E3 2016 The Thread!

[cal_el]

Back from holiday in time for the craziness that is E3! Whoop!

Here's the schedule for each of the big press conferences with UK timings:

EA - Sunday, June 12th - 9pm BST

Bethesda - Monday, June 13th - 3am BST

Microsoft - Monday, June 13th - 5:30pm BST

PC Gaming Show - Monday, June 13th - 8pm BST

Ubisoft - Monday, June 13th - 9pm BST

Sony - Tuesday, June 14th - 2am BST

Nintendo - Tuesday, June 14th - 5pm BST

Things I'm looking forward to:

• Mass Effect Andromeda info FINALLY!
  
• New Star Wars games info
  
• Bethesda's continued rise to power
  
• Seeing if Sony can equal or better last year's showing
  
• New and Unexpected games!
  

[cal_el]

Well EA's showing was well.....a bit pants....

So little shown of Mass Effect and the upcoming Star Wars games beyond a few clips  Fe looked alright though.

[megablast16]

Images have emerged for an Xbox One "S"

It is said to be 40% smaller, have a 2TB HDD, will support 4K video and have an internal power supply and, as you can see, can be stood vertically. It's expected to be officially unveiled at MS's E3 show today, as well as price and release dates. Looks cool.

[megablast16]

Dishonored 2 gameplay from the Bethesda show.


       

[cal_el]

Images have emerged for an Xbox One "S"

It is said to be 40% smaller, have a 2TB HDD, will support 4K video and have an internal power supply and, as you can see, can be stood vertically. It's expected to be officially unveiled at MS's E3 show today, as well as price and release dates. Looks cool.

That is a big improvement over the current monolith!

Thoughts on Bethesda's showing:

• Elder Scrolls Legends looks like it is shaping up to be a decent alternative to Hearthstone and I'm really liking the focus on having a story/campaign mode.
  
• Good to see confirmation of new Quake and Prey with Prey getting me most excited because it seems to be tapping into some dark sci-fi tropes which is the stuff I love.
  
• They managed to make talking about continued support for their current slate of games exciting to watch. Heck part of me wants to give Elder Scrolls Online ago!
  
• Dishonored 2 looks great and in depth look at the game was what I was expecting for Mass Effect in EA's conference. Still on the fence about picking it up though because I didn't get on well with the repetitive nature of the first game.
  
• As for the Skyrim Remaster - HECK YEAH! Maybe I'll actually finish the game this time around!
  

Overall I like Bethesda's approach to E3. It is very much, "Here are the games you are currently enjoying and some new ones that you are going to love."

[Wolvieware]

EA might as well not bothered. They had nothing interesting to show even though they have interesting games. 

I wasn't interested in any single Bethesda title. 

Gonna catch up with the Microsoft news now then watch the Ubi show.

[megablast16]

As well as showing the new Xbox One S as expected Microsoft also confirmed the existence of Scorpio, "the most powerful game console ever" they're saying, capable of true 4K gaming apparently. Releases late next year.

[megablast16]

I didn't watch it live but it sounds like Sony had a great show.

- The Last Guardian finally has a release date, October 25th this year!
- Insomniac are making a PS4 exclusive Spiderman game. 
- Hideo Kojima announces Death Stranding, his PS4 exclusive collaboration with Sony. Weird trailer though. 
- Sony bend show's off Days Gone, what looks like a TLOU style post apocalyptic action game.
- Rocksteady are making a PSVR Batman game, due for release this October along side PSVR itself.
- Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 and Warped getting the PS4 remaster treatment as a collection, out next year.
- God Of War is getting a reboot with a gameplay demo showing a much older Kratos training a young boy out in the wild.
- Capcom show off Resident Evil 7 at Sony's show, and it's first person!!
- New gameplay shown for Detroit: Become Human and Horizon: Zero Dawn.

[Wolvieware]

Yeah Sony seem to have a lot of exclusive games which is nice as a year ago it was the one thing that let them down. 

What I liked: Horizon still looks awesome. God of War looked great too. Ubisofts Ghost Recon also showed off some true Ghosts style gameplay, something I was concerned would have been missing in going open world. And am I the only one here that really thinks the new COD looks great? I might even plump for the special edition with Modern Warfare! Also Trials Blood Dragon looked mental! 

What I didn't like: Resi 7. Doesn't seem like a Resi game at all, more like generic horrors like Outlast. And first person? Only done for VR status. A PS4 exclusive Spider-Man is interesting. I do like Spidey, but hardly a series known for great games. I would like to see more footage. And Days Gone - like we really need another post apocalyptic setting for a game. Yawn.

[cal_el]

Don't forget you can play the demo for Resi 7 now! It's quite short if you stick to the critical path but there is quite a bit of hidden stuff in there which is cool. Despite it being first person and very similar to PT it feels closer to the first Resi game than any of the Resi games 4 onwards. 

For me it is good to see so many great games coming out but I'm still not sure about Microsoft's "everything is on PC so you don't actually need to buy our console" approach.

Highlights for me have been:

• Elder Scrolls Legends and Gwent - so many TCGs to play!
  
• Skyrim Remaster with Mod support - I can finally use mods to circumvent the game's crappy systems like encumbrance!
  
• For Honor - Now that I know it has a solid looking singleplayer mode I am a lot more interested in picking it up.
  
• South Park: The Fractured But Whole - I enjoyed the last South Park game and this looks like more of the same but with the focus on Superheroes this time so yay!
  
• State of Decay 2 - I dabbled with the first game and was impressed, this looks like it could be a vast improvement.
  
• ReCore - Looks like a good 3D platformer/action game. So YAY!
  
• We Happy Few - I've been keeping my eye on this and it looks like it is really coming together.
  
• Sea of Thieves - Looks like it could be really good but I want to know how the game handles me messing about on my own.
  
• God of War - I really like the new Norse Mythology based direction and potential gameplay around it.
  
• The Last Guardian - It is actually coming out! WOOOO!
  
• Horizon Zero Dawn - The live demo made this game look really good I want to get my hands on it!
  
• Detroit Become Human - It looks like it could be a big step forward from Heavy Rain/Beyond: Two Souls in terms of how it handles branching storytelling. I also enjoy the inherent other-ness of David Cage's games.
  
• Resi 7 - As detailed above.
  
• Death Stranding - It looks weird and makes next to no sense but I can't wait to see what this...thing becomes.
  
• Spider-Man PS4 - Could it be? A GOOD SPIDER-MAN GAME IS HAPPENING?!!!!!
  
• VR actually becoming a thing - Star Trek VR, Resi 7 in VR, Farpoint, the other full VR game and "experience" announcements have got me excited to give it a chance come October.
  

Still need to check out what PC stuff has been shown off though so I might have a few additions to my list

[PorcusHawk]

Watched far less of the conferences than I would have done in previous years. 

I didn't bother with EA's as I really don't give a shit about Battlefield, have doubts about Mass Effect Andromeda, think Star Wars is over-rated pish so really don't need to be overwhelmed with related games and trailers for their sports games are always pointless.

I also didn't bother with Bethesda's although I do need to catch up on what was revealed about Dishonored 2. Have absolutely no interest in a Skyrim remaster, yes, it could do with one given how shit it ran on previous gen consoles (particularly on PS3) but seeing as Fallout 4 wasn't exactly a technical marvel I can't see Bethesda nailing Skyrim on consoles..yet again.

Ubisoft's was another I avoided completely. I knew they'd have absolutely fuck all of note and on that point they didn't disappoint. Who gives a fuck about Just Dance, The Division, Ghost Recon or Watch Dogs 2? I certainly don't. They only had one job and that was to give us any sort of update on Beyond Good & Evil 2 but I guess that will remain vapourware.

I did (sort of) watch Microsoft's conference, thankfully I watched an archive of it so I could skip the boring bits, which happened to be most of it. I haven't given a flying fuck about Gears, Halo or Forza for years so that shit was never going to interest me. Rare haven't made a decent game in years and Sea of Thieves looks to continue their downward spiral. 

I was keen to see more of Scalebound but fuck knows what Platinum have done with it. It appeared to have a lot of potential when it was first revealed but what they showed yesterday was complete shit and don't get me started on the main protagonist. If I had to spend all game controlling that irritating piece of shit I'd rather leave the enemies to destroy that fucker, which kind of defeats the purpose of the game.

State of Decay and Dead Rising also look to be same old uninteresting (to me anyway) shit.

The only potentially decent game was We Happy Few but that alone would never be reason to spring for an XBox One and don't get me started on the fucking hardware revisions which appear to be a complete clusterfuck, even moreso when you could argue that if you have a decent PC then PlayAnywhere negates the need for an Xbox One anyway.

All Microsoft managed to prove yet again, it just how far away from what I want in games and like Nintendo before them I just see them as completely irrelevant now.

Thankfully Sony absolutely nailed their conference, the first half in particular. I honestly didn't want/need another God of War game, but fucking hell, that thing was amazing and definitely got me interested. Days Gone looked like it may have potential initially but the latter gameplay demo was underwhelming. Last Guardian this year, yes please.....enough said.

I was blown away by Horizon:Zero Dawn when it was revealed last year and the new deeper gameplay shown last night DID NOT disappoint. Absolutely fucking incredible and there are no words to describe just how much I want/need this game.

Trailers for Detroit and RE7 (more on that later) looked great as did the Death Stranding reveal although fuck knows what that game is about.

It did go downhill slightly after that. I'm not particularly interested in any Spiderman game, and whilst the PSVR stuff didn't suck anywhere near as much as I expected, I still don't feel like it offers anything interesting.

Going back to RE7, it's about fucking time that Capcom realised that the whole 'survival horror' thing and not the latter action-orientated bullshit is what the series should be about and why it gained initial appeal. What they showed last night was a solid mix of PT and the much missed early Silent Hill games and I am genuinely excited about a Resident Evil game for the first time in fucking years. Playing the demo this morning confirmed that this has the potential to be amazing assuming Capcom change nothing and don't screw it up.

[Wolvieware]

Yay! Hello TPM!

[megablast16]

Yay indeed, I thought we'd lost him for good!!  

Welcome back buddy. 

[MarkySharky]

Barely anything of interest to me from E3.

Ghost Recon. That's about it.

[PorcusHawk]

Yay! Hello TPM!

Yay indeed, I thought we'd lost him for good!!  

Welcome back buddy. 

Cheers guys, it has been a while 

[cal_el]

Watched far less of the conferences than I would have done in previous years. 

I didn't bother with EA's as I really don't give a shit about Battlefield, have doubts about Mass Effect Andromeda, think Star Wars is over-rated pish so really don't need to be overwhelmed with related games and trailers for their sports games are always pointless.

I also didn't bother with Bethesda's although I do need to catch up on what was revealed about Dishonored 2. Have absolutely no interest in a Skyrim remaster, yes, it could do with one given how shit it ran on previous gen consoles (particularly on PS3) but seeing as Fallout 4 wasn't exactly a technical marvel I can't see Bethesda nailing Skyrim on consoles..yet again.

Ubisoft's was another I avoided completely. I knew they'd have absolutely fuck all of note and on that point they didn't disappoint. Who gives a fuck about Just Dance, The Division, Ghost Recon or Watch Dogs 2? I certainly don't. They only had one job and that was to give us any sort of update on Beyond Good & Evil 2 but I guess that will remain vapourware.

I did (sort of) watch Microsoft's conference, thankfully I watched an archive of it so I could skip the boring bits, which happened to be most of it. I haven't given a flying fuck about Gears, Halo or Forza for years so that shit was never going to interest me. Rare haven't made a decent game in years and Sea of Thieves looks to continue their downward spiral. 

I was keen to see more of Scalebound but fuck knows what Platinum have done with it. It appeared to have a lot of potential when it was first revealed but what they showed yesterday was complete shit and don't get me started on the main protagonist. If I had to spend all game controlling that irritating piece of shit I'd rather leave the enemies to destroy that fucker, which kind of defeats the purpose of the game.

State of Decay and Dead Rising also look to be same old uninteresting (to me anyway) shit.

The only potentially decent game was We Happy Few but that alone would never be reason to spring for an XBox One and don't get me started on the fucking hardware revisions which appear to be a complete clusterfuck, even moreso when you could argue that if you have a decent PC then PlayAnywhere negates the need for an Xbox One anyway.

All Microsoft managed to prove yet again, it just how far away from what I want in games and like Nintendo before them I just see them as completely irrelevant now.

Thankfully Sony absolutely nailed their conference, the first half in particular. I honestly didn't want/need another God of War game, but fucking hell, that thing was amazing and definitely got me interested. Days Gone looked like it may have potential initially but the latter gameplay demo was underwhelming. Last Guardian this year, yes please.....enough said.

I was blown away by Horizon:Zero Dawn when it was revealed last year and the new deeper gameplay shown last night DID NOT disappoint. Absolutely fucking incredible and there are no words to describe just how much I want/need this game.

Trailers for Detroit and RE7 (more on that later) looked great as did the Death Stranding reveal although fuck knows what that game is about.

It did go downhill slightly after that. I'm not particularly interested in any Spiderman game, and whilst the PSVR stuff didn't suck anywhere near as much as I expected, I still don't feel like it offers anything interesting.

Going back to RE7, it's about fucking time that Capcom realised that the whole 'survival horror' thing and not the latter action-orientated bullshit is what the series should be about and why it gained initial appeal. What they showed last night was a solid mix of PT and the much missed early Silent Hill games and I am genuinely excited about a Resident Evil game for the first time in fucking years. Playing the demo this morning confirmed that this has the potential to be amazing assuming Capcom change nothing and don't screw it up.

Welcome back!

Resi 7 is very impressive so far. It sort of goes back to the series' routes while going in a different direction.

As for me I'm adding Pokémon Sun & Moon and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to my list. 

The improvements made to Pokémon's systems and overall flow are great to see. They are also making an effort to remove the mental maths and memory recall of the game which is a good thing IMO. 

Zelda looks like a big step forward for the franchise and their mission statement of breaking the conventions of the series with this new game seems to be working out really, really well. The open world of the game looks massive without being overbearing and it also crucially feels unique. It will be interesting to see how much freedom players have to explore it when the game comes out. You can climb most surfaces so the traditional blockers for the edge of the map and funnelling players in a given direction might not work anymore. It's also cool to see the game having a "proper" equipment system and it tying into the survival theme of the game. 

I'm really interested in seeing what improvements and differences there will be in the NX version but for now I am Day One on Wii U because the game looks awesome even on the console's limited hardware.

[megablast16]

The new Zelda looks lovely and will no doubt be a great game, but I haven't owned a Nintendo console for about 9 years and NX will have to be able to compete with PS4/XB1 and their new upgrades for me to buy one.

[cal_el]

The new Zelda looks lovely and will no doubt be a great game, but I haven't owned a Nintendo console for about 9 years and NX will have to be able to compete with PS4/XB1 and their new upgrades for me to buy one.

The Wii U has been a disaster despite having some really good games on it. Hopefully the NX will put Nintendo back in the race although I am pretty much ready to pre-order one as soon as I can

[megablast16]

One little snippet of information that may have been missed at E3 is that Inside, the long awaited new game from Limbo devs Playdead, is ready to go and will be released very soon, June 29th to be precise, initially on Xbox One and Steam a week later. I loved Limbo so I'm very keen to see what their follow up is like.

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