E3 2014, Exclusive Coverage
Show: E3 2014, Electronic Entertainment Expo
Date: June 10-12, 2014
Venue: Los Angeles Convention Center
City: Los Angeles, CA
E3 2014, Exclusive Coverage
Written by Jesse Seilhan and Josh Schilling
For those that love videogames, nothing beats E3. Every year, gamers from around the world put down their controllers and watch the press conferences that Microsoft, Sony, and a few publishers put on in anticipation of what their favorite hobby will bring them over the next year or so. This year was no different, as Microsoft dedicated 90 minutes to pure gaming, with title after title being announced, debuted, or showcased in a media blitz of stunning visuals. EA and Ubisoft showcased why they are the kings of the third-party, giving fans of both consoles something to cheer about for this holiday season and next. Finally, Sony revealed a few new devices (Playstation TV, Project Morpheus, and a white PS4 that comes with Destiny) as well as showing off a ton of new games coming to the PS4 over the next 18 months. The following day, Nintendo held their own digital press conference, showing off the future of a few favorite franchises, from Smash Brothers to Zelda, the latter shown off for only a mere 60 seconds.
The big reveals this year were mostly in the form of sequels to popular franchises, but there were a few surprises tossed in as well. Tomb Raider is getting another game, as are the classic Xbox franchises Crackdown and Phantom Dust. Sony is bringing back Grim Fandango and Little Big Planet, and Nintendo has a new Yoshi yarn game and debuted a Kirby claymation title, as well as giving Toad his very own adventure. Of course, fans of shooters will have plenty to play this year and next, with the annual Call of Duty and Battlefield entries going toe-to-toe and the newest Rainbow Six and Star Wars: Battlefront games looming in the horizon.
Overall, this year’s expo was fantastic, from the amount of playable games to the sheer level of graphical fidelity the industry has achieved. The show floor wasn’t nearly as crowded as in years past, mostly due to the new consoles already being a known quantity. This year was all about the games as we got our eyes and hands on over 30 brand new ones, and we’ve picked the top six that you should be the most excited about!
We have to give a shout out to the fantastic indie games that were represented in the Xbox and Sony areas. Be on the lookout for some fun, creative titles like #IDARB, Guacamelee, Never Alone, Knight Squad, Source, and Valiant Hearts. Some of the best times you can have in the video game world is loading up a $20 indie and seeing where it takes you.
Konami is always fairly tight-lipped about the Metal Gear Solid franchise, releasing cryptic pieces of information and insane trailers in the run up to the game’s release. This year, we were given a 30-minute presentation on the ins and outs of the new title, one that sees Kiefer Sutherland back in the role as Big Boss/Punished Snake. This time, Afghanistan is your playground and the open world gameplay that director Hideo Kojima gave us in Ground Zeroes is now 200x larger, as players are able to stealth their way across a vast desert region. The use of a horse will get you closer to the bases you have to take over, but once you’re on your feet, Big Boss’ myriad of weapons and spy tricks will help you get to your destination.
Gameplay is similar to most MGS games, with stealth, holdups, crawling, and cardboard boxes being a large part of the strategy. This game gives players a vast array of technology at their disposal, as vehicles, ammo, weapons, and more can be dropshipped into the battlefield at anytime. The cigarettes are back, but have become The Phantom Cigar that allows time to pass at a super speed, so you can let some of the guards go to sleep and attack when the time is right. Enemies and their vehicles can also be claimed for future use, as a balloon known as the “Fulton Recovery System” is attached, whisking them off to your home base. That base can be completely customized to your liking, adding helipads, anti-aircraft weapons, and more, defending the water fortress when enemies attack. It is reminiscent of the tanker from MGS2, but way larger and fully traversable, including those annoying drones that float around and, in this case, protect you.
This is certainly the most ambitious MGS game to date and it looks stunning, running on the FOX engine that the team behind Kojima’s masterpiece has been working so hard on for years. While no release date was given, it looked good enough to ship this year. The guy running the gameplay demo was a total pro, acing the level without being seen (until he wanted to be), getting an S rank in under 25 minutes, capturing as many enemies, vehicles, and one lonely sheep, as he could. It was for sure a standout amongst the litany of games we saw that week.
The best thing I can say about this game is that I heard grown men and women shrieking next to me while playing it. The immersion, the haunting atmosphere, and the incredibly frightening, stalking alien make for one crazy gameplay demo. Wearing headphones in a dark room is exactly the best way to play this game, which is how we were experiencing it. All my character had was a shoddy motion tracker, one that gives the relative location of your foe without truly giving away its position. It beeps rapidly as the beast gets closer to pouncing upon you, ultimately going silent when he is far away.
The game takes place within the Alien universe but doesn’t follow a single film, as Ripley’s daughter is now stranded in space onboard a ship that contains some looters and the aforementioned stalking alien. While you can come across a few weapons scattered about, taking down the alien one-on-one is foolish and will always result in your death. The flamethrower I found did do a good job scaring him off, but it was only a matter of time before he came back and found me without any ammo to repeat the offense. Stealth and strategy are your friend, as moving around the ship quietly will allow you to block off areas and access new ones, keeping you from being eaten and finding precious ammo for your few available firearms.
The length of this game, it’s impact over that length, and how well the atmosphere sustains its inherent creepiness are all valuable questions coming out of E3. But for the short time we had to play this game, the impression was made that the team at The Creative Assembly knows exactly what they are doing. There is nothing but a horrible taste in gamers’ mouth after the last Aliens game, but this one seems to stick to what made the first movie such a horrifying experience. A balance of tension and exploration is one that few games ever get right, so hopefully this October sees the return of a true survival horror game.
Every year, Call of Duty tries to grab the brass ring, the very brass ring it obtained back nearly a decade ago with Modern Warfare. Since then, the team at Infinity Ward has split time with Treyarch, whose Black Ops series has eclipsed the Modern Warfare series in both scale and sales. This year, publisher Activision has decided that a three-team approach is best, giving each title longer to incubate to ensure the games don’t feel as rushed. Sledgehammer Games is coming off engine work they did for Modern Warfare 3 and are now doing a game all alone, going to the near-future to bring Advanced Warfare to next-gen consoles. High Moon Studios (makers of Transformers and Deadpool) will handle the last-gen editions, although nothing has been confirmed for the Wii U.
The demo we were given was two-fold: one showed off the action side and the other showed off stealth and patience. The action set piece was located in San Francisco, with terrorists storming through the Golden Gate Bridge before unleashing a dozen drones onto the helpless population and eventually taking down the iconic structure. The playable character had a bit of a jet pack boost that allowed him to move vertically a lot more than prior CoD games. While not as jump-happy as Titanfall, it definitely allowed for more variety than the average shooter. The shooting seemed familiar enough, but being able to jump from truck to truck opened up the combat playground a bit more. The stealth sections showed off a fully invisible camo suit that allowed the main character to weave in and out of a heavily occupied forest region. Stealth takedowns are back and more gruesome than ever, although some might just stick to the run-and-gun philosophy that has worked so well for so long.
You can tell that sound is an important component of their dedication to realism, as the explosive action was as crystal clear as it was visually sharp. They’ve rebuilt the sound from the ground up, avoiding using canned sounds used in previous entries. Sledgehammer’s approach to this game has been very authentic, even going out and getting Kevin Spacey to star as the main villain in the game. With a new Battlefield game coming out this year, as usual, November will be the battleground for console and PC gamers alike and Advanced Warfare looks like it might be the game to beat.
This is probably the most anticipated title that was playable at E3. If you’re into first-person shooters, and odds dictate that you most likely are, then this game will most assuredly make you happy. With immersive co-op/multiplayer gameplay along with an interesting campaign, Destiny offers a little something for everyone. With a heavy emphasis on the social aspects, this is a game that could bring reluctant single-player stalwarts into the realm of party-based play. Think of it as a combination of Halo, Borderlands, and Playstation Home, and you’ll have a good idea of what’s in store.
Bungie has shaken off the shackles of Microsoft exclusivity, and the Playstation-only fanboys are finally going to be able to see what all of the hullabaloo is about. The hands-on experience I had was a three player co-op romp into the post-apocalyptic realm that this story encompasses. It started in a hub area where players from around the globe can meet, upgrade their stuff, and perform various inane actions like sitting, pointing or the inevitable dancing. I have to admit that the dancing threw me a bit, and took away from the atmosphere this game was trying to create, but we were then whisked away to a world that allowed us to flex our trigger fingers.
Each player has an object called a Ghost, a softball sized gem looking object that reminded me of Bit from the original Tron. The Ghost can do a variety of things like point you in the proper direction, open impassible doors, or summon a hover-bike thing for you to zoom around on. After getting acclimated, it was time to face some baddies, and the tight game mechanics that you would expect from a Bungie game were out in full force. We did a couple of simple jaunts into rooms infested with alien-types and then got to experience the evolving world as other Alpha blessed players were jumping in and out of the battles. The world did seem alive, and the promise of a shared-world shooter seemed to be what was on the table. Taking down giant raid bosses using a variety of of the class-specific powers is as thrilling as it was visually stunning. Definitely a must-play!
Even though these guys were the hands down winners for best swag and best overall presentation at E3, the game itself looks downright brilliant. What was shown in the demonstration was a humongous open world with excellent fighting mechanics along with some very interesting characters. This is a living, breathing fantasy world that you get to putter around in, and the comparisons to Skyrim are inevitable, in fact it’s been said that this Witcher 3 game world will be 20% larger. Of all the games I saw, this is the one I am looking forward to the most.
Geralt of Rivia is the snowy-haired protagonist of this game, and what we saw in our presentation is what takes place immediately after the events that were shown at the Microsoft Press Briefing. Geralt, with griffin head in tow, arrived at a massive, bustling city that was surprising in its scale and detail. This game seems to really take some steps forward in the open world genre not only in the size and scope of the world, but in the details that get overlooked in so many other games. As Geralt strode through the city on horseback, the ambient conversations didn’t seem scripted or forced, and it was easy to feel immersed in the world even through a demo. I can only imagine how it is going to feel with a controller in hand.
After conducting business in the city and gaining insight to his next objective, Geralt fast-traveled to another portion of the world. From there, the action RPG elements were introduced while we saw some smooth fighting and enthusiastic dismemberments, as well as some wonderfully interesting characters. The developer CD Projekt RED has really set some high targets to achieve with this world they’ve created, but if they take the same care and attention that they showed to the media at E3 and apply it to their vision of what Witcher 3 can be, then this has the possibility of being something spectacular.
This game came as a bit of a surprise, because the main attraction of the Bethesda area was supposed to be The Evil Within. While that game is good, it was upstaged by the third-person, multiplayer arena fight that is Battlecry. This game takes place in a world without gunpowder, so blades and bows are the dominating weapons in the field. The backstory and different character classes add charm to the game, and the battle action was fast paced and exciting. There is a definite Team Fortress vibe albeit not as comical, and you will get to customize the characters to help you stand apart. Some of the most fun I had at E3 was running around the Battlecry arena looking for more enemies to kill.
In this world, wars are fought on a smaller scale, and nations send their soldiers to battle arenas to solve their differences. Only two nations were shown, the England-like Royal Marines, and the Russian-flavored Cossacks. Each nation had three identical playable warrior types, although two more currently unplayable warrior types were teased. The three we were able to play were the Duelist, a dual wielding stealth specialist, the Enforcer, a heavy with a massive sword that’s so big it can transform into a shield, and the Archer, who as you would expect from the name is the ranged striker. Since there is no gunpowder in this world, the action of this game is close and intense. If you survive some skirmishes, you build up adrenaline and can then unleash character specific heavy attacks that help you dominate for a short time.
This game is going to be free to play, which is shocking considering the detail going into this work. With sixteen players per side fighting in beautifully designed arenas directed by Viktor Antonov of Half-Life 2 fame, the quality of this game is readily apparent even with a year left until its beta. The couple of rounds I played felt organic, and were a hell of a lot of fun, even though we had barely scratched the surface of character customization or the different combat skills. The best compliment I can give to this game, is that my partner and I were on the same page in that we both wanted to conspire to see if we could get back into the Bethesda booth in order to play that game again.