Reflecting on E3 2013 - Wiggy's Blog

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Reflecting on E3 2013 Stuck

Posted on June 20, 2013 at 10:33 AM.

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I've been to E3 three times now, and it's always such a zany place to go. To be sure, it's a treat to be able to go into what is essentially a giant video arcade and play around, but getting from place to place can always be a bit crazy with the sheer amount of people there. Either way, the industry needs the E3 spectacle in order to gain public mind share and to keep itself on its toes, so it's hard to imagine the show changing the format too much in the near future, especially after the previous downscaling backfired the way it did.

Admittedly, the booths are still a bit out of control, and it's hard to demo stuff when you can't really hear the sound or get a long amount of time with a game. It's also hard to capture video of everything, as people can definitely get in the way, or producers just don't want you to do so. Hopefully Steve and myself managed to get you, the readers, some meaningful video and impressions from the show floor.

I thought I'd just break down what I saw at the show in order to contextualize how I felt about each game. I'm pretty stoked about a lot of stuff I saw, so hopefully this can be helpful if you didn't get a chance to go to the show.

FIFA 14 (Xbox One)

While PES does still continue to deliver some compelling wrinkles in its gameplay, the next-gen version of FIFA 14 on display at E3 was very impressive in a lot of important ways. The presentation looked really good, and the game played incredibly smooth. There was less awkward transitions with the animations and tackling, and the shooting felt closer to PES than before. Everything moved so fluidly and responsively that it was hard to not to get excited.

Anticipation: 4/5

NHL 14 (Current-Gen)

NHL 14 is one of the few EA Sports games not getting a next-gen treatment, but I feel the changes they're making are meaningful enough to stand on their own merits. I agree with many of you that the presentation is stale as hell at this point, and I can't wait for that to change. That said, the new fighting engine and heavily revised hitting make the physicality that much more satisfying, and the tweaks to defensive skating, goalies and puck physics are also welcome. Additionally, we need to hear more about the Live the Life mode, as that could be a sleeper feature.

Anticipation: 4/5

PES 2014 (Current-Gen)

PES 2014 was a bit of a new experience for me, as I haven't really played much of the franchise before. The new Fox Engine visuals were definitely a boon to the player models and field detail, but I found the stadiums sort of average. The raucous vibe of the crowd is good, but they all animate in a similar way. The gameplay, though, is where PES makes its hay, and this year seems to allow a greater fidelity of control, with new right stick control moves and way better ball physics. I liked what I played of this from a gamepaly point of view, and I'm interested to see more.

Anticipation: 3/5

EA UFC (Next-Gen)

With the caveat that EA UFC was being shown as an isolated vertical slice, this was easily the most impressive thing I saw at the show. The actual effort visualized in the fights looked awesome, with proper collision detection and amazing fighter faces that grimaced and struggled as they were being hurt. The cuts and bruising to the face also looked tremendous, with a variation and realness not seen before now. Equally impressive was the footwork and revised striking, which could make for a truly compelling match that isn't just headkicks and haymakers. It's early for this game, but the promise of what they showed was truly impressive.

Anticipation: 5/5

Powerstar Golf (Xbox One)

This was a fun diversion on the show floor, as the game seems to be aping all of the things that Hot Shots Golf and Golf: Tee It Up do right. The game looks pretty spiffy, with an exaggerated art style, and the gameplay evoked the aforementioned titles in all the right ways. Add in some cool social and competitive hooks, and this one could be a neat launch title for Xbox One.

Anticipation: 3/5

Forza 5 (Xbox One)

For fans of the series, this will be more of what you want. The framerate is a rock-solid 60fps, the cars look amazing, and the new impulse triggers on Xbox One add something tactile to the driving experience. The inclusion of better Top Gear support and the "Drivatar" system are potentially cool additions as well.

Anticipation: 3/5

Football Heroes (iOS)

I'll be doing a preview of this one shortly, but it's certainly a neat idea for iOS. At a base level, it's a Tecmo Bowl�esque game with some physicality, ala Blitz, and it adds in some trading cards, loot and management. The powers you can use to juice up your players are a lot of fun, and it works well with the touch screen.

Anticipation: 3/5

Bonus (Non-Sports Games)

1) The Witcher 3

Definitely worth the wait, and the hype is well-deserved. This is an open-world adventure that brings together the best parts of Skyrim, Mass Effect and Red Dead Redemption to make a fantasy RPG that looks to take up large portions of your time. The visual fidelity of the world, weather, characters and towns was amazing stuff, and the game systems, like the beast wikipedia, look really promising.

Anticipation: 5/5

2) Titanfall

The showstopper from the MS conference definitely delivered when seen behind closed doors. The action looks fantastically fun, with some awesome mech-versus-soldier interplay as well as some cool wrinkles to stitch a story through multiplayer matches. Since the ex�Infinity Ward guys are working on this, it looks to be an awesome evolution of the Call of Duty style of gameplay.

Anticipation: 5/5

3) Watch Dogs

I'm a fairly big fan of the Assassin's Creed series, even though it's been driven into the ground a bit, so I'm excited for the potential of Watch Dogs. It's cool that you're essentially playing as Rorschach, and the multiplayer moments of hacking into other peoples' games evoked awesome memories of Splinter Cell multiplayer or the Assassin's Creed adversarial stuff.

Anticipation: 4/5

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