It's that time of year again. Where many find solace and hope, yet others have their dreams shattered in seconds. It's E3.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo is where the big names in video games (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, EA, Ubisoft) announce and tease their works-in-progress to the frothing masses. While it's still too early to call the full results of the LA-based expo, we'll do our best to summarise some highlights from day one so far.
Microsoft
Microsoft set the pace for the 2014 show, teasing a number of games in their slot, and winning back audiences after the scare at last year's E3. ‘Halo 5’, ‘Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare’ and ‘Assassins Creed Unity’ were on display, but there was little surprise from the biggest titles. Viewers were teased by the appearance of Conker, who ended up promoting the game maker ‘Project Spark’. While ‘Sunset Overdrive’ received its October release with a trailer demonstrating its anarchic gameplay. Other games teased include ‘Evolve’, ‘Crackdown’, ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’, ‘Fable Legends’, ‘Phantom Dust’, ‘Rise Of The Tomb Raider’, ‘Scalebound’ and ‘The Witcher 3’. Most surprising was the addition of a large number of indie games planned for Xbox One's online market.{youtube}37PYOCO-r44{/youtube}
Sony
Sony came out with some hard punches of its own, including the trailer for ‘Destiny’, one of the most hyped games in recent times. A mixture of ‘Halo’, ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Elder Scrolls’ gameplay, it's easy to see why so many people are excited for ‘Destiny’. Gameplay was shown for ‘The Order: 1886’, although 90 percent of the teaser was a cut-scene or cinematic. ‘Dead Island 2’ was also given a funny and well directed trailer for its announcement (not for the squeamish).{youtube}xr4XzAFeBL8{/youtube}
Other games announced or mentioned included: ‘Far Cry 4’, ‘LittleBigPlanet3’, ‘Bloodborne’, ‘inFamous: Second Son DLC’, ‘Entwined’, ‘Uncharted 4: A Thief's End’, ‘No Man's Sky’, ‘Arkham Knight’ and ‘Grim Fandango’. Sony also made other announcements, such as partnerships with Disney as well as Devolver Digital. PlayStation Now was given a July 31 release date, with over 100 games to be made available during the beta stage. Over 100 is also the number of Vita games Sony claims to have in development. Interestingly enough, the ‘Ratchet & Clank’ movie trailer was shown, supported by a remake of the original game.
Nintendo
Nintendo delivered a strong performance from its digital event, with most of the focus around the imminent ‘Smash Bros’ releases and its ‘Zelda’ series. ‘Smash Bros’ received extensive treatment at E3, including the very first official tournament. It introduced Palutena ('Kid Icarus' series) as a playable character through an anime short, as well as being able to use customisable Mii's (player avatars) to fight with for the first time. 'Amiibo' was introduced alongside ‘Smash Bros’, utilising the NFC reader to allow figurines to communicate with the Wii U. The next official title in the Zelda series was teased, with one of the head developers, Eiji Aonuma, discussing the game and what Nintendo hopes to achieved with its open-world feel.The ‘Zelda’ side project, ‘Hyrule Warriors’ had another trailer shown for the gameplay, and introduced Zelda and Midna as characters. ‘Captain Toad’ (yes that Toad) was announced as a spin-off puzzle game, similar to the Captain Toad levels in ‘Super Mario 3D World’. ‘Mario Maker’, as the title suggests, is a level maker. Another hyped game, ‘Bayonetta 2’ had another trailer played and its release is set for October this year.
The upcoming ‘Pokemon’ remakes were shown again, showing off their impressive new graphics and mega-evolutions. Three projects were teased to fans at the wrap-up of the event. ‘Giant Robot’ is a kind of robot battle and balance game for the Wii U. ‘Guard’ utilises a number of camera angels and the game-pad in a tower/ defence style game. Finally a new ‘Star Fox’ game was discussed, although it was not developed enough to show at the expo. Other titles mentioned included ‘Splatoon’ and ‘Yoshi's Wooly World’.
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