Tag Archives: E3

TLEP #049 – If I Say Something Three Times, Does It Appear?

In advance of tomorrow’s Hype Train post, I’ve picked one thing from each major press conference that might have the most relevance to esports and I’ve highlighted them in today’s episode of the lowercase esports podcast.

Speaking of tomorrow’s Hype Train post:

The podcast has its own page on the blog, listing all of the everything you could really want about the podcast, here.

The Hype Train: E3 2014 Edition.

bcdm_hypetrainNow that Nintendo’s pre-recorded E3 presser has been broadcast, the show is officially underway. The last of the five shows rounded out what could possibly be called the E3 Hype Train. There’s plenty of liveblogs out there that cover the five conferences, but here’s what I think are the biggest things to know from each.1

Microsoft 2

  • There’s a new Call of Duty. It’s called Advanced Warfare and it will be $60 USD of shooting people in the face circa the future. You can recreate the game’s experience by modding a Counter-Strike 1.6 server with any RPG mod you like along with HookMod.
  • Sunset Overdrive is oozing with style and should be one of the titles to watch out for that seems to be exclusively Xbox One. It’s Jet Set Radio with an extra ounce of kickass based on this trailer.
  • The new Fable game looks nice, but it won’t be outshining anything else. If you want a 4v1 game, wait for Evolve.
  • Halo 2 in the Halo 4 engine on the Xbox One? That’s reason enough to consider the Master Chief Collection. There’s also a pre-Halo 5 video series called Nightfall bundled in, but don’t worry about that. Dual wielding SMGs is officially back along with a ton of other stuff. Halo fans, get in line.
  • The Witcher 3 needs to be on your radar. IT NEEDS TO BE THERE.
  • The Division might seriously get some following on the Xbox scene, especially with how social the trailer shown off at this presentation seems to be. It took me a second to realize that these aren’t the characters in the game talking, the voice over in the trailers is meant to be coming from the players of those characters.

EA 3

  • Teased development and alpha assets are the new voice-over teaser trailers as far as video games are concerned. I’d rather a traditional trailer or two. See: Star Wars Battlefront.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition looks bad. Avoid.
  • The Sims 4 should be good fun, just don’t let your child play it. It’s not a child’s game, it’s for your teenager.
  • Any EA sports game that isn’t FIFA can be ignored as garbage. Even so, FIFA 15 is the first game in the series to be made for the current generation of hardware. It should look and run cleaner than it ever has before.
  • They made an Dota-clone called Dawngate. They claim that it has a meta. They probably expect you to pay for it. Go play Dota 2 or League of Legends instead.
  • The concepts for the upcoming Mirror’s Edge reboot are looking good. I hope they continue to invest in the development of the game. The world that DICE has dreamed up has a lot of potential and I believe you shouldn’t ignore this game simply for it being a first-person perspective game.
  • Battlefield: Hardline is a mod for Battlefield 4 that is being released as a whole new game. Avoid.

Ubisoft 4

  • FarCry 4 is another CryTek show-off fest and an edgy storyline. Just like FarCry 3. Just like FarCry 2. Just like… well, FarCry was okay.
  • The Crew is Ubisoft’s attempt at dethroning Gran Turismo or Forza from relevancy. They will fail if it has anything to do with Uplay.
  • Assassin’s Creed: Unity is supposed to be set during the French Revolution, in Paris… but not a single character is speaking French. How difficult would that have been?
  • A proper Rainbow Six game is being developed? BE STILL MY BEATING HEART. Siege looks likes it intends to undo every bad game made in the name of Tom Clancy since Rainbow Six, because they were all bad since Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon.

Sony 5

  • Destiny was the first game to be shown off, and for good reason. It’s going to be an important release for Sony console owners, with PS4 owners getting the first access to the game before the other platforms. A great trailer that explains the universe more than had been up to this point was released. Look forward to seeing leaked footage from the alpha all summer.
  • For non-PS4 owners, like myself, there’s a console bundle that will be available with Destiny. And I might pick it up. Because it looks pretty.
  • The Order 1886 is a game that looks like a CGI movie the entire time. It achieves this by being locked to 30 frames per second, but the graphics it can constantly produce make it worth while. It may be a gimmick, but it’s a good one.
  • From Software announced the spiritual successor to Dark Souls 2, a PS4 game called Bloodborne.
  • You don’t have to own FarCry 4 to play a multiplayer game with a friend that does. A huge feature that seems to be Sony taking a cue from Nintendo.
  • Double Fine is remastering Grim Fandango.

Nintendo 6

  1. Image at right completely lifted from somewhere on the Internet. I don’t own it. Chill out though. It’s an image macro. It’ll be okay. ↩
  2. Ars Technica: Microsoft’s pre-E3 2014 press conference ↩
  3. Ars Technica: EA’s pre-E3 2014 press conference ↩
  4. Ars Technica: Ubisoft’s pre-E3 2014 press conference ↩
  5. Ars Technica: Sony’s pre-E3 2014 press conference ↩
  6. Ars Technica: Nintendo’s pre-E3 2014 press conference ↩

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E2.

  • Graham is totally Canadian. That’s not the worst thing ever, but it’s apparent in the opening splash.
  • Kathleen’s takedown of EA Sports’ Ignite engine missing the PC market is pretty well summed up. EA, of course, is oblivious to the sports titles that fall under the genre of simulations rather than sports titles such as Football Manager. Also, the FIFA franchise was a PC title as well, right?
  • DayZ ripoff couldn’t secure a trademark for its horrible, horrible game so they’ve renamed it? Why not just throw in the towel at the same time? Graham realizes the truth: that this was the whole point of the game and they should really give up at the same time. JUST STOP.
  • An iPad game that skirts past the censor as a ‘spiritual’ orgasm simulator. Seriously. I felt bad hearing that sentence Kathleen.
  • Prey 2 absent from E3. Bethesda has barred it from releasing any news because it’s just not ‘up to snuff’ according to Graham. I wish it were. There are a lot of folks that I know of who would be purchasing a Prey 2 day-one sight-unseen because of the experience they had with the first title.
  • Vlambeer is sick of getting their games ripped off in a medium where games are ripped off on a normal basis, so they’re livestreaming development of the title. You can watch over a guy code over his shoulder so you can have the satisfaction that the mobile development company thought of a game first before it was ripped off. But when they make higher quality games than their competitors, aren’t they going to win anyway? Kathleen seems about as excited about it as I am.
  • Don Mattrick is a moron, but he did announce the Xbox 180, where the Xbox One’s ‘groundbreaking’ DRM and feature set were being removed in favor of retaining the current model of disc-based games. Graham points out that MSFT’s lack of communication is what started the whole mess and that going back on its word hasn’t changed the fact that MSFT’s communication, led by Don Morontrick, is still not as clear as it should be.
  • Kathleen brings up Sony’s ruined, pending and probably already shot viral video campaign that basically demeans the Xbox One’s DRM restrictions as a reason to consider a PlayStation 4. But with a required bundled Kinect, there’s still the sticking point that will drive some consumers to the PS4 over the Xbox One. And the price, too.
  • Free-to-play fighting game with premium character selection sounds like the worst thing ever. I wish the Killer Instinct reboot wouldn’t exist if I had to pay multiples of dollars for a character like Riptor. (Seriously, though: Fulgore it where it’s at.)