E3 2015

[toxicitizen]

So far the PC Gaming show is surprisingly decent! Day[9] is a pretty good host and the more talk show-like structure is more interesting than the usual format these things follow. If they actually have some good reveals and announcements and maintain this level of quality, this might actually be the best show of E3 for me.

 

edit: Oh shit, Microsoft actually just announced that the Gears of War remaster is coming to PC! Not the most exciting title but it's a start!

Edited June 17, 2015 by FLD

[CorgiShinobi]

 

 

Iwata: Thank you for watching. We take your opinions of this year’s Digital Event very seriously and will work to better meet your expectations in the future. #Iwatter

 

Guessing the Nintendo event didn't go down too well. Next year they'll be the NX and Zelda, so it had better not be a disappointment or they're ruined.

 

Also just realised they didn't mention about the membership program. I know that's not too interesting for the main event but I really want to know what's up.

 

 

It was disappointing, but there were still a few good moments. It's simply not enough to compete at E3.

 

It's worth noting that Sony (maybe Microsoft) gave nerds out there long forgotten boner fuel. I guarantee someone out there is just staring at a still of Cloud Strife's back.

 

EDIT: Screw that new Metroid game too.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Atomsk88

[Mister Jack]

This PC show is boring as hell so far.  American Truck Simulator?  Pathetic.

[toxicitizen]

This PC show is boring as hell so far.  American Truck Simulator?  Pathetic.

Is that seriously the only thing you got out of it? Because that was literally the only boring thing in the entire first hour.

Edited June 17, 2015 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

EVERYTHING has been boring to me so far.  The Gears trilogy means nothing to me anymore, we've already seen Deus Ex, I don't give a shit about Total War or Killing Floor, and we've heard about DX12 a million times already.  The only announcement that kind of interests me so far is Killer Instinct and even that wasn't something I was really dying to play.

[toxicitizen]

Doesn't sound like you're really in the demographic of the show, then...? At this point it's on par with Sony and MS for me. Definitely better than I anticipated. Even if they don't interest you, you can't deny that there were some pretty solid announcements. Killer Instinct, Gears Ultimate and even apparently a hint that Gears 4 will also come (I missed that bit).

 

I mean, what were you even expecting?

[Mister Jack]

I was expecting very little, but giving them enough benefit of the doubt to think that maybe we'll see a new and interesting PC exclusive of some kind. And maybe some XCOM 2 gameplay.  There's still time for the latter, so if that happens then it will salvage the PC conference for me at least a little, but the announcement of ports for nearly 10 year old games does not excite me.  I'm a multi-platform gamer.  I've already played those games to death.

 

I really have no idea how popular the Total War series really is, so I couldn't tell you how big of an announcement it really is.  I am aware that it has a devoted fanbase, but it always seemed like a niche community to me.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

I'm not sure what kind of PC exclusives you had in mind but that was a pretty unrealistic expectation to begin with. You say you don't give a shit about Total War and Killing Floor but those are the kind of games that are PC exclusives. Lol, you kinda sound like you just have no idea what you wanted out of this and are complaining just for the sake of complaining. Like I said, you're probably not in the demographic they're targeting with this.

 

I also wouldn't call Gears Ultimate a 10 years old port but whatever. It's a remaster, fair enough. But it's not like that's the only thing they've shown.

[Mister Jack]

I was hoping for a new reveal that wasn't an RTS, a MOBA, or a strategy/sim game.  I am fully aware that this is pretty unlikely in this day and age but an FFVII remake was pretty unlikely too.  Also, even if I did care about Killing Floor, Killing Floor 2 isn't anything new. People have known about that game for ages.  The Total War reveal was new, so I guess that's nice for people who are into that series, but I am not one of them.  They went to the trouble to put together a PC show for E3 for the first time so I thought that maybe they had a big surprise in store but so far it's not looking like that's going to happen.

 

edit: You know what, I'll lower my standards.  It doesn't have to be PC exclusive.  Just show something that I haven't seen besides indie crap and early access.  I don't care if it's multiplatform.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Mister Jack

[Saturnine Tenshi]

 

>: D

Edited June 17, 2015 by Saturnine Tenshi

[toxicitizen]

I was hoping for a new reveal that wasn't an RTS, a MOBA, or a strategy/sim game.  I am fully aware that this is pretty unlikely in this day and age but an FFVII remake was pretty unlikely too.  Also, even if I did care about Killing Floor, Killing Floor 2 isn't anything new. People have known about that game for ages.  The Total War reveal was new, so I guess that's nice for people who are into that series, but I am not one of them.  They went to the trouble to put together a PC show for E3 for the first time so I thought that maybe they had a big surprise in store but so far it's not looking like that's going to happen.

Right but those are the genres that PC exclusives tend to fall into, so again, not sure what your logic was there. The only games that are exclusive to PC these days are the games that can't work on consoles. It just doesn't make sense to leave that money on the table otherwise.

 

I also hope they have something big for the end but I'm not holding my breath. And even if they don't, overall the show more than delivered for me. It was significantly better than I expected.

[Mister Jack]

Okay, Enter the Gungeon isn't really a surprise but I am interested in that game so it's something.

 

I also revised my standards so I no longer need an exclusive, just a surprise of some kind.  I'm sure you were already writing your post when I made that edit so I won't hold it against you.

 

edit: Okay, so a new Starcraft episode.  I don't really like Starcraft so it means little to me but I know how popular Starcraft is so I guess this is gonna be what most people take away from this conference.  

Edited June 17, 2015 by Mister Jack

[Saturnine Tenshi]

I can't stand the MOBA genre (especially in this me too environment), but it is what it is. Just take what you can out of it like any other conference.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Saturnine Tenshi

[toxicitizen]

Okay, Enter the Gungeon isn't really a surprise but I am interested in that game so it's something.

 

I also revised my standards so I no longer need an exclusive, just a surprise of some kind.  I'm sure you were already writing your post when I made that edit so I won't hold it against you.

Yeah, saw that after. I still think you're looking at this wrong but at this point I'll just leave it at "that's your prerogative".

 

This is a show organized by a news outlet and sponsored by a GPU manufacturer. I mean, who could possibly make that kind of megaton announcement that wouldn't have already done so at either their own conference or one of the big threes'? I'm pretty sure the biggest you can realistically expect is MS and Blizzard. Short of hell freezing over and Valve making a surprise appearance to announce Half-Life 3, I don't see any kind of major, industry-shaking announcement coming out of this.

 

And come to think of it, wouldn't that be just the most appropriate possible closing announcement for this E3? The Last Guardian. Final Fantasy VII Remake. Shenmue III. Half-life motherfucking 3.

Edited June 17, 2015 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

I will admit that I didn't know this show was sponsored by AMD until after it already started, but I still think it could have been better than this.

 

Gaben showing up was a long shot, and I sure as hell didn't expect Half-Life 3, but it would have been nice if he showed up to talk about SOMETHING.  Source 2, a live demo of the steam controller, freaking anything.

 

Oh, and no Firaxis appearance whatsoever.  God damn it.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

It could've been better, sure, but it also could've been oh so much worse. You have no idea how bad I actually expected this thing to be.

 

But it was two and a half hours long and I thought that even the most objectively boring parts were still much more interesting than the bullshit and corporate wanking we usually get at these things. There was no bragging about userbase size, no bullshit like TV or whatever and none of that "isn't our brand just the fucking best, you guys?!" nonsense. That's a massive improvement in my book.

Edited June 17, 2015 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

Alright, so it's officially over.  What is everyone's E3 report card?

[SomTervo]

 

Okay, that was pretty badass. Closest they've ever come to topping that Uncharted 2 E3 demo.

The driving part certainly looked like more fun and excitement than mowing down waves of dudes in another corridor, but I'm confident there will still be plenty of that.

 

 

You call the marketplace, a large open space with lots of scalable buildings and guys at every angle, with almost every surface destructible, a crazy APC chasing you, with being grabbed by a guy and beaten up before Sully dynamically intervenes, with scaling buildings on-the-fly to escape a choke point, and punching a dude with a giant drop-strike...

 

'Mowing down waves of dudes in another corridor'?

 

I'm super excited about the new Need For Speed. I hope its as good as it looks.

 

I missed this. There were so many good announcements this year. My god.

 

I'm surprised by how much it looked exactly like last time. Maybe it was the stream quality but it even kinda looked like a PS3 game.

 

I'd figured it had to have gone through a serious overhaul or something. Wonder what the fucking hold up was.

 

Horizon looked interesting enough. Doesn't look like an RPG at all, though. Isn't that what the leaks said? I got kind of an Assassin's Creed vibe from it.

 

Been wailing at people over on NeoGAF about this for a while.

 

The two tidbits of info we heard about the game while it was in development hell specifically cited the ambitious AI as the cause of the delay. So, aesthetically, it was never really going to change. The problem was:

 

A) The PS3 couldn't handle the complex AI processes (plus the high graphical barrier)

B) The AI itself was insanely hard to implement

 

This led to:

 

1) The game needing to be pushed onto PS4. This alone could add 2-3 years dev time as it wasn't even finished for PS3

2) A selection of other Japan Studio teams to get involved and lots of work just to ensure the AI worked

 

Ostensibly the AI for the catbird is super advanced – in one sequence it can go from combat AI to vehicular AI to puzzle-tool AI to idling/pet AI – and you can see this in the trailer if you look closely. I'm pretty sure very little it does in the trailer is scripted. Maybe the bit where it's clinging on to the little platform and he has to roll the pole down so he can climb it. But I think all the jumping/climbing/catching/fear response/running can happen anywhere. Notice how the kid had to jump up and down to tell the catbird to leap the crevasse to the other side? Ingenious.

 

I might be fully wrong about all of this, but the reasoning above would make sense particularly if the game was entirely mothballed for a couple of years in the middle of the process before they got their act together. Apparently Mark Cerny was significantly involved in reinvigorating it, as he's now down as a producer or whatever.

 

 

I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't give a shit about Shenmue. I really don't get why everyone is so obsessed about it. I tried whichever one was on Dreamcast years ago and it didn't seem all that great.

 

Both the first games were on Dreamcast.

 

They haven't aged well. But at the time they were unprecedented new shit. And artistically they still stand up well today – the whole appeal is that they're kind of like... Twin Peaks, but Japanese. Slow paced. Capture the mundanity of day to day life. A slow burn mystery with occasional tense bits. Weird as hell with very idiosyncratic moments. In terms of game design they did a few pretty new things for big budget RPGs – there was little/no inventory or handholding or map, you really had to do detective work on your own. And the premise was that nothing can happen that wouldn't happen in real life. At one point you even have to get a day job and drive forklift trucks around.

 

Of their time, very much. Also we now know Sony are helping them alongside the Kickstarter funding (which was obvious), and the demand was so record-breakingly high that there's a solid chance they'll Remaster them, I reckon. Depending on Sega, who still hold the rights to 1 and 2.

[SomTervo]

Some evidence on the above re The Last Guardian (my speculations were accurate):

 

From Kotaku here: http://kotaku.com/what-happened-to-the-last-guardian-1711835457

 

 

 

Yoshida said that when the game was announced in 2009 for PS3, they thought they were making good progress.

“But in 2011 the progress became super slow. There were lots of technical issues. The game was not performing at speed. The video we showed, the trailer on PS3, was specced up. The game was running at a much lower frame rate. Some features were still missing.

“So it was clear that the team had to make a compromise in terms of features and number of characters so while they were taking time, the engineering team ported the code on the SPU [processors of the PS3] to improve the performance, but it was taking lots of time.

“But, in the meantime PS4 arrived, the development environment was available. So in 2012 it became apparent we should move it to PS4 to achieve the visual [ideal.]”

[SomTervo]

SORRY FOR TRIPLE-P BUT THEY JUST ANNOUNCED A RARE PACKAGE FOR XBONE. LIKE 20 CLASSIC RARE GAMES INCL BANJO AND PERFECT DARK, ALL FOR $30, IN ONE XBONE PACKAGE

 

CAPITAL LETTERS

 

EDIT: OUT IN AUGUST. AUGUST 4

Edited June 17, 2015 by kenshi_ryden

[TheMightyEthan]

 

 

Okay, that was pretty badass. Closest they've ever come to topping that Uncharted 2 E3 demo.

The driving part certainly looked like more fun and excitement than mowing down waves of dudes in another corridor, but I'm confident there will still be plenty of that.

 

 

You call the marketplace, a large open space with lots of scalable buildings and guys at every angle, with almost every surface destructible, a crazy APC chasing you, with being grabbed by a guy and beaten up before Sully dynamically intervenes, with scaling buildings on-the-fly to escape a choke point, and punching a dude with a giant drop-strike...

 

'Mowing down waves of dudes in another corridor'?

 

What large open space? All the combat occurred in a narrow, linear area. "Straight down this street 30-foot-wide, up these stairs, through this door." And a corridor is still a corridor, even if you can climb on top of some of the furniture (which I also remember doing in previous Uncharted games).

 

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think the combat in Uncharted games is just a boring obstruction to get through for the fun parts.

[Mr. GOH!]

That's certainly how UC3 worked, Ethan.

 

I mean, theoretically, the UC games could be excellent. In practice, they're 80% repetitive nearly-on-rails third person shooters. I think a wider variety of enemies and combat options would go a long way to spicing up the gameplay, though.

 

I really wonder if/how that chase sequence works in the final released game.

[SomTervo]

UC3 was the worst one, and I won't defend it. And UC1 was proof of concept - pretty flawed - so I won't defend that either.

 

But the point of demonstrations like this is to show the potential of gameplay, not everything you can actually do at each moment. 

 

When Drake jumps up onto the awning, right before he dive-punches the guy, you can see that there's a whole right-hand wing of the marketplace he never even went into. Ie rather than running left from a stall to hide behind sandbags, he could run right to take a different route. Uncharted 2 had plenty of moments like this. Sections of gunplay which seemed linear and on-rails, but actually had at least two route options, but usually more sandboxey approaches where creative gunfights and stealth could happen.

 

Did you guys even watch the Uncharted 4 gameplay video from last year? Where there was a long, large space full of foliage for stealth and multiple vertical levels? At several points he had about 3-4 paths to choose from, and there was clearly an AI/combat sandbox of guys finding him, losing him, platforming and sneaking. It looked very open and great. If you read any interviews about it, the creative directors are aiming to make it the most open Naughty Dog game since Jak 2 and 3, significantly more open than TLoU. They mention sections where you'll be able to choose from 2 or 3 paths which may open or close in their own unique ways and give specific pros and cons.

 

This also fits with the chase sequence where we can see there are frequently 2 paths to choose from, and clearly freedom to drive down any one of them you choose. What the heck are you saying 'if/how' it works? Every bit of Uncharted gameplay that's been shown in conferences since the first one has been nearly 1:1 with what we played in the final release.

Edited June 17, 2015 by kenshi_ryden

[TheMightyEthan]

I did watch the one from last year, which was significantly more impressive.

 

I'm not trying to claim there won't be any open areas, I'm just saying I anticipate most of the combat will be a boring corridor with waves of guys.

[SomTervo]

That is possible. I still think they make the more corridor-like bits very enjoyable by mixing up the enemy type variations and writing great dialogue into these sequences. Plus the 'role playing' enjoyment of being a badass fast-and-loose adventurer, which makes basically all the combat fun for me, even the worst bits of UC3.

 

I can't recall where I read it, but I'm pretty sure Neil Druckmann said they're implementing the more open approach for a significant amount of the new game. IIRC it's a high-level thematic direction, that they're doing this to make you feel more like you're adventuring with Drake rather than just watching him adventure on a set path. Personally: I mean, it's the same team as The Last of Us. I trust they can do this shit. The Last of Us was deeper than any of the Uncharted games and they said they're taking many cues from what they learned on it.

Edited June 17, 2015 by kenshi_ryden