E3 2015 has all but come and gone, and in its wake will be bullet points and highlights for future video game fans to look back on with (hopefully) good memories. Almost all of these memories will be situated on events that took place during the major press conferences, and while Fallout 4 and Kingdom Hearts 3 may have been games of the show for many, it’s arguably the Big Three’s conferences that matter the most: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo’s. Let’s break them down by style and substance, starting with Microsoft.
Say what you want about Microsoft and the Xbox One, but their conferences always hold the highest production values and have the slickest and most effective flows of the big three. They started off big with Halo 5: Guardians, went straight into the CG reveal of ReCore (a new game by Inafune and the “makers of Metroid Prime” (but not Retro Studios,)) and then took a swing for the rafters by announcing backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games: a big win for sure.
They then officially revealed their new Elite Controller (with random levers and all,) rehashed a bunch of what was revealed of Fallout 4 the previous night (then added some new gameplay at the end, while quickly mentioning that Xbox One gamers will get Fallout 3 included with the game,) and went straight into Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. So far, all very quickly paced, all exciting announcements.
Then a car came down from the ceiling. Forza? Forza. This was followed by a CG trailer for Dark Souls III: the existence of the game was unfortunately leaked earlier, but the trailer was still awesome. Then some of The Division and Rainbow 6 Siege were shown, both looking as great as they did last year. There was an indie game mashup: Cuphead, Tacoma, etc., followed by some impressive Rise of the Tomb Raider gameplay (though it did look a lot like the snowy sections in Uncharted 2). Everything Flowed well, everything quite positive.
Then there’s Rare. Oh Rare: how we’ve missed you. Not only is there going to be a 30 game Rare collection… it’s only going to be 30 friggin’ dollars. Out with the old, in with the new: Sea of Thieves was revealed, and it looks whimsical and large – though not much is said about the title’s gameplay. An interesting Hololens demo is given, but it’s brisk enough to keep the pace steady. Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was followed by a gameplay demo of Gears of War 4. All-in-all, a very solid showing with some great surprises.
Everything went off without a hitch for Microsoft, but for me, there was a significant problem: I wasn’t all that impressed by what was actually shown off. Halo 5 is going to be huge, but I could not have been more bored by its gameplay. It came off as flavorless and by-the-numbers. Despite the fact that the cooperative elements weren’t totally expected, it ended up kind of just looking like Halo Reach or Halo 3 ODST. After the good (but not amazing) Halo 4, 343 needed to impress. They impressed some people, but not this fan.
Then, on the other end of the conference, there was the Gears of War 4 demo. Atmospheric? Yes. Dark? Yes. Exhilarating? Nope. Gears, like any game, has a right to evolve and change, but this just felt like a slow paced crawl through a crumbling city. I’ll give the game the benefit of the doubt, because I do like the style of the game itself, but I think the slice of gameplay that was shown was lackluster and fell flat. I remember seeing Gears of War 2 for the first time and immediately telling myself that I needed to buy a 360: This wasn’t the same moment for the One.
There was also the use of CG trailers: a double edged sword. Very rarely am I excited by a CG trailer anymore, and while ReCore should have excited me, I just didn’t care because I didn’t see gameplay. I understand that the “recoring” robots mechanic will be central to the game, but… that’s about it. Despite the great names that are behind it, I don’t have much reason to be excited. Dark Souls III is on the other side of this spectrum. I already know what it’s going to play like, so having such an awesomely atmospheric trailer sits well with me: I accept that just fine.
Some great, some not so great, but all-in-all, Microsoft had a good showing. It was undoubtedly a more slick conference than Sony’s, and in some ways more entertaining to watch. It’s unfortunate that two of its biggest franchises didn’t impress this author a whole lot, but things like Tomb Raider and Dark Souls III did. And thank goodness Rare is back: never make them do a Kinect game again, Microsoft. Please.
(Please).
Grade: B
[Stick around for my grades of Sony and Nintendo’s conferences]
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