Minimum E3 Fucks

So E3 is happening....or has happened, at time of writing I'm not to sure but that should give you good indication about how I feel regarding E3.  Maybe I've gotten old or maybe I'm just a bit too jaded and cynical at this point but no matter how much I search my inner self I just can't find any fucks to give about this years E3 show.

It's sad really, it used to be such an exciting time.  When I was a young kid, before internet and streams and all this fancy new age shit, E3 was something you could only really read about in a magazine.  It was this amazing event with all these new games and all this excitement and it was the kind of thing I dreamed of going to.  Then as I got older and streams of the show started happening there would be exciting times as we'd all ball into a room with takeout pizza and watch the shit live and chatting about all the announcements.

But with the new generation of games systems came a change in the way E3 was presented.  The fun was taken away and the whole thing is delivered as a sort of business pitch by some dude in a suit telling us about "experiences" and how all these games represent "the future" or some shit.  Buzzwords and professional sounding speeches book ended with cinematic trailers topped off with applause from an audience of industry people who may only be clapping so the dude on stage doesn't feel bad.

The E3 way of presenting games hasn't just become boring to me, it's offensive.  How stupid do these companies think I am where if they write a nice speech and give me 3 minutes of cutscene I'm going to be like "OH YEAH FUCKING WOW, BUYING THAT DAY 1".  All this talk of none-game related features like TV and social media linkage to try and appeal to that mass market because mainstream gaming has become all about safe bets and that huge budget for that sequel that whoever is making is going to go to waste.  Even new IPs that are supposed to get us excited just stink of nothing more than retreading old ground.  The best example I can think of for all this is Days Gone, a game that has so many The Last of Us vibes that I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't start life as a side-story expansion pack.

Not to say it's a complete bust.  There are a number of things at E3 that did pique my interest a little bit and with all the games at the show it'll be hard to call any of them "bad" per se. I bet most of the games that appeared on E3 this year I'll pick up and at least enjoy to some degree but I just want the fun to be put back into this event.  I can't get hype for cutscenes and I especially can't get hype for dudes in suits.

Whatever, interesting games ahead and fun times to be had but I'll be waiting for more detailed news down the road rather than getting excited now.  Thanks for making me aware of the titles.....I guess.....

E3 Microsoft Conference "Rape Joke" (Podcasty Thing)

I feel like I'm offering myself up for gruesome sacrifice with this one, but it annoys me so much it felt good to get it off my chest.  It's all in a video this time, I was upset and it was 2am when I filmed it, so I might write something more coherent on the same topic later, but for now, enjoy!

Sony Press Conference Thoughts!

This is the last of the bunch, enjoy!

E3 EA Conference! Podcasty Thing!

EA finished their show, I was impressed, listen to how impressed I was

Microsoft...What are you doing?

So we have heard about everything we could want to hear about the upcoming Xbox One, and everything we have heard so far has been fucking awful.

With E3 round the corner you think this would be a good chance for Microsoft to clear the air, justify their decisions, talk to the fans and sort this mess out.  So what do they decide to do?  Cancel their post-press conference meeting with gaming media at E3.

Now I'm no PR expert and I'm more than willing to admit I'm wrong about this if I am, but to me this seems like a fucking TERRIBLE idea.  Part of the problem with this big shit storm is that people aren't really getting solid facts, just this sort of vague stream of information that we don't like. 

Recently I've been hearing stuff like you can share your game library with your Xbox "Family" which can only include 10 people or some such nonsense and it's not like that makes the whole thing any better.

So everyone is getting upset about the vague, crap information that we currently have, and the post-show round table seems like a great time to talk to the gaming press and get some good hard facts out there to maybe make your system not seem like a complete waste of time.  So WHY THE FUCK would you just run away from that?  What the hell is wrong with you?

My guess is that they realised how bad they fucked up on this one and facing the press must look like suicide at this point.  I've been hearing all sorts of rumours about rushed production and games not being ready but sources for that are unreliable at best, but if it IS true then it makes sense why they don't want to talk to anybody, it'll just make them look even worse.

Also there are a number of people on the internet saying stuff like "Well the PS4 has been pretty tight lipped about similar issues" and while you may be right, that is the key difference here.  PS4 has been talking about games while Xbox has just had TV and sports with a little bit of doom and gloom.

Maybe I'll be just as outraged about the PS4 after E3, maybe some miracle will happen and the Xbox One will look great after E3, but right now, the Xbox looks like shit and Microsoft look like idiots.

E3 is coming! Press conference feelings

Almost every year I get hype for E3 but this year I'm finding it hard to find the enthusiasm.

The new consoles have been revealed and there is so much bullshit surrounding them and so many arguing fanboys on the internet that it's kind of killed my excitement.  Don't get me wrong, I'm going to watch it and get just as excited or angry as everyone else, but right now my hype levels are fairly minimal.

That said, I thought I'd just give my current feelings about the major players there (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony) and sort of what I'm expecting from their press conferences.

NINTENDO!

As far as I know, Nintendo aren't doing a major press conference this year.  This is sort of a good thing because maybe that will allow them to focus on making some actual fucking games for the WiiU that I want to buy so I have an excuse to drop money on one.

SONY!

They sort of got it right with their reveal, at least more right than Microsoft did.  I'm fully expecting that we'll here more social networking bullshit and all that crap but I'm also expecting to see some games and hopefully they'll reveal something that will make me bounce up and down and squeal.  Sony is the company I'm sort of putting all my hopes into this year so if these guys fuck up this conference I'll be rather disappointed.  Also I'm hoping the Vita gets some love at E3 too this year as  Japan has quite a good selection of games on the shelves now but I'm hearing that things are a little bland still in the UK. Hopefully some of those fancy Japanese games get a localisation

MICROSOFT!

Fuck em', quite frankly.  The reveal was such a massive flop that unless they have some of the greatest games I have ever seen in my entire life, I don't care.  We can hope they show some of those exclusives they brushed over but at this point I'm more interested in hearing them justify the post-reveal mess they made with all the news of used game fees and always online.  Right now, I couldn't really give any less fucks about Microsoft or the Xbox One, but there is still a chance the conference may bring me round, although I really doubt it.

That PS4 Announcement I didn't Watch

With me living in Japan and time differences being what they are, I didn't see this conference thing which was Sony giving a little talk on the upcoming PS4.  That said I've done some reading and poking around and here is what I've discovered.

1. It's going to be really quite pretty

Well it better fucking had be.  It'd be a bit of a shock if the PS4 came out and it looked WORSE than a PS3 somehow, this isn't news.

2. It has integration with Facebook and UStream

OK, the UStream thing is kind of cool.  Apparently the controller has a "share" button, where you can upload shit to Ustream for all your friends to watch, which is a potentially cool feature.  Facebook however, needs to fuck off.  Granted that I fucking hate facebook and use it as no more than a glorified chat service to keep in touch with buddies in different countries, but I don't need to broadcast every fucking game I'm playing to my news feed.  Fucking stupid, Facebook and video games should NOT mix.

3.  The controller has some kind of funky sensor thing in it and a touch pad.

I don't see the big deal here, it's a fucking controller.  As long as I push buttons and the game does things I want it to, then I'm happy.  The light bar and the touch pad are all great and stuff but I don't know how these are going to be used yet, so whatever.  At least this one has a mic jack so you don't have to use those fucking blue tooth headsets.

4.  You can use your Vita as a screen.

As someone who owns a Vita, I'm quite happy that I can now take a shit and continue whatever game I will be playing on my PS4 if and when I get one.

5.  You can resume play right away after turning "off" the system

This isn't news either, PSP has been able to do this for yonks, who cares?

6. Something to do with Gaikai cloud gaming

I didn't give a fuck about OnLive and I sure as hell don't give a fuck about this thing.  Maybe it'll be cool but I'm just not interested when I still have a PS1, PS2 and PS3 with plenty of games sitting around.  A feature I don't need, but I'm sure some people will be happy to have.

Obviously I have not mentioned the games but Diablo 3 being announced was quite possibly one of the most disappointing things I heard.  But still, the features I'm aware of so far sound good enough.  I wouldn't say that I'm particularly hyped for the next Playstation, but things are shaping up to be pretty good at least.  Hopefully more will be revealed at E3.

Also I'm aware I probably missed some things, but I'm gonna keep reading around for more info.