to write about it for a few reasons, chiefly to ask the question, who cares? The reaction to this game around the net has been largely lukewarm; they?re not getting the Elder Scrolls love they thought they would. People are really sick of hearing MMO terms like Tank, Rogue, Mount etc. at least a good chunk of MMO players are anyway. This is shown by the slow drop in the number of WOW players out there. World of Warcraft is insane, that game exploded and took over the planet. At its peak, it had about 12 million subscribers and that is madness, in the days when it launched, a ?huge? MMO had maybe 300,000 regular players. And ever since then, every other MMO developer has been chasing that money.
Now, these are not new ideas that I?m writing to the great cyber god, many real writers on real websites have been saying this for a long time, but I thought I would steal their ideas. No MMO has been able to get even one-fourth of the players of WOW, that has to be saying something, and I think that something is, STOP MAKING GAMES EXACTLY LIKE WOW. Look at The Old Republic, Star Wars is basically the biggest franchise you could possibly attach to a video game, and a great SW MMO has been the dream of many, developers, publishers and gamers alike. It launched, and seemed to peak at just over 1 million subscribers, and is already dropping. The game has been out since December 2011, in that short of a time, it nailed 1/10 of WOW?s players and the numbers already dwindling. Bioware even announced at the EA presser this year that SWTOR was now going free-to-play up to level 15. That is definitely a bit of a panic move, begging for new players and for old ones to return. I bet by this time next year, it will be FTP without a level cap.
Much like many other areas of the gaming industry, the MMO market is changing, FTP games are starting to make some real money and games that play exactly like WOW aren?t as popular. One of the problems is that it takes ages to make an MMO, 5-7 years for something like SWTOR. That means that when that game is first conceived, it is done so for a market that no longer exists by the time it comes out. If SWTOR or ESO had come out 5 years ago, they may have done better, but they didn?t, they?re coming out now when the market doesn?t want them. Also the ESO developers seemed to be really cagey in the various interviews and demos I saw them on, they never talked about specific game mechanics and only spoke in that glorious E3 hyperbole where they say lots, but no real information is conveyed. Free-to-play models, fuelled by micro-transactions are probably the wave of the future for MMOs and ESO is going to have a tough time making it in that world, despite the already massive Elder Scrolls fan-base out there.
The Unfinished Swan
Basic Premise: Another ?artsy? game coming to PSN with a pretty cool exploration mechanic.
I won?t get into the story details about this game, but rather its gameplay which fascinates me more. It is a first-person game, and when you start off, everything is white, no shapes, colours, objects or anything can be seen. Your character has the ability to throw black paintballs into the environment, and when you do, the paint splatters and begins to reveal the world around you. You have to find your own way using paint on a pre-existing, but blank canvas. The world is there around you, in full 3D, but you can?t see it until you colour it, throw too much black paint and you won?t be able to see anything and be back to where you started, it?s a really cool mechanic. Later in the game you apparently get more colours, or can throw big drops of water and wherever the water lands, vines grow so you can climb up walls.
Since the success of Journey (Which is an amazing game, play it now if you haven?t.) PSN has very quickly gained the reputation of the ?place to be? for indie game developers. Despite Microsoft having a longer track record of successful indie games on XBLA, the public focus seems to have shifted to PSN. The massive critical and financial success of Journey can probably take the credit for that. And Sony has taken it upon themselves to produce some indie games and put them on PSN in recent years which is fantastic. Exposure for indie games is hard to come by so it?s always great when a big publisher gets in on it, and the awkward design of online interfaces doesn?t help get these games out there. Finding something that you know about on XBL can be difficult since its redesign.
Indie games are just starting to touch the fringe of the mainstream and that makes me happy. I like the idea of stepping away from nothing but huge AAA games like Assassins Creed or Call of Duty and going back to smaller games with interesting mechanics made by smaller studios, or in some cases by just one person. People I know who would have never even known about something like Journey a year ago, have now played it and loved it, hopefully we can see more engaging games like that in the future and hopefully The Unfinished Swan is as good as I want it to be.
Halo 4
Basic Premise: Halo 3, plus 1
I am actually fairly excited for Halo 4, it seems like they finally made some much-needed changes and additions to the game. First off, it is visually much more impressive than any previous Halo title, which is big boost for the series. Second, there are finally some new enemies in the game, no more just blasting Covenant troops over and over. And third, the sound design seems better, with weapons sounding more powerful, which has always been lacking for me in the Halo series. I know I wasn?t the only person on the net to point this out, but the new visual style seemed oddly reminiscent of Metroid Prime, the dense jungle, the helmet visor as part of the HUD, the orange glowing enemies, seemed Metroid-y to me. The new multiplayer additions sound pretty fun too, basically the weekly challenges from Reach taken to the next level and mixed with Spec-Ops style co-op. I want it.
Star Wars 1313
Basic Premise: No Jedi, bounty hunters only.
This game has been talked about a lot in the online world and the general consensus is that it?s not coming out on this generation of consoles, at least not the way it looks now. The graphics in the demo they showed are phenomenal, and although the gameplay didn?t seem boldly innovative (being dubbed Star Wars: Uncharted all over the net), it looks like what SW fans may have been waiting for, the chance to play as a badass bounty hunter.
Resident Evil 6
Basic Premise: Resident Evil 5
You can move and shoot now, that?s cool I guess?..I don?t really care about this. It was an unimpressive demo at the Microsoft conference.
Random Topics
Boobs vs. Violence
There was a minor bit of controversy, for an hour or so, on the interwebs this E3 when the Ubisoft press conference started with a Far Cry 3 demo. The demo began with a mostly naked woman gyrating and groping herself sensually while talking to the main character. Some people were appalled at the nudity shown on screen, I don?t get how this is even controversial. American morality is messed up, there was a huge cheer and almost a standing ovation when the demo of The Last of Us ended with the main character shooting a man in the face with a shotgun while he was begging him not to, yet a little bit of nudity is too much? Something is wrong here people, that is all, topic over.
Other points and E3 Mysteries (stolen from GiantBomb)
- Microsoft bringing Internet Explorer to XBL, yay? But new ?Smart Glass? tech that allows for internet searching and connectivity between your Xbox and you tablet/smart phone could make internet usage on a TV actually work
- Nintendo presser was weird; Reggie says ?all about the games? then proceeds to not talk about games. Also, barely any showing of third-party support for WiiU, or even first-party for that matter, it?s launching this year isn?t it? The games are out there, studios are making them, why didn?t they show them?
- Odd dismissal of 3DS from Nintendo presser as well, has its own event where nothing ground-breaking was shown.
- No date or price announced for WiiU? Why not? They said ahead of time they would not be giving that information at E3, but still, why not?
- Also, who cares about New Super Mario Bros. U? It?s a Wii game, make something new. No new Mario Galaxy to show? Galaxy is the best thing to happen to Mario franchise in years, how can you launch a new console without any word on a new one?
- No pushing of 3D tech or Vita at Sony presser, said they did it to save time, but seems like admission of defeat on Vita.
- PlayStation Move is a failure guys, stop wasting 20 minutes of your presser to show how it doesn?t work properly. Cool ideas, but no one cares.
- No mention of next generation of consoles from Microsoft or Sony, actively avoided topic. Interesting. Clearly want current gen to go for another year, but not even a hint? Some of the new games obviously not running on current tech.
- When did ?this game has terrorism? become a selling point? In a few of the demos this year the speakers mentioned terrorism ?ripped from today?s headlines?. We got over that fear pretty quickly, didn?t we? If we don?t put advertise terrorism in our games, the terrorists win.
For those who made it this far, I congratulate and thank you. You are a brave soul and clearly have nothing else better to do. Feel free to comment, and as always, thanks for clicking.
-Mike
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