WeView Verdict: E3 2014 – The Games

It seems that people were somewhat disappointed by this year’s E3. After last year’s show focussing on new consoles, viewers were hoping to be blown away by new IPs and astounding graphics, but many of you who took part in our E3 WeView special professed they were somewhat underwhelmed.

For example, Youles dropped by to say there were “Too many teasers and not enough gameplay”, while cam_manutd said that “on the games front, there was not a great deal to be excited about compared to last year.” JustTaylorNow was underwhelmed too, complaining that after “All the hype that lead up to E3… nothing was worth the show,” although they did make an exception for the Uncharted 4 trailer during Sony’s conference.

In fact Uncharted 4 stood out for many of you, with Dunks saying it “hints at something amazing,” and bunimomike calling the trailer “mind-bendingly wonderful to look [at].” bunimomike actually produced a lengthy list of games he liked the look of, including indie gems Inside and Ori, but the game I’d like to pick out is LittleBigPlanet 3.

A number of you seemed to share bunimomike’s excitement at this gameplay demo from Media Molecule, with Lieutenant Fatman saying it’s the game they’re the most excited for as they “love a bit of LBP”. jimmy-google was slightly less impressed, say that while they will buy it, they were “hoping for a bigger evolution”. I can certainly understand that feeling, although the unique attributes of the new characters did look quite interesting.

Batman: Arkham Knight also seemed to get some love from the community, with tactical20 saying it, along with Assassin’s Creed Unity, were his favourites, while rept0n simply said that it “looks like all kinds of fun.” rept0n also picked up on Abzû, pondering if it could “the next Journey?” We can but hope rept0n, we can but hope.

However, the game that seemed to get the most love from you guys and gals was No Man’s Sky, with over half of those who took part singling it out for praise. Among those seemingly in love with the space exploration title was psychobudgie, who said it “looked astounding,” and was only more impressed when the small size of the development team is taken into account, a sentiment shared by Dunks.

Despite the fact that gaffers101 hasn’t seen everything from the conferences yet, they still said that No Man’s Sky has “certainly grabbed my attention.” Nocure-fd was impressed too, particular as they’re a big EVE Online fan, a game which No Man’s Sky is naturally being compared to.

There were some who, although liking the look of the game, expressed some reservations. MrYd, for example, was concerned that it could be “a massive, gorgeous looking universe with no game attached.” I can certainly see where this worry comes from; Hello Games haven’t really shown us any structure to this procedurally generated playground they’re building.

If I’m honest, I’m not actually that concerned about this element of No Man’s Sky; I’d be perfectly happy if it was just a massive sandbox for me to fly around in at will. However, with some of the larger groups of ships the latest trailer showed, it seems that Hello are hinting at a structure that your character fits into, and presumably that will lead into missions etc…

This, of course, isn’t an exhaustive look at every game you all picked out, for example several of you seem excited by The Witcher 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider, but hopefully I’ve managed to pick out the games that got the most love from all of you.

Finally, if any of you are wondering, WeView will return to normality next week, once E3 is over and done with.

9 Comments

  1. No Man’s Sky is an interesting one, it looks very impressive, but I wonder if there will be any structure, any narrative at all. You do suddenly appear in a war zone at one point and take part in the battle it seems so I’d guess yes. Personally I’d prefer that than just flying round aimlessly and exploring for the sake of it, but certainly looking forward to hear more on it what it’s all about.

    Just saw another video on Dragon Age, this one showing a lot of game play and showing how much choice the player has, I must say it is more and more like I might get that on release.

    • No Man’s Sky is one of the stars of E3 for me, certainly looking forward to finding out more about it.

    • No Man’s Sky almost stole the show for me.
      It looks stunning and if they can live up to their promise of a galaxy of planets to explore while other people are doing the same it’s going to be a very special game.

  2. I somehow missed this Weview hidden amongst the torrent of news articles.
    Without new hardware this E3 was always going to be a little less exciting than last year. Overall, despite my disappointment at lack of news on TLG, BG&E OR HL3, i saw plenty to look forward to. Sure a lot of them are a long way off but E3 has never been about the games that are ready for immediate publishing anyway.

  3. No Man’s Sky is the most interesting by far.

    There’s a feature on it in the latest Game Informer if you want more details on the gameplay- combat, upgrades, trading, mining, hunting, exploration, etc.
    I loved the look of the seamless gameplay, the style was breathtaking and they even managed to fit in a few references to science fiction in the infinite worlds trailer- Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Star Trek were clear and obvious, and I loved seeing them on plant LV-426 from Alien!

    If it delivers on even half the promise it’ll be an amazing game.

    Little Big Planet 3 was a great and welcome surprise, and Mirror’s Edge cannot come soon enough for me (booted up the PS3 Mirror’s Edge last night and it still feels fresher and newer than any next-gen game).

    Abzu looked and sounded pretty but I know nothing much else, Arkham Knight looked great but I was turned off Dragon Age by the amount of UI on the screen, looked distracting. Assassin’s Creed looked much prettier than Black Flag does, but not sure if it will have the same level of variety away from the sea.

    Uncharted 4 was, as is every Naughty Dog game, utterly fantastic.

    • I’m worried about the same thing re: Assassin’s Creed. It looks stunning but will the gameplay just be the same old thing with combat that really hasn’t evolved much since the first game.
      Given how much fun you could have in AC4 and how much it nailed the feeling of being a pirate I’m worried Unity will be a step back for the series.
      I have a feeling it will be a lot more serious and focused on story like 3 than 4.
      It’s early days of course but at the moment it’s not on my must buy list.

  4. Wait, I thought Sumo Digital were behind LBP3, not Media Molecule?

    I agree with everyone else though, overall it was pretty underwheling, I wish I’d gone to bed! There were a few nice surprises (especially Rainbow Six reveal), but other than that it was mostly just trailers, I was hoping for far more live demos.

    • Yep it’s by Sumo, hopefully with the help of Tarsier and XDev who made the Vita version which was the best!
      I was really happy this got announced and for this year as I love the LBP series. Even without Media Molecule at the helm the games are getting better and better.
      I can’t wait to see what level creators can do with all the memory the PS4 has!

  5. There wasn’t a great deal which excited me either to be honest – especially in Sony’s conference, god they make press conferences boring!
    It wasn’t all bad though. Pleased to see a new LBP is on the way, The Master Chief Collection cannot come soon enough and Uncharted is probably going to be excellent. I was also really excited by the announcement of a new R6 – it has been far, far too long since Vegas 2. Oh, and Nintendo absolutely stole the show this year with Zelda, Smash Bros and that quirky Splatoon game.

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