For the past few years, I've been writingarticles at the end of every E3 that lash back through the humbler keynotes. That's your PC Gaming Show, your Devolver Digital, etc. That there's enough in Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest Kickoff to give it its own blog is a product of the sheer volume of games on display here. There was some padding in the mix and a fair number of underwhelming announcements, and we'll talk about those, but the high profile extravaganzas have their dead zones too. On the whole, I thought that Keighley's set this year was approaching the quality of the E3 big boys.

The shocker of the afternoon was FromSoftware brainchild Elden Ring. You'd believe that if Bethesda was ready to unveil one of their most achingly awaited games, they'd want to do it on their terms on their stage. That the George R.R. Martin Soulslike capped off the Game Fest Kickoff represents an impressive get for Keighley. But zoom out, and you'll also see some variety on display. Anyone beyond the console manufacturers can cater to a wider range of platforms, and that includes the Game Fest. We also saw a fair bit of variation in the tone and play of the games on offer. In fact, enough that there wasn't always a smooth transition between titles. One minute, you might be watching the playful hand-drawn loveliness that is Chicory, and the next, you're witnessing hardened warriors deliver brutal blows on their opponents in Salt and Sacrifice. However, I'd be surprised to find a viewer who didn't see something during the one-hundred minutes that pulled them in.

For me, the points of interest were the games off the beaten path: TwoPoint Campus, a management game with a singular subject matter. Metal Slug Tactics, engrossing with its rhythmic animations. Planet of Lana, an exquisite hand-painted world for the player to traverse. Solar Ash, a free-flowing action game in which enemy and environment coalesced. Sable, a Moebius-tinted adventure that pops off the screen. Look at how the text in Sable gives extra insight and colour to the world. It doesn't just relay dialogue but also reflects the thoughts of the protagonist. It reads like a novel they're writing.

Michelle Zauner's stirring vocal performance accompanying the Sable footage was a rare example of a musical spot at a gaming event hitting the right note. Musical stagings at industry functions usually feel like they sit alongside the game announcements rather than integrating with them. For example, look at what Weezer did later in this show, banging out one of their latest album-fillers over a reel of multiplayer boating game Wave Break. Tell Me What You Want is about how Rivers Cuomo hates Pitchfork, apparently; it has nothing to do with being a tiny bear sailing the open waves. And does listening to it evoke the feeling of playing Wave Break? Does that make sense as a question?

Art games are often intensely sensory experiences, just like the modern aria Japanese Breakfast gave us. The sights of the player character sweeping over the sand dunes while soulful music pours forth is something you could imagine happening in Sable. Music and play preview come together to create a piece of media that is (hopefully) representative of the final game.

Unfortunately, the reason these more expressive and novel games stood out is that the Game Fest hosted a slew of conventional nerd culture fare that blurred together. After so many high fantasy, squad-based shooter, and action-RPG games, they all start to look the same. To be fair, I don't think this is because every one of these developers is churning out generic mush. We've all played two games in the same general format that felt drastically different because of differences in their design. Sometimes these distinctions are very subtle.

However, a lot of games get marketed like movies or TV shows. You hear the screaming hordes, you see the explosions and the flying thunderbolts, but you don't absorb the systems and the feel that set these creations apart. There is also a common gap between how games are marketed and how they behave. Even if a title leaves more time for strategising and contemplation, even if it varies its intensity over its course, what gets eyeballs on screen is a non-stop cavalcade of spectacle, so you end up with these trailers that suggest that that's what most games are.

A thread running through those advertisements and even some of the other video on show was this grating, goofy energy drink attitude. It's come to swirl around AAA games and genre fiction. You find it in comedy dialogue that's highly animated in place of being genuinely funny. In bombastic, ugly smears of colours across the screen. In pounding, tasteless electro-rock. In 2008 epic random internet humour. You could see it pop up in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Among Us, Netflix Geeked, and Ryan Reynolds' Free Guy among other previews. A little bit of Ryan Reynolds goes a long way.

If this style whets your appetite, more power to you, but I find it a little patronising. There's a subtle art to doing something big and dumb in an entertaining way, and it's not just throwing a bunch of wacky aesthetics at the screen. I'd say the problem is I'm older than the target audience for that vibe, but then it also didn't do anything for me when I was in my late teens. I suspect that marketers have tried to push for a monoculture when it comes to games: an all-encompassing, impulsive, and high energy position. One that risks diluting the diversity of personalities in media and communities. However, you can see how cultivating and catering to one set of sensibilities would be convenient for businesspeople investing in and selling products. Deeply engraved and monolithic tastes mean that it's clear how to market and maybe even make your game to maximise sales.

Fortunately, this kick-off is just that: an opening ceremony. On Game Fest's Day of the Devs stream, which is too expansive to cover here, we could see some games in their full glory, not just cut up into slick sixty-second edits. Again, it's mostly the indies that shine here. We spend a lot of time pining for glimpses of the blockbuster games during E3, but publishers keep them under only the safest lock and key. It's the indie games that are most available for preview and that we stand to learn the most about over the course of an expo like this.

I don't know. Maybe it's just the benefit of having a year off, but I appreciated this early celebration in the E3 season. I actually think the Summer Game Fest Kickoff stands head and shoulders above The Game Awards, the event Keighley is better known for running. The Game Awards feels like an awards show wishing it didn't have to give out so many accolades and could act as more of a showcase of new games. The Game Fest Kickoff was able to just focus solely on the upcoming media and was all the better for it. Thanks for reading.