Here it is, Day 3, the final day of the show and probably the busiest ones I had of the show. I had a lot of appointments, some made on the fly and what I didn’t have a lot of was time. This worked out in some ways and totally fucked me in some others. But it was a fantastic day and a great way to end the show. 

My first appointment was Take Two Interactive and I was set to see Civilization Beyond Earth and get hands on with Evolve and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. I got there a bit early and got a bit of a jump on Civilization which looked pretty cool. I have not played any games in the series before but taking it into space and dealing with settling an alien planet while dealing with resource gathering and the inter-galactic politics that go with that. It is releasing in the fall and it looks pretty interesting.

Now, Evolve. So I got the wrist band to get hands on with the class I was going to be playing (Assault) on it and was ushered into a theater to see a short intro video before we got hands on. I was first out the door because I had been there but some people from IGN asked if they could go ahead so they could all play together. I said sure, because I am nice and accommodating and they went out to play. Another 10 or 15 minutes rolled by and I was still waiting, which wouldn’t have been a big deal if I didn’t have Borderlands hands on in about 9 minutes and that was backed up against my next meeting so I couldn’t really go over on that one. I was ushered out to play and we went through the character intros and player roles and then we were dropped into the level. We ran around for about a minute and a half before there was a problem with the rig that the monster was playing on. We reset and went through the opening again and then we were going to have to reset again so they were going to move us to a new set of systems but by that time I had to bounce. It really blew but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Sure, I would have been able to play had I not let anyone go in front of me but then I would have been a dick. Technical problems happen and it is no big. Take Two dig everything they could to resolve it so I am definitely not angry about it, it is just a bummer. 

I moved over to Borderlands and got another short video and then hands on. It was pretty awesome. I love Borderlands 2 and this is a lot of that with low gravity and new weapons and abilities. There is no reinvention of the wheel going on here and that is just fine. Taking place between Borderlands and Borderlands 2, the Pre-sequel has all of the humor of the previous titles and all the same tight controls and upgrade opportunities. This one is coming out 10-14-14. More on this in an upcoming article. 

I had to leave Borderlands about five minutes early to make it over to the CD Projekt Red meeting room. I made it with about two minutes to spare and was ushered in to the theater where I was offered, and I accepted, a Zywiec beer which really hit the spot. And why not? It was noon. The Witcher 3 presentation we were given was about 45 minutes worth of game play and showed more action, hunting, story and environments. There is a lot to say about this in the preview article but I will say here that what we saw was different material but not incredibly different than what we saw last year in terms of game mechanics. We were shown the inventory system and some of the user interface as well. Now, I said it wasn’t incredibly different but that is really a good thing as what we saw was consistent in tone an quality with previous material and it looked very, very fun to play. This one is in my top five of the show easy.

After the Witcher I jetted over to WB for my impromptu appointment to see the Shadow of Mordor presentation. I was pretty interested in this one going in as it looks pretty cool but I didn’t know a ton about it. It is a third person open world fantasy action game which seems to be all the rage these days but it brings some special things to the table like a nemesis system that randomly generates all enemies so you will never see the same ones twice and no two play throughs are the same. This is a pretty bold statement but the gameplay we saw put paid to those claims. If the whole thing pans out like the demo, we are in for a  treat. 

After Mordor, I went over to Ubisoft to try to finish up my appointment from Day 2. I was quickly ushered into the theater presentation of Far Cry 4. As it happened, and I am not sure why, I had a private demo of the game play presentation which was pretty cool. I am looking forward to writing the preview for this one because there was a lot of badassery on hand. I have dabbled in Far Cry in the past but I missed Far Cry 3 which I am told is amazing and I want to try that out before this one comes out. It is launching for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC on 11/7/14 so I have some time. For now let me just say: You can ride elephants. *Mic Drop*

Next up was Rainbow Six Siege and the presentation there was a bit different than the usual thing you see and that was pretty cool. It was a traditional theater set up except that the walls of the theater were lined with Ubisoft employees at PCs with the game booted up. They played through two games in the same scenario but the first game we saw the team leader of the infiltration team and in the second we saw the defender’s perspective. This showed the different ways the teams prep for the assault and how both teams can use environment and destruction differently. I looked around a bit and I was sitting next to one of the players so I could see him using his controller appropriately and I could hear him talking to his teammates both through the headset and in the room. If this was all pantomime it was damn well done. The fact that some members of the audience were allowed to get hands on suggests that it was actually live. It looked pretty awesome.

I was meant to go to the Division next but there was a scheduling bottleneck so I went to my Wargaming appointment and would come back after to see the Division. Wargaming was really cool as the World of Warships looks really cool and insanely detailed and the upcoming mobile version of World of Tanks also looked robust and easy to play. I have never really played World of Tanks but I have been told too check it out and I need to do that sooner rather than later. Again, World of Warships looked really cool.

I went back to Ubisoft for the Division and ended my day on a high note with a really impressive game play demo. I am particularly excited about the weapons and equipment you have in the game as it actually looks fairly unique. I have a ton to say about this one and that will be coming up so stay tuned.

I took a final couple of laps around the halls and tried about two minutes of Alien Isolation before I got an alien tail through my back and that was a wrap on the show. Stay tuned here for a lot more coverage on all the games and gear I saw at this year’s E3. It was an interesting year for sure and there is a lot to talk about.