Thank you, Ubisoft, for giving us the one real surprise of E3. Yes, there were other, smaller surprises such as J.K. Rowling’s involvement with Wonderbook and Far Cry 3’s extensive co-operative mode but, in terms of actual games, Ubi’s Watch Dogs was essentially, in my opinion anyway, the only really exciting surprise of this year’s E3.
Don’t get me wrong, there were some brilliant parts of E3 this year – Scribblenauts wasn’t groundbreaking, but still a nice reveal that managed to stay under wraps. Like every year, it was great seeing more information about certain games, but almost everything other than the aforementioned reveals had already been detailed, or otherwise leaked, before the conference.
[videoyoutube]What I can’t understand is why exactly Sony showed off two of their biggest upcoming games, God of War: Ascension and PlayStation All-Stars, before E3. Information had started to leak for both of these before their official reveal, so perhaps they were meant to be saved for the press conference, but were forced out due to the amount of rumours circling; this seems like an unfortunate but likely explanation.Sony did manage to keep the whole PlayStation Plus overhaul under wraps, but that still couldn’t give us an out-of-nowhere game announcement or something akin to Portal 2’s original PS3 announcement, which is still one of my favourite moments in E3 history.
The surprising nature of the announcement and partnership that you’d never have seen coming was one of the reasons Sony’s 2010 conference has yet to be bettered these past two years.
Quantic Dream’s new project, Beyond, as incredible as it looked, also leaked out mere hours before the conference and we already knew that Quantic were showing up well in advance. That wasn’t entirely Sony’s fault, however, and nor was it ours; we might spend our free time reporting about games but a necessary part of that is telling you all about the latest things as soon as possible.
Sure, it can be exciting when we stumble on something secretive. This little leak, for example, was enough to tease and made me want to see more, even though nothing came of it in the end. I’d still like for more things to be kept under wraps however, but I don’t see that happening when the internet is involved; once the news hits the internet, there’s no point in us ignoring it and there’s definitely no stopping it.
It wasn’t just Sony, mind: Dead Space, Crysis 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted from EA; Rayman Legends, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation and Splinter Cell: Blacklist from Ubisoft; Gears of War: Judgment from Microsoft along with many of Nintendo’s Wii U games to name a few had already been revealed or had leaked before E3.
Surprises are, of course, subjective; I’m sure there are people out there left unimpressed with Watch Dogs but extremely pleased that they can interact with a Harry Potter book on their television.
[drop]Surely the best thing to do then is just keep every game a secret and please everyone? I’m sure, in a way, that that’s the goal, but a constant news flow needs to happen, or all the big announcements would get lost in each other – there just needs to be some balanced selection of surprises saved exclusively for the press conferences.So, next year, publishers and console manufacturers, stay quiet about some of your projects, if you can – particularly you, Sony, in the weeks before E3 – and we might all love it that little bit more.
Just look at the reception to Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs this year and I know it might be hard, but try to keep something really special under lock and key.
Then again, perhaps you all love leaks – I consider them akin to spoilers (and then even spoilers are subjective), but you might like the information trickling out elsewhere before, so you can get excited to see it in action at the conference. It seems as though leaks have simply become a part of E3 and, unless the publishers try really hard to keep a project internal, as Ubisoft managed with Watch Dogs, we won’t be seeing much at E3 next year without knowing about it first.
Now, does that really sound like a good thing?
MrSpeedyGonzales
Watch_dogs was a massive surprise for me, I thought it looked amazing. I was surprised to see splinter cell, I’d heard absolutely no information about it and it looked great. Other than that I was impressed by the whole of ubisofts press conference but nothing else surprised me.
cc_star
It’s all about column inches, by revealing & showing off Last of Us, PSA:BR & GoW:A early Sony had gained lots of coverage & people’s attention wasn’t elsewhere.
Beyond leaked to, first Cage was talking something up, then domain registrations leaked. The reveal was great but not as great as it would have been appearing out the blue.
So I salute Ubisoft, not only had they done a brilliant keynote knocking spots off Microsoft’s imbalanced one & EA’s cut & paste job from any of their previous E3s, but saving the best till last a genuine surprise was awesome! And is certainly the game on everyone’s lips.
colmshan1990
Don’t really like leaks.
The biggest (pleasant) surprises for me were Watch Dogs (no clue about it), Beyond (we knew Quantic Dream were working on something, but not something that good) and Wonderbook (collaborations announced with MotionBot and of course, JK Rowling? Very happy, very big).
The worst surprise was Rayman Legends’ exclusivity to WiiU. Hopefully just a timed exclusive. Do Nintendo bother with those normally though?
Jakster123x
Leaks certainly do irritate me but it is very difficult to keep secrets these days. However, when it does happen it is special. It’s unfortunate my stream cut out for half of Watch Dog’s demo but i’ve seen it all now and i was impressed by what i saw at the time even of it eas on PC.
cam the man
Leaks, I’m sad to say, are part and parcel to the world we live in now.
IAmJacksMedullaOblongata
I think there are naturally going to be fewer leaks/killer surprises toward the end of the hardware cycle – mainly because there are fewer new IPs.
If we look at the actual “surprises” of E3; Watch Dogs and Beyond (to some extent), they’re new IP.
I don’t think anyone was really surprised that there’s a Assassin’s Creed game coming to the Vita or Pikmin 3 (though, that does look lovely.)
bunimomike
What grinds my gears is the whole “meh to this year’s E3” which seems to happen every bloody year. It’s a show/exhibition all about a video gaming. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. People seem to rate each conference to see which one was the best. Why? There’s simply no need. Not everything needs listing in order of merit. Not everything needs such mindless scrutiny. Every E3 is wonderful as it’s the time of the year when we often find out an incredible number of new things and also have the known hardware/games fleshed out for us some more. People seem to put so much pressure on themselves to enjoy E3 that it’s almost impossible to live up to expectation. Not because of E3 but because of ourselves. Simply let the experience wash over you. Enjoy the tasty morsels that take your fancy and ignore the ones that don’t.
Blair’s article has ignited my reply but it’s more to do with E3 as a whole and not just the surprises.
Sadly, and it’s already been touched on above, the media feels like we need to know every detail about everything to do with a console (or game) and, thusly, it means we are left with any real surprises. Breaking that cycle will be nigh-on-impossible.
TSBonyman
Can’t do anything about the leaks unfortunately.
At the end of the day, we’ve got loads of great games coming up regardless of which platform you’re on and that’s all that really matters to me for now.
Portal 2 Move update coming too btw..:)
cam_manutd
Apart from Watch Dogs, Beyond and The Last of Us, what a boring E3. Kinect voice command. How irritating that will be for parents as well as most consumers when the swipe of the analogue stick will get you there quicker. Sony, not enough focus on the vita and where the bloody hell was LBP vita? Nintendo, someday you will get an IP that will make hardcore gamers jealous instead of rinsing and repeating games. And EA. Dead Space 1+2=amazing. Dead Space 3=RE5 clone…. *facepalm*
heedbaw
The underwhelming aspect for me wasn’t anything to do with leaks, or the games that had already been announced, but that there was really nothing new. Not that there were no new IPs, more that anything shown isn’t really any different to what has already gone before. I’d have loved to have seen something that was maybe on par, graphically, with some of the first wave of PS3/360 games but with kick ass AI. Instead of using all of the processing power to make an already established franchise update with slighty smoother models, better textures, more particles, more post-processing FX, etc.
There may be new consoles on the horizon, but again I don’t expect there to be anything that we haven’t already seen before in various other guises. I can hardly see Sony or MS announcing their new consoles with anything other than established franchises with the odd new IP, just better looking or with a larger game world than previously.
Cynicism off :) (hopefully)