Another E3 has come and gone and after the journalists and analysts have given their summaries and breakdowns, we thought it would be a good idea to give the everyday gamer a chance to offer his or her opinion. It's only fair.
We promised we'd post up the best breakdown as a guest editorial, so here it is. Â This comes from PSXE user Dancemachine55. Â He hits the highlights, mentions his favorites, and is pretty darn accurate. Â It works for us; what do his peers think? Either way, congrats!
Microsoft's conference: C-
- Another Halo
- Another Gears of War
- Another Fable, but for Kinect now
- Another Forza, but more arcadey
- Smartglass: allows phones and tablets to act as a 2nd interface for your 360.
- Internet Explorer for 360
- Nike + Trainer for Kinect
- Another Dance Central (with appearance from Usher)
- 3rd party DLC timed exclusives, including Splinter Cell, South Park and Tomb Raider.
- Only 3 exclusives shown for XBL that aren't Halo, Gears, Fable or Forza.
Only good thing about the MS conference was South Park's Trey and Matt's hilarious mockery of Smartglass!! Nike+ Trainer looks good too. Halo and Gears is all the core gamers have left. Xbox Live titles shrunk to 3 exclusive titles. Pretty pathetic to me.
EA's conference: C
- FIFA and Madden getting their usual roster, online functionality and human movement physics updates.
- SimCity Social on Facebook
- New SimCity
- Dead Space 3, now with co-op
- Need for Speed Most Wanted reboot, open world cop chases!
- Medal of Honor: Warfighter, another military FPS, but with pretty graphics.
- Battlefield 3 Premium online service with discounts for and early access content for paying members.
- Star Wars the Old Republic, new expansion, big updates, F2P up to Level 15.
- Crysis 3, looking amazing!
Dead Space 3 was my most anticipated title, but co-op takes away the fear factor that I loved from the first 2 games. Crysis 3 looks incredible on consoles, but I'm kinda getting tired of military-looking FPS' these days. Have no care for Medal of Honor Warfighter at all. Most Wanted reboot looks like fun. Nothing there that makes me wanna rush out and buy it Day 1, not even Dead Space 3. SimCity Social could well be the Facebook game to finally get my attention!
Ubisoft Conference: B+
- Another Just Dance
- FarCry 3 looks... insane!! Literally!!
- New Splinter Cell, now coming to PS3 as well!! New voice actor for Fisher, which could turn off fans
- Trailer for Marvel's Avengers: Battle for Earth, looks promising but I wish there was gameplay to go with the trailer.
- Rayman Legends on Wii U - a ton of fun!! 5 player co-op anyone?
- ZombiU for WiiU, could be interesting
- Assassin's Creed III - Gameplay looks just as epic and promising as the trailers shown. No doubt this will sell huge!!!
- Shootmania - Ubisoft getting into FPS eSports.
- Watch Dogs - Wow!! Just... WOW!! The concept of playing a hacker and using technology to conquer North America, and the trailer based on a real life blackout in North East America in 2003... Genius!!
For the first time, a software company seems to have dominated E3 this year!! Watch Dogs completely took me by surprise and blew me away!! The idea of playing a hacker seems so refreshing!! Can't wait to see more about this title! And Rayman Legends may well make me buy a Wii U on launch day!! The speed run level to the cranked up guitar solo heavy beat music looked like so much fun!! I was literally laughing to myself and jumping up and down with excitement!! It made me feel like I was 8 again!! FarCry 3 wasn't even on my radar, but after the gameplay they showed, I wouldn't be surprised if it moved to a D1P. Ubisoft, well done!! You officially blew my mind this E3 with your awesome games and refreshingly innovative new style!!
Sony conference: B
- David Cage showed Quantic Dream's new game, Beyond: Two Souls, and it looks amazing!! The story looks incredible too, and academy award nominated actress Ellen Page is the star!!
- Sony gives all E3 attendees free 1 year subscriptions to PS Plus!! Taking a page from MS' book with buying people's support, eh? Not a bad thing you know, it does work!!
- Playstation All Stars Battle Royal demo on-stage.
- Vita update allowing it to be used as a PS3 controller.
- PS1 Classics support coming to Vita this Summer (North America)
- Call of Duty Black Ops Declassified coming to Vita, but no trailer or gameplay shown.
- Assassin's Creed III Liberation coming to Vita, also a new Vita bundle with the game and a 4GB memory card due October.
- Assassin's Creed III sea battle gameplay... Wow!!!
- FarCry 3 multiplayer on-stage demo
- Very long demo of Wonderbook using PS Eye camera and Move to bring books to life! JK Rowling on-board with Book of Spells set in Harry Potter Universe.
- Playstation Suite renamed Playsation Mobile, with HTC making Playstation phone hardware to support it.
- God of War Acension gameplay demo, looks amazing, but too much "more of the same"?
- The Last of Us gameplay demo... TAKE MY MONEY!!!
Sony showed a lot of games this E3, and Vita didn't get as much love as I hoped, there were still a lot of games on show that keeps my PS3 at the number 1 spot for games. Beyond: Two Souls looks amazing!! I've always loved anything by Quantic Dream ever since I played Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy). The Last of Us was the most engrossing, brutally real game I'd seen, and the response from the crowd during the gameplay demo on-stage was amazing!! The Wonderbook demo went for far too long, and I think the time could've been better spent on showcasing more Vita games in action. Vita continues to look promising, but it needs the games first, and perhaps a more than welcome price drop or value bundle. The ACIII Liberation bundle (if correctly priced) could cure the Vita sales drought.
Overall, Sony was solid. Games like Assassin's Creed III, God of War Ascension, Beyond Two Souls and The Last of Us truly wowed us, but there wasn't much else to take us by surprise.
Nintendo conference: B
- Pikmin 3 on Wii U!! Trailer and gameplay demo satisfied the fans.
- Wii U will support 2 WiiU Gamepads!! Good news for fans of local multiplayer!
- Miiverse - a central social hub for you, your games, your friends and other players met online.
- New Super Mario Bros U. A new Mario launch game for the Wii U!!
- Batman Arkham City Armored Edition on Wii U, with new touch and motion controls.
- Scribblenauts Unlimited for WiiU and 3DS.
- Wii Fit U. Same Wii Fit board, new controls, new mini-games.
- New Super Mario Bros 2 for 3DS. "I like Gooolllld!!"
- Paper Mario Sticker Star for 3DS
- Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon for 3DS
- Lego City for Wii U!! Looks like fun for everyone!!
- Yves Guillemot from Ubisfot talks about the possibilities of WiiU.
- Just Dance 4 on Wii U.
- ZombiU gameplay trailer, older core fans will like this one!! Reggie plays around with the Zombie face effect using the Gamepad, wonky, but still cool!
- NintendoLand Virtual Theme Park. Cool concept, but not much there right now. Mini-games based on popular Nintendo franchises, like Luigi's Mansion or E3 2011 demos.
While Nintendo had many games and a new fancy console to show off, I still felt a little underwhelmed. New Super Mario Bros for both Wii U and 3DS seemed to be the highlights, and while they are great games, I just wasn't overly wowed by them, it just felt like more of the same. Pikmin 3 looks fantastic, but never having played Pikmin 1 or 2, I'm not one of the fans ecstatic about it. I was happy to hear Wii U would be supporting 2 gamepads, and backwards compatability with Wii software and hardware is a big plus!! The lack of Metroid, Zelda, Mario Kart U, Kirby and many other great Nintendo franchises was quite evident, and I felt there was far too much talking and not enough gameplay. Nintendo has got my support with WiiU, it is hitting all the right notes, but I'm not excited for it like I thought I would be. A solid conference from Nintendo, but nothing surprising.
Winner: Ubisoft
1. Most surprises
2. Assassin's Creed III looks amazing!!
3. Rayman Legends got me excited, for the first time in ages!!
4. Watch Dogs was a great surprise that just came out of no where!!!
5. FarCry 3 gameplay has almost sold me on it, whereas before I didn't even really care.
If anyone has any comments or would like to add anything about my review of all 5 conferences, would love to hear from the PSXExtreme community. 🙂
Ubisoft won e3, no doubt 🙂
Congrats, Dancemachine!!!!
Thanks BikerSaint!
Ha, well done Dancemachine. I would have mucked that up with a bunch of words.
It's pretty surprising how well you can write when you've got a ridiculous amount of spare time, like I have right now.
Thanks! 🙂
Great breakdown, but I would have rated Nintendo with a C. You cannot show off a 2D game that has already been done on the Wii and act like it's a system seller.
I dunno about you guys, but I look at all those Nintendo games, except for Zombie U, as games that are on the same level as PSN releases. Including Pikmin.
Oh yeah, and then right after show off ANOTHER 2D Mario game for the DS and say it's completely different… WHY?! Because Mario is all about that gold?! That was hilarious. It was the exact same s*it.
Nintendo are giving fans what they want. More Mario! And Pikmin 3!
Sure, they're not doing something huge and completely different, but give it another 2 or 3 years and Mario's 3D killer app for Wii U will amaze! Just give them time. 🙂
Good job! That is pretty much how I would have scored it as well.
I forgot about SimCity, my only issue is that it isn't coming to consoles. I have wanted a good Sim style game for years on the PS3 and have yet to see one. Please if there is one I am unaware of let me know and I will sell my blood to get it;D
I think developers keep forgetting that the PS3 does allow games to be developed to use keyboards and mice for game play.
That and for me I don't even need the keyboard and mouse setup. I am happy with just a controller. This is one of those genres where the industry has been playing it to safe, the closest thing I have seen to a god game is From Dust and that one isn't anywhere near what I want.
I wouldn't even mind if they just did an HD remake of SimCity 2000, sure I still every couple weeks play the original but I wouldn't mind if they polished up to look decent on an HD TV.
Watch_Dogs. Amazingly amazing. Not a GTA game though. People are already crying in fights. GTA is GTA. There is not a single thing like it.
Nice work Dancemachine!! Fantastic breakdown and on point every step of the way!
Thanks guys! And thank you Ben for the honor of having it posted!! 🙂
nice break down of ER, good job DanceMachine
myself, i would've given Nint a C or C-.
if it was'nt for mario, nint would have gone bankrupt along time ago.
Oh wow, Dancemachine! This was a GREAT break down, just how I like it. Short and sweet, to the point, excellent summary. I also like how you, since it's "all about the games" this year with no new hardware, give just as much focus on the software companies as the hardware companies.
All in all, this was a *great* summary.
(It's a weird text formatting though: Different font than the rest of the site, and the same color behind the letters as in the comments field. Am I the only one who sees it like this?)
Last edited by Beamboom on 6/9/2012 5:45:09 AM
Yes, sorry; I had to cut and paste – which I never do for articles – and I couldn't keep the database from adopting this font. Weird.
Aha – then it's probably copied from a rich text source (like an email client or web browser) and the site content tool capture the text formatting (font face, size, color etc) as well as the copied text.
A handy tip is to paste the text into notepad first, then copy the text from notepad to the site publish tool. That will give you clean text.
Last edited by Beamboom on 6/9/2012 11:59:21 AM
I'll remember that, thanks.
And actually, it was copied and pasted from the comment section, where Dancemachine submitted it.
Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 6/9/2012 1:13:27 PM
He forgot to mention Ubisoft managed to show the up front caressing of boobies on reasonably early live television and get away with it. That should score points imo =P.
what, how can you say ninty and $ony had a better conference than EA and M$?
seriously!?
showing nothing but core games gets you less ratings than showing some core games and some zzzzzzzzz games?
sigh, i give up.
sometimes i wonder, i really do……..
What did MS show off that was great? Most of the stuff they showed wasn't exclusive to them. Plus their big show ender was BlopsII. I'll play it but they should have given that space to maybe Gears.
EA really had 2 great things in my opinion. DS3 and MOH. I could care less about sports games or racing games. The BF3 premium is cool but should have been done when the game first came out. I had to give up playing BF3, even though I loved it, because I could barely ever finish a match without losing connection to EA servers.
Great job Dancemachine.
Overall E3 this year did seem a little boring. I did love all the new games though. I think I was just expecting more. Maybe if we would have had more Vita love I would have felt better.
I haven't touched a 360 in a long time but after watching the Halo 4 stuff I may have to steal my kids 360 for a bit. Everything else MS was a joke though. I feel sorry for people that only play on that system. Ya they still get 3rd party stuff but nothing much from MS like Sony does for us.
Sony did impress with Beyond and Last of Us. I'm not that excited about GOW but I'll still play it. Just doesn't look much different from the last 5 games. COD on the Vita is cool but why no footage. With it supposedly coming this November it doesn't make sense. I will be buying AC: III Liberation though. If I didn't have kids I wouldn't care less about the Wonderbook thing. It was a little to long to focus on it but I'll be watching it more for my kids. I also was expecting to see some changes to Plus. Giving us bigger or more games isn't really different from what we get already. I do love my Plus though.
Nintendo has not sold me yet. The Wii U still looks like it'll end up a dust collector after a few months. I'm glad they'll have a regular controller option this time. I want to see some amazing exclusive system sellers. Pikman and Mario won't do it for me and neither do games I played a year ago. Ubisoft even said ZombieU could come to other systems so that doesn't help Nintendo. Not sure if you saw but they said when you use two of the gamepads it'll drop the framerate to 30fps. Not that big of deal to me but some people would throw a fit about that. Hopefully we'll see a release date and price soon.
Awesome coverage, Dancemachine. Next stop: Tokyo Game Show!
Nice DanceMachine.
I rate the conferences by the number of eye rolls I did while watching.
Sony: 1 eye roll
MS: 3-4 eye rolls (usually KINECT related)
Nintendo: 4-5 eye rolls and then I just lost interest so there's no knowing how many totaled up for them.
Games of show:
Lost Planet 3
Halroid (halo 4)
Playstation All Stars Battle Royale
LBP Kart Racing
Star Wars 1313
Dead or Alive 5
Darksiders 2
(just sticking up for games being ignored because of the other games 😉
=p
Last edited by Temjin001 on 6/9/2012 2:27:56 PM
It's cool to stick up for ignored stuff.
Star Wars 1313, what kind of game was that?
Last edited by Beamboom on 6/9/2012 2:46:08 PM
Don't know really, not enough press coverage =p
And gametrailers e3 interview didnt help much. Dude jumps across exploding chasm. The end.
I'm psyched for Darksiders 2! Might get ps all*'s battle royale.
Man Temjin your avatar is just so creepy looking. lol
Awesome write-up Dancemachine :).