Dawg you write 2 good.

So, really curious, what is the "big deal" with Ellen Page? I don't even know who she is, but people seemed to be losing their shit over her?

@Sooty said:

Watchdogs really didn't look that good visually, Star Wars I admit as next gen.

Put on your glasses and watch in 720p. Didn't look good visually? Look how many objects are on the screen in that shootout scene!

If games aren't art neither is any Pixar movie!

@GrandHarrier: It's because she's the voice of Ellie in The Last of Us, and was a "major reveal" during Sony's press conference as being the lead character in the new Quantic Dreams game Beyond

@Bassman2112 said:

@GrandHarrier: It's because she's the voice of Ellie in The Last of Us, and was a "major reveal" during Sony's press conference as being the lead character in the new Quantic Dreams game Beyond

She's not actually the voice of Ellie, people were just saying the character looks like her.

My Intel Q9550 and GTX 480 have felt "high-end" for a while now, but I bet I will need an upgrade when the next consoles come out to keep my games at high settings.

Still looking forward to it.

Really stoked for Most Wanted as well and for the same reasons as Jeff.

I just hope there is some sort of visual car customization. That always appealed to me in sorta way.

Yes, Jeff put it best. This is a year of transition, before new consoles and the disappointment is all really coming from Nintendo because they had to prove the Wii U. MS just has to show off to investors what cool new tech and games they got. Kinect sells well, and the smart glass stuff was really interesting. Sony showed off games but makes you worry about the Vita. And the Watchdogs and 1313 stuff is a hint of what you will see next year. A bombardment of specs for the consoles that comes along with new IPs. When consoles launch is the perfect opportunity to release a new IP since there is so little to play or release another sequel to a game that might not have been as big as before. So sit back, I cannot wait for E3 2013.

yeah E3 2013 should at the very lest be interesting

@sharpmezman said:

yeah E3 2013 should at the very lest be interesting

That's selling it a bit short, all things point to next year as being one of the best showings since 2005. Two new consoles, more studio stuff like Respawn, bungie, insomniac, and playground entertainment. It will be a huge hardware and software show for sure. Sadly it's a long wait.

@GERALTITUDE said:

@Top8cat: Best way to go is PC+PS3. Microsoft publishes a larger percentage of their games on PC (duh, I guess).

Never leave your PC.

QFT. Sold my XBox. But PS3+PC is the best combo if you can live with the lack of Gears, Halo and Fable.

@GERALTITUDE said:

@Top8cat: Best way to go is PC+PS3. Microsoft publishes a larger percentage of their games on PC (duh, I guess).

Never leave your PC.

QFT. Sold my XBox. But PS3+PC is the best combo if you can live with the lack of Gears, Halo and Fable.

@BestUsernameEver said:

@sharpmezman said:

yeah E3 2013 should at the very lest be interesting

That's selling it a bit short, all things point to next year as being one of the best showings since 2005. Two new consoles, more studio stuff like Respawn, bungie, insomniac, and playground entertainment. It will be a huge hardware and software show for sure. Sadly it's a long wait.

It's weird, E3 is usually a gauge or how good the year is going to be. E3 was fairly boring this year, but the next year is packed with tons of games. So the wait won't be too bad considering all the amazing games coming out.

Could really go for some Meadow Muffins these days.

No love for SimCity? Jeff seemed stoked on the live show.

@GrandHarrier said:

So, really curious, what is the "big deal" with Ellen Page? I don't even know who she is, but people seemed to be losing their shit over her?

because ever since the first The Last of Us trailer, people were saying the character of Ellie looked and sounded like Ellen Page (which they then said it was not her) ...and now at E3 Sony reveals Beyond by Quantic Dream which actually has Ellen Page as the main character of the game. That's why people kept joking about it. Ellie still looks like her but isn't and the Beyond character is actually played by her. Both are Sony exclusives and they opened and closed their show with these games.

@Wuddel said:

No love for SimCity? Jeff seemed stoked on the live show.

That was Ryan.

I think this notion among the bomb squad that everyones just going to ignore these consoles once the next one comes out is really kind of misinformed. Maybe it's because they're locked into buying it either way being part of the industry, but typically generational shifts take a year or two to fully occur. Look at all of the amazing ps2 games that came out post ps3 like God of War 2, and Persona's 3 and 4. Maybe this time it will be different with the way this generation has dragged on, but I'd be willing to bet that the 360 and ps3 still have another couple of years of solid games.

@Hunter5024: it's less that people are going to ignore them, and more than new consoles and their games are going to be the focus of a hell of a lot of attention. There's a slight difference I think ... and I'm usually a year or two 'late' with hopping onto new consoles (actually just waiting to see if their game selection gets any good) so will be enjoying this generation for a long time to come yet, but everything definitely goes on the back-burner when new hardware arrives - not because the old stuff is lesser or games stop coming out for it, just because the new stuff becomes the focus for attention.

I'm with you Jeff, can't wait for the new Burn...I mean NFS game

@buft said:

My dissapointment didnt come from the lack of games, in the UK i have no spike tv so i was forced to watch the press conferences

I don't live in the UK, but the press conferences were a big (and justified) source of some serious anger. If you have 10 minutes to devote to Usher singing like a moron, or your crappy AR technology (JK ROWLING ZOMG!!!!!1111ONEELEVEN), OR FOR BROKEN VOICE RECOGNITION (now in SPANISH), you have 10 minutes to use to show off GAMES for your GAME CONSOLE.

You have time to make The Last Of Us look like a SURVIVAL game with MORAL CHOICES rather than SHOOT DUDES IN THE FACE 2: SHOOT HARDER. You have time to make your "target audience" want to buy your $300 handheld and $350 "next-gen" motion control-centric console.

I don't get *all* of the negative vibe from people about this year's E3, but Jeff Gerstmann , and the rest of the GB crew...

There was some serious BS going on in these press conferences, and it needs to STOP. If PR and execs want to talk about crap that only other PR and execs want to hear, go reserve space in a different location and spout your buzzwords and catch-phrases there. E3 is about games.

Now, that being said, there were decent games shown off at these press conferences...some of them looked really good.

And if you didn't see something that interested you there, Giant Bomb, GameSpot, IGN, and other channels on YouTube can yield gameplay footage and interviews with developers of some of these new games. And there are more Quick Looks to come!

wii u strike out

Definitely gonna want to play some Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

I actually liked this E3 quite a lot. Sony and Microsoft stay clear of most hardware talk and everyone focused on the games. Games that will actually be playable in the near future, and without having to drop hundreds of dollars in new equipment.

And, for a transition year, there was a surprising amount of high profile new IPs and fresh ideas. Many won't live up to expectations, but right now lets let the hype machine roll...

I was really late to the party with Burnout Paradise, mostly because I suck at even arcady racing games to an incredible degree and rarely buy them, but that didn't stop me from really enjoying it, even though I didn't play very far into the post-credits content (10-15 events maybe). The only other arcade racer (other than Mario Kart back in the SNES days) I ever enjoyed somewhat extensively were the older NFS titles so I'm with you in being very excited for the new MW. The critical question for me is going to be how heavy the autolog integration is since I don't have arcade racing gamer friends and none of that will therefore do anything for me and if it will be practically idiot-proof so that I can progress without too much frustration.

And then theres XCOM of course but there has almost been said enough on that subject. I just need to see for myself now and hope for a glorious return!

Great write up Jeff.

Nice writeup, thanks!

This year's E3 mainly accomplished one thing for me: Getting me excited for E3 2013!

I just hope EA realizes that putting out a mediocre need for speed game in between the Criterion ones is probably doing a lot of damage to the brand.

ubisoft bought steam? what?

@Grilledcheez said:

I just hope EA realizes that putting out a mediocre need for speed game in between the Criterion ones is probably doing a lot of damage to the brand.

I don't think they do....

I know this has been said before, but I really feel like the E3 press conferences are being very negatively affected by being televised. It's causing them to cater to a lower common denominator. Instead of trying to show their more innovative or interesting games/products, or giving their entire product line some stage time, they're just showing what they think will be the biggest sellers, and the trailers/play throughs/vertical slices of those games are focusing entirely on action/combat like one expects from a movie trailer. How many slow, methodical scifi/horror/psychological thriller movies have action packed trailers that totally mislead the audience about what the movie is actually about because marketers think that's what will get more people into the theater? (and they're usually right).

I had a little double take myself at the "Ubisoft picks up steam" as it's such an ubiquitous word in gaming now, but it's an interesting case of "we never capitalize words on the internet anymore" confusion.

@Sorla10 said:

ubisoft bought steam? what?

I think he meant they are releasing more games on Steam? I have no idea though... he didn't really elaborate.

For me E3 2012 was a bit of a snooze, I have high hopes for 2013 with the next gen comming out (2 years late).

Well geez Jeff, glad you could rationalize E3 into something that wasn't a boring fucking disaster. For the rest of us, it sucked ass.

Borderlands 2 is definitely looking really great. The demo I played at PAX East (also the PC version) was very impressive.

As a Forza 4 convert from GT5, I am hugely excited about Forza Horizons... looks like the perfect "sim" to play when I just want to mess about, and not worry about cutting 2 tenths off my laptime. Hope it has the same feedback I get in FM4 on my CSR-E and isn't controller biased.

@LaFlamaBlanca said:

Well geez Jeff, glad you could rationalize E3 into something that wasn't a boring fucking disaster. For the rest of us, it sucked ass.

What? It was pretty god I thought.

@SmilingPig: 2 years late? Developers are going bankrupt left and right this generation, when cost goes up it will be crazy.

Interesting read though I personally am looking forward more to MoH Warfighter, Crysis 3, Dead Space 3, than the new NFS (I for one liked The Run, though). On E3 2013 next-gen consoles hopefully will have brought finally the concretization of all present speculation...

@DG991 said:

@Sorla10 said:

ubisoft bought steam? what?

I think he meant they are releasing more games on Steam? I have no idea though... he didn't really elaborate.

Are you not familiar with the phrase "picked up steam"? It means something gained momentum.

@Kingfalcon said:

@DG991 said:

@Sorla10 said:

ubisoft bought steam? what?

I think he meant they are releasing more games on Steam? I have no idea though... he didn't really elaborate.

Are you not familiar with the phrase "picked up steam"? It means something gained momentum.

I guess they didn't notice steam was not capitalized. I mean think about it for a second. Why would Valve sell Steam?

I personally like the talk of who won E3. It makes the conferences so much more entertaining when you look at it from that perspective.

As for the new Need For Speed, no thanks. Burnout Paradise ruined the series for me completely. That style of arcade racing is just not well suited for the rat race "find you own way" lack of structure. Burnout was always about high speed and reaction time. Not navigating a mini map so you have to take your eyes off the road and wonder which turn you're supposed to be making. I'm disappointed that Criterion is so insistent on this way of doing things. As if going the Midnight Club route is the only way to evolve the genre.