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Monday, June 4, 2012

E3 2012 - Part 1: The Beginning

No, I'm not actually at E3.  I am not that important.  However, I am going to use the Internet, the live television coverage and information from social media to continuously update this blog with new information about what is coming out with my thoughts on what I've seen.  Note, I'm starting this about an hour and a half into the coverage so I will try to cover as much ground as possible.

As I write this article, I am watching live gameplay from a new MMO entitled Defiance which is directly linked to a narrative in a television show that launches on the same day in April, 2013.  The game is a run-and-gun action MMO with lots of layers and massive boss battles.  If the gameplay is good, it could be a great title.  It is, however, very hard to break into the market for a new MMO for a few reasons.  First is most people do not want to have a large number of subscriptions charging every month.  Second is most MMO players already have a game of choice with leveled and geared characters and friends they regularly play with.  It isn't easy to convince players to devote weeks of gameplay to building up a new character in a brand new world.  As far as the TV show tie-in goes, it seems a little gimmicky and I'm not too sure how much these two are actually going to affect each other.  It is possible that, if the show is good, fans of of that series may get into the game, but given the quality of most science fiction television today, my hopes are not all that high.

Earlier in the coverage master-developer Bethesda revealed gameplay for Dishonored.  A brand new IP that will introduce all new tactics into the RPG world.  The game takes place in a pseudo-steampunk London, England and you play a lone hero with powers to possess living things, stop time, teleport and much, much more.  The idea is to have as much freedom in combat as possible and Dishonored definitely seems to deliver.  The fact that Bethesda is the developer gives me high hopes for this one, as they are one of the more consistently-good software companies out there and if anyone can pull it off, it's them.

Now, for Halo 4.  The game that most, a few years ago, would never come.  This title is meant to launch an entirely new trilogy picking up right where 3 left off.  New enemies like Knights (heavily-armored super-soldiers with all the agility of Spiderman and the menace of a freaking T-Rex.  Watchers, a new enemy type, hovers over the Knight, healing, resurrecting and shielding all the while spawning small Crawlers to agitate the overwhelmed Master Chief.  light rifle animation when you pick it up  Up to this point in the demo, my attitude of what I saw was more or less "Meh."  Halo is a great, great series but they need to go big and get really creative and that fight looked great.  I would have liked to see a little more for the game because the demo they gave, especially, following Call of Duty: Black Ops II's epic-looking showing.

On that note, Call of Duty is a power-house franchise and the new entry looks great.  However, it has a massive albatross hanging from its flimsy neck in the form of a big sign that reads "Developed by Treyarch".  Treyarch worked on a few of the titles in the series and while they are not exactly bad, they all seem a little underwhelming compared to the big shifts and massive feel of the entries from Infinity Ward. That said, the demo looked great, with a crumbling metropolis and miles of highly-detailed debris with a lot going on in the background as well as solid-looking gameplay.  I would say my attitude about this one is very mild enthusiasm.

I also want to discuss Mortal Kombat-co-creator Ed Boon's new game Injustice: Gods Among Us, an impressive-looking DC Comics-themed fighter that looks like a blast.  Big set pieces with outmatched battles of Harley Quinn versus Superman are the highlight but I think this could work.  Boon is a talented man and his team appears to have made a big, polished fighter with a confirmed roster of "Over twenty characters."  Keep your eyes open for this one.

Lastly for this entry I will reference the new Castlevania just premiered.  It's a 3D Castlevania game.  That should be all I have to say.  That is a deal-breaker on its face.  But, the game appeared to be played on a 2D plane, so maybe it will work!  I would love, LOVE to see a new Castlevania that looks like a game of today and feels like the great games of yesterday.  That is where this franchise should go and I believe Konami is starting to catch on after the excellent downloadable game Castlevania: Harmony of Despair.

I will post again after the first press conference.  Stay tuned for more

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