Alright, I'm pumped. I'm super hype about so much stuff coming out and I have the biggest grin on my face every time I think about some of these announcements.
Again, I don't know how many people here like video games, but fuck it! I like video games, I think they have really great potential to be an amazing medium and for the first time in months interesting shit is starting to happen again.
To give a quick recape of what E3 is to most people: E3 is a series of press conferences from big studios about video games. There are also booths at the actual building but the shit that we care about is the press conferences. This all happens over the course of a few days, but the first day (June 9th, yesterday as I post this) is the day that matters because the four companies that care about E3 do their shit then. These companies are Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and Sony.
Here's a quick recap of the show. I unfortunately missed most of the Microsoft announcements, but here is a link to everything that happened
LOTS OF VIDEO GAMES HAPPENED, BUT MOST OF THEM WERE SORT OF UNDERWHELMING..
Let's first start off by talking about something negative, because this years E3 was actually really, really boring. Some of the indie games looked radical, but what would normally be considered "mainstream" games are looking severely underwhelming. Assassin's Creed Unity looks good. Rainbow Six Siege looks good. Battlefield Hardline looks pointless.
Here's the biggest take away. Sony absolutely destroyed everything else. Hands down. The guys got on stage, looked at the audience and basically said "HEY YOU LIKE VIDEO GAMES, HOW ABOUT WE SHOW YOU SOME FUCKING VIDEO GAMES" and then they did, and there's so many that I care about.
But I'm not here to talk about it or ejaculate over how much I am excited for Destiny. I am here to host a discussion.
And we can start off by saying that Dawngate is the absolute fucking worst looking piece of garbage that was ever displayed at these press conferences in the history of the event. It is a goddamn free to play MOBA that is a direct clone of DotA 2 or L.o.L. without understanding the fundamental nature of a MOBA. Having characters shift their abilities depending on their roles does not make it more fun for the players, it makes it fucking miserable since you now have to learn 5 set ups for potentially hundreds of fucking heroes, and then the audience watching on twitch has to know each of those set ups to learn and understand the game. You fucking morons, why would you spend money on this when you could have spent it on Knights of the Old Republic 3 instead.
Give me KOTOR 3 assholes.
I'm of the opinion that E3 has been over the hill for quite some time. The "big players" in the gaming industry don't really put out interesting games anymore. To me, it's a parade of "moar graphics" and "content ecosystems" and not enough "here's this interesting playable experience for you to try." I care more about the interesting playable experiences than more COD and HALO and Madden and Fifa and we need to justify spending these millions. Basically, Indie PC and nostalgia gaming are in the box where I live.
That's why I'm excited for Nintendo's conference. And I'm glad they dropped E3, which is really for investors more than anything else. With these online presentations, they can put a focus on gameplay and what not, and not awkward conferences that are painful as hell. Sony's was alright, but they still aren't putting focus on the Vita, which is something, you know, I actually want games on. I dunno. Like you said, I'm sorta jaded with the way the industry is moving. Boring and grey and bland. At least Sony is focusing on Indie games that can provide some actual color.
yeah, I got a PS4 for casual enjoyment of Indie games, but it just didn't make sense (sold it to friend with gaming site.) When I can build a PC and do far more over a longer time due to modularity, why in the fuck would I still buy a console?
I've asked my friends, who bought the Xbox One, PS4, or both on launch day, this and they have yet to come up with an answer. Now here I am sitting, waiting for the Steam Summer Sale not having blown a few hundred on a new console. And like flagamuffin said the PC has been pretty far ahead of console performance for awhile.When I can build a PC and do far more over a longer time due to modularity, why in the fuck would I still buy a console?
Bloodborne, FromSoftware going back to making exclusives :(
So, I guess Sony is just going to sweep the Vita under the carpet? It sure seems that way. They had a solid conference otherwise. Nintendo has done well with the time they've had so far. Several good announcements. Hopefully we can see more of the new Star Fox later.
The treatment of the Vita is really disappointing, but understandable. The Vita is not a well received system, which is a little bit unfortunate. It's a fantastically well made system. Excellent battery life, it feels really good, the joysticks are on par with regular controllers (and better than the PS3's), it's powerful enough to run a lot of games, and it fills a niche for "weird old games that you forgot about." I primarily used it for indie games and old games from PS1 and PS2, and maybe that's what they should've been pushing. I certainly hope that's what they go for with another handheld. I understand the appeal of the 3DS but the Vita felt like a better made system overall. I'm not a huge fan of cutesy, so I really enjoyed it, and I've gotten more enjoyment out of that than any other device outside of my computer (Person 4 Golden is still 100 hour longs! Woo!), but I'm also in the minority here. Most people don't buy handhelds as emulators for old things they want to play on the go, they buy handhelds to play Pokemon or Animal Crossing, or Monster Hunter if you're in Japan. The Vita really didn't have that. Dunno. It must just end up being something dropped while Sony tightens it's belt and settles in for this generation. Maybe not fully dropped, but who knows. I'd liked to see a new handheld from Sony sometime in the future with a larger focus on PSNow, but at the moment the Vita is at a weird crossroads between emulator and platform.
I get uncomfortable when I'm playing on a 3DS. Not so with the Vita. I don't feel like paying for a 3DS XL, doesn't seem worth it. I might for Smash Bros. 3DS, but I think the Vita is better made and I've put more time into it than I ever did on my 3DS. It's drowning, which sucks, but hopefully it becomes really hackable like the PSP did. Edit: I mean shit, FF Type-0 isn't even coming to Vita. That doesn't even make any sense.
Yeah I really like the Vita and I think it has a lot of potential. It's probably one of my favorite handhelds in terms of the console itself. I own a 3DS as well and honestly I think the Vita is a better system. Unfortunately, Sony seems to want to just kill it. Without a steady flow of games, without good marketing, without effort, the machine really is going to die. And that's a shame. I think the Vita could have been so much more.
Man, I wasn't too pleased with Sony and MS was decent but Nintendo blew shit away. Another amazing trailer for Monolith Soft's new game, hilarious and exciting Smash info, Bayonetta 1 & 2, a shooter that isn't an COD/Halo/Battlefield clone, Fantasy Life being localized, open world Zelda, sequel Kirby's Canvas Curse. Link looks gorgeous. Don't know much about the game yet but am excited for Scalebound due to it being a Kamiya project. Project Spark loos pretty great too. Didn't really care about Sony's announcements.
Sony projects are right up my ally. I very much enjoy the games they put out, and I think they're being very smart about getting people in to beta/alpha/demo experiences right away. As much as Halo became the defacto shooter for a bit, it was like that because Bungie made a really quality game. It built on lots of other shooters for sure, and the concept of SPACE SHOOTER is nothing revolutionary, but Bungie makes games that are fun. Halo was never a hyper twitch 13 year old Call of Duty game, and I've got some high hopes for Destiny. But more importantly, NO MAN'S SKY.
Yeah, No Mans Sky looks cool. But Most of Sony's conference was PC multiplats, artsy games and HD remasters. I'm more into RPGs and tight mechanic driven games so Nintendo catered to my tastes more. Their doublespeak on the Vita also disappointed me. They claim it is still a focus by showing that it can play anything but Vita games. They even dropped the Vita branding from the latest iteration of Vita hardware and sidelined its gaming capabilities, trying to sell it as a glorified Roku.