E3 2014 Impressions

Another year, another E3. Being as the PS4 and XBox One are now out in the wild, this year was never going to be as exciting as the last, but I for one was pretty interested to see how Sony and Microsoft would follow up the blowout that was E3 2013. For most people, this year was probably about Nintendo. The Wii U has been struggling for almost 2 years now, and is only now beginning to pickup steam. Mario Kart 8 is a big success, Smash Bros 4 is rapidly building excitement, and there were a lot of big Nintendo franchises people were hoping to see this year. Ubisoft and EA were there too, as they always are. For some reason. I saw it all, and even took notes this year, so here are my thoughts on E3 2014.

Microsoft

Unfortunately for Microsoft, it seems like they are still battling the perception that there is nothing to play on the XBox One, and thus no reason to buy one. I think this is expected so early in a consoles life, now that multiplatform releases are so prevalent, but Microsoft seems to be struggling with it a bit more than their competitors thanks in part to their focus on non-games during the consoles reveal. Microsoft put on a pretty good conference though. They focused on the games, showing a good 20 or so titles, including some interesting exclusives. Sunset Overdrive still looks like a wonderful collection of color and smarm, Platinum Games' Scalebound is sure to be a hit (because they are Platinum Games and they cannot fail) and Ori the Blind Forest is intriguing to me. I'm sure the Halo Collection and Halo 5 were very exciting to people, too.

My biggest complaint though, is that I don't think Microsoft really managed to break their image of generic games for college guys. Not a lot of what I saw in this 90 minute presentation deviated from "shoot and race and stab people with up to 4 players!". I'm also becoming rapidly more annoyed by phrases like "available first on system x!" or "exclusive console release on system y!". I don't really want to watch a trailer of a game that is going to be included in another conference, I don't want to watch cinematic trailers, and I don't want to watch fake gameplay footage wherein some shmuck walks on stage and pretends they are actually playing the game. Microsoft definitely isn't the only one doing these things, but somehow it annoys me more when they do it. I suppose perhaps I am just biased against Microsoft, but there you have it.

EA

I seriously doubt that anyone went into EA's conference with very high expectations. They aren't a very well liked company on the whole, and being known as the sports/sims guys who buy other companies doesn't really help. I will say however that their conference started out very strongly. Showing Star Wars Battlefront before saying a word was certainly heartening. I'm not usually a fan of musical presentations at E3, but following Star Wars up with a lady with a Cello playing to the Dragon Age Inquisition footage was pretty awesome, too. In fact all of the Dragon Age footage was pretty awesome to see, and I'm sure a lot of people are very hyped about it. Unfortunately after Dragon Age EA's conference changed from a decent show, to what was in my opinion, the worst this year.

But then EA started saying words, and it was all over. They managed to talk about a lot of games without actually saying much of anything about them, and they said a lot about their annual franchises which, let's be honest, there really isn't much to say. Bioware announced that they are working on a new Mass Effect and an unannounced game, Dawngate was confirmed to exist, and there was a lot of talk about sports, which I've always assumed the demographic for E3 really does not care about. I think my favorite was GOLF WITHOUT LIMITS on the Frostbyte engine, with no loading between holes! Mirror's Edge 2 was officially unveiled but again, we didn't get much out of it except that it is in fact Mirror's Edge 2. That said, it's good to see, as Mirror's Edge is a well loved game with a very unique and refreshing aesthetic and concept. Then we got a good look at Battlefield Hardline, which looks a lot like it did last year when it was Battlefield 4.

Ubisoft

Following in EA's footsteps came Ubisoft. Historically their conferences have been about little more than Assassin's Creed + awkward live performance + something, and has hinged on being quirky and French as well as the divisive Aisha Tyler as host. This year had seemingly more games than others, but still delivered on it's MO. Probably the thing that has stood out to me the most about Ubisoft at E3 this year as well as last, was the immaturity of their conference. E3 is the biggest platform video games have, and I think it reflects poorly on us when the face you choose to show to the media and investors is Aisha Tyler saying things like "It's hella fuckin smokey as shit, apparently it's 420 in this bitch". I held the same opinion last year when we opened with a trailer containing nudity. I'm definitely not trying to say these things aren't ok to have in games, but trying way too hard to be edgy isn't exactly the best way to legitimize our favorite pastime.

Anyways, rant aside, Ubisoft's conference was at least a bit better than EA's but not by much. Far Cry 4 had no gameplay, but there was a very engrossing intro cinematic that I liked a lot. Conversely, Assassin's Creed Unity had both cinematic and gameplay, but a worse showing than in the Microsoft conference. Just Dance is yet another annual franchise, The Crew has yet to give me a reason to care about it and Shape Up seems like a mediocre exercise game, despite seeming better than what's already out there. The Division and Valiant Hearts win the award for most depressing trailers ever, which made me lose interest in the game and conference both. Ubisoft closed with Rainbow Six: Siege, which seemed like a decent enough game, but was so staged it's really hard to judge. I find it amusing that Ubisoft is also catching a lot of flak this E3 because of their use of a female hostage in the Rainbow Six demo, and the lack of playable females in Assassin's Creed. Oh Ubisoft. Maybe one day you will learn how to present yourself.

Sony

Ahh Sony. The defending champion. They wrecked Microsoft last year with their cheaper, more powerful console and less restrictive feature list. This year the race is much closer, and Sony's conference much more complacent. There were a lot of subtle little jabs at Microsoft that came across as a bit distasteful to me, like throwing a punch after the bell has rung. Sony's conference was also really poorly paced, opening quite strongly, and then transitioning into boring PSN features and weird pieces of hardware. These new things may well be things people care about, but we aren't going to know until they are released, and as cool as YouTube is, it's not a great way to build E3 hype. The show ended with should be some pretty exciting games, but after the boring middle, there was no hype left.

On the whole Sony showcased a more colorful selection of games, thanks to the likes of Entwined, Abzu and No Man's Sky. It had it's own share of exclusives too, with the likes of The Order 1866, Bloodborne and Uncharted 4, though none of their presence were very surprising. Unfortunately they were also stricken with PS4 ports of PS3 games (Grand Theft Auto V and the Last of Us), a trend that I find somewhat annoying. I also really enjoyed the tongue in cheek introductions that Magicka 2 and Grim Fandango got. I think a lot of people were hoping for some kind of showstopper from Sony, as well as some Kingdom Hearts of Final Fantasy. Unfortunately we didn't really get any of those. I think the closest we got to a showstopper was No Man's Sky, which is a game we saw at VGX and, despite being really pretty, struck me as kind of ephemeral.

Nintendo

Finally, we have Nintendo. They have always kind of done their own thing both in and out of E3. As I said at the beginning, there were a lot of eyes on Nintendo this year, especially after the previous 4 conferences all ranged from mediocre to straight up awful. I don't think Nintendo knocked it out of the park. I think a lot of people are still waiting for a lot of things from Nintendo. But I think they did well enough. They wasted a lot of time trying to convey just how much love and care goes into creating the games they showed. It is a sentiment that is important, but one that I think they conveyed without the diatribes, and one that doesn't really engage the viewer. What I will say is that this year Nintendo really made great use of the digital medium through which they were presenting, with Robot Chicken sketches and CG Reggie/Iwata.

As expected, games like Hyrule Warriors and what little there was to say about Wii U Zelda generated a lot of hype. Smash Bros was surprisingly excited to see, despite there already being large amounts of information about it out there. I'm a really big fan of what Nintendo is doing to stylize their graphics in games like Yoshi's Wooly World and Kirby and the Rainbow Curse. Even if it's done to mask the Wii U's inferior graphics capabilities, it makes for a really cool aesthetic. Xenoblade Chronicles X is a game that I was really excited for going into this E3 (and still am) but the footage they showed during the presentation I found to be ugly and uninteresting. The clear surprise act here was Splatoon, though. A third person arena shooter wherin you control a squid trying to cover the arena in more ink than your opponent. It's a surprisingly clever and elegant game, I'm a little dubious as to how well it will actually sell though. The whole Nintendo aftershow kind of killed the hype for Splatoon though. In fact the multiple day long after show is pretty lame on the whole to me, but to each their own I suppose.

In Summary

So who won? What are the standouts? After the first day, this was Nintendo's E3 to lose. They definitely pulled it off in my mind. I didn't see as much as I wanted to from them, but their conference got me excited in a way that none of the others did. This E3 made me feel like soon my purchase of a Wii U will be justified, and there are at least 3 games that I definitely want to own ASAP, which is 30% of the games in Nintendo's presentation. Also Nintendo's Smash Bros Invitational is probably the most hyped I've ever been about E3, but that wasn't a conference so it doesn't count, ok? I think Microsoft had the second best presentation, but I find I am more interested in the games that Sony had to show. I didn't see any "must have"s out of either of them, but about 3-5 "would play"s out of each. On the whole I would say this E3 was pretty mediocre. But then every E3 seems to end up more mediocre than I hope. I would say that this year was slightly ahead of the average. I saw some cool games, I saw some cool presentation ideas, and I didn't see too much that actively offended me.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations Thoughts

Another year, another Assassin's Creed game. Except somehow it seems that I'm perpetually 2 years behind the curve here. Last year I played Brotherhood, and now a year later I've finally gotten around to playing Revelations. I guess the thing is, I have something of a love/hate relationship with Assassin's Creed. I love climbing about historical settings hitting up all the little icons on my map. However Assassin's Creed games always seem to know just how to frustrate the bejesus out of me. It seems to be the trend that, by the time I'm done with one game I'm frustrated enough that I wait a whole year to play the next one. And of course by that point, the latest title will have come out, thus perpetuating the 2 game backlog. At any rate, I knew going into Revelations that it had not been quite as well received as it's brethren. Now that I have completed the game, here are my own thoughts on the matter.

At first, I was actually pretty pleased with Revelations. One of my biggest complaints with Brotherhood was how restrictive it was. It felt like invisible walls were erected at seemingly random places all over the world. On the other hand, Revelations gives you unfettered access to pretty much the entire map and it's activities within the first hour or so of gameplay. However after playing the game, I feel like Revelations actually went too far the other way, at least for my taste. Personally I feel that the answer is somewhere in the middle. The player should have access to side missions, but they should also be encouraged to progress the story. Rather than throwing all the side content at you at once, I would prefer it be broken up a little bit. In this way it feels like your "reward" for completing all the side quests is moving on with the story, and unlocking the next area of the map. With that said, I actually feel like Brotherhood got the free roaming more right than Revelations, despite my issues with it. I just wish that divisions on the map had been more logical and better communicated.

As far as Revelations' gameplay goes, it is, unsurprisingly, pretty much identical to Brotherhood. At least on the surface. The two big additions are the hook blade and bombs. The hook blade creates some mildly interesting additions to how climbing works, but much of it seems cosmetic. The biggest difference comes in the form of being able to ride ziplines. Ziplines are certainly cool, but they really don't come up very often. Outside story missions, I only used them once or twice. As far as bombs, they seem like a fairly interesting addition, but I honestly just couldn't be bothered. The issue is that the bomb system was just too complicated to be worth it to me. It comes with an entire crafting system, three different categories of bombs, and customized bombs composed of three different parts. It's not wildly complex, I just never felt compelled to play with the system. I would use the odd bomb, but most of the time I felt that I would just rather stick with the mechanics that I had been using for the last 2-3 games.

This issue with the bombs is really indicative of a larger issue with the game on the whole, too. One thing I rather liked about Brotherhood was the way it encouraged you to use a wider array of tools to get the job done. Synchronization goals would have you experiment with different tools, and after exposing you to them the game would later give you situations where said tool would be ideal to use. In contrast, Revelations felt like I could just brute force my way through everything. I don't think I used poison more than once, and I'm pretty sure I never used the smoke bomb, both of which were staples in Brotherhood. I never really saw the need. It felt like I could play through the entire game using nothing but the wrist blade and throwing knives. On top of this, I never hired a single group of Thieves, Mercenaries or Romani. They were there, but they didn't really seem to serve a real purpose. It's like all these things are still in the game just because it doesn't make sense to remove functionality, but they didn't take the time to create situations where they would actually be useful.

This is kind of indicative of my feeling on the game as a whole. It feels like it was rushed. It feels like the shell of a game, like Ubisoft just took the engine from Brotherhood, modeled a new town, and shipped it. It's a good example of how important level design is. Good mechanics are great, but without a world that provides you with the proper challenges, they feel superfluous. That's not to say that Constantinople itself is poorly made, because it's a nice city. It just feels like everything about Revelations is lacking the spirit the previous games had. This is not Ezio's swan song so much as a placeholder to finish Altair's story and hold people over until Assassin's Creed III. This chapter of the story could have been skipped altogether and I don't feel like you would miss it. If anything, after the ending of Brotherhood Revelations is pretty anti-climactic. That's not to say Revelations is a bad game, it's just decent.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Player Restriction

Assassin's Creed has been one of those series that I really enjoy, but not enough to buy at full price. I'm perfectly content to wait for the games to come down in price, and as such I'm a little behind the times. So over the holidays I decided I should start playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. So far I'm quite enjoying the game, more than I enjoyed Assassin's Creed II almost 2 years ago. However I can't help but notice some very glaring issues that cause me great frustration, and so I thought I would talk a bit about those issues here today. Specifically they all seem to revolve around the concept of restricting the player. In itself player restriction isn't necessarily an issue, but the way the game does so makes it one.

Before I begin in earnest, there are a couple of things that I want to point out. First of all, I can't claim that any of the things I will discuss today were not present in Assassin's Creed II. It was a while ago that I played it, and I payed less attention to design back then. It's not a matter that even really matters. "It was that way in the last game, too" doesn't invalidate an issue. On a similar note, I am going to be comparing Brotherhood to "other games" a lot in this post. To that end I just want to emphasize that a design decision is not correct simply because another game (particularly a successful one) does it. I reference other games because they made what I consider to be a better decision when faced with a similar problem.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's look at the first and probably biggest issue Brotherhood has. It restricts where the player can go. As I stated earlier, restricting the player isn't a big problem. Assassin's Creed is an open world game, and plenty of open world games restrict where the player can go, usually until some later point in the story. It's all a matter of perception on the player's part. Most the games have the sense to make these restrictions logical. Perhaps a bridge is up, or a barricade is in the way, or perhaps the player needs some form of upgrade to get there. There is a good reason you can't go there, it makes sense, and often times finally getting access to that area incorporates some amount of story or gameplay. Perhaps even more importantly, the player is usually never given the impression that they can get there. There won't be any icons on the map of that area, there won't be any temptation to get there other than pure curiosity. Finally when there is a restricted area, the division is pretty clear. The restricted area is usually a city, or an island, connected by bridge or some other such.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood does all of these things wrong. The player is not given any indication which areas they cannot go to until they are practically inside the area. At that point a large semi-transparent white wall appears. This isn't even a solid wall mind, you can walk right past it, you just die if you do. Who thought that was a good idea? The worst part is that it just feels like a very arbitrary division. The game explains that this area isn't available yet, and it makes sense in the game's plot, but it feels like a flimsy excuse. When you are standing there you see an area that is just outside your reach. You see NPCs walking in and out of it. You see icons on your map tempting you into this dead zone. Even despite the game's explanation of why you can't go in there, it doesn't make sense to your brain. This is clearly an area that should not be restricted, and yet the developers have decided that you cannot go there yet. Clearly the answer is to erect a giant invisible (but not impassable) wall all the way around this area! Yea, clearly the best idea is to put magical walls right where the player is not going to expect them, rather than at a logical division spot like a bridge or an actual wall.

Let me give you a specific example from my own experience with the game. I have this obsession with hitting up viewpoints. Viewpoints uncover more of the game map and allow you to see other icons, marking your other objectives. All the viewpoints are marked on the map from the very start. There is one in particular that I wanted to hit up in the north east of the map. However for about half the game it is just outside of your reach. You can run right up to it. You can see the tower, you just can't go there. So I would frequently check this area after completing story objectives to see if I could go there yet. Gradually the surrounding area became more available, but not the area I actually cared about. At one point I was even given a story mission that took place further to the east, past this inaccessible area. I thought surely this meant I could now use the viewpoint I had been waiting for. Not so much, though. No, instead the game made me run all the way around this area. I had to follow the taunting white wall all the way to the south and around it. I know now that, it's not even like the tower I wanted to climb was related to a story mission. For whatever reason the developers just decided they should taunt me with this tower, put it directly in my path, but not allow me to use it.

Area accessibility isn't even the game's only issue, in terms of restriction. See, the whole plot of Assassin's Creed is about reliving the actions of the protagonist's ancestors. So a lot of restrictions are put in place with the reasoning that "That didn't actually happen", and rather than dying the player simply de-synchronizes. It's a clever way to maintain narrative, but it really gets in the way. I mean what kind of open world won't let you kill annoying civilians (especially when they make a point of having civilians designed to annoy you). That's the least of the game's issues in this regard, though. The game is chock full of what I usually just call "BS death". I mean sure, it makes sense that you should aim to be stealth in a game called Assassin's Creed. Do the requirements really have to be so rigid thought?

Let's say that I have to Assassinate a target. The game will force you to remain undetected, and will kill you if you become discovered. Why does it have to kill you? Why can't he just call the guards and run away, forcing you to find him again? If I'm breaking into a castle and I get discovered, why do I have to immediately die? What if I kill the guard before he actually says anything? What could that guard have realistically done in the 1/2 second he noticed me? If I come upon a group of three guards, should I not have the chance to at least stop them from raising the alarm if I'm discovered? The point here is that, it seems like the only failure state the game has is death, and that's incredibly annoying, un-inventive, and yes restrictive. Honestly, I don't care about the narrative of how awesome my ancestors were. I don't care if Ezio would not have been discovered. I want a failure state that punishes me without forcing me to start everything all over again. Make it harder for me to proceed, but give me a chance to redeem myself.

All told, Assassins Creed Brotherhood is probably the least open world open world game I have ever played. For whatever reason the developers decided that they needed a stranglehold on where the player can go and what they can do. This is kind of strange considering how contrary it is to the spirit of an open world game. That's not to say it's a bad game, it's the best Assassin's Creed I've played so far. Looking at the design I really have to wonder why Ubisoft made the decisions they did, though.