E3 Day 1

Today was a long day.  E3 ended up wrapping up around 10:30pm, but left us with a few nice things to remember it with.

  Microsoft did end up showcasing new ways to interact with their interface and ways to connect with all of your devices around the house; beefing up everything else about their live service with more ESPN and Internet Explorer.  They had a few nice trailers out as well - Halo 4 looking very nice thus far, a nice surprise with Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and finally a wonderful look at the new Tomb Raider.  Microsoft also showcased 3 new IPs coming to it's XBLA family, however just not enough to quite get what they were in my opinion. The Resident Evil 6 footage was looking fantastic, but I still want to see what the other two chapters will be like.  Will they have different play styles like we imagined?  Also, while I think that overall the new Black Ops 2 still looks the same, adding the control of the Jets and showing off that combat was pretty awesome.  The character models have a nice boost in graphics as well.  It's good to see those boys try and make it their own.

EA got straight to the point showcasing 10 new things and showcasing some new DLC plans.  I was very excited to see the new Medal of Honor: Warfighter, looking very nice, and even the new Need for Speed Most Wanted (Criterion) is shaping up quite nice.  While Dead Space 3 was showing off a more action packed style gameplay demo, it was cool to see 2 player co-op and I'm sure it will still give us that sense of atmosphere it usually brings to the table.  I will say that I was hoping to see more on the new Gears, but there will be time for that soon enough I'm sure.

Ubisoft almost did it, they almost had it guys.  They had a host who just cut to the chase, they showcased some awesome games, had some sweet trailers - and then there was that stupid guy backstage who kept cutting her off and making lame jokes the whole time.  THE WHOLE TIME! I felt as if she hated him in real life and wanted him dead.  Anyway though, they had an Assassin's Creed demo that made even me (who has never been an uber fan of the series) want to play it pretty bad.  Far Cry 3 looked pretty great as well, looking to focus a little more on the open island side like the first game, but keeping the action up quite nicely.  I'm very surprised that they got away with an almost sex scene with a good shot of nudity and lots of usage of the F-Bomb.  Of course the big steal of their show was (no not Usher) Watchdogs.  I recommend just watching the trailer for it, as it's hard to describe, but it's definitely a game to keep your eyes on. I forgot to mention as well, Ubisoft was sporting some Wii-U support as well, showcasing the new Rayman Legends and a new Zombi-U game that has a much darker trailer than one would expect to be allowed on recent Nintendo offerings.

Sony wrapped things up with an alright show as well.  While it had a long slow part in the middle with their new Wonderbook game, we still got to see some great footage of the new God of War Ascension; looking faster and sporting a better looking engine to me.  While I would have liked to have had more announcement of characters for All Stars Battle Royal, it was really cool to see it in motion.  Definitely a Smash Bros game, but I'm totally fine with Sony having a sweet brawler like that.  I mean, they do have the cast for it after all.  Quantic Dream showed off their new game Beyond, and, I'll have to say, It's got some very impressive animation.  I'm excited to see more of it for sure.  And of course, my favorite showing of the day was The Last of Us.  To see the new side of this game, in motion, getting a feel for the tension with each encounter, yeah, it's going to be a great game.

Tomorrow will be very exciting.  Nintendo has the biggest stuff to show I think, and they have even announced a third day for showing off 3DS stuff.  We shall see ya then!

-Eddie