I might not be lucky enough to be over in Los Angeles like some of the Stevivor team, but I’m still sweating every little bit of E3 information and will be wrapping up the days news and events throughout the week. Today the show floor opened and hands on previews started pouring in, while Square Enix and Nintendo had their press conferences and the PC Gaming Event also took place.
The final press conferences took place this morning with Nintendo and Square Enix displaying their wares before the show floor opened to all. Nintendo didn’t exactly bring the big guns out this time but there is still plenty to recap from the first official day of E3 2015.
Nintendo had warned us not to expect much, announcing in advance they wouldn’t be showing their new hardware or the new Zelda game. Even knowing that their lineup was underwhelming, the biggest talking point out of their digital event was the Reggie, Iwata and Miyamoto puppet show.
Platinum Games are spreading themselves thin this year, taking on two new games today. The first was Starfox Zero for the Wii U, partnering with Nintendo for a new Starfox game that to me didn’t look that great. I trust Platinum completely but I never got the appeal of Starfox so this combination is an intriguing one. The use of the game pad for precision with the TV showing a wider view is a nice use of the dual screen setup, unique uses of the second screen are so rare that any ingenuity in that regard grabs my attention.
Triforce Heroes looks solid, I always wanted to play the old Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles but never had the hardware and following down the line to Zelda: Four Swords and now Triforce Heroes I may finally get my chance thanks to online multiplayer.
It looks like Blastball is just a part of Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a strange take on Metroid that seems to have done little more than annoy fans at this time. Another multiplayer 3DS experience both this and Triforce Heroes look to be catering more to the Japanese market where local 3DS multiplayer is more popular.
Nintendo are underrated when it comes to arcade sports games, probably because they veer so far into fantasy territory and always have to involve Mario and friends. A Wii U Mario Tennis has me excited, it has been long enough for me playing any tennis game that Ultra Smash has the potential to become a multiplayer favourite for a while with my group of friends.
Then we had a rush of spin offs. Two new Animal Crossing games, a home designer and a board/party game, I’m sure the home designer will find an audience but party games? Maybe not, even with amiibo support and being a Wii U game. Never write Nintendo off but I’m sceptical.
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam has some potential as well, continuing on the Paper Mario legacy in a strange way as 3D and 2D Mario worlds are combined. It looks to have the mix of puzzle solving, platforming and RPG elements in tact, but this was just a trailer so it is hard to make any real judgments.
Nintendo also continued to show off Super Mario Maker which will be a big hit with Twitch streamers, or would be if the Wii U supported streaming natively. I’ve never been a fan of the super difficult Mario levels, but there will be enough crazy here to satisfy just about anyone. Whether that satisfaction comes from watching Youtube clips or actually playing the game remains to be seen.
Of course there was also more amiibo news, with a seemingly inevitable Skylanders crossover announced, starting with Bowser and Donkey Kong. Those 8 bit Mario amiibos will send people into fits as well and I must admit they look pretty cool.
Without any major franchise announcements, and it seems like no 3DS announcement would satisfy that qualification, Nintendo felt like a disappointment. Looking back there are some interesting things here but if you told gamers we would be seeing new Metroid, Starfox, Zelda, Animal Crossing and Paper Mario games this disappointed reaction would be a surprise. This was a year of spinoffs and offshoots, clearly Nintendo are putting their resources into something else. I’m getting more confident in saying that the new Zelda, if not an NX exclusive entirely, will be cross platform in the style of Twilight Princess.
On to Square Enix, and man is Just Cause 3 the right kind of dumb. 1 December can’t come soon enough, this is a case of developers knowing exactly what makes their game fun and pandering to it.
Platinum concluded their double with a new Nier game announced, I never played the original and not a lot was shown here so it is hard for me to know what to make of it. Star Ocean is another series I know little about but again, people are getting excited about the upcoming game shown. You already know if you are interested. While we are on games I don’t know anything about, Final Fantasy XIV is also getting an update.
Another project without a lot of details revealed was the new JRPG project Project Setsuna, coming in 2016 from a new studio. Bravely Default was a good start for new Square RPG’s so hopefully the quality continues here but it’s really hard to say much at the moment.
What we did get some clarity on was Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. While the action heavy nature of the trailer may annoy some I’m confident it is just because explosions demo a whole lot better than considered stealth. It was claimed earlier this year you can get through the entire game without killing anybody so I’m just going to trust them here and enjoy what was a very impressive trailer. I can’t wait.
As a fan of Hitman Go I’m looking forward to seeing Lara Croft getting the same treatment, but mobile games do get lost in the shuffle in E3. We’ll see if it can draw my time from Fallout Shelter and You Must Build a Boat. Speaking of Hitman we got a date for the new Hitman game, just called Hitman, and an interesting focus on digital delivery was announced. It sounds almost episodic, and the user created assassinations sound interesting too. We’ll see how well it works in practice.
Finally from Square Enix we saw a Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer. I don’t know what it is about this generation but I love how the 3D cartoon look comes across on new hardware. I can’t comment much on the Kingdom Hearts-ness of the game but this looked great, both the gameplay footage and the cinematic elements. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Donald Duck.
Other news briefs:
The PC Gaming Event was a two plus hour slog that I didn’t get to watch, but there were some interesting news pieces to come out of it. Microsoft announced PC versions of Killer Instinct (with cross platform play!) and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. The latter isn’t a stretch considering a PC port of the original game existed but if memory serves this is the first attempt at cross platform play for Microsoft since the ill fated (and underrated) Shadowrun shooter.
After Shenmue 3 reached its Kickstarter goal in record time, Sony came clean about their involvement and funding of the title. Turns out they are investing in the game and the Kickstarter was yet another case of ‘confirming interest’ in the game rather than legitimate fundraising. It doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the game but it is a worrying trend that Kickstarter is being used like this. Small projects are finding it harder and harder to get funding there as expectations are set unreasonably high by increasingly fussy backers, while studios that could find their funding elsewhere use the system to reduce their own investment risk.
Some interesting things to come out of the news cycle:
Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst will see Faith fire no guns.
The dog in Fallout 4 is invincible.
Sony aren’t working on any big Vita games.
The new Destiny expansion will let you skip cutscenes, finally.
Other release announcements: MotoGP 15 from Bandai Namco, Heroes of the Storm’s first expansion, American Truck Simulator, Planet Coaster from Roller Coaster Tycoon developers Frontier Developments, Pillars of Eternity’s first expansion, Tripwire’s Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, Final Fantasy VII (the original) for iOS, a free prologue to the final game in the Starcraft 2 trilogy, Legacy of the Void.
Release date shorts: Tony Hawk 5 was dated for September, No Man’s Sky is releasing same day for both PC and PS4, Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain are coming to the PS4, Guitar Hero Live is 20 October (and $150 AUD for the guitar plus game), Yoshi’s Woolly World is 16 October, Xenoblade Chronicles X 4 December, World of Tanks for Xbox One by end of July
Of course, Stevivor started getting hands on with plenty of the games we’ve seen over the last couple of days, check out all our previews below:
Battleborn
The Division
For Honor
Rainbox Six: Siege
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