This last few days E3 2012 happened. There were lots of games announced and a ton of stuff happened. I did cover many of the trailers that are out there. I saw a lot of stuff, read a lot of stuff. and certainly heard a great deal of stuff. Unfortunately, there was some incredibly good news and some incredibly bad news. Some things that we might have thought we had have been lost and other things that we thought were true are not true anymore.
If that isn’t epically vague enough for you… Don’t worry, I’ll explain it all. To begin with I have to say that I didn’t watch the entire Nintendo Press Conference. But I have read and watched quite a lot of information about it. But let’s start at the chronological beginning. That would be Microsoft…
Microsoft has for the past few years been falling deeper and deeper down the media rabbit hole. Along with that you can add Kinect to this mix and you end up with a pretty crappy result. This year was no exception. Seems like every year Microsoft gets less interested in video games and more interested in the money they can make from people giving them incentives etc… To put their TV and movies on the box. Besides that, they are making the console even more encumbered by what could otherwise be a good feature of the XBOX SMART GLASS. This feature would allow people to use their phone or tablet as a kind of extra screen. Which in concept is great; but in practice it is asking third parties to put a lot of work into something that may or may not be on the next XBOX and that would be coming out next year. So…. This also, apparently ties into Windows 8 so perhaps there are lots of hooks there, I suppose only time will tell. Strangely this press conference has totally destroyed whatever faith I originally had in Microsoft. I don’t think Gears of War, Halo, and Forza are enough to keep a console alive or my interest in that console alive. The complete and utter lack of interest in what still IS the main reason people buy the XBOX 360 and will probably one day buy the next console is staggering. Microsoft, has drunk their own koolaid, I think they honestly believe that they can coast for the next year on third party games and they will have another good Christmas. After all, it worked last year… But how many XBOX 360 are really left to be sold. I would guess not too many, after all, now that repurchased red ringed XBOXs aren’t inflating their numbers; I think it will be another Wii situation. The reason, the Wii isn’t selling anymore is that anyone with any interest in it has bought it all ready. Anyway, Once my COD Elite subscription is over and my XBOX LIVE subscription is over; I’m done. This is not some kind of fanboy rant, it’s more a testament to how completely clueless Microsoft showed themselves to be. The forward facing, statement of a company is sometimes more important than what the company ACTUALLY does; and in this case I’m afraid it is simply a statement about the future and that future is the XBOX 720 being a Roku Box that plays games. Not for me…
Between Ubisoft and EA there are some interesting games coming out for the next 10 months but nothing overly unique or interesting. Dead Space 3, Assassins Creed 3, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Far Cry 3, and Crysis 3 will probably be descent games. But probably not the best things to show in stage shows. When I saw the demos with the developers I found each game to be pretty good. I do have to mention that most of the best games coming out were being shown on PC and considering the graphical fidelity they were showing; might be best on PC. Overall, there was some good third party stuff that I’m sure I’ll be playing.
Finally, Sony! These guys were on point and on message from the very beginning when Jack Trenton came out and said that Playstation was founded on games and that is what they continue to strive to do. They showed new IPs like Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls. They also showed some Vita games and their cross functionality with the PS3. They definitely showed a lot of that stuff away from the show. Which is pretty cool and finally made me want to buy a Vita. The Sony show was more a teaser trailer for the what they were going to show on the floor of E3. Which is basically what they are supposed to do. And that stuff, was good enough to get me jacked about the Sony titles coming out in the next 10 months. Considering the whole package of the press conferences I really feel like the Sony Press Conference was awesome.
The kind s of reactions I’ve seen about most of E3; are usually informed by one or two sources and generally come down to the audience not having all the information. For my money, I’ve tried to do a lot of reading of Twitter, journalists comments through video and articles. I’ve tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and I think that is probably lacking in most coverage around the horn. I think most developers showed as much as they could and sometimes that wasn’t enough. For Example: Star Wars 1313, will probably be a good game whenever it comes out, on whatever they decide to put it out on, but right now it wasn’t enough to get me excited about.
For the most part in this article I’ve written about things that seemed important to me and ignored everything else. While there are certainly plenty of people interested and excited over the new Gears of War or the new Call of Duty Black Ops. I would have to mention that these games not titles that hold much danger or curiosity to me. When they come they will most likely be good. I expect Gears will have excellent multiplayer and a misunderstood but good campaign story. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 will have an excellent multiplayer with lots of options and a descent campaign that might end up being the best since Call of Duty 2. But these are not things we need to discuss when we talk about E3.
My picks for E3 2012 are: Watch Dogs, Borderlands 2, Aliens Colonial Marines, Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider, Assassins Creed 3, and Need for Speed Most Wanted. I know many of picks are glaringly missing some of the critics darlings. But to me, they are probably not worth the note that the games I chose are. While I really felt that there was a lot to love at E3 2012; there was a definite over all feeling that rather than seeing new consoles next year it would better serve the industry just to drop everything on to PCs and give this whole console thing the boot. Everything from proprietary licenses to certifications were on the tips of everyone’s tongues as they spoke about the industry. Personally, this seems like the only logical step to me. Think of all the problems this would solve:
1. No used game market on PC.
2. No online passes
3. Steam and Origin are all ready leaders in digital distribution
4. No crazy exclusives that force people to either wait for content or hope they chose the correct place to pre-order it from.
5. No more crappy motion controls
6. No more entertainment hub discussions as the PC has been an entertainment hub for around 10 years now.
7. No problems with consoles that have no hard drive
8. No more media bias(Blu ray, DVD, HDDVD, digital distribution, etc…)
9. No more backward compatibility issues.(Just played my copy of Unreal Tournament 3, it runs spectacularly.)
10. No more crappy peripherals that can only be used on one console for one or two games.
That was just right off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more. Well, I’ve written a fine and lovely wall of text here. If you want to hear my views on Diablo 3, Torchlight 2 Beta, Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend #2, and probably a really late in coming review of Asura’s Wrath. Stick around because that is all on the horizon. But for right now, go back through the entries for the site these last few days and catch up on all the awesome trailers and read some short impressions of them. I would like to end in saying that as much as we take the video game industry for granted there are plenty of talented people out there who live and die by this stuff. And I mean financially, spiritually, and mentally. Not just adrenaline wise, fanboys. So please be kind and respectful to video game creators; odds are they are smarter than you will ever dream to be and their stake in all this goes a lot further than just being right.
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