As someone who grew up reading about E3 in PC Gamer, actually attending the expo is truly a strange thing. I heard about the growing opulence (if that’s the proper word) and bloated spending of the old shows, and watched, almost entirely disinterestedly, as the show was cut back, severely, into a small, industry-only set of quick, efficient (comparatively) interviews and showcases. Now, as everyone keeps on telling us, E3 is back! It’s not just back, it’s almost as big as it used to be.
Apparently a lot of people were nonplussed or unexcited by what the big 3 and others had to offer. After all, they say, aside from some vague and inconclusive motion control reveals and a lot of big, expected franchises, what was there to see? I can appreciate this argument. I was absolutely unexcited by the “revolutionary” technology I saw demoed at the Sony press conference, and by the Natal videos. They’re selling something that doesn’t really exist yet, not for real gamers and consumers, and even if it did, they’ve come nowhere near convincing me that what they’ve created will mean much to me, the general gaming populace. It looks amazing, and everyone says it's amazing, but I don't want to have my hopes dashed.
But to reduce E3 to a handful of bad announcements and a crop of outrageously budgeted (yet doubtlessly high quality) sequels and old IPs would be a true oversight. After all, we may be staring the zillionth Final Fantasy in its face, but we’re also awaiting Brutal Legend, and Dragon Age. I’m not suggesting that those titles are revolutionary or that they will change everything. I’m simply saying that we should be happy we have games like those when we’re also awaiting about 10 different Need for Speed titles, and twice as many identical music and band games.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the sameness of so many of the big releases that are bearing down on us. As pointed out by Michael Abbott*, almost all of these games star men, dark, brooding, world-weary men who must, oddly enough, save the world. It says something unpleasant about our industry when you realize that the affable, in-no-way untraditional Nathan Drake seems like a bright luminary among the grizzled army guys and space guys and medieval guys. He is, in his own right, another “dark” hero, he’s just written by grown-ups.
So, was I disappointed by this unending wave of sweating, heaving XY saviors? More than I’d like. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t find some spots of brilliance among the more traditional fair.
Darke
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Great article, this pretty much reflects my views about E3 and the flood of news i got from it. |
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