Normally I do a post about wandering around the convention center before the show starts but given that I spent the vast majority of my day press conferences, I am going to write about that. I am sure most of you have already watched a stream of the conferences and are aware of what was talked about at the conferences so I am not going to show you a bunch of grainy video I took from the crowd with my comparatively shitty camera. What I am going to do is talk about the things I am most excited about that I saw at the conferences and some of the things I am not so excited by. I will even tell you which I think was the best press conference although I should mention that EA easily wins ‘best conference to serve awesome donuts’ because they were the only ones who did it. Thanks EA! I also need to qualify that I did not attend the Sony press conference because evidently Sony hates the Buzz Media given that this is my fifth year covering E3 and they are the only company not to invite us to their conference. I haven’t had time to watch a stream of it because of reasons so I am only going to be talking about Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft.

Microsoft

Unlike last year, the focus this year was placed solidly on games with an hour’s worth of trailers and information about games coming out in 2014 and then about a half an hour about games coming out next year and beyond. Rather than giving you a block of text in which you have to pick out the game information I am going to just list the ones I found noteworthy and tell you why. Here we go:

 Call of Duty Advanced  Warfare: Microsoft was proud to announce that they have an exclusivity window on new DLC  with Xbox One. The gameplay shown looks not unlike Titanfall with the inclusion of jump jets and futuristing weapons and vehicles including mech-like tanks. The addition of drones and the selection of grenades that do several different things, each a new variation on what you usually do with grenades, differentiated the game and made it look pretty interesting. The cinematics were impressive with solid graphics and surprising turns. After surviving a crash, your character is lying on the ground and as help comes to drag you away, one of your arms stays behind which was both a surprising thing and felt very hardcore. Call of Duty Advanced Warfare releases on 11-4-14.

Assassin’s Creed Unity: This is a series that has had a metric ton of ups and downs and as much as I liked Assassin’s Creed IV, I was very nervous going into this new iteration since it jumps further in time with a new character, Arno Droian who is making his way through the French Revolution. Part of what I loved about the last game was all the pirating you got to do because I am very much into pirating. The bit of the game that Microsoft showed made me feel a lot better about the game. Highlighting the  four player co-op, this game looked fantastic. The graphics were gorgeous and the team dynamic really added an extra element to the whole thing. The attention to detail in the character models and environments is very evident and makes it look even better. I will not really know how this will be until I get my hands on a controller but for now this looks pretty amazing.

Sunset Overdrive: This looked fantastic and while the art style looks very cartoony and bright, the game looks to offer a decent helping of gore and violence. The real stand out, though, was obviously the free running mechanic that goes beyond just parkour and into a whole new kinetic way for a character to move. Gameplaywise it looked like if you added insane movement skills to Dead Rising. It looks fast paced and fun with a decent helping of humor. There is also 8 player online co-op with dedicated servers. This one drops October 28th and is an Xbox One exclusive.

Fable Legends: I did not think terribly much about this game when I first heard about it so when I saw it pop up I didn’t expect much but it looked really cool. The art style and general tone and sense of humor is definitely in line with the main series and it doesn’t look like there is a major difference as far as control is concerned. Where I was really worried was taking the game to co-op action RPG. I like those but I didn’t know if they really fit with the Fable series. Then they revealed that a fifth player can take on the role of the villain and there is a whole other facet of the game that is more like a god simulator in which the player sets up all the traps, enemies and spawn points. This looks seriously awesome. I looks like it will be a bit of a mix between Deception and Champions of Norrath and that looks petty sweet. Open beta is coming this fall.

Project Spark: I wasn’t super into this game conceptually and I am still sort of incredulous as I am not really that into the game creation aspects of it but there were some cool new modes and landscapes, including a space/sci-fi theme, that made this look a little more interesting. Also Conker. Yeah, Conker is in Project Spark. I don’t know how or why but I am into it.

Halo Master Chief Collection: There was a bit of a tease for Halo 5 but that is going to be a ways away. If you are a Halo fan, however, you are getting lots of love on November 11 of this year. This is a collection of all four Halo games for the Xbox One and provides a single interface for everything. There is the option to create a customized playlist so essentially a best of list of levels that you want to play across all four games Halo 2 has gotten a lot of love as it has been remastered and given a facelift for this addition. Also there are over 100 multiplayer levels from across all the games so that is pretty cool for Halo fans. Also it is going to run at 1080p and 60 fps so it has that going for it, which is nice. There is also a Halo 5 open beta coming in December. I am not a big Halo fan but this is a pretty awesome package for those that are.

Rise of the Tomb Raider: Maybe the dumbest title I have ever heard of but the trailer looked solid. I like the therapist angle because games tend to gloss over the fact that when you kill many, many people, you are going to need some counseling. I like that it addresses consequences for in-game actions and the trauma that would likely come from it. Not a lot shown but I am interested.

Witcher 3: I am not going to belabor this much because I have an appointment with CD Projekt Red later in the show but this continues to look amazing. The UI looks a little complicated but still better than the Witcher 2. The game looks gorgeous graphically and the tracking mechanic looks to have improved since last year and basically I am chomping at the bit to get my hands on it.

The Division: This one comes up again during EA so I won’t harp too much but it looks pretty great. Also my notes here are an unreadable scrawl you find in dark rooms and exciting conditions. It is a third person game with some cool tech and weapons and again has the DLC coming to XBox first. It looks like  similar gameplay to SOCOM but super pretty.

Crackown: Not a ton to say about this cause it was just a trailer but it is exclusive to Xbox One, has dedicated servers and looks awesome.

Overall Microsoft:

The takeaway message this year was that Microsoft is recommitting to games and I get the impression that the new head of XBox is looking to fix a lot of issues from the past. This message was loud and clear as he made the commitment at the end to listen to gamers. I think that is likely to be a true statement given how much of the Xbox One’s model they have changed due to fan feedback. There are cynics who would charge that they should have gotten it right the first time but that is a pretty shitty way to look at a company doing a 180 specifically to address customer feedback. I was also really excited that there was no mention of the 360. This is not because I hate that system but rather because I want more to play on the new one and the shift in development to exclusives as opposed to uporting from a less powerful system allows for much more robust and better looking games. If people were underwhelmed by the graphical fidelity of  the initial launch offerings I think they will be pretty blown away by what is going on now and it is still early.

EA:

This was a bit odd as the press conference was laid out as if we were at a wedding reception and there were boxes of donuts on the table. Of course the table I chose had an empty box so I pilfered one and took my seat. It was kind of nice for people with laptops and equipment and I did meet some press from Israel at my table so that was pretty cool. Here are some games:

Star Wars Battlefront: My notes on this were ‘Fucking gorgeous, holy shit!!!!!’ Not a lot was shown but the in engine footage they showed was amazing. I want this right now.

Dragon Age Inquisition: This looks so much cleaner and prettier than either of the previous games and the art style looks more consistent with DA:Origins rather than DA2, which is good because I prefer DA:O across the board. There are two combat options this time around with the traditional console combat which allows for hot swapping characters and a more action based interface and then the strategy option that switches to isometric overhead view which allows you to plug in commands and let the characters play it out. I am glad for this choice because I am hoping the combat and story/ character development fire on all cylinders this time around. It also looks like there is damage tracking on specific body parts. The trailer highlighted some of the new characters all of which looked awesome and their faces are super detailed.

Mass Effect: Basically they said they were working on it and it would be a new region of space. They also mentioned that they were working on a new IP and basically I passed out because all the blood from my brain diverted elsewhere. I am so excited.

Various sports titles: They showed UFC, NHL 15, PGA Tour, FIFA 15 and Madden 15. I don’t give much of a damn because I don’t play sports games. PGA is using the Frostbite Engine and looks pretty but it was still golf. Madden is adding a more robust defensive game this year and all of their marketing is based on that. This is cool if you are into that sort of thing.

Mirror’s Edge: They showed some screen shots and talked about their philosophy a bit, I never played the first one so I am not super stoked about this one but it looks nice.

Battlefield Hardline: This one is made in conjunction with Visceral games and pits the police versus criminals matches that can accommodate 32 players. They showed a scenario called Heist in which crooks try to knock over an armored car and the cops jump up their asses for it. It looks very nice and applies physics to every individual in the world with big destruction possible. Beta launching now on PC and PS4. It is going to run at 1080p and 60fps with a launch date of October 21st this year.

Overall Impressions: EA was a bit odd this year with most of their videos focusing on things in production and company philosophies and such. It wasn’t bad per se but it didn’t offer much as far as solid news and mostly amounted to a bit of a tease. That may be what they were going for but I was hoping for more. That being said I am super excited about what Bioware is up to and that alone is enough to excite me to the extreme.

Ubisoft:

It has been a couple of years since I have gone to a Ubisoft conference and that last year I went it was hosted by the horrendous Mr Caffeine. This year, as with the last two, it was hosted by Aisha Tyler and she was awesome. I know she has taken some nerdflack in the past because a lot of people seem to think that women cannot be gamers, particularly attractive ones but all of those douchebags can suck a dick. Tyler is not only legit she is also hilarious and incredible and did a great job hosting. Her jokes did not feel canned or inauthentic and it was awesome to be able to see her in person. Aside from Tyler and how awesome she was, the Ubisoft conference brought the goods with a fun presentation and a decent amount of solid games. This is in contrast to the more contemplative EA conference.

Here are the games I was into:

Far Cry 4: The conference kicked off with the first five minutes of the game. None of it was gameplay really, except for some minor things, but it all looked very pretty and it has me interested. Release date November 18, 2014.

The Division: I mentioned this above but the Ubisoft conference offered some more details. You are playing a civilian agent installed in New York after a viral epidemic has killed off a significant portion of the population. This was presented first with a time lapse trailer that was surprisingly moving  and the cinematic elements almost looked photo realistic. Releasing in 2015. 

The Crew: I am not a huge racing fan but the Crew looks pretty cool. It features coast to coast driving with no load times. There are two such two hour long missions that will take the player from one coast to the other. The game was developed using gamers and their feedback and tweaks were made to gameplay accordingly. Closed beta opens on July 23rd and the game itself releases 11-11-14.

Assassin’s Creed Unity: The Ubisoft conference focused more on the single player aspects of the game and showed us some Eagle Vision and found the player tailing someone through town, a mission type that every AC player is very familiar with. The climbing and free running looked seamless and the combat looked solid. I am still kind of nervous that we will end up with AC3 controls and combat as opposed to AC4 mainly because the mechanics have been rebuilt in effort to allow for multiple options on how to do things in the open world. I am nervous that in the process the controls have been broken but as far as the demo goes it looks smooth and solid. The costume looks simpler as it is not a pirate costume or any of the other variations but it makes the over all experience look much smoother. As is the growing theme from these press conferences, Assassin’s Creed Unity looks fantastic and the detail in the faces and environments are impressive.  It is also cool to see the seamless transitions from crawling around outside of buildings and into windows. No loads from going outside to inside which is impressive on its own even before considering that Assassin’s Creed isn’t really known for the interiors by and large. Again all of this looks very pretty with an insane amount of detail. So far Arno is looking pretty badass and I am cautiously optimistic here. 

Valiant Hearts: World War I game that was built using archival photos and with personal accounts of the war. I am not clear from the trailer what the game play is like but it was difficult not to be moved by the footage and it looks like an emotionally charged experience. 

Rainbow Six Siege: The footage shown here was four on four tactical team vs terrorists in which the terrorists have hostage that the incursion team has to rescue. The combat was tactical and looked like there were a lot of options available for how to complete the mission on both sides. Not a lot of information was given but it looked like the gameplay was tight and balanced. 

Overall Impression: Ubisoft brought a lot of interesting things to the table and they delivered it with fun and enthusiasm. Assassin’s Creed looks great and Far Cry 4 was very impressive from what was shown.

Best Conference? Microsoft. Ubisoft and EA were both good in their own way by Microsoft offered the most titles that were consistently interesting. This might be a bit of a cheat since Microsoft showed some of the same games EA and Ubisoft did but both of the latter two also had a number of titles I am not very interested in.