Four press conferences in all give me plenty of material, so I beg of your pardon if I just whip through some of it.
Microsoft - Showing Vulnerability
A picture says a thousand words. Surprisingly, a picture summary for Microsoft's conference, just says the same word a thousand times.
I don't know if anybody else has an experience that mimics my own, but over the last year, I have fallen further and further away from my Xbox. There's fewer and fewer reasons why it I should go to it over my recently upgraded PC. Steam makes everything cheaper, almost everything is multi-platform, and everything just runs better. I know not everybody has a great computer, but it is becoming increasingly cheaper, and the more it does, the more Microsoft should worry. Go play Assassin's Creed Revelations on the 360, and then find a video of it running on a decent computer, and the difference is night and day in most situations. Same goes for Mass Effect, Kingdoms of Amalur, Skyrim, Deus Ex... it just keeps going on like this. As it stands, I plan on getting Dead Space 3, Resident Evil 6, and Borderlands 2 are just a few of the games I'll be getting on PC. It's not because of the mouse vs. controller thing; I still tend to use my controller hooked up to my PC. The games just look better, especially when trying to play co-op and not having to do split-screen. Now maybe I am alone on this, but the number of people going down this route must surely be growing, right?
Oh, and. what the hell is this?
Look, I love me some Dance Central, and I was sold at the name, but I did not want to see 5 minutes of Usher on stage. I'm here to watch games, not people dancing.
I suppose I like the idea, I mean heck, I liked it when Nintendo presented it last year. I just don't know if the SmartGlass is something I'm going to be using a whole lot. Why is data on a crashed ship in Halo 4 beamed to my Tab when it could just as easily, and far more conveniently, be a codex entry in-game? I'm just not seeing a whole lot of use for something that isn't going to be always on and always in my hand like the Wii U Gamepad, but maybe I was too stunned by the five minute presentation on searching Bing by Genres to think of anything. I thought to myself. "Oh.. okay. I didn't know you COULDN'T search by genre, but alright, that's a... I don't know why this is an announcement and not like a patch note but.. Oh... so now you're going to demonstrate it. Because I can't grasp the concept of genre? I guess? Holy fuck, are you still going? Multiple genres? We get it... It's not great. Oh and now in Multiple Languages? Really."
EA - Still doing EA things
I don't really have anything negative to say. I'm really psyched for Dead Space 3 with co-op. SimCity looks nifty. Otherwise it's just modern shooters and sports games, which aren't terribly my bag.
Ubisoft - More like Boobysoft, am I right?
Aisha Tyler is amazing. Her stage presence is commanding in a few different ways, and she shifts between them seamlessly. She does off-color humor well, and then just goes straight into professional speaker mode without missing a beat. It's really unfortunate she was paired off with a sweaty palmed, know-nothing "YouTube Celebrity" named Tobiscus? Tobias? Tobascus? I don't care. He was painful on stage and ruined what would have been an otherwise stellar MCing by the Lady Tyler.
If Ubisoft had anything to bring me, it was this:
If there were two things, well here you go:
Watch Dogs came out of nowhere and just snatched everybody's attention. One part Grand Theft Auto, one part Orwellian distopian future, and maybe even a dash of Deus Ex atmosphere, this game really has a lot going on for it. I want to see how well that holds up.
And how about that FarCry footage, eh? That was... yeah...
Finally, I'm glad to see Ubisoft backing up the Wii U, just like they did with the Wii. The mysterious (and terribly named) ZombiU and Rayman Legends seem poised to be two great early launch titles. Hopefully they fair a bit better than Red Steel did.
Sony - Tells you how great you look to distract you
Nothing makes me feel loved like being told what a wonderful consumer I am. And you know, I was cool with the Smash Bros. rip-off that was Sony All-Stars. I mean heck, if it's still half as good as Smash, then it's gotta be worth some attention, right? That was until this happened.
That shit is just gross. Don't put your game under searches for your direct competitors game that you totally lifted from. That's bad pool, through and through.
Also, it would appear that Sony has just left the Vita to die a slow and painful death already. I thought that would take at least a year. There were two titles announced for it, both of which were scaled down, 'lite' versions of bigger console games. There were a couple of 'shared platforms' like the aforementioned Sony's All Stars Plus Some People That Have Nothing to Do with Sony game. Other than that? Nothing. Not only did they not announce anything else, they announced that they would have a mobile competitor to their own damn handheld in their new Playstation Mobile lineup. I'm not really sure what kind of game they're playing but it honestly doesn't look like they've got a full deck to play it with.
Overall today wasn't bad at all. I got some really neat games to look forward too, a couple of surprises. Criterion's new Need for Speed + Burnout Paradise hybrid looks stellar. Atlus announced some crazy beat-em-up/RPG for the 3DS called Code of Princess. Given the relative obscurity of the title, and the mainstream presses general knack for ignoring the 3DS, I think this one is going to go under most peoples radars. I'm not sure if it's even that great, but it certainly looks promising enough.
What are you excited about, Internet at Large? Tell me, for I must know. Leave a comment down below.
-Something about a good one.
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