E3 2019 Reactions.

I’m by no means “a gamer”. But I love media. Give me as many forms of entertainment and experience that you can throw at me. My opinions stem more from the interest in storytelling and entertainment than they do from “OKAY, [name of developer]… IMPRESS ME.” I just want to play something fun. Here are some games that got me pumped over the course of the last few days!

EA — Saturday, June 8th

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

I mean, of course, man. Star Wars. I don’t have to say much about it. I didn’t play more than two hours of Battlefront, not because it was an “unplayable mess” or whatever else your “True Gamer” friend called it. Just wasn’t my thing, man. I knew it was online which is something I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on, even if I can be Darth Maul. But this one looks brilliant, a little bit of Uncharted traversal, and lots and lots of amazing moments of Star Wars: the Force Unleashed combat. SO. MANY. COOL. FORCE. POWERS. Canon, not canon, I one hundred percent don’t care. It means nothing to me. I am looking forward to being in that galaxy again, and to be one with the force while the force is one with me.

Click here to check out the dope gameplay video from EA Play.

Microsoft — Sunday, June 9th

Blair Witch

It was a bit vague. It had some fairly generic survival horror elements to it, and lots of things that seemed like it came from other series (Alan Wake; Outlast). That’s fine! I’m always good for a new horror game, whether it’s derivative or not. Give me weird, give me dark, give me terror. (Trailer)

Cyberpunk 2077

I mean, listen. Witcher 3 was a lot of my life a couple years ago, and I’m sure it was a lot of yours as well. I played it the way I used to play Skyrim and Fallout. That’s to say I played it any time I had a free moment, I lost a lot of my life to it, I would see full days pass by and couldn’t believe that it was “already dark”. I watched the entire Twin Peaks TV series while playing it, and then when that was done, went through Breaking Bad. So anything CD Projekt Red wants to throw at me, I’m in there. A dark Shadowrun/Blade Runner-esque future drowning in neon and tech gone wrong? I’m in there. Looking forward to discovering what this version of the future is like. (Trailer)

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

I have to defend Lego games almost daily. They are phenomenal experiences, co-op or not. And I can’t wait for them to do Episodes VIII and IX for the first time. There is always so much to unlock, so much to explore and approaching the films from a fun and light point of view is a blast. Getting this one without question. This is where Lego games started, man. This is going to be excellent. (Trailer)

Minecraft Dungeons

I’m not a Minecraft fan as much as I respect the medium. But from what it looked like, Minecraft Dungeons (aka Minecraft Diablo) looks like a blast. I always thought Minecraft looked cool, but this one makes it truly look fantastic. (Trailer)

Twelve Minutes

I love Annapurna and a lot of their output is top notch. I didn’t really see much about Twelve Minutes is going to be about, but what they did show has me very intrigued. Looks like the kind of experience I play video games for. Will this be a rogue-like, but instead of a dungeon or a landscape, we exist within a romantic evening that gets more terrifying and paranoid with each reprise? Amazing use of this medium, and I can’t wait to indulge. (Trailer)

Way to the Woods

If it weren’t two little deer as the protagonists, I might not be as interested. But the beautiful dreamlike world is a brilliant setting, somewhat strange that they are in very typically humanity dense areas like office buildings and subways. I’m very intrigued by it. The art style alone was enough to have my money. The haunting desolation just added some spice. (Trailer)

Psychonauts 2

One of the first games I “got back into” when I inherited an original Xbox was Psychonauts. It was weird and goofy and had a lot of heart and personality. There was an irreverence that made it seem like it was made for an underground group of people who discovered the game, sort of an “in” set of people who randomly chose this B movie. I fell in love with the world and its goofiness, and the second one looks like it picks up where the first one left off in terms of quality and mood. As always, I hope they don’t try to mess with the formula that made it brilliant in the first place. (Trailer)

Bethesda — Sunday, June 8th

Ghostwire: Tokyo

What a great title. Damn. And then all the people disappearing, Lindelov style from The Leftovers? HELL. YES. The concept of not fearing the unknown but attacking it is brilliant. Once again, that level of horror is excellent. It looks like it’s going to be a little bit closer to an action game which is WAY more up my alley than the resource management of a game like Resident Evil. One of my most anticipated games from E3. (Trailer)

Deathloop

What a cool shooter. It looks like we’ll see a lot of cool split dimension type gameplay. Modern Spy vs Spy with a brilliant mod art style. There’s a little bit of a futuristic style to it, a little bit of a Clockwork Orange flavor. Especially with it being made by the guys that brought us Dishonored and Prey, I’m very much looking forward to this one! (Trailer)

Doom: Eternal

I mean, what more do I have to say about this one. I loved the first one so much. The soundtrack, the gore, the hell, the demons. All of the things that iD and Bethesda brought to us in the first one truly told us that they knew what we wanted in a shooter called Doom. We were the Doom Slayer, the one who we needed to be to fight the worst legions of Hell. Every heart I tore out and every giant monster that I looked at with disdain made me want blood that much more. And LORD, the soundtrack is one that gives back and gives back again, not only in the perfect moments in the game itself, but also independently. I own it on vinyl, I own it digitally… it’s just a masterpiece. With the sequel, it looks like they’re going even further. A grappling hook shotgun, the boss from the first game being “just another” enemy to fight… it really looks like they took the brakes off of this one and are going to let us fight to the death. Can’t wait. This one has been on my radar since the moment I ended the first one. 666 Forever. (Trailer)

Devolver Digital — Sunday June 9th

Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead

An arcade game for Enter the Gungeon? I can barely tell during this presentation if this game (OR ANY OF THE GAMES) were real at all. But I mean, it seemed… authentic? I love Enter the Gungeon. A game I come back to regularly. All of the updates, all of the guns, all of the weird bullets, all of the weird enemies… I’m in love. Bringing this one out as a light gun cabinet is brilliant. I don’t even know if I’ll ever get a chance to play it. But seeing the little bullets again was priceless. (Trailer)

Ubisoft — Monday, June 10th

Watch Dogs: Legion

Open world stealth and gadget based tech game Watch Dogs is nothing new, but the way they’re implementing a wide assault on The Establishment (UK) as a group, and that you can control many of these people (and lose them via permadeath) is very new, very unique and very intriguing. The post-modern world of a Brexited London is going to be one I can’t wait to sink into as well. (Trailer)

Square Enix — Monday, June 10th

Final Fantasy VII Remake

I mean, it’s fairly obvious that this was going to be a big one. I’ve downloaded the standard rereleases of FF7 so I can catch up and relive one of the games that got its hooks into me more than any game in the past. They can show beautiful graphics and all of the voice acting they want. Simply put, I’m excited to get back into this game because of its nostalgic factor for me. This is already one of the greatest and most loved games of all time, and I’m happy to have another crack at it with fresh eyes. I hope some of the younger generations get to play it too and have a similar connection with it. This game, actually, is one of the first games I remember playing TOO much. All day, all weekend, etc. And I remember going to school after those massive hauls of game play and having a small group to talk to about it, but never really having great conversations about it. I definitely felt isolated and as if I was getting into it a bit TOO much. It was only later on in life that I started finding other people who had connected with these games as much as I had. (Trailer)

Outriders

The world looks like a world that’s been done before and in a way, so do the characters. So there wasn’t a ton of innovation there that got me. What did get me was the hellish way that the battle in the trailer began to unravel and the way that everything seemed tinged with robotdeath, a bio-technology uprising that seemed to overgrow its potential causing hybrids that should have never walked. And then some kind of Firestarter/Mass Effect style power used right at the very end. Certainly intrigued. (Trailer)

Marvel Avengers

I’m not a superhero guy. I still haven’t seen Endgame. So it isn’t the built-in license that I’ve really grown to like on this one. It did more than that for me in the trailer. The game simply looks awesome. The varied styles of combats that all of these heroes will bring should be diverse and exciting, hopefully allowing you to choose a way that you want to approach each mission based on who you select. Also, maybe bring a partner with you into combat? It just feels like a cool game, and it feels like it’s been made by the right people and with the right people connected to it. This may be a good bridge for a lot of the Fortnite crowd to get out of the mindless headset-connectivity that they’ve been calcified into accepting to play a game with a cool story! (Trailer)

Nintendo — Tuesday, June 12th

Witcher 3 Complete

I already spoke on The Witcher when I had seen the Cyberpunk trailer. So I don’t have to explain again how important this game is/was for me when it dropped. But to have it portable, anytime anywhere? Dope! It doesn’t visually look great, but if a game is good enough (and this one certainly is), graphics for me are an absolute final consideration. This is a story worth reliving, and one that will be great to run through for the story and then have a giant world to explore once it’s done, all over again. Pumped. (Trailer)

Animal Crossing

YO. March 20, 2020? That’s all I needed to know. Show me campsite stuff, great time lapse of what the character needed to do to make her spot look great. Friends coming to your camp area, crafting, sharper but familiar visuals. All awesome. They could have simply showed this still and I would have been satisfied. I spent a ton of time playing Animal Crossing New Leaf on the 3DS and can’t wait to get into another one. This was the perfect passive game, something to play when I woke up and when I was going to bed. It really felt like a peaceful slice of heaven to wind my mind down. And this one looks like it’ll be just as brilliant. Let’s go, March. Tom Nook, take my money. (Trailer)