T w e n t y S i d e d

I watched the Nintendo E3 press conference. I actually missed the first few minutes because I lost track of time, so if they started with a bombshell announcement then I’m hilariously out of the loop. But assuming they didn’t lead off with anything world-shattering, the show was about what we expected. While the other publishers treat the gaming press to flashy 90-minute extravaganzas with pyrotechnics, dance numbers, celebrity guests, smoke machines, and booming Hollywood-style trailers, Nintendo keeps things simple. Their show is only half an hour. It isn’t even live. It’s just some company officers talking into a camera, followed by some trailers.

The presentation showed us exactly what you’d expect from Nintendo: Some Kirby, a bit of Pokemon, some Fire Emblem, a reminder that Skyrim is coming to the Switch, a portion of Zelda, a dash of Rocket League, a few Amiibos, and a bunch of Mario. There was even a brief acknowledgement that Metroid 4 exists in some theoretical sense and we might see a frame of it someday.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2017 Day 4: Nintendo”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

This might be the last of the shows I’m going to cover. I was going to cover the PC Gaming show, but I wasn’t paying attention to the schedule and I managed to miss it. Maybe that’s not a huge loss. The PC Gaming show has become notorious for being overlong, dull, and awkward. I suppose if the people demand it I might show up for Nintendo tomorrow. We’ll see.

The point is, this is the last of the big shows. Let me make some predictions about what they’re going to show us and what my reaction will be:

1. Detroit: Become Human: I already hate this game. Designer David Cage is the M. Night Shyamalan of gaming, except he thinks he’s David Fincher. Everything about his gameplay and stories rubs me the wrong way.
2. God of War: I’m not looking forward to this game, but I am looking forward to seeing how the public receives it. This is a tent-pole franchise that’s been dormant for a while, and now it’s getting a radical overhaul. I’m curious how receptive fans will be to the changes.
3. Uncharted: Lost Legacy. I expect they will show us some really cool action scenes and amazing visuals. I’m okay with that.
4. Death Stranding: This game is so relentlessly strange that I can’t wait to see more of it. I’m also eager to see what finally comes out of Hideo Kojima’s mind after being chained to the Metal Gear treadmill for two decades.
5. The Last of Us: Part 2: There should not be a sequel to the original LoU. Barring that, it shouldn’t feature any of the characters from the first one. LoU told a thematically complete, self-contained story, and dragging things out for a sequel is not the best artistic choice. I’m sure it’s the best financial choice, which is why this game is being made. Alas. Be careful what you wish for, fans. It’s unlikely this game is going to be able to deliver the same emotional payload of the original.

Also, I wonder if Sony is going to announce anything in terms of hardware / pricing to counter the strong showing the X Xbox X One X O LOL X gave two days ago.

Let’s see what they do…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2017 Day 3: Sony”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Now it’s Ubiosoft’s turn. I expect I’ll be pretty negative here, assuming I have anything to say at all. For most of these companies I can at least say, “Sure, the company leadership is annoying, but I really like their products!” But that’s not the case here. I hate their particular house style of open-world collect-a-thon. I can’t stand Assassins Creed. I’ve never connected with Far Cry. The Tom Clancy stuff doesn’t do anything for me. I hated WATCH_DOGS. Okay, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is one of my all-time favorites, but that was, what? 2003? And I’ve disliked where the sequels went after that one. For Honor isn’t my thing.

And then there’s UPlay, this unsightly growth on the face of the company that they’re still insisting is a “beauty mark”. And before that was their ridiculous dedication to always-online DRM.

So yeah. Obnoxious company with terrible policies, bad taste, an abusive approach to DRM, and a library of games I don’t care about. Probably not going to be a fun show for me. I guess I can at least look forward to seeing presenter Aisha Tyler do her thing, right?

Actually, no. The rumor is that they’re not going to have Tyler hosting their press conference this year. That’s bad news, since she’s always been the best part (only good part) of their show. Ubisoft is the stiffest of the corporate stiffs, to the point where they make Microsoft look punk rock by comparisonThe Division staged demos were always an epic cringe-fest. On the other hand, the For Honor guy was probably the coolest dude at E3 last year.. So they really need a professional to make their presentation feel more like a party and less like a board meeting with an audience.

They claim Tyler isn’t appearing this year so they can have a better focus on their developers. This seems like a strange reason, since one of the duties of a good host is to bring people out on stage and make them feel comfortable, even if they’re not in show business. If we’re talking about putting designers, programmers, and artists out on stage, then the last thing in the world you’d want is to have them address that great big crowd directly. Instead you can have them come out and talk to the host.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2017 Day 3: Ubisoft”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

And so we come to the final show of Day 2. I don’t know what Bethesda will be showing off, except nobody is expecting Fallout or Elder Scrolls. I guess I’m hoping for some Wolfenstein.

You can watch the stream here. Again, I’d love to embed the stream so it’s more convenient for you, but Twitch embeds autoplay and that is really annoying.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2017 Day 2: Bethesda”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

It’s day 2, which means it’s time for Microsoft to shuffle out on stage and play another round of “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?”

They’re expected to show off the new Xbox hardware. I’m looking forward to getting angry over the part where they once again fail to apologize for Games for Windows LIVE. I’m anticipating that they will follow that up with a bit where they pretend like there’s nothing wrong with the Windows Store.

I’d embed the Twitch stream, but for some idiotic reason the Twitch player always auto-plays. That’s obnoxious. So instead you’ll have to settle for this link right here.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2017 Day 2: Microsoft”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Like I said yesterday, I’ll be watching the E3 stream and writing about it. I’m not sure which particular stream I’ll be watching, though. A half dozen different outfits are running their own stream, and I’m not sure which one will be the least annoying. I’ll figure it out once the show starts. For now I’ll be keeping an eye on the YouTube stream in one window and and playing Starbound in the other. (The Spacefarer Update just came out.)

I don’t expect to have a lot to say about this particular presentation. EA seems to have killed off or mutated all of the games I might care about. But we’ll see if they have any surprises.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2017 Day 1: Electronic Arts”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

As in the past, I’m going to be watching the livestream of E3. But this year instead of adding my own commentary on top of the show (which made it easy for ME to miss things, or to make it so I would drown out the presenters so YOU miss them) I’m just going to live blog it.

E3 is such a strange beast. There are three groups involved, and they all want different things:

The Publishers

The publishers want to get the biggest bang out of their marketing dollars by making announcements at this point of maximum public interest. All eyes are on E3. Well, not really “all eyes”. The vast majority of “gamers”Whatever THAT means. ignore E3. But the core audience is keenly interested in it. These people are the big spenders, early adopters, and platform loyalists, and with the right touch their enthusiasm can be harnessed to generate even more hype.

So the publishers invest a lot of money trying to control the narrative. They want favorable coverage with timing they control. They want everyone to buy as much as possible, as soon as possible, with as little scrutiny as possible.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2017: Intro”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.