Personally, in light of the games that interest me and the games that don’t, I think this year’s E3 was about as good as any I can remember. What are your thoughts? What excited you? What were you disappointed by?
My main disappointment, and I think this is a common one, was the lack of news on The Last Guardian. I mean, obviously I’m crazy to expect anything, but I dare to dream goddammit — is that so wrong?
The silver lining here, however, is that it hurts a little less each time. One day you won’t be able to hurt me any more Last Guardian. Time heals all wounds.
The biggest surprise for me? Probably Grim Fandango, because I totally didn’t see that coming. I think it’s pretty cool and I actually think I will buy and play it in its latest incarnation.
But you’ve spent the last week listening to me rant on and on about E3. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
38 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: E3 Surprises/Disappointments”
I know I’m going to be the odd one out but I was disappointed with the Master Chief Collection announcement. The best thing to happen to the Halo franchise is… replaying the last 13 years again…
I was also annoyed that there was basically nothing for Star Fox.
Are we going by pre-E3 announcements? Because I was surprised by Mortal Kombat 10.
and I know I’m going to get downvoted for this one, but I was surprised that this year Microsoft and EA weren’t so evil 😛
That deserves an upvote in my opinion.
How in the heck were you surprised by MKX? They announced it like a week before, you didn’t expect it to be at E3?
I actually play through the old titles a few times a year – end to end, and my discs are getting a bit unreliable so for me this is good news but not great news. Disappointing that Reach and ODST were left out as I really like both of them. I was also actually expecting Guardians this year, not next so that was a kick in the guts.
I agree it’s a disappointing place holder for now. They could have at least developed some more mobile content, a bit like Deus Ex – The Fall which is very similar to the full game, not more of Spartan Ops which didn’t really do it for me.
Surprised: How much I want a Wii U now after all the new Nintendo Announcements.
Disappointed: Lack of big Vita news, or any for that matter. Last Guardian Missing. Not as much VR as hoped.
Things that I feel like I should care about but don’t really: GTAV for current gen, Ass Creed Uni
i’m starting to get the impression that the Vita is being treated less like an actual platform, and more a companion to the PS4
Surprise: Splatoon. My girlfriend always tells me she wishes Nintendo would make a 1st person shooter that wasn’t violent. The closest we had was Portal. I bet she’s not the only gamer out there who has been waiting for this exact same thing. Well done Nintendo, for addressing this gap in the market.
Disappointment: I really was hoping for something a little more tangible with ME4. Most of that video was just shots of developers staring in the distance, it was honestly a bit ridiculous. They shouldn’t have said anything at all.
100% EA’s event was ridiculous – nothing’s ready yet so here’s some footage of people in offices working a computers… I can see that shit at work – I don’t tune into a press event for that.
They did redeem themselves somewhat with the Hardline Beta at the end but mostly they are a case study into what happens when you shutter all your studios
the MS, Sony, Ubi & EA events were all a tad disappointing.
not coz of what games they showed, but because almost everything they did show had been leaked / pre-announced already. there wasn’t many surprises there.
pretty much the only things that weren’t public knowledge in the lead up were LBP3, Squid thing & R6:Siege.
I wanted to be surprised by some rad announcements, but that didn’t happen.
Nintendo, on the other hand… they did good. lots of hype worthy announcements. Zelda, Star Fox, Xenoblade etc. lotsa good stuff.
Edit : I’m talking announcements of ‘new’ stuff. not slightly HD-er ports of existing stuff etc.
<3
🙂
I was disappointed with the lack of firm release dates and the vague release windows that were given. Most of these will slip if recent history is to be used as judgement.
isn’t that the way it always is every year?
I’m slightly annoyed that there’s been no mention of N64 games hitting the Wii U VC.
I’m surprised at how excited I am for online co-op Assassins Creed and The Division.
Never really played online but my buddy and I are keen for these games.
Genuinely surprised by Nintendo in general. They are bringing their A game now and I feel the future of the Wii U is looking bright. They just need to work on their marketing to further push console sales and convince more third parties to develop for it. I only just bought a Wii U (mainly due to Mario Kart 8 and Donkey Kong Country), seems like I bought at the exact right time.
Overall though I was disappointed in both Sony and Microsoft. I don’t own either a PS4 or a Xbone yet, and nothing they showed made me want to go out and get one. Still too many pre-rendered game trailers that show no gameplay at all (I’m looking at you, Uncharted 4). Seems I’ll be waiting at least another year or so before I start to consider either of them. Nothing on them interests me enough to go out and get one, besides Mortal Kombat 10, but that’s not out until next year anyway and will also be releasing on PC.
Surprise: Nintendo, Love what they did as a whole was fun to watch and really looking at the Wii U now. No Man’s Sky all I can say is WOW!!!. Dont Starve coming to Vita 🙂
Disappointing: 80% of E3, Everything felt lacking we already knew most of them, no real WOW moments other then Nintendo, I’m shocked we are not hearing things like Sleeping Dogs 2, what has happened to Agent? Cyberpunk 2077? more new IP
Most of E3 is just a demo of the yearly games (sports, AC, Battlefield and COD) where is the real stuff gone?
I really was not expecting GTA 5 PC to be announced. I was set on maybe Xmas or next year, so this was a very pleasant surprise for me. DayZ getting a new engine was big news, until it was revealed that it is the same engine they are using now, with a different name due to all the changes they have made since SA launch. Still suer pumped.
CGI.
‘exclusive first look’s at multi platform games.
DCL focused
No Last Guardian or Vita Infamous (But we should have known those were pipe dreams.)
TV
Other than that, it was nice.
After previous years of being hyped up over rumours and inevitably disappointed by the result, I went into this year mostly ignorant of what they would be showing so I came through relatively happy with what I found.
No major disappointments but I really wanted to see a new Prince of Persia or new footage/news on Beyond Good & Evil 2 and The Last Guardian.
I’m surprised at the amount of surprises! Leaks ruin the fun of the reveal but I’m glad some things weren’t spoiled (GRIM FANDANGO!)
EDIT: Actually, I was disappointed with all the “EXLUSIVE TO ____” talk. I’m not talking about pure exclusives or timed releases, but there was a lot of “EXCLUSIVE CONTENT”. I know most of that stuff is very minor but why can’t we just get everything 😛
Suprised crackdown 3 and new rainbow six announced.
Disappointed with ME4 news (not really news). Show us something more than concept art. We got concept art last year. Show us a little more.
I was pleasantly surprised at Sony announcing GTA V for PS4, which was soon announced for Xbone and PC. Far Cry 4 looks awesome as does No Mans Sky but with NMS i will wait before rushing out and buying a PS4 but my biggest surprise was the Doom teaser, yeah we have to wait a little longer for QuakeCon which is on in just over a month.
But my biggest surprise (ok doom is second biggest surprise) is that i totally called it about Sony re-revealing GTA V and as ususal Micael Pachter was wrong about not having next gen versions as well.
the only major disappointment for me was a lack of anything new from Retro Studios.
Was kind of hoping for a new Metroid game…
Well that and I was wishing for an HD remake of F-Zero GX but I pretty much knew that that wasn’t going to happen.
Yeah, i was hoping to hear from Retro too. And i would have loved to have seen a new Advance Wars/Battallion Wars; the WiiU controller would actually work pretty well for strategy games.
Totally expected and was looking forward to:
* GTA V PS4
* BloodBorne
* Deep Down
Came out of Nowhere and it was awesome:
* Grim Fandango
* No Mans Sky
Games I wasnt interested in but are now about to have me jump on board the hype train:
* Batman Arkham Knight
Games I’m Unsure about…
* Assassins Creed Unity – I didnt like any of the previous ass creeds with the exception of Bloodlines, Liberation, and Black Flag was AWESOME. Unity seems like it will follow a similar path to the first few games unfortunately, whereas i was hopeful it would have taken a bit more from Black Flag…. we’ll have to wait and see. If the 4 Player Co-op however is proper single player campaign co-op, that alone will guarantee a purchase….
I wish they’d include campaign co-op in every game… i would have played the crap out of a co-op skyrim.
Biggest surprise for me was Crackdown. It had been teased for years but now finally has been announced which means I can chase down the collective of MS if it’s canned.
Biggest disappointment would be the lack of Vita anything. Having just bought one a couple of months ago I was really bummed that there is just about nothing exciting new coming in the next year :/
to be honest, and it sucks to say because i love my vita to death, the vita is currently surviving solely on indie games and the ps1/psp backlog…. i dont honestly see any 3rd party devs getting serious about it unless it moves some serious numbers…
truth is they need some high quality games that appeal to kids. kids move units. it would be in sonys best interest to do whatever it can to bring back the Monster Hunter serious to PS. That thing moved a crazy amount of PSP’s
I mean it doesnt make sense… monster hunter is a graphically intense game (for a handheld) and requires 2 analogue sticks,,,, why would they move the game to the 3ds which is lacking in both departments if not for the larger install base???
wow, tough crowd
Surprises:
-HOLY SHIT WE’RE GETTING A NEW CANVAS CURSE! And the plasticine look is just icing on the cake, wow.
-Star Fox is coming!
-Splatoon, totally came out of nowhere and looks *awesome*
Disappointment:
-Star Fox is way early in development, not much to show 😛
-Star Fox isn’t being made by Hideki Kamiya
-Still waiting for a new F-Zero
So overall, it’s been rad.
Biggest disappointment surrounding e3 is always the media coverage. The last few years we haven’t made it through an event without issuing every participant a failing grade in gender equality each year. We have game after game criticised for not having a strong female character or deriding the female characters we do have for being poorly written (when they’re still better written than the men) or looking a certain way and exhibiting all the cosplay of people dressed exactly the same and talking about how awful it is to have booth babes but then defending expression when someone wants to dress up exactly like a booth babe. There’s a difference between discussion and exploitation y’know.
There’s something about games there too.
Still nothing about a new Fallout Game….. they wouldn’t leave it to the last day of E3 would they? No, probably not. Battlefield Hardline was also disappointing – it’s just “Battlefield-But-We-Call-The-Soldiers-Cops-And-Robbers”. Yes, they tried to introduce a few new modes to make it “feel” like a cops and robbers game, but it’s essentially just Battlefield with slightly crappier vehicles and SWAT team skins of characters. It looks so similar mechanically and visually to the previous Battlefield games. It’s not interesting at all.
The Grim Fandango remake made me very happy. The New Zelda looks interesting enough. And Bloodborn looks excellent.
Biggest disappointment? Easy. Sony devoted a pathetic ’30 seconds’ of its presentation to what is supposedly the ‘future’ of digital entertainment…….Project Morpheus!! Come on Sony, even if you don’t have much to share at this point – pay some respect to the format that has battled so hard to come back to the mainstream after years of abandonment and ridicule – Virtual Reality! You have taken a step backward now in convincing the public that you are taking Virtual Reality seriously. You had such good momentum after announcing Morpheus at the last show, but you have now lost that momentum.
Surprise:
– Open World Zelda – was not expecting the open world and for it to look as good as it seems to.
– Arkham Knight Open World looking as good and fluid as it does.
– Grim fandango announcement
– Nintendo holding an actual successful digital event with Robot Chicken and taking the piss out of themselves. Also holding a brilliant first up effort on a competitive Smash tourney.
Disappointment:
– Peoples gigantic overreaction to EA’s conference. Yes it was a bad conference. But those same people are also having a massive whine about “Everything is CG – Show us gameplay”. EA shows nothing but gameplay and everyone complains that it is too early to show that and it looks crap. People can not have it both ways. If developers are putting a CG trailer out it is because it is too early in development to show – basically what EA showed. And unfortunately there generally is not a middle ground unless the developers dedicate resources to just building an E3 demo at the cost of time developing the actual game.
– Sony didn’t keep the momentum going. Two exclusive games for 2014 and a multi-plat in destiny which is closely tied with the PS brand. Sure looking good for 2015 but think almost half of what was promised for 2015 is going into 2016 – bloodborne/project beast is almost a given for a delay.
Disappointments
EA’s conference (see above)
Lack of Banjo Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot (I like the old 90s mascots!)
Surprises
Splatoon: Nintendo shooter AND new IP!
Zelda: looks incredible
No Man’s Sky: this is Next Gen!
Vita TV: I’d forgotten about it but the ability to stream your PS4 to a second TV is huge!
Ass Creed Unity: you can duck and take cover! Brilliant!
The fact that ‘Devil’s Third’ is still a thing!
Biggest Surprise
How 360/PS3 were completely ignored – the message seems to be ‘time to trade up’
I was pleased by the fact that games (especially shooters) are trying to evolve the way we use online functionality. I was never interested in online games because it was basically either death matches or MMO’s. Good to see them freshen up a little bit. These ones look like they may have strong RPG elements.
Now all i need is a friend to play with me on PS4.
Elite Dangerous
Oculus Rift
Holy shit wow
..but where was Enemy Starfighter?
Surprise: Nintendo winning E3 and making me want a Wii U
Disappointment: Lack of Sony Exclusives, the end of the PS3 era were the best with games like The Last of Us.
I think it’s mostly disappointment for me unfortunately. There is pretty much nothing that is making me interested in owning current gen consoles at this point in time. The only thing that really caught my attention was the next Zelda game, but I don’t know if that would be enough to throw down money for a Wii U … I don’t think any one game on its own is worth the cost of a console. There needs to be a lot more out there which separates itself as exclusives, with a consistent compromise between graphics and frame rate, for me to want to step outside of PC gaming once more (coming from someone who owned MANY consoles up until this point in time).