E3 2013

It's A Thing. Respect The Thing.

E3 2013 happened this week as you may have gathered from my last post. I hope you listened to the  BritCast I shared there featuring David and Luke with me as guest, with predictions and a bit of silly banter.
There will be a follow up.

So I watched about 90% (I needed a few breaks) of the entire livestream Gametrailers had, supplemented by Gamespot links provided by E3's official Twitter, as the livestream got very blurry at times and I wanted to see what the games looked like. I watched most of the press conferences on the E3 provided links. I also watched the Nintendo Direct, Day 2,which was fine for the most part but got a bit skippy hoppy.

Overall a great E3 coverage with tons of great stuff that I'm very keen on.

Day 1

Before the MicroSoft presser Lego Marvel Super Heroes was announced along with Rare's new title Kinect Sports Rivals. Lego really does all the geek franchises, which is fine as those games can be a lot of silly fun. Rare's game.. Yeah.. The company that once was a power house, with legendary titles such as Golden Eye 007, now just making basically mini games collections. Sad.

MicroSoft

The conference kicks off with Metal gear Solid V The Phantom Pain and Hideo Kojima, that looked awesome (non-exclusive title). Followed by Xbox Live talk. Now we'll get two free games each month with our Gold memberships. Not specified if Europe and US will get the same offer.
Next up World of Tank 360 Edition, Free to play exclusive to 360, followed by Max And The Curse Of Brotherhood from Press Play( XBLA exclusive) and Dark Souls II from Namco Bandai (360, PS3 and PC).
MicroSoft Studios segment (all exclusive) with Ryse Son of Rome from Crytek, Killer Instinct by Double Helix, F2P with one character, the rest you much buy.
Sunset Overdrive by Insomniac Games a loony cartoony shooter with energy drinks? as ammo. 
A bit of car porn courtesy of Forza 5 by Turn 10 Studios a solid racer, now with Drive-atar.
Remedy brought Quantum Break, Xbox One exclusive, I have no idea what it is yet. Looks tasty though.

Xbox One will feature the Twitch streaming service for game streaming and MS points is gone to be replaced by real currency pricing.

Crimson Dragon by Grounding, Inc.Land Ho! Co. Ltd a Kinect on rail shooter (fail on audio missing in stream).
Dead Rising 3 the zombie apocalypse exclusive to Xbox One, that seem to have lost it's humor from it predecessors.

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt by CD Project Red, will also be on PC, looks awesome!
Titanfall from Respawn Entertainment, also on PC, looks like tons of fun, FPS, Jet packs and Mechs.
Battlefield 4 (a false start) by Dice, Xbox One, PS4, PC. looks cool but kinda standard.

Indie titles such as Minecraft and Below was also present.

MS confirmed always on, check in ever 24 hours, game DRM to be determinded by publishers but the messaging was still unclear exactly what they really mean.

And Halo 5 was teased.

And Don Mattick response (in a interview post presser with Geoff Keighley of GT) to people not able to be online all the time "get a 360" (Smooth.. Not).

Price: 499$/499€/429£

Overall a good presentation with good titles ovarall. Though some of the "killer apps" aren't even truly exclusive.(to me a true exclusive is only on one platform i.e not PC as well)
I give them a B-


In between MS and EA we were presented with Saint's Row IV from Volition Inc. Same loony style, Now you're the US president powered by super powers brought by aliens. *Teal'c eyebrow*
Looks like good silly fun.
Thief from Eido Montréal a reboot of the orignal game series by Looking Glass Studios/Ion Storm. Looks alright I guess, a bit generic sneaky sneaky.

EA

Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare from Pop Cap a Team Fortress like thing based on the Plants vs Zombies games, looked like fun. And Peggle 2 (how is that going to be improved?) announced with a jump.

Titanfall out on stage. Still keen.

Dice Frostbite with Star Wars Battlefront teased and Battlefront 4.. Looks fun.
Dragon Age Inquisition by Bioware is a thing.

Need For Speed Rivals, which looks to merge single player with multi player seamlessly, a variant on the Most Wanted theme.

Sports the usual NFL, NBA Live, FIFA, NHL and new comer UFC which was introduced by Bruce Buffer in his classic style, with Dana White, Benson Henderson, Jon Jones and the EA Sports guy. All games built on the Ignite engine. Personally I, as a UFC/MMA fan, am curious about how the UFC game turns out, not sold yet.

Mirror's Edge 2 was announced, this time free roaming. Cool.

Overall a good presentation but badly paced. a C+.

Ubisoft

Aisha Tyler is the host again, yes! I like her!

Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Cahins comes out, he's demo'ing Rocksmith. Cool enough.
Splinter Cell Blacklist with a confusing trailer, out this august.
Rayman Legends re-announced from last year this time not a Wii U title only.

We got to see Assassin's Creed IV Blag Flag, Watch Dogs, Just Dance 2014 South Park the Stick of Truth and The mighty Quest For Epic Loot, the latter a F2P Hack and Slash, Trials Fusion and Frontier, one for iOS and one for consoles. And Rabbids interactive TV thing in cooperation with Nikelodeon.

New cool IPs are The Crew a car based mission based multi/single player game, looked like a cool game. As someone who has a background in the car mechanic/shop business the car assembly bit was very nice.
The Division looks so cool, that one I really want to get my hands on.

Overall a solid B

Part 2 comes later. come back for more.