To begin, I think we should go through some of our upsets first. I think it would be remiss if we didn't address the elephant in the room. Nintendo, you showed up with two games to the biggest gaming conference of the year, Zelda and Pokemon. Both of these were expected and you didn't give us any surprises. No surprise IPs, NX reveal, hardware refreshes, nothing. I know for us at Chronocide, this is just plain unacceptable as they have essentially killed the Wii U in the middle of its cycle without even giving us a roadmap to the NX. With that said, the open world demo that they did show for Zelda: Breath of the Wild was well received and won Game of the Show for some major sites, including IGN. Aside from Nintendo basically putting me to sleep with their show, Xbox also had a few missed shots with me, the biggest one being Scalebound.
Scalebound is a 3rd person action game in a fantasy setting where the protagonist fights alongside his dragon ally. The game is being developed by Platinum Games who is well known for their high speed, high agility, fluid combat games (Bayonetta 2 anyone!?). This game's demo had some quirky things in it - one in particular was the use of a flimsy looking bow and arrow against this giant Kaiju type monster to no effect - then they kept doing it. It looks like the engine also may be having some render issues. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this title as I am a huge fan of Platinum Games. But lets cheer up a little bit and take a look at some highlights from the show.
Microsoft's show was a fun even where they focused on new hardware coming out. They showed their mid cycle Xbox One refresh - now branded the Xbox One S - launching this September. This refreshed console comes featuring HDR technology, 4K output for media and a minor performance bump to help alleviate those resolution gate issues! They also showed off their newly customizable Xbox One controllers, touting over 8 million different combinations. Very cool stuff, but the controllers come at a steep price point. The customized controllers MSRP at $79.99 plus another $9.99 for laser etching. Alongside these reveals, Microsoft also addressed "Project Scorpio" by having Phil Spencer (Head of Xbox games division) confirm that the console will have a 8 core CPU with 6 Teraflops of gaming processing power. This is super powerful if you consider the PS4 now is currently sitting at 1.8 Teraflops. This wasn't the only impressive announcement from Microsoft.
Microsoft also announced new Xbox Live features named: Clubs, LFG (Looking for Group), and Arena. The clubs allow you to join with other members of Xbox Live gamers to take part in the enjoyment of a particular game together. The LFG feature allows you to seek out other Xbox Live gamers that are looking to join forces. I think this feature stands as a great solution to a current problem we see in team based shooters and shared world shooters (looking at you Destiny LFG). No longer will you need to run to sites like Destiny LFG to find groups to tackle the high end content that doesn't allow matchmaking. Lastly, we get to the Xbox Arena which I expect to be a big hit for competitive games. This feature will allow you to host gaming tournaments through Xbox Live. Madden and Fifa fans rejoice, a lot of gambling to come! Now let's get to the Sony conference...
Oh Shu...love me like you do, luh-luh love me like you dooooo. You just know how to give the people, including me, what we want. Game after game, reveal after reveal, the excitement and hype just kept coming. The two high points of the show, which was reinforced by the crowd going wild, was the surprise visit from Hideo Kojima and the reveal of Crash Bandicoot. Sony Santa Monica showed their newly rebooted God of War, which is now being set in what appears to be a Norse culture. The reboot includes Kratos having actual character depth, RPG elements, and a combat system that has a Dark Souls feel to it. These changes certainly have a lot of God of War naysayers changing their opinions. The next big reveal for me was more on the E3 reveal from last year, Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Guerilla Games showed gameplay from Horizon: Zero Dawn and I think this game had some of the cleanest gameplay of the entire conference. They also made sure to show some of the RPG elements built into the game which came across as very Tomb Raider. These elements included collecting items off of enemies and even an awesome sequence where Alloy (the protagonist whom the player is controlling) captures a robo-moose and hacks it into becoming a mount for the player to travel with! Very cool and we cannot wait to get our hands on this game which is coming this February.
Some other big announcements were Insomniac Games revealing a super polished looking Spider-Man game, Quantic Dream showing gameplay from Detroit: Become Human and a nice visit from Shawn Layden (SIE Worldwide Studios Chairman) announcing that Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 and 3 are all being made from the ground up as well as Crash himself becoming a Skylander. But its time for me to get to the big guns of Sony, the surprise reveal from Hideo Kojima of his new project, Death Stranding.
I mentioned earlier that Kojima (Legendary creator of the Metal Gear Series) had made an appearance, but unless you watched the floor beneath him light up as he walked up to the front of the stage with smoke around his ankles and the orchestra playing, its difficult to comprehend the sense of gravity and joy that came from his surprise visit. Kojima hushed the crowd with a huge smile and only said two simple words..."I'm back!". He then proceeded to show a teaser of his new IP currently in development named Death Stranding, centering around a character played by none other than Norman Reedus, most famous for his role as Daryl in AMC's The Walking Dead. This reveal was way more than anyone was expecting to see since we know Kojima Productions only recently signed it's deal with Sony.
Before we get to the grand finale of Chronocide's official Game of the Show, lets first define how we came together to make our selection. We think Game of the Show has a lot more to do with gamer mind-share and not just a great demo. What game comes to mind days later that we just can't help ourselves but make remarks and predictions on? Based on this selection process, we made our decision...
Chronocide has selected Death Stranding from Kojima Productions as our first ever Game of the Show from E3! We are aware that some may say that "you haven't even seen any game play yet", but people also seem to forget that last year in 2015, Final Fantasy VII Remake was awarded Game of the Show by many popular sites including IGN - which also had no game play revealed. There is a lot that can be said about how the mystery of what's to come based on this teaser trailer. Kojima is no stranger to theatrics but we do know that the game is going to be a 3rd person action game and with over 30 years of experience in that genre, we have full faith he's going to deliver one of his best games to date.
Please let us know if you agree with us or if you think we're nuts by leaving a comment below or hitting us up on Twitter @Slayedtime - until next time, thanks for killing time with me guys!
