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Stream life: Qazi’s E3 2021 notes

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Well, it wasn’t that bad after all. With the presentations of E3 2021 moving to dedicated streams rather than a stage show, there were fears from past attendees that it would never quite be the same again. For the rest of us, however, it was business as usual – the streams provided by the various hosts were more than sufficient. Whenever E3 comes around, the whole process threatens to feel more like a responsibility than a spectacle; customers patiently waiting through hours of – let’s be real – adverts, in case something surprises them. Personally, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking forward to now – after the recent highs of FFVII Remake, Persona 5 Royal and Yakuza Like a Dragon I was hoping to discover new things to get excited about again. Happily, I could relax: looking over the paper titled “Qazi’s E3 2021 notes” there are definitely a few things worth talking about.

Qazi’s E3 2021 notes – Elden Ring

Qazi's E3 2021 notes

Qazi’s E3 2021 notes begin with Elden Ring. From Software’s new game was first announced in 2019 – billed as a new “dark fantasy action RPG” created by Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin. I might not the hugest fan of From’s games and their appeal to me can be hit and miss, but I’ve enjoyed them enough to want to keep an eye on new announcements. The new trailer showcased horse-riding, some slick melee combat (with a hint of magic, or enchantment) and some surprisingly fluid movement. If the final game plays as good as it looks, it seems like we might find ourselves in control of a capable and agile protagonist – putting more pressure on the player to make the most of their character’s abilities. However, From’s dark fantasy action RPGs have a reputation for being challenging experiences, and there’s still a lot about Elden Ring that’s unknown: what is the penalty for failure? How well will it accommodate players who are fans of GRRM but only have a passing interest in videogames? The marketing blurb hints at “open ended” gameplay where one can define their playstyle and “chart their own path”, but it could be no more “open ended” than From’s other games – where a player has to choose one of several taxing challenges to overcome. One positive piece of information (that may have been announced before and I missed it) was that the game would be multi-platform and cross-generation, launching next January on Xbox Series, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and Steam. So if you’ve been waiting on that new-gen console purchase, at least you know that you’ll be able to play this on something you already own.

Qazi’s E3 2021 notes – Tunic, The Ascent

Qazi's E3 2021 notes

One game name that I didn’t expect on the “Qazi’s E3 2021 notes” list was The Ascent. I had barely been following this game before seeing the trailer and I only half-knew the name from chatter online, but it looks like a gorgeous piece of cyberpunk RPG shooter action from an elevated perspective. Maybe it won’t be the most cerebral thing out there, and I caught some lighting and textures that made me fear for my ageing desktop PC (my specs are somewhere between the minimum and recommended) but it could be another thing that I can add to my Steam wishlist and then forget about for months. Speaking of my wishlist, another game that’s been on there for a while is Tunic – it received a little slot during Summer Game Fest, as well as an Xbox exclusive demo. This might not be much more than the demo I played a while back, but it’s nice to know that the game is still alive.

Qazi’s E3 2021 notes – Replaced, Phantom Abyss

Qazi's E3 2021 notes

Phantom Abyss was a game that came to my attention in late May – a procedurally generated “runner” game with asynchronous multiplayer, it asks players to sprint through dangerous gauntlets of traps and obstacles that wouldn’t look out of place on an Indiana Jones set, and retrieving sacred relics. Branching paths force players to make quick decisions, whilst the titular phantoms are the ghosts of other players and their previous efforts – essentially, you’re navigating obstacles with your character and also viewing ghost replays of others. (I’m curious about how phantoms work with procedural environments, but maybe the generation is based on a set of “segments”, with ghost replays representing players’ attempts through one particular segment.) The game is available on Steam Early Access this month, with the Steam store page suggesting a June 22nd release date.

My main notes end with a short mention of Replaced, described by developer Sad Cat Games as “a 2.5D Retro-Futuristic Cinematic Platformer” that will be released next year on Xbox, Steam and Epic. With its striking lighting, cinematic use of focus and pixel characters, it drew a lot of comparisons to The Last Night: the Odd Tales game announced back in 2017. With moody shots of a character running through the woods, cryptic scrolling error messages in red system text and panning views of run-down streets (all set to a synthy soundtrack), it’s hard to blame people for making comparisons, but hopefully this game doesn’t disappear into the void. (And – like The Ascent – hopefully it’s playable on this creaky old PC…)

Honourable mentions

There were a few other notables throughout the various shows but none of them caught my attention like the games mentioned above. The Square Enix presentation actually took a little time to show Neo: The World Ends With You, Nier Reincarnation and Babylon’s Fall… but with Babylon’s Fall still looking like it’s quite early in development, and Neo: TWEWY and Nier Reincarnation (hopefully) arriving soon, there weren’t many new reasons to get excited if you had already been following these games. I think Forza Horizon 5 deserves a mention just for its scale and detail – I haven’t played a Forza game since Motorsport 4 on the 360, so maybe it’s not that much of a leap for some, but the variety of locations on offer make it feel like you’ll be playing for some time before things start feeling samey. And as I write this, I’ve just caught up with Nintendo’s main presentation – as a company that relies strongly on proven IP I wasn’t expecting them to show off anything too outlandish, but there was an intriguing new 2D Metroid, the glorious return of Wario Ware in a brand new game, and another long-overdue look at Shin Megami Tensei V.

Wrapping up

Generally, the previews gave me a lot more than I was expecting, with the hype being brought by several brand new games rather than merely sequels and extensions of games that I already know. I may still be on the fence about my next console purchase, but I’ve got more to think about now, as well as a few things I can enjoy on the hardware I have at the moment. As always, leave a comment if you’d like to talk about your own E3 2021 highlights, and hopefully we can look forward to these games and more in the future.

Apathy, horror and more – Qazi’s E3 2019 notes

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I’ll be honest: after the last of the main E3 2019 conferences ended, I was struggling to come up with an article for this site that had my collected thoughts, and not just because Sony were absent. I was still hoping for multiplatform game reveals, trailers of indie games I could play on PC and maybe even some mobile titles from Nintendo. However, I think that whilst there were a lot of nice announcements, nothing really jumped out and inspired me to gush for hundreds of words. Instead, here are some more considered E3 2019 notes on the announcements that have intrigued me so far.

E3 2019 notes: Dungeons

E3 2019 notes

Although I don’t own an Xbox One I still tuned into the Microsoft conference, partly because I own a half-decent PC I use for articles here, and partly because I was expecting some trailers for multiplatform games. And in the end they had a few genuinely interesting announcements that ended up in my E3 2019 notes. One of the opening games, Bleeding Edge, was quickly dismissed as being some kind of “heroes” game – Ninja Theory’s take on Overwatch. However, when the words “ONLINE MELEE” accompany more predictable lines such as “COMBAT ACTION” and “4V4” – I get the feeling there will be less shooting and it may be more of a brawler akin to Anarchy Reigns. As a fan of fighting games, I’m keen to see how this develops. Another interesting reveal was the first showing of Battletoads; the new game is still 2D but it adopts a cartoon-style aesthetic whilst seemingly sticking to the original gameplay. I saw a lot of criticism over Battletoads’ presentation, with people claiming that it looked like a “Flash game” – apparently in 2019 we still aren’t able to see through an aesthetic we’re not expecting and talk about the gameplay. At least Minecraft Dungeons impressed by merely making me interested in a Minecraft game – dungeon crawling from a raised perspective always feels more purposeful than building my terrible and confusing cave networks in first-person.

E3 2019 notes: More dungeons

E3 2019 notes

I also belatedly took a look at the main Nintendo conference in the hope of getting more E3 2019 notes from that – I don’t own a Nintendo Switch or 3DS but there’s always the chance that something may persuade me into making a hardware purchase. Contra Rogue Corps initially looked interesting, but I imagine that nostalgic attachment for the Contra games may have influenced me. Take away the Contra name and what you have left might not be so special after all. Something that was special emerged from the latest The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening trailer; “arranging” your own custom dungeon with parts obtained from the main game could end up providing a lot of fun in a series that’s traditionally kept its tools to itself. Also, we got to see a little more of Astral Chain, which seemed to have both the same smooth combat and awfully corny characters we’ve come to expect from Platinum; apparently the studio can only pull a decent cast together when Yoko Taro’s providing the story.

E3 2019 notes: Pause modes

E3 2019 notes

Unusually, it was Square Enix’s show that I had the most interest in this year. Last time around there was the intriguing Babylon’s Fall and news of a Nier Automata release for Xbox One and PC. When preparing my E3 2019 notes I was wondering if we would see more from Platinum’s game or maybe even a new Nier project such as a remake of the 2010 original. None of that happened – instead there was plenty Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Marvel. With so little news on Babylon’s Fall since E3 2018 one must wonder what’s going on, but I’ll hold out until the end of the year before judging. At least we had a lot of new FFVII footage to enjoy, with confirmation that battles could be paused and commands issued in a turn-based fashion. I had hoped that this was the case ever since seeing that unused “Command” prompt in early trailers, but many others had less faith than me.

E3 2019 notes: Best Game

E3 2019 notes

There were lots of “interesting” games then, but very little made an impression until I belatedly looked at Digital Devolver’s “Big Fancy Press Conference 2019”. From the adorable Fall Guys to the new expansion for The Messenger, there were plenty of announcements to keep fans of indie games happy. The most interesting thing I saw in any conference was Carrion, a Devolver-published 2D game where you play as “an amorphous creature of unknown origins” and explore what the game’s store page on Steam calls a “reverse horror” experience.

And those are my main highlights from my E3 2019 notes. Carrion is Game of the Show, Babylon’s Fall is either dead or will re-appear later this year, and I was actually intrigued by both a new Zelda and a new Minecraft, which is a surprise. As always, let us know what you thought of E3 2019 in the comments below.

Samurai, gods, big rosters – notes from my E3 2018

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Stepping out into the mid-June sunshine, away from the hype and noise that follows any series of E3 press conferences, I couldn’t deny that some of that hype may be rubbing off on me. Before we even get to my E3 2018, let’s remember that we’re already in the middle of what people are claiming to be a new golden era of gaming – one where modern classics are being released with uncommon frequency. Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Nier: Automata, Persona 5, Cuphead, Sonic Mania, Celeste – the list just keeps going, and it looks like the list will grow even more if my E3 2018 was anything to go by. Rather than one platform holder emerging as a clear winner or loser (and let’s not pretend that there haven’t been clear winners and losers in the past), my E3 2018 had Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo revealing exciting and interesting new games.

Microsoft favourites from my E3 2018

my E3 2018

The biggest reveal of Microsoft’s show was undoubtedly Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. A new IP from revered developer From Software, it promises polished third-person action with a samurai flavour. The trailer was only about two or three minutes long but showed the mechanical arm first seen in the “Shadows Die Twice” trailer, and its owner – a character who can go toe-to-toe with swordsmen, use said arm in a grappling-hook fashion to ascend to higher positions or cross chasms, and supposedly rise to his feet after being “killed”, which seems appropriate given the subtitle. Elsewhere, it was revealed that the once PS4 and PC exclusive Nier Automata would receive an Xbox port with the release of Nier Automata: Become as Gods Edition (perhaps to make up for Scalebound’s demise), so hopefully more people can enjoy the weird and wonderful combination of slick Platinum gameplay and distinct Nier quirkiness. Also of note was the first true reveal of Cyberpunk 2077 and news that Devil May Cry would be getting a new numbered sequel, but the lack of substantial gameplay footage for either game suggests that these are very early announcements.

Sony familiarity in my E3 2018

my E3 2018

By comparison, many people criticised the lack of new reveals in Sony’s conference; there were many games we already knew about from previous shows (such as Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part 2 and Death Stranding), and with the remake of Final Fantasy VII still early in development, there was little hope of seeing anything new from that game. Despite this, we did get confirmation of an exciting new PSVR title with From Software’s Deracine, reaffirmation that Mizuguchi’s The Tetris Effect still looks superb, and more gorgeous footage of Sucker Punch‘s Ghost of Tsushima. (As an aside, it seems that samurai games were the general theme of this year’s E3, with Tsushima, Sekiro and a trailer of Nioh 2 all making appearances somewhere amongst the conferences.) Another notable surprise was Remedy’s Control, a game that seems to combine shifting geometry with conventional gunplay and creative mind control mechanics. It was a fun looking title, even if it did make me wish for a sequel to Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy…

Nintendo’s contribution to my E3 2018

my E3 2018

As is to be expected these days, Nintendo combined the bizarre with the exciting, from making me question the need for a Pokéball peripheral used in conjuction with Pokémon Go (which will transfer Pokémon data from the mobile game to a new console game) when you already have wireless communication technology in your primary gaming devices… to the surprise reveal of Daemon X Machina, an exciting action game from Marvelous Entertainment that boasts bright and colourful visuals and shows off the kind of gameplay that brings to mind games such as Omega Boost and Transformers Devastation. Elsewhere in the show, the unveiling of a new Mario Party was hardly a massive surprise – at the same time, the immediacy and social nature of the series is an obvious fit for the Switch hardware – and the new Super Smash Bros seemed hell-bent on including every character from previous games in its roster, to the delight of series fans. It was also revealed that these characters will all be tweaked slightly, hopefully resulting in a balanced game and some exciting re-learning of old favourites.

The highlight of my E3 2018

my E3 2018

All of the three main shows succeeded in giving fans something to look forward to, but the reveal that interested me the most was Babylon’s Fall. This was one of the new announcements from a very short Square Enix showcase scheduled separately from the three main conferences – a new IP being developed by Platinum Games, Babylon’s Fall only revealed a glimpse of CG at the end of its trailer, but was introduced with text-heavy stills that promised a tale of clashing ideologies, of gods striking down against mankind, and of huge armoured characters and electric (or perhaps arcane) powers. It was perhaps the only trailer I went through frame by frame as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, and it’s definitely something I intend to keep an eye on between now and its 2019 release.

Obviously, I saw some criticism levelled at the three main conferences as people collected their own thoughts on discussion boards and in social media – people claimed that Sony’s show repeated the same announcements as last year and didn’t have enough new reveals, or that Nintendo’s show needed to give fans more details about known games in development (precious little was seen of Metroid Prime 4, Yoshi, or Starfox Grand Prix)… Microsoft’s show was perhaps the most refreshing, but I noticed people claiming that their conference pushed 4K and the Xbox One X a little too much for owners of older Xbox models. Despite all of this, I’m remaining optimistic about the future of all three platform holders – there’s something for everyone to look forward to in the near future, and the absence of any big new hardware reveals (certain optimistic individuals expected the unveiling of a PlayStation 5 before the show commenced) suggests that the current generation still has some life left in it for the time being. As ever, let us know if there were any reveals that stood out for you in the comments below.

My highlights from the E3 2017 conferences

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As I write this, the last of the E3 2017 conferences has come to a close and – if you are to believe more cynical types – games journalists everywhere are scrambling to draft their hot takes, expand their wordcounts and plug whatever rubbish they were talked into endorsing via promises of promotional swag. Naturally the likes of Disposable Media are in a different scenario, since we’re a general entertainment website that features content from people who just talk about the things they like to talk about, but it would be remiss not to give the show some coverage. Despite the extent of my eighth-gen hardware being limited to a PS4, Vita and half-decent PC, I made time for each of the main shows – happily, it was worth it, as pretty much everyone presenting the E3 2017 conferences had games worth talking about.

E3 2017 conferences: new hardware and anime “FighterZ”

Let’s focus on the big three for now; there were other E3 2017 conferences but I’d like to cover their games individually as more news surfaces. Microsoft was the first to show their hand in perhaps the most conveniently timed show for people in the BST zone. As expected, they opened the show with news of the Xbox One X and proceeded to show off incredibly pretty Forza Motorsport 7 footage; it’s an obvious candidate for showcasing the graphical fidelity of new hardware, and the large fanbase will ensure it enjoys success on the system. Amongst the more predictable reveals – a new Assassin’s Creed, the aforementioned Forza segment – was news that the terribly-named PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was coming to Xbox, and no annual conference would be complete without the obligatory Minecraft segment. More promising trailers included Dragonball FighterZ (a 1v1 fighter based on an anime I barely follow, but the presentation and gameplay look superb), a new Life Is Strange game and the gorgeous Anthem, so there was a lot to get excited about. (Of course, a number of the games shown off will be multiformat, so it was worth tuning in to the show even if you don’t own an Xbox One.)

E3 2017 conferences: PSVR support and updated classics

Sony’s was the second of the E3 2017 conferences and, as is tradition, it went live during the small hours for UK gamers. Catching up with the conference revealed a mixture of familiar names (Days Gone, God of War), bizarre trailers (FFXV: Monster of the Deep) and some more daring ventures – a number of PSVR titles were there to reassure people that Sony weren’t about to let the headset follow the Vita into obscurity, and a PSVR update to Skyrim could be a huge hit depending on controller requirements and performance on various PS4 models. Another bold gamble came in the form of a new Monster Hunter – it seemed somewhat more simple and bombastic than the handheld titles, and observers have accused it of being a dumbing-down, but I’m curious to see if the new direction pays off. (On a personal note, I was happy to see a new FFXII: TZA trailer after my recent revisiting of the original, and news that Undertale is coming to PS4 may finally prompt me to try out the game.)

E3 2017 conferences: working titles and series extensions

The last of the E3 2017 conferences I watched was Nintendo’s, and whilst Microsoft was busy showing off a new hardware platform, the Kyoto giant was tasked with building the library of the console it released this March. Happily, they’re never shy of falling back on familiar names, and fans welcomed news of more Mario, more Zelda, and more Metroid. As a fan of the side-scrolling platformers I was particularly fond of the trailers for the currently-unnamed Yoshi and Kirby games (unless they really will be called “Yoshi” and “Kirby” as per the trailer outros.) However, with so much to play on my existing gaming hardware I’m still in no hurry to pick up a Switch.

In short, it’s a good time to be a fan of games. Everyone had plenty of trailers to show (and the ratio of trailers to preamble was most welcome) and I know I have a few more upcoming games on my radar now. As always, if you have any thoughts on the E3 2017 conferences that you’d like to share, leave a comment below.

E3 2016 shows – a brief recap of the Big 3

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By the time you read this, the main E3 2016 shows from the big three will be more-or-less over – and for the first time in a few years it seems like each of the hosts of these E3 2016 shows can rightfully feel happy about the quality of the conference (or Treehouse) they held. Since I don’t own every current-gen home console and/or handheld, the Sony conference held my interest more than the other E3 2016 shows… nevertheless, I like to watch all three to get an idea of what’s going on in gaming lately.

E3 2016 shows: Microsoft

E3 2016 shows

Microsoft had a lot of reasons to be happy in their conference – the first of the E3 2016 shows. Whilst rumours may be circulating about the Scorpio machine and other hardware revisions, they had a lot of interesting news about the games that owners of current Xbox hardware will be playing. Even when a lot of the cheers were for further instalments in old franchises such as Gears of War and Forza, those new instalments still looked impressive enough in their own right. (My best failed guess at a teaser also happened during this conference, when I thought that Tekken 7 would be Tekken X Street Fighter just because Akuma was in the footage.) Meanwhile, Hideki Kamiya was in his element in an environment where he could engage with the audience without worrying about them engaging back, but Scalebound still seemed a little sluggish next to Bayonetta 2, Transformers Devastation and other games in Platinum’s back catalogue (not to mention the forthcoming Nier Automata), so it remains to be seen whether this new game meets the expectations of Platinum’s fans.

E3 2016 shows: Sony

E3 2016 shows

Following this, the next of these E3 2016 shows was hosted by Sony, who had the thankless task of trying to follow-up the remarkable conference they held last year, but like Microsoft they showed a strong commitment to showcasing forthcoming games rather than talking about infrastructures, statistics or other media. Alongside franchise extensions and sequels (God of War, Final Fantasy) we saw more of Horizon: Zero Dawn, a new Quantic Dream game and a number of Playstation VR titles, as well as Kojima’s magnificent stage appearance and new footage from The Last Guardian. Some games such as Nier Automata, Gravity Rush 2 and Persona 5 were notably absent from the conference but new trailers for the former two games emerged outside of the conference and a new P5 reveal may have happened outside of the main conference by the time you read this (if it has, expect a seperate news update shortly.)

E3 2016 shows: Nintendo

E3 2016 shows

When browsing the schedules of the E3 2016 shows I was never in a massive hurry to watch Nintendo’s offering – I haven’t owned a Nintendo system since the original DS and I just don’t enjoy Zelda, Metroid, Smash Bros, Kid Icarus, Pilotwings etc – but they had Zelda, and Pokemon…and Zelda again. Even so, I can’t be too hard on Zelda; the series has gone on for so long and shifted in so many different directions that the Zelda franchise is pretty malleable and can more-or-less pretend to be other games – When reading news about the new Zelda – titled “Breath of the Wild” – I saw opinions online ranging from “Zelda Skyrim” to “Zelda Souls”. And if the game can deliver that kind of gameplay it might attract people who find “traditional” Zelda (whatever that is now) unappealing.

E3 2016 shows: exciting for everyone

I watched the main three E3 2016 shows with the intention of writing some brief general impressions here but I’m not about to provide in-depth speculation over any one title just yet. In short, everyone had various reasons to be excited about gaming’s future. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all showed a lot of great games (and in some cases new technology) in their E3 2016 shows and the presenters were all entertaining and put on a good show. Maybe not everyone was happy with the conferences because their most-wanted game didn’t make an appearance, but there is still a lot to look forward to.

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