E3 Highlights from the Show Floor

I know, I know, no post last week. I had fully intended to, but E3 was very very busy. I barely had time to sleep, let alone write a blog post (I’m not even kidding, between jet lag and a busy schedule I barely slept that whole week)! Luckily I’ve just about recovered now, so it’s about time I wrote something about my E3 experiences.

Well, my experience was this – mostly meetings and night-time networking/work events. In fact, I probably only spent about a total of 2 hours on the actual expo floor and I was mainly zipping in and out of there between meetings (which mostly took place at the hotel bar across the road), I didn’t really get to try anything as the lines were pretty much all incredibly long. So, to be honest, you guys checking out the news and watching the conferences online were probably caught up on all the highlights before I was. However, I did go to the Sony and Ubisoft press conferences and did see a bunch of cool stuff on the floor that I can share with you. Apologies about not having too many great pics – I’m no photographer and during the conferences I was more focused on listening than snapping blurry images of trailers and people walking around on stage as I’m sure you can understand.

Same as always, I have to watch what I say about the big publishers, but I can talk to you guys about the games I’m most excited about from the conferences I attended and the ones I didn’t and had to look up afterwards. First of all, I was genuinely and absolutely blown away by the Ubisoft press conference. And no, not just because it was awesomely flashy with all the smoke, lights, flashing bracelets and all the stuff that good press conferences have. That side of the conference was definitely fun and being around so many like-minded people who are all as excited is you is an amazing experience that I think you really have to experience to get. It definitely beats watching it from home, although there’s of course nothing wrong with doing that either. But really, it was all about the games. The Ubisoft line-up is possibly the strongest I’ve ever seen from them and got me seriously excited about some of their upcoming games.

Far Cry 3: A Confession

I have a confession to make. I didn’t want to like Far Cry 3. At first it started growing on me like some sort unasked-for fungus and then unexpectedly, one day I began to LOVE it. At some point, I will probably write up a more detailed analysis of the plot (it will be extremely spoiler-ific), because much as I disliked the way the writer Jeffrey Yohalem explained his perspective on and intentions with the game and much as I felt that he didn’t make his point as well as he’d thought, personally I do think Far Cry 3 has meaning beyond what a lot of people give it credit for. It at least got me thinking and it seems there are other people out there who feel the same way. If you haven’t heard about all the controversy surrounding the game, there were a lot of gamers out there who felt that the plot was stupid, full of holes and blatantly racist. Taken at face value, that’s certainly what it seems like. There were others who saw what Yohalem says he was trying to do in creating a meta-commentary on the games industry and its use of certain tropes in games. Then there were the critics who were like me and really believe in the vision he was trying to create and saw the over-exaggerated or nonsensical elements of the plot as largely intended and were there to get you to think and to not take things at face-value. Don’t get me wrong, I was in the second camp before, so I completely see where people are coming from in their criticisms and I’m not denying that there is a feeling of Ubisoft Montreal wanting to have their cake and eat it too. However, many elements of the plot really spoke to me on a personal level and from my perspective, it was clear it was intended to. One thing that critics have often agreed on, however, with this game is that as open world first-person shooters go, this one is pretty damn fun. To be honest, fun doesn’t even really cover it. For me, this game was exhilarating, heart-pumping, trippy and explosion-filled. Also, it was certainly insane in more ways than one. I wouldn’t recommend anyone touch my Xbox controller, because I’m pretty sure my palms sweated through the whole game. I pretty much gave up trying to wipe it off after a while. There’s an unneeded disgusting fact for you. You’re welcome.

Weeee! Ziplines are an awesome way to get back down to ground level.

Far Cry review… coming soon!

This, as you can probably tell from the title, is not a Far Cry review. I’ve almost, but not quite finished it yet. I know, I know, today’s the day I usually post something, but since I’m having my very first guest post on my blog next week, I really wanted to put out my Far Cry review this week, so I don’t forget all the things I wanted to write about it when I get my next chance in 2 weeks time. Yes, I love Far Cry 3 that much that I feel like I have to write this week’s blog post on it, rather than just writing about something else today. Also, once I get that review written, I can update my favourite game list, because I’m already pretty sure that Far Cry is going to have to be added to it (unless something drastic happens in the end portion of the game). Basically, there’ll be no post today (although the next Minecraft video will be out later as usual), but I will definitely get that review out this Wednesday or Saturday to coincide with the videos. Anyway, have a good Monday guys and check back for that Far Cry review!