[Warning: This content may contain spoilers for those wishing to watch the VODS unaware.]
The Big-3 have finally laid their hands out on the table for all to see (referring to Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony of course), at least for the year of 2018. Below, you will find my thoughts on each presentation. However, for the purpose of keeping the article down in size, I decided to focus specifically on my thoughts about what the Big-3 has shown in their respective news conferences. Perhaps I will cover the rest of the E3 news at a later date.
I never expect much at all from Microsoft, so I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with their nonstop barrage of game trailers during their presentation. Though most of the games were either multi-platform or titles I wasn’t interested in, they deserve some credit for putting games first. Even better, a lot of the games shown on Xbox will also be available for Windows 10. I think it’s fantastic that I can enjoy their library without buying an Xbone. Microsoft is a powerful contender this year for sure.
I was expecting a lot more from Sony and they left me unsatisfied this year. Sony’s showcase was focused on a much smaller selection of titles, many of them forgettable to me.
While The Last of Us 2 and Bushido Blade are technically impressive, I prefer less cinematic heavy experiences. Death Stranding or whatever it’s called leaves me with too many questions, so I’m not sure how to feel about it yet.
Resident Evil 2, a remake of the PlayStation classic, was the number one highlight from the presentation for me. RE2 is my favorite Resident Evil title of all time and the trailer did not disappoint. It’s great that Resident Evil came back to its survival horror roots in the past few years and I really hope that we keep it that way!
Spider-Man looked okay with some fun looking movement, but I worry about how linear it looks. Other than that, I couldn’t tell you what else Sony has shown… their conference was just that easily forgettable. I am super disappointed…
Nintendo’s approach to their E3 presentation within the last while has been to release a prerecorded video presentation and then to go in depth on their games during a Post-Conference livestream. This has always been my favorite approach to E3 announcements. However, with this approach, you can definitely tell when they don’t have enough content ready to go.
They dropped a few game trailers and then a sizzle reel before switching to Super Smash Bros Ultimate for the last TWENTY FIVE minutes. Before we get to that, Super Mario Party was announced. This game is pretty exciting for me because seems to have ditched the vehicle, returning to classic Mario Party gameplay with a few new characters available for play: Bowser and Goomba, for example. The only other game that stuck out to me was Dragonball FighterZ getting confirmed for Switch, unfortunately.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate looks amazing, with literally every character that’s ever been in the roster in any Smash game confirmed to return. They also updated and streamlined a lot of final smashes along with a lot of gameplay updates that they detailed exhaustively. Joining Inkling as a new character is Ridley of Metroid fame and Daisy joins the fray as an “Echo Fighter” counterpart to Peach. They could have done a lot of this detailed information in the Nintendo Treehouse segment which immediately followed, but I am now worried that they had nothing else to fill the time…
There’s a lot to be excited about here if you are a Smash enthusiast, however, Nintendo didn’t announce much else for those who are not. It’s worth mentioning that Nintendo Treehouse is streaming with more details until Friday, so there might be some surprises in store. However, as it stands, this is one of Nintendo’s weaker showings. The last time I was this disappointed in a Nintendo E3 presentation was the year they focused way too much on Wii Music. Granted, the game they focused on here was a better game, but I was expecting more. At the very least, where is Pikmin 4 and Yoshi (untitled)?
Overall, I was disappointed in two thirds of the Big-3. Microsoft definitely took the gold home this year with the sheer amount of games they brought to their show. I hope Nintendo and Sony are saving some surprises to announce after E3, but I am concerned that they aren’t. Oh well, at least my wallet won’t suffer too much this year!
