Gaming History: E3 2014

E3 should be an exciting time of year for all gamers, with updates on games that we know are in development, and announcements of new games that we had no clue even existed. While there are often memes born at conferences; "599 US Dollars", "Riiiidge Racer" and "my body is ready" being prime examples, I'd like to take a look beyond that at this year's E3 and look at the promising content from each press conference as well as the games which weren't quite so inspiring.

The first conference of E3 2014 was held by Microsoft, focussing heavily on new games coming to the Xbox One console in the near and not so near future, with hardly any mention of the Kinect or media capabilities of the system. At least 22 big budget titles were announced alongside a handful of indie games, and although around half of them were exclusive to the Xbox One, there were enough titles to give a general excitement to Xbox One owners, and those keen to get the system.

My pick of the game announced at the conference was Sunset Overdrive, by Insomniac Games, a new take on zombie games which puts the emphasis on fast paced fun and evasion of zombies, rather than fighting your way through huge hordes. Players are able to grind along rails and gain huge kill combos by shooting and blowing up zombies. The cartoon style looks bright and vibrant in a deliberate contrast to recent zombie games and shooters, and fits well with the game's humour and sense of fun.

(Sunset Overdrive Trailer)

The other exclusive game announcements from Microsoft were; Halo: The Master Chief Collection which features the first four games in the Halo series, remastered and upgraded for the new generation. Halo 5 Guardians, announced as having a Beta opening in the holiday season this year, which should be exciting for fans of the series, although so far there's only a cinematic trailer for the game. The Forza series also got some exclusive announcements with Forza Horizons 2, the open road racing sidekick to Forza 5, in addition to some free new tracks for the latter game which is already out on Xbox One.

Also announced as exclusive titles for Microsoft were Scalebound, a game which seems to challenge players to battle dragons Monster Hunter style, a remake of Phantom Dust, Ori and the Blind Forest, a nature inspired platforming game, Fable Legends and Crackdown 3, as well as Project Spark, which seems as if it will be able to let players create any game they want and share it with friends (exclusive to Xbox One and PC), and the Xbox Live exclusive Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX plus Alpha, which lets players don Street Fighter and other classic Capcom costumes and take down zombies.

(Cinematic Trailer for Halo 5)

Multiplatform titles announced by Microsoft include Call Of Duty Advanced Warfare, Evolve, Assassin's Creed Unity, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Rise Of The Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3, and Tom Clancy's: The Division, in addition to a host of indie titles which may or may not also be appearing on Steam/PS4 also. The final announcement was not a video game, but Halo Nightfall, a live action miniseries detailing some of the events of the Halo franchise.

Overall Microsoft presented a strong field of videogames, both exclusive and non exclusive coming to the Xbox One platform. While I doubt that many people will choose to buy a console purely because a game comes to it first or has extra DLC, when added to the other announcements these make for good backup purchase justifiers. With a lot of work still to do to make the Xbox One competitive in the eighth generation, Microsoft have taken a step in the right direction by focussing purely on games, and bringing what seems to be a strong selection of titles to their console.

EA's conference proved to be one of the shortest at this year's E3 with a runtime of just 50 minutes, in which they showcased 5 sporting titles, and 7 non sports titles. While I felt that there was far too much time dedicated to their sports titles (since everyone pretty much knows what they're getting already), most of the games shown were at least interesting. The best shot at a memeworthy moment came from EA's conference with their presenter exclaiming "All the feels-uh!" after a trailer.

My pick for the most interesting game of the presentation was tied between two games; Dragon Age Inquisition (already showcased at Microsoft's conference), due to the sweeping flyover shots in the trailer, establishing the world of the game, a choice of action or tactical gameplay and a fairly diverse looking cast of playable characters, and Criterion's as yet untitled vehicular action game featuring helicopters, atv's, jetskiis, snowmobiles, wingsuits and more.

(Criterion's Untitled Vehicle game trailer)

Other non sports titles announced by EA include The Sims 4 which seemed to celebrate features that apparently appear for the first time in the series, but were basically present in at least the first two installments, Mirror's Edge 2 which promised less linearity and more realism once released, a new Mass Effect game, and Dawngate, a MOBA which is currently taking on player suggestions to craft it into a better experience; these included giving the characters a large and interconnected backstory to provide battles with more meaning to players.

The final title announced that isn't a sports game was Battlefield: Hardline which features "Cops vs Criminals" style gameplay for up to 32 players online, with action style chases, gunbattles and destructible environments. While it's unclear just how different the game will be to other shooters of this generation, the concept seems to be solid and if executed well could foster a large community of players. The beta for the game was announced at the conference and is available for PS4 players.

(Battlefield: Hardline gameplay footage)

Most of EA's sports titles seemed to promise improvements which should have been implemented years ago, such as "corner flags that move", "interesting defence" and "adding more emotion". EA Sports Golf got the best feature of the group, with a course editor that includes the ability to add battleships and other obstacles to your custom holes. Overall though EA's UFC, NHL, FIFA, Madden and Golf franchise games will most likely be bought by the same people who purchased previous instalments in each series.

As EA appeared on my bottom 5 publisher list earlier on this year, you might expect me to have disliked their presentation. While I wasn't excited for every game they showcased, there were a few good ideas on offer, and their insistence that they wanted to listen to what players want from their games left me slightly more positive. Let's just hope that they want to hear from gamers who disagree with them, as well as their fans.

Ubisoft's presentation showcased the least amount of games of the big 5, with just 8 games discussed and demonstrated. With an hour to fill, this left time for an in depth look at some of their upcoming titles. Three of their titles were shown in some depth at other conferences; Tom Clancy's: The Division, Farcry 4, and Assassin's Creed Unity. All of these looked like solid additions to their respective franchises, and I'll be elaborating a little more on the first two once I get to the Sony conference.

Another tie for most exciting game occurred with Assassin's Creed: Unity showing off what seemed to be truly next gen graphics and gameplay set in the French revolution, despite its rather boring cast of indistinguishable pale dudes. The other game which caught my eye was The Crew, a beautiful coast to coast driving game across the USA without any loading screens, featuring 2 hour+ missions and multiplayer capabilities.

(The Crew gameplay trailer)

Two rather boring announcements (from my point of view) were Just Dance 2015, and Shape Up, a new fitness game which promised to feature more of a gaming approach to fitness, allowing players to enjoy working out. The final two games to be announced by Ubisoft were Valiant Hearts: The Great War, which uses the same art engine as Rayman: Origins, but only featured a cutscene style trailer, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege which appears to be a team based shooter, challenging players to either defend or capture a hostage in a domestic style setting.

(Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege gameplay trailer)

Overall Ubisoft's conference showcased a strong lineup of games; stronger than EA's lineup in my opinion. Although not everything they're producing was 100% interesting to me, I remain hopeful that at least 3 of their titles will be fully innovative and enjoyable gaming experiences.

Where Microsoft focussed solely on the new games coming to Xbox One, Sony's press conference featured a lot more discussion relating to their hardware, PSN, tv shows they were involved in making, remastered versions of games and old games coming to PS4. Amongst these announcements were Playstation TV, a new streaming device which allows players to watch tv series and films, access selected Playstation games, and (providing you have a PS4), play PS4 on a different television to the one it's attached to.

My favourite part of their 1 hour and 45 minute presentation was the announcement that the Hulk Smash move on Disney Infinity would be exclusive to PS4. In a way, I think that this sums up a lot of the 'exclusive content' announcements of late; they seem to be less and less exciting incentives. Obviously companies need some sort of lure towards buying games on their system, but 3 hours of extra gameplay, a few skins, exclusive missions, or one character's special move don't seem to me to be quite enough.

(The White PS4 Destiny Bundle announced at E3)

The main 8 games announced by Sony that make up the majority of their exciting news this E3 were Farcry 4 which had an impressive opening 5 minute cutscene and announced the ability for multiplayer with friends who don't even own the game. Dead Island 2 was also previewed with just a trailer to show fans what was to come. Battlefield: Hardline was shown a little more detail than at the EA conference, and Mortal Kombat X looked surprisingly good for a fighting game, especially one in the MK series.

The second set of 4 big announcements included the new gory Suda51 game Let It Die, which looked interesting. Batman: Arkham Knight looked largely like the other games in the recent Batman series, and even comparable to Batman: Arkham City on the WiiU, with a little more graphical power. Uncharted 4 got a teaser trailer, with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain also receiving an interesting and exciting trailer.

(Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain Trailer)

In addition to these "Big 8" announcements, there were 6 game which I felt didn't quite look as impressive. Destiny promised an alpha which was open to gamers, two months before their beta, which was a short while before its release date. For a game with such a large budget, I'd have expected it to be released when it was ready. Infamous First Light was released as standalone DLC for Infamous: Second Son, and Entwined was shown off as an interesting indie style game where players control two separate creatures through space and attempt to ultimately link them up into a dragon.

Little Big Planet 3 announced 3 new characters in the franchise, adding new gameplay mechanics and options; Oddsock, Toggle and Swoop can help to solve different types of puzzles over each level. Bloodborne comes from the director of the recently popular Dark Souls series, and while graphically amazing, the trailer didn't show enough of gameplay to give a good idea of how the game would be. The final game in this set was The Order 1866, which is one of the exclusives for PS4. It looked to be fairly slow moving, and not as unique as originally touted, but again very little of the actual game was shown.

(Bloodborne Trailer)

The final set of games announced were remakes and indie titles. Two games from 2013 will be coming to the PS4 in the shape of The Last Of Us and GTA V. While these won't be hugely different from their PS3 counterparts, it's a good chance for those PS4 owners who had missed out on there experiences. Grim Fandango got a warm reception when a remake for PS4 was announced, and although I've not played the game myself, I'm glad that Sony are listening to fans in matters like this, as it could pave the way for other games (like Shenmue) to be re-released.

The Indie titles announced as coming to PS4 included but were not limited to; No Man's Sky, which is an interesting exploration game which promises to start each player in a different location and allow everyone to map the playable universe which is apparently infinite, and Abzu which is an underwater exploration style game, from the company Giant Squid.

(No Man's Sky Trailer) 

Overall, while Sony spent a little too long talking about tv shows they're developing and Playstation tv, their expansive lineup of new games and remasters justified having the longest runtime, and showed that the PS4's strong sales are likely set to continue in this console generation. Although most of the best games look to be multiplats so far, depending on your tastes, there are enough exclusives to justify getting a Playstation 4.

The final conference of E3 belonged to Nintendo, although they chose a digital event in which to showcase their offerings, rather than a traditional press conference. Despite being the shortest conference of E3, 11 games were announced, with the addition of 3 more later at the 'Nintendo Treehouse' event which showed gameplay and more details of many games featured in the digital event.

My pick of the games from Nintendo was surprisingly a shooter, though it's aim is more focussed on claiming and painting as much of the map as possible, rather than shooting other players (though doing so does have its advantages). Splatoon will allow 8 players to go head to head in 4v4 team matches dedicated to finding the best strategy with which to cover a map in paint. With the ability to turn into a squid to travel more quickly and recharge your paint, as well as the addition of super weapons and paint bombs, all this game seemed to need were a few more maps (which I'm sure will be added before its release).

(Splatoon Gameplay)

The announcement of a new Zelda game would have made for my top choice had they shown more than one minute of footage relating to it. While the trailer did look truly amazing and showcased the WiiU as a proper challenger to the other consoles in the generation, all it really confirmed was that a new open-world Zelda was coming soon. This was essentially the same for their Starfox announcement; a new game is coming, but you'll have to wait to see anything of it.

The new Smash Bros. game for WiiU and 3DS looked to be a worthy addition to the series with new challengers, stages and special attacks. At the Nintendo Treehouse event there was a Smash Bros. U tournament featuring 16 skilled Smash Bros. players which helped to showcase the game a little more than was shown in the Digital Event. Also mentioned was the fact the including the ability to fight as Miis means that "any" character can be modelled to fight in the game.

(Zelda WiiU trailer)

To go alongside Smash Bros. U, Nintendo announced the launch of Amiibo, small figurines of characters from their games which will interact with the NFC reader in the WiiU gamepad and have an effect on the game being played. While I think that gaming figurines are nice things to have and collect, I doubt that these will be particularly popular with most WiiU owners since they're not vital to gameplay, but are more of an accessory.

The two most 'hardcore' gaming titles coming to WiiU proved to be a mixed bag; Bayonetta 2 (which includes the first game) looks set to be a good continuation of the series, with plenty of action and features. As a WiiU exclusive my only real criticism is the Nintendo themed costume packs included as they seem unnecessary. Xenoblade Chronicles X on the other hand had a rather lacklustre trailer, visually, and the gameplay demo was even worse. It's framerate was inconsistent, and while the gameplay was better graphically, than the cutscene displayed in the trailer, there were many instances where players and objects clipped through eachother and somewhat ruined the immersion.

(Bayonetta 2 Trailer)

Nintendo's cutesy games received a fair showing this E3 with Yoshi's Wooly World looking like a spiritual successor to Yoshi's Story, Captain Toad seemingly launching a full game out of Toad's minigame from Super Mario 3D Land with added features and levels, and Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, which looked to be the best of the 3, for its touchpad based play and colourful design.

Hyrule Warriors was touched lightly upon in the Digital Event, but had a gameplay showcase later on at the Nintendo Treehouse, at which the game looked like it'd be interesting for Zelda fans, as a stopgap before the newly announced open world game, and fun for fans of the Dynasty Warriors and similar series. The new Pokemon remakes were also shown in a little more detail and although in a lot of ways fans of the series already know what to expect, it was interesting to see some new Mega Evolutions.

(Kirby and the Rainbow Curse Gameplay Trailer)

I'm hoping that the final three games announced by Nintendo will be released as eshop downloads since I'm not sure they'd be worth full retail price. Mario Maker gives players the ability to design and edit their own Mario levels, for near infinite options and challenges, Giant Robot challenges players to robot duels amongst skyscrapers in a city using the WiiU gamepad to push other robots to the floor, and Project Guard plays a little like a tower defence game where the player with the gamepad needs help from their friends to spot all of the invading robots and put a halt to their infiltration. The last two of these games are projects by Shigeru Miyamoto, so I'm hoping that they will live up to his past standard of work.

On the whole Nintendo had some exciting announcements, and many of their games look fun, although there weren't too many surprises in their Digital Event. Pac-man was announced as a playable character in Smash Bros U/3DS, since Namco Bandai are developing the game, and the new Starfox game was confirmed at the Nintendo Treehouse event, so players have things to look forward to even if there weren't many unexpected announcements.

(Project Guard Screenshot)

So that's all the conferences from this year's E3. With a look at over 60 games across all 5 conferences, there's something for every gamer to be excited about. Personally I don't like the idea of any one company having "won" E3; there are good conferences and not so good conferences, and EA had the only conference that I'd say wasn't quite up to scratch. In terms of the Big 3, both Sony and Microsoft announced many new titles for their consoles, a fair few of which are multiplatform titles with some content first on either system. Nintendo in contrast announced a fairly strong lineup of games, though I'd say they came in a little behind the other two conferences, despite exciting games like Splatoon and the new Zelda.

My Top 5 most exciting games this E3 are as follows;

1. Sunset Overdrive (Xbox One)
2. Splatoon (WiiU)
3. Assassin's Creed: Unity (Xbox One/PS4)
4. The Crew (PS4/Xbox One)
5. No Man's Sky (PS4)

(remember that I haven't seen enough of the new open world Zelda to get hyped for it yet, or it would be at the top) and I'd have to say the the worst game showcased was Xenoblade Chronicles X as it definitely didn't seem to be "next gen". Monolith Soft have time to fix it however, and I hope that they do.

So hopefully that's given you some insight into what went on at E3 if you missed all/any of the conferences, and if you didn't then you're now aware of my opinions on the games announced. Feel free to disagree, or tell me what games you're excited for that were announced at the conference too!