E3 2016 Discussion

E3 starts up today, so I figured I'd start a fresh thread for discussion. Here is the schedule for the conferences:

Sunday
EA: 4PM Eastern
Bethesda: 10PM Eastern

Monday
Microsoft: 12:30PM Eastern
PC Gaming Show: 2:30PM Eastern
Ubisoft: 4PM Eastern
Sony: 9PM Eastern

Tuesday
Nintendo: 12PM Eastern

Here are the first screenshots for the TellTale Batman game. I guess the real test would be seeing it in motion, but this seems like a step-up graphically from TellTale? Or maybe I am just remembering how poor Game of Thrones looked.

https://www.telltalegames.com/blog/106859/batman-the-telltale-series-unveiled-in-first-look-ahead-of-summer-2016-premiere

I saw this cool looking title Hot Lava by Klei (Mark of the Ninja, Shank, Don't Starve). Think Greenman might like this. Here are a couple gifs of it (I'll just link so it doesn't slow the page down or something). It is like the Floor is Lava meets Mirror's Edge or something:

https://i.imgur.com/jv1u2Ok.gif

https://i.imgur.com/4penPhF.gif

EA conference is first. I'd like to see these:

-A new Skate game.
-The Amy Hennig/Visceral Star Wars game.
-Something that feels out of EA's wheelhouse (like Unravel last year).
-Maybe a Mass Effect trilogy remaster? It would be a more convenient way for me to try (and probably fail) to get into the series again.

Out of EA all I want is for them to make the legendary FIFA players playable on Playstation, and not just X-Box. Microsoft you'll probably never win Europe, so just let this go and let me play as the greatest left back/defender of all time, Paolo Maldini again.

Here is a quick recap of EA's conference (added trailer links on the titles of each game):

-Titanfall 2: coming to PS4 too this time. They have added a singleplayer mode. Looked really fun in both single and multiplayer. There is a multi trailer out too.

-Madden 17 shown (I had to leave the room during this... haha. Sorry!)

-Mass Effect Andromeda: looked really impressive graphically, but I was surprised they didn't have more to show. It was one of those footage/mixed with behind the scenes dev talk things EA has been doing. Might be further out than I thought. The driving looked pretty smooth and I liked some of the alien/creature designs, but I have no idea if this was all in the other games already.

-Fifa 17: Will have a new story mode and some coaches from the Premiere League. A very annoyed looking coach joined Peter Moore on stage.

-Fe (EA Originals): EA Originals is like a new indie label of some kind of EA from what I gathered. Working with devs. They showed Fe. Looked kind of like Ori meets Journey. I wanted another weird title a la Unravel last year and this fits the bill. Looked really cool.

-Star Wars: They showed a bunch of devs talking about working on Star Wars game including Amy Hennig (Creative Director on Uncharted 1-3), Stig Asmussen (Director of God of War 3 now working at Respawn on Star Wars game), Jade Raymond (various Ubi games like Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell Blacklist). Little bits of footage and art thrown in. Super early stuff here.

-Battlefield 1: I thought this looked really good. I think there is a multiplayer stream going on too.

Mass Effect sure seems like its a long way off. No wonder they delayed it into 2017. Wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't come until Holiday 2017 or even Q1 2018. The little bit in that trailer looked amazing, but there wasn't a ton there.

I'm super bummed they have Criterion working on a Star Wars VR thing. I don't think I've ever talked about it on here but I couldn't possibly be any less interested in VR and I really can't see it taking off in the mainstream.

I think VR could be wonderful, but it's super hard to sell to the mainstream. I think VR as a tech innovation has way more creative potential than 3D.

I'm not sure if it's meant for the home console market though, I see VR being a great way to watch movies or to do work or...so many applications.

I don't know though, I think VR has some real potential but it has to penetrate the market which I can't see it doing right now.

Titanfall 2 looks good. Looks like something my buddies will get so I'll probably buy it on XB1. Please have no BS Season Pass or microtransactions announced between now and then.

Mass Effect had way too little shown for the third time they've had it at E3. We should have had a solid 10 minutes of gameplay shown. A delay could be even more likely like Matt said.

Battlefield 1 interests me because it's a passion project. Not that big into military shooters but if DICE really wanted to make it so bad, that tells me they have something big planned

For the MS Conference: ReCore looked to be the best of the bunch. Very excited to try that out. Hoping for a PC version. Scalebound looked pretty fun. Could go sideways, but I'm hopeful it will be good. Gears on PC makes me happy, having that horde mode there will work nicely for me. We Happy Few looks pretty great, gonna keep my eye on that one.

As for Scorpio.....I can see how this could work out. Do I think that will happen? Hell no. I think these upgradeable consoles are going to be very anti-consumer. I'll stick with PC for upgradeable hardware thank you very much.

Bethesda put together a solid show last night, it just didn't have a lot that appealed to me. I was hoping for the new Wolfenstein to be announced. Prey is something I will keep an eye on. Dishonored 2 looked fun. They had some really neat powers in that game, but I still haven't played the first game.

Microsoft's was pretty predictable. I mean sure that is partly because of leaks, but I don't think much would have surprised me even if nothing leaked. ReCore looked really sweet. I wasn't sure if platforming would be a big part, so it was cool to see that. The trailer was really stylish too. I thought the one surprise was We Happy Few. It presented a really interesting world/narrative idea and was pretty creepy (I find all masks creepy for the most part which really added to the creep factor). Gears 4 looked like Gears with a couple neat twists like the weather stuff and the new weapons. I'm sure it will be fun though.

I still don't care for the idea of Scorpio I guess. At least they are launching it four years out, but then maybe I'd just prefer them wait another year and launch a whole new system. I really don't have enough details to know how this will go. It is kind of weird to open your show with a new slim version of the Xbone and then at the end tell them about another piece coming in a couple years. I wonder how that will go over with people. Those custom Xbox controllers looked awesome though.

Yeah, there's no way I'd get a Slim. Don't know what they're thinking.

Also just saw your earlier post. There is a PC version of ReCore.

Woohoo! Also saw that it'll be $40, at least for the digital version. Which makes me extra happy

Yeah that is cool. Saw some other gameplay on it on Youtube.  Here is a link:

https://youtu.be/Jjoq7snv24I?t=2h21m34s

Actually that link doesn't quite work. You'd have to jump back about an hour and ten minutes back in that stream at the moment. The combat doesn't look great there, but otherwise looking pretty good.

Ubisoft is next. I'm guessing they announce another new IP in the Division/Destiny mold. Hoping for something unexpected. I have already seen Watch Dogs 2, so I'm not sure what there is to look forward to for me at this. Should be awkward. That is for sure!

Rayman is the only thing I can realistically want from them

South Park trailer was incredible. Excited for that game. Grow Up was a nice surprise, love Grow Home. Steep is interesting too, not sure how bad I want a new snowboarding game, but I'll keep my eye on it. Everything else was take it or leave it from Ubisoft.

I thought Ubi's was pretty good. I wish I hadn't seen the lineup leak on Twitter... haha. It made it a bit more boring. I am always hoping a publisher like Ubi tries diversifying their portfolio a bit even if I am not into those particular games. Steep definitely wasn't what I expected from their inevitable new IP announcement, so that is pretty cool. And it looked fun though I don't really play sports stuff much anymore. Grow Up definitely qualifies in the diversity department too even if it is a sequel. It represents something different for their lineup.

Watch Dogs looked fun. South Park looks so hysterical. And For Honor while not my thing seemed to have a pretty novel combat system. Wildlands really fell flat for me. I was thinking it would be nice to have a year without Assassin's Creed, but I forgot about the movie! I hadn't seen anything about it before. It does have a pretty dope cast at least. I can't imagine I will play many of these games, but I thought it was a solid conference.

There has definitely been a lack of surprises so far. I hope Sony has something surprising. If we get a good look at God of War (not just a teaser, but a more substantial reveal a la Horizon last year) and that Dead Don't Ride game plus a new demo on Horizon, I will be satisfied, but this E3 could really use a big E3 moment. So hopefully the Crash game makes an appearance or something like that.

I wish Reflections was making another Driver like San Francisco. I'll take a Grow He sequel, though. I'm excited by the prospect of a new snowboarding game but I'll have to see how it goes first

I really hope the rumors of Crash being a Skylander aren't true

WHY IS GOD OF WAR 4 OVER THE SHOULDER?! WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?!

Also these upgraded consoles...it seems like a horrible business move. Who's going to buy another console in the same generation? I mean, speaking personally, I don't have that kind of burnable income.

I'll buy one if I switch to that PS Vue, which I might because the savings are so huge.

Crash Bandicoot remake and Insomniac Spider-Man game. Sony loves me more than you

I love Crash Bandicoot...how dare you.

Man. I loved that conference. Not the typical bloated Sony Conference. Just games, games and more games. Even the VR section just showed footage and didn't overstay its welcome.

God of War looked really cool graphically. I don't mind the over the shoulder change in theory, but I still want it to be a balanced action/adventure game with platforming and big setpieces. So I guess I'd like to see those aspects in action to know it works. I think the rest looked cool. I think just moving to the a fully controllable camera might have been better, but I will wait and see. I think some change was in order though after six games and I tend to have an open mind about this stuff.

Horizon continues to look awesome. I loved the addition of the rideable mount type robot and the slingshot. All the battles in this game so far have looked like great fun and I really liked the way Aloy looks to control and move. The world is of course gorgeous.

I actually like Insomniac on the Spider-man game better than Sucker Punch. I think Sunset Overdrive in particular makes it seem like they could make a sweet Spider-man game. They also have multiple teams, so can do many projects. Where as Sucker Punch is just one, so I'd rather they work on something original. I will definitely play this. Perhaps it will spark my interest in the character like the Arkham games did for Batman.

It was cool to see Bend's game. I need to watch that footage all again and learn more about it. It looks fun, but not exactly an original concept.

Plus so many other things. Wish we would have gotten to see the Crash remaster. The term remaster in games seems to be used more often for non-huge upgrades I feel, so I just hope by the phrase from the ground up remaster they mean otherwise. Still this is very cool. A new game might have been dicey anyway. This might be a better way to bring the series back for now. The Kojima teaser thing. The Last Guardian allegedly being this year (I will still believe this when I'm playing it). RE going back towards horror again. Damn. That was a sweet conference.

I'd guess they'd try to have the Spider-Man game come out with the new movie so that will probably give an in too if you enjoy it. Really excited for it personally

Loved this. I freaked when I realised that it was Spidey and Insomniac.

Also really happy with Horizon. Last year got me hooked on the character and the world, but I wasn't sure about the gameplay. So I really paid attention to the video today, and it just made me more happy.

To me the iterative consoles make sense, not that I like the idea of wasted consoles. It solves the future backwards compatibility issue, right haha? If we just keep getting more powerful Xbones and PS4s, we'll never have to make these games compatible with the PS5.

My issue is more they're coming too soon. 4 years is way too short of a console lifespan, and the new approach may help mitigate it, but I'd feel better if this was happening after 5 or 6.

But it's not like an add on you can slap onto the side of your existing console to power it up like a new graphics card in a PC, you have to buy a whole new console. That's a lot of money. It seems an odd choice to me but maybe I'm not seeing it the way you guys are.

Oh yeah, I agree that would be much better for consumers.

Regardless, this is an interesting time for consoles. It's a weird compensation point between the usual cycle and how people were saying that this is the last generation. I'm thinking we never see a true PS5? I think that's why Sony wanted to get development right this generation. Other than it gets people to buy consoles, making a PS5 just inconveniences developers and gamers with PS4 libraries.

So I'd say this fixes a problem, but yeah, the upgrades are coming out too early.

I love watching developer interviews in the days that follow the conferences to hear them talk about their games. Always one of my favorite parts. I wish more of the interviewers were competent. Some of these people are totally clueless.