E3 Round-Up
THIS year's E3 has been and gone, up and left like a fart in the LA night. And what a show it was, as Sony stunned the old-school with Shenmue, Microsoft looked to the past with 360 compatibility and Nintendo had, well, puppets.
Josh Duhamel and Rosario Dawson rubbed shoulders with Kanye West on the show floor while Pele was trotted out at EA's conference to ramble at length (not everything's an anecdote, y'know), but the games were the real stars in a year when no new consoles were revealed but the old guard hit their stride.
On top of a lavish Final Fantasy 7 remake, Sony finally took their finger out and confirmed The Last Guardian. First glimpsed as a PS3 title back in 2009 but finally nearing release on PS4, new gameplay from the creators of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus was revealed in the form of a young boy and his winged cat-weasel clambered about a desolate environment.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End continues Naughty Dog's love affair with cinematic action, made up of gorgeous open-world levels and less reliance on cut-scenes, while gaming god Yu Suzuki was trotted out to much fanfare, announcing the long-awaited Shenmue 3 as a crowd-funded affair and promptly crashing Kickstarter's website.
Guerilla announced Horizon: Zero Dawn, a futuristic dino-hunting escapade set in a (first class) post-apocalyptic world reminiscent of 80s toy store ephemera Zoids (anybody?).
Dreams, the latest treat from LittleBigPlanet peddlers Media Molecule serves up a package for creating, sharing and collaborating on 3D sculptures and animation. Chock-full of whimsy, Tony Hart would approve, though it's surely destined to be sullied with millions of filthy contributions.
In other Sony news, Street Fighter 5 is a PS4 console exclusive, indie camping sim Firewatch looks incredible, though no less so than adventure-on-a-galactic scale No Man's Sky, headed up by Irish-born Sean Murray. Microsoft preached to the choir with Halo 5: Guardians, with a campaign that allows players to lead two different squads.
The reveal of Keiji Inafune's Recore featured a girl and her robot dog exploring a sandblown wasteland while Lara has never looked better in Rise of the Tomb Raider, with a sizzle reel showing our heroine scaling a mountain before outrunning an avalanche. Forza 6 gets into bed with the rich history of the Ford Motor Company, Rare celebrates its 30th anniversary with a compilation package of 30 stone-cold classics while Fallout 4 mods from PC will work on Xbox One.
The old-school platforming action of Cuphead looks ludicrously tasty, with Max Fleischer-style graphics and a parping jazz score that celebrates early 20th century animation, hopefully sans the racism.
Microsoft's golden goose, however, was Xbox One backwards compatibility, with the promise of more than 100 360 titles by the end of the year. Better still, "We won't charge you to play the games you already own." Take that, Sony.
As a sedentary, uncoordinated oaf, I was somewhat relieved that Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect was barely mentioned, though VR is the new battlefield of gimmickry, with Microsoft's HoloLen urging us to don quasi-futuristic headsets and party like it's 1992.
A Minecraft demo, with its game world seemingly spilling out over a real-world table, was the stuff of sorcery. Celebrating Mario's 30th year, Nintendo's presentation (fronted by puppets, no less) didn't offer any Wii U lifeblood as the company readies itself for its NX reveal next year. Nevertheless, some big-hitters put in an appearance. Yoshi's Woolly World has players hopping through yarn-inspired levels, our donning the skin of his foes after eating them.
But there's no lotion in the basket here, just cutesy woolen balls which double as the eggs of old. Cute as heck, it's well worth your cashmere.
Zelda on Wii U may have been ominously absent but Triforce Heroes on 3DS channels a Four Swords vibe with its online dungeon-crawling multiplayer. Fan favourite Metroid also put in an appearance, though with frippery-based multiplayer Federation Force rather than a full fat adventure.
Nintendo's trump card was StarFox Zero, a traditional take on the 90s dogfighter as players use their GamePad for the cockpit view. So Microsoft closed the gap with Sony and Nintendo slightly fumbled, but at least two of my favourite games in recent years will be getting sequels with Dishonored 2 and the wonderfully named South Park: The Fractured But Whole.
