Today was the final day of E3 2014 and I wanted to wrap things up a little differently. In addition to the regular photo report, which will focus on the more miscellaneous parts of the show, I wanted to give some final thoughts on my favourite and most interesting experiences had here over the past four days.
My game of show (releasing 2014):
Ori and the Blind Forest
This was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had playing a video game – the only thing similar I can think of being Journey, although in a very different way.
Far Cry 4, Sunset Overdrive, Evolve, Destiny, Valiant Hearts. These are all great contenders in the same category (along with others I didn’t have a chance to play) but none came close to the fun I had with this indie from Moon Studios.
My game of show (that is to come):
The Division
Oh. My. Glob. This game is just beautiful. Yes, it is a shooter and that’s not for everyone—but boy—is it for me. I finally got to sit through the gameplay presentation Ubisoft were running today and I’m so glad I made it a point to get to it because it is amazing!
It’s so hard to place The Division into a particular bucket. I can only describe it as a MMORPG for First Person Shooters. What I can speak of is the beauty of this game. The new snowdrop engine is truly next-gen and needs to be commended. If you haven’t already please, please go watch the gameplay trailer that was shown during the Microsoft briefing earlier in the week.
They also showed off The Division’s tablet integration; the tablet user taking control of a drone running overhead of the two regular players running through the demo. It’s the first time I’ve seen a “second screen” experience make any sense and do so in a real-time way. What you see on table is exactly what’s happening in the action and your interactions can really help and make a difference interacting with any player/enemy throughout the world.
A close second for me was The Order: 1886 and only just. Quite possibly even more beautiful than The Division the thing The Order lacks is this new genre-breaking gameplay of MMORPG/FPS.
Most exciting experience:
Project Morpheus
I had a great opportunity to try on a Project Morpheus headset at the Sony booth yesterday and it was really good fun. I played through their street luge demo which was over far too quickly as you fly down a hill at over 160km/h (I have no idea if that’s realistic or not) but it felt awesome.
Compared to the Oculus—which let’s face it, everyone does—the Morpheus felt more comfortable and it allowed space for my glasses to remain on, but that’s where it’s advantages ended. You’ve got to remember it’s an early, early prototype so you have to give it a little slack but the image seemed far less crisp, the response a little lagged. It’s also a little less immersive in my opinion; not completely encapsulating your vision. The small portion of vision you have towards your feet may be there to help with some people having motion sickness using headsets but I kept catching my feet out of the corner of my vision and breaking the experience.
The Media Room
This is about half of the media room area. A few bean-bags, a couple of couches and around 100 people at any one time trying to use the facilities to get their stories & videos out in their crazy deadlines.
I’ve never seen a convention with such a massive media lounge, nor have I been to one where it’s actually used to its capacity before.
A lot of very talented, very committed people in here that I had the pleasure of sharing space with. Thanks all.
The small stalls
Hidden away in the corner or in one case literally at the end of hallway I didn’t know existed until someone moved a portable wall today are the little guys.
At every convention I’ve been to you find little merchants or periphery companies to the core of the exhibition who are there selling promoting their wares. Some seemed quite popular, the company selling HipShotDot for example, others not so much (American Express).
The picture is of a custom Xbox One controller from PDP.
Evolve Monster
And the winner of most extravagant model made goes to…. 2K Games. This little guy was front and centre of their booth. Standing at around 4 metres tall, this giant is one of the two monsters that have been announced for the title.
He certainly had presence and could not be missed standing right at the front door of the West Hall entrance.
The video games museum
Lastly, I’ll leave you with the museum. Behind the giant stage of War Gaming was the museum lay spread over a wide area of trestle tables and floor space. Consoles, arcade boxes, original work logs of the team creating the Atari 2600, it was a bevy of nostalgia that unfortunately was likely overlooked by many attendees.
I really hope you enjoyed the coverage from E3 this year. It really has been a lot of fun bringing it to you. That said it will be nice to get some real sleep again after the past four days of mayhem!