Jun 152014
Well, Microsoft’s press conference kicked off the day, but there were still three more to go. EA and Ubisoft fans, you might want to either brace yourselves or move on to another part, because this was the low point of E3 for me.
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Conclusion
I have nothing against EA. I know some people demonize it as the worst company in the world, but I haven’t had a problem with them. Some of my favorite games were published by EA, like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. I’ve even had good experiences with Origin.
On the other hand, I’m not a big sports fan.
EA’s press conference started out strong, with another look at Dragon Age: Inquisition. It looks great, even if it’s open world (I’m not much of an open world fan), and I’m looking forward to being an Inquisitor. I was pleased to see a better look at the combat.
It was still BioWare’s turn, and that meant it was time for Mass Effect 4.
…We saw some environments. The people from Bioware talked about how it’s going to be a big, powerful game. They’re also working on a new IP.
Well, that was underwhelming. And then it was time for the next generation of The Sims. I’ve never played it, and it doesn’t interest me. The big thing this time is giving Sims personalities, which was demonstrated through a hotheaded Sim interacting with people around him. It all came together to make me wonder if they were trying to be Tomodachi Life…
At about this point, I started reading KoopaTV’s reactions to Microsoft’s press conference while the Sims presentation continued in the background. I continued to read through the sports segment: UFC, NHL 15, PGA Tour (“golf without limits”), and Madden 15. The article was much more entertaining to me than sports games are.
I don’t care about MOBAs, so I didn’t care about Dawngate. At least the sports section was over.
Then Mirror’s Edge 2 was shown. I never played the original, but I might check it out sometime. Mirror’s Edge 2 looked interesting.
The sports section wasn’t over. FIFA 15 was up, and I’d run out of things to read.
Battlefield Hardline. No interest. And it went on for a long time…
Mercifully, it ended. Microsoft’s show looked better and better all the time.
As I tuned in to watch Ubisoft’s press later in the day, I wasn’t hopeful. I asked myself if Ubiosoft had a single franchise I like, and none came to mind. (I do plan to play ZombiU someday, though.)
So, Ubisoft! They started with Far Cry 4, another one of those big names I don’t really care about. The villain was featured, though, and that made it interesting to watch.
The presenters were more entertaining than those for EA’s press conference, but I didn’t quite trust the host’s assurances that the show was going to be amazing. Sure enough, as soon as she finished hyping the show, we went to Just Dance 2015.
Some rhythm games are entertaining, but I’m not really into most of the dance/music games. Except for The Beatles Rock Band. Because it’s the Beatles.
But this wasn’t the Beatles. I started reading again.
Tom Clancy’s The Division came back for a showing at Ubisoft’s conference, with a much more depressing trailer than the one we saw before.
Next: The Crew. You might remember how I feel about driving games.
Heads will roll!
Back to history (which I like) in the form of Assassin’s Creed Unity (which still looks cool even if I don’t want to play it). They showed more gameplay and more death.
But then it was time for Shape Up, some sort of fitness game. To me, fitness games are kinda a cross between sports and dance games, so this one didn’t hold my attention either. I was starting to feel sleepy, although this may be less Ubisoft’s fault and more the fault of the rogue garbage truck that kept me up the previous night after seeing Ringo Starr in concert (which was worth a thousand of these conferences, maybe more).
Things took a big shift with Valiant Hearts, which deals with World War I. Now here’s one I might actually be interested in playing. It was a somber, yet endearing, trailer. This isn’t going to be a shoot-em-all sort of war game, not by a long shot. The trailer had enough emotion in it to shake me out of my lethargy, so I’ll be keeping my eye on this one.
The next game involved saving hostages. It turned out to be Rainbow 6: Siege. It doesn’t look like my sort of game. And… that was it. The best thing I could say about them was that they kept Microsoft in the lead for me. EA:had Dragon Age: Inquisition, which I already knew quite a bit about, Mass Effect stuff that amounted to almost nothing, and Mirror’s Edge 2, which may or may not interest me. Ubisoft had Valiant Hearts, but I’ll give it more credit since it showed big-name games that I can see the appeal in, even if I don’t particularly like them. Let’s move on.