Having said last post that there would be a Nintendo related one, that isn't happening owing to only keeping the focus of individual articles to just conferences. In past years I've always only covered Treehouse streams in this final word, the same will happen this year. And it is with Nintendo we will start.
The first day focused almost exclusively on The Legend of Zelda - now with its new subtitle of Breath of the Wild - though Pokémon Sun and Moon did feature at the beginning. It's looking interesting, despite still not knowing all that much.
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Ubisoft's conference was interesting enough. They had to have the usual dancers for Just Dance - which opened the event - doing a movement filled dance routine to Don't Stop Me Now. Not much was said on it, but the game will be coming to all current platforms, including PC and Nintendo's NX.
The first big game came in the form of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands. A trailer giving context to the story was shown off first. Then there was a talk on how this is the largest world Ubisoft have ever made, how it'll give you the freedom of choice to do things the way you want. Microsoft... You really took that to the next level. A large amount of games, and even two hardware revisions announced. Big scale reveals and smaller alike got the crowd excited.
Talking of console revisions, one of them is what they started with. The Xbox One S is forty percent smaller than the original, and has its power block inside the console. With the revision comes a revised controller, with a textured grip, extra range, and a bluetooth connectivity button. The Xbox One S sure looks better, though I'm hoping it will come in other colours than white. It launches for $299 in August. Well, there is a case for change. One of my mottos of life has been to allow change to happen and review the results after. EA did change. I'm not exactly convinced on some areas though.
The first game shown was Titanfall 2, and the multiplayer looks absolutely great. Sure, I couldn't join in with the first game until last year, but I enjoyed seeing the game in action and I enjoyed playing the game when I finally got my hands on it. There is now less than a week to go until the biggest gaming event of the year. And yet, things seem different this year. EA have opted to host their own event instead of actually attend E3. Since the event is so close to E3 in both location and time, it is still considered a part of E3, however.
Also, there is the case of Nintendo forgoing a presentation altogether to put the focus entirely on the Treehouse team and livestreams direct from the show floor. Since the initial announcement of just The Legend of Zelda for WiiU, Pokémon Sun and Moon footage has been confirmed, as well as a second day of show floor streaming focused on other games. Everyone else is still doing the same things, so let's get to the main meat. E3 is over, and it was a great event as ever. Possibly not as good as other years, but that's to be expected. A trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3 was certainly expected considering Square-Enix were having a conference, and the gameplay for it looked great.
Another game I was expecting was the next project from Frontier Developments, after they announced before E3 that the new game and Elite: Dangerous would both be around. Announced as Planet Coaster, it is definitely looking like a spiritual successor of the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, despite not much being shown in its trailer. Nintendo's conference can be summed up by what they were using as the event gimmick. Muppets. Oh, I know the Star Fox reveal was great. It showed all that it needed to. How the game will look and play, as well as its new name - Star Fox Zero.
Zero because it is not a reboot or a sequel. It's just there. A part of the series. The Arwing Walker mode has been brought into the new game from the unreleased SNES game Star Fox 2. EA started with a sci-fi series and ended on one. And while they showed less of what I wanted, it was all good with what I wanted. I'll still be covering it all, as it happened. They showed Mass Effect off straight away with a slide of different environments, before adding in some action. Mass Effect Andromeda will be coming soon.
The return of Need For Speed was shown with a trailer at first, showing the night-time setting and the police versus street racer action. The map is said to be twice as big as the one in Rivals, and said to have the richest customisation ever for a Need For Speed game. Microsoft started big with a Halo 5 Guardians trailer. Then straight into gameplay. Now this gameplay had great looks, and cinematic gameplay. A second trailer was switched to. Both trailers gave us story hints, as well as a look at the game overall.
The game itself will feature drop-in drop-out co-op in its campaign, and something big comes in Warzones. Massive online campaigns where teams join up to face off against AI controlled enemies. The game is playable on the show floor. With less than a week to go, this is the perfect time to do this. A load of rumours circulating, and a load of sites giving their predictions, so it is now time for me to do mine. I've been thinking about some things, and Nintendo is where I'm placing most of my bets.
EA do seem to have some good stuff for me this year as well. Microsoft and Sony have some decent things, and Ubisoft... I'll have to wait and see, but I've never bought much from Ubisoft. Bethesda and Square-Enix have conferences this year, and a PC Gaming Show is also set to take place. Okay, then. Let's go. |