E3 2015, Exclusive Coverage
Show: E3 2015, Electronic Entertainment Expo
Date:June 16-18, 2015
Venue: Los Angeles Convention Center
City: Los Angeles, CA
E3 2015, Exclusive Coverage
Written by Jesse Seilhan and Josh Schilling
After a few years of rocky fits and starts, E3 delivered one of the best lineups in gaming history. From Microsoft’s stellar first-party lineup, Hololens demos, and surprise backwards compatibility announcement, to Sony’s wave of nostalgic reboots and third-party exclusives, just about everyone had something to like. Even if Nintendo didn’t live up to prior announcements, they still showed off the new Star Fox and a new Zelda game for 3DS. Ubisoft had their wave of yearly games, but their show-closing Ghost Recon trailer was stellar and the out-of-nowhere South Park sequel announcement were excellent additions to their lineup. Electronic Arts are still in love with their sports games, but Star Wars Battlefront is definitely the gem in their crown this year. Square Enix also showed off more Tomb Raider footage, and even announced an ambitious new Hitman sequel. But Bethesda might have stole the show, with a great new gameplay reveal of both Doom and Fallout 4, the latter already at the top of everyone’s Game of the Year list!
Virtual Reality was a consistent theme this year, with both Sony showing off the Morpheus and Oculus controlling a large portion of the audience in West Hall. We got to wear both helmets and while both had their ups and downs, Oculus definitely let us wanting more, more, and way more. Their graphics outshined what Sony had to offer, and the games on display felt way more like an actual title than a tech demo. Indie’s also had a big presence, as the Indiecade area was stuffed with irreverent titles and their avant-garde creators. Each console manufacturer had their display of smaller titles, some of which with longer lines than the AAA stars of the show.
We ended up getting hands-on with a few dozen new titles and had some exclusive demos shown for even more, making it definitely one of the busiest expos in years past. We narrowed down our top picks for the best games of the show, some of which you will be able to play this very year!
Let’s just get this out of the way, shall we? The sequel to one of the greatest games in gaming history is finally coming and you will get to play it this year, barring any setbacks and delays. The team that Todd Howard leads at Bethesda have been working on this game since the day Fallout 3 was released. Every piece of sketched out concept art and crazy idea is now possible with the power of the modern consoles and the advances PC gaming has made in the years since. We’re being promised a game larger than ever, with more characters, quests, and of course, old timey music, than ever before. Companions are also back, such as the beloved Dogmeat, but they have expanded, with personal dialogue options and the ability to gather materials while you do something else.
What we saw at Sunday night’s press conference was glorious. First and foremost, the game looks better than most Bethesda products have a right to. Facial features are much nicer, as are the environments and awesome creature designs. The Boston-themed settings, such as Fenway park and other historic locations, are all rendered in beautiful quality, fit for a current-gen game. As for the game itself, a new crafting system is going to allow for insane combinations for making new weapons and armor, as now just about every item in the game can be used for said crafting. The same goes for the modifications buildings and forts now have, with on-the-fly manipulation of doors, walls, furnishings, and way more, adding a layer of tower defense and personalization in an otherwise unfriendly world.
Nothing can be said that would match the feeling of being deep into a Fallout universe, fighting Deathclaws with laser weapons, repairing your power armor after finding a traveling Brahmin vendor, and picking a direction and just walking forward until something cool happens. Adding in the vast customization, voice acting, and for the first time on console, mod support, this game might not actually end. If this game truly does come out this year, it’s going to be extremely tough to beat when the awards start pouring in come December.
The world always needs more Star Wars, and with the kickoff of a new trilogy this year and the inclusion of Star Wars characters in the new Disney Infinity game, it looks like we are getting plenty of stuff to play. But the most exciting new Star Wars game is EA’s Star Wars Battlefront, a Battlefield-inspired first-person shooter that is more of a spiritual successor of the original franchise rather than a direct sequel. There will still be plenty of shooting and flying (and more shooting), but it ditches the ticket system of prior iterations in favor of more story and narrative focused missions that blend the best moments from the series along with that distinct flavor of Battlefield joy.
The game takes place within the existing Star Wars universe, but the new game will be represented in some post-launch DLC. The short multiplayer experience we got to try was on Hoth, defending the power generators from two oncoming AT-ATs. Of course, you can also play the other side, trying to destroy the rebel army while allowing your giant robots to go stomping along their merry way. Regardless of what side you play, you have specific map points you need to control to keep your team winning: for the Rebels, it was keeping generators on that allow for bombing runs that disable the AT-ATs and leave them open for damage from the regular folk. The Empire was tasked with stopping those generators from becoming operational, while mowing down the opposition along the way.
The controls felt great, the sound was top notch, and the feeling of being in this fully realized world was beyond awesome. The game feels more modern than the last few stuffy Battlefields and is more fleshed out than what a fan mod could ever create. To avoid the constant BF problem of “spawn and steal” (where some jerk on your team takes the helicopter before anyone else can, only to fly it straight into a building ten seconds later), tokens are littered around the map and can give anyone a ship, awesome new grenades, and personal shields. These respawn over time and appear very frequently throughout the entire game, giving everyone a chance to be a badass pilot or solo super soldier. Also, hero characters like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader will also be playable, although EA is tight-lipped on how these characters will be balanced and played. Still, we walked away impressed after just a short time and can’t wait to play more.
Call of Duty is back in black, but it’s not at all what it used to be. For some, that’s a nice thought, as the series has been giving it a go for over a decade now, covering just about every corner of the earth and exploring nearly every story possible. We got our hands on some multiplayer and were given a single-player demo, both branching way far out from what the prior games were all about. Zombies haven’t been announced just yet, but it would be hard to imagine a world in which a Black Ops game doesn’t have the super-popular mode. Still, we liked what we saw, even if it was kinda weird and not very Call of Duty-ish.
The demo we were given focused on the insane new powers your characters have. With the wave of your hand, flying fire bees swarmed the map and destroyed the enemies, or made a soldier puke until he died, and of course, set people aflame with no real explanation. For some reason, the game looks to play more like a Bioshock than a Call of Duty, as turrets can be remotely hacked and fired against their former masters. Also, this is called Black Ops, but nothing about this demo felt stealthy or underground. To the contrary, it looked like Crysis, Far Cry, and BioShock had a baby that somehow fits into the Call of Duty universe. However, adding in three buddies and taking down the entire campaign as a team will make for some fun chaos.
But not all hope is lost! The multiplayer was a blast, as the game is taking a lot from the Destiny gameplay and instituting classes with their own special powers, activated by pressing L1 and R1 together. One lady had a lethal bow, another could respawn after being killed, and another turned his robot arm into a machine gun, mowing down everyone in his path for a short time. The “pick ten” system is back, as that has proven to be the most refined customization system over the past few years. Wall-running and double jumping worked for the most part, but didn’t have the mobility and joy that a game like Titanfall nearly perfected. Still, the few rounds we played were fun enough to make us want to maybe jump into the fray again, as the powers, weapons, and movement all seem to give the legendary series a much-needed shot in the arm.
It is easy to get excited for Just Cause 3 after seeing the gameplay footage shown at E3. This game looks a lot like its predecessors in that you get to cause a whole bunch of chaos by shooting a bunch of stuff and breaking a bunch of things. It’s cartoonish to be sure, but who says there is anything wrong with that? You get a massive open world to set on fire, and a whole bunch of different vehicles and weapons to aid you on your quest for destruction. You are one guy versus an army and that army is about to have some problems, because you have a grappling hook, a parachute, an unlimited amount of C4, and a massive chip on your shoulder.
If you are looking for a deep story, with philosophical undertones and well fleshed out characters, then this game might not be for you. I haven’t played it yet so maybe there will be some creative surprises, but I doubt it. What is known is that the main protagonist Rico Rodriguez returns to his Mediterranean island home of Medici to find it all in the hands of a bad-boy dictator. That’s all the story you basically need to make this over-the-top explosion fest a total and serious blast. Hopefully they take a look at the crazy multiplayer they introduced in the PC version of Just Cause 2 that made everything even more chaotic. If that happens, we could be looking at a game for the ages.
What we saw at the show was a game that wanted to highlight the multiple options of destruction. Crashing cars, spraying bullets and bombing things are all there, of course, but it was the style of the action that really looked appealing. Want to take out that factory? How about you grapple a heavy truck to that building and smash them together. That pesky bridge need to come down? Steal a tank and make it do what it does best. Need to get through a few dozen evil soldiers? Go ahead and hang upside down from a helicopter and mow them all down with a minigun. The overall action in Just Cause 3 makes Grand Theft Auto look like The Sims, and let’s just hope that it is as good as advertised.
Capcom dropped a bomb last year when they announced the next game in the most popular fighting game franchise of all time would be exclusive to PS4. Turns out, this is mostly due to Capcom’s gigantic financial issues and Sony is stepping in to help fund some of the project, but still, Street Fighter V was playable at E3 and all signs point to it being an awesome addition to the pantheon of greatness. Two new fighters were added at the show: series veteran Cammy and Alpha heavyweight Birdie now join the four previously announced combatants in Ryu, Chun-Li, Charlie Nash, and M. Bison. A new background was announced as well, but we can’t imagine this game ships with less than 20 characters in all.
We got our hands on the game and gave two matches a go before having to put the controllers down. Both matches felt like tried and true Street Fighter, obviously with more of a SFIV influence as the art style and mechanics borrow heavily from that already 7-year old game. Ryu’s fireballs and Chun-Li’s crazy kicks all performed as they should, but a few new wrinkles in the gameplay made for some fun discoveries. Most notable, each character has a unique special move, one that seems to be game changing in nature across the board. Nash can teleport, Chun-Li gets a horizontal jump, and Ryu can electrify his fists for extra damage. These burn some meter and can turn the tide of battle if used accurately.
There doesn’t seem to be a huge graphical upgrade from last generation to the next, but the backgrounds and environments are much more interactive than before. Matches that end with one player being kicked through a wall will begin the following round in the newly exposed zone. The game already felt fairly balanced, as some of the super power moves from the prior games have been removed completely or toned down, making each match more of a back and forth chess match than before. The game still doesn’t have a release date, but people that pre-order can get some beta time in with the game when before it ships. From all signs, it looks like another feather in Capcom’s cap and it might be just the thing the legendary Japanese company needs to get back on its feet again.
Rock Band is one of my favorite franchises, and I was very excited to hear them announce that they will be revamping the game for the next-gen consoles to be released later this year. The four-piece band is back with the familiar guitar, bass, drums and vocal mix, along with a new set of songs. The gameplay is also very familiar with the same three instrument note tracks and the vocal line along the top of the screen. The big news is that the massive 2,000+ song library of DLC will be able to be imported into Rock Band 4, along with the compatibility of older instruments as well, so you don’t need to add yet another plastic guitar to your collection, although you can of course if you want to as new ones will be available.
The new additions to Rock Band 4 aren’t mind blowing, but they do add to the party-friendly feel that makes this game a lot of fun. It is very easy to keep the music going as at the end of a set, as the band can vote on what type of song will be played next. Options such as “a song from the 80’s” or “classic rock” were seen, and it makes things move a bit more quickly and adds an element of participation. It was also very easy to change the difficulty settings during a song, or even to do a quick restart if needed. Rock Band 4 also introduces an optional freestyle guitar solo that mimics the style of the solo rather than the specific notes which tend to be more difficult in those situations. Casual pseudo-guitarists will probably have more fun acting the role rather than having to nail the various notes.
There is a career mode as well that seems to be very similar to the fan-gathering style that was seen in Rock Band 3. One aspect that looks to continue is the adding of your downloaded songs to the mix of the story. It also appears that there will be no competitive multiplayer that was seen in the earlier versions of the franchise, although it might be added as a patch later on down the road. All in all, it was great to see this game in action once again and I can’t wait to get the band back together.