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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

E3: Preview Day Impressions

 

Firstly, congratulations to EA for being the only presentation out of the four to start on time.  Seriously, being punctual isn’t that difficult and there is zero excuse for Sony’s presentation starting twenty minutes late!

Microsoft presentation was by far the smoothest and most comprehensive one of the day.  There were no glitches, no background audio disturbances, and no incredibly annoying “hostess” (Aisha Tyler for Ubisoft) trying and failing to make bad jokes and sexual innuendoes every where she thought they might succeed.  Several games exclusive to the XBox One have my full and complete undivided attention: Ryse, Son of Rome, Project Spark, Dead Rising 3, and Quantum Break.  I am very much looking forward to using Smart Glass integration with console gaming.  It is also a huge hit here that it is an all-in-one comprehensive entertainment box that will allow us for the first time to ditch the cable box for good. 

EA presentation was informative, fast paced, fun, and showed off great game play while talking about technical advances.  Dragon Age III has my attention from EA, which was expected.  But quite a few things at the EA event looked interesting as well.  That brief teaser for a new Star Wars: Battlefront game had me drooling with anticipation.  Plants v. Zombies: Garden Warfare and Titanfall are both intriguing for very different reasons and I will undoubtedly play both.

UbiSoft conference was just awful.  It was more about Aisha than the games unfortunately, because Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag looks amazing and Tom Clancy’s The Division looks like it is definitely worth delving into.  South Park: The Stick of Truth will satisfy the nine-year old in all of us and I admit, I too will be playing it come this holiday season.  Watchdogs looks beautiful but the story premise may actually be a little too close to recent events to be enjoyable. 

Sony’s press conference was embarrassing.  Sony’s persistent need to troll Microsoft only showed their fear of being outclassed by the XBox One and their presentation was amateurish.  Oh I understand they wanted to solidify their fan base from being tempted away to the XBox One but unnamed insults and mentions were in extremely poor taste.  I am also stunned that anyone is naive enough to believe Sony’s claims that they are not going to have digital rights management on their games.  Please remember, Sony is the gaming corporation that was vulnerable to hackers and left millions of peoples personal information fall into the wrong hands.  Only The Dark Sorcerer looked at all interesting or compelling for games on the new console.  The other games presented were completely unappealing and uninspiring.  Sony and their game developers broke no new ground with any game presented last night as an exclusive.

Preview day presented some nice new titles to look forward to, existing titles expanding their franchises, and hardware that will make it all possible.

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