As usual this will be a summary of the things I saw today and then after the dust settles I will get into more in depth coverage of individual games and products. This is just a quick over view of the things I saw and did. Day One is usually a lot of rushing around as you are hit with everything at once and you are trying to get your bearings. This year, I have a lot more appointments than in the past and my time is more limited. I was also a little less tense and anxious than in previous years. After coming to the show for five years I think that I have mellowed a bit.

After doors opened, I did a quick lap around the South Hall I realized that my number one priority would be Batman Arkham Knight because I had two hours before the first appointment and I was fairly sure I could manage to ride the line into the theater in that time. I went to the line and hopped on and waited for 20 minutes for the next theater experience to start. The line for this was right next to Mortal Kombat and holy shit that was a long line. Thankfully, show times were posted for both of these games as well as Shadow of Mordor and the Witcher 3. I knew there was no way I was going to make it into Mortal Kombat today but my plan is to go there first thing because I have an hour and a half free in the morning. 

I got into Batman in the next showing which made me very happy and they offered us something like 15 minutes worth of footage. This was all in engine gameplay being driven by one of the development team. The host for the experience was more like a hype man and narrated with a distinct theatrical flair. This is not an insult as it served to punctuate the crazy things we were seeing on screen. I am not getting into this too deeply but the footage shown highlighted the Batmobile and how seamlessly it is integrated into the game experience. I was a little concerned that we were going to be stuck doing a bunch of boring driving missions when I want to be doing more Batman things elsewhere but this demo erased those fears entirely. The Batmobile is just another tool in Batman’s box and you can use it in conjunction with other actions to make for varied gameplay. The new combat and take downs look crazy awesome and detective mode has been augmented with more options and hacking. Also, it is great to hear Kevin Conroy again.

After Batman I went to check out the West Hall just to see what was up over there. After a quick circuit I went up to my first appointment with Techland. At Techland I got hands on with  Dying Light and saw gameplay of Hellraid. Dying Light was pretty awesome and I was taken through two scenarios in the game that took me from learning the basic moves and controls to a much more skilled section of the game with better weapons and abilities. I was pretty impressed here and I am looking forward to this even more than I was before. Hellraid is a first person hack and slash fantasy game that I had never heard of before but looked impressive. This will be one that I want to check out when it launches in 2015. 

After Techland I went to a meeting with Razer. They showed me a game control set up for IOS that felt great and fits right onto the phone in such a way that the basic functions of the phone are intact and workable. Next I checked out the Razer line of gaming headsets which were running with a Dying Light demo. It was the same scenario as one of the ones I had gone through earlier but some of the enemy types and placements were different. It is a testament to Dying Light that I was still interested in going through the demo again. The headset sounded pretty great as well. 

Next up I went to the Microsoft booth to get some hands on with Sunset Overdrive. The line moved fairly quickly all things considered and I only waited for about 40 minutes to get my hands on the game. We were playing the 8 player multi-player mode in the night defense scenario in which you have to protect your base from an onslaught of mutants. This demo was crazy and the controls and visuals were absolutely on point. The free running was tight and easy to get the hang of and the combat was fun and frenzied. I don’t think the fact that I came in 7th of 8 players should be held against me. I had fun.

After this I had some time to kill so I played a bit of the Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha. Of course I played as Ryu and spent several minutes beating the holy living shit out of zombies with hurricane kicks, super upper cuts and the occasional hadoken. It was pretty fun to just kill a bunch of zombies but I wasn’t really sure why I was doing it in the context of the game. It was a fun diversion though and there are a lot of characters available all with their own unique play styles. 

After that I went to my third meeting of day one at Astro/Skullcandy. I have never really used Astro headsets outside of E3 visits partially because they are high end with high end prices but their acquisition by Skullcandy has allowed for a new entry level set for a pretty reasonable price. Astro has a full line with even more coming out including a bluetooth set that is meant for use with mobile devices. I took a listen to those and aside from being incredibly comfortable the sound was excellent. 

Well that was that for Day One. It doesn’t sound like a lot but Day One starts a couple of hours later than the other days and a lot of time was spent waiting in line or getting the lay of the land. The stuff I did see an experience was all pretty rad though and I am even more excited for Batman, Sunset Overdrive and Dying Light than I was before. See you tomorrow with a whole lot more. The day is packed!