E3 Quick Reactions

E3 is by far the biggest event of the gaming calendar.  I could compare it to a bunch of major sporting events - like the Superbowl, the Champions League final, the World Series, Wrestlemania etc - to make my point, but I don't think anyone would really appreciate that.
Every year the major companies gather to get a one up on each other and show us a load of trailers to give us more excitement for upcoming games than in a lot of cases we'll ever actually experience while playing them.

So this is my round up of the game trailers and information that really grabbed my attention this year. I've stayed away from any hardware announcements because in general they need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Assassin's Creed 3
I was hyped up for this game since I saw the first trailer a few months back, but this one here is just incredible. Assassin's Creed is one of my favourite new franchises this generation and AC2 would be in my top 5 games this gen. But the last couple of semi-sequels haven't changed a massive amount despite improving the core gameplay and introducing the most surprisingly great multiplayer since Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. With the huge shift in setting Assassin's Creed 3 looks set to feel like the proper sequel its title implies it is. Add to that improvements to the gameplay such as a much more fluid hop in hop out fighting system and the continuation of a fascinating story make this my most anticipated game of the year!

My only problem so far is our new Assassin's name. He's Native American and wears a hood, and judging by Altair and Ezio you'd expect a pretty cool, mysterious name. But no, he's just "Connor". Doesn't fit the character in my opinion!




Skyrim: Dawnguard
Skyrim was incredible. For my money it's the best game I've played in about ten years. Having said that, I played it too much and after 90 hours and four months of playing little else I just stopped one day and haven't touched it since. I didn't even finish the main quest! Dawnguard looks to be exactly the kind of offering to get me back on the addiction.

Featuring an interesting looking story tied into a group of vampires and the "Dawnguard" determined to wipe them out, a battle that you can choose which side you join, it has got me really excited. Join the vamps and you are promised new abilities that look to be very interesting, but if the Werewolf form is anything to go by I'm prepared to be disappointed by that! Whatever side you pick there are new perk trees, new weapons and new armour, all of which can be carried over to the main game as the expansion is directly integrated to the existing world. There promises to be new dimensions and dungeons to plunder though!

Much like I only completed Fallout 3 after playing through 3 sets of DLC, I reckon Dawnguard will inspire me to finally conquer Skyrim as soon as I've finished joining/wiping out (delete as appropriate) those brilliant/filthy vampires. This isn't just your run of the mill 2 hour DLC though as 15 hours of gameplay are promised!






Hitman Absolution
It's been so long since Blood Money that I wasn't paying much attention to this game, but a gameplay video released a few weeks back put it well and truly on my radar. The game looks gorgeous and the stealth gameplay looks like a very good option for people who long for the old days of Splinter Cell. The AI looks to be smart and you seem to have lots of options for attacking each mission.

But no one's talking about the gameplay following E3, they're all talking about the trailer posted above that seems to bare no resemblance to the actual gameplay with Agent 47 looking more like Ezio Auditore as he takes out half a dozen Nuns/Whores. Personally I thought the trailer was fucking awesome. No it doesn't represent the game that well but how many of these CG trailers actually do? It was designed to get people's attention and it did. It was slick, over the top and pretty gruesome. And it was pretty bad ass.

Some people complained that it was the most sexist thing they've ever seen, that you wouldn't see a trailer where men dressed as priests stripped down to suspenders. Maybe not, but that's society's problem and the blame shouldn't fall on Hitman for that. It's always featured sleaze and sex appeal but it is rated for 18 year olds. And let's not forget that these women he massacres have come with the sole intention of killing Agent 47. Self defence you could say!






Tomb Raider
The gameplay of this new Tomb Raider reboot looks to have given the series a new breath of life. The last couple of Lara Croft games were good games, but they did look and feel like old games. This one is built on a new engine and looks great so far.

My only problem here is the new Lara Croft they've given us. I get that in a reboot we're going to get a new take on the character but this is too much. Lara has turned from a strong independent leading woman into a whiny snivelling pathetic mess. If she was in a horror movie she'd be killed off before the title sequence.

I get what they're going for, showing the origins of Lara's story before she became the heroine we all know, but there's no way you'll convince me that this wreck of a woman will ever become the Tomb Raider of previous games. Not to mention that her accent is now incredibly irritating where it was once just posh but loveable. 

In my opinion this trailer is much more damaging to females in gaming than the Hitman one that caught so much grief.




Halo 4
Honestly I was preparing myself to fully ignore Halo 4 because as far as I was concerned Halo Reach closed the series out brilliantly. Watching the gameplay demo makes this a very hard beast to ignore! The first thing that's immediately obvious is that Halo looks waaay better than ever before. The jungle level looks amazing and the background looks more full of life than ever.

The demo starts off with Chief facing off against some familiar foes on this strange planet but soon we see some new faces. It seems like the main enemies this time around are a strange race called the Promethians. I can only assume they inhabit the world that Chief finds himself on.

The Promethian knight looks like a really interesting opponent with a few really class moves, including summoning a companion that will protect him with shields and catch and throw your grenades back at you. There are also a whole new set of weapons including the Scatter Shot which is basically a shotgun that has ammo which ricochets off surfaces.

So this basically looks to be the same great Halo gameplay, with the best looking environments it's ever had and a host of new and innovative enemy types and weapons.

Sign me up!




Splinter Cell Blacklist
Honestly it's hard to take much from this non-gameplay trailer and really it didn't excite me very much. It was all a bit blah blah explosion for me. I'm sure more details will emerge though and for now the fact that a new Splinter Cell has been announced is fantastic news. I loved Conviction despite it straying from its roots so I'm looking forward to this one!




Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
We haven't seen anything of this game in a year, but even the mention if it is brilliant. If you never played the original on the Gamecube then you missed out on a real gem. From what I can see this doesn't seem to stray too far from the first game but that doesn't bother me. I'd have been happy with a straight port to the 3DS!

One new gameplay feature is that you use the coins you collect to power your flashlight and Poltergust, which is sure to add a bit of a survival-horror style conservation element to it.




Resident Evil 6
Speaking of survival-horror, Resident Evil 6 doesn't seem to be showing much signs of featuring any. From the CG sequences I've seen this week it seems to have more machine guns than ever before. I'm keeping an optimistic mind on this one, because I love the series but I'm not too impressed so far




Pikmin 3
This is my surprise of the show and brought a smile to my face. Like Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin was originally on the Gamecube and a relatively low profile game. It was brilliant though, great fun, great puzzles, great character and a superb soundtrack.

Shigsy presented this game as part of Nintendo's main conference and pointed out that the high resolution of the Wii U makes the Pikmin easier to manage than ever before. Watch the short video for an overview of this sequel to a really joyful but intelligent game. Not sure it's enough to make buy a Wii U, but it's good to know that it exists!







South Park: The Stick of Truth
Not sure what to expect of this game, it could turn out brilliant, hilarious and fun or it could just be crap and hilarious. I like the approach they're taking though by making you the hero of this story. It'll be fun to play as a South Park version of yourself in this crazy universe. I'm not getting my hopes up too much but I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this.






Far Cry 3
Not much actually shown in the trailer for this game except for some great looking graphics and exciting island imagery, but this and the trailer released a few months ago have got me very interested. A lot of people were disappointed with Far Cry 2 so hopefully this can bring the series back to the heights the original reached!




So those were my E3 highlights, what were yours? Did I miss any of your favourite trailers? And what are you ready to pre order now? Let me know in the comments section!