Here we are at Day Two of E3 2014! Today was pretty packed with meetings but I did have an hour and a half in the morning and a two hour block in the afternoon to wait in line and wander around. My plan was to head straight to the Mortal Kombat X booth so I made sure I got to the convention center early and actually try to get in right away. It is kind of baffling to me that after all these years the side doors in South Hall largely remain a mystery to people. It was in this line in which I parked myself with that wobbly feeling of anxiousness and anticipation running riot through my system despite my best efforts not to get too worked up about it. Having stakes really makes it hard to be mellow. This was especially true when the door next to us opened and people were filing in with speed and we were standing motionless. There were VIPs of some kind that were getting priority over us which was kind of annoying but not nearly as much as when we remained motionless after they were in. Not sure what the hold up was but while it seemed like about 45 minutes, it was really about three and I was on my way to the WB booth. I need to stop worrying so much.

I got to the Mortal Kombat X line and found that it was fairly empty which was pretty awesome. As we stood waiting for the theater doors to open, the line started filling out and the Batman line next to us got HUGE. I felt pretty good about my decision to hit that up first yesterday. In fairl short order I was in the theater having a fun conversation with a gentleman from Machinima in which we discussed our Mortal Kombat experiences of the past and joking around. Meeting people at E3 is generally pretty awesome because there is obvious context and shared interest.

When the demo started we were treated to some combat between Sub Zero and Scorpion and shown the new Character Variation which adds new move sets to characters on top of their base move set. There are three to chose from per character and these move sets change game play emphasis as your fighter specializes in some aspect of fighting be it defensive, projectile, weapon based and so on. There are visual cues as to what set the player has chosen so if you know what to look for you can anticipate the player’s emphasis. The demo showed some new characters and environmental exploits as well as a host of fatalities and new X-Ray moves. I will get much deeper into this when I do the full preview but this looks sweet and I am very excited.

After Mortal Kombat I went to meet with Steel Series, a company that I have grown to love over the years of E3. They were the first to schedule appointments with us and they make some awesome gear. In contrast to past years, Steel Series wasn’t pushing any new headsets but rather a new IOS controller and a device to track eye movement in order to improve competitive game play. I will go into a lot more detail later but both of these devices were interesting and the potential of the eye tracker is staggering. 

After Steel Series it was off to an appointment with Deep Silver. On the menu there were demos of Homefront: the Revolution and Dead Island 2. I never played the first Homefront but I hadn’t heard a lot of good about it and I was not a big fan of Dead Island so it was with some trepidation that I watched the demos. Homefront was up first and we were given the basic set up: 2029, four years after the first game and North Korea has fully occupied the US. The game takes place in Philadelphia and is made up of guerrilla tactics and asymmetric warfare. As we are seeing with most of the next gen (current gen? what the hell, can we make a decision on this shit?) games, the graphics are crisp and clean with a ton of detail and awesome lighting. The game play itself looked engaging and the story seemed interesting so I am cautiously optimistic for this. 

After that we got Dead Island 2 which takes place in California seven months after the events of the first game. The virus has spread but hasn’t taken over the US. California is a quarantine zone. The game, once again, looks incredible with awesome lighting effects and fluid animation. I thought the same thing about Dead Island a couple of years ago at E3 and I was disappointed so I hesitate to say that this has brought me back around and that I am excited for it but it looks better than the first and has a lot of potential. Also they mo-capped a cat and I am with that. 

Next up I decided I would use my two hour block to check out Dragon Age Inquisition. Any long time readers of the site know that I am a huge Bioware fan in general and Dragon Age in particular so it should come as no surprise that I was very excited to see this. I got to the line and found that my friends from Fabling games were in line ahead of me and I was happy to have friends to talk to during the wait. As the time marched along I began getting worried that we weren’t going to make it within the two hours and that scenario started playing out as we got right up to the door to find it shut in front of us and there was sadness. Thanks to Fabling’s Christopher Patten, however, I was allowed in because I had an appointment next and really wanted to cover the game. They let me in and I sat on the floor and that was just fine. I love that EA does everything they can to get as many people in that want to see the demo as they did back when they were showing Mass Effect 3. I really appreciated this.

Look, DAI looks fantastic and it really would have had to shit the bed for me not to have been excited for it. As it is. I was pumped pretty hard for this before and even more so afterward. I can’t wait to write the preview for this so I can talk about it for 1000 words but let’s leave it at it looking amazing and seems to offer everything I could hope for. 

Next up I got a guided tour of Assassin’s Creed Unity. I have talked about this a bit already so I will save further comments for the preview, but this was pretty awesome. Due to theater schedules and crowds in general, I had to reschedule the rest of my Ubisoft appointment until tomorrow. I am glad for this so I didn’t have to rush so much and I don’t dig the idea of going in ahead of people who have been waiting an hour. I mean it is the nature of appointments but if it is really crowded I would prefer to wait until I am actively fucking over fewer people. 

My last appointment of the day was for Payday 2. The focus of Payday 2 this year was the upcoming DLC the Big Bank Heist. Before I got hands on with the game I got to talk to a couple of guys on the development team and they were very, very cool. I really enjoyed talking to them about the game and their philosophies. I love Payday 2 and it makes me love it even more to know that it was put together by people who have real affection for gaming and this particular experience. There are a lot of games popping up offering cops and robber type gameplay but the emphasis on co-op found in Payday makes it truly distinctive and worthwhile. After this I got hands on with the new DLC which was weird for me because I am used to playing it on consoles so playing with a mouse and keyboard took some getting used to. After the game play I got to go in the money vault and try to catch as much as I could for the chance at a prize. I did not win but I had a blast and I ended my day on a definite high note.

Tomorrow is the final day of the show and I have appointments with 2K, CD Projekt Red, more Ubisoft, Shadow of Mordor and Wargaming.  It is going to be another packed day and it is going to be a blast.