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[themagicalkitsune]

The only actual conference that I watched was Sony's, which I would give a solid B. Pacing was great and it's obvious they took care in presenting their show well, live orchestra and all. But their actual game line-up wasn't that great. Horizon Zero Dawn was the best thing they showed. You could switch TLG's E3 2016 footage with TLG'S E3 2015 footage and no one would bat an eye. God of War looked cool, but I'm not that interested. Rest of the games were so-so, with the exception of that zombie game which straight up looked bad. I felt like I was looking at a lot of 2018+ titles and it was hard to get excited for any of them.

Nintendo also had a cool show with treehouse live I guess. Other than their main focus (Zelda), Ever Oasis and DQ VII footage, nothing really stood out to me as exciting. The "out now!" bit on Rhythm Heaven was cool, but I will probably wait and get it physical on my european 3ds.

 

[Jigorath]

I thought Microsoft's show was solid. The leaks took some of the wind out of their sails but they had a good lineup of games. The show was entertaining enough. Thought Sea of Thieves still looks lame.

B I guess.

Sony's was really good. I loved the pace of it, and their lineup was fantastic. God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon, and TLG all look great. I don't like how they ignored their Japanese games, where was Gravity Rush 2 or Hot Shots or even the new Gran Turismo. You'd think the newest entry in their biggest franchise would get a spot in the show. Would have been better than seeing Days Gone twice.

Instant A+ for Bear McCreary.

I don't know how to review Nintendo. Zelda looked cool but there's nothing about the new Pokemon that's grabbing me. And there's not really much else to talk about with them.

 

[Xilium]

EA (D-): Only reason it doesn't get an F is because the FIFA story mode stuff was mildly interesting. Their obsession with showing people at desk working on games is baffling. I'm indifferent towards the shooters.

Bethesda (C-): Not bad, not great, just average. Nothing really to say here. I should be excited for Dishonored 2 but I'm just not, at least not yet. Don't care for the other games shown.

Microsoft (C+): I thought the pace and format of the conference was just fine but I just wasn't too interested in the games but they largely didn't show poorly. The main one I was interested in (FFXV) had a poor demo, that said, Gwent was cool. It's also weird that they announced the One S and Scorpio in the same conference.

PC Gaming Show (C-): A lot better than last year but what was actually shown off was still kinda meh.

Ubisoft (B): Ubisoft did what Ubisoft does, be weird. I guess I'm just used to it now so it just doesn't bother me and it's a nice break from the more business-like other conferences. Games were 50/50 for me. Watch Dogs, For Honor, and South Park looked pretty good. While the push was good, Star Trek looked bad, as did Eagle Flight. The rest, I'm indifferent towards.

Sony (A-): I really liked their format this year with limiting the amount of people just talking on stage. The live orchestra was a nice touch. Sony certainly knows how to deliver hype. Even CoD look amazing and I'm oddly interested in God of War, which are series I don't particularly care about. The Crash announcement was pretty trollish but that's probably the best those fans can expect. Still don't care about VR though.

Nintendo (D): I guess if you're a fan of Zelda, this was an amazing showing but I was just completely underwhelmed. I simply don't get it. The game seems to finally be getting some modern mechanics but it just seems like a random assortment of stuff just to have it and the world looked very barren (yes I'm aware they removed towns but it wouldn't fix the problem). And Pokemon looked like Pokemon. I had it running on my second monitor for most of it but it was just plain boring.

 

[LiquidSolid]

EA: D. Every year there are people who claim that EA's conference may be the best and everyyear EA continue to prove they have no idea how to host one. Why people keep falling into this trap, I have no idea. EA, no-one gives a shit about the celebrities you paid a shitload of money to just to appear on stage. No-one wants to listen to a developer go on a 5+ minute monologue about their new game. Watch Sony's conference until your fucking eyes bleed and figure out that all you need to do is show games. That's it.

Bethesda: C-. A weird conference and one that, while it had more games, I thought was a step backwards from last year. It just seemed to spend too long on some really boring stuff, like Fallout 4's DLC and ESO. And Dishonored 2 was presented really weirdly. Oh and I also deducted points because Prey reminded me of how awesome Prey 2 looked before Bethesda were fucking assholes and ruined it.

Microsoft: C+. Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 3 were the highlights, XBL, the FFXV demo and Minecraft were the lowlights (and they were TERRIBLE). Meanwhile, Scaleound, Gears of War 4 and Halo Wars 2 were super meh. I think my biggest problem was that they didn't really many new games, in fact they almost announced more Xbox's than new games. And between Windows 10 and the Scorpio announcement, the overall message of their conference seemed to be "please don't buy a Xbox One." Oh and the camera director was fucking useless, as bad as that one Sony had at Gamescom a few years ago.

Ubisoft: B-. I get why a lot of people didn't like this conference but I think the focus on different games like South Park, For Honor and Steep, as well as the almost complete lack of Assassin's Creed and the great hosting by Aisha Tyler made me pretty happy with it. The biggest lowlight had to be Watch Dogs 2, which was so dumb it almost seemed like it was a parody.

Sony: A. God of War, Horizon, The Last Guardian, Detroit, RE7, Spider-Man, Farpoint and Death Stranding were all fucking awesome, as was the orchestra. Even Call of Duty looked great this year, as did the FFXV trailer (in stark contrast with the demo at Microsoft's conference). The biggest lowlight had to be Skylanders, though going back to Days Gone with the ending was weird. I also think they should have showed off more of their VR games, as the launch is coming up soon and reminding everyone of even just the games they showed at PSX would've made it seem more important.

I gave up on the PC show after 20 minutes because it really wasn't showing anything of interest, so I can't grade it. And Nintendo didn't have a conference, so I'm not going to grade the treehouse.

 

[unknownstranger]

EA - F

I don't think I've ever given a press conference an F (even EA's 2014 one) but I'm giving it to EA this year. The variety of their lineup was absolutely abysmal. Two shooters and sports took up around 80% of their press conference and the rest was mostly behind-the-scenes footage with very little content and Fe, which I'm personally not a fan of the art style of.

Bethesda - C-

Over half of their press conference from last year released so I knew this year would feel a little sparse. A new Quake was a nice surprise but the CG trailer barely told us anything. Besides that there weren't any surprises. We've known Arkane has been working on Prey 2 for awhile now and the trailer didn't show us much. Ending on Dishonored 2 felt like a huge downgrade from last year and something doesn't sit right with me with them showing the story revolving around the female protagonist only for her to be completely optional.

Microsoft - C

This was going to be a C+ but I'm going to start downgrading them for playing it too safe. Their presentations the last 3 years have been nearly identical. Gears of War 4 played it extremely safe and the other demos didn't look well. I didn't understand the Minecraft demo at all because one person was on an iPad and another on an Oculus Rift which has its own separate store. We got that everything was an Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive but having a Voiceover constantly say it felt insulting. The trailers they showed looked well and being on Windows 10 means I'll actually get a few of them eventually. We Happy Few was a great trailer but not something I'm personally interested in. The Scorpio announcement confused me but it's not something that really effects me.

Ubisoft - C

Ubisoft's press conferences are almost a guilty pleasure at this point. However, while the press conference being longer helped shorten the wait until Sony's, it was about 40% longer than it needed to be. Every demo (including South Park) was longer than it should have been. For Honor looked great and the guy presenting it is incredible. Besides that, not much from their press conference interested me. Steep felt like a weird game to end on. While I don't play those games, I'm happy the genre isn't dead. It just seems like something really niche to end on though. They were rumored to have another surprise announcement to end their press conference but with how much info they put in Steep I don't think so (unless that surprise was starting a "fuck Vivendi" chant).

Sony - A

Great conference. Don't have much to add that hasn't been said. Only things keeping it from an A+ was Lego Star Wars felt really out of place and the opening orchestra went on a little long before we finally got to games.