What You Re Saying About E3

Check in here for regular updates on what you and your fellow Escapists are saying about this year’s E3. We’ll be pulling the wittiest, smartest and most honest user commentary from around the site and hosting it here all week for the world to see. We look forward to seeing what you have to say, – The Escapist Staff Predictions About Microsoft: About Microsoft Touts Exclusive DLC Deals: My dream announcement would be a sequel to Sonic Generations but much bigger than the first one. – Andy Shandy About Microsoft Wants You to Use What You’ve Got: I know it makes sense in terms of business, which is why they are announcing it before the DLC’s drop so that people who were on the fence will turn towards the Xbox, but in the end it is temporally denying me access to a product I want for the platform of my choice. That is bad and that makes me sad and annoyed. – SacremPyrobolum Predictions About Nintendo: Predictions About Sony: If the gaming gods love us we might see Kingdom Hearts 3… – 2733 About Nintendo Reveals Wii U Details: There needs to an announcement for a new Monster Hunter on the Vita. There just has to be… – Daystar Clarion About SimCity: I’m partly relieved and partly dismayed to hear that they’ll continue support for older controllers. As a customer, I was writing this console off entirely based on the price of console + 2 gamepads. I figured it would either be prohibitively expensive… or, if they were able to keep costs down, shoddy beyond belief. The dismay comes in the aforementioned third-party offerings. If you make the big gimmick optional, most developers will opt out. Why spend my precious budget developing for a feature that only a small part of my audience will use? (See also: Wii motion controls, Kinect, PS Move) The only games that will use it will be games designed specifically to exploit its capabilities — which is to say “mostly first-party games, or casual third-party experimental titles.” It’s a Catch-22 — Make it affordable and third-party friendly by making the gimmick optional, and you’ll ensure the gimmick dies a quiet death, thus draining the appeal from the new console. Make the gimmick the Big Star, and you drive up the baseline buy-in for your customers as well as potentially alienating many of those third-party developers, thus draining the appeal from the new console. – Dastardly Also that zombie bit was offensively cheesy. <.< Captcha: know your rights – Danzavare I would argue that if the good games that were released on the Wii were instead multi-platform, then the Wii itself have a lack of interesting titles available (the first party franchises that are some of the most stagnant examples in gaming), because no decent developer would limit themselves with such outdated hardware. Of course, all an opinion 🙂 – JokerboyJordan About The Last of Us: I really, really hope the author misunderstood what the EA folks were saying here. Otherwise, this is really stupid. In reality, the size of a road has almost nothing to do with the size or density of the development that occurs alongside it. (In fact, in many cases where it does seem to have an effect, the effect is inverse: that is, larger roads with more traffic capacity, like expressways, seem to almost guarantee low-density development.) Density-based zoning is one of the most true-to-life aspects of the old SimCity, and it would be a shame if they replaced it with the idea above, which is just, well, babytown frolics. – Misterben About Halo 4: There’s a lot of good here to like, and the setting of post-apocalpyse is one of my favourites. The only negative I can see is partner AI. I don’t trust it in any game, and a game built around two people working together could be ruined by one partner being a liability instead of a help. But that’s the only nitpick. Tone, characterisation, setting, graphics look very fine… This could well be the game that convinces me to buy a PlayStation 3. – MelasZepheos I’m glad they’ve not gone for the shock and awe approach though. As much as incredible set pieces are naughty dogs bread and butter, they’ve always handled character interactions brilliantly. – Abandon4093 It’s an original premise. I think there’s some really profound discussions of normative gender roles and psychology to be mined out of it. I look forward to deep satire and reflection upon how our evolutionary origins clash with the nature of civilisation in a world where we’re forced to come up with new social orders rather than simply rely on tradition. I’m sure that will all be in there. – BlindChance Wouldn’t it be far more intense and intriguing to see the effects of first taking someone under your wing, or having a father figure help you out, only for them to truly have that chance encounter and perish suddenly? Think how much difference it would make, would Joel become more merciless? What would Ellie do? Gameplay wise, it could be as simple as having certain areas locked to Ellie after that moment, have the encounters grow more dangerous and eventually have her character grow tired, lonesome and self-sufficient. Now THAT would be a post-apocalypse story. Sadly, and as much as I love Naughty Dog, they’re going to play it safe and if, IF, one of the characters is in peril, it’s going to Joel and he will give his life for Ellie. Which is a shame, as the game could be so much more. – SpiderJerusalem About South Park: The Stick of Truth : (Don’t worry, we’ve got 2-3 more Halo games to look forward to by my estimation.) – Emiscary OT: I am looking forward to this game. They have added some interesting enemies that would actually make a person think before tossing in a grenade and rushing. The world also looks interesting as well. – Capitano Segnaposto Yeah yeah, I get that there’s a trilogy of books that is supposed to explain why the Sanghelli-Human alliance breaks down after a while, but that just feels like a cheap, forced way to undo a really cool development from the original trilogy for the sake of having the Covvies show up again. The other stuff looked rather interesting, but the amount of scripted events concerned me. Halo has always been a bit more free form with it’s gameplay, and all these scenes where a big alien knocks you down and starts an arena fight sort of thing kinda irks me. And it looks like we’re gonna get QTEs so we can grapple with Elite’s faces. Wonderful. – Soviet Heavy There appears to be just enough change to look as if the series is moving on and yet enough similarity so as to remain firmly within the scope of my expectations. The enemies look totally different to the Covenant (Who had become so boring after 5 games) and the AI looks smart as all hell. In short, it actually looks like fun to play, which is always a bonus. Now all we need is a smart storyline and some engaging characters… Loving the idea of Cortana going off the rails, it’s about time. I do like me some crazy-ass demonic AI overlord in my games! She’s not just some sort of basic desktop computer. Cortana is a digital clone of Doctor Catherine Halsey’s brain, mapped right down to her neural pathways. She is a “Smart A.I.” that has the ability to learn and grow very much as a human brain does. But she’s not human. After a certain amount of time the A.I. cannot withstand the amount of data and suffers an overload of sorts. That’s when rampancy occurs. But let’s be fair here, Halo along with it’s concept of the “Smart A.I.” is all complete fiction. Who’s to say what is more realistic? At least they are sticking to their established lore. – Proverbial Jon About Kill With Voice Commands in Splinter Cell: Blacklist: Oh and also south park. That’s cool I geuss. Never been a huge fan or anything. – Reet72 About Play as Nathan Drake, Big Daddy in PlayStation All Stars: My major complaint is about Ubisoft. Look, I know that the market these days likes fast-paced action gameplay. I can understand that. Why not make a new IP with the gameplay you’re showing us now? It’s more risky, but with the right marketing campaign, people can buy this. When gamers are saying “We’re losing the core experience of a franchise”, this is what they were talking about. If you really want people to buy because of brand recognition, at least make a sub-series to the franchise. Don’t use Sam Fisher. Bring in another agent. – Random Argument Man I actually liked the idea behind the mark and kill button, it is more indirect but also makes combat smoother and more bad ass for people like me who such at that sort of thing. Makes you feel fluid and not so stiff. I have never really got into a Splinter Cell game, but this looks good. – SacremPyrobolum About Final Fantasy Versus XIII Becomes FF15: I shall settle on this 😉 – MisterShine Im suprised I dont see more flaming of this. I see so much hate elsewhere for copying Super Smash Bros. Which it does, I’ll admit. But when has shameless copying been a bad thing? Theres a demand for the game, it looks like it will be top notch, and it looks fun. Is it so horrible that its not original? Thats my rant for today. Anyways, cant wait for this to come out. Dont own a PS3, so Im glad to hear its coming out on the Vita. – Uber Waddles – gigastar – Evil Smurf If Big Daddies are playable, and that’s not exclusive to Sony, maybe that means that all bets are off on who could end up in the game. That gives this game’s roster an exciting amount of potential. I wasn’t surprised at all when Nathan Drake was announced, but I was seriously not expecting to see a Big Daddy. Hopefully we’ll see Mega Man X or a Final Fantasy character (not Lightening) in future announcements. – Sheo_Dagana About Hands On with Company of Heroes 2: At any rate, I’m interested in seeing what the game looks like after all this time, more so than I am concerned about which roman numerals they decide to throw in the title. While XIII shook my faith in the brand, I daresay I will continue to observe major future FF releases with interest. While we’re on the topic, I went back and played through FFXIII again recently, and found I enjoyed it much more than I did the first time. I think it’s better if you go in expecting to play Final Fantasy XIII, rather than expecting to play another Final Fantasy game, if that makes sense. – Andronicus About Kratos Stabs Elephant Men in New God of War: – Namehere About Third Party Support for Wii U Includes Mass Effect 3: My favorite part of that footage? He pushed a civilian out of harm’s way. Unheard of, right? In fairness, he’s played with time distortion before, and since that was 3 games back, he’s more or less just pulling things out of the cupboard and repurposing them than ripping things off. – BehattedWanderer At this point, honestly, I’d say it is a bad thing. I’ll hold off forming an opinion until I can see it in action and find out more details, but if it just ends up being more of the same with fairly minor incremental changes I’ll probably pass. I love the God of War series, but after 5 entries, the 4 of which I played not being dramatically different from one another, the formula has worn a bit thin for me. – Vivi22 About EA Wants to Be Indie: It’s a handheld and a Nintendo console, that doesn’t make me optimistic. – DVS BSTrD “Hey guys! Buy this rather expensive, unestablished new console with an unproven propriety control control scheme. Why should you buy it? Well some of those games that are available right now for post launch prices might be coming to this new console at some undefined time in the future! Remember folks, these games are only available everywhere else for much cheaper and probably on a console you already own. And as an added bonus the controls will possibly be badly ported to a controller the size of your house- no wait! Where are you going?! ” Wii-U; For those who can’t find a hole big enough to throw their money into. – Scrumpmonkey About ZombiU Makes a Case for the Wii U Controller: So I don’t see how EA can ever be “indie” or anywhere close to “indie”, it’s simply in the opposite side of the spectrum. – Thoric485 I just hope he remembers that actions speak louder then words. – Cat of Doom EA is gaming’s trademark evil, faceless company, in Alien, they would be Weyland-Yutani’s business partners. They just need to stop playing it safe; they have enough money that an experimental new game won’t hurt them at all; the only reason (methinks) that they’re releasing such statements is because they, like everyone else has seen the power of Kickstarter. – Akichi Daikashima About Portal 2 DLC Brings Move to Aperture Science: Perma-death and zombiefication of your character when you die only makes it an even better survival-horor concept that actually deserves the name instead of action based pap like RE and DS have become. – TheGuy(wantstobe) About The Elder Scrolls Online Teaser: About Pokemon Conquest: I came up with 3- Will there be viking people? YES Will there be generic looking elves? YES Will there be some guy with a bow? YES I really cannot see what other questions that may have answered. Personally, I would say that the trailer was uninspiring. EDIT; haha, sorry, I was a little slow picking up the sarcasm. It doesn’t work so well in text. <3 – Li Mu About Activision Confirms Angry Birds HD on Consoles: It in a way adds history to the previous Pokemon games. I mean, what did go down before humans invented the technology of capturing them with Poke-Balls. As we have historical empire conquests with Gengheskhan, Napolian, Mispellius Caesur; what would they have been like if Pokemon existed in the same universe? They used Elephants, soofc they’d use Pokemon was weapons. So yeah, if it’s as good as Final Fantasy Tactis advance I will certainly get this game eventually. – scw55 It’s Samurai Warriors + Pokemon + Tactics Games. LOOKS AMAZING. – NameIsRobertPaulson I wonder if we’ll get a chance to score the shiny Rayquaza for the American Black and White games when this comes out? – GamemasterAnthony Shut up and take my milk! Although,on a more serious note,I guess I’ll wait a little first, my pockets are still bitter from D3 and they’ll surely grow a pair of arms and slap me if such a fail happens again. – Aposthebest About Behold the Next Generation of Final Fantasy: Hell I always feel disapproval and/or hatred when it comes to Activision so I think I MAY be biased against them a bit… – Solo-Wing I also Hate Activision because of their mutilation of Spyro. – Solo-Wing I’m not really an Angry Birds hater (the game is okay, but it’s popularity is undeserved) but I really hope this game fails. For all the hate “hardcore” gamers spew for this game this is when they need to prove their point and not buy this game on consoles. Show Rovio that they actually can fail and there are some people who don’t want this game no matter how hard they try to shove it in our faces. – Scrustle Seriously, unless a freakin’ bird pops out of the screen and slaps me in the face, I don’t see how HD graphics will make it better. It’s not like we’re talking about going from 64-bit images to HD like some HD remakes. Not only that, but I can’t see who would pay maybe 60 bucks for a game you can play either for free or get for a couple of bucks on your iDevice. Alright, maybe clueless parents and needy children would be into that. But the most I’d pay would be around $10-20 for a disc version. And I’m already exaggerating. Like someone said, it would make more sense if they were released for the 3DS. It would make playing that game much easier, the 3D graphics might be enough of an incentive to get people to buy the game and kids would love it. After all, it’s Nintendo. It’s family and kid oriented. See, it’s one thing when you give us Minecraft, a game that you HAVE to play on the PC and you can’t play for free. Well, at least not the full version of the game. But this? Really? – Beautiful End About Sony Nixes PS Vita Price Cut Rumors: I liked FF13, but after FF10, none of the other games interested me whatsoever. FF11 was boring, FF12 made me want to destroy it and FF14 I did not care for as soon as I heard it was going to be an “MMORPG” (way before the whole disaster happen). Agreed. Stop wasting money on graphics and start on the other 2 things that make a game good: Story and gameplay. – KingdsomFantasyXIII About Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell : Blacklist: Sony had a no win situation. You put more attention on the Vita, and people start to ask if they’re ending support for the PS3. Personally I think their only problem was spending way too much time on the Move and WonderBooks. It’s a neat idea, but it wasn’t worth a 20 minute presentation. Personally I think Sony’s plan for new hardware always starts like this. Like with the PS3, they let people slowly convert by still selling the PS2, and for a while there PS2’s were outselling everyone’s next gen hardware. Sony’s selling Vitas and PSPs, they’re still making games for both, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Vita will slowly gain more value, release more titles, garner more support than the PSP, and down the line see a price cut. Again, you can’t compare 3DS sales with Vita anymore than you can compare Wii’s sales with the PS3. Nintendo’s fanbase will by anything with their name on it. Nintendo is also taking huge profit cuts to drop the price of the 3DS. Sony can’t do that… actually they’re already doing that. They can’t do it MORE, the solution has to be different. – Quiotu I think that Sony’s products are technologically superior to Nintendo’s, and more reliable/longer-lasting than Microsoft’s consoles, but it doesn’t help that Sony runs off into the other extreme, resulting in hyped-up prices, which are still sold at a loss. I’ve always liked Sony, but the one thing they’ve never changed is their stubborn pricing on all their products. Its really your market-strategy that needs an upgrade, Sony. – Sougo About Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – BTS Trailer: About Metal Gear Solid: Rising – Revengeance – E3 Trailer: About E3 Preview: Dishonored: So the title has a strange word. Big fucking deal. – anthony87 About XCOM: Enemy Unknown: – Crazy Zaul However, I’m quite optimistic about this one. – SirCannonFodder About E3 Preview: The Elder Scrolls Online: After the “Xshock” (or would it be “Biocom”?) reboot shooter debacle, I think I actually whooped when I saw the first dev diary video for the new game. I look forward to having my old squad back together again. ‘Trencher’ on heavy weapons, ‘Deadeye’ on the longrifle, ‘Breach’ with his explosive toys, ‘Sarge’ toting the spare clips, and the psi twins hanging back in the ‘Ranger. The rest of the expedition team were cycled for training before getting shipped out to other bases for security duty. What I really miss were the artificial limitations I ended up using with later playthroughs… “No Heavy Weapons (Autocannon, Heavy Cannon/Laser/etc.) without Powered Armor”, “No Psi-Amps”, “Leave No Evidence (burn/blow-up all alien remains)”, “Earth/Hybrid-Tech Only”, and so on. Having just plain pistols and rifles for half of the game meant a LOT of soldier recruitment. Here’s to hoping that the tiny snippets of footage depicting stealth armor, grappling hooks, and the other proposed soldier rank upgrades are as awesome as I think they’ll be. – SangRahl About Wii U Miiverse Will Use Human Screening: Also the graphical style is just wrong. Its too shiny and stylized for Elder Scrolls. – Don Savik About E3 Preview: Devil May Cry: I think this is sad, but at the same time, Nintendo is 100% irrelevant to me. So whatever. – Hammeroj Points for the effort though. – newdarkcloud Whereas the “scythe” or “hammer” thing might be cool to others, I see it as a drastically, almost pathetically, lowered amount of variety. Specially when it seems to be established that angel=air, and demon=ground with the weapon modifiers. Where’s the load of weapons? Where’s my shotguns, my electric-blasting guitars, my explosive-rose-dispensing back-kits, my suitcase of pure destruction, or my three-sided nunchaku or fire-and-wind combo swords? They also haven’t shown much on move development, which means there isn’t any way to learn new moves or the like, or they just don’t have it working right now. Both not exactly a good thing if they want to reassure fans of the series. Where combat might be fast and fluid and the like for some, it actually looks on the slower side to me still, of which the cut from 60fps (the usual for the series) to Ninja Theories staple 30fps is probably the biggest suspect. I won’t touch Dante’s look, its been rehashed and thrown all around. I’ll say this. They HAVE made improvements, even if its not too apparent for the most part. Biggest being ditching the Christian Bale Batman-wannabee from earlier trailers for the current one, who sounds much more fitting. And attitude? Meh. It’s not the easiest thing to tell until you’ve played the game. Dante could be a real smug, sarcastic bugger at times, and ended up being a rather lovable dick. This version? He’s shown some attitude, but a string of “fuck you”s a Dante does not make. – cursedseishi I hate how they ruined the story of Dante, he was a half-demon, half-human, which is why he was so strong, he had a heart and a sense of humanity, he was a guy who wanted to kill demons as stylishly as possible. The reasoning behind this change is stupid, if he walked into a bar outside Japan, he would be laughed out…Dante would kick their ass, wisecrack about it and not give a shit. Also on that logic, the new one wouldn’t be laughed out? I am more open-minded about this, but the hate this game is getting could have very easily been avoided… – TizzytheTormentor