Nintendo E3 Direct 2018, Nintendo Treehouse 2018, Nintendo Invitationals 2018, and Other Platform E3 Nonsense (God Bless)

UbiSoft is a very good shout. Dancing panda and Grant Kirkhope? Sign me up! If the BG&E2 trailer hadn't looked nothing at all like the game will...

Best Port/HD/Remaster/Re-Release: Tales of Vesperia - everyone always yacks on about this supposedly being the best of the franchise, I've been interested in seeing if it lives up to its reputation for quiet some time (no thanks to Microsoft).  Plus it's been a while since I've played a Tales game and I'm starting to get that itch again.  
Best Indie: Err...
Best VR Game: Wait a sec VR is still a thing?  

Best Multi-Platform: DMC5 - I guess.  Honestly I wasn't really paying attention to multi-plat titles this time.
Best PC Exclusive: Dunno - didn't watch any conferences about the Master Console-Race.
Best XBox One Exclusive: That Wisp game - and I stand by my remark that MS would benefit so much by focussing on titles like that alongside their staples.  
Best PS4 Exclusive: Spider-Man - Did you expect anything else?  Comes out this year, looks amazing, and I'm a Spidey fan.
Best Switch Exclusive: Smultimate natch - I may be more of an FE fan but a two minute teaser doesn't give me much to hype over, that Smash direct though...

Best New IP: Does Spider-Man count due to being a new game without any prior prequels?  
Most Disappointing Game: Death Stranding - aka the vaporware title walking simulator that, three years after its announcement, is still firmly in "what is this even about and why should I even give a damn" territory.  Speaks volumes about this game that most of the people I've seen around the web still interested cite Kojima's prior titles too.  At this point (and at the risk of triggering some people) I'm actually starting to wonder if Konami had good reason for disliking Kojima by the end.  So far all its shown is a bunch of irrelevant celebs, some pointless esoteric (and that's being generous and implying anyone can dicipher the hell is even going on) imagery, fetus buttcracks, and waaaaaaalking.  

Best Surprise Reveal: Ridley - nuff said. Smash always does reveals well and Ridley was no exception.
Best Company Showing: Microsoft - *vomits slightly*  They really ripped the rug out from under Sony this time by securing all the interesting third party game reveals, so credit where credit's due.  
Game of E3: Spider-Man - I guess.  If we're strictly talking about games coming out before next E3 that I have the means to play.  Helps that the demo they showed after the presentation had some solid open-world web swinging and finally confirmed this to be the Spidey game us lovers of Spidey 2 have been waiting over a decade for.  

Best moment: Ridley reveal - I didn't think a reveal for a game could still ellicite a verbal reaction from me, and yet from the moment the reveal showed that bridge phrases like "no flapping way..." were being uttered.  
Worst moment: First forty minutes of Sony's conference - bland, boring, with violence and graphical depictions of a nature that made me want to literally vomit.

The thing is with Death Stranding is even though announced 3 years ago, development hadn't even started and your reasons why it's a disappointment is why I'm excited for it as Kojima is a mad genius also not sure I wouldn't say Mads Mikkelsen is irrelevant.

Even if Kojima was a pain for Konami, we forgetting everyone else they treated badly.

Athrun wrote:

Most Disappointing Game: Death Stranding - aka the vaporware title walking simulator that, three years after its announcement, is still firmly in "what is this even about and why should I even give a damn" territory. Speaks volumes about this game that most of the people I've seen around the web still interested cite Kojima's prior titles too. At this point (and at the risk of triggering some people) I'm actually starting to wonder if Konami had good reason for disliking Kojima by the end. So far all its shown is a bunch of irrelevant celebs, some pointless esoteric (and that's being generous and implying anyone can dicipher the hell is even going on) imagery, fetus buttcracks, and waaaaaaalking.

That's actually a great shout, just stop being so vague and give us a proper gameplay demo (I know this won't happen) I'd honestly feel the same if Miyamoto or Miyazaki done something like this.

I think we could all do with more clicking baby-powered machines in our lives.  I do think the celeb-spots are pretty pointless though, Mads Mikkelsen included - although one of my (female) friends strongly disagrees on the latter point.

The thing is doesn't it show how far gaming has come to have an Oscar-winning director, the lead for a major TV show, the OG Bionic Woman, a Palme d'Or winner and someone who was very recently in the MCU.

Also on Athrun's bit on Xbox should focus on more games like Ori, the thing is they sort of did during early Xbox One with the likes of Ryse, Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, ReCore with only two of them doing over a 1m sold that you get why Spencer cancelled Scalebound that it wasn't up to scratch, was going to cost more money to get to that point and not sell.

The only thing this E3 has told us they may have realised they need those games to pad out the portfolio and get people like me on the system, that I think it comes down to you got to spend money to make money.

masofdas wrote:

The thing is doesn't it show how far gaming has come to have an Oscar-winning director, the lead for a major TV show, the OG Bionic Woman, a Palme d'Or winner and someone who was very recently in the MCU.

We kind of already knew it had come there though. I think Guillermo del Toro's involvement was the injection of star quality: anything else (including both of the celebrities revealed over E3) is just padding.

The cast is great but you can't sell me on a game with that alone.

Personally, I've just avoided pretty much everything to do with Death Stranding. I generally like Kojima's games, and it does have a strong looking cast, it's just that there's nothing to go on beyond that at this point in time so there's really nothing to get worked up about. I will add that I'm inherently concerned by it being so "out there" at the moment. I've always preferred Kojima when the wackyness is reigned in a little: MGS 1/5 being my favourite Metal Gear Solid games, 2 right down at the bottom. Until there's anything substantial to go on though I'll remain largely apathetic. I'm not even opposed to a "walking-sim" game if it's delivered cleverly, I just don't even know what it is at this point.

Final scores:

Best Port/HD/Remaster/Re-Release - Dark Souls Remastered (1.5 votes)
Best Indie - Hollow Knight (2 votes)
Best VR Game - none

Best Multi-Platform - none
Best PC Exclusive - none
Best XBox One Exclusive - Ori and the Will-o-the-Wisps/Forza Horizon 4 (2 votes)
Best PS4 Exclusive - Spider-Man (3 votes)
Best Switch Exclusive - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (3 votes)

Best New IP - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2 votes)
Most Disappointing Game - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2 votes)
Best Surprise Reveal - Ridley in SSBU (3 votes)
Best Company Showing - Microsoft (4 votes)
Game of E3 - none

Only MS' conference seems to have any level of consensus, which was perhaps underlined by the XB1 exclusive vote being split. SSBU was definitely the Marmite game.

Wouldn't Gears Tactics the PC winner ( MS) as it is a PC exclusive, I know you said Ooblets Balla but that's an Xbox Console Exclusive.

Is it? Ah well. I'm not giving a game with only one vote a 'winner' spot, that's just silly.

You gave Dark Souls a half a point because Jay may have voted for it if Spyro wasn't shown when it was shown at E3, so that also really only got 1 vote at least I could come up with a PC game that's exclusive.

C'mon now it was only a bit of fun eh? Also the fact there isnt a consensus is a good thing.