When did the PC stealth genre change? Low camera 3rd person angles. Walls as high as someones hip. Fast paced action. Non-lethal attacks from behind. Whatever happened to shooting out a light bulb and leaving all the enemies standing, wondering how to fix it said broken light bulb. Whatever happened to non-lethal non-attacks? When did stealth become a crouch and cover shooter?
The video and concurrently playing Hitman: Absolution have made me very upset, wondering why all my stealth games play like Uncharted. More to come about Hitman: Subtitle, that is for sure.
I’m not sure who writes up the script for the celebrity hosts of the Ubisoft press conference but it’s bad. Really bad. It never feels natural, the comedy always falls short and it is just wrong. Just hearing the the term “girl wood” feels so wrong in all the wrong ways. It’s like watching a train wreck with actual good games falling out of the windows of each train car. But let’s not dwell on the bad and get right into some of the trailers.
Far Cry 3 rocked us last year with the “insanity” trailer and this year is more of the same. This time it starts off with you hunting the antagonist and right from the get go it shows off that this is a very edgy game. Animated boobies people! This game looks great in the jungle setting with great visuals. I’ve never been much of a fan of the Far Cry games but how can I not check this out? Great in game trailer.
They then showed off the Splinter Cell: Blacklist trailer. Not much more to say about this since we saw some gameplay during the Microsoft briefing but I wanted to show it because it looks like a lot of fun.
The conference was short on details with a lot of games. Without knowing anything about Avengers: Battle for Earth, here is the trailer. It’s exciting only because it looks cool but there is no in-game footage and nothing else was mentioned about the game except for it giving more “girl wood”.
I have to admit I really like this trailer. However, it wouldn’t be the first time a great zombie game teaser trailer failed to deliver. This is a “Mature” Wii U title, I guess to show that the next generation of Nintendo console is for grown ups as well. Hard to say much about the game but enjoy a very cool teaser.
Next up is Assassin’s Creed 3. Finally set in a different setting. Looks very cool, but we all knew that. The in game demo shown was a winter forest setting that looks great. I just want to show the trailer though. It is really good. No doubt Ubisoft has great talent in studio when it comes to animation and cinematic trailers.
The best thing I’ve seen at E3 and not only because it is the only non-sequel to be shown so far. The idea is great, the visuals up to Ubisoft’s standards and from what I’ve seen of the gameplay it looks very interesting. The internet is going to be buzzing about this for awhile and as of right now it is on the top of my to play list.
Another E3 is upon us and I’ll try to give a little bit of coverage here on the site. Considering there is an overload of information I’ll spare you with the details and just show you some of the things that are a highlight for me from each press conference.
Microsoft was up first this morning without many surprises. On the hardware side they spent a lot of time selling the Xbox360 as a media player and showing off many different types of integration. From different sports channels like NHL Game Center, better Kinect voice control, better media player and Internet Explorer.
Out of all of the same-old-same-old from last year was a bit of details how Windows 8 will connect with Xbox via “Xbox Smartglass”, which essentially links up what is happening on your TV screen with your Windows tablet and phone. Nothing out of everything that was shown in this respect is a must have and more of a neat feature if you happen to own a Windows 8 device. Personally, if I’m watching a Movie, I’m not fiddling with my tablet to look up the cast or tweet my friends.., I’m watching a movie. Perhaps I’m just out of touch with current day society and don’t share a common case of Attention Deficit Disorder.
I digress… On the software side we saw a lot of old IP’s and one new one. Halo 4 opened the show with a game play demo and it looked great. A new Forza game (which looked really nice) and the expected fitness and dance game. At one point Usher game out and someone made a bad “ushering in” pun. Thankfully I had buffered time in the stream to cut ahead.
The new Tomb Raider looks really good. It looks dark and gritty and has some really fun game play mechanics. They played a demo for us and it simply looks like a lot of fun. It reminds me a lot like Uncharted… or does Uncharted just remind me of Tomb Raider? Check out the video and see for yourself. This is definitely a return to form for Lara Croft.
My favourite part of the briefing had to be the South Park trailer. I’ve been excited about this since I heard it was announced and it looks like a lot of attention and care was taken with the brand. With creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone working closely with Obsidian it looks just like the TV show and I can’t wait to get my hands on this. It won’t be the summer blockbuster of video games but it just might be the most fun.
Splinter Cell is probably the pleasant surprise of the show. Even though I haven’t played a Splinter Cell game in awhile it looks very exciting. The gameplay has been sped up from past Splinter Cell games with the “killing in motion” mechanic of targeting enemies and taking them down quickly. Ubisoft is really top notch when it comes to animations and scenery as well so I think this might be the game to play if you’re a fan of stealth games. The only thing I don’t quite like is the mindless shoot-everything while covering behind a mid sized wall.
