E3 2016 Press Conferences Thoughts Summary~

While I normally do posts per day or even per press conference, I didn’t find myself having too much to say this year so I’m using this post for everything :) If I don’t list a press conference, I just didn’t have anything to say! I also want to just say while I know (and watched) Square Enix’s press conference last week, it falls into the not really have anything to say about it so that is why it isn’t included below. Meanwhile, you can find my thoughts on the latest Harvest Moon on my Tumblr.

Also, for those who asked me why I didn’t mention the shirt update to the Miitomo Zelda Campaign, I’ll be talking about it once it’s actually started along with Nintendo’s Treehouse Live stuff in a future entry. Since they aren’t doing a press conference, it doesn’t make too much sense to bring them up here so expect stuff on them in a couple of days!

But yes, while we weren’t able to afford transportation this year for E3, I still am making sure to watch all the conferences so lets get to it :)

EA

Most of EA’s press conference really didn’t stand out to me. The pre-show was a bit iffy and I just felt I had nothing to really say until finally something caught my eye:
fe
Fe looks really pretty and interesting and is the first game I think I’ll actually play that was shown so far at E3. You can check out the gameplay trailer by clicking here.

EA also brought up some upcoming Star Wars stuff, but kept it vague and didn’t really show much of anything. While I am intrigued because I do enjoy Star Wars, I’m not really sure if I will like their upcoming projects or not without hearing more about it.

Bethesda

I don’t really play Bethesda games, but I still find them interesting. I think the upcoming Fallout 4 DLC things sound really cool. Making your own vault truly sounds really fun and almost makes me want to play just to do that.
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I also am really intrigued by Nuka-World as I love theme parks.
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I don’t have much to say about Contraptions, but I love Rube Goldberg Machines and teddy bears and both were featured in that so that gets a thumbs up from me too :P

Meanwhile, Fallout Shelter will be on PC which is also tempting for me because I don’t find mobile games very fun and this makes it much easier for me to try if I want to. I don’t know if I will (energy management games are just ones I don’t enjoy much), but it just looks really cute so this may get me to finally give it a try.

Finally, “One Tamriel”. I’ve played Elder Scrolls Online and while I didn’t stick with it (despite the plot, the story honestly did feel soul-less), this intrigues me a lot–especially if other MMOs could do this. I’m going to quote a bit from the Official Website update

With One Tamriel, we are opening up the entire playable world to everyone, no matter their level. This is a pretty big deal. One Tamriel makes the game much more grouping and social-friendly, as the player base will no longer be divided into thirds and also won’t be divided by player level.

  • Characters will have their level scaled the same way that we currently scale players to the level of DLC zones (Imperial City, Orsinium, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood).
  • You will be able to explore the entire world in any sequence you wish – just walk across the world and you will always find appropriately leveled content.
  • You will be able to play and group with anyone in the game at any time (outside of PvP). No longer will you have to create a lower level character to play with a friend who has just joined the game. You will be able to group and adventure together from the moment your friend emerges from the tutorial.
  • We are dropping all PvE Alliance restrictions. You will be free to explore of all Tamriel, including other Alliances. It is up to you how you want to role-play your character while doing this. “Silver” and “gold” versions of zones will be replaced by Cadwell quest storylines that you can do in any order you wish.
  • Alliance restrictions will still be enforced in all PvP areas, of course. One Tamriel will not affect the PvP systems in Cyrodiil.
  • In general, higher level players will be the same “level” as lower level players, but they will have far more tools in their arsenal: better gear, more abilities, and of course more Champion points.
  • We will adjust gear rewards to scale appropriately to make sure that there is always a way to get more powerful via crafting, questing, PvP, and dungeon/trial boss loot drops.
  • All Trials and Dungeons will continue with standard and Veteran difficulty modes, and you will have to be Veteran level to play veteran dungeon modes.
  • The Coldharbour zone will be “roped off” from players who have not yet completed the quests that lead there. However, if you are invited to a group that is already there, or travel to a friend who is there, you can immediately access the zone.

The parts that stood out to me the most are in bold–I really dislike alliance systems and the idea of forcing people into set teams because sometimes, friends and I differ and we may try and all join the same, but just don’t like it. This lets us choose what we like and still play together along with being able to stick together even in vast level differences.

It just makes it feel a lot more immersive and fun to play with friends and I really hope this goes well and other MMOs could start doing similar.

Microsoft

Next up was Microsoft’s conference and I’ll be honest, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Microsoft doesn’t have much we usually care for (In fact, the only game we even have for our Xbox One is Sunset Overdrive), but I still had fun with it.

The first game that popped up to get my attention was Forza Horizon 3.
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It looks really nice and we’ve been debating on trying out the series for a while so maybe we finally will.

We also got to see more of ReCore and I still love Robodog best:
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They are even doing a Collector’s Edition that includes a lovely statue with K-9:
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Hopefully they may make other figures of just K-9 or plushies or something because I’m not sure I can justify the whole Collector’s Edition just for that… not to mention Collector’s Edition statues are often hit and miss when it comes to quality.

Microsoft then announced the Xbox Design Lab which lets you make your own controller:
Ck2NCJiVEAE7Xji

I had a lot of fun putting mine together:
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Lovely gif turnaround:

Now to just save up for it… It’s $79.99 for the custom controller and $89.98 if you get it engraved. For now, I’ve added it to our website’s wishlist. Hopefully I can get it one day ;~; That said, while the pink looks nice, some other colors look pretty iffy unfortunately and I do think there should be more color options.

Next up was We Happy Few which while is a little unsettling for my personal tastes, is a game that I am still intrigued about the story and would really enjoy watching. Mark is pretty interested in it though so we may end up getting it. We also really enjoyed another game the company made–Contrast, so I am excited to learn more of the story behind it.

They also did a really neat Indie Showcase and I was excited to see two games I’ve enjoyed there–Slime Rancher and Stardew Valley.

That said, Microsoft had two more zombie games and I’m just so tired of them. The first one they even played to Christmas music while snowing on the crowd and just please stop with the zombies–especially during my favorite holiday.

Going back to cooler things, next up was Scalebound. It kind of reminded me of Monster Hunter so I probably wouldn’t have much fun playing it… I really liked where they were fighting though and the Dragon Flying:
waterfallsyay

Next up was Sea of Thieves again! I had found the game intriguing last year and it still looks great this year. Unfortunately, we didn’t really get a good idea of gameplay because rather than just showing us fully, they showed a lot of rapid cuts of some people playing and talking over it and it was really disappointing as I really wanted to see more of the game itself.

After that, we were shown Halo Wars 2 which while not catching my attention much, they actually announced a Beta starting right after the announcement that you can try for free so I may at least try it out if I get the chance.

They then ended off with Project Highest Quality Pixels Scorpio which will be Microsoft’s next “Xbox” so to speak, coming out Holiday 2017 and apparently will be the “most powerful system to date”. I don’t feel consoles can really get that much big of a deal so I don’t really know what they expected, but they at least promised backwards compatibility and sounded like Xbox One may still be able to handle stuff that could be on Project Scorpio as well which is good because it was kind of silly that they announced the Xbox One S, a slimmer version of Xbox One, to start off the conference just to end it by adding that

That said, while not getting super excited about anything, I still at least enjoyed the conference and didn’t really feel bored at any point.

PC Gaming

Like last year, the conference always feels kind of… awkward? It just doesn’t really grab my attention and the host doesn’t really seem all that into it. The only thing I really even noticed was Ark Primal Survival because of all the Animals and while I find it intriguing, I’m not a big fan of Survival games so I probably won’t even get it.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft always is… a bit odd, starting with Just Dance and lots of… interesting costumes on the dancers. The Panda with the Mohawk was my favorite, but the Giraffe was pretty cool too. And the butterfly guitar was my favorite prop.
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Aisha Tyler was sadly the host again and I just kind of wish Ubisoft would go more towards being professional over trying to be funny/cool because it usually just feels cringe-y :( The forced swearing doesn’t help it either.

As for games, the only thing I ended up really caring about was Watch Dogs 2 which had leaked last week. I actually never found time to play the first one (though, I’d still like to), but I still really liked a lot about it and so I was still interested for Watch Dogs 2. Also you can pet dogs so:
dogpetting

Sony

Sony started with a preshow showing more footage of games they have announced previously such as ABZÛ which just looks even better and reminds me so much of Endless Ocean:
pretty
If it focuses more on exploration than survival, that will definitely be on my buy list… though, it might be anyway.

They also showed off Bound–a platformer with ballet-esque movement:
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I really enjoy platformers and this looks like one I could enjoy a lot that would change things up a bit from most platformers lately so I’m excited for it as well.

It was then onto the press conference which was incredibly fancy.

Probably my favorite of the press conference stages. While Ubisoft had their… Just Dance Party, Sony went with an orchestrated performance to start off the show. The music was probably my favorite part with most of it. They also gave a release date for the Lost Guardian finally and it looks really good, though, I’m not sure if I will get it.

The first new game to really get my attention was Detroit: Become Human–while I’m not sure if I’d get it myself (I have a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to games with choices), the detective/investigation points of the trailer looked pretty cool. It looks like there are a lot of outcomes though which I actually don’t like too much in my games, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more information on it.

They also showed some more Final Fantasy XV content such as the very important Chocobos:
chocobo
I loved the remixed Chocobo theme. I want it on my playlist.

Next up I actually got my hopes up really high when they set up a lovely set, played some familiar music, and had a familiar character shadow and well, we were right–it was Crash Bandicoot, but instead of a new game, it’s just remasterings which was pretty disappointing. With how great the set looked, it got my hopes up so fast:
crash
Oh well… maybe one day :( In the meantime, he’ll be in Skylanders where they are also introducing customizeable ones:
skylandercustom
I don’t find Skylanders too interesting (and like with Crash Bandicoot, I wish Spyro would get his own new game as well) so it’s still not enough for me to consider it, but I think it’s a cool feature to add in.

And while I don’t plan to get the newest Lego Star Wars, but Lego BB-8 is so cute:
bb8lego

Finally, the new Spider-man game looks pretty good as well:
spidermanthing
I’m mixed on the costume choice though–I don’t really like the white on the arms and I thing the Spider should be a bit smaller. Also don’t really understand why it’s on the back too, but the game still looks pretty fun so it’s just a minor nitpick. Considering Sunset Overdrive, I’m sure Insomniac Games did a great job. SEGA should have them do a Sonic game too, honestly.

That was really it for Sony’s stuff and while I was more interested in things from the Pre-Show, I felt their show was done the most professionally. I was surprised that Media Molecule’s ‘Dreams’ didn’t come back up though. Maybe during their PlayStation LiveCast show tomorrow? We will need to see.

But yes, while each company had some interesting things, there really wasn’t anything new that super wow’d me–the closest that almost did was with Crash and that ended up being a letdown very quickly.

But yes, tomorrow: The start of Nintendo’s Treehouse Live and PlayStation LiveCast so I’m excited <3