Oh lord, it's that time of year again - "PrE3." Whispers are popping up in podcasts and comments sections. Everyone is getting frenzied about what games will be shown at E3. I'm no stranger to that mania - in fact, last year I listed some of my favorite announcements. But thinking back on it now, how many of those games did I actually play?

The first game on my list was A Way Out. The premise initially hooked me, but seeing the director go Wiseau during the Game Awards sort of killed my hype for it. When it came out, it was fun to watch some people goof around in videos, but I have no desire to play it myself.

I put the Shadow of the Colossus remake on there, but I never picked it up. From what I heard it's still great, so maybe sometime in the future, but there's other stuff I want to play.

I lumped Nintendo stuff together because I didn't have a Switch. I did play some Mario Odyssey on my roommate's console, and it was pretty fun, I guess. They would have to pull some crazy stunt to get me to drop 300 bones. Like, Mother 3 crazy.

The reveal for Wolfenstein 2 got me interested enough to pick up the previous entry. And it was pretty fun! Along the way, though, I realized those games are more fun to watch than to play. Watching the "movie version" on YouTube, I'm a big fan of the crazy shit they put in that story. I just didn't play it.

Oh, and how can we forget the biggest crisis in the games world last year? When they showed Battlefront 2 on stage, there was one narrative: The last game was garbage, and this one will be so much better. Boy, hindsight's a killer on that one. The bad press that game got when it came out was incredible. At E3, though, it looked like it could have been great. What a shame.

Hey, it wasn't all doom and gloom! Last year was the last showcase of Cuphead before it finally came out. To me, it totally lived up to the hype and became my 2017 game of the year. There's always the chance for another fantastic title to take up the mantle this year.

There were also a few games shown that haven't come out yet. The Artful Escape and The Last Night are both artistically fascinating, so if those come back they would get back on the list. Also shown was the sequel to Ori, which led me to the original game. I'm sure the next one will be even more depressing. Plus, Spider-Man still looks promising. Whether I play any of these depends on my time or, you know, a Battlefront situation.

Looking back at my record over the past year has tempered my excitement for E3 this year. I might get swept right back into it if everyone brings their A-game, but doing this has given me some new perspective on how the E3 hype cycle works. I would encourage everyone to do the same, if only to check your "score." How good were you at following up on last year's announcements?