There was a lot of news that came out of this year’s E3 press conferences, and I think it is one of the better years I have seen. Everyone had a major announcement or two, and I am really excited about the year to come. I am going to try and go through the press conferences in chronological order, but we will see. He we go!
Bethesda:
Oh man Bethesda had a good show, and they had three epic games to show off: Doom, Dishonored 2, and of course Fallout 4. Any one of these games pretty much every publisher would kill to have, and Bethesda showed them all, and better yet they are not that far away with Fallout for coming out this year, and Doom and Dishonored next year. Great work guys. There is a reason they are one of my favorite game makers.
Microsoft:
This was Microsoft’s year to get back in the fight, and I think they did a great job. They showed off all their major franchises, and four of them are coming out this year: Fable Legends, Forza 6, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and the one they a banking on Halo 5, but by far the biggest news was that they figured out how to make backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games work, and as I can attest to it works pretty well. Oh yeah HoloLens looks crazy cool. I think I may need one. Microsoft’s problem is that they are not showmen. If Sony would have had this lineup they would be dragging Microsoft’s dead carcass around. Still it was a good year for the boys in Redmond.
EA:
EA was doing its best to show that they are not the evil empire any more, and they did a pretty convicting job by showing me two games I want. No, need! Star Wars Battlefront, and Mass Effect: Andromeda. They also had a long boring section in the middle where they talked about sports and stuff, but pretty much they just needed to show Star Was and Mass Effect, and they did, so I will love them. For now.
Ubisoft:
Ubisoft did a good job of pretty much just showing that every game they make is on its way back to the market. Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, South Park, Assassins Creed, and whatever else. If Ubisoft makes it, it is on its way to you. Plus the show was put on by the amazing Aisha Tyler, so they get a lot of points for that.
Sony:
Sony was in kind of a weird position this year. All of its games are coming out next year, but if there is one thing Sony knows how to do it is put on a show, and they did a wonderful job. Their theme this year was definitely we will have the games you want. Remastered Final Fantasy 7, check; Shenmue 3, check (Kickstarted anyway); Hitman, check; all your favorite Sony games, check. Considering that nothing was coming out this year, or was multiplatform, it was still an amazing show. It was fun to watch. If Microsoft would have had this show they would have been graded an ‘F’, but Sony played it just right, “We will have your games!”.
Nintendo:
Their conference was pretty much: “Hey you guys like Star Fox right?!!!” Luckily we do, but that was pretty much all they had. Mario Builder looked cool, but not exciting. The Wii U is going to need some games stat!
Square-Enix:
Square-Enix probably had the most new games to show, but pretty much all I cared about was their amazing Hitman trailer. It looks like the Hitman I have always dreamed about. Wide open areas with tons of different contracts to take out (not on dates), and all sorts of great gear to use. So good. Oh yeah there was some other stuff, but that was for other people, Hitman was for me, and it comes out in December!
AMD:
They pretty much had to release a new high-end video card, and they did! I can’t wait to see the benchmarks. Until then, they did what they needed to do. So good for them. nVidia needs the competition.
Like I said this was a great year unless you were Nintendo, and there are so many great games coming out. It is customary to declare a winner, but I am going to say the gamer was the winner this year. We are getting what we wanted from everybody, so no losers here! Again, unless you were a Nintendo fan. You lost. Sorry.