I talked at length last Summaries about how exhausting E3 week can be, whether you're covering the event professionally like the Great Big Balls of Fire Boys, or staying up late to watch the night shows or (if you're particularly masochistic) writing a daily blog series concurrently. Since it's been occupying all my waking moments the past week, I might as well actually talk about the event some.

For the conferences, I'm going to hand first place to Microsoft for the way they came out swinging, addressing the ongoing issue of a lack of exclusives by building their briefing around an enormous procession of upcoming games. How many actual exclusives they had in there is purely academic, of course; what might be an "exclusive" could actually be a console exclusive that's also available for PC, or a timed exclusive that will come to PS4 and/or Switch eventually. All the same, a good E3 conference involves showing off a lot of games no-one's seen before without too much talk about synergy and multimedia experiences to soak up the run time, and Microsoft's the only one who really pulled that feat off.

Next is Sony, who had a relatively strong showing but still mostly limited themselves to four big exclusives they wanted to parade out. I can't help but feel that they're getting a little complacent as the industry leaders, secure in the knowledge that their exclusives are the best and happy to spend almost their whole conference building elaborate sets for these four sure-fire winners. I've no doubt that The Last of Us II, Death Stranding, Spider-Man and Ghost of Tsushima will do well for them, but I would've liked the wide variation we saw from Microsoft, especially something akin to that ID@Xbox Indie montage (and the PSVR thing didn't count, because I still don't see a future in that). Still, I came away from that briefing reasonably assured that my PlayStation 4 will continue to see heavy use in the year ahead.

The next best conference in my view was Ubisoft, if only because I was more interested in what the were showing off between Assassin's Creed Odyssey (I wanted to quit Assassin's Creed so bad after the overall fine but far too familiar foibles of Syndicate, but it seems they course-corrected quite a bit with the renewed Origins), Beyond Good & Evil 2, and a new Trials. They put on a show and made an effort, as always, starting with that damn dabbing panda and tossing in another Shigeru Miyamoto cameo to solidify their link with Nintendo. As a Switch owner, I'm glad no-one's tossing that thing under a bus yet, even if Nintendo themselves couldn't make a strong case this year (more on that later). Maybe I imagined it, but getting out from underneath the shadow of that Vivendi takeover seems to have put a spring back in Ubisoft's step.

Bethesda's next, and it was a close call between them and Ubisoft for the bronze medal honors. I liked how they went hard on the self-effacing humor, Todd Howard getting a great jab on how ubiquitous Skyrim's been of late and addressing people's concerns over the new Fallout 76. Bethesda's briefing definitely had a slightly desperate air to it also, with the vague announcements of Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI, but even if the new online survival Fallout doesn't appeal, I think I could still find time for Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein Youngblood, and the promising Rage 2 in the near future.

My beloved Nintendo didn't really put together a strong showing, focusing most of their show on the nitty-gritty of the new Smash Bros for Switch, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. That game certainly looks good, but for all the time they spent on gameplay tweaks and its enormous cast, there was barely anything about single-player modes, which are usually what I come to the series to see. Otherwise, most of the games they showed were known properties like Octopath and Splatoon 2's Octo DLC due to release later this summer, and we got nothing on the next Metroid Prime or Yoshi games. It felt like they were keeping a lot under their hat, treating E3 like any other quarterly report, and it seemed to involve the least amount of effort out of any of the briefings. Well, save one...

Square Enix, my dawgs, why did you even bother showing up this year? Don't get me wrong, I love me some Keith David voiceovers, but you showed off so little that I didn't already know about and then farted away a scant 30 minutes after starting. I'm stoked for Dragon Quest XI and a new game from Nier Automata's Platinum Games team, and The Quiet Man certainly left an impression, but that whole pre-recorded briefing looked thrown together in a weekend. I guess expectations were high for the major Japanese publisher after several years of avoiding E3 - they had to be showing off something significant to go to all this trouble of returning, right? - but it ultimately came to very little. I bet they regret kicking IO Interactive to the curb now; Hitman 2 was one of the best showings this E3.

Finally, we have EA. I always dread the EA block because they combine awkward, streamer/shoutcaster-focused eSports talk with a whole lot of sports games I couldn't care less about. They had very little on offer this year that I was invested in, as Anthem is starting to look more and more like an ersatz Destiny and we didn't get anywhere near enough details for Respawn's Star Wars game. The only game I had any kind of interest towards was that Sea of Solitude Indie, which had a similar symbolic, self-reflective vibe that Bound and Papo & Yo exhibited. The fact that they had the gall to present an even more expensive subscription service, for games you couldn't pay me to write about, was the icing on a very lousy dirt cake.

I did also catch the PC Gaming show. I didn't want to judge it by the same standards above given its a smaller operation from a rival game critiquing site, but I'll say that they featured a lot of games I'm curious about and that the hosts did a fine job presenting and tackling the various developer interviews. That Sega appeared in the middle to announce Yakuza 0 and Kiwami for PC was perhaps the big takeaway there, but The Forgotten City, Star Control Origins (though given what's going on between Stardock and SC's original creators, I might skip this one in favor of Toys for Bob's Ghosts of the Precursors reboot instead), the cyberpunk Harvest Moon that is Morning Star, or the aesthetically-pleasing Sable and Night Call were all highlights too. Might be a show to watch next E3 also.

Finally, my game of the show is going to have to be everyone else's: Cyberpunk 2077. That was one hell of a CG trailer, and the excited impressions from the entire GB staff certainly elevated my interest further. I've no doubt CD Projekt Red can craft an expansive and detailed RPG world in that universe, and I'm hyped to find out more about it in the years to come. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a whole of trailers to review...

...Well, OK, I've got enough time between reviewing trailers to run down everything else I did this week when I should've been moderating:

• The Indie Game of the Week was Scrap Garden, one of a few DRM-free games I picked up in a bundle a little while ago that have been sitting on my desktop ever since. It wouldn't be a high priority if not for that, but the game still has its charms buried deep in some uninspiring and frequently unpleasant platforming gameplay. I'm inclined to try any 3D platformer released in the Indie space regardless of reception (A Hat in Time's coming, as soon as it drops in price, even if I don't fully agree with its developers' stances on a few things), and Scrap Garden's definitely not the worst I've played.
• I squeezed in a SNES Classic Mk. II somewhere during E3 week, albeit a little later than usual. The showcase games this time were Lenar's Gunple: Gunman's Proof as the Candidate and DMA Design's Lemmings as the Nominee. The former is a bizarre western/sci-fi hybrid that borrows A Link to the Past's format but changes the gameplay to a multi-directional shoot 'em up. In addition to the uncommon hybrid format, the game's other big draw is its silly sense of humor and enemy design. The latter needs no introduction, as one of the most significant puzzle games of the 16-bit era and one that depends entirely on the player's ability to corral a group of suicidally stupid marching rodents.
• Every E3 I host a daily series called "Mento's Alternative to E3" as a reprieve from the enormous industry event monopolizing the rest of the website. This time, I decided to look into a group of randomizer hacks to see if any could compete with the excellent A Link to the Past randomizer that took over my Mondays for the past couple of months. In chronological order, we have: Day -2: EarthBound, where I liked the low-key superficial buffoonery of switching all the NPC sprites around; Day -1: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, a hack that randomizes the item drops and souls in a way that seemed to make the game easier but actually had a sting in its tail; Day 0: Super Mario World, which made the game unexpectedly tough by putting levels and enemies in all the wrong places; Day 1: Final Fantasy Tactics, easily my favorite with all the extra strategic wrinkles and dimensions it brought to the otherwise straightforward early battles; Day 2: Pokémon FireRed, as Pokémon has always been the last word in randomizer runs and I was very impressed with the width and scale of this hack; and Day 3: Secret of Mana, which repurposes the original game's assets to create a pure roguelike.

Addenda

TV: Legion (Season 2)

I last wrote about Marvel's Legion back in May, and since then I've managed to catch up with the second season of the show which ended earlier this week. This season seems to have been highly divisive for a lot of people, submerging the show's universe in this obfuscating level of weirdness that is Division 3's headquarters, with its androgynous robots and perplexing decor. The show also feels a lot slower than season 1, and is robbed of its greatest weapon - that we're never quite sure if David Haller, a.k.a. Legion, actually has powers or if it's a figment of his addled mind. The first season eventually makes it clear that it's actually the latter, but what this season presupposes is that maybe it's been both this whole time?

What I will say about season 2 is that there are very few bright spots and moments of levity. The antagonist of the show has stepped out of the shadows and declared war on his former victim, and almost the entire span of the season builds towards their fateful last encounter. Yet there's also been an undercurrent that explores the outcome of this battle, suggesting that whoever wins in a battle of two enormous wills can still be a net negative for the rest of us. There's so much table-setting going on, and that's best exemplified by the voiceover "lectures" from Jon Hamm that are peppered throughout, discussing the power of delusion and its ability to spread from person to person.

I've probably stepped on or close to the line of spoilers for anyone who has yet to be caught up, so I hope I haven't revealed too much. It's hard to discuss this season without addressing the events of the one before it - an issue that made it difficult to discuss The Good Place season 2 also - because everyone ends up where they are at the start of the season due to the revelations of the previous. As one last aside before I go deep into spoiler territory for real, I'll state that the entire cast of this show - the genial but warped David Haller played by Dan Stevens, his emotionally standoffish but determined girlfriend Syd Barrett played by Rachel Keller, the disenfranchised former activist Melanie Bird played by Jean Smart and her easily confused partner Oliver played by Jemaine Clement, the mercurial and damaged Lenny Busker played by Audrey Plaza, the reliable source of levity that are the Loudermilks (Bill Irwin as the tech genius Cary and Amber Midthunder as the combative Kerry), and even the show's villain played with a caramel-smooth sinister charm by Navid Negahban - are all stellar and help carry the show through this, its weirdest period. Similarly, the show's sense of setting a scene and its otherworldly flights of fancy are still some of the most avant garde material on TV right now, which seems like such an odd departure for a TV show built upon a Marvel property; they of the solid if very safe Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Season 2's going to be a hard sell when introducing people to show in the future, with season 1 providing enough goodwill to hopefully buoy people through it, but time will tell whether it becomes the beginning of the end for Legion or simply the end of the beginning. Now, it's spoiler zone time:

Movie: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

I've been meaning to catch up on my Wes Anderson movies after the release of Isle of Dogs, and Moonrise Kingdom seemed like the ideal place to start, as the most highly-rated of his filmography I had yet to see.

I'll come clean about Anderson: there's a certain decried aspect of the way he makes movies that nonetheless appeals to me, and for all the wrong reasons. See, I'm not a big fan of human drama films. It's not because I have some sort of social disorder (I don't think, at least) but because it triggers my empathy and makes me feel miserable for these fictional people and their problems. The better acted the movie and the more relatable the subject matter, the worse I feel. However, even though most of Anderson's movies could be called human drama (or dramedy, I suppose), there's a certain level of artifice to how every shot is constructed, scored, displayed, and how every set and mise én scene is built by an obsessive perfectionist, that it works to dull the edge of the reality of the movie. That allows me to enjoy it more, because the characters don't feel like real people but actors in an incredibly elaborate staged play. Others have remarked that Anderson's movies all resemble each other and deal exclusively in a genre often dubbed "tweecore", but those are all positives too as far as I'm concerned. They feel more like Pixar movies: you sit and admire the craft of the production while tolerating straightforward moral stories with a few welcome comedic interludes to break them up.

At any rate, Moonrise Kingdom marked a departure for the director because he wanted to make a movie where the central performances were child actors. His films already have a childlike whimsy, and Rushmore featured a very young Jason Schwartzman, so I don't think he had too much trouble trying to get those kids on his wavelength. For that matter, those two performances - Jared Gilman as Sam and Kara Haywood as Suzy - felt very natural and sweet, and the supporting roles weren't quite as eccentric to help ground the movie's message about young love, finding someone that understands you, and the pervasive appeal of adventures when you live on a New England island in the 1960s: a place where little seems to ever happen and during an era where there's not a whole lot of the outside world filtering in through various media. Bruce Willis as the island's hangdog cop, Ed Norton as the well-meaning but overwhelmed scoutmaster, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand as Suzy's unhappy parents - all great supporting performances that don't need to be as crazy as the Tenenbaums or the Eurotrash weirdos that patronize the Grand Budapest Hotel. We did get a few of those in Tilda Swinton's "Social Services", an agent of same that is only ever referred to by what she represents as a cute running gag, and Bob Balaban's similarly unnamed narrator who seems very engaged with the weather patterns and geography of the movie's setting and less so with the humans occupying it.

The movie's plot, meanwhile, has a certain shaggy dog nature to it, similar to The Life Aquatic, The Grand Budapest Hotel and a few of his other movies. The core of the central relationship keeps the movie on track, but it eventually stops being about this runaway adventure the lovebirds are on about midway through the movie. The final act seems them reunited, but there are moments where you're no longer sure what the goal of the movie is or where it might be going. The ending brings it all back together, but that unusual structure can make it a little hard to concentrate on what's happening. It could also be that I'm exhausted from E3 and watched it in the dead of night, so take this particular criticism with a pinch of salt.

Overall, I thought it was a great movie and one that I might recommend to Anderson neophytes or those who tire of the aforementioned artifice and just-so nature of his movies, as this one's a little more grounded and meant for younger audiences. Chances are, though, you've seen this movie already after hearing of its various accolades six years ago or have otherwise long made up your mind not to watch it because of general Anderson enervation. One final note, though, is that a certain shocking scene in this movie might explain why Anderson wanted to make Isle of Dogs this year; he had a lot to answer for with regards to his treatment of man's best friend.

The Rest

No game section this week, as all my free time was absorbed by the time vampire that was E3. I squeezed in a few more runs of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, collecting trophies from the Classic mode and various other collectibles from the game's lucrative Crazy Orders mode (you tend to earn a lot of free passes for Crazy Orders while playing Classic, creating this feedback loop between the two) and then spending what money I have left on the rarer, and pricier, trophies from the shop. A part of me knows that I should be stockpiling all my cash for a certain challenge, but I'm probably going to tap out long before I complete them all - as discussed last week, there's a few challenges in that set that seem like they would require superhuman ability at the game.

Like Infinifactory, after this week Smash Bros will be something I only bust out whenever I have a small gap between larger games. I've been thinking that it's finally time to see The Last Guardian - I've waited long enough, after all - and then embark on a big JRPG project for the summer, or even that oft-threatened Yakuza 5 playthrough. That is, once I'm done with these trailer reviews...