For the past five years I have taken all three days at E3 to carefully analyze as many games as possible. This year, because of a number of factors, I only spent a single day. While this meant that I spent less hands-on time than I would have liked, I did get to see and try many huge titles. So rather than compile a day-by-day post, I am compiling both my thoughts about everything I saw at the show.
0 Comments
Some of you may have guessed by now that I have spent some time in and around game developers. Occasionally, details about the projects they have worked on has leaked to the general public. While it can be fun to speculate about what a new game will include or where it will be set, real leaks of information can be devastating to a game’s development. I would argue that it essentially ruined the ending of one entire AAA game series.
Over the past couple of months I have debated whether or not to change my reviews to include mature language. I realize that it is an important issue for parents, one that is almost certainly more important than gambling or, at times, even substance use. However, I have a few reasons why including language is a bit beyond my current capabilities. The past year looked like a disaster for video games. In fact, the past few years looked awful. Remember how awful Battlefield 4 was at launch? Remember how Skyrim was basically unplayable, especially for PS3 users? Remember how Assassin’s Creed Unity somehow managed to be laggy on the PS4? How is that even possible? Oh and don’t get me started on how Call of Duty is basically the same Call of Duty as every Call of Duty. Well guys, Destiny’s loot cave is patched. By now it’s basically old hat. Fortunately, there will always be more loot caves. And while there have been many discussions about why people use the loot cave and the potential pitfalls of exploiting Destiny’s loot system in this manner, let’s take a moment to analyze exactly what led to the almost necessity of the loot cave and similar exploits, what can be done to fix the system, and why Bungie decided to close the cave before fixing the loot system.
At the beginning of this week I spent some time talking about Watch_Dogs and explained that, this year, too many developers are having to split their efforts between making Gen4 exciting and making Gen3 stable. I expected only a handful of titles to get my blood pumping and make me excited about this year’s possibilities. I am extremely happy to say that I wasn’t entirely correct.
It's all over. The sun has set on the last day of gaming madness. I managed to squeeze in a number of huge titles today. After this, I am going to take a day or two to think about what I saw and then I'll give my overall impression for the entire week.
Day 2 of E3 2014 has come and gone, and once again I got access to some absolutely unbelievable content. The Division, Destiny, Call of Duty, and so much more! Oh, and don't let me forget to mention that I got to actually play Rainbow Six: Siege. Not just see, PLAY!
The first day of E3 2014 is over. I managed to see 9 games in the brief time I had. There are definitely some "game of the year" contenders on this list. Here's just a brief overview of what I saw today.
I am going to go ahead and do something that I generally try to avoid with this site. I am going to temporarily disregard the parental content in a game and just focus on the game itself. This is going to be a discussion about Watch_Dogs, because I believe it is an excellent way to mentally prepare ourselves as gamers (or people who know gamers) for what to expect at E3, for the rest of the year, and for a decent amount of time after that. Watch_Dogs is a victim in an unwinnable game, a game that will claim more than just one victim before we can put it to rest.
I don’t normally like calling attention to stories that talk about a killer who played video games. It’s always a huge logical fallacy to leap. “He played video games”, “he is a killer”, “killers play video games”, or “video games turn people into killers”. It’s a classic in flawed logic. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s better to quash something before the flames spread into an uncontrollable wildfire.
I don’t care who you are, sooner or later everyone asks “when am I ever going to use [insert academic subject] in real life?” And you know what? Plenty of times that’s an extremely good question that should be answered with a “No, you will never use that again, I’m sorry you wasted your time on this frustrating and pointless exercise.” But sometimes, just sometimes, you get an opportunity to use something you scoffed at earlier.
This is a story about a game that I hate and the most recent time I used geometry. The other day I was given an article that argued that sex workers, specifically those in strip clubs and brothels, should be removed from video games. On the surface, it’s the kind of thing that seems like a positive thing for video games. But I believe that games that include brothels and strip clubs have a much larger problem that, if addressed, would solve the issue with brothels and strip clubs entirely.
It has been three years since I first wrote a review for this site. At the risk of sounding like I’m grandstanding for such a tiny accomplishment, I want to take a moment for myself to reflect on everything I managed to power through so that 156 written reviews, 41 video reviews (soon to be 42), somewhere around 45 comments, and a few other random side projects could be available for public consumption.
I stopped watching reviews by sites like IGN and GameSpot years ago. With how much time I spend playing, watching, reading about, and thinking about video games half of the time I’m able to better judge whether I will enjoy a video game than they are. Maybe it’s some sort of subconscious, six-sense-like ability, but usually I am able to accurately predict whether or not a game is going to be enjoyable. However, I do have more prevalent reasons that you might want to consider as well.
52 more games have come and gone. Some were amazing, others were amazingly terrible, but all were worth trying. Which ones stood out as the most interesting? Here is a list of the best games I played in 2013.
On Saturday morning I woke up, checked the news, and was surprised by the headline “Boy, 8, fatally shoots 90-year-old relative after playing video game...”. “Great,” I thought to myself, “I wonder what game is getting the blame this time.” Surprise, surprise, it was Grand Theft Auto 4. The story described how this 8-year-old kid played GTA 4 in the evening and then shot his 90-year-old caretaker in the head.
Now that E3 2013 is done, I’ve had some time to recover from my acute gaming overdose. I have had time to process everything that I saw. With two new major consoles battling it out, which one comes out the winner? It’s pretty close, but here’s what I decided.
The final day of E3 2013 has come and gone. It was a good day. I saved some of the best games for last! Want to find out what they were? Read on!
Day two of E3 2013 is all done. While I managed to fit in thirteen awesome titles, some definitely stood head and shoulders above the rest. Which ones were winners and which ones didn’t make the cut? Read on to find out!
The first day of E3 2013 is done. I’m tired, but it’s a good kind of tired. Things were a lot more chaotic this year than last year, but I still managed to see a lot of big name titles! In the war between Battlefield and Call of Duty, who wins? There are 10 games on this list today. Some were amazing, others were downright embarrassing. Read on to find out which were which!
So this will be my third year at E3. It’s a really big time for me because it’s the time when I get a chance to look at everything awesome that’s coming out and try to use that to figure out where everything is going. What’s going to be great, what’s going to be disappointing, and what is a complete toss up.
Recent comments on some of my videos have encouraged me to re-evaluate my site and its content. What I have realized is that there is a definite stigma attached to parental reviews, and that the majority of gamers are definitely going to initially react negatively to the work that I do. Their reaction is completely justified because, more often than not, the writers of game content reviews for parents are not passionate gamers. I had hoped that my level of detail in my written and video reviews would show that I do love these games, but I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that citing specific examples and using visual evidence as a backing for my recommendations isn’t enough.
I have had some time to let the Xbox One release event sink in and, after giving the entire thing some serious thought (and spending hours debating / arguing with my friends), I’ve come to some conclusions about the PS4 and the Xbox One and which console I will likely throw money down on within the first few months of launch.
I had a chance to watch "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games". I decided to try and approach the subject of women in video games and pose my own solutions. While this may be a bit too detailed for parents, the overall subject is something that everyone should understand.
|
The Legendary Carmine
Andrew Clayton (a.k.a. The Legendary Carmine) is SSG's Executive Editor. He toils at the stone to make sure this site brings its readers valuable content on a daily basis. Like what we do? Want to see more? Donate to the site using the button below!
Archives
July 2015
|