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 On 06/16/2016 at 10:55 PM by Cary Woodham See More From This User » |
Well another E3 has come and gone, and this was the first year in a long time that I wasn’t quite as interested in it as I usually am. But there was still enough stuff that I could write a blog about, so here it is!
But first I’m going to gripe again about not being able to go to E3. I’ve been complaining about this for the past four years, so I’ll try to make it short this time. I’ve been reviewing games for 20 years come this August, and for most of that time I have had no problem getting a press pass to E3. But in the past four years, they’ve denied me a press pass, saying the site I write for is too small. In a way I’m glad that the E3 folks are that picky because anyone can poop out a web site or YouTube channel nowadays. But I also wish they would judge press credentials on experience, too. The E3 folks certainly know how long I’ve been doing this, and if not, I can easily prove it. And even though the GamerDad site is small, a lot of people have heard of it, and it even surprises me sometimes!
In a way, I guess it’s good I wasn’t as interested in E3 this year, and I’m sorry for complaining about not being able to go, since it’s one of those “first-world problems.” (See, I can speak the lingo) A week or so ago, an online friend told me I should find a bigger site to write for so I could get into E3. While I know he was only trying to be helpful, I wanted to say, “Easier said than done, pal!” Just because I might be able to write for a bigger site, it doesn’t guarantee me an E3 press pass. Plus, I’ve noticed lately that people on the internet are especially critical of game reviewers when they aren’t reviewing a game that’s best suited to them. Well, I am best suited to play family friendly games, so GamerDad.com is a good place for me right now. I guess I’m just stubborn (or stupid). It also makes me sad because when I’ve gone to E3 in the past, I’ve always brought my dad with me. I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth, so sometimes it’s useful for me to have someone to help me navigate around crowded spaces and help with transportation. And I always have fun doing that with my dad so I do miss it. Plus this past week wasn’t a very good week for me, so I’ve been a bit more grumblier than usual.
One trend I’m worried about with gaming is all the VR stuff that was shown at E3. Since I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth, I don’t think I’d be able to see the VR stuff very well. If everything goes VR in the future, there may come a time that I can’t review games at all anymore. Considering I’ve been able to do this for 20 years with no problem, it kind of depresses me a little. It may be why I may still try to go to PAX in Seattle even though I should save my money, because I should try and enjoy doing all the conventions and things while I can!
Another disappointing thing about this year’s E3 is that Microsoft and Sony didn’t really have hardly anything that interested me. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against those two companies. In fact, in the last console generation, I preferred playing games on the 360 instead of the Wii, and that’s saying a lot, coming from me! But there’s really only three games I’d want to play on the Xbox One. One is Rare Replay, which is just a bunch of old games. Another is Cuphead, which was shown at E3, but I’d probably be just as happy watching someone play it, since I hear it’s ridiculously hard. So that just leaves Ori and the Blind Forest. While I’ve heard it’s a great game, I don’t buy a new game console just for one title. The PS4 doesn’t have a whole lot more that interests me, but I do think it was neat that they announced a new Crash Bandicoot game. I don’t like Crash games, but I’m glad they had a colorful, cartoony family friendly game to show.
So before I start talking about the games at E3 that did interest me, I wanted to say that while I got most of my info from press releases in my email and game company websites, I also gleaned some info from a YouTube channel called GameXplain. They seemed to cover a majority of games that I was interested in, and did so in a clear, professional manner. So I just have to give credit where credit is due.
Nintendo
First of all, I have to say that I really preferred how Nintendo covered E3 last year. I liked how they had demos of a bunch of indie games you could download, so it was like you were at E3, too! And I just prefer the Nintendo Direct and the shorter game announcement trailers. They had just as much info as the long and drawn out Treehouse Live segments. And I liked those Henson Creature Workshop puppets. And I guess I still miss Iwata. They still did a good job showing off lots of gameplay of their titles, I just felt the segments were too long and the Q&A parts were so full of obvious controlled PR media speak. Plus I was jealous when they interviewed popular YouTube reviewers. They probably wouldn’t want to interview me; I’d be too honest.
Of course the game everyone was talking about was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind, and for good reason. The game looks great, and I love the new title. I was surprised to hear voice acting in the trailer, and it looks almost like a Twilight Princess sequel with elements of Wind Waker and Skyward Sword thrown in. I’ve been reading that it only has four main dungeons, which is a bit discouraging, but other than that, I’ll be looking forward to it. Zelda games rarely disappoint. Looks like there is more of a focus on exploration, with fun stuff to do like hunting and cooking. It’s like the opposite of Skyward Sword, which had more of an emphasis on puzzle solving. I just wish they could find a happy medium. It looks like there are a lot of physics-based puzzles in this one. I love the new amiibo that go with it, and that it’ll also use the Wolf Link amiibo. I just hate that I’m going to have to complete the Twilight Princess Cave of Shadows in order to use Wolf Link in the new game. Hope it’s not hard (yeah I’m lazy). Of course it’s tough to get TOO excited about the new Zelda title since it’s not even coming out this year. But as long as you can tromp around in dungeons and fight cool bosses, I’m sure it’ll still be a fun game.
They also had a lot of Pokémon news. I can’t get very excited about Sun & Moon because the main Pokémon games haven’t changed much since the originals, and I’ve kind of got burned out on them. But that’s not a bad thing. Why fix what isn’t broken, and while it may be overdone to me, a new generation of kids can enjoy Sun & Moon and it’ll be a brand new experience for them. And that’s who the Pokémon games are really made for. I also can’t get excited about the Pokémon GO mobile title. I don’t live with my cell phone attached to my hand, and since I’m blind in my left eye, I don’t like to walk around looking at only my phone. Plus, my phone is pretty old and may not even be able to run it that well. I wish they would’ve announced a US release of that Detective Pikachu game!
And of course they had some Mario games. I’m not too thrilled with Mario Party: Star Rush because I haven’t gotten into a Mario Party game since the N64. And I can’t even imagine playing it on the 3DS. At least we’ll get some new Mario series amiibo out of it. We’ll get Wario, Waluigi, Daisy, Rosalina, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Boo. I read that the Boo amiibo will even glow in the dark! Anything that glows in the dark is automatically cooler! They also had Paper Mario: Color Splash on the Wii U. I’m worried about this one as well because it looks like it plays similarly to Sticker Star, and that game was not good. Hopefully they’ll improve things, as I’ll give it a try anyway.
There were a few smaller games on the 3DS that grabbed my interest. One was Ever Oasis, an action RPG where you build up an oasis in the desert by exploring dungeons. The graphics are colorful and one of the folks who helped make it also worked on older Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana games. It kind of reminds me of Fantasy Life, but I hope I have a chance to play this one since when Fantasy Life came out, I didn’t have time to get it because I had too many other games to review and I was also very busy at work. They didn’t give a release date, but I hope to see Ever Oasis this year since I have to wait until next year for Zelda.
I was also glad to see BoxBox Boy. It’s a sequel to BoxBoy, a 2-D platform puzzler downloadable on the 3DS. I even got to review it. The games are made by HAL, who also do the Kirby games, so you know it’s good! Then there was Rhythm Heaven Megamix. It’s a music game series done by the same folks who do WarioWare. I love the weirdness of these games, but I’m not very good at them! What’s cool is that the new game is already out on the eShop, but I’m also disappointed by this because I think it had a physical release in Japan. I’d be more inclined to get a physical copy, but as an online download, I may not snag it so quickly. And finally they had Yo-Kai Watch 2. I may skip out on this one because while I liked the cartoony characters in the first game, it didn’t hold my interest enough to beat it, and the sequel looks like more of the same. I wonder if we’ll get the third Yo-Kai Watch game, which is supposedly set in the US.
And that’s all for Nintendo! They showed other games, but any others didn’t interest me. While they had some good games, I’m still disappointed with Nintendo because there didn’t seem to be as many good Wii U games coming out this year like they had last year. Last year we got Splatoon and Mario Maker and Yoshi’s Woolly World. This year doesn’t look so promising. I’m also disappointed we didn’t get any info on the NX. And if we did, I didn’t hear anything about it. Considering it’s supposed to release next year at the same time as Zelda, you’d think they’d have some info on it. I also wanted to hear more about Nintendo’s mobile offerings. We got stuff about Pokemon GO, but that’s it. I’m not interested in the Fire Emblem mobile game, but I sure would like to see that Animal Crossing mobile game! Animal Crossing on the GameCube is one of my top five favorite games of all time, and I love the other titles in the series a lot as well.
Natsume
Another thing I miss about going to E3 is meeting with the smaller third party companies, and Natsume is one of those. They’ve been super supportive of me almost as long as I’ve written for GamerDad, but in the past couple of years, I haven’t been able to review as many games from them lately, which is sad. Of course they had a new Harvest Moon game, titled Harvest Moon: Skytree Village for 3DS. But they had a couple of other interesting titles as well. One was Wild Guns: Reloaded. It’s a PS4 game, so I can’t play it, but it’s a sequel to a game that was originally on the SNES! It’s a shooter game that kind of reminds me of the arcade classic Cabal, but with a Wild West/Steampunk setting. I never played the one on the SNES, but it looked pretty weird and quirky! And last was River City: Tokyo Rumble, a sequel to River City Ransom! I never really got into the NES game or the GBA remake, but I do have respect for the series. But the only reason why I may get this one is because you can play dodgeball in it, and Super Dodge Ball (part of the same series) on NES was my most favorite sports game ever until Wii Sports came along. Just don’t say that River City Ransom was the first game in the Kunio series. It was actually Renegade in the arcade!
Square-Enix
Here’s another company I’ve had longtime PR contacts with, ever since my Dallas Morning News days! But like Natsume, I haven’t been able to review as many games from them in the past couple of years even though both companies send me press releases all the time. They had a bunch of stuff at this year’s E3. Most of which I’m not interested in, but some of it I was. They had a couple of Kingdom Hearts titles, but nothing about Kingdom Hearts 3 that I saw. I wonder if we’ll get that game in the next couple of years? I don’t know if they showed it this year like they did last year, but I’m still interested in World of Final Fantasy for PS4/Vita, because it looks cute. And finally is an RPG called I Am Setsuna. It’s for PS4 so I can’t play it right now, but it looks like it has classic RPG elements like Chrono Trigger. If I ever got a PS4, I’d be tempted to look into this one further.
Misc. Stuff
With Disney Infinity ending and lots of store sales on Skylanders figures, some people are predicting the toys-for-life fad may be over soon. But it still looks like LEGO Dimensions will be around for a bit longer with expansions on the original game. Some of the new sets include A-Team, Gremlins, Adventure Time, and even Sonic the Hedgehog! I wonder if they also showed the new LEGO Star Wars game? I hope I get to review both! And speaking of toys-to-life, I don’t know if Activision was at E3, but I did get a press release about Skylanders: Imaginators, which lets you create your own Skylander characters! I don’t know if they’ll still have toys to go with it, but they did announce that Crash Bandicoot would be a guest character in this one! I hope I get to review this one as well, as I’ve been lucky enough to review every Skylanders game in the past!
Yooka-Laylee was made by ex-Rare staff, and is supposed to be a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie. I’m just glad that it’s a colorful 3-D platformer and will be on a console I can play it on! Hopefully it’ll be the B-K sequel everyone wanted, although I still liked Nuts & Bolts. The E3 trailer is pretty cool. I was also glad to hear that Capcom showed off Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice, and even used their booth courtroom decorations from Dual Destinies. Also shown was Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, which looks great and will be out in September. I’ve been a huge Shantae fan ever since the original on the Game Boy Color (still have my copy). I think it’s cool that XSEED is publishing a physical copy of this new title. I have pretty good contacts with WayForward, and I used to have good contacts with XSEED, so we’ll see if I get to review it. And finally, I just got a text from my friend that Gurumin 3D is coming to the 3DS this summer. It’s a 3-D action-RPG from Falcom, makers of Ys, and it plays like a cross between Ys, Drill Dozer, Brave Fencer Musashi, and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. If you missed it on PSP, check it out when it comes to 3DS!
And that’s all I have to say about E3, but I need your help. If you read any E3 news that you think would interest me that I might’ve missed, please let me know! And tell me which pieces of E3 news grabbed your attention the most! Thanks for reading! --Cary
I don't think VR will take over all gaming. It'll at least be a niche thing for now because of the price, but I also thing the games will be different. It's a unique experience that is good for some things and not others. So I think you'll always have things you can review.
I liked Sea of Thieves, Horizon Zero Dawn and We Happy Few. Zelda looks great too.
Even if it doesn't catch on, I'm still worried VR will limit my review opportunities. I'm already limited enough as it is.
I had to look up We Happy Few to see what it was. By the title, it sounds like it might be a happy game, but I guess it isn't.
Yea, it's like Bioshock in its psychological horror. Its like an alternate 60s Britain where everyone is on a happy drug to cover up the horrible things going on in the society. When the 60s pop/rock music kicked in though, I got all goosebumps. It's by ex-Bioshock devs, so there's lots of similarity to the Bioshock games. You can see it in the animation and the story.
The Bioshock games can be pretty scary sometimes! Scary stuff can be fun sometimes, but 99 percent of the time, when I play a game I prefer to stick to the happy Kirby type stuff.
I played the original Bioshock so long I started getting bioshock myself. Meaning, my nerves were starting to fray. I was actually starting to shake every time a splicer started screaming. I stopped.
I remember an evil mad scientist plastic surgeon guy in one of the Bioshock games who was especially mean and scary!
When a game like Bioshock makes you feel all nervous and scared, I recommend playing a Kirby game. Then you'll be all better and happy! :)
Absolutely. Kirby could cheer up Malakili after the death of his rancor.
Oh yeah, sure. Those are Star Wars names, right? :)
Right, I thought I'd geek out a little.
Well I thought I remembered the name of the monster, but I would never have known the name of his master. He could've been "Bubba" for all I know!
His crying was pretty ludacris in the movie. It was a favorite thing for me to make fun on later on.
Poor Bubba.
you don't have to worry about VR, Cary. It's like saying 3D games are going to take over gaming -- obviously they haven't. 2D games and stuff even less sophisticated are still here. I wouldn't worry.
That Shantae game does look nice. I've never played any, but I think I'm gonna give this one a shot.
The Zelda does look good. I think it's okay if there's only four main dungeons, they said they had 100 shrines, which are like mini dungeons you can discover. I think with the main dungeons, it might be good that they focus on quality rather than quantity. There's been a little bloat in some of the last Zelda's.
Even if VR doesn't take over, I'm still worried it may limit my already limited review opportunities.
Shantae games are GREAT! You can play them on all sorts of platforms now, so I recommend getting one right away!
I still wish there were more than four dungeons. Although, Majora's Mask only had four and those were some of the best designed dungeons in any Zelda. But Twilight Princess had good dungeons, too, and way more of them. I just wish they could find a happy medium between overworld exploration and puzzle solving dungeons. I'm not totally impressed with the 100 shrines thing either. Lots of other Zelda games had something similar to that. They were called 'caves.' But even with those complaints, I'm still looking forward to the new Zelda. You can't fault Nintendo for trying something different!
I'm looking forward to Last Guardian, Final Fantasy XV, Persona 5, Tekken 7, Nier Automata, and maybe Zelda (I always intend to play a Zelda but never actually get around to it, but I need something to justify that Wii U purchase from years ago). I also will most likely buy most Sony 1st party games like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Detroit Become Human, and Death Stranding (is it just me or are game titles terrible nowadays?)
I would have loved it if Nintendo would have announced NX, especially since PS4.5 and XBONE Scorpio were no shows. Nintendo probably wants their announcement to take center stage and doesn't want to give their competition time to copy whatever they're doing, but they really didn't have much of a presence besides Zelda.
VR will be big, but traditional gaming won't be going anywhere. Anyway, as soon as VR glasses are in everyone's house, they'll switch to some sort of neural interface, bypassing your eyes altogether.
Wish I had a solution to your E3 problem. It used to be so much easier to get in (I even went a couple of times). Honestly, with GDC, GamesCom, Pax, TGS, PlayStation Experience, Comic Con, not to mention the internet and social media, it's not the be all end all show it used to be. Maybe you should try to write for a bigger site (maybe you could still write for GamerDad as well). Or maybe you could get a position with one of the game companies you've made contacts with (like how some of the EGM/1up staff went on to work for game companies). Anyway, good luck.
If you need suggestions of games to justify a Wii U purchase, I can help you with that. :)
I know Nintendo wanted Zelda to be their focus, but considering it's also coming to NX supposedly, you'd think they'd at least say something about it.
E3 is still the big industry show in the US. At least big enough to warrant the trip. The second biggest convention I've been to, PAX in Seattle, is about half the size (but still big).
CRASH BANDICOOT!!!!
I don't really like Crash games, but I'm glad Sony has a colorful, cartoony, family-friendly game in their lineup. Did you see that Crash is also going to be a guest character in the new Skylanders game? What do you think of that?
I think I'm getting Skylanders. If that were all they announced though then Sony and Activision would be dead to me.
Have you played a Skylanders game before?
Yeah I played the original on 3DS, Giants, and Swap Force before getting bored with the series. Crash is enough to get me back in.
While I think the Skylanders games are great for kids, they do tend to be rather same-y.
Plus the gimmicks weren't as much fun. Giants and swap Skylanders added something new but trapping villains looked blah. Vehicles may have been interesting but not enough to get me back. May buy a vehicle figure now though.
The vehicles are neat because with real rolling wheels and other movable parts, they just scream, "Play with me!"
Pokemon's strategy is definitely the way it's been since the beginning, but that's what makes it so successful though. Pick a pokemon, train it, gym leaders, catch new pokemon, and repeat. The only difference is the new pokemon that come out each generation. Writing this definitely makes me miss the classic pokemon days and the polyphonic songs.
I'm thinking that Kingdom Hearts 3 might be out in mid/late 2017 and early 2018 at the latest.
I've been reading the most into Resident Evil 7. I've been watching the trailer trying to really figure out what role the game will play. Luckily, I did find a video that showed the different endings, the different things inside the house, but possibly theories/observations too. It was a long video, but it made sense and Capcom definitely has a good mysterious aspect to the Resident Evil series.
Yeah there's nothing wrong with Pokemon's design. Why fix what isn' broken? And it's all brand new for the next generation of kid players. I wish they'd make a Pokemon RPG with more action packed battles, though. That's why I tend to like the spinoff games nowadays. We need another Pokemon Snap!
Yeah we might get KH3 in 2018 if we're lucky. :)
I'm not interested in Resident Evil games, but I know who Jill Sandwich is. I think it's interesting that Capcom also announced Dead Rising 4. I don't really play those games, but I had fun watching my brother Jeff play the first two. They're really not scary games, they just capture the more silly parts of zombie takeovers. Plus I always made my brother Jeff put on a Servebot head as he walked around. I gotta get my Mega Man Legends fix somehow!
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