E3 – Top 5 Games From E3
E3 is over for another year and it’s given gamers plenty to look forward to for the rest of the year and beyond. As is obligatory following any E3 coverage, here are my Top 5 Games from E3 – this is my personal selection of games that have me the most excited moving forward.
Sunset Overdrive
I have a love/hate relationship with my XBox One. On one hand I love Titanfall – it refreshed competitive multiplayer gaming for me at a time it was desperately stagnant. On the other hand, there’s a desperate lack of games for the XBox One. The PS4 has a steady flow of indie titles alongside multi platform games that perform better on the PS4 than the XBox One.
Sunset Overdrive gives me a great deal of hope though – it looks fast, action-packed, beautifully bright, full of personality and gives me a genuine reason to boot up my XBox One again. The trailer for the game is also very clever and witty. Sunset Overdrive looks great for a stack of reasons and, as my interest in Titanfall begins to fade, looks like a game to keep me entertained. It’s also a new IP – you’ll notice I’ve included three sequels from five top games, but I do appreciate and support fresh ideas and new IPs.
Rainbow Six: Siege
Rainbow Six: Siege was one of the best surprises that could have possibly come from E3 for me. It’s been over six years since the last Rainbow Six game, Vegas 2, and I’ve been patiently waiting and now finally have something to look forward to. I did fear it was never going to happen, after the development hell stories that were reportedly behind Rainbow Six: Patriots, but I’m glad everything seems to be sorted and I’ll be getting a new Rainbow Six game!
What a way to officially announce the game too – actual gameplay footage, which showed off more details than people may have taken from the initial viewing. Probably the greatest returning feature is the pre-planning screen – I doubt there’s anyone else who got as excited by those options as me. The Rainbow Six: Vegas games were great, and they offered different ways to approach the gameplay but the story approach meant gameplay was limited – the return of the pre-planning lets you choose which way you want to enter the level and, believe me, gives you greater tactical ability. The destructible environment is also going to change the gameplay dramatically – being able to blow out a ceiling or floor to drop in above your enemies, or drop them down to you, will again change the way you interact with the levels. I really hope the Terrorist Hunt mode returns too.
Not A Hero
If there’s one game on this list that you may not have heard of, it’s going to be Not A Hero. It’s a 2.5D pixel-art shooter by developer Roll7 – the geniuses behind skateboarder Olli Olli. I got to play an earlier build of Not A Hero on PC back in February at EGX Rezzed and I absolutely loved it. At E3, when the game was shown during the Devolver Digital showreel and it was announced the game was coming to PS4 and PS Vita, I lost my mind – amazing news!
Not A Hero is all about storming into a building like a peak-fitness Bruce Willis in Die Hard, killing anything that moves and generally being a badass. You can take cover using the 2.5D cover mechanic and shoot both ways like all super-cool movie gangsters. It’s difficult to appreciate Not A Hero in amongst the AAA, next-generation visual games but it manages to nail something far more important – Not A Hero is exceptionally good fun and its sense of humor takes it a long way. It’s equally addictive, from what I’ve seen, to Olli Olli and I’ve kept that on my memory card since launch. Not A Hero for PS4 and/or PS Vita is a launch day essential download.
Far Cry 4
Elephants, wing suits, grappling hooks, elephants, guns and an absolutely insane villain – these are the ingredients that look set to make Far Cry 4 an essential purchase. Far Cry 3 was an exceptionally good game, if a little repetitive, and it looks a lot like Far Cry 4 is going to build on the foundations that made the previous game great. It’s hard to find a game that matches the kind of rush you got while playing Far Cry 3 – paragliding off a mountain top into a lush jungle and instantly getting involved in a brawl with a tiger, it doesn’t get much more intense than that.
Some of the soundtrack choices for Far Cry 3’s mission added to them too; Damian Marley and Skrillex – Make It Bun Dem pumping through my TVs speakers as I burnt through field after field of cannabis plants was a particular highlight. The Far Cry series has always been a fun sandbox to adventure in and it’s islands and eco-systems always feel alive – it makes them an engrossing place to play and Far Cry 4 looks to continue that trend.
Assassin’s Creed: Unity
I was a huge Assassin’s Creed fan until Brotherhood – that’s when I felt it went downhill. I skipped Assassin’s Creed 3 altogether, based on what I’d read and the reviews, and then Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag won me over. I read a lot about how good it was and how it’d fixed what were some serious problems with the Assassin’s franchise. It was a gamble well worth taking, and as of right now is still one of the best games I’ve played on the PS4. So that leaves Unity with a seemingly equal chance of being awesome like Black Flag, or a flop like Assassin’s Creed 3.
I’m hoping Unity is a bit hit. The re-designed engine we saw in the gameplay footage looks awesome – up to 5,000 people on screen at any one time?! Insane – imagine the possibilities and how alive the world is going to feel. The map of Paris for Unity is also rumored to be larger than all of Black Flag’s land mass put together – the sense of scale is phenomenal. Ubisoft insist that they’ve learnt from mistake of Assassin’s Creed past – I sincerely hope this is true and they find new and interesting mission structures to replace the dull follow person x missions. The power of next gen consoles is there – Assassin’s Creed just needs to take full advantage of it.
Honorable Mentions
It wasn’t easy picking out just five games from the huge selection shown at E3 – Bloodborne looked awesome, but for any new IP the proof will be in the gameplay footage. Destiny looks awesome too and is another game with a huge sense of scale. I can’t wait to get the open-world Zelda for Wii U into my Wii U. Rise of the Tomb Raider could be another great game – the reboot is one of my favourite games of the last generation, so here’s hoping they carry on that trend. Inside looked pretty good too during the XBox conference. I’m going to be buying a lot of games in the next 12 months!