E3 2017

[Julius]

Haha. Believe!

 

Absolutely! I just want something -- I mean: anything -- Final Fantasy right now. It's the 30th Anniversary! Man, if we get a release date for Octopath Traveller and a reveal like an FFVI Remake, it could save what I feel has been an average show from everyone but Ubisoft so far.

[Ronnie]

The Sony presser was very much how I expect the Nintendo one to be. Show lots of what we already know and not many new things.

They need to get the balance right.

 

Announcing games way too early in the last couple of years has caught up with them, they didn't have anything new to talk about.

[Ike]

The Sony presser was very much how I expect the Nintendo one to be. Show lots of what we already know and not many new things.

They need to get the balance right.

 

The thing is, we don't know a lot. Nintendo better be showing a lot of new stuff and not be focusing much on ARM Zelda DLC.

[Hero-of-Time]

Currently watching the EZA stream of the Sony conference. Ben's reaction to the MH announcement was amazing, as was the whole teams reaction to SotC. Love the guys energy.

[Julius]

Announcing games way too early in the last couple of years has caught up with them, they didn't have anything new to talk about.

 

On the one hand, this should increase the potential of their show next year

 

Is it me or did it feel like there was a genuine lack of Japanese developers showing stuff off here? We had Monster Hunter World and Shadow of the Colossus Remake, a game fans aren't sure about and a Remake respectively, but where was Square? Another trailer and an update on a release year for FFVII Remake could have completely changed the narrative for me, as could have other games, such as a Bloodborne 2.

 

Just seemed a bit odd to me is all, and would have broken up some of the monotony of the constant action game stream.

[Hero-of-Time]

On the one hand, this should increase the potential of their show next year

 

Is it me or did it feel like there was a genuine lack of Japanese developers showing stuff off here? We had Monster Hunter World and Shadow of the Colossus Remake, a game fans aren't sure about and a Remake respectively, but where was Square? Another trailer and an update on a release year for FFVII Remake could have completely changed the narrative for me, as could have other games, such as a Bloodborne 2.

 

Just seemed a bit odd to me is all, and would have broken up some of the monotony of the constant action game stream.

 

From Software are too busy making Metroid.

[Julius]

From Software are too busy making Metroid.

 

My goodness, this would be great. 3D, first person Prime-like From Software game next year and a more traditional 2D Metroidvania by Yacht Club this year? Dreams, but I'd totally be in!

[Sheikah]

There was nothing this year that was particularly exciting - Beyond Good and Evil 2 had potential but it being a prequel (and that monkey being really annoying) somewhat dampened the excitement for me.

 

The best news to come out of this is Undertale coming to Vita and PS4 (been waiting so long for this), the Ni No Kuni November release, and the home console MH game. The fact it'll be on systems with good online, nice graphics and no borders between map segments makes the latter quite cool.

[Hero-of-Time]

The best news to come out of this is Undertale coming to Vita and PS4 (been waiting so long for this), the Ni No Kuni November release, and the home console MH game. The fact it'll be on systems with good online, nice graphics and no borders between map segments makes the latter quite cool.

 

This was very surprising, especially as it's a retail release as well. I'm looking forward to finally being able to give it a go.

[drahkon]

Is it me or did it feel like there was a genuine lack of Japanese developers showing stuff off here?

 

Yeah, especially after Sony said numerous times that we'd see lots and lots of games from Japanese devs.

 

That was the only disappointing aspect of the conference for me.

 

Maybe we'll see more in the next few days.

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, especially after Sony said numerous times that we'd see lots and lots of games from Japanese devs.

 

That was the only disappointing aspect of the conference for me.

 

Maybe we'll see more in the next few days.

 

Yeah, had Shawn Layden not said anything then I wouldn't have been fussed but the way he was talking it sounded like there was gonna be a load of Japanese games being shown off.

[Ganepark32]

I though Ubisoft's conference last night was great. A good spread of titles that nicely shows their willingness as one of the big third parties to try different things and bring a diverse line-up of titles to the market place. And the way it was all talked about by the developers, the emotion and the care for craft was a nice touch and shows just how much making these games means to them in spite of everything else going on with regards to the aggressive Vivendi stock take over and such.

 

I've never really understood a lot of the flak they get as a company (yes, there's the whole downgrading of visuals thing and a couple of other bits) but for the last year or so, I think they've been hitting it out of the park with their games with perhaps the exceptions to that being their Tom Clancy titles. I'm glad that there was no sign of Tom Clancy anywhere in their presentation. I think it's a label that needs to go dormant for a little bit as both The Division and Ghost Recon Wildlands weren't up to snuff.

 

Loved the look of Skull & Bones and sounds as though it might not be solely online multiplayer (though may still be like Steep in that it's always online), South Park continues to look fantastic and I can't wait to play it, Transference could be interesting but the trailer gave very little away and obviously Beyond Good and Evil 2 is probably my game of the show. Sure, it was a CG trailer and doesn't bear a whole lot of semblance to the original but given that it's near on 15 years since that game, I think that's plenty of time to go at it in a different way and I don't see the trailer being fully indicative of the way the full game will play out in terms of the high usage of swearing and such.

 

I didn't stay up for Sony's conference but it was the one I dreaded the most as I had a feeling it would be a lot of what we'd already seen and that looks to have been the case. That's not a bad thing: as others have said, they may have played it safe but what they showed all looked good. It's just that I saw very little there to get me hyped (especially with a lot of it saying 2018 at the end). I'm looking forward to their daily streams and to seeing what else they spotlight as there'll be more of the smaller indie titles there that may speak more to me than some of the bigger titles that Sony chose to showcase.

 

I'll probably be tuning in to see what Nintendo have to show but I'm not seeing many ways they can sway me, a disgruntled and former Nintendo customer, back to their line of consoles. Sure, I liked the look of Mario + Rabbids as I like XCOM but they'd have to do something really special to even get me to consider the Switch as a possible purchase.

[Julius]

Sony PlayStation

Most anticipated games shown: Shadow Of The Colossus, Spider-Man, God Of War

 

So, I'm going to keep my thoughts quite short, simply because I don't want to repeat some of the great things that have already been said here. The pacing was completely off, and it felt like a very quick briefing. Jumping from one game straight into another was bad enough - with no time to give any game a chance to stir in your mind, it felt that, like Xbox, they were just hurling stuff at us.

 

It started incredibly strong, and only seemed to go down hill from there. Instead of capping off the show with a great new reveal, it was capped off with a demo for a game - Spider-Man - that we've already seen before, and I think having a story demo in a 10 minute or so segment, especially considering how many utilisations of QTEs there were, was an incredibly poor choice.

 

Shadow Of The Colossus Remake stole the show for me, and the fact that it was up so early emphasises just how poorly scheduled this thing was. Likewise, God Of War came early, and looks splendid, but again: it's another game that we've already seen. It's nice to see PlayStation making good on their promises of yesteryear, but seriously, they shouldn't have promised a strong Japanese developer presence for their entire presence during their show to culminate in a currently divisive game in Monster Hunter: World, which is aimed at the West anyway, a spectacularly beautiful remake in Shadow Of The Colossus, and Capcom's Marvel/Capcom fighter. Again, where were games like Bloodborne 2, Shenmue 3 and Final Fantasy VII Remake? Where were the big surprises?

 

Solid show, great games, but other than a few games at the start, there were virtually no surprises whatsoever. I can't help but feel a tad disappointed. Here's hoping for next year.

 

Score: 8.0/10

Edited June 13, 2017 by Julius Caesar

[Dcubed]

15 seconds of pure hype!!

[Kav]

Ubisoft had the best showing overall. Microsoft second, followed closely by Sony, then not so closely by Nintendo, who in turn were followed by EA & Bethesda together for the worst showing.

[Hero-of-Time]

Pretty average E3 overall, which is exactly what I was expecting. I chose a good year to finally end my stupidly long streak of taking holidays for the show.

[Julius]

Was starting to lose hope in Square Enix, then saw this tweet;

 

[TWEET]874674543255736320[/TWEET]

 

Wonder what they might have in those trailers and what the 30th Anniversary FF stuff has in store...

[Kaepora_Gaebora]

Ubisoft had the best showing overall. Microsoft second, followed closely by Sony, then not so closely by Nintendo, who in turn were followed by EA & Bethesda together for the worst showing.

 

MS second, you mad bro?!

 

I thought their showing was borderline disaster, they've sent the X out to die at that price and I just can't see who they are appealing to with it, especially going off of that conference; I think they will be dropping behind Nintendo if Switch carries on its current momentum.

 

Ubisoft's show last night was fantastic and showed that hiring 'presenters' who don't know a great deal about games is self defeating. I hope Aisha Tyler never reappears and they stick with the genuine developers who showed so much heart and emotion which really came across so well.

 

For me Ubisoft nailed it this year, followed by Sony and Nintendo both doing solid but unspectacular jobs, EA next then MS stinking up the place!

[Jimbob]

Saw this on another website, apparantly it's insane with the number of people at E3 this year due to the public being allowed access. Various people on press business are not happy.

 

https://clips.twitch.tv/JollyWrongShingleSMOrc

 

That's just around the Nintendo booth

 

But anyway, back onto the matter in hand

 

For me, the conference that stood out was Ubisoft. They showcased numerous new titles, liked the appearance from Shiggy at the start. And it ended with Beyond Good and Evil II. I was quite surprised and shocked when they revealed it, never thought i'd see the day on that one. The new Assassin's Creed looks good, Egypt looks to be a good setting for it.

 

Next was Sony. All they had to do was show games, and they did that. Ok, maybe not as many surprises as i'd have liked. But seeing Shadow of the Colossus was just something (even though i've never played it). God of War looked amazing, and Spiderman looked interesting. Days Gone and Detroit look interesting titles too.

 

Nintendo followed closely behind, there's not a lot that interests me with Nintendo these days. Am i growing past them, i don't know. But revealing Metroid Prime 4 and a remake of II, well they know how to draw me back. The new Mario looks interesting, yet odd. Like it's Sonic Adventure, but smoother and more fluid. Are they going Breath of the Wild with this and making it so you can go anywhere and do anything, who knows.

 

Microsoft next. What are they thinking with the Xbox One X, for the price it would seem it's off to behind the shed to be put out of it's misery. I'm not saying Dead on Arrival, but quite a few people are not happy with the price-tag. Games-wise, if they are trying to show the power of this beast, indie games isn't the way for it. Forza is Forza, but they could have had Gears upped to 4k to show it's power. Not too fussed on Minecraft, but it's good to see it going multi-network.

 

And behind in joint last, both EA and Bethesda. EA don't normally have anything i'm interested in, so i didn't find it appealing to me. Bethesda, it felt like they just grabbed anything just to make an appearance. Fallout VR looks interesting, and i did see on the Sony stage they are working on Skyrim VR too.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I didn't really enjoy Nintendo's...thing. For me, the main point which should have had getting my wallet out to buy a Switch should have been the Metroid Prime 4 reveal. But, I thought it was really flat. Just the title with nothing more added to it. On the one hand, it's great that it's coming, but I was left wanting a lot more.

 

Not really excited for any of Nintendo's stuff. Mario looks a bit off to me and today's trailer has me worried for it. It just doesn't seem to flow well artistically. I was previously very excited for it but it fell flat for me.

 

I can definitely say that I'm in no rush to buy a Switch. The concept of playing games on the go is interesting (for some), but all of the interesting third party games aren't coming on the system...so what's the point?

[Ganepark32]

Tuned in for Nintendo and really didn't take anything away from it. My tastes have moved so far away that even a big new Mario game which, for all intents and purposes, plays incredibly well can't get me excited. Neither Yoshi and Kirby did anything for me as the former is being rung through another art filter because they haven't really found a way to progress the gameplay in a truly meaningful way and the latter looks much like several other games in the series.

 

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 looked pretty poor, there's just something that isn't clicking with me; it could be the aesthetic or something else entirely but it's looking like a generic JRPG when the original had that something going for it that set it apart (I thought anyway).

 

And that teaser for Metroid Prime 4, great they're finally getting round to it after fans have been asking for years. But simply putting up a title screen that states that it is now in development suggests it really isn't far along. New art or anything would suggest it's either in preproduction or has only just gone into full time production in the last couple of months. They could have held that back to give a more concrete tease down the line. Poor show from Nintendo there and smacks of the whole Smash Bros is coming to Wii U and 3DS but Sakurai hadn't yet finished Kid Icarus Uprising and hadn't been told. Yes, other developers are guilty for it but when they had a Metroid game they could talk about, they chose not to include that in the Spotlight.

 

And pretty poor third party support. As I've said, Mario + Rabbids looks good but getting Rocket League 1.5/2 years after other platforms isn't much to write home about. I know they'll show more through Treehouse live but as a third party partner bringing games to the console, I'd want to know why other console manufacturers are happy to put their games into their press conferences but Nintendo aren't.

 

I'd say it's a poor showing from Nintendo but again, my tastes have clearly changed and Nintendo now longer hits a note with me so my opinion doesn't really carry much merit. But then I watch their spotlight and wonder who their demographic is for the Switch as the titles don't really match up with the advertising angle they're going with it's certainly not made me want to to pick up a Switch, even though I'd love to try that Mario + Rabbids title.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Tuned in for Nintendo and really didn't take anything away from it. My tastes have moved so far away that even a big new Mario game which, for all intents and purposes, plays incredibly well can't get me excited. Neither Yoshi and Kirby did anything for me as the former is being rung through another art filter because they haven't really found a way to progress the gameplay in a truly meaningful way and the latter looks much like several other games in the series.

 

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 looked pretty poor, there's just something that isn't clicking with me; it could be the aesthetic or something else entirely but it's looking like a generic JRPG when the original had that something going for it that set it apart (I thought anyway).

 

And that teaser for Metroid Prime 4, great they're finally getting round to it after fans have been asking for years. But simply putting up a title screen that states that it is now in development suggests it really isn't far along. New art or anything would suggest it's either in preproduction or has only just gone into full time production in the last couple of months. They could have held that back to give a more concrete tease down the line. Poor show from Nintendo there and smacks of the whole Smash Bros is coming to Wii U and 3DS but Sakurai hadn't yet finished Kid Icarus Uprising and hadn't been told. Yes, other developers are guilty for it but when they had a Metroid game they could talk about, they chose not to include that in the Spotlight.

 

And pretty poor third party support. As I've said, Mario + Rabbids looks good but getting Rocket League 1.5/2 years after other platforms isn't much to write home about. I know they'll show more through Treehouse live but as a third party partner bringing games to the console, I'd want to know why other console manufacturers are happy to put their games into their press conferences but Nintendo aren't.

 

I'd say it's a poor showing from Nintendo but again, my tastes have clearly changed and Nintendo now longer hits a note with me so my opinion doesn't really carry much merit. But then I watch their spotlight and wonder who their demographic is for the Switch as the titles don't really match up with the advertising angle they're going with it's certainly not made me want to to pick up a Switch, even though I'd love to try that Mario + Rabbids title.

 

I'd say that your views are pretty similar to mine. Don't really understand why getting Rocket League is seen as a big coup either. It was released on PS+ in July 2015...it's not a big third party capture. What would have been impressive would be if the Switch had got Destiny 2, or Battlefront 2, or the new Assassin's Creed, or Anthem, or something else that's recent.

[Ronnie]

Ubisoft > Nintendo > Microsoft > Bethesda > EA > Sony for me.

 

Ubisoft had the biggest variety of gameplay, everything looked really fun and/or interesting.

 

Sony just showed their E3 from last year, lots and lots and lots and lots of third person action games, threw in yet another remake, and added some dates. Boring and self-indulgent.

 

A Way Out, an indie title at EA looked more creative and interesting than any of Sony's games.

 

I'd say that your views are pretty similar to mine. Don't really understand why getting Rocket League is seen as a big coup either. It was released on PS+ in July 2015...it's not a big third party capture. What would have been impressive would be if the Switch had got Destiny 2, or Battlefront 2, or the new Assassin's Creed, or Anthem, or something else that's recent.

 

Anthem running on a handheld would be interesting.

 

Rocket League is a far better fit for the Switch than Destiny 2. It's the perfect system for it.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Ronnie

[Hero-of-Time]

Wonder what they might have in those trailers and what the 30th Anniversary FF stuff has in store...

 

Did you watch the S-E stream? I knocked it off after about 10 mins. It was absolute garbage. They kept harping on about mobile games. I can't believe that the 30th anniversary is being so poorly supported by them.

[Julius]

Did you watch the S-E stream? I knocked it off after about 10 mins. It was absolute garbage. They kept harping on about mobile games. I can't believe that the 30th anniversary is being so poorly supported by them.

 

I checked it out for a few minutes and it was a HUGE letdown, you're absolutely right, the support for the 30th anniversary is pretty dismal.

 

Other than FF, I was really hoping to see something on Octopath Traveller, but nothing yet :/