Although I love playing games on my PC, I was confused by this announcement. How can PC gaming have its own press conference? PC gaming isn’t a company. What would they show? I tuned in hopeful I’d see some great new games, despite my confusion.

Table of Contents

Nintendo World Championships
Bethesda
Microsoft
EA
Ubisoft
Sony
Nintendo
Square Enix
PC Gaming
Nintendo Treehouse

PC Gaming E3 2015 Show

For me, the PC show didn’t get off to a great start (not to mention the hour delay announced right as the stream was supposed to start). With no interest in Killing Floor 2, Rising Storm 2, Star Citizen, or Squadron 42, I was starting to zone out even before AMD’s Chief Gaming Scientist (which is a cool job title) came on stage to discuss graphics cards. I may love PC games, but I’m nowhere near hardcore enough to sit and listen to a graphics card discussion.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was next. As I mentioned the other day, it looks cool even though I haven’t played any games in the series. On the other hand, I was less interested in the Total War series and the new game, Total War: Warhammer.

I was excited when Phil Spencer arrived, especially since Microsoft had a pretty enjoyable press conference this year, but the games they chose to focus on were Fable Legends and Gigantic, followed by the Gears of War Ultimate Edition, which will be available on the PC.

And I really didn’t care about American Truck Simulator. Or EVE: Valkyrie, even though the virtual reality stuff seems cool. When the DayZ creator arrived to talk more about Ion, I decided to stop watching live. That’s why this blog post is coming so long after the PC show ended last night.

I picked up this morning with the live demo of Strafe, which I didn’t care about, but then it finally reached something interesting!

I haven’t played Pillars of Eternity yet (this E3 is really making my game backlog painfully apparent), but I want to. It sounds like just the sort of RPG I’ll enjoy, and it got fantastic reviews. Its newly-announced expansion, The White March: Part 1, just makes me more excited to finally play it.

Next up, a game in a genre I don’t really care for, Planet Coaster. To all of you Roller Coaster Tycoon fans out there, it was previously announced as Coaster Park Tycoon.

I watched the next trailer with moderate interest, because even though I’m not a fan of MMORPGs, Guild Wars 2 is 1) fantasy, and 2) a game one of my friends has been bugging me to try. We’ll see. If you’ve played Guild Wars 2, let us known in the comments what you think of the new expansion, Heart of Thorns.

Hitman came back, making this the third time I got to watch footage of the new entry in the series. Three times was enough to convince me I’m probably not going to try it. Then the CEO of AMD discussed graphics card technology, which didn’t interest me any more than the Gaming Scientist’s talk. Nor was I interested in the new expansion for Arma 3, Tanoa, because I’m not an Arma 3 player.

Beyond Eyes, however, looks interesting. I liked what I saw of it earlier, and as its creator discussed how the blind protagonist’s sense will create sometimes-false impressions of the landscape, I became even more interested. Envisioning the world without, well, vision is an intriguing concept for a game, and I can’t wait to see how it’s handled.

No interest in the next game, Dirty Bomb, but after that it was time to talk to The Fullbright Company about Tacoma. The concept is intriguing, although I might want to play Gone Home before I make up my mind. (It would probably be inappropriate and mood-breaking to play Gone Home while listening to Bobby Fulbright’s theme from my Dual Destinies soundtrack, huh?)

With my interest already piqued, I was delighted when attention shifted to Frictional Games and their upcoming horror game SOMA!

Spooky! Wait, was that it?

A trailer for SOMA was all they had to share, much to my disappointment… especially since the show went on to cover another set of games I didn’t care about: DayZ, Take On Mars, Project BlueStreak, and Enter the Gungeon.

I was mildly interested in Blizzard’s discussion of the new expansion for Heroes of the Storm, Eternal Conflict, as well as their announcement of Whispers of Oblivion, a 3-mission prologue to StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void.

The E3 PC Gaming Show ended with another look at the game everyone wants but me, No Man’s Sky. Overall, I found it to be a dull show, certainly not up to the excitement levels of the other E3 press conferences. But maybe it’s just because of the sorts of games I like. Give me a shout in the comments below with your thoughts on this showcase of PC games.

No matter what anyone else thinks, last year Nintendo’s digital presentation was the best of all the press conferences. Although I couldn’t watch it live, I was hopeful for another exciting show… and if we were really lucky, Ace Attorney news.

(Spoiler: neither came true.)

Table of Contents

Nintendo World Championships
Bethesda
Microsoft
EA
Ubisoft
Sony
Nintendo
Square Enix
PC Gaming
Nintendo Treehouse

Nintendo’s E3 2015 Digital Event

Oh Nintendo… It started out so well…

Similar to last year’s claymation silliness, this year’s show took advantage of its digital format to present the Nintendo leaders as puppets in a quite entertaining opening. It then plunged into one of the Wii U’s most anticipated games, Star Fox Zero.

I haven’t played a lot of Star Fox, just a single playthrough of Star Fox 64 3DS. Still, I really liked that trailer. It was exciting, looks fun, and prepared me for a great E3 show.

Then they showed more of Mario Maker, which has been renamed to Super Mario Maker. I didn’t care about it last year, and I still don’t. Up next was Skylanders, which I’ve never gotten into, and the new Amiibo characters created for it.

The next game, though, caught my attention, a new Legend of Zelda game for the 3DS! Well, a Zelda game intended to be played co-op. The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes could be fun, but it didn’t quite convince me yet. I’ll see as more details are revealed.

As for Hyrule Warriors Legends, I haven’t even played Hyrule Warriors yet, so I don’t know yet if I’d be interested in a 3DS version or not, even if it does include one of my favorite Zelda characters (Tetra). And then, once they finished with The Legend of Zelda, it was the moment Nintendo fans have been waiting for, Metroid!

……a cooperative multiplayer Metroid game… with no Samus and presumably no lore… called Metroid Prime: Federation Force… and the soccer game shown the other day, now known as Metroid Prime: Blast Ball.

What was Nintendo thinking? Fans have been begging for a new Metroid game… and this is what they get?

That was the beginning of the end.

From there, they showed a trailer for Fire Emblem Fates, which seems to be the English name of Fire Emblem If. It appears there will be two versions of the game, just like for the Japanese release. They also showed another trailer for Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem (which is now called Fire Emblem Shin Megami Tensei?), but it wasn’t much more informative than the version shown in the Nintendo Direct. I’m not even really sure what it’s about.

Xenoblade Chronicles X got a new trailer and a release date! It will be out on December 4.

Yay! Though I have my concerns about Xenoblade Chronicles X due to its open-world nature, I’m still fairly excited for it. There’s a chance it’s one of the few open-world games I care about enough to play.

Nintendo followed that with more of the previously-announced Animal Crossing spin-off, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. And then, even though I’m not an Animal Crossing fan, I cheered a little as Nintendo started to unveil its Wii U Animal Crossing game, because I knew how much fans wanted one…

…but it turned out to be Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, some sort of Amiibo-driven Mario Party with Animal Crossing characters. Really??

Yoshi’s Woolly World was up next, as cute and endearing as ever. After that, they moved on to a game I’ve been very excited about, Yo-kai Watch. We already knew it would be localized, but it was still great to see. (And if you prefer your Japanese monsters darker, please check out my yokai-themed horror story, “Rokurokubi,” found in Wicked Words Quarterly.)

And then, finally a surprise I care about!

I was hoping for a new Paper Mario game, and I love the Mario & Luigi series. The two together should be a good thing… although I’m still a little scarred from the last Paper Mario travesty, and I’ve yet to play Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. Nevertheless, I can’t wait to learn more about Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam!

However, I don’t care about Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash any more than I cared about all the sports games shown by EA, and I couldn’t believe they chose to end with more Super Mario Maker (which is getting a special 8-Bit Amiibo).

I finished Nintendo’s E3 2015 digital event feeling disappointed. While last year they were on top their game, this year they missed the mark. Despite a few great moments like the Star Fox trailer, Xenoblade Chronicles X’s release date, Yokai Watch, and the surprise Paper Mario/Mario & Luigi crossover, the rest of the show didn’t live up to expectations.

Especially for Metroid and Animal Crossing fans.