The General Pooter Games Thread.

[Learn2Eel]

I think Nintendo had the most announcements that I had some interest in. Not necessarily the ones I'm most excited about individually, but certainly as an entire thing.

I'm really surprised that so many people (elsewhere) say the Nintendo conference was their biggest disappointment of E3 (besides EA perhaps), I thought it was at worst a solid showing. I mean, it might be because everyone's expectations were raised after the holy triumvirate display Sony pulled off, but still...

In other news, Shenmue 3 reached its $2 million Kickstarter goal in exactly 8 hours and 33 minutes (they had 31 days to reach the goal). Sony confirmed it is fronting the rest of the budget; obviously, the Kickstarter was done just so Sony and the development team could make certain the interest was there.

Having seen pretty much everything now - there might be a surprise at the PC show but I rather doubt anything will top what we've seen already - I think I'm confident in saying that my game of the show is Horizon: Zero Dawn.









We've always known Guerilla are techno-masters surpassed only by Naughty Dog and possibly Crytek on consoles, but for actual unique ideas and gameplay they've never really made any head-lines quite like they have with Horizon. It stars a female protagonist, it is an open-world third person Action Adventure game, the gameplay mechanics are highly reminiscent of Monster Hunter or even Dragon's Dogma, the visuals and art direction are stunning and the story actually sounds pretty darned interesting. I'm pleased to see that so many people in the gaming press and on forums aren't ignoring this game in favour of the "Big Three" of the Sony conference; it is earning a lot of high praise and mentions as the possible Overall Game of Show. For a studio that has been seen as "Bungie-lite" for a decade now, breaking the generic FPS mold and starting anew with such a cool idea really is inspiring; we know Guerilla have the talent, but can they pull something like this off?

[Psychosplodge]

Probably Half-Life 3

[Learn2Eel]

Probably Half-Life 3

People already think this is the best E3 ever (and that the Sony conference was the best E3 conference ever)....surely not....if Half Life 3 appears.....*shudders*

[Psychosplodge]

You're ok everyone knows Valve can't count to 3.

Though in seriousness I think I recall a few places speculating on L4D3 a couple of months ago so maybe that?

[Mr Mystery]

Interesting.

Nintendo and Activision have agreed a deal which will allow Amiibo figures to be used in Skylanders. First two are Donkey Kong and Bowser.

[eldargal]

EA had ME4 and Star Wars Battlefront both of which look amaze so not sure why people are so disappointed beyond the standard 'hate everything EA does' thing.

Horizon is impressive though, and also good to see a major company starting a brand new high profile IP with a woman protagonist. Sad its PS4 exclusive, though I think we have one. But boo having to leave my room to play games.

[Charon]

Probably because the ME franchise suffered from ME3 which was really disappointing. While the Story was good as always (if you ignore the stupid endings and the gigantic plotholes it leaves behind) the gameplay was extremely boring. It was basically running up and down the Citadel interrupted by very few and short missions (sometimes what? 10 minutes of real gameplay before you had to run into every section of the station again to not miss a mission?)
My wife was furious... don't think she will bother with ME4 and neither will I.

Battlefront suffers from not beeing Battlefront 2. I guess most people expected BF2 with better graphics and more options. And we know as it is EA we will have a good chuck of DCL if we want more than a handful maps and different game modes.

[Erik Setzer]

Well, people mostly credit Bioware with the ME series (because they produced it, whereas EA were the distributors). I do think ME3 (and DA2) had issues with being rushed to market, but my only problem with ME3 was the ending. They at least tried to improve it, but some things were never explained in-game (i.e. why the AI took that form... it's entirely reasonable to assume it could pluck "thoughts" from Shepard's mind and chose that form from there, but they never say that, or anything else).

EA has earned a bad rep, sadly. Too many big recent releases were plagued with issues. DA2, ME3, Battlefield 4, SimCity, SWTOR... And there's the whole thing with their sports franchises, where Madden NFL might be the worst. They release a new game every year, and often the "new" feature(s) will be something they removed from an earlier version. Add in Day 1 DLC, over the top monetizing plans, all that, and EA has put itself in the position it's in. Hopefully they'll learn and get better, but it seems they're slow to apply lessons. ME:A's a good chance to show they've learned not to rush a game to market.

[Learn2Eel]

EA had ME4 and Star Wars Battlefront both of which look amaze so not sure why people are so disappointed beyond the standard 'hate everything EA does' thing.

Horizon is impressive though, and also good to see a major company starting a brand new high profile IP with a woman protagonist. Sad its PS4 exclusive, though I think we have one. But boo having to leave my room to play games.

The reason people were unimpressed with the EA conference is that they started with a bang (Mass Effect: Andromeda) and ended with a bang (Star Wars: Battlefront), but the rest of their show was generally lackluster or just boring. Unravel was great but aside from those three games, the rest of their show was just forgettable, at least in comparison to the rest of the major conferences that all generally had a good overall roster without any lulls or dips.

As far as EA's bad reputation is concerned, let's not forget their insidious Dungeon Keeper reboot that was pretty much a horrendously ill-disguised attempt at extortion from fans of a classic franchise. It's for stuff like that which has seen them labeled America's worst company several times in the past decade, though I agree with the consensus (and their assertion, amusingly) that they have gotten better in the past year or two. Still, their deep history of resurrecting or continuing franchises only to extort a profit out of them then ultimately kill them won't easily be forgotten any-time soon.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I really liked Mass Effect 3. Andromeda has me pretty excited.

At the moment, though, I'm so ****ing excited for MGSV: The Phantom Pain. Early previews are sounding phenomenally good.

I'm also unsure about the FFVII remake. So much of the charm of the game (which I'm currently replaying) is in the cute sprites and their funny animations. I'm also unsure how well that game's wild tonal fluctuations will translate to a more modern, realistic depiction. I mean, you climb on a jumping dolphin to get up a tower. Hojo suns himself on a beach surrounded with bikini-clad women immediately following one of the early game's darker portions. Cait Sith.