Time for an obligatory E3 megathread.
For those who don't know, E3 is the Electronic Entertainment Exposition. It's a videogame industry/press-only event in Los Angeles every year where the biggest names in the video game industry reveal their latest upcoming games and technology.
So with that said, this is the E3 2012 megathread. I'll probably post one of these annually and before the show starts from now on. Post things that you've found to be mindblowingly awesome, surprising, or downright embarrassing. I'd also like to point out that I'm not at the E3 show, but I've been following/watching it very closely. That said, lets begin:
Things that blew my mind
-Wii U
I'm not a fanboy by any means, but Nintendo stuff has always gotten me excited. That said, I've been really excited about the Wii U, which is Nintendo's new console that utilizes a touchscreen tablet built into the controller. This allows for a lot of innovative asymmetrical gameplay (like what you would see in Gamecube's Pac-Man Vs.), where you have four players with Wii remotes on the TV, and a fifth player playing the same game at the same time, but doing something completely different on the touchscreen controller. I'm pretty excited for it, in case that wasn't clear enough, and some of the games announced for it, which I'll probably cover later.
-Watch_Dogs
This Ubisoft game came out of quite literally freaking nowhere and it looks really amazing. Think of the original Assassin's Creed, but instead of assassin weapons and skills, you're a highly skilled hacker. This means you can do stuff like changing streetlights to all green to cause a massive traffic pileup that you can use as a diversion or disrupting cell phone communications in the local area to make a guard move away from a door. It also appears to take place in an open world Chicago, which I have no problem with whatsoever. There's also an ARG hidden within the live demo shown at Ubisoft's press conference, but I'll let you figure that out for yourself.
-ZombiU
Ubisoft likes to exploit console launches, and the Wii U is no exception. Last year, in accordance with the console's announcement, Ubisoft announced that they were working on a game called Killer Freaks from Outer Space, a first person shooter/strategy game where one player uses a Wiimote and Nunchuck to play on the TV, and another player uses the tablet controller to position the titular killer freaks from outer space and coordinate assaults on the human players on the TV. So when I heard that Killer Freaks from Outer Space had, and I quote, "evolved" into ZombiU, a generic-looking zombie FPS, I was kind of disappointed (honestly the name of the game is ZombiU). But then I started looking a bit more into it. To look in your inventory, you don't pause the game. Instead, you switch to a third person perspective as your character rummages through his survival bag on the TV as you manage your inventory on the tablet controller. What makes it cool is that you have to look back and forth between the two screens to make sure zombies don't ambush you. Another thing that makes this one of my favorite titles of E3 so far is the fact that when you die (which is always by zombie bite), you don't respawn, but instead, continue playing as a completely different character. You don't retain your inventory, but you can re-obtain it by
finding the zombified version of your previous character and killing it. And if you're playing online, the zombified versions of your friends' previous characters will also appear. After figuring all this out, I think I can see how ZombiU is definitely an evolved verision of Killer Freaks from Outer Space.
Things that disappointed me
-The press conferences
Traditionally, I've watched the E3 press conferences every year since 2006. It's exciting to see what unannounced surprises and entertaining performances the companies have to show. This year, however, was full of previously announced titles, games that had already come out, and really irritating people. Why did Usher suddenly pop up at Microsoft's conference to advertise his new single after mentioning Dance Central 3? Why did Ubisoft try to make their concert be like a high school pep assembly? Why did Sony... actually, that conference was just really boring and I slept through some of it. EA's conference was pretty good, but was too focused on DLC for already existing games and showing off the really horrible Madden '13 animation. Nintendo's had a lot of mind-blowing stuff for me, but in the end, it felt rushed. A developer roundtable later in the day cleared up a lot of stuff, and hopefully, a privately hosted 3DS press conference by Nintendo later today will surprise me some more. And just in case any Ubisoft PR guys are reading this right now, please, at least bring back Mr. Caffine next year. He's better than unfunny Youtube guy and we-hired-this-girl-so-we-could-make-some-sexist-jokes lady. Or just get someone who isn't going to drive the audience to bludgeon themselves to death with the nearest applicable object in the vicinity.
-Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale
I thought this game had some promise, and I'm not going to say much here in order to avoid a flame war, but it looks like a fan-made game. It doesn't appear to be related to Playstation in any way other than "This character was in a game that came out on a Playstation console". The gameplay also seems incredibly broken to me, but I'll save that for another time.
Missing in action
-Starfox/Metroid crossover
It was rumored to be in development by Retro Studios, and sounded really promising. It was also a rumor and was probably fake, though, because it sounded like a fanfic.
-Rainbow Six: Patriots
It was announced formally a year ago and got a Game Informer cover story. The story deals with homegrown terrorism, and will aim to bring up some sensitive topics that most big-name game publishers are too afraid to allow developers to bring up. I appreciate its boldness in that regard along with the fact that it's the first Rainbow Six game to come out since Vegas 2.
-A lot of things from Nintendo
Like I said above, their conference felt rushed. I was kind of expecting a confirmation on the Wii U price and launch date, even though they said a year ago that it wouldn't be revealed this E3. They didn't really seem to have that big of a first party presence, which really worries me since a game hasn't actually been released for the Wii, 3DS, or DS for at least two months.
Honorable mentions
-Star Wars 1313
This game looks amazing. Gameplay looks a bit generic but oh my god this looks like something that could realistically be a next-gen game. Square Enix has also announced their next-gen game engine, so maybe the next Xbox and Playstation are on their ways?
-Aliens: Colonial Marines
This is another game I'm pretty excited for. I haven't seen any new demos of it yet, so I'll just say this about the Wii U version:
The tablet controller is your motion tracker.
It looks really cool.
I want one.
Now.