BulletPoints - Lessons of E32015

So let’s talk about E3. I know that was all last week’s stuff. But today’s episode isn’t so much about the glory of the things to come from E3, but the things we should have learned from this year’s E3. For, you see, I’ve viewed this event for some time as a burlesque show to give us sights we want, but are mostly things we cannot touch (unless you’re so privileged to go and have the time/passes to do so). Let’s talk about all the pretty things we’ve seen and what we’ve learned from what we saw (or didn’t see) this year at E3.

For starters, we learned the Kinect is dead and forgotten. The Kinect team has been shoved into the dungeons of Microsoft never to be seen again. Not once was the peripheral mentioned at the convention by the big CEOs on stage. In past years, Microsoft shoved the damn thing in our faces, insisting it had to be bundled with their console. But they’ve apparently learned we don’t want it because we don’t want gimmicky motion control games and that motion controls just haven’t reached the point (on any console) where they feel good to play that way, Kinect possibly being the worst of the three.

We also learned that Microsoft has released Rare from that same dungeon. And Sony released Final Fantasy VII and Last Guardian from their dungeons. It seems the big score this year was to remake and re-release shit that we already probably played/got (excluding Last Guardian, obviously). People went apeshit for Final Fantasy VII Remake and the Rare Replay and the Gears of War remastering. Yet lest we forget that we wouldn’t have to rebuy these games for current gen consoles if backwards compatibility was still intact.

Oh, but Microsoft announced it for their console, you say? Of course they did. I’m willing to bet they could have done it all along but held it back to make sure it actually worked. Even still it’s only a meager list of 100 games and from what I’ve seen, none of them are ones I have interest in or even heard of before. And while the Final Fantasy VII Remake isn’t as egregious as it was to remake Last of Us or Tomb Raider for the new consoles within the year the original version was released… we all should still keep in mind one important thing. This is SQUARE ENIX remaking your beloved Final Fantasy VII. The same SQUARE ENIX that also made Final Fantasy XIII and its subsequent sequels. But if you want to watch Aeris die again, but in HD, then have at it. OOPS! Spoilers!

You might notice I haven’t taken a moment to bash Nintendo yet. And there’s a good reason for that. They didn’t really show anything worth bashing. They had one interesting game that I hadn’t seen before and the rest was the same shit I’d already heard or seen about (that I had any interest in). Anything else was new and uninteresting. Metroid Federation Force, for example, appears to be in Nintendo’s new line of “games you can play online with friends” falling next to Splatoon and the upcoming Zelda Triforce Heroes. The problem I have with Triforce Heroes is that we’re basically playing the far superior Four Swords Adventures but with one less dude. Is Nintendo going through budget cuts and couldn’t afford the fourth Link this time around? That purple bastard really was that expensive wasn’t he?

No, Nintendo’s presentation felt very low-key this year compared to the far more fun and energetic show of 2014 where they were doing a Robot Chicken-style presentation. At least that was fun. I will commend Nintendo for at least sticking to showing us gameplay for all the new things we hadn’t seen yet. This still doesn’t excuse you from not releasing Xenoblade Chronicles X yet you cunts. Instead you spent most of the time pimping those Amiibo figures I don’t want because of your fucking bullshit production and disbursement problems with them. Again, you are cunts.

What really had me in a weird spot was all the news regarding Shenmue III, a series I knew very little about (my fault for not having a Dreamcast when it was cool I suppose). Apparently the developer showed up to the Sony conference and needed to get a Kickstarter for the game up to see if people were interested in the game before they could get the greenlight to make it. Okay?.... A little weird, but people bought into it, giving the game two million within twenty-four hours. But don’t video games of this caliber tend to cost more? And didn’t the previous Shenmue games cost more?

Why yes they did. And apparently the developer realized this only just this past week after E3 because he’s recently come forward saying he needs to raise the Kickstarter to ten million dollars so the game can be the true experience he wants to craft. Ten fucking million? I thought you guys had also said Sony was footing the bill? What percentage of our money do you need before the game is actually made before you are willing to do your fucking jobs? This feels like pre-order bullshit, but I can’t reasonably call it that because at least the game looks like it’s near completion at that point. This is like paying for your dinner about a year before you know how it’ll turn out or if you even really want it. You just have a vague idea of what to expect. And fucked if you know what the future holds for your dinner at that point, let alone Shenmue III.

If I had to declare a winner of E3 this year (and for some reason, I do) I’m giving the award to Bethesda or Platinum Games. They managed to surprise us by showing interesting games. Platinum revealed they are working on three upcoming titles (StarFox Zero, Transformers Devastation, and Nier 2). Still no sign of Scalebound and I’m really hoping that didn’t fall off the wagon with Phantom Dust. And Bethesda showed off more Fallout 4 and stated that mods would be available for consoles as well. But, more importantly, they showed Dishonored 2, a game I never thought would ever exist but it will and that’s something I’m happy I don’t have to pay into a kickstarter to prove I want this game.

E3, to me, was kind of a wash this year. The big-three of E3 were all losers, liars, or over-active apologists delivering nothing but false promises and hope. I’m looking forward to seeing if any of the games shown actually do see the light of day, but we all know that Last Guardian will likely fade away into obscurity again before too long because we can’t live without that joke. Thanks for reading and tune in again when we talk about something that isn’t about E3. See ya next time!