Wednesday 8 July 2015

MY PERSONAL E3 SUMMARY

By Jessica Herrett


For me there is no doubt that at E3 this year Bethesda won the hype train. With announcements such as Doom and Fallout 4 they definitely set E3 off to a great start with their press conference. Doom’s multiplayer looks great, with co-op as well as the ‘snap-map’ function and its demonic head-crushing graphics are beautiful. As for Fallout 4, it has definitely got me excited though I didn’t care much for the franchise beforehand. With the extensive slider-free character creation, beautiful scenery based on a post-apocalyptic Boston this is something I am definitely looking forward to. There was also the addition of crafting and house-building, though this didn’t wow me much after being disappointed with a similar type system in their Elder Scrolls game Skyrim.

Their pre-fallout app Fallout Shelter has proved a moderate success. From personal experience it is very fun and charming and is great with its lack of ‘pay to advance’ scheme that usual apps take advantage of. However, as you advance and your vault gets past 20 dwellers most people report that their game splutters and crashes, something I have experienced myself. As it is in its early stages I will give it the benefit of the doubt as there will be (hopefully) updates coming soon. My dweller I sent into the wastelands is most likely dead by that point however due to only have 6 Rad-Aways and Stim-packs (Oops, sorry Mr. Burke.)



Secondly in the game would be Sony, their announcement of The Last Guardian had fans cheering even though we only got a sketchy release date of 2016. They also drew attention to the kick-starter of Shenmue 3, which has already reached its target goal and will be in production soon. The thing I would most like to draw from the Sony press conference however is the Final Fantasy VII remake. At first I was sceptical, the idea of taking an old game and boosting up the graphics didn’t wow me and although my nostalgia for the game is great I would much prefer my square-cloud. However, with the announcement that they are not only updating it to HD graphics but also looking to change the gameplay got me interested, so I will be keeping an eye out for further developments there. A new IP in the form of Horizon Zero Dawn certainly also caught my eye, though with so little to go on other than tribal humans hunting robot animals I would have to know more.

Microsoft and the Xbox One comes trailing in third, their announcement of backwards compatibility is something that should have been in the initial release although it did come as a shock that they are still bothered about it at this point. Fallout 4 will also have mod compatibility for the Xbox One, whilst this comes as a nice surprise and will be great for the modding community, I will be getting Fallout for the PC so great news for you Xbox One owners. The announcement of the Hololens was also huge for the technological market, though a lot of people have been sceptical on its working ability as well as the fact that unlike Project Morpheus (Sony’s VR) you would have to have a compatible PC as it doesn’t work with the

Xbox console. Both VR’s are very much untested and probably need more work before anything comes to mass-market.



Lastly was Nintendo, though their puppets were fun and Star Fox was a great surprise for nostalgic Nintendo fans, their Metroid game came out lacking and their press conference fell a little flat. However, due to Nintendo releasing news before E3 and at their own leisure, this does not necessarily mean that Nintendo is losing out at all. One surprise was a lack of Wii U games in favour of 3DS, although the 3DS does sell more games I can see why their focus lies there.

So in conclusion this E3 has certainly brought out enough games to be hyped about but there has been stuff left out that I would have liked to see, or things I would have liked to have seen more of. Bethesda’s first E3 was a great start and though everyone else tried, the competition started out too strong. However, I’m sure that there is plenty for everyone out there to get excited about.


 We would love to hear your E3 highlights and lowlights!


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