The second day of E3 has come to a close and despite some minor setbacks we managed to get some great information on some new games. From Skyrim to Inversion, we’ve covered some of the hottest games and gotten exclusive information just for you. Want more? Read on! The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim If you’ve read the review for Oblivion, you’ll know that the first picture we posted has the caption “beautiful”. From what I’ve seen of Skyrim, there is no word to truly describe how unbelievably awesome this game looks. The guys at Bethesda created a new engine for Skyrim and the perfection in the game really shows. Skyrim takes place in a Nordic land where dragons once roamed but are thought to be extinct. Just the very mention of dragons is enough to set people into a panic. Unfortunately for the townsfolk, the dragons are indeed back and ready to do some serious damage. The player, a member of a dragon-esque race of humans, must try to find out why the dragons are killing humans and work to solve that problem. If you’ve played Oblivion, you’ll know some of the really annoying things about the game. First off, the menu system was horrific. If you had a backpack full of items (which I usually did), it took hours to scroll through the various items to get to what you wanted. Bethesda has fixed that very, very simply with a series of categories and shifting menus from those categories. It’s all very smooth, very clean, and very well organized. Another major issue was that the spells were, to put it lightly, terrible. Fire spells would just shoot an orb of red light that, depending on the level of the spell, might light enemies on fire. In fact, the only type of spell that did anything even close to what a spell should look like were the lightning spells, but those were so few that it was almost irrelevant. That has been fixed as well. Fire spells shoot fire out of your hands, frost spells cause icicles to come up from the ground (or enemies) that you touch, lightning spells arc bolts of pure energy at enemies. It’s all a much better looking system. On top of that, the player can learn certain “words of power” from the dragons that he/she can then shout to have some additional magical power. For example, the player can learn the ability to “shout” and breath fire just like a dragon or to call in a storm that shoots lightning bolts at enemies. It’s all very impressive looking. All of the best things about Oblivion are back as well. The environment is completely open world, meaning that if a player sees a mountain they can climb that mountain (no matter how tall the mountain is). The player can choose not to continue on with the storyline but instead roam the countryside exploring. The developers said that they stopped counting how many hours of gameplay there were after they reached 300. Yes, you read that correctly, 300 hours of gameplay. There is so much more we’re going to talk about in the preview (which will come soon, I promise), but I’ll end on this note. There are modding tools. Yes, they’re back. The same thing that made Oblivion so famous and so infamous is back and the developers can’t wait to see what the community comes up with. Neither can I. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: If you were okay with your child playing Oblivion, you’ll be okay with your child playing Skyrim. The basic idea is the same with better graphics and some slightly more violent situations. The violence is no longer comically unrealistic, but it’s still not the only part in the overall gameplay. Talking to people, buying and selling items, being involved in the economy, and learning the lore of the land are all included and are very, very deep. This game will be awesome for young teens, provided you stick to the console version. Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 World War II shooters have been done and milked for everything they’re worth. The gaming community is pretty much done with this type of game. There’s really only so many times that you can invade the beaches of Normandy, storm through Holland in Operation: Market Garden, or even land on the beaches of Iwo Jima. So you can write this game off as a dud, right? Not so fast, loyal readers. This game puts an interesting spin onto the “average” World War II shooter. Ever seen Inglorious Basterds? Ever wanted to be those guys doing absurd things on an absurd mission to try and kill the Fuhrer himself? This is that game. It’s a satirical story about four members of the Allies as they storm through Germany trying to kill Hitler. Does it make sense? Not really. Is it historically accurate? Definitely not. Is it awesome? In a word, yes. This game mixes the shooting nature of Team Fortress 2 with the four-player cooperative gaming of Left 4 Dead. Each mission is fully cooperative and the game encourages you to play with friends. It’s split screen (I asked), so friends should have no problem playing together. Take a look at this game. It may seem like a bit of a stretch, but the guys at Gearbox don’t have a history of making bad games. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: This game is bloody. It’s not as bad as most of the other games at E3, but it does have its elements that may be a bit questionable. For example, one of the players has a bear trap that he can throw down. Germans will get their feet caught in the trap. One of the perks in the game lets the player fit that trap with a grenade, which will detonate a few seconds after the enemy has his leg caught in the trap. Blood goes flying. There is also a chainsaw in the game that players can put to liberal use in hacking enemies apart. There wasn’t that much gore really, but there is a lot of blood. There is some gore if the player scores a headshot in that the enemy’s head explodes into bits, but that was about as bad as it got in the demo. I don’t expect there to be many other issues in the other categories. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning I gave this game a chance mostly because I hadn’t heard much about it but from what I did hear it seemed pretty good. Honestly, I wasn’t that impressed. Diehard RPG fans will get a kick out of the game, and I can see what the developers were going for, but I just couldn’t really get excited about the overall gameplay. The game seemed to have different storylines depending on what guild the player aligned himself/herself with, so I’m not 100% sure what the main storyline is. I do know that the mercenary guild is trying to kill an evil magical menace that is threatening the land. What that menace is or why it’s threatening the land remains a mystery to me though. I think the hardest part for me to get behind is the overall mechanics. The developers made the game into an action game with heavy RPG elements. The player can pick weapons, many upgrades, craft new weapons, make potions using ingredients, etc. They’re many of the same things that players could get in Oblivion, Dungeon Siege, or Dragon Age. The difference is that the combat isn’t slow, it’s extremely fast-paced action-style combat. If you’ve ever played God of War or Dante’s Inferno, it can be a bit like that. The player is able to hack through tons of enemies using various weapons and magical powers with ease. Big boss battles will dominate the playing field and there are definitely some bloody executions. The game was still in pre-alpha build, so it won’t be out until sometime next year. Even giving it that credit though, I’m not too excited about it. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: It’s still pretty early on, but it looks like violence will probably be the only major problem in the game. Sexuality may become an issue and substance use will definitely be involved (through the potion-making), but other than that I don’t see many issues. Religion wasn’t even mentioned in the demo, surprisingly enough. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City After a decade of Resident Evil games, the developers have progressively moved the series away from its original survival horror and more towards a third-person shooter experience. Resident Evil 5 saw some of the old mechanics still present, but not as much as in previous titles. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (hereafter referred to as “RE:ORC” for simplicity) has completely removed the “survival” out of the equation and created a very interesting third-person shooter experience. In the demo I viewed, the player is pitted in a combat scenario against two other opposing forces. The player and his allies are fighting off an enemy militia force while trying to avoid being infected by hordes of zombies. So instead of a standard shooter like Call of Duty where the enemy is clearly the guys on the other end of the firing line, RE:ORC has you shooting at enemies who are shooting back at you while you also shoot at zombies. The catch is that the zombies don’t discriminate against one particular side, and will just as easily attack the enemy militia as they will attack you. It sounds chaotic, and it is. If you get damaged enough, your screen will turn red and you will begin to “bleed”. The blood attracts zombies who will turn and attack the bleeding player (you) instead of anyone else around you. If you get bitten by a zombie, you are instantly infected and must be sprayed with an anti-infection spray or else you turn into a zombie, lose control of your character, and attack your friends. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: This game will be bloody. Very bloody and almost certainly filled with gore. Human disfigurement will be an issue as the player can become a zombie (and the entire city is filled with zombies). It’s a scary game series and despite the fact that this game is much more of a shooter than the previous Resident Evil games, it’s still going to be scary for younger kids. Inversion I hadn’t heard about this game before E3 but from the demo I played it was an interesting take on a third-person shooter. The game does not have a defined gravity. So for instance, the player is able to shoot gravitational fields at enemies. If the player shoots a low-gravity ball at an enemy, the enemy will raise up a few feet into the air (easy pickings for a stubborn enemy who likes to hide behind cover). Alternatively, the player could shoot a high-gravity field at charging enemies which will instantly bring them crumpling to the ground for equally easy pickings. As if that wasn’t twist enough, the game’s gravity can shift from location to location. The player can be shooting at enemies in front of him one minute, but within the next be shooting at enemies that are standing on the wall. It’s a weird feeling and difficult to get used to, but it’s entirely possible to be shooting enemies that are appearing in front, above, and to the upper left and right of the player all at once. To them, their gravity is correct, while to the player his gravity is correct. On top of that, there are “zero-gravity” locations where there is absolutely no gravity, and the player enters these as seamlessly as if he had just jumped into a pool and gone swimming. There’s no barrier, there’s simply open space with some things for the player to latch onto and use as cover. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: This game does have a high presence of blood and gore. The fact that the demo gave no information as to what the storyline was prevents me from saying anything further than what I specifically saw or played, but the violence is definitely present. Even with that aside, the confusing nature of the game’s gravity will make this game very difficult for younger children. Only someone who has an excellent understanding of space, and a firm grasp on locating enemies within a fully three-dimensional environment will be able to play this game effectively. Captain America: Super Soldier The demo I viewed for this game was brief, but it seems to be well designed. While this game is developed at the same time as the movie, it does not include the same storyline. It was written by one of the comic writers for Marvel, so the storyline should follow some sort of canon for Captain America. It’s a third person action game where enemies rush at the player and the player must use a variety of martial-arts moves in combination with the shield and weapons to defeat foes. Enemies hardly ever die, they just seem to get knocked out. And as an added bonus, the game is compatible with 3D televisions on the PS3. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: There is minimal blood at best in this game. In fact, the only time when there is blood is if the player shoots an enemy, and even then it’s just a tiny puff. I’d consider this game appropriate for most young adults. Deus Ex: Human Revolution I had only a brief look at this game but what I saw was a standard third person shooter with some slightly tactical elements. The player can choose weapons and might be able to upgrade those weapons. The game definitely rewards players for taking down enemies in a non-lethal manner, although the gameplay is much more difficult if the player decides to try and take this route. The main storyline surrounds something about cybernetics, implants (the technological kind, not the plastic surgery kind), and humanity. It’s a very deep view on this debate and is supposed to make the player think about what makes people “human” and how we draw the line between humans and computers. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: This is a fairly violent game with a good amount of blood. It also covers some concepts that may be difficult for young teens to understand since they involve some pretty heavy ethical debates. Dungeon Siege 3 The first Dungeon Siege game was a strong start to the series but had a few issues that needed to be addressed. Dungeon Siege 2 failed to address most of those major issues and created many new issues that are far too detailed for me to discuss. I did manage to see the demo for Dungeon Siege 3, and while it looked like a huge leap in the right direction I think it’s a scenario of “too little, too late”. This game looks and handles very similarly to its other competitors. Unless you’re someone who is really into mythical RPGs, from what I saw I would recommend Dragon Age 2 over this game. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: The demo I saw was extremely brief, but the violence didn’t seem too bad. Religion and substances may become an issue, but I don’t expect to see anything very hardcore in the game. Dead Island The trailer for this game both intrigued me and horrified me. In it, an incident is rewound in slow motion, giving an eerie look at a zombie attack and how that affects a family on vacation. The daughter ends up getting bitten by a zombie and becomes a zombie herself, eventually biting and infecting her father who subsequently throws her off his back, out a window, and down onto the grass ten stories below. Yes, a child dies in the trailer. So what can we expect from the game? More like that pretty much. It’s a no-holds barred first-person survival horror that puts the player in the middle of a vacation resort during a zombie apocalypse. It’s bloody, violent, scary, and not appropriate for kids at all. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: Read the previous sentence. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword I didn’t get to see much of this game, but from what I saw it’s a fairly standard Zelda game. If you liked Ocarina of Time, you’ll probably love this game. It definitely gave off that same kind of vibe. It seemed much better put together than recent Zelda titles. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: This one’s an easy one. This game will be appropriate for almost any age group. I would expect no less from a Legend of Zelda game. Nintendo Wii U For those of you who haven’t heard by now, Nintendo has come out with its new console. It’s got new hardware, is HD compatible, and is ready to compete with Xbox 360 and PS3. Unfortunately, it’s got two obvious problems that I’ve noticed from the start. First, the controller is a huge screen that the player has to hold and use to interact with the player’s television. That’s right, the player now doesn’t just look at one screen, he looks at two. The biggest problem with this isn’t that the player will have a difficult time getting used to it (I expect that most people will eventually become accustomed to the dual-screen idea), but that the controller will eventually make the player’s arms very, very tired. Ever tried to hold two pounds of anything out in front of you for any extended period of time? Your arms get tired very quickly. But not only that, but the Wii U is designed to compete with the current Xbox 360 and PS3, which are seriously outdated systems. Both of these consoles are moving into their 8th year, which means they’re well overdue for a replacement. Once these replacements are released the Wii U will once again find itself using vastly inferior technology. Nintendo will be left grasping at relevancy in a world where the Move and Kinect are quickly moving in on the casual and family gaming spaces. THE VERDICT FOR PARENTS: Save your money on this one, parents. Wait to see what happens. You’ll save tons of money and hassle, and you’ll be ensured that a long list of good games will be available for you and your children. Things Left on our Short List:
Gears of War 3 Modern Warfare 3 Saints Row 3 Battlefield 3 Star Wars: The Old Republic Aliens: Colonial Marine Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
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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!
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July 2015
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