E3 2012 Created 12 years ago2012-06-03 17:29:06 UTC by Penguinboy

That's right, I'm back and I'm posting about this crap again!The Electronic Entertainment Expo, known as E3, is an event that happens every year in Los Angeles. It's usually where the big three (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) announce new games, hardware, consoles, and really pretty much everything to do with games. Ubisoft and EA also make appearances, but interestingly enough, Activision do not (though they usually manage to get a Call of Duty trailer in there anyway).

The big news is always announced at the keynotes held by the big 3 before the conference. The first of these happens in 22 hours from the time of posting, which is Microsoft's keynote. From there we see EA, Ubisoft, and Sony in quick succession, and Nintendo closes the keynotes the next day.

Most people are expecting the most exciting news to come from Nintendo this year, because they have their Wii U console coming out at the end of the year, but we still don't have release dates, retail prices, or a launch lineup of games. I'd expect all of these to be announced.

I don't really see Microsoft or Sony announcing their next-gen consoles this year, I think they'll just push software for their Kinect and Move hardware and leave the big stuff until next year.

As always, I'll write up a post after each one of the keynotes, so you don't even have to leave the comfort of TWHL to get your news! Of course, it's much more fun to watch them live, as I will be doing! (I'm not actually there, I'm going to be watching it streamed online. Check out your favourite gaming website to see if you can get streams too!)

So, I open the floor to the good folks of TWHL to discuss E3 and all that comes with it. Make predictions, discuss trailers, talk about upcoming games, and so on and so forth.

Myself and our good friend Ant have posted our predictions for this year on our website, invert-x. Check it out!

And, as always, the final word that will be ignored anyway: Valve have already announced that they're not showing anything new at E3 this year, but instead focusing on (I assume) CS:GO and DOTA2. But don't let that stop you from predicting that they'll announce Ricochet 2!

Penguinboy's E3 coverage > most gaming news sites.

I really think everyone should buy a pc and destroy any thing that plugs into a TV and lets you play games w/o mouse and keyboard.

Although I was never interested in E3 apart maybe from valve showing something.

Do Valve even have a booth? If they do it'll just be CSGO and Dota2

I remember watching Spoony Experiment's visit to E3 2010. He had a great time.

Well, we just had Microsoft's E3 keynote. My notes are below.

• There was a lengthy Halo 4 trailer which looked pretty good
• A new splinter cell game called "Blacklist". Fans of older splinter cell games will probably hate it, fans of conviction will probably love it.
• Some crap about sports that nobody cares about.
• A Fable: The Journey trailer, this one is an on-rails kinect shooter that was announced last year. Nothing very exciting.
• A new Gears of War game, "Judgement". This is a prequel, set 14 years before the first game.
• A new Forza game, looks to be set to compete with Need For Speed and other less hardcore racing games.
• A whole bunch of crap about Bing and Kinect menu voice control.
• Xbox music, nothing very exciting.
• Kinect FITNESS GAMES!!!!
• A new tech called "SmartGlass", meant to get devices to interact with each other. Target platforms are WinPhone8, Xbox, iOS, and Android devices.
• A really cool-looking demo of the Tomb Raider reboot. Looks like uncharted, basically.
• Three new titles: "Ascend: New Gods", looked crap. "LocoCycle", zero details provided. "Matter", no details and was a Kinect-only game.
• Capcom showed a Resident Evil 6 gameplay demo. Looked okay, but even more action-oriented than previous games.
• A Kinect-based Angry Birds clone called wreckateer.
• A South Park game that looked like South Park (I really hate South Park)
• DANCE CENTRAL THREE!!!!!! This was by far the worst part: USHER performed live on stage. It was completely unrelated to games and it sucked. Usher sucks, Microsoft sucks, Kinect sucks, Dancing games suck. Everything sucks!
• Finally CODBLOPS2 got a really long gameplay demo. The last bit showed the player flying a fighter jet. Are they trying to compete with Battlefield?

Anyway, that's everything from Microsoft. All in all, a pretty bad keynote, but better than last year. That's not saying much, though.

EA is next up in 1.5 hours, stay tuned!

BONUS NEWS: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive got a release date of August 21, and will cost $15.

Wow super excites that go is only 15 bucks, many more people will be able to get it rigt away!

- Finally CODBLOPS2 got a really long gameplay demo. The last bit showed the player flying a fighter jet. Are they trying to compete with Battlefield?

I don't see why they bother. MW3 proved that the masses will still buy CoD games at insane prices despite the series not evolving since CoD2 and despite Battlefield being clearly the far better game. They could just make BLOPS2 identical to the first one and it will still make them richer than Saudi oil tycoons.

Treyarch has always seemed to be the CoD developer to make something new. While I probably would buy Black Ops 2 if it were more of the same I feel it would be the last of my CoD purchases if that were the case. I don't know how long other fans would continue to buy the same thing and I assume Treyarch thought the same. I feel that the series needs a change or else it will die out within the next few years.

EA just finished their keynote, they showed ten games. No new game announcements, but plenty of new footage and a billion DLC's and sports game partnerships!

• Dead Space 3. Very action-y, doesn't look like a classic Dead Space game at all. Will have co-op and cover shooting.
• Madden (sports...sigh)
• Sim City for Facebook (sigh) and a real version for the PC
• Battlefield 3 and 5x$10 DLC's
• The Old Republic updates (MMOs...sigh)
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Looks like a less scripted version of BF3's campaign.
• EA Sports crap (SIGH)
• UFC (seriously??)
• Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Looked pretty cool.
• Crysis 3. I'm so very much over that series.

Ubisoft is 45 minutes away!

Definitely better than Microsoft's keynote. Too many bloody sports games though!

Sick of seeing loved games devolve into samey cover shooters. Dead Space 3, Resident Evil 6 and Splinter Cell Blacklist are joining the ranks of about 20 other games in the last few years that look and play alike.

Tomb Raider was probably the most interesting display so far, even if it has some predictable QTE's and controlled scriptiness. I'm cautiously optimistic about it.

EA games just love to cash in huh? I mean, I love BF3 and I imagine I will own all the DLCs at some point or another to avoid getting booted off of servers when the map changes.

Anyway, awesome to see this thread again Pb.

Watch Dogs has potential, but the combat looks horrific.

Edit:

These presenters between keynotes on the youtube live feed are literally the worst people I have ever seen. What a fucking horrible representation of a gamer girl and a gamer guy. What's particularly painful is that he still has this glimmer of hope in his eye that he might fuck her after the show because he's the only person in the world who hasn't immediately clocked that she's a massive dyke.

Presenting skills of a year-old mushroom soup.

Want to know the recipe for a tasteless presentation? Start with a Flo Rida performance and slutty dancers, then move onto Far Cry 3's boobs, blood and FUCK FUCK FUCKS, then sprinkle it with hosts who love making boner jokes. That's exactly what Ubisoft did.

It got a lot stronger near the end, when they showed a refreshing looking Assassin's Creed III and the very impressive hacker/multiplayer game called Watch Dogs, but otherwise they totally dropped the ball, shat on it, and tried serving it to the audience as a gourmet meal.

Watch Dogs has potential, but the combat looks horrific.

What exactly looked bad about the combat? I'm not sure how much of it was scripted, and I really hope it doesn't rely on QTE's, but the shooty stuff looked fine to me.

I'm not sure how much of it was scripted

I'm guessing a lot. No way that shit could be dynamic, especially the pileup containing the mark. Either the pileup is scripted as soon as you hack the lights, or if you don't hack them in time you fail the mission.

I'm guessing a lot. No way that shit could be dynamic, especially the pileup containing the mark. Either the pileup is scripted as soon as you hack the lights, or if you don't hack them in time you fail the mission.

Yeah I do wonder about that bit, but there were a lot of other prompts popping up throughout the gameplay that make me think you can forge your own path and have the mission playout a lot differently.

Watch Dogs looked really cool, I encourage everybody to check out the gameplay demonstration as it's something completely unexpected coming out of Ubisoft. The combat didn't look too bad to me, just your standard third person shooter fare. I'd imagine there wouldn't be a focus on combat, anyway.

The rest of the Ubisoft keynote is as follows:

• DANCING!!! Ubisoft open poorly with a rapper called "Flo Rida" and dancing people. Just really, really bad.
• Far Cry 3. Looked like the most tastless pile of shit I've ever seen. 12 year olds will love this, everyone else will think it's just immature.
• More Splinter Cell: Blacklist gameplay demos.
• A movie game for the Avengers (sigh, movie games)
• A Wii U zombie game called.... wait for it.... ZOMBI U. Yes, they're serious. The trailer was essentially a clone of Dead Island's trailer in terms of style, and we all know how that turned out...
• A gameplay demo of Rayman Legends. 5-player co-op, and finished with a rhythm style game that actually looked really damn cool.
• Assassin's Creed 3 gameplay demo, looked pretty neat.
• Stuff on "shootmania", a shooter with a focus on e-sports. Looks like it'll flop massively.
• And finally, Watch Dogs, see above. This looks to be a pretty interesting unique new IP from Ubisoft, didn't see it coming at all.

Overall, a very tasteless presentation. The hosts were tools, there were loads of stupid and awkward sex jokes, lots of discrimination, stereotypes, pointless blood, nudity, sex, language, and violence that don't agree with my outlook on the future of games. Nevertheless, Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed are two games to look out for. Far Cry 3 looks to be one to be avoided at all costs.

Sony is in 1.5 hours. This one will be REALLY interesting. Stay tuned!

How could Ubisoft ruin all of their "Tom Clancy's" branded games?
Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell, they were all great back in the days. Somewhat realistic, and loads of tactics. Now they are all just console based action games adapted for 13 year olds.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory is still in my opinion the best stealth action game ever made. A good mix of realism and action without overdoing either of them. After Chaos Theory Sam Fisher went from James Bond to fucking superman with a gun. It's just silly.

Now they are all just console based action games adapted for 13 year olds.

It's a shame, really. I'm probably the only 12-year-old in existence to be a fan of Wolfenstein 3D, Half-Life, and the only to refuse to touch a copy of Call of Duty.

Oranges are fucking shit. Only fucking retards could possibly like the taste of orange. Apples taste so much better.

@Collapse: I'm assuming that was aimed at me.
My point is they got rid of their entire original fan base. They had a working concept and took a shit on it. Some people like that, fair enough.

It's all my opinion of course, but you can't say that they didn't take a turn for the sake of gaining a younger audience. It's all about the money I guess.

Completely agree, Madcow. Chaos Theory was brilliant, and they should have built on that. Instead we got a clunky sequel, and then an abandonment of everything that made the games unique and challenging.

They also seem to be forgetting the fact that Sam is now well into his 50s, but has somehow become younger looking and superhumanly agile.

This harry potter shit is fucking shit.

I think it's rather interesting.

A game without excessive swearing, gore, and violence.

It looks like a DVD bonus feature in terms of graphics and how you interact with it.

My point is they got rid of their entire original fan base.

That is only a bad thing to you. Many people didn't like the original Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six series' before Ubisoft took them in into a new direction. You may not like that new direction, but that is your opinion. I don't like RPG games but I don't say they suck, I just don't play them.

You guys bitch about the COD series just simply for having very little variation and then in the same sentence bitch about how another series was 'ruined' by variation. It's senseless.

I loved Splinter Cell Conviction.

New God of War 3 looks like one long, unskippable scripted sequence. The player had literally 0 impact on any aspect of it.

Last of Us looks pretty good. Very nice interaction, AI and graphics, but again so much was scripted.

You guys bitch about the COD series just simply for having very little variation and then in the same sentence bitch about how another series was 'ruined' by variation. It's senseless.

What variation are you talking about? Cover mechanics, regen and cinematic cutscene takedowns like you can get in every third person shooter these days? That variation?

These games used to fill their own niche markets, now they're all homogenised clones of existing games.

Back on topic:
God of War Ascension: meh. Last of Us: kind of interested. I'm quite over the Uncharted games now, they've gone as far as they can. The item management stuff looks great, but the scripted fights are becoming a real turnoff.

Variation from the original gameplay, Strider.

The original series added more and more variation, the new ones removed it. It's completely on point.

No, it's not. The point is it's different from the previous games, taking the series in a different direction then before. Relative variation, not absolute.

Right, well Sony's keynote is done, and it had its ups and downs as mentioned above. Full notes:

• First game to show is Quantic Dream's "Beyond". The cutscene that was shown was very simple, with little in the way of action. It was quite heavy on the cinematic elements, though. Anyway, it's Quantic Dream and you know that it's going to be good when it comes from those guys.
• They continued with their Smash Bros. clone, PlayStation AllStars. It's Smash Bros., minus the awesome characters. Pass on this one.
• New Vita games: Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed.
• More on Far Cry 3, it will have 4 player co-op. Still looks lame.
• A really long demo on a ARG book thing and a Harry Potter thing. It's for kids, and it shows. Nothing to be interested in.
• A loooooooong gameplay demo on the new God of War game. It's more of the same GOW, so that's great if you like that kind of thing.
• A demo for The Last of Us, it looks really cool. It's a shower-paced game with limited resources and item management. I know I'll be buying this right away, Naughty Dog have always done a great job.

And we're done for today! Nintendo is about 13 hours away, when they'll announce a whole bunch of Wii U games. This is the one I'm waiting for! Until then, I'm going to get some sleep.

Also, Collapse, stop being such a dick. Thanks.

No, it's not. The point is it's different from the previous games, taking the series in a different direction then before. Relative variation, not absolute.

But what you're calling variation isn't variation at all. You want to say it's relative, but the very changes it's making shift it closer to the absolute. The norm, what every other popular third person game is already doing.

If there's one thing modern gaming proves it's that those games, when made well, will sell. There's no reason to drag an existing and loved IP through the mud to sell them.

Well, think about it for a second: A game wasn't considered a clone and the next game just becomes 'another clone cod' game, right?
That is variation. It has changed, no matter if it's changed to a clone or something really unique it's still a change. That is my point.

I get your point about absolute variation, and I agree the games are definitely going the casual route, but that's beyond my point. I'm saying that taking the games entirely out of context, with no comparisons to other games, you can't argue that cod is bad soley because it didn't change from one game to the next, then complain that Tom Clancy games are ruined because they changed from one game to the next.

Variation implies diversity, does it not? When I hear the word variation, I don't think 'more of the same'.

Ending a unique <anything> in favour of making it more like something we already have plenty of is simply not variation.

And on the CoD point, the main problem people have is there is no innovation between the titles. If anything they continue to remove more and more freedom, and force you down tight, linear paths. The original Splinter Cell series expanded it's gameplay as it progressed, until it came crashing down.

Now, I've been up all night streaming E3, it's 11am here. I'm going to bed.

It's only 'more of the same' if you compare a game outside of it's specific series.
Again, if one game is casual [SCC] and another game is hardcore [SC1], then that is diversity. Two different games. Ah fuck it we're dragging this thread to hell.

Oh valve, they resisted to put hats in GO how unexpected.
Anyway seems like each E3 the games we see degrade in quality.

So just reading through this now, ignoring everyones boring wash/rinse/repeat discussion I've heard a thousand times and just reading E3 stuff.

I started out as 'Ok, Microsoft suck balls anyway, moving on.'

Then EA and Ubisoft made me very sad.

Then when Sony started I perked up, 'Yay, Sony!' but then was let down again but not so much.

Nintendo I no longer care about, they lost my interest with the Wii.

Not bad so far. Last of Us and Watch Dogs really stood out to me as stunning games. Makes me sad I'm working with Source again XD

What I really want to see, the real winner, is a hint at the next consoles.

Oh and that Star Wars game...1313. It was running on some form of the new Unreal engine and I finally see the hype. I didn't think much of UE4 when they said particles would be increased and stuff like that but seeing it used in that gameplay vid blew my mind. Particles are brilliant.

As someone who bought a Vita at launch, I was very very disappointed with Sony.

Seriously, Sony Smash Brothers port and Assassins Creed 3? Only show a logo for CoD? Absolutely nothing new announced?

This is bullshit, they must be struggling to get developers to make games for the console. In which case the Vita may well have been DOA.

No offense, but the PSP's history should have tipped you off about the Vita's future.

The future of gaming will never lie with the hand held consoles and developers need to get that into their heads.

No offense, but the PSP's history should have tipped you off about the Vita's future.

The future of gaming will never lie with the hand held consoles and developers need to get that into their heads.

I don't give a shit about the future of gaming, I just want something to play on the train tbh!

My experiences thus far with the Vita have been brilliant, which just makes it so much worse that such a great piece of hardware is being neglected like this.

I would've at the very least expected some 1st party games to be announced or shown off.

- Sim City for Facebook (sigh) and a real version for the PC

Oh no... the power of addiction! (we'll see, if it's actually a crap "blabla-farm" type of game, then I won't play it)

- Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Looked pretty cool.

This is some kind of a "reloaded" version, right?

It's a shame, really. I'm probably the only 12-year-old in existence to be a fan of Wolfenstein 3D, Half-Life, and the only to refuse to touch a copy of Call of Duty.

At your age I was enjoying games like Transport Tycoon as well as playing Crysis. I heard a lot of people who continuously talk about gameplay, giving(apparently) zero importance to graphics. And me, as a person who likes diversity, when bringing the point of high quality graphics, I'm probably regarded as that stereotypical guy that plays only FPS games... this is just prejudice.
But I guess in the end it's a matter of taste. What I'm trying to say here is that you shouldn't brag about playing old games, because probably some guy will point to the fact that you have a wooden pc, and it hurts even more if that's true.

Nothing has gained my attention so far. blah.

Nintendo has taken the stage. First up, the Wii U and Pikmin 3... heavy sigh

What are you on about Urby, Pikmin looked fantastic. Unfortunately it was pretty much all downhill from there. It wasn't BAD, but it was pretty uneventful. Notes are as follows:

• Pikmin 3, uses the WiiU screen for tactics and gameplay. Looks nice and is an example of how the controller can be used for new gameplay ideas.
• Reggie shows off the controller for a while, nothing amazing
• New Super Mario Bros. U, more of the same
• Arkham City is being ported to WiiU, as well as Scribbnauts, Darksiders II, Mass Effect 3, and a few more.
• Fitness games, meh
• Singing games, meh
• Some 3DS news: New Super Mario Bros. 2 (they're really flogging that series recently), Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion, all available this year.
• Third party 3DS games: Castlevania, Epic Mickey, Scribblenauts, Kingdom Hearts.
• Some lego game that looked really silly.
• DANCING!!! Ubisoft is at it again with Just Dance 4. More like JUST STOP, PLEASE 4 THE LOVE OF GOD, am I right??
• ZombiU is back again with some pre-rendered "gameplay". It looks actually kinda okay, as long as the actual game plays that way as well. The video gave the impression of being more of a survival game than an action game.
• Something called "Nintendo Land", a series of minigames for the WiiU, basically similar to how Wii Sports did it. Nothing too exciting.

Overall a pretty boring keynote. Aside from Pikmin, no big new announcements. On the other hand, there wasn't anything very bad, either, so they certainly beat out Microsoft and Ubisoft.

The Wii U just looks like another cock extension for the Wii. Pikmin 3 might be ok, but the other ports just sound like the same old story. Existing titles with added gimmicky bullshit.

MARIO, MORE MARIO! THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH MARIO MARIO MARIO