E3 2012: My Most Anticipated
I cannot sleep and thought what better way to spend my time then write a blog about E3. I know everyone has done one and mine will probably repeat was others have said, but what the hell, it is fun
There are 4 games on my mind constantly at the moment, E3 has opened up new levels on excitement for titles I already knew about and titles I had no idea were in existence. Today I am going to list, chime in with your most anticipated games and what excited you from E3!
1. Watch_Dogs
Let’s be honest not many surprises were pulled during the entire event of E3, sure we had our Gears of War Judgement, Pikmin 3 etc. But we basically already knew these games were coming. Watch_Dogs is a new IP from Ubisoft where it puts you in the role of a hacker named Aiden Pearce, at the moment all we know is that this open world game world is run by one super computer. This tells the story of what happens when those computers that run the world are taken over, an amazing concept because it is very relatable to our society as it stands now. If the internet went down, TV, radio the world would be in constant panic since we are relying on all these things to run every from traffic lights to the toasted in your kitchen, another idea was if these items could be turned against us which is what this game looks to accomplish.
The game honestly looks NEXT generation, it looks gorgeous almost as good as the Samaritan trailer that was released last year to show off Unreal Engine 3. The hacking aspects were shown when Pearce was able to cause a 10-15 car pile up by hacking traffic lights, how scripted was this? We do not know, but maybe there are other ways to tackle objectives, at the end of the demo we were greeted with 2 varying ways that particular situation could have ended. 1. He gets the helicopter on his tale and it switches to a second protagonist, who I think is someone who is within your hacker group. 2. You find a car, escape and then use your hacking abilities to raise in bridge in order for your to escape. The options from this demo have my mind racing and the fact Ubisoft came out with gameplay over any CGI trailer blew me away…My eyes are glued to the biggest surprise at E3 in great anticipation.
2. The Last of Us
Naughty Dog is one of my favourite developers and when I heard of The Last of Us my ears perked up, the games theory and almost viral marketing when the game was first announced had me hooked without seeing any gameplay. More videos were shown and still no gameplay, yet I was hooked, I heard Greg Millers secondary account of gameplay in action and it sounded cool. This game sounded like The Walking Dead game I wanted Dead Island to be, ammo is sparse, nobody can be trusted and you one will reason to wake up in the morning is to survive. The game has a bleak setting, set years after a virus has decimated America and maybe the world as well, we are following a rough customer in Joel who looks to have been through it all and Ellie who is the young girl who has no clue what the world used to be. One thing Naughty Dog do well in their games in character development, I love the Uncharted series for the characters and I play through them laughing along with the jokes, sitting on the edge of my seat in suspense with them and feeling as if I know them. Uncharted is not the best in terms of gameplay, but when I saw Last of Us finally in action…The deal was sealed.
This was exactly what I wanted from the game, brutal melee kills, the stress of not having unlimited ammo, the intense nature of the fight, everyone was done correctly. THIS is what I wanted, as soon as you encounter the first enemy the entire scene is some of the most intense action I have seen in a game for a long time. Not because the odds are outrageously stacked against you, but because of the dire situation at hand, you are alone with a little girl with you and only 6 bullets to take down maybe 8 enemies…How do you do it? This may be heavily scripted I do not know and I have spoke to others who believe it might be, which would not surprise me, but if it is done correctly I do not mind that at all. If they can make me connect with these characters and make me care for them like Naught Dog has in the past, as well as provide an intense fight scene over and over throughout the course of the journey. This is a game I will not only enjoy, but play multiple times just to relive the intense feeling of desperation that the game will hopefully provide.
3. Assassins Creed III
I am a huge AC fan through and through, since the first game I have played my way through the different cities from Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem and loved every minute of it. Sure I will be the first to admit the game was becoming stale, only because of the franchise being over-saturated as a yearly franchise. We received Revelations last year to a mixed bag of feelings, myself not a big fan as I felt the story was lacking on Ezio’s side and it did not tell us much in regards to the overarching storyline involving Desmond (Plus introduced dumb RTS mechanics). AC3 is looks to have taken a huge leap in the right direction, not only being developed by the team that was able to take such a leap from AC1 to AC2, but the fact this game has been in development for years and they have definitely gone a long way to make sure they change this game up enough to make it stand out from the AC crowd.
AC3 was out in full force at E3, CGI, naval battles and frontier gameplay, the game was everywhere and for good reason. Ubisoft have every ounce of confidence that this game can live up to all the hype and provide one of the first great adventures to the colonial period in a video game, which is a feat amongst itself. They have done all the right things to freshen up the series by introducing a new settings, new ways to traverse the environment, new lead character, new gameplay mechanics and much more fluidity when it comes to combat. All these are just pieces of the puzzle and reassuringly they look to be fitting in the right places, every piece of this game I see only builds my excitement. This game has the potential to be game of the year with ease, I think the level of polish this game has shown throughout E3 has shown it is on a higher tier in comparison to most 2012 releases and rightly so.
4. Beyond: Two Souls
Those who do not follow my videos may not know but I was calling for this announcement months ago, one of my dreams for E3 was for Quantic Dream to come out and announce their next project, no matter what it was. They had to be working on something after Heavy Rains critical and commercial success, this was a given. David Cage came out and addressed us almost first up at Sony’s Press Conference, which shows Sony has great faith in Cage’s capabilities(Who wouldn’t). Now Heavy Rain I know caught a lot of flak for it not being a game, but truly what defines what a game is? This was an interactive form of media that made me feel emotional, suspense and connection with my characters. MajesticMaverick said it best “I sat down with Heavy Rain, had my own experience and I was happy”. That is what Heavy Rain was, an experience and I have full confidence that Quantic Dream can do it again.
Bringing in Ellen Paige as the main protagonist Jodie was an amazing choice, she is a fine actress and her skills will be able to be shown off in motion capture brilliantly. The concept of Beyond is the idea of what happens once we pass on, what happens beyond. Sure from the cinematic trailer we have seen there can be many theories on what exactly is going on, I have plenty (Maybe for another blog) but the concept is very cool and intense. The video we were shown literally gave me shivers watching it, anticipating and losing myself in the vision Cage has created. Plus the follow up video we were shown was able to show us some gameplay as well, hard to tell in all the quick shots of Jodie in action, force field in full affect in explosions going on. But when analyzed closely the game definitely looks like more Heavy Rain and I encourage it, sure people also said Heavy Rain was lacking action but I believe it made up for that is the mature narrative and characters you cared about. This looks to make up for that and not only that, but the game looks stunning as you would expect from Quantic Dream.
Honourable Mention: Splinter Cell: Black List
I had strong feelings this game was coming from all the rumours floating around prior to E3, little did I know it would surprise me as much as it did. I have not been a huge follower of the series, I own the HD collection, Double Agent (Apparently crap
It was hard to cut them down to 4, Tomb Raider, Halo 4 and Borderlands 2 being close admissions. Having to many awesome games to choose from is a problem I am always grateful to have
Jamie Briggs is Analog Addiction, you can follow all of his gaming related Tweets on Twitter, his videos on YouTube and all of his official published reviews on WeekendNotes.com.