Forgot password?  |  Register  |    
User Name:     Password:    
Blog - Staff Blog   

E3 Impressions: Microsoft, Sony, EA, and Ubisoft


On 06/05/2012 at 12:45 AM by Jon Lewis

See More From This User »

Well...today was something else. Full of highs and lows, today was definitely a roller coaster as far as the press conferences went. Some met expectations, some failed and others surprised. This is just my quick impressions and opinions of the main conferences today.

Microsoft:

Boy did they drop the ball. I somewhat expected Microsoft to play it safe but this was insulting. Not only did they have minimal content to demonstrate for the hardcore, but they spent way too much time on things like Kinect, ESPN and live preformances *coughUsher!??!!?cough*. Anyway, Halo 4 opened the show on a positive note, but aside from a good showing of Tomb Raider (which got kinda overshadowed as the day went on) and the first trailer of Gears of War Judgement, there was nothing to really be excited about. Sadly, they left a bad taste in my mouth, but hey, at least it was kinda fun to make fun of them, right???

Highlights: Halo 4, Tomb Raider, South Park, Resident Evil 6

Lowlights: Usher preformance, Kinect, No new titles, Resident Evil 6 (in a way, i was expecting something a bit more...scary. Still want the game tho).

E.A.

While I didn't see the conference, I hear they showed off Dead Space 3, Crysis 3, Need for Speed Most Wanted and a few other things. Sadly, i hear Dead Space is continuing to stray from its horror roots. Crysis still looks good from what I hear, but overall nothing spectacular happened. Onward...

Ubisoft:

IMO, Ubisoft deserves a pat on the back. While I was worried when they opened with a Flo-Rida (or whatever) preformance, they redeemed themselves with some impressive demos. Assassin's Creed looked amazing, and Rayman looked like tons of fun and is a must buy for Wii U. Im actually very glad they took the time to show off some stuff for Wii U, and from what I saw, good things are in store for Nintendo tomorrow (hopefully). The big talk of the show however, was Watch Dogs, a brand new IP based off of the idea that the main character is some kind of super hacker that has acess to the personal info of just about anyone he encounters. The demo looked fantastic and im extremely excited to see more from it. Overall Ubisoft did some great things, and really impressed me.

Highlights: Watch Dogs, Rayman Legends, Assassins Creed 3, ZombiU

Lowlights: Flo-Rida...i just dont like that guy...

Sony:

When Microsoft disappointed us with its lackluster showing, I personally felt that Sony had the opportunity to really blow everyone away. While they definitely didnt, they still managed to have an effective display. Most notably, Sony's new IP's stole the show, first off being Quantic Dream's newest title, Beyond: Two Souls, and The Last of Us. Other titles, like God of War Ascention and another demo for AC3 made apperances as well. They did a good job of showing off some PS+ incentives and even showed off some interesting Vita content. Things were generally looking up, but Sony decided to spend just a little too much time trying to sell a new idea, involving PS Move, PSEye and these Story Book game things (i forget the name atm). I dont think this was the place and/or time to show em off, and they did bring down the hype considerably. That said, they finished off strong and I can't wait for more. However I was disappointed with a few things; where was the Last Guardian, Final Fantasy Versus 13, Kingdom Hearts HD Remix (or even KH3), all big titles, nowhere to be found.

Highlights: Beyond, The Last of Us, Assassins Creed 3 and Assassins Creed Vita

Lowlights: The Story book idea as a whole, the absence of some key titles (like The Last Guardian), God of War Ascention looking pretty much the same as the previous games

Meh: PS: All Stars Battle Royale, not that i think its bad, but its just meh so far.

Overall, thanks to games like Beyond, Assassins Creed, The Last Guardian and Watch Dogs, I'm pleased with some of the games that I've seen. I think that there were some obvious missteps, but a lot of great games were shown off as well. Star Wars 1313 looks great, along with other previously announced games like Borderlands 2. With only Nintendo remaining, im interested to see how they will stack up. Will they steal the show, or fade into irrelevence? We'll find out soon enough!



 

Comments

Michael117

06/05/2012 at 12:56 PM

Microsoft didn't drop the ball in my opinion. They covered their bases and focused squarely on 360, what it can do, and they emphasized the ways people actually use it. All the stuff the announced wasn't just wishful thinking. People use their 360's to consume various media more than they do to play games, people want that stuff and Microsoft gave it to them and improved the services, or added new partners. Then they still showed two of my favorite franchises ever, Halo and Splinter Cell so that was enough hardcore gaming to keep me happy for now. They brought out Glass Box or whatever and stole some thunder from Nintendo by showing Microsoft can do the whole "2nd screen gaming" thing too and now the Wii U isn't so unique.

The EA show was cool because I love Crysis. Dead Space Co-op demo was stupid, it was just a wannabe Gears of War with the vulgar voice acting from Bulletstorm.

Sony wasn't anything better than Microsoft. They had two great things to interest me, and that was Beyond with Ellen Page, and The Last of Us. The rest was just fanboy coddling, chest thumping, and business as usual.

Ubisoft by far had the best show of them all. I loved seeing Splinter Cell, Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 3, ZombiU, and most of all Watch_Dogs. Everything was good at the show, but Watch_Dogs stole the show and was the perfect way to close out the conference. It looks like an incredible new IP and was my favorite new IP I saw at any of the press conferences.

(UPDATE) Nintendo is the one that dropped the ball, now that we just finished watching the conference. That was a stupid conference, I wasn't convinced to buy a Wii U at all. Last year with their E3 presentation I was purely confused, now this year at their 2012 E3 I was completely uninspired and bored.

Jon Lewis Staff Writer

06/18/2012 at 01:21 PM

Yeah man, as you can see i still haven't vented about Nintendo in blog form, but they truly messed up, lol.

Log in to your PixlBit account in the bar above or join the site to leave a comment.

Game Collection

Support

Xbox Live