Each year E3 is unforgettable for one reason or another. Whether it be because it is simply atrocious (much like last years) or because it simply blew us off our feet with new announcements...which just so happens to be what happened this year. Yes whilst titles like The Last Guardian and Beyond Good & Evil 2 were still missing from the announcements, as well as Square Enix being pretty much nonexistant across the conferences and some games getting barley any screen time to be considered as even being there. It was a significant improvement over last year and has given us a glimpse of some great games to come, so here are my highlights of E3 2014.
Microsoft
Lets start things off with those who made E3 2013 one of the worst events in gaming that year. Microsoft saw the response from last years conference and not only changed the way their console worked because of it but also actually gave us what we wanted this year, which was games, games and even more games.
Kicking things off at 5:30PM (GMT) was Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. A series that has been subject of much scrutiny over the years, however this years general vibe is it looks pretty good, and I wholeheartedly agree with that. The game looks like a hybrid between Killzone and Titanfall thanks to a hyper futuristic setting and believe it or not, relatively inventive gameplay mechanics. Whilst it was still Call of Duty at its core, you could have easily been mistaken into thinking it was something else entirely. With an interesting storyline, interesting new mechanics and quite frankly gorgeous visuals, Advanced Warfare has certainly jumped up my watch list.
This was followed by Forza Horizon 2, AC: Unity and Dragon Age: Inquisition. None of these games I particularly care for however AC Unity's co-op mechanic is quite intriguing and Dragon Age had a wonderful trailer.
Next up was Sunset Overdrive from Insomniac Games, the 3rd person hybrid of Jet Set Radio and Dead Rising. The trailer was funny, extremely colourful and showed off the gameplay to its best. Though this was a game that already had me pretty interested, its now a game I want to own an Xbox One for. This was promptly followed by an announcement for Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper DX Plus Alpha DLC for Dead Rising 3, which released on Xbox Live during the conference.
Dance Central: Spotlight, Fable Legends and Project Spark did little but irritate existing fans and then outrage Conker fans when a new game was teased but instead ended up being part of Project Spark itself.
Luckily this was followed by Halo, with a trailer for Halo 5 comprised mostly of Halo 2 cinematics we were shown that the Arbiter was to return and that the mysterious other figure on the boxart is in league with him, both of whom are looking for Chief. This was quickly followed by an announcement of the Halo: Master Chief Collection for Xbox One, comprising of Halo: CE Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3 & Halo 4. Each game has its own dedicated multiplayer suite including over 100 maps across all four games as well as Halo 5: Guardians beta access and an entire season of the new Xbox exclusive show, Halo Nightfall.
Playdead also made an appearance with new puzzle platformer Inside, their first title since 2009's Limbo. Swiftly followed by one of the next big announcements, Rise of the Tomb Raider, sequel to 2012's Square Enix led reboot of the franchise. Following Lara as a Post Traumatic Stress sufferer and how this pushes her to confront her fears head on, leading her into becoming the Tomb Raider we all know and lover her as.
The show was then closed off with glimpses of Phantom Dust being remade for Xbox One, The Division and a stylish looking Crackdown reboot.
Microsoft really brought their A-game with them to E3 this year and provided one hell of a conference with lots of new game announcements and not even mentioning the hardware or silly policies they have. I'm guessing they will save that for another time then. It did however, convince me to buy an Xbox One by the end of the year, so well done MS.
