by mento
Jesus H. Christmas there must be some way I can get out of... Oh hey! I didn't see you there. E3's rolled around again and that means another horde of trailers has descended upon the site, like so many noisy locusts called down by an angry, merciless God called @marino. Alas, there's often too many for any rational human being to watch, let alone critique for the sake of those too busy to parse them all, which is where yours truly comes in. Again. For the fourth year in a row.
Each year I like to introduce a new review category, and since Terminators were so big this year - What's more current than a killer robot from 1984? Lord if anyone at E3 knows - I've decided to build the TONINATOR out of this robot from the future that tried to kill me once (long story, it was this whole thing). The Toninator will scan each trailer and use its neural net processor to deliver a brusque analysis of the tone of each one, whether that's "somber," or "mournful," or "melancholy," or a thousand other words that mean sad that I'm going to need a thesaurus to conjure.
We also have the usual hype factor and my own subjective appraisal of how each game is looking so far. It's all in good fun, especially the part where I unduly rip apart games I don't care about because I haven't been getting enough sleep.
(This year I'm breaking up Trailer Blazer: E3 into four lists of ~50 games each. Should make updates more readable and more frequent.)
| Trailer Blazers | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| E3 2016 | E3 2017 | E3 2018 (Part One) | E3 2018 (Part Two) |
| E3 2019 (Part One) | E3 2019 (Part Two) | E3 2019 (Part Three) | E3 2019 (Part Four) |
Showing 1-10 of 50 items
Trailer Trashing: Man, has it already been twenty years since soccer was invented? How time flies. Toninator: > ["EXUBERANT." ERROR: NOTHING EXUBERANT ABOUT PLAYING SOCCER IN A MUSTY PARKING GARAGE.] Thinkfluenced?: Every year I say "no" to playing the new FIFA, but this year I think I'll change my tune and say "fuck no".
Trailer Trashing: Unstarwarted (though also Darth Souls too?) is coming along nicely. Rogue One/Rebels tie-ins seem inevitable with Saw around. I can't wait to see the "play as the bad guys" DLC campaign, Star Wars Empire: Fall In Order. Toninator: (Trailer #1: Gameplay) > ["COMPREHENSIVE." ADDENDUM: DROID MURDER IS CONCERNING.] (Trailer #2: Story) > ["REBELLIOUS." ADDENDUM: WHEN'S THE IG-88 SPIN-OFF?] Thinkfluenced?: I'm optimistic that EA will eventually put out a single decent single-player Star Wars game in my lifetime that I will want to play, and that Fallen Order could be it. Of course, they'll probably announce cosmetic lootboxes to turn the little droid companion into Salacious Crumb or a very small AT-AT or something.
Trailer Trashing: Wait, am I really covering all these "new character"/"new dlc" type of trailers? I suppose so, since they make up about half of the trailers we got at E3 this year. Anyway, Apex Legends has a new character, and it's Gum from Jet Set Radio. Does Sega know about this? Toninator: > ["PATRONLY." ERROR: "NATALIE WATSON" ALREADY LOGGED IN DATABASE UNDER "MASTER, KEYBLADE" AND "GAMER, JOYOUS."] Thinkfluenced?: I like Battle Royale as a concept, but these enormous multiplayer shooters either require cash for online services or a half-decent PC to run them and I don't have much of either.
Trailer Trashing: Coming soon to that game everyone stopped playing (if they even started): the new map focused around the tiny but strategically vital Greek village of "Who Cares", just north of the bloody and historically significant battlefield of "Why Is This Game Still A Thing". Toninator: > ["OVEREXPLAINING." ERROR: BATTLEFIELD'S ONE STRENGTH OVER ITS RIVALS IS THE USE OF MILITARY VEHICLES, WHICH THIS NEW MAP EXPRESSLY FORBIDS. DOES NOT COMPUTE.] Thinkfluenced?: Marita more like Nah-rita.
Trailer Trashing: Remember those UFO games you kept passing over whenever you browsed your local game shop's enormous pre-owned PS2 game bargain bin? Well, it's back. Jeez, what's next, a SpongeBob licensed game revival? Toninator: > ["CHEESILY MALEVOLENT." ADDENDUM: I ENJOYED THE PART WHERE THE GERMAN-ACCENTED VILLAIN TERMINATED ALL THE HUMANS.] Thinkfluenced?: Probably not for me. I'm curious about this recent nostalgic trend for B-Games though. Did we really miss them that much?
Trailer Trashing: I'd love to hear more about Control since it's out so soon, but this trailer is nothing but brief corridor shots and snippets of expositionary voiceover. I guess its purpose is more "hey, don't forget that the neat transforming gun game is out soon." Toninator: > ["OMINOUS." ADDENDUM: WILL NEW GAME PLUS MODE BE CALLED "CONTROL-V"?] Thinkfluenced?: I skipped Quantum Break, but everyone seems real excited by Control. From what I'm hearing, there's a distinct spacewhipper/environmental storytelling thread emerging from its demo, which is definitely my kind of thing.
Trailer Trashing: Aw, I kinda liked Yooka-Laylee. It's a little dispiriting to see that PlayTonic have abandoned the open-world 3D collectathon model already, but the combination Super Mario 3D Land/Donkey Kong Country Returns angle makes sense for any modern platformer franchise. Toninator: > ["PLAYFUL." ERROR: FUTURE DATABASE DOES NOT INCLUDE THIS SOUNDTRACK IN THE RUNNING FOR GIANT BOMB BEST MUSIC GOTY 2019.] Thinkfluenced?: Absolutely. I Kickstarted the first Yooka-Laylee and am happy to see it did well enough to spawn a sequel. It certainly looks impressive for an Indie game.
Trailer Trashing: Unfortunately, all we get of Larian's Baldur's Gate remake is a brief and horrifying sequence of a man turning into an Illithid - not the way I thought those guys bred, but maybe 5E is different - and not much else. It's set in Baldur's Gate and has mindflayers in it. That's it for now. Toninator: > ["CRONENBERGIAN." ADDENDUM: APPRECIATE THE EVIL RED GLOWY EYES.] Thinkfluenced?: Heck yeah. Larian's proven themselves highly adept with the CRPGs format after a few early so-so efforts, and I can think of few other developers I'd want in charge of this franchise.
Trailer Trashing: The first of five Tom Clancy games to be demonstrated in what had to be the least appealing Ubisoft conference in a while, Breakpoint looks to continue whatever the plot of Wildlands was. My one regret is that we didn't have a team of pretend online gamers talking all over Jon Bernthal's big speech scene about their vape rigs. Toninator: > ["PUNISHING." ADDENDUM: PFFT, THIS ONLY HAS "FIGURATIVE" KILLING MACHINES.] Thinkfluenced?: Eh. I'm not morally opposed to a decent open-world military shooter stealth game, but me and the Clance empire have never really seen eye to eye. They all just seem a bit too self-serious and joyless for my liking. Of all the Clance games at this year's Ubisoft conference though, Breakpoint's the one I'm likeliest to play.
Trailer Trashing: Just a brief interview with Pat Mahomes of the Chiefs with a few shots of what looks like a PS3 game. I dunno. It's Madden, and they're running out of ways to make the new ones more interesting, so I guess they just leaned into "hey, our licensed NFL game has real people in it." Toninator: > ["CONFESSIONAL." ADDENDUM: WAITING FOR THE POST-APOCALPYSE EDITION, ARMADDENGEDDON.] Thinkfluenced?: I'm tired of seeing EA sports shit every E3. We know it's coming; you can set your watch to it. I'd say "show us something else instead" but besides Star Wars I don't think that was an option for EA this year.
