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Yes, it's my annual roundup of E3 from the main conferences.
Microsoft
Microsoft opened the press conferences with a big, confident reveal of game titles, far removed from their 'TV and Kinect' emphasis of last year and thankfully putting the issues of their overly expensive console announcement behind them now that all the price cuts have been made and Kinect has been ditched.
So this year it's all about the games, games and more games, made clear from the off by Phil Spencer. You can't say Microsoft don't listen to their fans and they've even announced a feedback forum specifically for the purpose, so they're taking it all pretty seriously.
Xbox has long been connected to the Call of Duty series, so there was no surprise that COD: Advanced Warfare was the first big reveal. From the limited gameplay elements, sandwiched between the video, it's clear that while the franchise may be going futuristic, the gameplay will be on very familiar ground. In fact, take out the tech and you could be forgiven for mistaking this for Ghosts. Still, with the success of Titanfall, I can imagine a few more companies may be looking to feature mechs and machines soon.
Forza has long been a major title for Xbox and so it wasn't surprising to see Turn 10 up on stage. Dan Greenwalt announced the free Nurburgring track for Forza 5 (which many feel should have been included from the start) and then we got to see a trailer for Forza Horizon 2 on Xbox One, which looks stunning. With 2 different developers working on the games (one for Xbox One and one for 360) it will be interesting to see what differences the platforms have and what the Xbox One can do to differentiate it self from its older brother, but this looks like a much more open world game with some beautiful European scenery to drive around and Forza 5's Drivatar system in place. It was certainly one of my highlights of E3 this year.
This E3 seemed to be all about exclusive Betas and Microsoft's came in the form of Evolve for Xbox One from 2K Games.
Aside from the multiplatform games that were also seen elsewhere, there were exclusives on show in the form of Sunset Overdrive, with a larger section of gameplay being shown off by Ted Price of Insomniac. It looks pretty fun and refreshingly different, too. The game is out on 28th October.
Dancing games get an update with Dance Central Spotlight and the Disney Fantasia game, both from Harmonix. Fantasia didn't really have anything to show as yet, which was disappointing, even though it's due out by the end of the year. Perhaps they were concerned of Kinect's ability to show demos on stage?
Fable Legends shows that there's life left in Lionhead Studios and it actually looks pretty fun with its God mode allowing one player to choose all the monsters and traps in realtime. Project Spark had another brief preview, though it seems like ages since the Beta was available and Ori and the Blind Forest looks like another indie hit for the console.
Then it was all about Halo. The Master Chief Collection squeezes all the main Halo games (so no ODST) on to a single disc and features the remastered Halo and a newly remastered Halo 2 complete with the same multiplayer it originally shipped with on the first Xbox (I still have the game!). It lets you create 'playlists' of favourite levels from all 4 of the games, which sounds like a pretty cool feature. All of these are promised in 1080p 60fps. The disc also comes with a new TV series that leads up to Halo 5.
And speaking of Halo 5, there's a nice trailer shown and the announcement of a Halo 5: Guardians Beta for the end of the year, no doubt linked to the purchase of the Master Chief Collection.
Other exclusives on show included Aztec, Plaque Evolved and Knight Squad from the ID@Xbox indie thing that Microsoft are running to get more indie companies producing Xbox One games with easier entry into the console world, a Phantom Dust remake and Scalebound, a game with huge dragons but little in the way of an idea about the gameplay.
Finally, they rounded things off with a last exclusive, Crackdown 3. The game trailer makes it look like they'll be plenty of action and possibly a lot of teamwork going on.
EA
You could have easily predicted the content from EA this year; Football, more yearly sports updates, a Battlefield title and some Sims. There were a couple of surprises, though.
But first, a very slim trailer for Star Wars Battlefront which looks great but didn't give us too much more other than how it's being made to look authentic.
Moving on, another trailer for Dragon Age 3 and one for Sims 4 which doesn't add much more than the trailer from last year.
the UFC piece was interesting and revolved around having Bruce Lee as a playable character and how he was a natural fit for the UFC. NHL 15 appeared after that, then a new PGA game that doesn't have Tiger Woods but has some nice streaming courses, NFL 15 and FIFA 15 round off the sports games lined up for the coming year (do EA own every sports game that uses acronyms?).
It was nice to see a new Mirror's Edge 2 trailer and the game looks as wonderful as ever, but the highlight of the show for me was the reveal of Criterion's new open world racing game which features just about every form of transport you can imagine and the ability to jump between them, over land, see and air. I'm holding out a lot of hope for this one as a major title next year.
League of Legends-alike Dawngate looked interesting but I've never been a MOBA fan.
Predictably, EA finished with the new Battlefield Hardline, out on 21st October. Taking the battle from the battlefield to the street playing as cops and robbers, it's just like being back in the playground. The big news was that the game has a PS4 and PC Beta which was available to join right as the announcement went out (cue crashing of Origin as thousands tried to log in).
Ubisoft
Like EA, most of Ubisoft's announcements lacked any surprise. A new Just Dance gave them a chance to reel off some of the tracks, with 'The Fox' already feeling a little out-of-date and 'Happy' being the least surprising track addition.
What was more interesting, however, was the Just Dance Now app for mobile phones which uses a phone's motion sensing to allow you to dance anywhere (and probably fling your phone at someone in the process as your sweaty hands try to hold on). An 'interesting' dance demo showed the app in action.
Farcry 4 got an introduction and looks like a step up from the third game, but with a similar protagonist.
Ubisoft wouldn't be Ubisoft without a bit of Tom Clancy and we got to see gameplay from The Division, a futuristic game where New York has mostly been killed off by a virus on Black Friday and a small team have to take back control.
The Crew, although delayed, is still coming and still looks pretty nice, allowing you to drive over huge sections of the US, with missions taking you through many states. Though whether long dry dusty roads can hold interest for long remains to be seen.
Assassin's Creed Unity, the next game in the series, got a new gameplay trailer and demo with a bit of decapitation and some more wall climbing. The difference here is that 4 players can work together as a team and it looks pretty impressive. Still no female assassin's though, so it looked like Il Divo with dressing gowns at times.
A new fitness game for Xbox One, Shape Up, had an interesting on stage demo with a push ups competition between the US and France. It looks like it might put the fun back into exercising (if that's at all possible).
The final two games were the lovely looking Valiant Hearts, which looks like it will tug at the heart strings and provide an insight into live in WWI and the big reveal of Rainbow Six Siege.
Rainbow Six Siege was the big surprise of the show, for sure, with a 5 on 5 game of rescue (or capture) the hostage, more destructible walls than a Battlefield game (shoot through the floor and hit the enemy from above as you fall), and a fair bit of teamwork. It certainly got a lot of gamers interested at the show.
Sony
Sony were coming at this from on top of the competition and it could have gone wrong from that point on if they were too cocky, but they had a good range of games on show to level with Microsoft's earlier conference.
The show began with the new Bungie game, Destiny. Although the game is multi-format, Sony managed to get an early Beta for 17th July and sign up happening right now. There's a special PS3 and PS4 bundle when the game launches with the debut of the white PS4 on 9th September with loads of exclusive content.
Andrew House took the stage as with last year and set up the rest of the show with words like 'exclusive content' which pretty much sums up this year's E3.
The Order 1886 got another look in this year with some actual gameplay involving a vampire, it certainly looks promising.
Also from Sony themselves, a new Uncharted game for PS4 with a new CGI trailer.
Entwined, a game from a new Sony studio made from graduates, was announced and available straight away.
InFamous: Second Son gets some DLC which is standalone or adds extra content if you have the full game. First Light, available in August, gives you a female character to play with and it looks like she has her own set of powers.
Next, Sackboy brings some new friends in the PS4 debut of LittleBigPlanet 3. Oddsock, Swoop and Toggle join Sackboy with a new set of abilities and emphasis on group play, working together to solve problems. All previous content from the other LBP games is compatible, providing the PS4 game with thousands of levels from the off.
Bloodborne is next, a new IP from From Software which looks interesting but didn't really have a lot of information bar the fact that it looks like a Medieval Dark Souls, which is unsurprising given that Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on it. It's due to arrive some time in 2015.
Farcry 4 made another appearance after Ubisoft's own show with a gameplay demo showing off some lovely looking mountain scenery and grappling across ledges before the usual descent into madness.
Diablo 3 gets The Last of Us content with the 'monsters' becoming part of a special edition.
Dead Island 2 gets another exclusive Beta on PS4 and the full game includes extra features only on Sony's console.
EA's Battlefield Hardline was shown again with extra emphasis on the exclusive beta.
Disney Infinity 2 has an exclusive Hulk character in the pack and Magicka 2 was shown for the first time with a very funny intro video, as was a new Tim Chafer remake of the classic Grim Fandango (now to wait for the Day of the Tentacle remake).
There was a big Indie section (no surprise) with some familiar games for those of you on Steam and a few new ones.
Giant Squid's new underwater game ABZU looked stunning and almost ICO or SOTC like, exclusively on PS4.
The interesting project No Man's Sky had gameplay footage on show in what the developer (Hello Games) promises will be an infinite universe of planets to explore on foot and by ship. It looks stunning but a lot of people are still sceptical to see if Sean Murray's small studio can pull it off. Having spoken with Sean myself he's a great guy and I really hope they can pull it off.
The Playroom, the free app on PS4 that lets you play with the camera and new Dual Shock 4 gets an update that will allow you to create a virtual broadcast studio, along with the much-requested Youtube support.
Lots of Free To Play stuff announced on PS4 and Vita. MOBAs and other game types and the promise of actual 'free' to play games rather than Microtransactions.
PS Now coming in July to the US but Europe still isn't supported. It's coming to PS4, PS3, PS Vita and some TV services to play more than 100 PS3 games.
PS Vita got a small slot for new games coming out including Tales From Borderlands, Minecraft for Vita and Tales of Hearts R.
Trailers for The Last of Us on PS4 and the new PS4 and Xbox One/PC Batman: Arkham Knight game looked lovely, with Batman standing out as the best looking title of the show.
The show finished with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
Nintendo
Nintendo weren't live at the show but decided to put out a pre-recorded show instead. This meant that they could lampoon themselves by way of help from Robot Chicken. It was worth watching for that alone, but there were some nice game announcements at the same time.
Smash Bros was the first announcement which now lets you use a stylised version of your own Mii character if you want, as well as Pac-Man being the next playable character.
A new Skylanders-like Amiibo character system was announced, bringing Nintendo characters to multiple games. This means that buying a Mario, Yoshi or any other character toy can unlock special characters and powers in multiple games, including Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U using the built in NFC on the gamepad.
Yoshi's Woolly World is a follow up, of sorts, to Kirby's Epic Yarn (a cult classic Wii game that everyone should play).
Toad appears as the main character in Captain: Toad Treasure Tracker with a Mario Galaxy style universe, while Bowser is the star of Mario Party 10 on Wii U. Nintendo obviously think Mario himself is getting overworked, or perhaps Mario has complained to the union.
The big news was a new Legend of Zelda video which takes a cel shaded approach like Windwaker but with a more arty pastel style. The new Link looks quite different, again, but the whole thing works pretty well. It's still not out until 2015 though.
Bayonetta 2 bounced into action and there was news that the game would come with the first game as a bonus bundled in. It's the first time the series has come to Nintendo, so it's a nice present for those who never played the first one.
Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire get the 3DS upgrade treatment with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. I still haven't finished Y yet and the game comes out in November.
Another Zelda game, Hyrule Warriors, matches the Zelda universe to Dynasty Warriors open battle gameplay. Could be one to watch.
On 3DS Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is coming and looks like it's borrowed some ideas from Line Rider in the process.
Starfox Wii U was announced with Miyamoto personally working on the game. Fans will be pleased, then Mario and Donkey Kong Wii U and a new Art Academy for the console.
One new IP, Splatoon, looked good. A bit like De Blob on Wii, the game focuses on painting areas with ink but is a team based multiplayer title more like Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare.
Finally, Mario Maker lets you design and play your own Mario levels in styles that range from old Mario games to more recent ones. It certainly looks interested.
Microsoft
Microsoft opened the press conferences with a big, confident reveal of game titles, far removed from their 'TV and Kinect' emphasis of last year and thankfully putting the issues of their overly expensive console announcement behind them now that all the price cuts have been made and Kinect has been ditched.
So this year it's all about the games, games and more games, made clear from the off by Phil Spencer. You can't say Microsoft don't listen to their fans and they've even announced a feedback forum specifically for the purpose, so they're taking it all pretty seriously.
Xbox has long been connected to the Call of Duty series, so there was no surprise that COD: Advanced Warfare was the first big reveal. From the limited gameplay elements, sandwiched between the video, it's clear that while the franchise may be going futuristic, the gameplay will be on very familiar ground. In fact, take out the tech and you could be forgiven for mistaking this for Ghosts. Still, with the success of Titanfall, I can imagine a few more companies may be looking to feature mechs and machines soon.
Forza has long been a major title for Xbox and so it wasn't surprising to see Turn 10 up on stage. Dan Greenwalt announced the free Nurburgring track for Forza 5 (which many feel should have been included from the start) and then we got to see a trailer for Forza Horizon 2 on Xbox One, which looks stunning. With 2 different developers working on the games (one for Xbox One and one for 360) it will be interesting to see what differences the platforms have and what the Xbox One can do to differentiate it self from its older brother, but this looks like a much more open world game with some beautiful European scenery to drive around and Forza 5's Drivatar system in place. It was certainly one of my highlights of E3 this year.
This E3 seemed to be all about exclusive Betas and Microsoft's came in the form of Evolve for Xbox One from 2K Games.
Aside from the multiplatform games that were also seen elsewhere, there were exclusives on show in the form of Sunset Overdrive, with a larger section of gameplay being shown off by Ted Price of Insomniac. It looks pretty fun and refreshingly different, too. The game is out on 28th October.
Dancing games get an update with Dance Central Spotlight and the Disney Fantasia game, both from Harmonix. Fantasia didn't really have anything to show as yet, which was disappointing, even though it's due out by the end of the year. Perhaps they were concerned of Kinect's ability to show demos on stage?
Fable Legends shows that there's life left in Lionhead Studios and it actually looks pretty fun with its God mode allowing one player to choose all the monsters and traps in realtime. Project Spark had another brief preview, though it seems like ages since the Beta was available and Ori and the Blind Forest looks like another indie hit for the console.
Then it was all about Halo. The Master Chief Collection squeezes all the main Halo games (so no ODST) on to a single disc and features the remastered Halo and a newly remastered Halo 2 complete with the same multiplayer it originally shipped with on the first Xbox (I still have the game!). It lets you create 'playlists' of favourite levels from all 4 of the games, which sounds like a pretty cool feature. All of these are promised in 1080p 60fps. The disc also comes with a new TV series that leads up to Halo 5.
And speaking of Halo 5, there's a nice trailer shown and the announcement of a Halo 5: Guardians Beta for the end of the year, no doubt linked to the purchase of the Master Chief Collection.
Other exclusives on show included Aztec, Plaque Evolved and Knight Squad from the ID@Xbox indie thing that Microsoft are running to get more indie companies producing Xbox One games with easier entry into the console world, a Phantom Dust remake and Scalebound, a game with huge dragons but little in the way of an idea about the gameplay.
Finally, they rounded things off with a last exclusive, Crackdown 3. The game trailer makes it look like they'll be plenty of action and possibly a lot of teamwork going on.
EA
You could have easily predicted the content from EA this year; Football, more yearly sports updates, a Battlefield title and some Sims. There were a couple of surprises, though.
But first, a very slim trailer for Star Wars Battlefront which looks great but didn't give us too much more other than how it's being made to look authentic.
Moving on, another trailer for Dragon Age 3 and one for Sims 4 which doesn't add much more than the trailer from last year.
the UFC piece was interesting and revolved around having Bruce Lee as a playable character and how he was a natural fit for the UFC. NHL 15 appeared after that, then a new PGA game that doesn't have Tiger Woods but has some nice streaming courses, NFL 15 and FIFA 15 round off the sports games lined up for the coming year (do EA own every sports game that uses acronyms?).
It was nice to see a new Mirror's Edge 2 trailer and the game looks as wonderful as ever, but the highlight of the show for me was the reveal of Criterion's new open world racing game which features just about every form of transport you can imagine and the ability to jump between them, over land, see and air. I'm holding out a lot of hope for this one as a major title next year.
League of Legends-alike Dawngate looked interesting but I've never been a MOBA fan.
Predictably, EA finished with the new Battlefield Hardline, out on 21st October. Taking the battle from the battlefield to the street playing as cops and robbers, it's just like being back in the playground. The big news was that the game has a PS4 and PC Beta which was available to join right as the announcement went out (cue crashing of Origin as thousands tried to log in).
Ubisoft
Like EA, most of Ubisoft's announcements lacked any surprise. A new Just Dance gave them a chance to reel off some of the tracks, with 'The Fox' already feeling a little out-of-date and 'Happy' being the least surprising track addition.
What was more interesting, however, was the Just Dance Now app for mobile phones which uses a phone's motion sensing to allow you to dance anywhere (and probably fling your phone at someone in the process as your sweaty hands try to hold on). An 'interesting' dance demo showed the app in action.
Farcry 4 got an introduction and looks like a step up from the third game, but with a similar protagonist.
Ubisoft wouldn't be Ubisoft without a bit of Tom Clancy and we got to see gameplay from The Division, a futuristic game where New York has mostly been killed off by a virus on Black Friday and a small team have to take back control.
The Crew, although delayed, is still coming and still looks pretty nice, allowing you to drive over huge sections of the US, with missions taking you through many states. Though whether long dry dusty roads can hold interest for long remains to be seen.
Assassin's Creed Unity, the next game in the series, got a new gameplay trailer and demo with a bit of decapitation and some more wall climbing. The difference here is that 4 players can work together as a team and it looks pretty impressive. Still no female assassin's though, so it looked like Il Divo with dressing gowns at times.
A new fitness game for Xbox One, Shape Up, had an interesting on stage demo with a push ups competition between the US and France. It looks like it might put the fun back into exercising (if that's at all possible).
The final two games were the lovely looking Valiant Hearts, which looks like it will tug at the heart strings and provide an insight into live in WWI and the big reveal of Rainbow Six Siege.
Rainbow Six Siege was the big surprise of the show, for sure, with a 5 on 5 game of rescue (or capture) the hostage, more destructible walls than a Battlefield game (shoot through the floor and hit the enemy from above as you fall), and a fair bit of teamwork. It certainly got a lot of gamers interested at the show.
Sony
Sony were coming at this from on top of the competition and it could have gone wrong from that point on if they were too cocky, but they had a good range of games on show to level with Microsoft's earlier conference.
The show began with the new Bungie game, Destiny. Although the game is multi-format, Sony managed to get an early Beta for 17th July and sign up happening right now. There's a special PS3 and PS4 bundle when the game launches with the debut of the white PS4 on 9th September with loads of exclusive content.
Andrew House took the stage as with last year and set up the rest of the show with words like 'exclusive content' which pretty much sums up this year's E3.
The Order 1886 got another look in this year with some actual gameplay involving a vampire, it certainly looks promising.
Also from Sony themselves, a new Uncharted game for PS4 with a new CGI trailer.
Entwined, a game from a new Sony studio made from graduates, was announced and available straight away.
InFamous: Second Son gets some DLC which is standalone or adds extra content if you have the full game. First Light, available in August, gives you a female character to play with and it looks like she has her own set of powers.
Next, Sackboy brings some new friends in the PS4 debut of LittleBigPlanet 3. Oddsock, Swoop and Toggle join Sackboy with a new set of abilities and emphasis on group play, working together to solve problems. All previous content from the other LBP games is compatible, providing the PS4 game with thousands of levels from the off.
Bloodborne is next, a new IP from From Software which looks interesting but didn't really have a lot of information bar the fact that it looks like a Medieval Dark Souls, which is unsurprising given that Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on it. It's due to arrive some time in 2015.
Farcry 4 made another appearance after Ubisoft's own show with a gameplay demo showing off some lovely looking mountain scenery and grappling across ledges before the usual descent into madness.
Diablo 3 gets The Last of Us content with the 'monsters' becoming part of a special edition.
Dead Island 2 gets another exclusive Beta on PS4 and the full game includes extra features only on Sony's console.
EA's Battlefield Hardline was shown again with extra emphasis on the exclusive beta.
Disney Infinity 2 has an exclusive Hulk character in the pack and Magicka 2 was shown for the first time with a very funny intro video, as was a new Tim Chafer remake of the classic Grim Fandango (now to wait for the Day of the Tentacle remake).
There was a big Indie section (no surprise) with some familiar games for those of you on Steam and a few new ones.
Giant Squid's new underwater game ABZU looked stunning and almost ICO or SOTC like, exclusively on PS4.
The interesting project No Man's Sky had gameplay footage on show in what the developer (Hello Games) promises will be an infinite universe of planets to explore on foot and by ship. It looks stunning but a lot of people are still sceptical to see if Sean Murray's small studio can pull it off. Having spoken with Sean myself he's a great guy and I really hope they can pull it off.
The Playroom, the free app on PS4 that lets you play with the camera and new Dual Shock 4 gets an update that will allow you to create a virtual broadcast studio, along with the much-requested Youtube support.
Lots of Free To Play stuff announced on PS4 and Vita. MOBAs and other game types and the promise of actual 'free' to play games rather than Microtransactions.
PS Now coming in July to the US but Europe still isn't supported. It's coming to PS4, PS3, PS Vita and some TV services to play more than 100 PS3 games.
PS Vita got a small slot for new games coming out including Tales From Borderlands, Minecraft for Vita and Tales of Hearts R.
Trailers for The Last of Us on PS4 and the new PS4 and Xbox One/PC Batman: Arkham Knight game looked lovely, with Batman standing out as the best looking title of the show.
The show finished with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
Nintendo
Nintendo weren't live at the show but decided to put out a pre-recorded show instead. This meant that they could lampoon themselves by way of help from Robot Chicken. It was worth watching for that alone, but there were some nice game announcements at the same time.
Smash Bros was the first announcement which now lets you use a stylised version of your own Mii character if you want, as well as Pac-Man being the next playable character.
A new Skylanders-like Amiibo character system was announced, bringing Nintendo characters to multiple games. This means that buying a Mario, Yoshi or any other character toy can unlock special characters and powers in multiple games, including Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U using the built in NFC on the gamepad.
Yoshi's Woolly World is a follow up, of sorts, to Kirby's Epic Yarn (a cult classic Wii game that everyone should play).
Toad appears as the main character in Captain: Toad Treasure Tracker with a Mario Galaxy style universe, while Bowser is the star of Mario Party 10 on Wii U. Nintendo obviously think Mario himself is getting overworked, or perhaps Mario has complained to the union.
The big news was a new Legend of Zelda video which takes a cel shaded approach like Windwaker but with a more arty pastel style. The new Link looks quite different, again, but the whole thing works pretty well. It's still not out until 2015 though.
Bayonetta 2 bounced into action and there was news that the game would come with the first game as a bonus bundled in. It's the first time the series has come to Nintendo, so it's a nice present for those who never played the first one.
Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire get the 3DS upgrade treatment with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. I still haven't finished Y yet and the game comes out in November.
Another Zelda game, Hyrule Warriors, matches the Zelda universe to Dynasty Warriors open battle gameplay. Could be one to watch.
On 3DS Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is coming and looks like it's borrowed some ideas from Line Rider in the process.
Starfox Wii U was announced with Miyamoto personally working on the game. Fans will be pleased, then Mario and Donkey Kong Wii U and a new Art Academy for the console.
One new IP, Splatoon, looked good. A bit like De Blob on Wii, the game focuses on painting areas with ink but is a team based multiplayer title more like Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare.
Finally, Mario Maker lets you design and play your own Mario levels in styles that range from old Mario games to more recent ones. It certainly looks interested.
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Yes, it's my annual roundup of E3 from the main conferences.
Microsoft
Microsoft opened the press conferences with a big, confident reveal of game titles, far removed from their 'TV and Kinect' emphasis of last year and thankfully putting the issues of their overly expensive console announcement behind them now that all the price cuts have been made and Kinect has been ditched.
So this year it's all about the games, games and more games, made clear from the off by Phil Spencer. You can't say Microsoft don't listen to their fans and they've even announced a feedback forum specifically for the purpose, so they're taking it all pretty seriously.
Xbox has long been connected to the Call of Duty series, so there was no surprise that COD: Advanced Warfare was the first big reveal. From the limited gameplay elements, sandwiched between the video, it's clear that while the franchise may be going futuristic, the gameplay will be on very familiar ground. In fact, take out the tech and you could be forgiven for mistaking this for Ghosts. Still, with the success of Titanfall, I can imagine a few more companies may be looking to feature mechs and machines soon.
Forza has long been a major title for Xbox and so it wasn't surprising to see Turn 10 up on stage. Dan Greenwalt announced the free Nurburgring track for Forza 5 (which many feel should have been included from the start) and then we got to see a trailer for Forza Horizon 2 on Xbox One, which looks stunning. With 2 different developers working on the games (one for Xbox One and one for 360) it will be interesting to see what differences the platforms have and what the Xbox One can do to differentiate it self from its older brother, but this looks like a much more open world game with some beautiful European scenery to drive around and Forza 5's Drivatar system in place. It was certainly one of my highlights of E3 this year.
This E3 seemed to be all about exclusive Betas and Microsoft's came in the form of Evolve for Xbox One from 2K Games.
Aside from the multiplatform games that were also seen elsewhere, there were exclusives on show in the form of Sunset Overdrive, with a larger section of gameplay being shown off by Ted Price of Insomniac. It looks pretty fun and refreshingly different, too. The game is out on 28th October.
Dancing games get an update with Dance Central Spotlight and the Disney Fantasia game, both from Harmonix. Fantasia didn't really have anything to show as yet, which was disappointing, even though it's due out by the end of the year. Perhaps they were concerned of Kinect's ability to show demos on stage?
Fable Legends shows that there's life left in Lionhead Studios and it actually looks pretty fun with its God mode allowing one player to choose all the monsters and traps in realtime. Project Spark had another brief preview, though it seems like ages since the Beta was available and Ori and the Blind Forest looks like another indie hit for the console.
Then it was all about Halo. The Master Chief Collection squeezes all the main Halo games (so no ODST) on to a single disc and features the remastered Halo and a newly remastered Halo 2 complete with the same multiplayer it originally shipped with on the first Xbox (I still have the game!). It lets you create 'playlists' of favourite levels from all 4 of the games, which sounds like a pretty cool feature. All of these are promised in 1080p 60fps. The disc also comes with a new TV series that leads up to Halo 5.
And speaking of Halo 5, there's a nice trailer shown and the announcement of a Halo 5: Guardians Beta for the end of the year, no doubt linked to the purchase of the Master Chief Collection.
Other exclusives on show included Aztec, Plaque Evolved and Knight Squad from the ID@Xbox indie thing that Microsoft are running to get more indie companies producing Xbox One games with easier entry into the console world, a Phantom Dust remake and Scalebound, a game with huge dragons but little in the way of an idea about the gameplay.
Finally, they rounded things off with a last exclusive, Crackdown 3. The game trailer makes it look like they'll be plenty of action and possibly a lot of teamwork going on.
EA
You could have easily predicted the content from EA this year; Football, more yearly sports updates, a Battlefield title and some Sims. There were a couple of surprises, though.
But first, a very slim trailer for Star Wars Battlefront which looks great but didn't give us too much more other than how it's being made to look authentic.
Moving on, another trailer for Dragon Age 3 and one for Sims 4 which doesn't add much more than the trailer from last year.
the UFC piece was interesting and revolved around having Bruce Lee as a playable character and how he was a natural fit for the UFC. NHL 15 appeared after that, then a new PGA game that doesn't have Tiger Woods but has some nice streaming courses, NFL 15 and FIFA 15 round off the sports games lined up for the coming year (do EA own every sports game that uses acronyms?).
It was nice to see a new Mirror's Edge 2 trailer and the game looks as wonderful as ever, but the highlight of the show for me was the reveal of Criterion's new open world racing game which features just about every form of transport you can imagine and the ability to jump between them, over land, see and air. I'm holding out a lot of hope for this one as a major title next year.
League of Legends-alike Dawngate looked interesting but I've never been a MOBA fan.
Predictably, EA finished with the new Battlefield Hardline, out on 21st October. Taking the battle from the battlefield to the street playing as cops and robbers, it's just like being back in the playground. The big news was that the game has a PS4 and PC Beta which was available to join right as the announcement went out (cue crashing of Origin as thousands tried to log in).
Ubisoft
Like EA, most of Ubisoft's announcements lacked any surprise. A new Just Dance gave them a chance to reel off some of the tracks, with 'The Fox' already feeling a little out-of-date and 'Happy' being the least surprising track addition.
What was more interesting, however, was the Just Dance Now app for mobile phones which uses a phone's motion sensing to allow you to dance anywhere (and probably fling your phone at someone in the process as your sweaty hands try to hold on). An 'interesting' dance demo showed the app in action.
Farcry 4 got an introduction and looks like a step up from the third game, but with a similar protagonist.
Ubisoft wouldn't be Ubisoft without a bit of Tom Clancy and we got to see gameplay from The Division, a futuristic game where New York has mostly been killed off by a virus on Black Friday and a small team have to take back control.
The Crew, although delayed, is still coming and still looks pretty nice, allowing you to drive over huge sections of the US, with missions taking you through many states. Though whether long dry dusty roads can hold interest for long remains to be seen.
Assassin's Creed Unity, the next game in the series, got a new gameplay trailer and demo with a bit of decapitation and some more wall climbing. The difference here is that 4 players can work together as a team and it looks pretty impressive. Still no female assassin's though, so it looked like Il Divo with dressing gowns at times.
A new fitness game for Xbox One, Shape Up, had an interesting on stage demo with a push ups competition between the US and France. It looks like it might put the fun back into exercising (if that's at all possible).
The final two games were the lovely looking Valiant Hearts, which looks like it will tug at the heart strings and provide an insight into live in WWI and the big reveal of Rainbow Six Siege.
Rainbow Six Siege was the big surprise of the show, for sure, with a 5 on 5 game of rescue (or capture) the hostage, more destructible walls than a Battlefield game (shoot through the floor and hit the enemy from above as you fall), and a fair bit of teamwork. It certainly got a lot of gamers interested at the show.
Sony
Sony were coming at this from on top of the competition and it could have gone wrong from that point on if they were too cocky, but they had a good range of games on show to level with Microsoft's earlier conference.
The show began with the new Bungie game, Destiny. Although the game is multi-format, Sony managed to get an early Beta for 17th July and sign up happening right now. There's a special PS3 and PS4 bundle when the game launches with the debut of the white PS4 on 9th September with loads of exclusive content.
Andrew House took the stage as with last year and set up the rest of the show with words like 'exclusive content' which pretty much sums up this year's E3.
The Order 1886 got another look in this year with some actual gameplay involving a vampire, it certainly looks promising.
Also from Sony themselves, a new Uncharted game for PS4 with a new CGI trailer.
Entwined, a game from a new Sony studio made from graduates, was announced and available straight away.
InFamous: Second Son gets some DLC which is standalone or adds extra content if you have the full game. First Light, available in August, gives you a female character to play with and it looks like she has her own set of powers.
Next, Sackboy brings some new friends in the PS4 debut of LittleBigPlanet 3. Oddsock, Swoop and Toggle join Sackboy with a new set of abilities and emphasis on group play, working together to solve problems. All previous content from the other LBP games is compatible, providing the PS4 game with thousands of levels from the off.
Bloodborne is next, a new IP from From Software which looks interesting but didn't really have a lot of information bar the fact that it looks like a Medieval Dark Souls, which is unsurprising given that Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on it. It's due to arrive some time in 2015.
Farcry 4 made another appearance after Ubisoft's own show with a gameplay demo showing off some lovely looking mountain scenery and grappling across ledges before the usual descent into madness.
Diablo 3 gets The Last of Us content with the 'monsters' becoming part of a special edition.
Dead Island 2 gets another exclusive Beta on PS4 and the full game includes extra features only on Sony's console.
EA's Battlefield Hardline was shown again with extra emphasis on the exclusive beta.
Disney Infinity 2 has an exclusive Hulk character in the pack and Magicka 2 was shown for the first time with a very funny intro video, as was a new Tim Chafer remake of the classic Grim Fandango (now to wait for the Day of the Tentacle remake).
There was a big Indie section (no surprise) with some familiar games for those of you on Steam and a few new ones.
Giant Squid's new underwater game ABZU looked stunning and almost ICO or SOTC like, exclusively on PS4.
The interesting project No Man's Sky had gameplay footage on show in what the developer (Hello Games) promises will be an infinite universe of planets to explore on foot and by ship. It looks stunning but a lot of people are still sceptical to see if Sean Murray's small studio can pull it off. Having spoken with Sean myself he's a great guy and I really hope they can pull it off.
The Playroom, the free app on PS4 that lets you play with the camera and new Dual Shock 4 gets an update that will allow you to create a virtual broadcast studio, along with the much-requested Youtube support.
Lots of Free To Play stuff announced on PS4 and Vita. MOBAs and other game types and the promise of actual 'free' to play games rather than Microtransactions.
PS Now coming in July to the US but Europe still isn't supported. It's coming to PS4, PS3, PS Vita and some TV services to play more than 100 PS3 games.
PS Vita got a small slot for new games coming out including Tales From Borderlands, Minecraft for Vita and Tales of Hearts R.
Trailers for The Last of Us on PS4 and the new PS4 and Xbox One/PC Batman: Arkham Knight game looked lovely, with Batman standing out as the best looking title of the show.
The show finished with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
Nintendo
Nintendo weren't live at the show but decided to put out a pre-recorded show instead. This meant that they could lampoon themselves by way of help from Robot Chicken. It was worth watching for that alone, but there were some nice game announcements at the same time.
Smash Bros was the first announcement which now lets you use a stylised version of your own Mii character if you want, as well as Pac-Man being the next playable character.
A new Skylanders-like Amiibo character system was announced, bringing Nintendo characters to multiple games. This means that buying a Mario, Yoshi or any other character toy can unlock special characters and powers in multiple games, including Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U using the built in NFC on the gamepad.
Yoshi's Woolly World is a follow up, of sorts, to Kirby's Epic Yarn (a cult classic Wii game that everyone should play).
Toad appears as the main character in Captain: Toad Treasure Tracker with a Mario Galaxy style universe, while Bowser is the star of Mario Party 10 on Wii U. Nintendo obviously think Mario himself is getting overworked, or perhaps Mario has complained to the union.
The big news was a new Legend of Zelda video which takes a cel shaded approach like Windwaker but with a more arty pastel style. The new Link looks quite different, again, but the whole thing works pretty well. It's still not out until 2015 though.
Bayonetta 2 bounced into action and there was news that the game would come with the first game as a bonus bundled in. It's the first time the series has come to Nintendo, so it's a nice present for those who never played the first one.
Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire get the 3DS upgrade treatment with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. I still haven't finished Y yet and the game comes out in November.
Another Zelda game, Hyrule Warriors, matches the Zelda universe to Dynasty Warriors open battle gameplay. Could be one to watch.
On 3DS Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is coming and looks like it's borrowed some ideas from Line Rider in the process.
Starfox Wii U was announced with Miyamoto personally working on the game. Fans will be pleased, then Mario and Donkey Kong Wii U and a new Art Academy for the console.
One new IP, Splatoon, looked good. A bit like De Blob on Wii, the game focuses on painting areas with ink but is a team based multiplayer title more like Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare.
Finally, Mario Maker lets you design and play your own Mario levels in styles that range from old Mario games to more recent ones. It certainly looks interested.
Microsoft
Microsoft opened the press conferences with a big, confident reveal of game titles, far removed from their 'TV and Kinect' emphasis of last year and thankfully putting the issues of their overly expensive console announcement behind them now that all the price cuts have been made and Kinect has been ditched.
So this year it's all about the games, games and more games, made clear from the off by Phil Spencer. You can't say Microsoft don't listen to their fans and they've even announced a feedback forum specifically for the purpose, so they're taking it all pretty seriously.
Xbox has long been connected to the Call of Duty series, so there was no surprise that COD: Advanced Warfare was the first big reveal. From the limited gameplay elements, sandwiched between the video, it's clear that while the franchise may be going futuristic, the gameplay will be on very familiar ground. In fact, take out the tech and you could be forgiven for mistaking this for Ghosts. Still, with the success of Titanfall, I can imagine a few more companies may be looking to feature mechs and machines soon.
Forza has long been a major title for Xbox and so it wasn't surprising to see Turn 10 up on stage. Dan Greenwalt announced the free Nurburgring track for Forza 5 (which many feel should have been included from the start) and then we got to see a trailer for Forza Horizon 2 on Xbox One, which looks stunning. With 2 different developers working on the games (one for Xbox One and one for 360) it will be interesting to see what differences the platforms have and what the Xbox One can do to differentiate it self from its older brother, but this looks like a much more open world game with some beautiful European scenery to drive around and Forza 5's Drivatar system in place. It was certainly one of my highlights of E3 this year.
This E3 seemed to be all about exclusive Betas and Microsoft's came in the form of Evolve for Xbox One from 2K Games.
Aside from the multiplatform games that were also seen elsewhere, there were exclusives on show in the form of Sunset Overdrive, with a larger section of gameplay being shown off by Ted Price of Insomniac. It looks pretty fun and refreshingly different, too. The game is out on 28th October.
Dancing games get an update with Dance Central Spotlight and the Disney Fantasia game, both from Harmonix. Fantasia didn't really have anything to show as yet, which was disappointing, even though it's due out by the end of the year. Perhaps they were concerned of Kinect's ability to show demos on stage?
Fable Legends shows that there's life left in Lionhead Studios and it actually looks pretty fun with its God mode allowing one player to choose all the monsters and traps in realtime. Project Spark had another brief preview, though it seems like ages since the Beta was available and Ori and the Blind Forest looks like another indie hit for the console.
Then it was all about Halo. The Master Chief Collection squeezes all the main Halo games (so no ODST) on to a single disc and features the remastered Halo and a newly remastered Halo 2 complete with the same multiplayer it originally shipped with on the first Xbox (I still have the game!). It lets you create 'playlists' of favourite levels from all 4 of the games, which sounds like a pretty cool feature. All of these are promised in 1080p 60fps. The disc also comes with a new TV series that leads up to Halo 5.
And speaking of Halo 5, there's a nice trailer shown and the announcement of a Halo 5: Guardians Beta for the end of the year, no doubt linked to the purchase of the Master Chief Collection.
Other exclusives on show included Aztec, Plaque Evolved and Knight Squad from the ID@Xbox indie thing that Microsoft are running to get more indie companies producing Xbox One games with easier entry into the console world, a Phantom Dust remake and Scalebound, a game with huge dragons but little in the way of an idea about the gameplay.
Finally, they rounded things off with a last exclusive, Crackdown 3. The game trailer makes it look like they'll be plenty of action and possibly a lot of teamwork going on.
EA
You could have easily predicted the content from EA this year; Football, more yearly sports updates, a Battlefield title and some Sims. There were a couple of surprises, though.
But first, a very slim trailer for Star Wars Battlefront which looks great but didn't give us too much more other than how it's being made to look authentic.
Moving on, another trailer for Dragon Age 3 and one for Sims 4 which doesn't add much more than the trailer from last year.
the UFC piece was interesting and revolved around having Bruce Lee as a playable character and how he was a natural fit for the UFC. NHL 15 appeared after that, then a new PGA game that doesn't have Tiger Woods but has some nice streaming courses, NFL 15 and FIFA 15 round off the sports games lined up for the coming year (do EA own every sports game that uses acronyms?).
It was nice to see a new Mirror's Edge 2 trailer and the game looks as wonderful as ever, but the highlight of the show for me was the reveal of Criterion's new open world racing game which features just about every form of transport you can imagine and the ability to jump between them, over land, see and air. I'm holding out a lot of hope for this one as a major title next year.
League of Legends-alike Dawngate looked interesting but I've never been a MOBA fan.
Predictably, EA finished with the new Battlefield Hardline, out on 21st October. Taking the battle from the battlefield to the street playing as cops and robbers, it's just like being back in the playground. The big news was that the game has a PS4 and PC Beta which was available to join right as the announcement went out (cue crashing of Origin as thousands tried to log in).
Ubisoft
Like EA, most of Ubisoft's announcements lacked any surprise. A new Just Dance gave them a chance to reel off some of the tracks, with 'The Fox' already feeling a little out-of-date and 'Happy' being the least surprising track addition.
What was more interesting, however, was the Just Dance Now app for mobile phones which uses a phone's motion sensing to allow you to dance anywhere (and probably fling your phone at someone in the process as your sweaty hands try to hold on). An 'interesting' dance demo showed the app in action.
Farcry 4 got an introduction and looks like a step up from the third game, but with a similar protagonist.
Ubisoft wouldn't be Ubisoft without a bit of Tom Clancy and we got to see gameplay from The Division, a futuristic game where New York has mostly been killed off by a virus on Black Friday and a small team have to take back control.
The Crew, although delayed, is still coming and still looks pretty nice, allowing you to drive over huge sections of the US, with missions taking you through many states. Though whether long dry dusty roads can hold interest for long remains to be seen.
Assassin's Creed Unity, the next game in the series, got a new gameplay trailer and demo with a bit of decapitation and some more wall climbing. The difference here is that 4 players can work together as a team and it looks pretty impressive. Still no female assassin's though, so it looked like Il Divo with dressing gowns at times.
A new fitness game for Xbox One, Shape Up, had an interesting on stage demo with a push ups competition between the US and France. It looks like it might put the fun back into exercising (if that's at all possible).
The final two games were the lovely looking Valiant Hearts, which looks like it will tug at the heart strings and provide an insight into live in WWI and the big reveal of Rainbow Six Siege.
Rainbow Six Siege was the big surprise of the show, for sure, with a 5 on 5 game of rescue (or capture) the hostage, more destructible walls than a Battlefield game (shoot through the floor and hit the enemy from above as you fall), and a fair bit of teamwork. It certainly got a lot of gamers interested at the show.
Sony
Sony were coming at this from on top of the competition and it could have gone wrong from that point on if they were too cocky, but they had a good range of games on show to level with Microsoft's earlier conference.
The show began with the new Bungie game, Destiny. Although the game is multi-format, Sony managed to get an early Beta for 17th July and sign up happening right now. There's a special PS3 and PS4 bundle when the game launches with the debut of the white PS4 on 9th September with loads of exclusive content.
Andrew House took the stage as with last year and set up the rest of the show with words like 'exclusive content' which pretty much sums up this year's E3.
The Order 1886 got another look in this year with some actual gameplay involving a vampire, it certainly looks promising.
Also from Sony themselves, a new Uncharted game for PS4 with a new CGI trailer.
Entwined, a game from a new Sony studio made from graduates, was announced and available straight away.
InFamous: Second Son gets some DLC which is standalone or adds extra content if you have the full game. First Light, available in August, gives you a female character to play with and it looks like she has her own set of powers.
Next, Sackboy brings some new friends in the PS4 debut of LittleBigPlanet 3. Oddsock, Swoop and Toggle join Sackboy with a new set of abilities and emphasis on group play, working together to solve problems. All previous content from the other LBP games is compatible, providing the PS4 game with thousands of levels from the off.
Bloodborne is next, a new IP from From Software which looks interesting but didn't really have a lot of information bar the fact that it looks like a Medieval Dark Souls, which is unsurprising given that Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on it. It's due to arrive some time in 2015.
Farcry 4 made another appearance after Ubisoft's own show with a gameplay demo showing off some lovely looking mountain scenery and grappling across ledges before the usual descent into madness.
Diablo 3 gets The Last of Us content with the 'monsters' becoming part of a special edition.
Dead Island 2 gets another exclusive Beta on PS4 and the full game includes extra features only on Sony's console.
EA's Battlefield Hardline was shown again with extra emphasis on the exclusive beta.
Disney Infinity 2 has an exclusive Hulk character in the pack and Magicka 2 was shown for the first time with a very funny intro video, as was a new Tim Chafer remake of the classic Grim Fandango (now to wait for the Day of the Tentacle remake).
There was a big Indie section (no surprise) with some familiar games for those of you on Steam and a few new ones.
Giant Squid's new underwater game ABZU looked stunning and almost ICO or SOTC like, exclusively on PS4.
The interesting project No Man's Sky had gameplay footage on show in what the developer (Hello Games) promises will be an infinite universe of planets to explore on foot and by ship. It looks stunning but a lot of people are still sceptical to see if Sean Murray's small studio can pull it off. Having spoken with Sean myself he's a great guy and I really hope they can pull it off.
The Playroom, the free app on PS4 that lets you play with the camera and new Dual Shock 4 gets an update that will allow you to create a virtual broadcast studio, along with the much-requested Youtube support.
Lots of Free To Play stuff announced on PS4 and Vita. MOBAs and other game types and the promise of actual 'free' to play games rather than Microtransactions.
PS Now coming in July to the US but Europe still isn't supported. It's coming to PS4, PS3, PS Vita and some TV services to play more than 100 PS3 games.
PS Vita got a small slot for new games coming out including Tales From Borderlands, Minecraft for Vita and Tales of Hearts R.
Trailers for The Last of Us on PS4 and the new PS4 and Xbox One/PC Batman: Arkham Knight game looked lovely, with Batman standing out as the best looking title of the show.
The show finished with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
Nintendo
Nintendo weren't live at the show but decided to put out a pre-recorded show instead. This meant that they could lampoon themselves by way of help from Robot Chicken. It was worth watching for that alone, but there were some nice game announcements at the same time.
Smash Bros was the first announcement which now lets you use a stylised version of your own Mii character if you want, as well as Pac-Man being the next playable character.
A new Skylanders-like Amiibo character system was announced, bringing Nintendo characters to multiple games. This means that buying a Mario, Yoshi or any other character toy can unlock special characters and powers in multiple games, including Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U using the built in NFC on the gamepad.
Yoshi's Woolly World is a follow up, of sorts, to Kirby's Epic Yarn (a cult classic Wii game that everyone should play).
Toad appears as the main character in Captain: Toad Treasure Tracker with a Mario Galaxy style universe, while Bowser is the star of Mario Party 10 on Wii U. Nintendo obviously think Mario himself is getting overworked, or perhaps Mario has complained to the union.
The big news was a new Legend of Zelda video which takes a cel shaded approach like Windwaker but with a more arty pastel style. The new Link looks quite different, again, but the whole thing works pretty well. It's still not out until 2015 though.
Bayonetta 2 bounced into action and there was news that the game would come with the first game as a bonus bundled in. It's the first time the series has come to Nintendo, so it's a nice present for those who never played the first one.
Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire get the 3DS upgrade treatment with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. I still haven't finished Y yet and the game comes out in November.
Another Zelda game, Hyrule Warriors, matches the Zelda universe to Dynasty Warriors open battle gameplay. Could be one to watch.
On 3DS Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is coming and looks like it's borrowed some ideas from Line Rider in the process.
Starfox Wii U was announced with Miyamoto personally working on the game. Fans will be pleased, then Mario and Donkey Kong Wii U and a new Art Academy for the console.
One new IP, Splatoon, looked good. A bit like De Blob on Wii, the game focuses on painting areas with ink but is a team based multiplayer title more like Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare.
Finally, Mario Maker lets you design and play your own Mario levels in styles that range from old Mario games to more recent ones. It certainly looks interested.