E3 2013: The Games
Last week I brought to you a little look at this year’s E3 conferences but today, we get into the meat of the Expo! The video games! I’ll be taking a look at the most surprising, the most exciting and the best of E3. For those of you expecting Steve Garcia’s Movie News today, tough! Tough I tells ya! He’ll be here on Wednesday, though, so don’t you worry!
Murdered: Soul Suspect Murdered Soul Suspect looks to be one of the most interesting mainstream games of 2014. It’s not a cover based or first person shooter, it’s not an average stealth game and it looks like it might require thinking. Oh God, it’s going to fail! Joking aside, the brief gameplay and interesting characters shown at E3 look good enough to help the game succeed, providing it’s as good as it looks. It’s being developed by Square Enix, though, who are responsible for some very cool games (including Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a prequel that turned out better than anybody could have hoped). The game follows a dead detective named Ronan as he tries to solve his own murder. You can’t touch anything that’s not part of the ghost world and when you posess someone, you can’t do much of anything except see what they see. It’s some pretty interesting ideas with a cool look protagonist (he has tattoos and he smokes! The definition of cool!). Evil Within At the head of this project is Shinji Mikami, who is responsible for the Resident Evil franchise. Often considered one the creators (along with the members of Team Silent) of modern survival horror games, horror game fans have been very excited. In this demo, I think it’s safe to say that any worries or doubts have been eased a little. It looks like Mikami is on top form again; ready to recreate the success of Resident Evil 4. But perhaps that’s just optimism. Those involved with development claim that it’ll be a challenging experience, with focus on avoiding enemies due to lack of weaponry over any real action based gameplay. This could be a very good thing, if done right, but there’s the chance it’ll slip into the realm of “this crap’s too hard, I don’t want to play.” Besides a cop visiting an asylum, details of the plot are few but knowing that Mikami is involved is enough to get me interested. Metal Gear Solid 5 Hideo Kojima has directed an Assassin’s Creed game! At least, that’s what Metal Gear Solid 5 looks like. There’s nothing wrong with open world games but there’s a lot of them on the way and the Metal Gear Solid franchise has never needed it before. The world does look good, with real time weather, horse riding and so on, but it’s unnecessary. There’s some real fan disappointment in this game, though. Mostly due to the lack of original Solid Snake voice actor David Hayter, who was replaced by Keifer Sutherland. If you’ve been following gaming news at all, you know this has been very controversial since there’s absolutely no reason for the replacement. Some of us expected Hayter to show up in the trailer, proving the whole thing to be another one of Kojima’s hoaxes. So fans are kind of... conflicted about this one. It doesn’t look like a bad game and Kojima is a good director, but it’s very tainted so it’s going to have to blow people’s minds to help them forget about the controversy. Transistor Transistor is the follow up the incredible Bastion, from Supergiant games. It looks as beautiful and creative as Bastion and it’s nice to see that everyone involved in it is as enthusiastic and devoted to this game. The graphics look like a shinier, more updated version of those in Bastion and the sound, directed by Darren Korb (who we interviewed here on Trash Mutant) looks to be as iconic as in the first one. It doesn’t look like anything’s been revolutionised but it’s a more advanced, better looking game than Bastion and it’s already on my “Oh God, I need this game” list. Batman: Arkham Origins This year’s E3 gave us a lot of games to be excited about but Arkham Origins is one of the best looking games in the bunch. This game features a younger, less experienced Batman (set in “year two” according to developers) as he fights off assassins hired by Black Mask. Not a lot is known about the story besides that, but the plot already sounds better than Arkham City’s. The gameplay will be mostly the same as Arkham City’s, which is what made that game so great, but with additions and tweaks. In the gameplay demo we see that there’s going to be more varied enemies, in depth detective mode, a map that’s twice the size of Arkham city and a few new gadgets, fighting moves and a more complex levelling system. That’s pretty much everything people wanted in the next Batman game, right? It’s good to see Black Mask getting the spotlight here, rather than the Joker. Black Mask is an underrated villain, even in the comic books so to use him for more than just an Easter Egg is a bold move on the developer’s part. We also see Anarky in the E3 gameplay demo! So this new developer clearly wants to explore the lesser known characters in Batman’s world. This is a game to get excited about, people! And forget any worries you had about the replacement of Conroy and Hamill; Roger Craig Smith makes a fantastic young batman and Troy Baker sounds great as a young Joker. Dragon Age 3 This is one of the games shown at E3 that I’m most excited about. Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favourite games and even Dragon Age 2 wasn’t as bad as people will have you believe! But Dragon Age 2 had problems and the fans have been VERY vocal about them. So, I’m hoping that Bioware and EA have taken those complaints to heart and made a game that takes the best from both, to create the ultimate Dragon Age experience! Exciting! We haven’t seen any gameplay footage and the trailer only really features Morrigan and Varrick, two fan favourite characters in the franchise. Besides that, there’s a shot of the Qunari and a giant hole in the sky with creatures from the Fade coming through. But even this short trailer, with not much in the way of plot or any gameplay, is pretty darn exciting. Dying Light It’s surprising how many horror games are coming out in the mainstream markets now. Evil Within, Walking Dead, Dead Rising, Riptide- the list goes on. Granted, a lot of them involve zombies and this is no exception, but this one looks pretty dark cool. We have an open world with night/day cycles and varied enemies. According the developers, the night/cycles are crucial to playing. You’ll have to plan out raids on zombie nest, plan when to rest and when to scavenge and so on. Plus, there’s the addition of parkour to the zombie game genre! Kind of unexpected but not unpleasant. While this doesn’t look like something that’s going to revolutionise the horror genre in video games, it does look like a lot of fun. The Stick of Truth We all love South Park, right? It’s full of thoughtful satire and poo jokes! What more could you possibly want? Well, they made a game. Or, rather, they’re making a game. It was due out a while ago but, thanks to THQ going bankrupt (therefore selling the rights to Stick of Truth to Ubisoft) and Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s need to have everything perfect, it’s taking a while. I don’t think the last couple of seasons have been that funny but this game looks more like South Park at its best, with immature humour and a ridiculously epic plot. In the game, you play a brand new character of your own design as you decide who should be your new best friend; Cartman or Kyle. It’s not as simple as that, of course, since there’s some sort of fantasy war going on. Throw in some side scrolling and RPG elements and you have a decent looking game. It looks like a lot of fun and that’s all I ask for from a South Park game. Witcher 3: Wild Hunt The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, coming to PS4 and Xbox One sometimes next year, looks fantastic. It seems to take everything that made the first two games great and make it bigger and better! The developers promise a huge open world gameplay with no loading screens. That’s a heck of a bold claim and will definitely prove just how big and advanced the next gen consoles will be. This is supposedly the last game for Geralt of Rivia, the protagonist of the series. So it’s a big deal for Witcher fans like myself. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out with all the love triangles, terrorism and Geralt’s mysterious past. At the very least, all the monsters, characters and boobies will look great. Watch Dogs This was one of the best looking games of last year’s E3 and happens to be one of the best looking this year, too. Ubisoft treated us to some gameplay footage that showed how the protagonist could hack anything electronic, making what could be a simple open world action game a little more unique. If you’re being chased by cops, for example, you can cause a black out that’ll give you time to escape. Or you can cause a distraction by making their phones go nuts. You can hack cameras, phones, signs, traffic lights and so on to accomplish an objective. The plot is interesting, which helps if the gameplay isn’t as great as it looks. It’s got conspiracies, vigilantes and information warfare. All very technical. But this is the kind of plot that’ll draw me to a game, even if the gameplay itself is dull. So I’m pretty much sold on this one. Those are the best looking games at this year’s E3, in my opinion. And, as you know, my opinion is correct. But there were plenty of games with potential! Titan Fall has the people behind Call of Duty 4 behind it and looks pretty interesting, The Division looks like a cool game and The Order: 1886 looks VERY interesting but there’s not a lot to go on besides a teaser trailer. So, that’s this year’s E3! Did you spot any games you’re looking forward to? Let us know below. |
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