At a glance, my ratings for the conferences:
EA: D
MS: B
Bethesda: C
Ubisoft: A-
Sony: B-
Nintendo: B-
I just want to say that my ratings reflect how I was feeling about them at the time. I also don't like changing ratings that I give just because I see a better conference, which makes me go back and lower the previous conferences. No, I stick by what I give them. I wanted to get that out there in case some of you Nintendo diehards freak out over seeing MS with a slightly better score than Nintendo's. That actually makes a good jump off point, so let me start with Microsoft.
It was pretty clear before MS even began that their show was going to focus on 4K enhanced games via the power of the Xbox One X. You spend hundreds of millions of dollars on souping up an existing machine, yeah, you're gonna pretty much want to make that the focal point of your presentation What disappoints me the most about the Xbox One X is that it is 100 percent unnecessary for me. For starters, I don't have a 4K TV. What makes it even less desirable is that there isn't a SINGLE game that's exclusive for the Xbox One X.
And speaking of Xbox One X... I've come to the assessment that Microsoft is now worse at naming consoles than Nintendo is. It's like, Nintendo tricked MS into thinking how much fun they were having confusing the fuck out of their customers, and MS wanted in. It's like some perverted Tom Sawyer shit, only instead of whitewashing fences, it was console branding.
Most of MS's games were really pretty and to be honest, if I could justify spending a thousand bucks on a new TV and console, I probably would. Forza 7 got my ears perked. I haven't played a racing sim in a long time and that game ALMOST makes me want to spring for it. But most of the other games just got a "cool" reaction for me. There were two games that really attracted me, however, and they were Super Lucky's Tale and Ori: The Will of the Wisps.
Super Lucky's Tale speaks to that old school gamer inside me, the one who had a flu for two days and stayed home from school playing Super Mario 64 until I literally passed out. It also has that Rare vibe going for it, which also makes me sad at the same time considering the state that Rare is in. Ori, for anyone who played the first game, was reason enough that MS didn't get anything lower than a B. Seriously, when it comes to indie games, Ori and the Blind Forest was one of the standouts. It wasn't just a fantastically well produced game on a visual and audible level, but its gameplay was rock solid. Seeing a sequel in the works really excited me.
So now, let me address what everyone's thinking. Why didn't I give the best rating to Nintendo? Well, I'm sorry. No, they don't just get to win the whole fucking show because of an announcement everyone knew was already coming: Metroid Prime 4. Sorry, but if you didn't know that was coming, you lack some serious foresight. See last year, when Reggie was asked about Metroid Prime. He no commented. Everyone who no comments ends up confirming right there. It was nice to see the game officially announced, though. Now, Samus Returns for the 3DS, that was a pleasant surprise. Apparently, it's a remake of Metroid II, which I never did play.
Even with all they showed of Super Mario Odyssey (and honestly, I didn't watch any gameplay because I decided I'm on a blackout), I still can't hand them the award for Best of Show. It's not their fault; it's my fault. My expectations are always incredibly high for them since they are my favorite company. I knew, just KNEW, they wouldn't make me as excited as everyone else, because I feel the average Nintendo fan is too easy to please. There was so much missing from their show. No new F-Zero, no new Star Fox, Punch-Out, Wave Race, Pilotwings, etc. And one HUGE omission. No info on Virtual Console. They'll be glad to sell you Mario for the 100th time at half price on Wii U and 3DS, though.... I get so mad at them, I almost want to say, "Fuck off Nintendo" and be done with them! Man, they're lucky I didn't give them an F! Seriously, I get pissed at them with all the potential they squander! But... I digress.
It's weird. It's really, really weird, that I've ended up giving the best rating to Ubisoft. They always were such a pain to sit through the previous years, but they made a major change that finally made the show enjoyable. No fucking Aisha Tyler. It's not that I don't like Tyler; it's just that whenever they use a celebrity host, all the jokes just come off super cringey. Same with Joel McHale. I love both comedians, but HATE them during Ubisoft press conferences.
Now, Ubisoft made a genius move starting off the show with Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, with a special guest appearance by Shigeru Miyamoto. That's how you get your audience going! (Unlike Sony's, but well get into that in a bit). Honestly, this game deserves to be highlighted, because quite frankly, this game shouldn't exist! This is a WTF game. Not only is it Rabbids invading the Mushroom Kingdom, it's a completely different kind of game for both franchises. Ubisoft needs to be commended not only for even coming up with the game, but for also showcasing it at the very start of the show.
There were a couple of weaknesses in the show. They're still using ridiculous dance numbers to show off their new Just Dance games, and personally I don't think those games have any business being shown off in their conferences anymore in this day and age. It took time away from games that deserved more time, such as Assassin's Creed: Origins. It felt very odd to me that Ubisoft's flagship franchise, which took a year off, is only given seconds of actual gameplay... shown outside of the conference. It should have been one of the highlights of their show.
Those two shortcomings aside, though, the rest of the games they showed off were pretty strong. I'm not giving any of the "but they'll downgrade" complaints any credence, though, because I judge what I see when I see it, so if those games get downgraded, then I judge those games verily. Now, the reason why Ubisoft gets Best Showing of E3 is because of how they ended. No other show (sorry, Nintendo and Nintendo fans) ended with me as excited and moved as Ubisoft's because of one game announcement: Beyond Good and Evil II. Yeah, Metroid Prime 4's announcement was huge, but I already knew it was coming, and Nintendo showed NOTHING. Metroid is also a long running franchise, and Beyond Good and Evil isn't. Beyond Good and Evil was released 14 years ago and is a much beloved game that fans were clamoring for a sequel. Not saying fans weren't clamoring for a new Metroid, but there were already several games in the series. Sorry, but no Metroid announcement will ever carry the same weight and impact as Beyond Good and Evil 2.
Let's move on to Sony's. They would have slipped into C territory had it not been for one little announcement: Shadow of the Colossus. I feel that was the second biggest announcement just SLIGHTLY behind Beyond Good and Evil 2, and only because I already own the game twice, and played it scores of times. What has me excited about it this time is that it will TRULY look like how it was imagined to be. The original was held back severely by the PS2's limitations, and the HD remaster with ICO was capped at 30 frames per second with barely upgraded textures. As much as I loved it, I still felt it wasn't as beautiful as it could be. Now, we'll have proper treatment and it should look as impressive, if not more impressive than The Last Guardian. I cannot wait to play it again!
As for other games, the two I felt were the most disappointing were Days Gone and God of War. The reason why I list Days Gone is that I felt its demo just wasn't really all that impressive. It's things we've seen in plenty of other action games before, and in fact they had a better demo at last year's E3. For a second, I mistook it as Last of Us 2. It just doesn't stand out.
Now, for God of War, I probably triggered some Sony diehards, but honestly, God of War in its current form fails to capture my attention. I mean, I'll still play it. I played almost every other God of War with the exception of Ascension, but god damn, the game just looks... boring. God of War to me as always been a non stop hack and slash romp where you set up ridiculous combos with crazy moves and the action. When there is action in this one, it isn't as flashy. Knowing what I know of walking narration (I'm looking at you, The Last of Us), the pacing of this game is going to get ruined with all the walking narration of Kratos and his son. Just the wrong style to put in a game like God of War. And I'm not the only one that thinks this. Take a look at all the memes going around. People are calling it Dad of War, and I'm calling it Boat Pulling Simulator 2018.
I will say they ended on a high note. Spider-Man (no longer called Homecoming) looks fantastic with the exception of excessive use of QTEs. It's 2017. We should be past that. But, the combat looks great. The web slinging looks fun. The writing... I'm still not really convinced about, but I'm sure there will be great one liners that will make me laugh. Come on, it's a Spider-Man game. You can't really screw that up. I also enjoyed the fact that out of all the games Sony showed, they spend the most time showing off Spider-Man's gameplay.
EA and Bethesda... what can I really say... Bethesda, you saved yourself from a D because your presentation was actually entertaining with Bethesdaland, and you made me scream with the Evil Within 2 announcement. Also, I really appreciate you spending time to show off Doom, Fallout and Skyrim VR. Most people don't like hearing about VR, but I actually really enjoy it. I would love to play Skyrim in VR, but I already decided that I'll get it for the Switch because, Link gear, dude. Come on...
But EA... EA... you get a D just for this guy.
Allegedly, the teleprompter dropped the ball, which caused Jesse to stumble, but this is why you don't use YouTubers. They spend their time rehearsing what they want to stay in front of their cameras, and if they screw up, they edit it out. If you're going to use a YouTuber, you need to use someone who can adapt. Jesse clearly couldn't, and it reflected poorly on you as a company. It made me keep thinking of this guy well after the rest of the conference moved on.
You also made a grievous error announcing Star Wars Battlefront II's story mode but then NOT SHOWING IT. Then you just went straight into the multiplayer. I should have flunked you for that alone, but the only thing that kept you from an F was that I know Battlefront II will have a story mode, and Need for Speed Payback looks great, but I had to sit through that Wellins guy.
So that's pretty much it. The one trend I did notice, though, was that just about every company trimmed all the fat from their conferences (and Nintendo went 100 percent lean). There weren't any long drawn out talks with celebrities about game services, no 10 minute openings with company statistics, no comedian hosts trying too hard to be funny by telling stereotypical gamer jokes... to a room full of gamers. But, they steamlined too much, I think, because what was missing in just about every conference were stage demos for just about every game that mattered; most games showed gameplay footage cut in between cinematics. It simply made E3 feel less exciting as a whole.
No comments:
Post a Comment