E3 2012

E3

So I’ve been watching E3 a whole lot, of course. More for like the memetic possibility and the fact that you feel like you “ought” to watch it, I have basically no interest in most new games nor do I have interest in having interest in them. In general this is because most games still seem to be about running around and shooting people, and I haven’t felt like doing that in about five years. Really disturbingly seems to be a new trend of walking around and shooting people, which means the games are now really boring too whereas before at least they were engrossing in an action movie sorta way. Also there seems to be a big trend in pushing consoles as “the center of living rooms”, this is something I have no interest in, in the center of our living room we have DDR mats. I will never use a service like Hulu or Netflix and I will likely never own a big screen TV. So screw that, screw all of that. Let’s uh take a look though and I’ll try to think of it objectively as like a regular consumer cause that’s really what they’re targeted to.

Konami

Apparently Konami had a conference last Friday but I didn’t watch it and I see no evidence that it actually happened because apparently they showed absolutely nothing. Oh wait no they did have that cool trailer for the new Metal Gear, but I don’t really care for these new Castlevanias that I guess they were showing.

+Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

-I don’t like the look of the new Castlevanias, but this may be unjustified

-I don’t know what else they showed

C?

Nintendo Direct

Then on Sunday Nintendo showed off some hardware stuff and some online stuff and it looked alright. The really cheesy commercial was what it was and in all I didn’t hate it. And some of the Miiverse stuff seems like things I would actually use! But this was just a preview really I ought to look at Nintendo as a whole.

Microsoft

Michaelsoft dropped like every ball here I think. Halo 4 looks interesting enough I guess, I dunno, it’s Halo. I’d probably have fun if I played it, parts of this really reminded me of Metroid Prime. New Splinter Cell looks stupid. Then SPURTZ. Madden RPG hilarious. I don’t care about Fable. I also don’t care about Gears of War. Then DUBSTEP CARS, I was amazed this was Forza, I thought Forza was serious business like Gran Turismo. Okay and then this is amazing. He starts into this Xbox in Spanish, searching by genre, all this stuff. The Forza trailer ends like 33 minutes in. We do all this media center ish. Then Some fitness ish. Then some Smartglass whatever. Then some brief footage of Halo 4, okay, but I hesitate to count this. Then IE ON XBOX OMG. Then I don’t even know more stuff. Okay 57 minutes he leaves and the Tomb Raider guys show up. That’s uh 24 minutes with NO GAMES. That’s a whole episode of Seinfeld with NO GAMES. Showing an episode of Seinfeld during that time probably would have more to do with games. Anyways this Tomb Raider game interests me because I think it is really disgusting and I want to keep up with news about it because I just can’t believe it. It seems there’s a resurgence lately of what I’d call “revenge porn”. Probably the best example of this are those Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books. 50% women being tortured, beaten up, suffering and then 50% some man running through and saving them. The only difference here in Tomb Raider is that you, the player, are this man. Am I wrong? I might be wrong. But holy hell this trailer disturbs me. She gets caught in the river and bounces off rocks screaming the whole time. Then she gets bounced around in the plane. Then her chute goes off and she starts bouncing into trees and crap. As far as I can tell none of this has any actual gameplay relevance. There’s no health or anything, no chance of failure. You can just steer her into trees if you want. Weird, weird. The game itself doesn’t look any fun at all (quicktime events still? Seriously?) but I think arguing about it online will be. Seriously I think it was better when she was just a sex object instead of this weird conflation of female empowerment with just suffering a lot. Next we have some games I’ve never heard of and don’t look any good. Then Resident Evil 6 and I don’t care but I guess it looks good? Then Kinect Angry Birds, this may have actually been worse than when they weren’t showing games at all. South Park RPG game of the conference, I think, it at least will likely be funny and have fun gameplay. Plus they made fun of Michaelsoft so that’s funny. Then Usher? Seriously? Lol what? This goes on for like four minutes. Then CAWWA DOOTY for like 10 minutes, I stopped watching halfway through.

+Halo 4 will probably be pretty solid if not great

+RE6, new Gears, Splinter Cell, Forza are probably decent too but I have no interest in them

+I might actually play that South Park game

-Everything was shooting or sports or mad casual

-Or NOT EVEN GAMES AT ALL

My Rating: D

Rating for people who like shooting or sports: C+

Rating for people who want to watch sports on their tablet and then on their TV: A-

EA

Basically more shooting and stuff. The stuff about DLC way of the future is pretty funny since everyone hates it. Dead Space 3 I don’t care about and I think they showed them fighting the big drill monster for way too long but I guess fans of the series will be excited. Then footballs okay whatever. SIM CITY FINALLY SOMETHING I WOULD PLAY. Battlefield 3 premium is hilarious yo, that’s just sad. SWTOR, I thought that ship was like unsalvageable and I don’t really care what they’re even trying at this point. Medal of Honor Warfighter I swear is like the single least interesting game I have ever heard of. More sports, don’t care. Cars, don’t care. Crysis 3, don’t care.

+Sim City!

+They had a decent number of games I guess, very little non-games at least

-They were all shooting stuff

My Rating: D

Rating for people who like shooting or sports: B+

Ubisoft

Ubisoft kicked it off with an exciting game where you shoot things and followed that right up with several other games where you shoot things. Far Cry and Splinter Cell both seem really stupid and I can’t even imagine what they could do to interest me. Ubisoft’s hosts were obnoxious but not in a really over the top trainwrecky way that I’ve come to expect from them, and this is really somehow more obnoxious. This Avengers game looks fun enough but I don’t really have much interest. Rayman Legends looks fun, probably the game I am most likely to actually play here. ZombiU I have no interest in but I want it to be successful I guess. This trailer is like hilarious though no way it is serious right? If this remained really tongue in cheek at least it’d be interesting. Assassin’s Creed I have gone from being wholly disinterested in to like actively disliking and I don’t know how. But I definitely hate this game. And it went on forever, I swear. Then there’s all this ESPORTS stuff which was pretty funny, but this game could actually be a lot of fun if it was done well. It’s supposed to be like Quake sorta, right? In terms of speed? I guess we’ll see. Okay and then there’s this Watch Dogs thing. I don’t get it. Big conspiracy theory intro thing I don’t care this means nothing. I see nothing really cool or interesting here. What is the actual game? OH WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT, WANDERING AROUND AND SHOOTING. I bet you TAKE COVER, YUP. It all seems pretty slick I guess. This was one of the big three games, this, Beyond: Two Souls and The Last of Us. Honestly this one seems the least interesting. I honestly don’t see what people are expecting to see happen in this game. GTA with telekinesis and hackan I think is like the best possible case, maybe with a good story too. But uh I still wouldn’t really care so much. I dunno. And it seems really obvious to me that it’ll be a hundred times worse than that best case scenario. It just doesn’t look fun at all. I don’t feel cynical or anything I just think there must be some huge disconnect in what I consider a game and what other people seem to. Cause this just looks dull as all hell yo. All the actual gameplay seems to be wandering around. Then you talk to people a bit. Then like, press X to crash cars. Then OH MY GOD – COVER BASED SHOOTING!

+Rayman Legends looks fun

+Other stuff looks solid

+There is technically a chance that Watch Dogs could be “revolutionary”

-They only showed two games that I would say I could think of as having gameplay in the way that I want it. Maybe three.

-I don’t think I want to play video games any more really I don’t know what I want but few companies seem to be making it

My Rating: D+

Rating for people who want to shoot things: A-

Rating for people totally in love with Watch Dogs somehow: A

Sony

Of course they start it with some crazy video, that is pretty exciting at least. First game is the second of the big hype trio, Beyond: Two Souls. Weird name. Uh I don’t really know what this is going to be but I’m guessing it’ll play like Heavy Rain and I doubt I’ll ever touch it. Also I kept forgetting if this or The Last of Us was supposed to be the one with Ellen Page, but I guess it’s this one. The only way I’d be interested in this is if it had a really cool plot but I don’t even know what that could be. So bun. I think it looks good, though, like, if you like that sort of thing. Then uh Sony Smash Bros with actual Justice, I kept making jokes that a lot of the other generic tracks sounded like Justice. Anyways this game looks stupid, I really feel like I shouldn’t say that yet but I can’t help it, this just seems way too stupid. I’ll be really happy if I’m wrong. Buncha stuff I don’t care about, brief mention of the Vita, they really neglected that I think. Once again I find myself confusingly enraged about Assassin’s Creed. I wasn’t really paying attention and I thought this pirate game they showed next was some new game about pirates, but NOPE. Then more shooting, I already saw this one. Then uh a magical book thing. Then God of War, whatever. Okay and then this The Last of Us game. This is probably the most impressive game I saw honestly. It was still just walking around and shooting but it actually seems like... interesting! Everything seems actually gritty, actually intense! Well done! Of course I am not likely to ever play this cause it’s still just walking around and shooting but I think if there’s gonna be a masterpiece type game in this genre I’d want it to be something like this. I actually am curious about gameplay elements, the story, the characters! How bizarre! If only it looked, y’know, fun.

+The Last of Us and Beyond seem like they’d be high tier games

+God of War and AssCreed are probably want their fans want them to be

-Everything else is boring

My Rating: D

Rating for people who liked Uncharted or shooting or Heavy Rain or whatever: A-

Nintendo

PIKMIN 3! It looks FANTASTIC. NEW SUPER MARIO BROS U and NEW SUPER MARIO BROS 2 I am both incredibly likely to play and have fun with. PAPER MARIO STICKER STAR or whatever and LUIGI’S MANSION 2 are also REALLY HYPE. GAME AND WARIO, YO! Scribblenauts and Lego City have potential. The Nintendo Land segment went on way longer than I thought it would. There was also no new Smash Bros, Zelda, Kirby, F-Zero, Metroid or 3D Mario. I expected at least one of those but oh well. NSMBU looks great man. I love that squirrel suit, dat Van Gogh impressionist level, etc.

+PIKMIN, 3 NEW MARIOS, LUIGI’S MANSION 2, GAME & WARIO

+Some decent looking 3^rd party stuff

-Pretty much nothing else

My Rating: A-

Rating for people who aren’t autohype for Mario games: D

So I guess that’s it for E3

Or at least that’s all the work I’m willing on putting in. I guess Nintendo’s doing some other 3DS thing later so we’ll see how that goes. And of course there will be random games here and there but I’m not expecting to be wowed at this point.

Was this the worst E3 of all time?

Absolutely.

Why?

I dunno, we’re stuck right now in a bit of a quagmire of gaming, I think everybody knows what’s wrong. It’s the commitment problem, right? It just costs too much to make games, people can’t risk going outside the proven formulas. The three blockbuster games being toted as innovative were Watch Dogs and The Last of Us and those really are still just repackagings of traditional shooter mechanics. Which by the way just do not even interest me even remotely at all whatsoever anymore, I swear FPSes have been consistently popular since Halo, WHEN will it END.

Also this big drive to repurpose dying consoles as some sort of entertainment HQ is lame as all hell.

This has been the trend for quite awhile now but this year was especially bad because it was a Nintendo off-year on a lot of their franchises and of every other game I saw Sim City is the only one I could imagine myself playing.

Most Impressive Games I Saw

1. The Last of Us – mainly because they actually made violence seem somewhat meaningful in a video game

2. Sim City – this game looks sweet. Gorgeous visuals and some promising online play.

3. Pikmin 3 – there’s basically no way this game won’t be good.

4. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – this game looks sick bro I can’t wait to be a sword guy

5. South Park RPG – This could be fun yo they certainly have the look down pat

Games I am likely to actually play

1. Pikmin 3

2. Sim City – unless DRM is a hassle

3. New Super Mario Bros. U

4. New Super Mario Bros. 2

5. Paper Mario: Sticker Star

6. Luigi’s Mansion 2

7. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

I can’t really imagine myself having any fun playing pretty much anything else.