Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Reviewed Platform: PS3

Other Platforms: Xbox 360, PC

WARNING: SPOILERS

I loved Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It was my favourite game in the series so far, and I theorised that it would probably be the best combination of gameplay, gameplay elements and story that we’d find within the Assassin’s Creed series. If you want to see why just check out my review of it.

When Revelations was coming out I was sceptical. I had kind of had enough of Ezio. He’s cool and everything, but his story was over in Brotherhood. So, I went into Revelations not really sure what to expect story wise, nor was I sure what they would change to make this one stand out.

The answer came to me quickly. They changed very little that mattered. The UI had a complete overhaul and they added bombs. Neither of these things did it for me, the change in UI seeming pointless and the inclusion of bombs just irritating. I went through the entire game without using bombs as they seemed pointless and too much worthless effort as I wanted to get up close and personal or use my crossbow to take dudes out, which I couldn’t as the crossbow is super expensive. On top of this we have a hook-blade, which just seems to defy common sense and biology (I swear using it would cause your wrist to snap off in an instant). 

Oh, and the less said about the stupid Tower Defence mini-game the better.

Everything that was introduced to Brotherhooddidn’t seem to have much of a place in this game. In fact, a lot of things were dropped. For one, horses are no longer in the game. Nor is an interesting city layout, which now just seems sloppily put together (we’re in Constantinople now). Building up a brotherhood just seems purely peripheral now and seems nigh on useless.

Viewpoints are no longer as spectacular as they once were

So yeah, the gameplay was kind of lame. But a lot of the little niggles I had were always there (such as parkour not always working properly). Why was I suddenly noticing these things? I loved the gameplay in all previous games, even the first game. What went wrong? Well, I theorise the problem is that the others had a cohesive and interesting story to hold it all together. You lose this and it all falls apart. And this was my biggest issue with Revelations.

Revelations no longer seemed to tell Ezio’s story. This time it was about the struggles of Constantinople. There’s a Templar presence, of course, but they just seem to want to bring the Byzantines back, rather than do anything seemingly useful. There’s a massive focus on this story that seems to have nothing to do with Ezio. He’ll get involved, but for the most part I can’t see why.

What should have been the focus of the game was the side plot. All these B-side missions that come about involving Ezio gaining his humanity back at such an old age. He gets to know this other Italian, Sofia, and through their bonding he realises that he is getting too old to be an Assassin. He needs to pass on the torch. This coincides with the story of Altaïr, another part of the game that had little focus on it.

Quite clearly some futuristic DVD

See, Altaïr has left these DVDs around and they tell his story bit by bit. But they really don’t, as the story skips around so much we can’t reconnect with him. The story tells of how he has been exiled and how he deals with it, I think. He gets married, has children and attempts to bring down a colossal douchebag who has taken over the Assassins. This would be a good story in its own right, but it falls short so many times.

Here are some problems. Firstly, how did that guy get to take over the Assassin’s? He’s clearly incapable of doing so and an absolute tyrant. Secondly, Altaïr’s son dies and Altaïr goes to ask the tyrant why he ordered his execution. I couldn’t care as I didn’t know he had children as this was suddenly forced upon us. Thirdly, who is this woman? I can only assume it is the woman who pretended to be Robert de Sable in the first game. She was shown to be romantically involved with Altaïr in another game, but this was only shown and not developed. Fourthly, when she dies I can’t care as this is the only time she is in the game. Fifthly, Altaïr can easily kill the guy, but doesn’t.

They completely ruin Altaïr’s story, and I know this is all very picky, but Altaïr is an important character who needed more time focussed upon him for development. Just showing snapshots of his life is pointless as we can’t really connect with him, nor can we cohesively follow his story.

If they were to remake this game then this is what I’d do: have two plots, one with Ezio and Sofia, the other with Altaïr and his life. Focus on both equally. Then you can connect with the characters and feel for them as they go through tough times and attempt to overcome them.

I feel that Ubisoft lost their way with this game, just trying to squeeze out yet another game before Assassin’s Creed III. This could have been handled very well, especially if the story actually revealed a lot, but for a game called Revelationsthere aren’t many revelations. The game just feels rushed, and that’s a shame as it did have potential to be great. The ending was very good, but the game itself wasn’t worth it (apart from the Sofia parts of the game).

For Assassin’s Creed fans this is, of course, an important game to play as it does continue the story, but I can’t help but feel it was completely unnecessary. Non-fans would probably have fun with the game, but for me, who cares a lot about the story and characters, this just didn’t do it.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Nintendo

So, we finish the festivities with the people who, arguably, made home console gaming a big thing, revolutionising the world of gaming and bringing the people of the 1980s and 1990s such joy. Then the mid 2000s came and the Wii came out, causing the Nintendo name to lose out on the AAA titles that the Xbox 360 and PS3 held. Oh, how they became the laughing stocks of the gaming community (Haha, get it?! STOCKS! Because their stocks are so low! No? Only me? Oh...).

Well, anyway, they had their conference.

Predictions

Yeah, I haven’t done predictions for any of the others, but I thought that the Nintendo line up is usually so limited that we may as well make a game: can I guess how many of each franchise they will show? This was done prior to the presentation, so I promise I’m not cheating.

Mario: 3

Zelda: 1

Metroid: 0

Kirby: 0

Donkey Kong: 0

Mother 3 Finally Getting A European Release: Please be 1!

So yeah, I basically think all they care about is Mario. That’s all they ever seem to announce at E3...

Wii U

This was, of course, brought up a fair bit. They spent a fair bit of time talking about this, even though they utilised a pre-E3 press release to tell us what it was all about and what the controller is like. They spent 10 minutes talking about it on stage, taking up a sixth of their stage time. Great work there, guys.

Basically, it allows you to play the games on TV and/or the gamepad, also utilising the gamepad as an additional screen (like for mini maps and the likes). Oh, and the Wii U can support TWO gamepads. Great step backwards, guys.

Pikmin 3

I’ve never played Pikmin and can’t really comment on it too much, but from what I’ve seen of previous games Pikmin 3 looks like more of the same. They seems proud of the ability to precisely aim where you lob Pikmin using a Wii controller, but you can also play using a Wii U gamepad. The Wii U gamepad also seems to have a map on it which allows for keeping track of you Pikmin. Also, there seem to be four playable characters. Is this the end for Captain Olimar (they made it sound like it was). If you like Pikmin then you’ll like this, I guess.

New Super Mario Bros. U

It looks like Super Mario Bros. 3. It’s uncanny. Just slap New Super Mario Bros. Wii graphics on it and here you go. This seems to come from the ethos of making a game “like the old Mario games, but better” (they seriously said that). So much for innovation, I guess. It’s just nothing new or exciting, just another Mario game.

Batman: Arkham City – Armored Edition

This one interests me. It looks like your classic Arkham City gameplay but with some added bells and whistles. Now you can use the Wii U gamepad to look around in detective vision when inspecting a crime scene, which looked cool, and setting off specific explosives using the touch screen was interesting. Sadly, controlling a remote control batarang with the gamepad just looked silly.

On top of this a new feature has been added in which Batman’s armour will have a current running through it as he fights, building up until you unleash it, making your attacks stronger. This seems pretty useless as Batman is pretty powerful already, able to dispatch of enemies with easy. More power just seems a bit overkill, really.

Overall, though, I was quite impressed with what was shown with Arkham City. They used the technology well and tried to add to the experience.

Scribblenauts Unlimited

I liked Scribblenauts and Super Scribblenauts looked interesting. However, I couldn’t see what more they could add. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. Now, with Scribblenauts Unlimited you can actually make new things to bring into the world. Want a dog with wheels? Then you can make the “Auto Mutt” they showed in the trailer. It looks pretty cool. However, I can see this being abused to hell to overcome whatever obstacle is in your way without using real things, which was the fun of Scribblenauts.

Also, there’s a bigger story mode and a big focus on exploration. I quite like the look of this and would like to see what they have done when it comes out.

3rd Party Releases for the Wii U

They announced a few titles, but won’t focus on them. I’m surprised to see a few of these, and I’m interested in how the console handles these games. They are: Darksiders II, Mass Effect 3, Trine 2: Director’s Cut, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Tank! Tank! Tank! (Like Nintendo’s stocks? Oh, I am hilarious!), Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge.

Wii Fit U

It’s the Wii Fit. That’s it. The trailer made it seem like some kind of sex toy. Does this mean We Dare U is coming out?

SiNG

You lost me at “Call Me Maybe”. Fuck that song.

But seriously, it’s just karaoke. Hurray?

"It's-a all about ME!"

New Super Mario Bros. 2

Did you like New Super Mario Bros. Wiibut thought the game didn’t have enough gold coins? Well, here’s the game for you. Apparently it has a lot of coins in it, allowing you to gain a stupid amount of 1ups and completely defeating the fun of getting lots of gold coins. WAY TO GO!

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

It looks like Paper Mario. I’ve seen Paper Mario before. And it’s just more Mario stuff. Nothing different. I hope the next game is something new. Some new sort of IP. Please?

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

Well, it isn’t Mario itself, but it is his brother. Looks like more Luigi’s Mansion, though.

Have they really run out of ideas and instead just remade games over and over again? Oh, who am I kidding?! Nintendo’s entire marketing strategy is to feed on the nostalgia of its devoted fans it views as money bags on legs.

3rd Party Releases for the 3DS

Some more titles here, just thrown out there with little coverage, mostly because Nintendo doesn’t straight up own them, but rather allows them to be on their platforms. We have: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate (clunky name...), Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts Unlimited (as discussed earlier) and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Lego City: Undercover

Oh, hello. You interest me. An open world crime fighting Lego game with parkour elements? Is this Lego Batman 2: DC Heroes. No, it is Lego City: Undercover! (Lego Batman 2 looks awesome, by the way).

I really like the look of this game and hope it is cross platform (UPDATE: It's not, sadly). It seems funny and has some interesting gameplay elements, such as scanning buildings to look for criminals. It hopefully has a good story to help it along. Definitely one to keep your eye on.

No Flo Rida this time, though

Just Dance 4

Well, seeing as Ubisoft showed none of this at their conference, maybe we can see some unique gameplay here? Well, yes, actually. Now you can mess with your friends using the Wii U gamepad, causing them to dance inappropriate dance moves to “Moves Like Jagger”, another awful song. Yeah, this just doesn’t seem right to me, but the people dancing look so happy they might have been on every drug known to man. Or they had plastic surgery. Who knows?

ZombiU

Hey, Ubisoft showed off more of this as well. Did they just hate their own conference? Of course they did!

It seems like proper zombie stuff: one bite and you are dead. But the Wii U gamepad brings some interesting elements, such as using it as a scanner, inventory, sniping and hacking. You can even make yourself look like a crappy zombie. Gimmicky, but I can see it being a fun experience, maybe even scary!

Nintendo Land

Here is where they left off: with PS Home! It’s a theme park with Nintendo themed attractions. Like PS Home. We have multiplayer focussed ones, like Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest, Animal Crossing: Sweet Day and Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, as well as singleplayer Donkey Kong’s Crash Courseand Takamura’s Ninja Castle. Some of these looked or sounded interesting, but nothing to get excited over. It’s nice to see a more multiplayer focus from Nintendo, as they seemed to ditch that with the Wii, so I guess that’s me recommending it. I think.

Prediction Results

So, I think I got the 3 Mario titles, but if we count the new Luigi’s Mansion then I’m out by one. And if we include the Nintendo Land games then I’m out by two, but I did get the one Zelda title. Sadly, no Mother 3. I think I’m grasping at straws there, but damn it that game looked good all those years ago!

Ending Thoughts

It’s just more Mario. Nintendo being Nintendo. Some of the stuff they’ve done with the hardware seems good, but only with the 3rd party games. A lot better than the Wii, but maybe this is just because there seems to be a possible focus on the hardcore gamers finally. For the most part I didn’t like this presentation as it was bogged down in just advancing the previously established Nintendo brands with no new IPs bar one or two (I think. I’m tired.)

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Sony

Well, we’ve had a terrible Microsoft presentation, a well presented but somewhat vacant EA press conference, and then Ubisoft’s travesty with a surprise ending. Well, now we have the (so far) best presented one. Sony definitely knows what to do when trying to sell their products. That is to say that they try to sell stuff hard between talking about games. But what of these games?

Beyond: Two Souls

Quantic Dream, you’ve hooked me already. Ellen Page as the main character with some beautiful motion capture, impressive graphics, some weird psychic/paranormal shit, amazing atmosphere and some dodgy looking SWAT team. I love it. Everything seems great. Oh, and there appears to be branching paths.

Not much has been shown of this game, but the game looks to be dark, mature and have some pretty cool action. This is one to keep your eye on.

Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale

Super Smash Bros. for the Playstation? Well, I was previously sceptical, but now I have to say that this game looks pretty damn interesting. The action is easier to see than the Super Smash Bros. games, making things less of a clusterfuck, and the characters are more my kind of characters. The levels seem to change as the matches go on, with games crossing over (the level was meant to be from Ratchet & Clank, but suddenly the God of War Hydra appeared).

Sadly, I can’t quite understand the health system in the game. The HUD doesn’t seem to show what health your character has or if they are using the stupid Super Smash Bros. damage percentage shit. I suppose we’ll find out more as they release more information.

One interesting development with the game is that you can play with both PS3 and the PS Vita at the same time.

Other Stuff

Then the presentation went onto all kinds of other stuff. Cross-controller Little Big Planet 2 DLC was announced, allowing people to play co-op with both PS3 and PS Vita. Seems to be a big focus of the Sony team now. PUSH THAT VITA!

They also announced more things about PS+, which will have new downloadable titles. Also, people in the audience got 1 year free for PS+.

And then we have more PS Vita pushing. Black Ops Declassified has been announced for it, not that we were shown any gameplay, and PS1 classics are coming to Vita. On top of this a new Assassin’s Creed game will come out for the Vita, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation. This game has the first female assassin and utilises touch screen controls and the in-built camera. Not sure how well this will work, but it looked good.

Assassin’s Creed III

Ah, this again. Surely they aren’t going to show more stuff for this and will just show a trailer. No? Oh, well it will probably just be more of the combat and stuff. No? Well, what is it- Oh my God naval combat!

Okay, this was very gimmicky but it looked good. It looked fun. It looked pretty. Assassin’s Creed III has recognised naval combat as an important part of the American Revolution, and so now you can fight at sea in a ship you control with cannons you can fire yourself. It all looked very good and seemed to imply you can also dock ships, which should be fun.

I almost forgot to notice they were still showing you only fight the British...

Far Cry 3

BOOBS!!!

Wait, no boobs? Huh, odd.

Well, they did show some 4 player co-op. Again, it looked pretty but it doesn’t seem like anything particularly new or innovative. Just your basic co-op. Nothing much here.

Wonderbook

What the hell is this? Why can’t we just read books? This is gimmicky as hell and will probably be overpriced.

But I am somewhat intrigued. It seems to be some sort of virtual pop-up book utilising the Move controller and the PS Eye. “Books” have games or something in them which kids will probably have quite a lot of fun with. Especially with their first title coming from JK Rowling: Book of Spells. It looked fun to an extent, but is definitely something you’d become bored with quickly.

Just read a book.

God of War: Ascension

It’s just more God of War. Not that this is a bad thing. God of War is always fun. Not much story was hinted at, but a new power that reminds me of the Sands of Time from Prince of Persia was shown. It seems to have uses in both combat and platforming/traversal. Looks good.

The Last of Us

If you aren’t excited about this game then I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Naughty Dog have made something absolutely spectacular. If there’s anything I can say good about Uncharted then it’s that the games are gorgeous to look at, and The Last of Us is just that. The environments look absolutely stunning.

But games aren’t all about the graphics. They have gameplay! So what is the gameplay in The Last of Us? Well, amazing, really. There is a stealth element involved which seems appropriate as when the character got shot he took a lot of damage. There are many enemies to contend with, and you need to go about it in an appropriate fashion, especially as bullets seem greatly limited (the guy had 4 bullets, which only went up to 6 when he picked up someone else’s ammo).

So, to combat this you have some hand to hand stuff going on and it looks brutal. Not in a God of War sense, but more so causing you to go “ooh”, “ouch” and “bloody hell” when he dispatches of enemies by repeatedly smashing their heads against a desk or beating them in the back of the head with a revolver. This creates a sense of tension and desperation. This is not from choice; this is for survival.

The AI seems greatly intelligent too, searching for you and attempting to ambush you. The Ellen Page looking companion is also effective, jumping on your enemy as he attempts to strangle you to death and stabbing him in the back.

The game is hard to put in words, so I recommend looking at the demo that they showed.

Ending Thoughts

Kudos to Sony for probably being the only one of the main 3 to actually include new IPs (Nintendo aren’t going to give out anything new). There may not have been too many games on show, but what they did show they showed well and in a way that makes you want to see more. Definitely best presentation so far, and probably the best for all of E3.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Ubisoft

Let me start of by saying this: Aisha Tyler is the worst person on Earth. That’s quite a thing to say, yes, but I’m being honest. I swear she takes joy in ruining fun, even more so than clowns do. She presented the Ubisoft press conference and she ruined every second of it. Not to say that the content was good, but my God was she terrible. She over-sexualised everything and told awful jokes. When she says “Let’s play a game: how many times does Aisha get girl wood?” my heart sinks and I go for the knife. This is probably the worst conference so far. There was also some Toby guy who was trying to be funny but I don’t know who he is nor do I think he was funny. (UPDATE: Ah, Tobuscus. I have seen him before, actually. Yeah, I've never thought he was funny.)

In other words, this conference was terribly presented. But what about the content?

Dancing

What?

Singing

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

Just Dance 4

Oh, the conference started with a song and dance (literally) about Just Dance 4. I don’t think I could tell you what the game has done to improve upon the previous games, but, like Usher, they decided to concentrate more so on the celebrity. So, yeah, can’t talk to much about this one.

Aisha Tyler

Aisha (talking about the dancing girls): “We’re all a bit gay.”

Fuck off, Aisha!

Far Cry 3

So, this all started off with sexualisation. Well, Far Cry 3 should continue with this. In an attempt to show how mature games have got we see gratuitous tits and swearing. EDGY! The game did look quite pretty and I can imagine it’s pretty similar to Far Cry 2 (it looked like it). Oh, apart from these hallucination sequences that were just a confusing mess. Not much was really shown about this game, but it does seem to have stealth elements and highly scripted sequences.

Oh, and you can shoot tigers. Cool, I guess.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Nothing was shown here apart from a trailer. Microsoft showed more. The trailer did seem to show that the game loses its stealth element for action, which is a shame, really.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth

A trailer was shown, but bugger me if I can tell you what the game’s about.

Rayman Legends

Well, this was finally something interesting. Raymanis going to be on the Wii U. It was nice to finally see a game on the Wii U, and it appeared to make some very good use of the touch screen. It even used motion control, but it was almost exactly like the controls used for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so is nothing particularly new.

One thing that did annoy me is that Rayman Origins had a very interesting 2D design to it, but Rayman Legends used a somewhat 3D look for some of the characters. This just didn’t mesh with the overall design, in my eyes, and ruined the style that made Origins so pleasing to the eyes. There was some amazing sound design though in a musically themed level.

ZombiU

Shit name, but it’s somewhat refreshing to see a game set in the UK. They only showed a trailer with annoying music, but it might be something to keep your eyes on if you’re into killing zombies (you are).

Wii U

Nothing was really shown here other than titles. Rabbids Land, Your Shape Evolved, Sports Connection, Just Dance 4 and Assassin’s Creed III are all available on the Wii U. No gameplay shown, so nothing to talk about. But wait, what was that last one?

Assassin’s Creed III

Holy crap, gameplay! RUN!

Well, from what I can tell from the gameplay we are still slaughtering only British people because the Americans totally weren’t outsiders. Nope. Apparently not. Hunting seems to be an interesting dynamic, but there did seem to be a thinly veiled QTE in there somewhere.

Movement seems pretty competent, with tree based movement looking wonderful, dynamic movement in the snow and environment seeming a big part of the movement. However, this was never part of stealth, because the gameplay showed no stealth. This is a shame, as that seems to be something that would work well if going through the woods to slaughter all the British.

Okay, okay, the Ubisoft people have said Americans will also be targets, but everything so far seems so anti-British. I know this is always harped on by us Brits, but all I want is some neutrality, really. That’s was the series has always incorporated, but this seems so... agenda based.

Shootmania

What the fuck was this? I cannot tell you anything about this game other than it looks like Quake. The gameplay was shown in a tournament style setting, like what you might get at Blizzcon. But they introduced so much comedy!

“HURR DURR GURLZ VS BOIZ!!!” Aisha proclaims. Because that’s funny.

I think video gaming is dead.

Watch Dogs

Wait, an interesting IP? A new IP? Bloody hell, I might just die.

It’s set in a somewhat generic cyberpunk world where everyone is connected to the network. The gameplay shows and open world like GTA but with on-the-fly hacking a la the new Syndicate or even Mindjack (but done well). The game seems gritty, dark (in a good way) and seems to have a living and thriving world.

Shooting looks competent, the world looks pretty and the voice acting good. The conference wasn’t worth this, but my God am I looking forward to this game. Keep your eyes on this one, it might be a new hit.

Ending Thoughts

Ugh.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – EA

Well, I’m surprised. EA, I expected very little from you, but you delivered a fairly convincing conference. Not that it was perfect and there was a lot I did not care about, but you got the presentation down perfectly. Maybe it’s just after the Microsoft one you seemed so much more... game oriented. Anyways, my thoughts on the individual elements.

DLC

Oh, fuck off. 

I’m not sure they necessarily said it (I was in another room looking for something at the time but I could hear bits). DLC should not be a focus! Bastards.

Dead Space 3

Well, it definitely looked different. Dead Space was never a game that I got. It wasn’t really the sort of horror game I wanted as jump scares do not make horror for me. So, luckily for them they decided to get rid of all pretence that it was a horror game.

Yeah, it’s now a cover based co-op shooter. You know, what we want from horror. So yeah, it looked like Resident Evil 5 in space. I really can’t say it looked good at all, but maybe it will go more so along the Resident Evil 4 route of going so batshit insane it’s fun. Or maybe it’ll be weird and have drills that are bosses. Yeah, that was weird.

Madden 13

So, this was a very interesting thing to focus on as the other sports games had a lesser focus later. They took it very seriously. But it did have some interesting things, such as a new physics engine. Then a guy came on and gave advice about how to do well in the NFL. Why? Just because.

One thing that did intrigue me though was the story mode, which had a story engine to flesh out the world, as well as having a fake Twitter feed to comment on the season. Seems all very immersive. You can also manage the league online and on a smart phone, which I do think works quite well.

SimCity Social

So yeah, SimCity on Facebook for all you Farmville fans with a hard on for SimCity.

SimCity

Holy shit this looked pretty. I love SimCityand now we have a new one. The art style is very pleasing and the world seems a bit more dynamic. On top of this we also have multiplayer to connect you and your friends. With multiplayer when things happen in your city it effects nearby cities, allowing a thriving SimCityworld thing. I like.

Battlefield 3 Premium

It’s that paid for membership thing that Call of Duty has. EA wants your money. That’s all I have to say.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This game has always intrigued me and if I played MMOs I’d probably play it. Updates to it do sound interesting. These updates include more PvP areas, a harder difficulty, more playable species, higher level caps and a new planet. Apparently Bioware love the people who play its game because it sounds like some of these are free, if not all. Kudos.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Shut up, I liked the first game in the reboot. It had its flaws and was just a Modern Warfare game, but I liked it. Now, this on the other hand this game looks... meh.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot I liked about it, such as the HUD and it had some good character animations, but to me it looked so much like Modern Warfare 3. It didn’t seem to try and make its mark. 

Sure, it is interesting that real life events are explored in the game, such as going to Somalia to fight pirates (I was expecting a giant enemy crab, knowing E3 real life events) but it didn’t seem to do anything new or spectacular. It just fits in nicely with other FPS games.

Multiplayer does look interesting though, with lots of different factions over the world and many different weapon types. Ooh, and destructible environments. Otherwise, it was more of the same.

EA Sports

Oh, hello EA Sports games. I thought we were done with Madden. Well, a creepy guy says otherwise.

A lot of games were announced, such as a new Free-to-Play Madden game, NHL, NBA and UFC, but nothing to get excited about, really.

Except FIFA 13 has some cool elements about it. Players carry their level over from your FIFA 12 saves, which is nice, and there’s a whole football club element that carries over. Also, it’s going to be available on iPhone, iPad and Android phones. But nothing too great.

 

Need For Speed: Most Wanted

 

This looked pretty good. The graphics were good, the driving seemed to work well and I think it got away from the hyper-realism that is in a lot of driving games nowadays. It’s open world, which I don’t like in my driving games, but it seemed to carry it off okay. There’s a lot of comparisons with friends as well, which will be good for some but infuriate others wanting to beat their friends but not being good enough to do so.

Oh, and it’s better than the Forza Horizontrailer because the trailer for this one didn’t have dupstep. Instead it had Prodigy. Sweet!

Crysis 3

WHY?! Why take us away from the open world jungle aspect and give us an “urban rainforest” that seems linear as fuck. This did not impress me and I honestly think they need to shut down the Crysis series as they have ruined one of the most interesting IPs out there with its two following releases. 

It looked pretty, though.

 Ending Thoughts 

Okay, I think it was to do with the shitty Microsoft conference that I liked this. Overall there is nothing particularly new. Some interesting developments, but it’s sequel-mania out there. Everything did look quite pretty, but for the most part there is no real innovation out there.

If I could describe this conference in one word it would be “Connectivity”. There was a real focus on connecting you and your friends to create an ongoing experience. It’s something I appreciate from the company. Not that I would utilise it (*sob* no friends *sob*) but I can see people really taking to it.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Microsoft

So, E3 2012 kicks off with Microsoft taking the helm. There are many games I’m excited for and I was hoping that maybe they would get shown here. Well, we didn’t really get that, at all, but let’s go through the press conference from the beginning.

Halo 4

At the start we had a trailer/demo for Halo 4. Personally, I’m shocked they didn’t end the Halo franchise at the end of the storyline, which I presume is Halo: Reach (I don’t play Halo), but after the secret ending of Halo 3 (secret only to those who didn’t complete it on Legendary) we now see Master Chief is still shooting aliens on some other planet. Or maybe they are AIs. I don’t know, really, I’m just kinda confused how you can shoot AI with bullets. The weapons looked interesting, but for me it was more of the same. Just more Halo. Oh, and they got rid of the health system again, relying purely on shields. Don’t like it, but I don’t play those games.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Then we had Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I don’t really play these games either, but at first I was intrigued.  Then I slowly realised that what they were showing was not the stealth games they used to be but rather HEART PUMPING ACTION! So, yeah, Splinter Cell has become a generic third person shooter apparently with no real stealth element by the looks of things. Shame, really, as the opening of the gameplay intrigued me, seeming almost Hitman-like in the fact you use a disguise.

EA Sports

Well, Ubisoft and EA have shown games real quick. Now we have EA Sports games. WITH KINECT! Yay? Now we can be silly and tell people in FIFA what to do. Because that’s what we wanted in FIFA, right? To not play the game? Of course.

We also got a nice little Maddentutorial. This actually interested me, to be honest, and was the first thing I could see being somewhat good. It was shown that you can call out all of the different plays when doing the hike thing (I know bugger all about American Football). It seemed to work well and looks like it helps the player immerse themselves in the NFL setting.  Thumbs up to that, I guess.

Trailers

Fable: The Journey. Still looks like it’s on rails; still looks pretty crappy. Might be good, but I don’t think it will be. 

Gears of War: Judgementhas Baird being the main character. This was another game series I was surprised is still having games made of it, but People Can Fly might make it good. I’m not really that excited for it, and they haven’t shown much of it, but I suppose we’ll have to wait. Not much excitement from the crowd with this one.

Forza Horizon I was out of the room for as the dubstep was irritating me. I hear it’s open world, but it’s nothing to be excited about. Just another Forza game, really.

Technology

And here’s the main ruination of the Microsoft conference. The technology stuff. My God was it irritating. Most of the conference seemed to be taken up with Microsoft trying to tell us that the Xbox 360 should be used for pretty much anything butgaming. No, instead we should use the Kinect to do what a controller can do and make the Xbox 360 a TV because if we have an Xbox 360 we definitely don’t have a TV, so need to use the console to watch TV on. Wait...

Oh, and sports. Lots of sports stuff.

Also, we have the Wii Fit on Xbox 360. They didn’t really tell us how that would work, but someone from fucking Nike will let us know they are working with Microsoft and that athletes love the measure stuff. Cool, I guess.

But of course, we also have more random shit. This time it’s linking smart phones, tablets and the Xbox 360. Now we can search online on our Xbox, but apparently we all have tablets and smart phones, so why is this? Who cares, Microsoft really want us to use Internet Explorer and Bing. Yay?

All in all, this stuff (called Xbox SmartGlass) is meant to immerse us all in our TV shows, movies and games more by giving us information on our smart phones and tablets whilst we are watching or playing these things. But this all seems rather pointless and nothing that should have this much focus. There was a demo with Game of Thrones which showed a map of things happening as the show bounced from place to place which was kind of cool but it doesn’t seem to have that much purpose.

Tomb Raider

Thank you! GAMES! I forgot about games. So yeah, the new Tomb Raider. This game interests me a hell of a lot and the demo they gave showed off a lot of features. The shooting and stealth looks cool and the destructible environments look great. It’s a very pretty game, but it does seem fairly Uncharted, which for me is a bad thing. I do think it looks more interesting than Uncharted and is a lot more of a human tale, with some good survival elements.

So there we go, another thumbs up for me. The only major complaint I have is they showed a bit too much of the game, but it is looking good and for that I am happy.

Oh, except that they have announced the DLC already, saying it will be Xbox 360 first. Ugh.

More Trailers

So now we finally get some new exclusives. Three games in fact. Nothing much was shown of these, they were mostly teaser trailers. All looked a bit interesting, but I can’t really say what they will be like. The games were Ascend: New Gods, LocoCycle and Matter, a game made for Kinect and from the guy who made Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango which looked like it had the Space Core from Portal 2. Might be an idea to keep an eye on these.

Resident Evil 6

Well, this looks like it sucks. I don’t have much to say about it, other than the guy playing it was awful and it didn’t look like you played the game, it just seemed to have set pieces that you go through.

Wreckateer

It’s Angry Birds for the Kinect. But with goblins. INNOVATION!

South Park: The Stick of Truth

A game I’ve been looking forward to. It’s got good voice work and looks just like South Park, keeping all of its humour and everything. Definitely a game to keep your eye on. Not much was shown of this, but Trey Parker and Matt Stone came on stage to talk about it.

Trey started off by taking the piss out of the tech stuff, saying how this game allows you to connect your Xbox, TV, smart phone, tablet, oven, all whilst in the refrigerator. Good show! There seemed to be many challenges coming with making the game, such as actually having to finally map out South Park (they said it occurred to them they have no idea how to get from Stan to Kyle’s house). All in all, they talked it up quite well.

I think this might be the gameplay, but not too sure...

Dance Central 3

That’s coming and-

Usher

Okay, maybe Usher is going to perform instead. Don’t really know what is new about Dance Central 3or what they are doing with it, but Usher performed a song for us for no reason. Thanks, I guess. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

So, I’m actually intrigued by this game. The future tech and the branching pathways definitely look competent and interesting, but the story seems to be lifted directly from theModern Warfare games. The gameplay looks pretty standard for this series and hopefully people will be better at playing the game than the guy who played it.

However, I do have a couple of little niggles. It looks less like an FPS and more of a sight-seeing tour where you tell drones to move around and shoot people. I honestly think other things killed more bad guys than the actual character did with his gun. It looks like an interesting direction for the series to take, but I have to say I’ve lost a lot of my excitement for this game.

Ending Thoughts

Microsoft’s conference was horrible. It was one of the worst I’ve seen. It concentrated more so on the technology than the actual games, which is what people want from a console. Now they want a whole new entertainment system, but the focus on gaming seems to have been lost. There was nothing new on the table and everything just felt kinda bland. Hopefully the other conferences will be better, but this was a bad start to E3.