E3 - 2014

[ArchieO]

Yeah Witcher 1's controls were not optimal in the slightest and then 2 was really jarring, I also made the jump straight from 1 to 2. Truck through it, once you unlock a few perks and start delving into the specialised trees it gets much better

[Darkobra]

I did the jump too. "I FINISHED THE FIRST! ONTO THE SECOND!" And got roped right into the story! Then time for ME to play. "THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!"|

[empath]

The problem is that publishers think that graphics have to get shinier and shinier and so they have to pump more and more money into games so that makes new IPs a very risky proposition.

One could argue that game development has gotten too big for its own good - there's too much money and work involved, too many people dependent upon the success of even a single project for 'chances to be taken' or 'risking things by innovating'.

This would imply that AAA developers are dinosaurs being pushed into a dead-end niche, and that indie developers are the future...

...but stepping back and looking at things long term seem to indicate that the successful indie development houses of today will just become the bloated, bureacratic-stifled AAA publishers of tomorrow.

If you want an example, Trip Hawkins and the 'refuge of the artist, where writers, artists, and programmers are treated as the rock-stars they are, and not just faceless drones in some giant corporation' of Electronic Arts...vs. Generic McPlutocrat, CEO of EA.

It would seem we have very similar tastes in excitement! DA:I i am hoping will be sweet and as one of the few people who liked DA:2 i doubt I'll be disappointed. Psyched for Witcher 3 and Star Citizen although I doubt that we will see anything from SC at E3. What is the point for them, they are self published and as far as I know there won't be a retail copy so there is literally no need for them to be there, just a waste of money.

I think the ONLY reason CIG/RSI would have to attend E3 would be to gloat, and that's a little more fiscally irresponsible than Chris would want to be...

...though I would have SOOOO much schadenfreude from him having a modest little booth sandwiched between to 'big guys' with just him kickin' back, feet on the table, and a small sign saying

Cloud Imperium Games appreciates your interest, but we work directly to the end-customer. Thanks anyway!

Oh, and FORTY-SIX MILLION DOLLARS!!! Nyah-nyah-nyah!

[Darkobra]

I like sequels to old classics but we also need something new. Look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution! I can't be the only one to squee at high frequencies! But I also loved games like Dust: An Elysian Tail!

[ch3m1kal]

Human Revolution was indeed great, though maybe not QUITE as good as the original.
However from what I've been able to find it only sold a little over 2 million copies (mostly in Europe), while CoD Ghosts, which generally reviewed as one of the worst in the series has sold around 15 million.


Just for the record, there is nothing wrong with AAA development, it just means big budget games.

If people would stop buying crappy shooters and roster updates every year, then I'm sure AAA studios would switch to making whatever else sells. These people are NOT stupid or disconnected, despite what you might like to think. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure that they know exactly who they're selling to and how much money they're going to make off it.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

If I had a better system I'd hype over Dragon Age. It's strange. It's a game I would love to play and own, but I don't want it yet. I am pushing back the release date as opposed to counting down.

I know I can buy the game after its launch, but, if it pulls any crap like it did with Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 2, it's going to be hard to avoid that opinion.

(FTR DA2 was fine imo. Merely disappointing. ME3 was epic and then...)

[Volafortis]

The Witcher 2 is a game I should really get and play, but the Witcher 1's in my backlog, and I've played about half of it, and liked it enough that I want to actually finish it before getting Witcher 2, so I'm in a weird limbo with the series, in that I feel I really should replay the first half of the first to just finish the game before I get 2 so I can catch up on the series, but at the same time, that half of the game to play over again, which is not an insignificant amount of time.

WARNING: Dragon Age 2 rant below!. Contains spoilers!

I'm excited for Dragon Age Inquisition, but part of why I've historically loved BioWare's games is that I usually get 3+ playthroughs of each game. I played Origins, what, 5, 6 times? I played ME3 3 times after the extended cut ending got released (It fixed my complaints about the ending, they didn't change what their artistic vision for the end was, they just actually showed what happened, and once it was more than just "choose your color of laser beam," I felt a lot better about it. I liked Dragon Age 2 well enough at the time I played it, but even while playing it, I felt it wasn't as good as Origins. That was fine though, I knew Origins had been one of my favorite games ever, and to expect every game in the series to live up to it was a ridiculous thing to hope for. It wasn't until I finished Dragon Age 2 and tried replaying it that I realized how much less I liked it. To this day, I've only finished Dragon Age 2 once, which for me is unheard of for a BioWare game. I've played KotOR, ME1, and DA:O too many times to count each. I played Jade Empire 3 times, ME2 about 6 times now, and ME3 thrice. That I've only played DA2 once, and haven't been able to return to it, even though I've tried on four separate occasions is what really speaks to me. (I always try to marathon a series if I start replaying it.) Really, just the combination of crappy character creation options, that horribly bland "flight from Lothering" intro area, the repeated dungeons, the bad grindy fights that were just, "Hey, more enemies are spawning!" and the significant reduction in character specializations/builds had been enough to make me feel like it was a huge step backwards from Origins.

What REALLY ruined it for me though, was Act 3 (or 4? Whichever one had the big war erupt between the Mages/Templars). I don't see how anyone could play it and think ti was a valid continuation of plot... I first tried siding with the mages in that act, because I always felt like, well, fuck those Templars, but then I played it and the first enchanter, who had always been outspokenly against blood magic decided to use it, and IMMEDIATELY FUCKING JUST TURNED INTO AN ABOMINATION. What the hell is that? So some idiot apprentice from Ferelden can toy around with Blood Magic and stay perfectly fine, but some master mage who should have greater control of his powers isn't able to resist the demons in the Fade at all, despite the fact that he should have TONS OF EXPERIENCE DOING EXACTLY THAT? Just playing that act made me feel like no matter what I did, it what inconsequential, and some character would just disregard some MAJOR choice I made and decide to attack me anyway/go "hurp-derp, gonna use blood magi---OH GOD I'M AN ABOMINATION NOW, despite that being exactly what established lore had shown doesn't actually happen.

Actually, I has so disappointed by how badly written that was, I loaded up the act all over again, to a point before I had sided. Didn't care how my personal feelings were in the conflict anymore, I sided with the Templar, which is already a sign of this being bad, when I'm not doing what I want to do, just because I know how bad what I want to do is. So I sided with the Templar, was doing jobs for the head of the Templar, and then when I return to her, she goes on about how I'm some mage sympathizer, and attacks me anyway. Now, this one I can sort of understand, because my entire game up until the point of my save revert had involved me being a mage sympathizer, but really, after forcing me to deal with that stupid inconsistency in characterization from the Mage plotline, I felt pretty certain that that wasn't the case. I felt like they had point A, the beginning of the act, and point B, the end of it, and no matter what I did, which side I took, the war always resolved the same way... and that's exactly the worst thing that they could've done. It was the same thing that they did in ME3, except in DA2, I was expected to continue playing after it happened, where in ME3, at least I could call it done, and there was enough outcry about the whole thing that they released the extended cut which, once I played through it, I felt it fixed my biggest gripes with the ending, which were simply about how ambiguous and unclear the whole ending was.

In DA2, there was no fix, and while I managed to play through the rest of the game after and finish it (since it was close to the end), it's really the only thing about the game that sticks in my mind, which has made me unwilling to play through that intro again, just to deal with that horrible act again.

Basically, it had a bunch of little problems that already had me liking the game less than any other Bioware game I had played, and then they throw this HUGE plotline issue at me, and make it terrible, and expect me to be okay with it.

Now, I'm not going to say I completely hated DA2. I'm probably going to play through it again before Inquisition comes out, just to have a save file, but it was certainly the biggest disappointment I've ever felt from Bioware.

That said, I still have confidence in Bioware to deliver with Dragon Age Inquisition. One part of one game isn't enough to make me think Bioware's incapable of delivering a good story, and they received enough bad feedback about all my little gripes with DA2 that they seem to be fixing them, so I think it'll be a great game. Honestly, it's probably a good thing DA2 was such a low point for the series, because now I won't be trying to compare it to Origins as much, which is what I think was a big contributing factor to why DA2 fell so short for me.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I managed to play DA2 twice. Granted there was a three year gap between them so I could actually forget a lot of the side quests.

Act 1 of DA2 was great. It's just when it was Act 2 and 3 it kinda slipped away. It felt almost like running single player dungeons.

I'm trying a third play through as a warrior, but that's difficult.
-
One major thing I hated about DA2 was in the end, if any party members turned against you, you could cut them down in one hit.
They just died, like a random red enemy on your screen. No, build up. They just turned into an enemy AI and that's it.
It was really anticlimactic on my first play through that I one shot Fenris.

I think if they had more time to work on DA2 it would have been great. The setting was great and their intent for the story was innovative. It really need a lot of poly filling and polish.

BUT, it's a Western RPG I actually finished. I've tried to play 2 Worlds 1 and 2. I've tried to play The Witcher. I tried Divinity 2 Ego Draconis. I tried Gothic 3. I never finished those games.

[Matt]

I more or less live tweeted my reactions yesterday, but to sum up:

I thought Microsoft had a solid showing. I thought Sony had a solid showing. I thought Nintendo had a solid showing. I thought EA had an OK showing (dat mirrors Edge tho). I felt that Ubisoft was the relative standout, but only by a small margin.

I was generally ho-hum about the games shown by everyone, and a little put off by the level of violence depicted. I was a lot put off by BF:Hardline.

I kinda found myself wondering about the fact that apparently my XBO is an indie gaming device, because those titles stand out as considerably more interesting and original than the AAA games.

I found myself generally disappointed with the lack of creativity, and diversity on display in the tentpole titles.

But there were games I wanted to play. They sold me a (future) PS4 (for Uncharted) and a (future) WiiU (for Zelda).

And naturally, I want to play Call of Shooty, and Rainbow Six: Knock Knock and The Division of invisible families, and The Halols, and Franglish Assassins, and Dagron Age. I'm excited about a new Mass Effect, and i lost my shit (along with everyone else) over No Man's Sky.

I guess I won't be bored in 2015.

-m

[Volafortis]

Oh man, Two Worlds. That game was AWFUL, but awful in that way where it was so bad, I was able to play through it just to laugh at it, because seriously, that voice acting was hilarious! The random one liners were SOOO good. Any weather effect at all (potentially a sandstorm, even), and one of the PC's possible one-liners is "Agh, rain again!" which killed me every time. Or, similarly, whenever you aggro'd an enemy, be they wolves, bandits, dragons, whatever, you might just say, "Hmmm... Bandits," even if it's a freaking golem charging. And it's all voice acted so incompetently, like they just asked one of the game devs to read lines into a microphone (because that's actually what they did). That bad voice acting, ah, the memories.

Not to mention you become so hideously overpowered by the end of the game the I managed to kill the final boss in 3 swings or so. It wasn't good, but it was hilariously bad. Whenever I had friends over who hadn't seen Two Worlds, I couldn't resist making them play it, just to see the reaction.

Two Worlds 2, sadly, wasn't hilariously bad. It was just plain bad, and not worth playing.

Also, I feel Dragon Age 2 had good moments. It just felt like as they got farther in development, they became more and more rushed with it, and the game really suffered because of it, as evidenced by the downward slope the game makes in terms of game quality.

EDIT: No Man's Sky seems interesting, hadn't seen that one. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

And yeah, I'm excited for a new Mass Effect as well, being a huge Bioware fan, but I don't know enough about it yet for the hype to start. I'm kinda hoping Bioware also starts a new IP soon. I love the current IPs they have, but I don't want to get fatigued on them.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I find it hard to get excited over information I already know. Especially since trails and gameplay are so hard to tell the difference now.
I know E3 is a thingy for retailers and media, but it hasn't stopped none media and retailers getting onboard the trains.

I find E3 a summery of things to come with pretty moving things.

I find the most interesting parts of E3 are the things talking about E3 rather than E3 itself.
-
That said, Nintendo released some visual media about the Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire remakes, so SQUEEEEEE. Yeah... I'm kinda sad I'm most excited about a remaking of a game I've already played a lot of.

[Kapol]

So I haven't looked into it much, but I've noticed a couple things that actually excite me.

-As someone who just finished Persona 3, and is going through Persona 4 now, Persona Q has gotten me unreasonably excited. Like, the 200 hours I wasted... er, sunk into Persona 3 feel like they've been worth it now. The graphic style is kind of... eh. But it looks like it's going to be interesting, kind of cute, and a solid continuation of the series.
-I'm also excited for a Grim Fandago remaster/rerelease/rewhatever. I haven't played it yet, and I'll almost certainly pick it up on the Vita.
-Still drooling over SSB. Just give it to me already, Nintendo!
-Yoshi's Wooly World seems like it'll be good. Not amazing, but fun.
-Mario Maker seems interesting. I likely won't pick it up right away, but it seems like it'll be an interesting way to play those 'Mario Hardcore' maps on a Nintendo platform. I REALLY like that they include both the old school Mario as well as the new version.
-Kirby is Kirby. What more do I need to say? Though I do want them to make an actual, you know, Kirby game for a console too.
-Mario Party 10 looks interesting. I hate that they're sticking to the 'everyone in one car' thing rather than going back to the old board-game way they had it before. But adding the 'fifth player' could be fun.
-Happy to see Layton Vs Wright is coming to the US. Also glad to see a rerelease of the first three Wright games.

As for why all of my list is mostly Nintendo... it's because I just checked out the stuff on the Wii U shop. I will say, I'm super happy they put out trailers with gameplay more than anything. More game companies need to realize that's what a lot of gamers want to see. It made it feel like Nintendo was there for the gamers to know about their products rather than a sales pitch for their hardware to the gaming press/investors.

[Matt]

... but literally ALL Microsoft, Ubisoft and EA did was talk about games and show trailers?


-m

[Kapol]

As I said, I've only checked out Nintendo's stuff, and mostly because it happened to be on the store when I went to check out the Wii U sale. And I meant that most the trailers I saw showed a decent amount actual gameplay, not just prerendered cutscenes. Like we normally seem to get from these kind of events.

[Volafortis]

Yeah, my biggest issue is seeing trailers for the "next big military twitch shooter" like CoD or Battlefield is about as exciting to me as it would be if they sat up there reading a phonebook. I played and beat CoD 4 7 years ago (really, 7 years already?). I don't need to see them preview it for the 8th time.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Besides, sometimes the footage of the games show insignificant spoilers of scenes that would be experienced in the single player game.
But it's still spoilering something that would be more sweet experiencing first hand.
Especially since your brain can imagine the sort of stuff the game would have anyway.

[ArchieO]

WARNING: Dragon Age 2 rant below!. Contains spoilers!

I find it pretty hard to disagree with most of your points, the palate was bland as hell, the areas repetitive and the combat significantly less intricate than DA:O. However on the subject of the Orsino Harvester, my interpretation was that Orsino just went batshit crazy with grief and despair, and essentially just gave in, if you lose the will to resist then even the most experienced mage will become an abomination.

Honestly the reason I liked the game (And i only replayed it once whereas ME:2 has double digits) is I actually dug the story. The first act was particularly good and while it did stumble a bit in the third act I think it was strong enough to carry me to the end.

[RedNightmare]

Aside from The Division and No Man's Sky all the things I saw at E3 made me go "meh". It wasn't bad, just no real positive or negative reaction. Even with those two games I'm firmly in the "I'll believe it when I see it" camp. Maybe I'm getting just to cynical towards gaming and gaming press.

On the matter of DA2, I was mostly disappointed in how they completely misused the one city setting and the constant wave based battles. I could write a much longer post about it and maybe I will at some point.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

The way they implemented the wave based combat made combat feel like a job than actual fun.

I enjoyed the setting. The atmosphere. The environment. It's just repetition broke your immersion.

In video games you can almost excuse houses having the same interior architecture as you can argue the same architect designed the house.

Caves however... are naturally occurring or have been artificially made when seeking minerals. Chances of two identical caves existing are highly remote.

[RedNightmare]

Oh right! I had forgotten how they literally re-used the same maps over and over again with just different parts warded of. Man, that was so bad

[empath]

Yeah, I'll admit I'm looking forward to No Man's Sky...

...but I have been for MONTHS ALREADY (I didn't really see any difference between the 'E3 PS4 gameplay trailer' and this one, and again, 6mo old).

So again, remind me of the relevance of E3?

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

The trailer for the new Monster Hunter game mentions online-play which is awesome.
I've broken off from the franchise as it's basically a solo-end game content run with a brutal difficulty curve.

But the fact with a DS game you can easily team up with other players in the world to take on Monsters is huge. It heavily implies the world of MMO on Portable Nintendo Consoles might be close.
Meaning, an "MMO-feeling" Pokemon game might be possible.

Pokemon has "match making" with regards to battling, as well as Wonder Trade, and the GTS. So, Pokemon could move further into the online integration.

I don't think Pokemon should be always-online since the connections from the DSs still aren't as reliable as a Ethernet cable, but if they could push the enjoyable & meaningful multiplayer features that could be as close enough to MMO as great.
---
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney looks like a fan idea that has came into fruition. Which is great, as we need more really crazy ideas in an industry that's being safe.

[Geoff_B]

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney looks like a fan idea that has came into fruition. Which is great, as we need more really crazy ideas in an industry that's being safe.

The story makes practically zero sense though, even for a layton game or an AA game.

Anyway you're in the UK - we've had the game for about 2-3 months now.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

It's been released?
-
Oh it was. I don't follow either of those franchises so I didn't know