E3 2019 is crossing our minds

I remember last year being a damp squib for me. Nintendo rarely does two damp squibs in a row though.

Treesmurf wrote:

Truthfully I'll be quite happy if they dedicate 30 minutes of the Direct to Animal Crossing like they did Smash last year.

I would be gutted if they did that - I was gutted last year, and that's for a game series I'm interested in! Truth be told, I don't think any game short of BotW and SMO is big enough to do what they did last year.

I'd argue Animal Crossing is bigger but Nintendo has confirmed games to be on the show floor which Animal Crossing isn't one however I don't think it's a game which would demo well on a show floor unlike Link's Awakening which you could have a dungeon to play.

Google Stadia Direct (confirmed will have more and very direct like) happened which they showed Baldur's Gate III, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Mortal Kombat 11, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Gylt this looks great, Get Packed, Division 2, Destiny 2 then a sizzle reel.

I said this morning they could have a massive showing or a damp squib and it was as they showed no exclusive content and worse you have to buy the games.

As you know I was behind the idea but why would I buy Ghost Recon for £50 on Stadia knowing the output is going to be inconsistent and less people to play with. Sure I could get 4k 60fps but much sooner buy a verison that's always 1080p 30fps.

There is a subscription for £9 a month but it's basically just Gold or Plus with only Destiny 2 announced, if it was that a month with every game like a Netflix (which I think most thought it would be) it be fine unfortunately it isn't.

I don't think Sony, MS or Nintendo need to worry and either one could at the moment wipe the floor with Google if done right.

I have this on in the background, vaguely. Ori 2 looks the absolute business. The bits where they stop showing games to get people on-stage are not the absolute business.

Really decent showing from Xbox, some things missing I thought would be there but guess will be at E3 2020 for Scarlett.

I think about 14 games were shown that take my interest and that's without going over the indie sizzle reel for even more on top of that.

It did mention this for Switch, which looks lovely but comes from the people behind my least favourite game on Switch that I've played. Still though: looks really sweet.

Bethesda had Doom and not much else. Is that right?

Ghostwire from Shinji Mikami could be real good and Deathloop might be interesting.

Square have dated Final Fantasy VII Remake (something as still episodic as far as we know) for March in a teaser at the concert last night. Hopefully more information later tonight/tomorrow.

I woke up to a few cool looking games today, so here's some thoughts on them:

GhostWire: Tokyo - This has a good pedigree of devs behind it & I loved the style of it so I'll keep an eye on this for sure.

Deathloop - For all the games that have you die and then respawn not many double down on making it an interesting game mechanic to play with, hopefully this because as cool as the trailer was it was CG only.

Doom Eternal - This looks unbelievably polished & 1vs2 multiplayer mode they announced looked like it could be really fun.

Carrion - Not sure I like them selling this with the term "reverse horror game" even though it's basically true, but that aside it looked cool as it was essentially a 2D take on John Carpenter's The Thing.

The Messenger Picnic panic dlc - It's new content for one of my favourite games of last year & it's free? Yass!

Elden Ring - From Soft is the only dev that can show me a CG only teaser and I'll instantly say "I'm in" then you add George R.R. Martin into the mix and you have something truly truly special brewing. The word excited doesn't really cover it.

Balladeer wrote:

The bits where they stop showing games to get people on-stage are not the absolute business.

Excuse me, Keanu Reeves is not just "people".

I've not had a chance to check out the noteworthy stuff from Bethesda's show, but the Xbox showing looked decent! Cyberpunk remains my most anticipated game and there was some neat indie stuff in there too. I'm interested to see more of that Dragon Ball game - it looked more involved than the numerous Bamco DBZ games that have been released over the years, but if it ends up being too similar to Xenoverse then I'll be passing on it.

I had press releases from Namco on a few games and take the DBZ game (it's an RPG, Jay so should be different) says launching on Xbox One, PS4, PC in 2020 where Elden Ring says expected to launch on Xbox One, PS4 and PC

Might be our first next-gen game besides Halo

masofdas wrote:

I had press releases from Namco on a few games and take the DBZ game (it's an RPG, Jay so should be different)

Action RPG, if I recall correctly, and Xenoverse had levelling if I remember rightly too. Hence, my concern that it'll be too similar to DBZ: XV to care about.

JayMoyles wrote:

Balladeer wrote:

The bits where they stop showing games to get people on-stage are not the absolute business.

Excuse me, Keanu Reeves is not just "people".

Clearly it was a big deal for the people in the audience, which is what it's all about. It felt dull and sluggish to me at home.

A Wii game getting announced on-stage at E3 in 2019.

The dancing pandas are the best part of E3 anyway.

Looks like the Wii is going to outlive the PS3, the 360 and even it's successor, the Wii U. Well excited for the Wii's bright future, can't wait to see what's in store for the Wii next year.

Balladeer wrote:

JayMoyles wrote:

Balladeer wrote:

The bits where they stop showing games to get people on-stage are not the absolute business.

Excuse me, Keanu Reeves is not just "people".

Clearly it was a big deal for the people in the audience, which is what it's all about.  It felt dull and sluggish to me at home.

Man, it was anything but for me. I genuinely shouted "no way!" when he popped up in game and was grinning during his speech afterwards.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Looks like the Wii is going to outlive the PS3, the 360 and even it's successor, the Wii U. Well excited for the Wii's bright future, can't wait to see what's in store for the Wii next year.

I've got a hot E3 leak for you - the next Wii game after Just Dance 2020 will be unveiled at Ubisoft's conference during E3 2020. I won't spoil what it'll be, but all I'll say is that you'll just want to dance around your house all the way into 2021.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Looks like the Wii is going to outlive the PS3, the 360 and even it's successor, the Wii U. Well excited for the Wii's bright future, can't wait to see what's in store for the Wii next year.

Reckon they'll use the same line as one of the singing games that Wii U can play Wii games and had on packaging can play on WiiU.

Also yeah with no FIFA and no Just Dance, the PS3 and 360 are finally over.

Double Post

Ubisoft was an odd showing as Watch Dogs Legion looks really good and we saw gameplay, yet after that was either CGI trailer or updates to games already out.

The others like Upload VR, AMD, Kinda Funny, Limited Run had some okay things that when Y indie game does come out we will likely take more notice than now.

Inside Xbox was great (maybe the best one yet) we now know XO19 is going to be in London, we saw gameplay of Gears 5 and Bleeding Edge, more Game Pass news, look at some 3rd party games, and we got the last backward compatible update (moving on to Scarlett) with some stand out games & DLC for OG Xbox games.

Then Square Enix happened who is a hard one to judge as for me it was brilliant and Final Fantasy VII Remake might be my game of E3, however, if you didn't like RPG's such as Cappa or if you only have an Xbox One then was only Avengers which ended the show. I know people like different things but if you look at Ubisoft they had a more diverse line-up that you may have spotted something you like compared to this.

I feel Nintendo are in the driving seat to "win" E3 as games they show will be gameplay and coming 2019 along with being names like Pokemon, Zelda.

I just saw Nintendo! It was good!

The one thing I felt they absolutely and complete nailed was the pacing. Game after game after game. As someone who found Keanu an irritating interruption, that's refreshing. There were a couple of points where I felt that flagged: the Pokémon shpiel, and the four game segment from Empire of Sin to Mario & Sonic in Tokyo 2020 which was three okay-looking games and one we knew a lot about. For the rest? Game after game after game after game like E3 should be.

As for the games? They were good too! Not great, not for the most part - I'm trying to come up with megatons and I think there were two halves of one (NMH3 and BotW2, both of which were too far away to be 'mega' in their own right, although BotW2 would have blown the roof off any other conference). We had a few odd new fun games, like Contra and Mana and that Jim Henson thing. Then it was just more of games we've already seen or, in the case of New Horizons, already knew about. Put it all together, though, and there's lots of good stuff!

Oh, and I liked the bit with Bowser at the beginning. We'll never get Iwata's influence back, but it was a nice touch.

Disagree even with my unliking of BotW announcing a sequel to the greatest game of all times, is huge and not sure what could top that.

On the direct it was good and I'm excited about a bunch of games that I can only get on Switch for the first time in awhile. Yes some I know we knew about but more info is always good.

Nintendo probably "won" (ugh) E3 in my eyes this year. Great showing with a real emphasis on games, announcements and surprises. Who'd have thought that'd have worked well?

I really enjoyed Squeenix's showing, though. FFVII:R looks tidy!

E3 chat, in general, has been less this year that I'm going right in with my awards

Best Port/HD/Remaster/Re-Release: Final Fantasy VII Remake looks epic
Best Indie: 12 Minutes that was in Xbox conference but didn't seem to be a lot of indies this year in the main showings and I'm not saying Cyberpunk as that just seems odd but you could
Best VR/AR/Mobile/3DS/VITA/Wii/Retro/Other: Bad year for VR due to lack of Sony that I've bundled a lot of things together and can't think of much from any of them maybe Gears Pop on mobile due to achievements and the PC Engine Mini looks neat for retro fans.  
Best Multiplayer A new one for 2019 but thought it was worth including with all the 3 Player CO-OP games/modes shown, yet I'm going for Bleeding Edge a 4v4 Hero Melee game from Ninja Theory which if you saw on Inside Xbox looks really good

Best Multi-Platform: Cyberpunk but Watch Dogs Legion isn't far behind
Best PC Exclusive: Age of Empires II, I didn't see much PC only stuff
Best Xbox Exclusive: I want to say Xbox Game Pass Ultimate as that is the best deal and sub in gaming at the moment but if I had to say an actual game Gears 5 after you look up gameplay on UUDD and not watch the conference.
Best PS4 Exclusive: Final Fantasy VII Remake, Sony didn't even go and look at that this as an exclusive  
Best Switch Exclusive: Fire Emblem Three Houses for this year and Animal Crossing for next year

Best New IP: Wasn't many new IP's that I'm giving it to Ghostwire because of Shinji Mikami and Ikumi Nakamura  
Most Disappointing Game: Avengers as we saw almost no gameplay and I'm not keen on the characters models either
Best Surprise Reveal: Breath of Wild 2 as I did not see that coming at all.

Best Company Showing:
3rd Square looking back now only FFVIIR really stood out as the rest were just sort of there and Avengers looked a bit muh
2nd Xbox the conference was a bit iffy. However if you include Inside Xbox along with how many games were shown even if a 3rd party like Cyberpunk they had the most games I want to play plus best services (39 games coming to Game Pass like Gears 5 and Outer Worlds) ohh and Scarlett talk amongst other things
1st Nintendo, they showed actual gameplay for things and road mapped the rest of the year on Switch which now looks good

Game of E3: Like last year a remake is getting it as Final Fantasy VII Remake is my game of choice with Cyberpunk and Watch Dogs Legion (never thought I'd be saying that) not that far behind

Best moment: Keanu Reeves appearing at Xbox  
Worst moment: Stadia Direct thing, it showed no games just for Stadia and the sub makes Nintendo Online look like the dog's bollocks but since then my view has improved thanks to Ubisoft with UPlay+ along with thinking about it this might be the way for me to play PC only games without needing a high-end PC but couldn't see me playing DOOM Eternal on it.

Apart from Nintendo, I feel absolutely justified in more or less not bothering with E3 this year. I listened to TCGS and pretty much all I found myself interested in was Keanu, natch, and the bit where Shinji Mikami introduced his disciple. But then there was Nintendo. DAMN!

Two and a Half New Zeldas My dick is so hard I just penetrated the Earth and now Japan is sinking into the ocean
No More Heroes 3 YASSSS
Witcher III FUCKING YASSSS life and the fact that it wasn't on Switch stopped me finishing this before . . . NO LONGER AN ISSUE.
Fire Emblem They showed some real war, not just school stuff, and it looked sick
Animal Crossing The first new animal crossing engine since the n64, more or less . . .
Luigi's Mansion Yeah, it'll probably be alright
Astral Chain Fuck yeah, Platinum
Daemon X Machina Fuck yeah, mechs
Dauntless I don't really care but its free and its a bit like Monhan so I'll give it a bash
DOOM ETERNAL bloody good shooting. Wolfenstein will probably be alright, too, although I've not even played the last one yet
Panzer Dragoon I've never played one of these. I like dragons and I like Stafoxxy shooters, so it looks good

This is just what I remember. Daaaaamn.

Pretty much!  Also, having seen some of the other conferences, I get (a reason) why you're not so keen on E3 these days.  All the corporate bluster really killed the pacing.  Then Nintendo came along and reminded me why I still like E3 with a festival of games!

I started typing out my full Mas awards list and lost it. I'll just say that my favourite remake was Panzer Dragoon which I did not see coming at all, which I've always been keen on trying, and which is probably also my best surprise as it felt like it could release some time this epoch; Spiritfarer was my indie game and is probably going to make me cry; Luigi's Mansion 3 was my game of E3; and Nintendo knocked it out of the chuffing park son.

Completely different topic: this reminds me of Jimbob.

I'll do my E3 awards, sure.

Best Port/HD/Remaster/Re-Release: Does FFVII: R count here? If so, that! The battling looks incredible and even though it's just Midgar we're getting next year, I'm sure it'll still be a cracking game. If not, then Link's Awakening.

Best Indie: Spiritfarer looked nice, so that.

Best VR/AR/Mobile/3DS/VITA/Wii/Retro/Other: Just Dance 2020 WILL REVIVE THE WII 

Best Multiplayer: Luigi's Mansion 3, I guess? I don't remember anything else with a big multiplayer focus.

Best Multi-Platform: I'd pick Cyberpunk 2077 any other year, but we didn't get any new gameplay so I don't think I can give it this award. Watch Dogs: Legion has a lot of potential and had a great showing, so that!

Best PC Exclusive: Fuck knows.

Best Xbox Exclusive: *shrug* I only really watch Microsoft for their multiplatform showings - it'll take Sony not including backwards compatibility for PS4 games on PS5 to move towards Xbox.

Best PS4 Exclusive: Final Fantasy VII Remake, but I reckon this could be a multiplatform game.

Best Switch Exclusive: Astral Chain might have pipped LM3 to the post here after the excellent Treehouse showing. Looks ace.

Best New IP: Does Astral Chain count for here too? If so, that!

Most Disappointing Game: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order looked a bit average - I was hoping for a better showing there.

Best Surprise Reveal: It would have been Banjo in Smash had we not had BotW 2 moments afterwards.

Best Company Showing:

3rd: Square had a better conference than Ubisoft, even though there weren't many big games shown outside of FFVII: R and Avengers. Ubi totally lost my interest after WD:L.

2nd: Xbox - the conference was fine, showed off some neat looking games and had freaking Keanu Reeves pop up on stage to speak about one of my most anticipated games.

1st: PC Gaming Show. Incredible content.

(it's Nintendo, you don't need to ask)

Game of E3: Man... tough one. Astral Chain looks ace, Watch Dogs: Legion surprised me with how ambitious it is, Cyberpunk 2077 still looks great and FFVII: R highlighted a fantastic looking combat system.

I honestly think I'm going to give it to FFVII: R. It's reassured me on what was looking like a shaky looking project.

Best Moment: KEANUUUUUUUUU

Worst Moment: CDPR rewarding the guy who shouted at Keanu as it led to encouraging the crowds to be insufferable at bits. The crowds. Man, they were rough to listen to this year. A point that stood out to me was in the Squeenix conference when they showed the Avengers trailer which revealed the core Avengers lineup, they followed up by highlighting each Avenger with a logo eg. And we've got Iron Man... and Thor..., but between every Avenger being spoken about the crowd would fucking lose it and shout at random phrases or quotes. Bring back the respectful journalists who made no noise.

JayMoyles wrote:

Best Xbox Exclusive: *shrug* I only really watch Microsoft for their multiplatform showings - it'll take Sony not including backwards compatibility for PS4 games on PS5 to move towards Xbox.

Best PS4 Exclusive: Final Fantasy VII Remake, but I reckon this could be a multiplatform game.

A few things here the PS5 is going to be backwards compatible with PS4 at least as that's been confirmed by Mark Cerny, if they somehow get PS1-3 playable as well that be insane. It seems Final Fantasy VII Remake is also going to come to PS5, it's a little unclear at the moment how but I wouldn't be shocked to see Final Fantasy VII Remake-2 on both PS4 and PS5 along with a Final Fantasy VII Remake Remaster for PS5.

On Xbox, it's an odd one looking at the internet afterwards it was shrug, I do believe and I'm guilty of this their conference was overhyped as we know they've got 13 studios now, 14 games from the studios would be shown, no PlayStation that it was there for the taking and wasn't. Now looking back and Drunka might have been joking elsewhere but things are getting held back for E3 2020 with the new console.

It's what they do to get you to buy that system as you all know I've been critical on Xbox since about 2010 as much like with what's going to happen between AEW and WWE, I want them all to do well and become better products, even if for years that made me look like a PlayStation fanboy as I don't want PlayStation just being WWE like it is at the moment.

The things I've been critical about they've fixed such as the lack of first party as now they have 13 studios, this is still a bit of an issue due to previous deals such as buying Obsidian who still have Outer Worlds to ship and once they do it is going to be a few years till their next game.

At the moment, they seem to be the most consumer friendly and have the best service in gaming with Game Pass which is the thing more than the One X which has kept me in the Xbox ecosystem as you know from me unable to play Mortal Kombat 11 with you guys on PS4.

That I'm not sure what more can be done at Xbox, now things in gaming are changing and I do believe they'd be more than happy people using one of their services and giving them money that way even if they don't buy a Scarlett.