BEST OF e3 2012

It’s that time of year again, the Electronics Entertainment Expo that crowning jewel in the gaming geeks year, at least as far as trailers for upcoming releases go. Taking place this week – June 5 through 7 – this is the event where many, if not all, of the world’s game developers come together, major and independent alike to show off their wares and get us all super excited about giving them our hard earned money.

Like everything in life and the internet, some parts are amazing and make you want to throw money at your computer screen until an object appears and other parts are, well, pretty shit. This post will be the first of a few this week which showcase the best trailers for upcoming games as determined solely by me, because I’m the one writing it. Don’t expect there to be much COD, is what I’m saying.

And with that; let us begin with a game I have covered before, when it was first announced…

Assassin’s Creed III

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, WiiU and Windows

Release: October 2012

A cinematic only trailer this time round, but certainly an exciting one. I was pretty much over Ezio by the end of the second mission in Brotherhood and Revelations held no interest for me, so I’m glad to be so excited for an Assassin’s Creed game again.

With a voice over by new protagonist Connor, the clip shows a lot of civil war action and gives me the impression that Connor will be hitting the front lines on some of his quests. Looks brilliant. As Paul Verhoven just tweeted:

As an aside, you can play a nice drinking game in 2012 – dubbed Year of the Archer by some – where you take a shot every time a trailer for a film, television series or game has a character (usually the protagonist, or a close friend in an ensemble cast) use a bow and arrow instead of a gun. Thanks, Hunger Games.

Anticipation: 8/10

Hitman: Absolution

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows

Release: November 2012

There have been a lot of complaints about that trailer: it’s violent, sexist, it shows a great deal of that violence toward women at the hands of a burly man, those outfits are impractical for a legitimate assassin. All have a degree of legitimacy but to be clear, I think the trailer looks cool and I’m not a misogynist. I am a misanthrope though. Hmm.

The trailer above shows Agent 47 getting dressed, detailing the marks of a life well lived all over his back and shoulders, and then has him attacked by sexy, sexy nuns. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest those probably aren’t real nuns, what with the latex and the fuck-me boots and all.

We also have some early gameplay footage below.

This, to me, looks rad. From the get-go we have a pretty detailed world, which only increases in realism when 47 hits the marketplace and is then surrounded by NPCs, all of whom react to the world with subtle realism. He brushes by them, sometimes they get upset and look, other times they just move on. Everything looks rich and well developed and open.

Loved the knife sticking out of the guys head as 47 carried him. Nice touch.

Anticipation: 7/10

Simcity

Platforms: Windows exclusive

Release: February 2013

I’ve always been a fan of the Simcity games. I like to build a world, make my people happy, then set the whole thing on fire and watch civilisation burn to the ground. Or just trap Sims in a pool and take away the ladder. I may have a problem. Either way this new gameplay trailer from EA looks great.

Nice to see how the Glassbox engine powered graphics might actually look in the end although whether or not you need a supercomputer to make it that nice has yet to be revealed. It is going to be online only, EA confirmed that a while ago before the mess that was Diablo III‘s Error 37 became the newest #firstworldproblem to grace the shores of this here cyberspace. They have promised not to fall into the same traps as Blizzard did, nor to make the same mistakes.

I think by making it online only though, they just did.

Anticipation: 7/10

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Platforms: Xbox 360 and Windows

Release: Spring 2013

Splinter Cell was one of the coolest games I played when I first got an Xbox. The series then got great and bad, and worse and I didn’t play Conviction because my 360 was packed into a cupboard for a while. It’s one I would like to play at some stage.

This though, looks pretty good. Sam Fisher is back and he’s killing generic Middle Eastern villains and in that regard it looks like every other war and espionage based game of the last five years but I’m hopeful this is just early game footage and the remainder will keep the variety I’ve come to love from the franchise.

If you’re interested, here is a gameplay video:

Seems that stealth, tech and gadgets are back. Once again the setting is the Middle East but this is just one mission. It’s nice to see the execute system from Conviction make a return. Not sure I care for the gimmicky Kinect features like ‘voice recognition’ but I’m sure somebody will get some use out of it. I think Microsoft mandates that all games have a token reminder that Kinect is more than just shitty Star Wars rail titles and Kinectimals.

Anticipation: 8/10

Tomb Raider

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows

Release: March 2013

The Tomb Raider franchise was a staple of my childhood. In fact, the original Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was the game I moved into the Playstation era for. I loved the exploration, the puzzles and the killing of countless endangered species with infinipistols. I loved that she had long hair in the cinematics and a short bun in the gameplay, hair physics being what it was in the mid 90s. I loved that her boobs seemed to get bigger and bigger as the game went on. I loved that at the end, suddenly there were aliens.

It was like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but not George Lucas levels of stupid.

The series was then supplanted for me by Uncharted, which has become one of my favourite PS3 exclusive series. Uncharted gives me action, exploration, smart-ass quips and a sense of the pseudoparanomal I love and this new entry, a reboot to a series so completely off the rails in recent years (Legend sucked, seriously sucked and Guardians of Light was pretty weak too), seems to channel a lot of what makes Uncharted so successful.

Lara is young, inexperienced, looks less like the star of a breast-fetist porn site and might this time round actually develop as an interesting character. Although if she hates tombs as the trailer claims, man is her life going to be one long stream of disappointments.

Anticipation: 8/10

HALO 4

Platforms: Xbox 360 exclusive

Release: November 2012

While Splinter Cell was one of the coolest games I played on Xbox, Halo was the reason I got an Xbox. When the giant chunk of game console was released I was pretty happy in the Playstation camp. I had a PS2 and was cranking away at it daily. Then Halo was released and I was intrigued. I’d long loved games like Wolfenstein, Quake and Doom. Could an FPS on console work as well as they claimed?

I didn’t buy an Xbox to find out. No. I rented one back when renting consoles was a thing people did. I rented an Xbox and Halo and took it home. I played it. I played it hard.

The universe, the graphics (which are of course shoddy and dated by today’s standards but which were pretty spectacular in an era of Quake and Timesplitters level visuals), the enemies, this amazing man named Master Chief and a well woven narrative all brought me into the game.

So I’ve always been a huge fan of this franchise (didn’t much care for ODST but Reach was excellent) and this new trailer, showing off the new engine and the new Forerunner enemies caught my attention quickly. I don’t honestly understand why Covenant are enemies at the start of this clip, because I’m pretty sure I won that war back in Halo 3, but they are quickly overtaken by AI dog monsters and the big scary guy. I like these new guns too.

There is some smuggled footage of the multiplayer closed play test online but I’m not going to link it because the videos are being taken down as fast as they are being submitted, so I’ll let you search those out on your own if so inclined.

Anticipation: 9/10

BEYOND: Two Souls

Platforms: PS3 exclusive

Release: 2013

In 2010 Quantic Dream gave us Heavy Rain, a stunning detective story following four protagonists as they hunted for answers and the identity of the Origami Killer, a serial murderer targeting young boys. It was and is, as far as I am concerned, not only one of the best games on the PS3 but one of the best games ever made. It was truly adult, without catering to the Gears of War and COD frat-boy crowd. It handled complex themes and was truly engaging. A lot of people didn’t like the quicktime events, but I think they were implemented well.

Which is why when I saw the above trailer for their next title, Beyond, I hadn’t even fully loaded the page before knowing I’d probably be parting with my money on release day.

It seems to follow the story of a young girl, played by Ellen Page, who has a mysterious past and maybe some psychic abilities? I’m not sure, but the trailer looks boss and I think this is going to be another winner if they can keep the quality of Heavy Rain up and maintain their innovative, adult storytelling style. Plus, it stars Ellen Page from Juno and Hard Candy and Inception. Actual Ellen Page.

Anticipation: 10/10

Watchdogs

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows

Release: ?

This was one of those titles which I didn’t know existed until I saw an article on another site which linked to the very trailer I have just linked to you. Set in a future world (details below in the second video) where everything is connected and run by massive computers this game looks a little bit Splinter Cell, a little bit Person of Interest and a little bit Bourne Identity.

None of which is a bad thing. I like the way the interface changes based on need and the way tech is used futuristically but also realistically. Wifi snooping and signal jamming is something doable today, and the player here seems to be controlling such tech with an iPhone, proving that there really is an app for that.

The gameplay looks nice and smooth, and combat looks intense but manageable. This is one to keep an eye on.

Anticipation: 10/10

In a year so far hallmarked by reboots and sequels of sequels you’ll notice the two games which got the highest anticipatory rating from me where two brand new IPs with no prior history – the history of studio Quantic Dream notwithstanding. It’s truly unusual to have something (see also The Last of Us) completely new in today’s market, where everything is the sequel to a copy of a copy of a reboot of a copy so to have two so far this e3 is really quite exciting.

Loiter around the House of Geekery over the coming days, as I aim to have a part two when more of the expo has taken place.

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You can harass the author of this post via Twitter: @CAricHanley