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Giant Bomb @ E3 2016 | WEED3

I thought Sony's E3 last year was boring back then, and totally understood why the duders were down on it.

This year I'm discovering that "show and announce a lot of games" isn't the point of E3 presentations as I assumed was universally agreed upon my whole life, but it's about executives being celebrities and "using the stage" and boring state of the platform speeches and padding it out with the specific info that's best reserved for the showfloor demos and post-conference press releases and interviews, which is a completely alien idea to me.

Agreed. It's like people saw the Sony conference and forgot there was three days of actual E3 to come.
 
Microsoft's problem is they have less than half as many games in production as Sony at any given moment, but they still show stuff way too early all the time (Crackdown 3, Phantom Dust, Cuphead, Quantum Break, Halo 5). It only seems different because they also crank out a Forza each year, and a Gears/Halo remake to fill off mainline holiday slots so those don't get announced too far in advance.

They also have constant game droughts in the first half of the year, so often have games to show off at E3 that are holiday releases.
 
Having watched all of the conferences thus far Microsoft's was, for me, by far the most enjoyable and exciting - partly because of the Scorpio reveal, but almost every game looked fun. This even included Gears, which I've never really cared about. Sea of Thieves looks like it has a lot of potential and Horizon 3 did look pretty cool, though given I don't play with any 'real life' friends the drop-in co-op didn't really mean anything to me.

That said, I'm super excited for Nintendo and Zelda later on. I'm really hoping they deliver.
 
Days out 'the most impressive demo of E3'? Seriously, to me it looked like a generic zombie game.

I thought the hordes looked pretty impressive on a technical level, L4D amped up to WWZ (Movie) heights, but yeah otherwise it looked pretty generic.

I like how Danny says 'realistic' hordes...yeah why are there a bazillion zombies in the middle of nowhere pacific-northwest?
 
I thought MS's was one of the worst if just for the fact that Gears looks like the most oudated shit ever. Like games as a whole are past games like that.

Not to mention, MS's entire conference was the other half of the PC conference which doesn't go a great job of selling your console
 
Having watched all of the conferences thus far Microsoft's was, for me, by far the most enjoyable and exciting - partly because of the Scorpio reveal, but almost every game looked fun. This even included Gears, which I've never really cared about. Sea of Thieves looks like it has a lot of potential and Horizon 3 did look pretty cool, though given I don't play with any 'real life' friends the drop-in co-op didn't really mean anything to me.

I'm super excited for Nintendo and Zelda later on, but Microsoft really surprised me with their conference.

Even though Sony's conference was my favorite(if only for that orchestra), MS's conference is real damn close to being my favorite. I feel it had the best balance of giving info and showing gameplay.

Also, their cross platform message I thought would be for just special titles but it turns out it's for almost all the games they showed off, which is to be commended. They stuck to their guns.
 
I think if I could pick three games from this show to play right now, it'd probably be For Honour, Steep, and Sea of Thieves, because all three of those just looked like a riot.
 
I thought MS's was one of the worst if just for the fact that Gears looks like the most oudated shit ever. Like games as a whole are past games like that.

Not to mention, MS's entire conference was the other half of the PC conference which doesn't go a great job of selling your console

It's strange to me that I watch the conference and think "I want a lot of these games" and "I should sell my XBox" at the same time.

It was a great MS conference. It was a terrible XBox conference.
 
I thought MS's was one of the worst if just for the fact that Gears looks like the most oudated shit ever. Like games as a whole are past games like that.

Not to mention, MS's entire conference was the other half of the PC conference which doesn't go a great job of selling your console

This is the thing that was brought up the most by the people who I watched the conference with and I think that's why to many people Sony's conference is very impressive because you're seeing experiences only on that platform for that platform.

On the other hand, I have always wanted to play with lets say my cousin who always preferred to play on PC so now that's possible and I'm really excited about it.
 
Even though Sony's conference was my favorite(if only for that orchestra), MS's conference is real damn close to being my favorite. I feel it had the best balance of giving info and showing gameplay.

Also, their cross platform message I thought would be for just special titles but it turns out it's for almost all the games they showed off, which is to be commended. They stuck to their guns.

Yep, I agree with you on the last paragraph. I'm planning on significantly upgrading my PC so it's very cool that I can buy a game on W10 and potentially have it available on an Xbox down the line.

I think one major hindrance for Microsoft at the moment is their exclusive lineup, though. I feel like Halo and Gears are getting long in the tooth at this point and Halo Wars 2 seems to be appealing to a specific, passionate group of people that like the first one. Sony isn't great on this front either generally so having games like Recore being successful is important for them - or marketing deals like Sony had with Destiny.
 
Homieeeeeee.

Tell me what Farpoint actually is and/or how it plays. Like at all.

And tell me FFXV and BF aren't Batman-like brief "experiences".

Resident Evil I'll kinda (read: VR OPTIONAL) give you, cuz that has a demo out now since people loved P.T., but the rest? Come on.

If only there was a expo that had tons of demos and developers to interview, and what if that expo lasted 3 days?
 
Well... The GB crew had buffering issues and Dan went to the bathroom during the strongest part of the conference, the beginning. So maybe that's what caused the difference in perception between audience and the crew.
 
It's strange to me that I watch the conference and think "I want a lot of these games" and "I should sell my XBox" at the same time.

It was a great MS conference. It was a terrible XBox conference.
Think of Xbox as a platform across console and PC. They are not trying to sell consoles to everyone anymore (because that frankly has failed) they are selling software on a software platform. Like you can buy a Surface as a Windows 10 laptop or you can buy a Dell but you are still using Windows. So you can buy Xbox One S, Scorpio or PC gaming rig to play Xbox platform stuff, they don't care.
 
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Only if for honour guy is narrating over everything.

I would definitely play Sea of Thieves with Jason VandenBerghe.
 
Well... The GB crew had buffering issues and Dan went to the bathroom during the strongest part of the conference, the beginning. So maybe that's what caused the difference in perception between audience and the crew.

They explained their reasons. You don't need to look for excuses.
 
Steep was one of the coolest games shown so far but the way Ubisoft builds games is also extremely unappealing to me. Everything is full of checklists and busy UIs. I'm torn on that one.
 
Think of Xbox as a platform across console and PC. They are not trying to sell consoles to everyone anymore (because that frankly has failed) they are selling software on a software platform. Like you can buy a Surface as a Windows 10 laptop or you can buy a Dell but you are still using Windows. So you can buy Xbox One S, Scorpio or PC gaming rig to play Xbox platform stuff, they don't care.

Oh yeah, I get it. It's just a strange situation as it's not been one I've been in before.
 
Jason should have brought Lisa to play VR Resident Evil

because she took to PT so well

I wish they just make it a reboot and be done with it. While I would take a horror RE over an action one any day. This still ain't Resident Evil. It's more like Silent Hill, Condemned, P.T, Outlast, Amnesia and a bunch of other FPS horror games. It has the chance to be good, hopefully they learned something after they did the Gun Survivor series lol.

To me Resident Evil was always more akin to adventure/puzzle games mixed with some good cheese and a godly soundtrack with heart racing moments and decisions that could get you killed in an instant.
 
I really like GB because they don't hype everything up. Always like Jeffs thoughts and Ive started to really like Austin too.

When Dan was drawing about the Kojima game after the conference, joking about this being how he pitched it to konami, it was funny.
 
Steep was one of the coolest games shown so far but the way Ubisoft builds games is also extremely unappealing to me. Everything is full of checklists and busy UIs. I'm torn on that one.

The most surprising thing to me was that it was playable and it's releasing this year. Man, October is a fucking nightmare. Tons of games and PSVR.

Only if for honour guy is narrating over everything.

Isn't he the narrator in game? It's kind of sad to say but he was the best thing about that presentation. I thought their previous presentation was more interesting with your army versus the other player's army in an online match.
 
The fact that Microsoft is moving away from just one platform and expanding was part of why I liked their conference so much.

I want the most games possible and the less exclusives possible. Exclusives suck.

Sony is just doing business as usual with some nice looking but also derivative games. I don't care if those games are exclusive, that means very little to me.

Microsoft trying to open up Xbox and turning it into a PC is one of the most exciting moves they could've made.
 
Oh yeah, I get it. It's just a strange situation as it's not been one I've been in before.
Yeah it's definitely weird from my perspective. I've always instinctually bought new hardware and have great nostalgia for the idea of a new console launch but if say I pick up a 1080gtx gaming rig this year in a sense buying Scorpio might only be out of a sense of nostalgia for having a box under the TV. Maybe there will be more differentiating features we'll see. From a personal perspective I like the idea of unique consoles with their own unique games so it's a bit disappointing to see this direction. But from a business perspective it's really the only logical direction
 
My issue with Days Gone is that I can't really tell for certain what it is. When they first talked about it, I thought 'ok like open world zombie game' like State of Decay. Then they showed it, and it was this weird cinematic game. And it just looked like a Last of Us spinoff the entire time.

What I liked about State of Decay and what I think works with 'zombie games' is that they're very contextual and not cinematic. Your story is the one you create as you go along. I thought State of Decay did a great job with that. The mechanics were part of the story where as the demo for this made the game look incredibly predictable. And like I said, it just makes it look like fake Last of Us. It looks like it has no identity from the lighting to the environments to the characters to the sound.

I'm sad State of Decay 2 likely isn't going to be showing gameplay at E3 because I'd really want to see that.
 
Hmm, watching the GB Sony show now and they are super hyped about Horizon Zero Dawn, more so than any game shown yet at the conferences.

Not getting how people are saying they are down on Sony.
 
I'm more pumped about today being the first day of night shows than any reasonable person should be, but I don't care!

Only need to be smarter about sleep than last year so I can actually manage to stay up this year.
 
Wait Danny thought the Days Gone demo was good? I can't see how. To me its fighting with Scalebound and FFXV for worst demo of the show/maybe ever. I went from interested to never caring about that game again in like 45 minutes.
 
They explained their reasons. You don't need to look for excuses.

Well, when I tried to watch their Sony video last night, it cut off before the end. So I actually haven't heard much explanation other than Dan's tweets about dull Days Gone. I'll make sure to watch the video when I have time.
 
Yeah it's definitely weird from my perspective. I've always instinctually bought new hardware and have great nostalgia for the idea of a new console launch but if say I pick up a 1080gtx gaming rig this year in a sense buying Scorpio might only be out of a sense of nostalgia for having a box under the TV. Maybe there will be more differentiating features we'll see. From a personal perspective I like the idea of unique consoles with their own unique games so it's a bit disappointing to see this direction. But from a business perspective it's really the only logical direction

Totally. I bought my XB1 Elite this year because there was enough to get through as well as the BC meaning I could sell my 360. I hope they do streaming from PC to XB1 as I'll keep it then as I can use my Elite which I can't on a Steam Link right now.
 
Hmm, watching the GB Sony show now and they are super hyped about Horizon Zero Dawn, more so than any game shown yet at the conferences.

Not getting how people are saying they are down on Sony.

I think it's because they're able to separate the conference from the games and most people are looking at those as the same things. They left pretty positive on a lot of the games but the conference overall felt poorly paced and bad.

I feel like it's pretty easy to see how that was a bad conference while having some good games to show. I was so hyped and excited about Resident Evil and Spiderman, but by the end of the conference I was left so damn confused and bummed.
 
I'm more pumped about today being the first day of night shows than any reasonable person should be, but I don't care!

Only need to be smarter about sleep than last year so I can actually manage to stay up this year.

The real E3 begins now.

Still excited for Zelda though.
 
Wait Danny thought the Days Gone demo was good? I can't see how. To me its fighting with Scalebound and FFXV for worst demo of the show/maybe ever. I went from interested to never caring about that game again in like 45 minutes.

I loved the Days Gone demo. But I agree Scalebound and FFXV were trash.
 
They didn't hate the conference at all. The hyperbole is embarrassing. They were definitely impressed by the new direction of God of War, they loved Horizon, and a bunch of them were on-board with Detroit. A lot of the stuff they weren't super hyped by, like Scalebound/FFXV(and even grumpy Gerstmann himself said the game looked better in other trailers) Days Gone/all the VR aside from REVII/whatever the fuck that was from Kojima, is stuff that a lot of people on GAF were iffy about.

And I was definitely one of those who felt they bagged on last years conference a little too much, but I can see their perspective on this. It's not their place to get super hyped on stuff that's YEARS away from release. And nothing here was Earth-shattering. People are just giving in to hype.

Also, they're all allowed to have individual opinions on things. FFS, this thing featured God of War AND something new by Kojima and if Dan still felt it was weak, you can't say he's been blinded by his bias there.

Their criticisms on some of the presentation aspects were on point too. The stuff around the VR/COD stuff was super confusing and getting someone to introduce COD/segue off VR would've helped. And they know VR generally demos poorly, but they discussed the benefit of an on-stage VR demo for something like Farpoint is to showcase how intuitive the shooting mechanics would be with the move controller, something that isn't visible strictly through a first-person demo.

Everything they discussed was rational and made sense. But leave it to GAF to blow up over nothing, just because someone didn't love someone as much as you did. As if you need your enthusiasm validated like a child.

Dude, people just disagree with them and are saying so, no-one is blowing up apart from you.
 
I must be watching a different Sony reaction presser right now to people here because they seem quite excited about Horizon and God of War (still plenty to go though).
 
Am I the only one kind of looking forward to that Spiderman game?

It's only because of Insomniac.

Man, I forgot Scalebound. That looks like such an outdated and boring ass game.


It looked alright, the presentation was clearly made just to show off the boss's scale which is the same thing FF did. Terrible demos but they'll be good games at the very least that's for sure. I'm more excited about Scalebound's co-op and of course it's made by the main team at Platinum.
 
Yeah, Days Gone looks like the most focus tested thing

'Walking Dead is very big let's make a zombie game'
'Ok so like survival horror'
'nah man, just put zombies in it and make it look like walking dead'
'ok so like zombie games usually have scarce resources so you wanna do that'
'oh yeah definitely put some cool cutscenes where he's like picking up a can to put on his pistol because every little bit counts'
'ok cool. so very little ammo in this world'
'nah man, tons of ammo. we want the players to feel badass. he's like super daryl! also he has an ak47?'
'ok so if he has an ak47 with tons of ammo why does he even use the can on his pistol'
'CAUSE IT LOOKS COOL DAWG'
Am I the only one kind of looking forward to that Spiderman game?

It's only because of Insomniac.

There's a thread with over a thousand posts in it

it's probably not just you
 
Well... The GB crew had buffering issues and Dan went to the bathroom during the strongest part of the conference, the beginning. So maybe that's what caused the difference in perception between audience and the crew.

I mean no? Stream issues (buffering or whatever) doesn't change the tone and overall feel of a conference. I thought the Sony conference was rather bleh as well even though I liked a few of the games that they showed off. I think the problem to me is that the presenter (Can't think of his name right now if that tells you anything) isn't Tretton or even House. He's just boring and makes for a boring conference even when the games and stuff are great.

It amuses me that even though the GB crew were enthusiastic about a few of the games in Sony's conference there are still people who are bothered by the fact that they didn't think the conference overall was that great. They just felt like the conference was lacking a certain something and I agree. I think it also has to do with the fact that there are still plenty of people who haven't gotten past the whole MS vs Sony thing and because GB was relatively high on the MS conference it bothered people that they weren't as high on the Sony one.

At the end of the day though this is just a silly bullshit discussion over a group of people's opinions on whether or not they liked a conference put on by a corporation. Opinions, man.
 
Well, when I tried to watch their Sony video last night, it cut off before the end. So I actually haven't heard much explanation other than Dan's tweets about dull Days Gone. I'll make sure to watch the video when I have time.

The archive on the site is incomplete, watch it on YT instead :)
 
Hmm, watching the GB Sony show now and they are super hyped about Horizon Zero Dawn, more so than any game shown yet at the conferences.

Not getting how people are saying they are down on Sony.

https://twitter.com/DanRyckert/status/742551986701094912

https://twitter.com/DanRyckert/status/742554491883421696

https://twitter.com/DanRyckert/status/742593063080468481

Nobody is saying they are down on Sony and aren't allowed to be but it's undeniable they didn't like the conference.

The pretending they were super positive is almost as annoying to me as the jaded bullshit.
 
Am I the only one kind of looking forward to that Spiderman game?

It's only because of Insomniac.

Spider-Man and God of War are the most exciting things I've seen in the whole show so far, for me personally. The thought of a good Spider-Man game, and this LOOKS great if nothing else, makes me giddy.
 
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